Welcome to Touchgrass, a miniseries where I chat with
creatives about staying sane while being chronically online.
I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, and Touchgrass is a miniseries
brought to you by Britta, where we explore the implications of
being chronically online with the creatives who can't escape
it. One thing that keeps coming up
in these conversations is how important small grounding
routines are offline. And for me, one of those
routines is drinking enough water.
Whether I'm refilling my water bottle for a long walk or taking
a break from scrolling my For You page, Britta makes it easy
for me to stay hydrated and grounded with pure, fresh
tasting filtered water straight from any tap.
Thank you to Britta for supporting independent media and
helping us take better care of ourselves one refill at a time.
Today I'm chatting with journalist, mental health
advocate and self-described terminally online expert, Kriti
Gupta. As fellow media girlies, Kriti
and I have known each other for years.
Throughout our conversation, she takes me through her career
journey, how she handles tall poppy syndrome, as a woman of
color in a visible industry, and of course, her tips for touching
grass. Oh my God, we're literally
touching grass and I'm so happy that we got to do that.
I know we brought for anyone that listens and doesn't watch.
We brought our podcast chairs outside so we are fully in the
park near our office and honestly the vibes are pretty
good. OK, well I'm so excited to chat
with you today about being chronically online, what you do
for work, and how you stay mentally healthy.
See amongst it all. So first, you are chronically
online. Oh, by default, since the day I
was born. I'm pretty sure I came out with
a BlackBerry before a BlackBerry was invented.
So how would you describe being chronically online?
Like what does it mean to you? I think what it means to me is,
and I referenced this in another interview recently, but have you
seen the town cry a meme in the TikTok comments section?
Yes, that is us like giving. Everyone the tea?
Yeah, Giving. Everyone the tea and when people
say Oh well that's just such a new phenomenon.
No, they had town criers back in the 1600s.
We are just the 21st century version of a town crier.
That's an insane analogy. I love it but I think.
It's true. I think it's a very positive way
to look at something that a lot of parts of society still find a
way to kind of demonize us for it.
And it's often women, let's be for sure.
So for real here, I like to look at the positives, like, we
became friends. Yeah, on the Internet.
We became friends on the Internet, everyone who was
watching us. Became friends with us.
Or socially on the Internet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Some of the best relationships and the best opportunities that
I've had in my life have come from being terminally online.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. OK, So your job you are like, as
Australians would say, a slashy. A slashy which is such a funny.
Word. I know.
It's the first time I ever heard.
It was a few years ago, like from an Aussie.
And I was like, what does that mean?
But for anyone that's not Australian, that just means
somebody who wears many hats, freelances, consults, that kind
of stuff, slash, slash, slash. I did see somewhere else that in
2025 you said you felt like that was the year where everything
for your career came together. So can you speak to us a little
bit about your? Career, yeah, absolutely
everyone likes to be like, oh, overnight success story.
And I think if you look at the last like 2 years, it'd be like,
oh pretty came out of nowhere or something like that in the
industry. But I started working in media
as a 16 year old who would run Facebook pages for charities.
So that was to get them to like Book Fest and the Rockhampton
Showground stalls that they would have when I was 14.
And they would raise money to then put it back into the
community. My father used to work with the
Rotary Clubs and the like. And he saw me spending all of my
time on the Internet till three, 4:00 in the morning.
So he said, hey, if you manage our Facebook page, I will give
you some money. Oh, my God.
And that was my first media job, before media Facebook jobs were
even a thing. Yeah.
Wow. Then I would say my first big
girl job with big pants and a lanyard with a little media tag.
What was the Commonwealth Games in 2018?
Working in the Athletes Village for the newspaper with Fairfax
that they did at the time there. Then I started working in AD
agencies and I worked at magazines and beauty startups
and all the likes. Then I went off on my own three
years ago and haven't looked back.
How do you find freelancing? Is it challenging on your mental
health? The instability or do you prefer
it? I feel now I finally, as you
mentioned what I wrote about at the end of last year, I'm in
this position where I feel like I understand the trials and
tribulations of being a freelancer a lot better than I
did a few years ago. I was speaking to another
industry peer about this and it is January rolls around every
year and every January you're like, I'm never going to get
work. Again, yes.
There's, there's no money. Everything's going to the
toilet. I'm I'm going to have to go back
to a corporate job and then you. You figure it out.
You. Figure it out.
You drink some cement and you're like, you know what?
This happened last year, It happened the year before.
And it always works itself out. You know what you have to do.
And but the psychology is, you know, this is the cycle of
working for yourself. Yeah, I post on LinkedIn so
much. I post on LinkedIn so much.
I love it. And then I also post on
Instagram a lot and I post on TikTok a lot.
And I've never really had to do the whole I've, I've done
pitching a few times when I first started.
But in terms of putting ads for turning myself into a business,
which I know, you know, if you run like a copywriting business
or even if you run like a social media agency as a one man show,
you do often have to do that. And that is a big part of the
job in that sense. You're just shamelessly out
there. I'm just shamelessly out there
and I'm talking about the the stuff that other people are also
interested in because I know that the people that I want to
work with are probably going to be people that are in the same
kind of headspace as I am. I am, so that's always helpful.
Do you feel held back at all by tall poppy syndrome or does that
affect you at all? So for anyone that doesn't know
what that is, it is I suppose a quote UN quote syndrome, I think
a specific to Australia, where in a field of poppies, the
tallest one gets cut down so that they all stay the same
because promoting yourself so much, how do you feel tall poppy
syndrome has impacted that? With tall poppy syndrome,
there's a a whole nother level to it as a woman of color as
well. In this country, you can only
say or do so much easily as long as it keeps the status quo.
It was the 20th anniversary of High School Musical.
And the one song that still sticks in my head is Stick to
the Status Quo because I think that that is such an accurate
representation of how especially this industry, because a lot of
us are so online and so. And you do have to put yourself
out there so much more than I guess you would say, my brother
who works in finance. Yeah, yeah.
It it it definitely gets to this place of people will support you
as long as you stay just below them.
Yes. A. 100% I had an experience.
Obviously I cannot relate to the woman of color experience in
this industry, but I was posting so much more on LinkedIn in
2024, beginning of 2025. You know, when I took the
business over myself. One of my close friends in the
industry told me months after it happened that a man in the
industry screenshot of one of my LinkedIn posts and put it on
Twitter and was like making fun of me.
And she privately messaged him and said what the fuck is wrong
with you? Like she's trying to run an
indie media branch. She needs to promote her
business. And he actually, like, listened
and took it down. But I really hadn't experienced,
I suppose, tall poppy syndrome first hand that I knew of.
Yeah. Like having that direct
judgement, somebody screenshotting my post and
putting on Twitter to make fun of me is wild.
It is wild and but the worst part is you mentioned the that
you know of. Yes, right.
The way that I always see it is the people who will have your
back and the people that you should rely on are the ones who
are going to recommend you when you're not even in the room or
anywhere near the room. The ones who are like, oh, she's
not here, but she should be here.
Yeah. And those are the people that
you can count on at the end of the day.
Because the others, they'll say one thing to your face and one
thing behind your back and that that high school mentality,
unfortunately, no matter where you are, I don't think that goes
away. I can honestly admit to the fact
that I've definitely messed up in the past and done that.
And my biggest goal for this year is to be better in that
space as well. Yeah, of course.
Like it's so easy to fall into that trap, especially because
there's always an element of competition amongst your peers
for different jobs, for budgets, all that kind of stuff.
Exactly. Yeah, it's a tough industry,
that's for sure. OK, So you have mentioned in the
past to me privately and so now I'm going to air it out
publicly. Don't worry.
She had these questions in advance.
Okay, That's not me being like, so savage.
She's a good journalist of. That yeah, I'm ethical.
That you never want to go back to a nine to five.
Can you tell me about that? You.
Can't work in media and be expected to work 9:00 to 5:00
because even when I was in a nine to five role, I was not
working 9:00 to 5:00 as a social media and digital editor.
So paying someone a nine to five salary and then having the
expectations of them being 24/7. And this is not me just saying
this around social media or media roles.
This is a LinkedIn post that's come up multiple times over the
last few years. I don't think it's realistic to
expect someone who works in this field and expect them to be 9 to
5, but then expect them to be chronically online enough to
jump onto things for your brand but then also pay them that
salary. Yeah, OK.
That's fair enough. And I think the hard thing with
media, which I think it happens in a lot of careers, is that it
becomes so much part of your identity.
You can't switch it off. You can't, You can't, and the
only times I ever switch off is when I'm forced myself to go to
a place with no Internet connection.
Oh. My God, really?
Yeah. I was going to ask you.
OK, so tell me about how you stay mentally healthy while
being chronically online, especially as a freelancer.
I imagine you're constantly, I mean, we're the same, but like,
you know, I imagine you are constantly jumping on trends,
having to create that content yourself, having to pitch
yourself. OK, I found this trend.
Like, you know, can I write about it?
Can I cover it for you? Yeah.
How do you stay well? As you know, I travel a lot.
Yeah. And 90% of my travel is work
related, but that 10% that isn't.
I make sure that I'm in a town that has 0 Internet signal.
Oh my God. The only way that my friends and
I have the Christmas break, we're able to stay in touch
while we were travelling together as a group is old
school. We were like 5:00 PM.
We're meeting at this spot in front of the Nets on the beach.
If we lose each other throughout the day, so be it.
You have to like go to a restaurant and ask them for
Wi-Fi. The best thing was I didn't even
know what I was missing until I got back online like a week
later. And to be fair, I missed a lot,
but it wasn't the end of the world.
Does yeah, does that? I was gonna say, Does that give
you anxiety? It used to, yeah.
There was this one flight that I went on last year.
It was from New Zealand back to Australia.
When I was getting on the plane everything was fine.
By the time I got off the plane 3 hours later, TikTok had gone
down. Oh my God it's giving drama.
Get in tik. T.O.K had gone down and I was
like, my phone was just pinging as I turned it on, and I was so
anxious to catch a flight for weeks afterwards.
Yeah. And I went on 50 something
flights last year. So I was just sitting with this
like, bundle of anxiety. And then I only started booking
flights with Wi-Fi because I was so scared.
Oh my God. And then I was like, that's not
OK. Yeah.
And you're like, it's, it's not like the ER, like we're not
saving lives. We're.
Not saving lives. So there was this period of time
last year where I was at the complete opposite end of the
spectrum to where I am now, where I was anxious about being
on a plane. I was anxious driving through
certain parts of Sydney where the signal drops out for 15
minutes. Yeah.
And that took a lot of hard work with myself to work that out.
Yeah, I was gonna say, how did you get to that point?
A few things. There was a bit of a
relationship breakdown, there was a work relationship
breakdown, a friendship break. There was a few different things
that kind of happened and I had to really take a hard look at
what was important. Yeah.
Honestly, that's fair enough. And the thing was, OK, I can
miss 3 hours of work and I'm not going to lose my entire life's
work. Yeah, when you have breakdowns
like that, you realize, oh, how easily this can be taken from
you, how easily this can be. Taken.
Who fucking cares? Exactly.
And it was when things were taken that were really important
to me that I realized, OK, there needs to be a much, much, much
healthier level of handling this because otherwise, what?
I'm turning 30 soon. I love my job.
I love this career. I think in order to be
successful in this field, you really do have to love it.
Yeah. And if I no longer love it, then
I'm not gonna be able to do it. Yeah.
And it was getting to that point that if I didn't change those
things, I wasn't gonna love it anymore.
Yeah, fair enough. The reason why I said you being
on the plane and then opening your phone to no TikTok was late
Dramageddon because you guys remember the first Dramageddon,
That's how it happened. They were all in a brand trip on
the way back from the brand trip and they opened their phones, or
maybe it was right before they got on the flight and the
cancellation started. So I'm interested actually on
that note, we're pivoting a bit, but it's still related.
As somebody who's chronically online, that obviously keeps up
with pop culture, Internet culture, and you cover that a
lot for your job as well. How do you feel about cancel
culture? I don't think cancel culture
exists like it did in 2016, Firstly, because I work a lot in
the advocacy space and the politics space as well.
And there's a different level of, I guess, cancellation that
people look at towards things or how you're expected to be the
perfect advocate. And the, the biggest thing that
I truly believe in when it comes to advocacy is like, there is no
such thing as a perfect advocate.
And if your entire goal is to always be liked by people in the
policy and advocacy space, well, then you are doing it for
narcissistic reasons. And then that goes into the
whole tent pole of 99% of people who work in this industry.
You are a little bit narcissistic.
You have to be if you're going to put your face on the Internet
on camera every single day. Yeah, totally.
You have to be. And you also have to acknowledge
and accept that, yeah, your flaws are your flaws.
And if you kind of like become comfortable with them and learn
how to work with them better, that is how you actually become
a better human being. I really like what you said
about, you know, you're doing it for narcissistic reasons because
it's so hard when you start putting yourself out there when
you realize that not everyone's going to like you.
And it's such a challenge to get over that hurdle.
And I really struggled with it when our YouTube channel started
to get a lot more views than it previously did.
And like, I had a YouTube channel before Centennial, but
it was so different because it was my lifestyle.
Like I was vlogging about my experience moving to Australia
and I was 24 and whatever. And it just, you know, now I'm
talking about controversial topics, I'm talking about pop
culture, I'm talking about creators that a lot of people
don't like. And it's such a different
experience when people come for you, for your opinion.
But I I'm going to keep that in my mind that I'm being
narcissistic when I see comments that hurt my feelings.
But but the other thing is, and the thing that you said about
like your lifestyle vlogs versus the stuff now, now you are
talking about things or working in topics where people think
there is a right and a wrong side from the like without
actually delving into it. They'll see a few words and
they'll be like there's immediately this side and
there's that side and my side is the right side.
No matter what anyone says, my side is the right side.
And that does. I mean that people aren't going
to like you, Lord. No, that's for sure.
That's for sure. Girl.
Like lots of people don't like me now.
I didn't. Come to realize that no 100%
somebody on Reddit the other day called me the most annoying
podcast hosting the entire world.
We did talk about this. OK, I'm sorry.
In the world of Joe Rogan. 'S in the.
World of Logan Paul. Man the world.
Is. Crazy.
Out of all of the white men, you're actually the most
annoying. I know I love it.
OK, so as you mentioned, mental health and advocacy has been a
through line in your career. You recently launched in my head
Co yes. Tell us about that.
So basically you mentioned yeah, yourself, I've been working in
kind of like the politics and advocacy space, obviously used
to run Facebook pages for charity groups as a teenager.
And then that's kind of carried through with a lot of projects
that I've done over the last few years.
One of the things that I noticed working on both the media and I
guess the mental health and the advocacy side of things is a few
years ago when you would read an article or, and even now still
you read an article about depression or suicide or any one
of those really difficult subject matters, you get 4 or
five help lines at the end of the article, right?
And that's pretty much, it's not like enacted policy, but it's
like the media industry, like guidelines and standards.
Now, when you read an article, say about the cost of living,
Lauren, or about the war in Iran or about the Bush fires in
Victoria in the last week, you will read it.
And you will also have a mental health impact from reading that
piece. And there's also this feeling
that you get of like, OK, well, I can't do anything.
Helplessness. There's a lot of helplessness.
So my vision and what I'm trying to work through with media and
policy and advocacy stuff and been engaging with a whole bunch
of people and Michael Lord, policy change in this country is
hard, guys, let me tell. You that so you're like,
actually, what are you doing? Tell me.
Tell. Me.
So basically at the moment, it's a lot of like think tanks and
working with people to get it in front of the right room.
OK. Because it's very early days and
a lot of funding and grant applications.
Yeah. Fun stuff.
Yeah. Anyone who's doing those
rejection therapy challenges, start a business.
That's the best way to experience rejection therapy.
But basically whenever we, the goal is that whenever you see an
article or read an article on any publisher, website,
magazine, that if it is about any of these issues, that there
is then helpline. Well, resources and helplines
for you to help the issue at hand, but also yourself.
So one of our first pieces was around the South Australia algal
blur. Oh yeah.
Because it was a bunch of Reddit threads that I saw.
And God, I love Reddit sometimes.
I know we hate Reddit, but I also love Reddit.
No, I'm like addicted to it. I've never commented on Reddit
but I am addicted. To oh, my comment history is
probably horrendous, but it was a lot of people being like, I
know that South Australian coastline is bad, but what can I
do? And literally the easiest thing
for every single person to do was to go out and buy fish from
SA around Christmas time. Yeah, OK, that was it.
That was the take away. That was like, hey guys, go do
this. Do this, yeah.
And it's I love that. And The thing is.
It gives people actionable. Actionable things.
We consume more media and news now than ever, but we feel more
helpless about it. So as you're consuming it, here
is a small little actionable thing that you can do for the
issue and for yourself. So are you guys going to become
a charity? Are you going to be a business?
It's currently just as a business we want to have a
charity on because we want to be able to make sure that the
things that you can do also help other people and work through it
that way. The goal is that it does do all
of that for the industry as well, but at the moment all of
our stories have that as the through line and whatever you
read that there's something that you can do.
So even if we're helping our small audience, yeah, that's all
we care about at the end of the day.
You should raise money. I'm trying.
Oh, you are. I was gonna say like this
elevator pitch, like I would invest if I had money to invest.
I got my first grant application rejection this morning, so I was
like. It's OK, it happens.
Lots more rejection to come, but you only need one yes.
You only need one. Yes, that's the thing about
sales and grants and all of that.
I mean, sometimes you need more, but you know, in general you
just need your first. One, you need your first one and
then you're like, oh, this has legs.
Yes. And then you're like, OK, people
believe in me. Oh my God, no.
I love that. Thank you.
So I wanted to pivot back to you speaking about being a woman of
color, being so public. Can you speak to me about your
experience? First of all, having to be
chronically online. I know you enjoy being
chronically online, but having to be chronically online as well
for your job and putting your face out there, what is that
experience like? The biggest thing as a woman of
color on the Internet is that you will always have to work 10
times harder. Or in any industry actually, you
always have to work 10 times harder.
But it's, it's very clear when you see say like all white
female line UPS on a panel or at festivals or events, or
especially with like International Women's Day coming
up so soon. And you love all of these people
that you work with, but you know that they were approached versus
you having to put yourself forward.
And I think that is ultimately at the end of the day, the key
big difference is I have to bang on the door and be like, Hey,
please let me in. And my friends who I love
dearly, it is 100 times easier for them because they don't have
to be pounding on the door as hard.
I wanted to share an anecdote. You don't have to comment on it
if you don't feel comfortable, but I thought it would be useful
for our listeners to hear this. One of my closest friends runs
an independent media brand as well, and she's a woman of color
and her team have historically all been women of color.
And, you know, she went through an experience where after about
a year of them having their faces on their TikTok account,
there was so much racism and discrimination that she actually
had to make the executive decision editorially that they
do not put their faces on TikTok anymore for the safety of
herself, but also her team. I remember her talking about
this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I have thought about that many a time, especially during the rise
of there was that whole like MLM multi level marketing stuff
around like faceless accounts. And I was like, what if I just
turn myself? Oh my gosh.
I feel like there's actually a lot of faceless accounts that do
really well, but I mean the problem is you shouldn't have to
be fucking faceless. Shouldn't have to be faceless.
And that was the thing. I shouldn't have to be faceless.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, the aesthetic of being
white will always trump whatever we have.
And yes, with what happened with with our friend there, I think
about that a lot quite often, especially when I get racist
comments just, you know, especially policy advocacy type
of work. It's a lot of go back to your
own country. I think a lot of it is knowing
that I have people in the industry that I can just be
like, hey, did you see my comment section?
Yeah, I just need to talk. And I think we've had similarly
on the other hand, so it's. Like the validation?
The validation. Yeah, absolutely.
Because knowing that you're not the only one who's going through
this and that ultimately, as human beings is what we want the
most. Yeah.
Is that acknowledgement and understanding of being like, I
see you. I hear, like, I see what you're
going through. I hear what you're going through
like I'm here for. You.
Yeah. So I wanted to pivot, yeah, to
something else you recently said publicly.
Me just like diving in to. Never going to post 3.
You spoke about how the creator economy has had to grow up a
bit. Yeah, tell me about that.
China's done a really, really cool thing with one of their
policies where if you want to talk about financial advice or
if you want to talk about medical advice on the Internet
as an influencer, you need the degree to back it up.
We did not know that. I love that so.
Important, yes, because there is a lot of misinformation out
there. As we know.
When you look at content online, you've got like three types of
subject areas. You've got like you're lived
experience expert. It's like this happened to me.
You've got opinions, which is what 90% of the content on the
Internet is. And then you've also got people
who are actually experts in the fields with say degrees and
research and actual practice. The problem is those 3 feeds are
now all in one A. 100%. And so when you're scrolling
through and you're getting those first 3 seconds, you are not
really able to different. The human mind can't
differentiate that that fast and therefore the idea of
credibility and being able to be like, oh, I can trust this
person is very wishy washy. It's really important I think
now for creators as well as brands to be able to create new
signifiers. And that's what China has done
as well. Like in terms of putting that
into practice for the platforms and stuff that they have over
there, which are completely separate to the platforms that
we have in, say, Australia and America and such, to then say,
OK, if this person is giving you medical advice, here's the
credentials. Yeah.
Otherwise they can't, they get kicked off the app, they can't
create that content. And I think that that is
incredibly important because I will never say that I am a
psychologist. Yeah, but I will say I'm a
mental health advocate and work in that space.
And that is my level of expertise.
Yeah. And that's the clear
differentiation which we don't really have here.
No, I think users try and create it themselves, right?
Like when you watch a TikTok and somebody holds up their degree
or they say I'm an XYZ and therefore, you know, to like
quote UN quote trust them. But I completely agree.
We have that problem across the board where all of those three
like types of creators, pieces of content are all in one feed.
And another problem that I see very often is that we're all
together in the same room. Age wise.
So you could be fighting with
somebody who is legitimately 11 and you, I have no idea, they
are leaving unhinged comments and you're fighting back because
you're like, no, you don't understand.
This is my credibility. This is who I am.
This is what I meant in that video, whatever.
And it's like you have no idea that you're actually fighting
with somebody who's 11. Who's 11?
And This is why, you know, when we talk about a topical issue in
this country around like the social media ban and stuff,
there is no Internet spaces for kids now, no.
Or teens like we used to have youth catered Internet spaces
growing up that does not exist. So it is a free for all in the
comments section from everyone from 15 to 55 A. 100%. 85 I know
my granddad's in the comments section, so like, come on.
Older than 55. Definitely, for sure.
I was trying to be nice and that I brought my grandfather into
it. OK, so then what guardrails do
you think should be but put in place?
But should it be through the platforms?
Should it be governments? I mean, I know we have.
I know that's controversial because we just had the under 16
social media ban here. Yes, when it comes to this,
prohibition's never the answer. I will 100% die on that hill.
We've seen historically, time and time again prohibition not
working for a multitude of things.
If you're going to treat the Internet, which the floodgates
opened for that decades ago, you can't close them now, no.
Especially for kids that grew up chronically online.
Exactly. And I understand when people
come back with the argument, Oh, well, the band's not for someone
who's 15. The band is for someone who's
5:00. I've got an 8 year old cousin.
The band's still messed with her head.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She now can't have YouTube Kids
anymore. And she went to India and she
had access to YouTube and she just landed back from India this
week and she now no longer has access to YouTube.
Yeah. And it's less about the
platforms and more about the fact that there is just no
online space for children that is safe and made with them in
mind. And that is what a lot of the
advocacy groups and the research think tanks who were vehemently
opposed to the bill as it went through was, hey, we agree that
they shouldn't be on Instagram at the age of 8, but they need
to have a space for them at the age of like 810, etcetera,
etcetera. And that's ultimately how I see
that sitting. Yeah, and it's really tough too,
because back to us all being in the same room together now,
children, preteens are going to Sephora, right?
And they're using Drunk Elephants, and they're using all
these products that like we would have never used at that
age. And it's because they're looking
up to influencers now, like we looked up to celebrities.
And I'm not saying it's better or worse, I don't know.
But I think looking up to influencers who are like, let's
say, a decade older than you and you get such an intimate look
into their lifestyle and their life, of course you're going to
want to emulate that. Like I was trying to emulate
Jessica Simpson too, but I just didn't really know anything
about her. So, you know, I didn't.
Have access to what she was doing every single morning.
Get ready with me is where she was going out.
There is so much access to people now. 100% that that is
actually the the issue at hand. It's how much of yourself you're
sharing online. And how much these young kids
are absorbing from older people that they look up to.
And therefore, of course they're going to want to not be on apps
that are, let's say, made for them.
Like if there was an app that was made, I'm sure there's apps
made for kids. But you know, if there was apps
made for 15 year olds, I totally get why they don't want to be on
them because they're like, well no, I want to be on the app.
With like what do you? Want to do at 15?
I wanted to be 25, yeah. I wanted to act like a 25.
I even dressed like a 25 year old did other things that I
thought a 25 year old was doing that I shouldn't have been doing
a. 100% like it makes total sense and I I see how damaging
it is like I totally agree but it's such a hard issue to
tackle. Which is why, controversially,
this is a hot take here. As much as I hated how the roll
out of Shay Mitchell's skin care brand for kids, I understand the
logic behind it absolutely. Because if they're they're
wanting to emulate like they're seeing the their mom and they're
seeing all of these things on the Internet and stuff and
they're seeing the Drunk Elephant consumption, why not
have a skin care brand of a face mask that's like a panda?
It is creating that space for them with what I think it's just
water and a few other things. Yeah, I don't think that's
actually that controversial. I spoke about that and there
were a lot of people, at least in our comments section, that
understood where she was coming from.
I think the way it was marketed was weird.
The marketing of it was weird. But I think in general, parents
put moisturizer on their kids, Yeah, and they want to do what
they see their parents doing. And if mommy's using mascara or
Daddy's using face wash or whatever, they want to do the
same thing. Exactly a. 100% OK well my last
question for you before we wrap up this beautiful chat in the
beautiful scenery is how do you touch grass right now?
I am at the beach every single day.
No way. Every day, like almost every
single day. It's a walking distance from my
house. I'm at the water every single
day. Something about like actually
going for a run. Not for me.
I trained for a 10K last year and I'm never doing that again.
Did you do the 10? K no, I injured myself.
Oh my gosh. Wait, I think I knew this.
And you were gonna go with a brand, right?
And I injured myself. No, because I just, I suck at
running and I'm at the stage of my life where I'm like, I know
who I am and who I am is not a runner.
OK, you know, fair enough. So I go for walks along the
beach and I go for little jogs along the beach and get out of
your head. Yeah, I get out of my head.
And I used to be a professional figure skater and I've started
going back to the rink because heated rivalry made me really
miss my figure skating. A.
Professional figure skater, what are you talking about?
Give me the T. From 5 to 18 I skated for
Australia in like America. Wait.
What? I thought the lore is so deep
with you, what are you talking about?
So if you're in Sydney, you might have been to Macquarie
Shopping Centre and they've got like the ice rink and the
McDonald's looks down onto the ice rink there.
I was five years old and I had to go with my dad to the
university. It was the school holidays and
my dad told me that if I behaved, I would get McDonald's,
which has a 5 year old. That's all you want?
Yes, I went there, saw all of these people twirling around on
this white surface, and I told my dad I wanted to try that.
And then I think I went to like, 3 or 5, somewhere between 3:00
to 5:00. National championships in
Australia, went to worlds and we placed 17th.
There's no money in figure skating in Australia.
If anyone, after heated rivalry and hearing this rivalry and
after hearing this, wants to get into like, a winter sport, make
sure you win the lottery. And yes, skated in the states
for the team in Minnesota, which.
What? Yeah.
Pearl, do you have footage of this?
Wait, you need to start a new TikTok account?
Speaking of being chronically online, my media thought is how
can you put this on TikTok and let everybody know you need to
make a new TikTok account? I posted about this a lot over
the last few weeks actually because of the heated rivalry
stuff. No, you need to make a dedicated
TikTok account about this with clips of you figure skating like
from the archive. I love this.
This is crazy. But I'm really excited for the
Winter Olympics and I've got like a whole plan for that
because no one covers the Winter Olympics here.
Well I will be keeping tabs because I freaking love winter
sports, obviously being from Canada.
Being from Canada, exactly OK. So you go to the beach every day
and you're going back into. Skating.
I'm getting back into skating. So I go once a week, slip it
out. I took my skates out of the
cupboard again. I go through this phase like
probably like every 18 months where I go back for three months
and then I'm like, I'm too tired, I've got too much work.
Yes, I understand that I was a competitive swimmer growing up.
I was a professional, but I was I was competitive and you're.
Competitive with everything. I see that for you in a good
way. In a good way.
I promise you don't. See that for me at all, Thank
you. I'm.
Competitive with myself, which is why.
That's what I mean. So low sports, it works really
well for me. Like I yeah, 100% yes.
I agree with that. No, but every once in a while
I'll be like, you know, my mom's like that is like how you
decompress is like, you are like a swimmer, like go to the pool,
like swim laps, whatever. And every once in a while I do
it and I'm like, I'm going to do this every day.
This is like changed my life. And then you just get busy.
And you get busy, You just forget.
Yeah, you get busy and you forget.
But you actually should be going back to the activities and the
hobbies that you had as a kid. Apparently everybody.
'S talking about that. Everyone's talking about it.
It's honestly been. Amazing.
Thank you for having me. I love hanging out with you
guys. This podcast is produced by the
youth digital media brand Centennial World.
Centennial World Podcast Network operates on Gadigal land.
We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the
traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to
elders both past and present.