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 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 before 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 the
readers editor at Crikey and founder of feminist publication
Z Feed, Crystal Andrews. If you've listened to enough of
our podcast at Centennial World, then you will be familiar with
Crystal. She is one of the most
chronically online people that I know, and she's also one of my
closest friends. In our conversation, Crystal
talks about how she juggles an editor role while also building
her own media business, how complicated it feels to get
viral traction off bad news, and what the future of journalism
looks like amid the rise of rage bait content and AI slop.
Welcome Crystal to touch grass. Thank you for having me.
What a beautiful day to be outside touching grass in the
spirit of exactly what this series is about in Tasmania.
In Tasmania. As if this could not be a better
advertisement. No, literally.
Sean, my husband and I flew into Tassie last night.
We're staying with Crystal and her husband Pierre at their home
in Hobart and it's so beautiful. We literally picked the perfect
weekend and I'm so excited to chat with you about all things
being chronically online, mental health, touching grass.
Let's do it. All right, so we ask everyone a
version of this question, but can you tell me, do you consider
yourself I have chronically online?
Yes, I, I absolutely affirmatively do.
I think the interesting thing about being chronically online
is that you can be that in like very different spaces.
So like where I am the the spaces online that I spend my
time might be very different to the spaces that you spend your
time and like the next person. And sure, like there can be some
over, like I know that we have a very similar for you page a lot
of the time, but there are so many little like rabbit holes to
go down and niches to get into. Their truly like something on
the Internet to capture anyone's interest.
Like there's something to appeal to anyone.
So yeah, I spent a lot of time, a lot of time online in various
arenas. Yes, OK, so I wanted to talk
about those various arenas because just like all of the
arenas online, your career has been in many arenas.
So you have been a media girly through and through.
I would say your career is truly like the definition of a media
girly, but you have had so many different lives in media and
you've covered so many different areas.
So can you give us a little rundown on your career?
Yeah, it it has actually been a bit of a journey.
And it's one of those things that you don't think about so
much until someone in this sort of situation ask you like, oh,
like, you know, where did you start?
Like what did you do? So I actually started in media a
long time ago now in magazines. I worked for a magazine that was
based in Perth called Box Magazine.
That was my first like gig outside of like straight out of
uni. And it was a really small team.
And so it was a great place to learn like everything about
producing a media like publication.
It was a magazine. This was like really just at the
time where the digital like publishing space was starting to
like kick off, especially in Australia.
Like that took a little bit longer to start happening here
than it did like in. It kicked off in the States
first early with like the likes of ICE and BuzzFeed, but that
took a little bit of time to filter down here.
So yeah, I started in like print.
I don't even think we didn't publish.
We actually didn't publish any of the articles to a website.
We actually got a website. I think like not long after I
was leaving, Oh my God, like right as I was leaving in 2016
or 2017 is when, yeah, this publication like just started to
get a website and just started to put articles up on there.
So it really was a completely different time, a completely
different landscape. And that magazine also was like
luxury lifestyle, like fashion. It was so different to what I do
now. It was not like Newsy.
It was not in the new space. Yeah, Yeah, at all.
So I started there and then from there I went into digital
publishing. I worked at some women's or what
we call in the business, women's lifestyle titles, which is like
beauty, fashion, lifestyle, home and interiors, that type of
thing. I worked at where, buddy?
I actually don't know if those sites are still around or in
what format. They're still around.
I don't think locally, but I think best ones, yes.
Yes, I worked at the Australian like outposts of those sites.
I had lost into the Daily Mail. I was at the Daily Mail during
like when COVID happened. So 2020 got made redundant got a
nice juicy little redundancy package.
Thank you, DMA and used that money to like pour into my
little my little baby business Z feed, which I've been doing now
since like earnestly since since then, since 2020, which is a
completely, well, almost completely digital news like
analysis and commentary publication for young people,
but particularly, you know, left-leaning progressives,
feminists, whatever, whatever we want to call ourselves on any
given day of the week. That's the perspective of that
publication. And I've been doing that now
since, yeah, since 2020. So like coming up to six years?
OK, so I wanted to talk about how you started Z Feed because
for context, actually how Crystal and I know each other is
when Centennial launched, I think you just followed us.
Like I think there might have been like industry news or like
someone posted us maybe and you found us through that, like our
Instagram and we were like, oh, this is really cool.
And then we had you on the podcast and it was remotely
because this would. Have been this was during like
it was lockdowns. There was nowhere to go into
yes. Because I was going to say you
were living in Sydney at the time, but it was a remote
recording because it would have been during lockdowns.
So that's when we first had like, I guess not face to face
contact, but when we first started like actually speaking
frequently. And then we just got so close
over the last like four or five years.
I guess actually six years. That's actually a crazy thing to
say. I can't believe it's been 6
years since 2020. That is the context of how we
know each other. But I wanted to hear cuz I don't
know if we've ever talked about this.
Like what sparked you to start Sea Feed?
Yeah. So this, I think I started like
a little bit after you had initially started Centennial
World, which the people who've been around a long time will
know that it was called Renegade.
Oh, my God. No, the podcast was called
Renegade. I'm outing this now on the pod.
So yeah, this was like 2018-2019.
You know, we've had like the digital publishinglikethe.com
news publication. Like, that is a very established
thing at this point. But what was much, much newer,
especially for young audiences, was getting news and media on
social platforms. Like BuzzFeed had admittedly
been doing that for like, quite some time, time with Facebook
and like, you know, the iconic BuzzFeed quizzes, like being
shared around on Facebook pages and getting lots of traffic that
way. But my sister is 10, young, 10
years younger than me. So I'm millennial and she's a
Gen. Z.
And she was starting to come to that age where she's like,
interested in news, interested in what's going on.
Like, obviously at that time, there was a lot of stuff going
on, like the end of 2019 as well was the really bad Australian
bushfires in New South Wales. And that was like huge news.
And a lot of that was being shared on social media, like
about what was happening. Anyway, I'd had a discussion
with Chelsea and my sister, shout out to Chelsea about where
she and her peers, like we're getting their news and
information. And she said to me, like, we get
it on social media and we will see like something that
interests us and click on it and click on the link and like read
that article online, which is completely fine.
There's nothing wrong with that. But the interesting thing was,
is that they had no like they had no connection or loyalty is
not quite the right word, but like affiliation for what the
actual site. Right, like that was.
Publishing. Yeah.
So it would just like, come across your feed.
That could be from anywhere. And there was like no real
connection with like this is an article from the ABC or the
Sydney Morning Herald or like news.com dot AU or the Daily
Mail or even if it's like an Internet, you know, it's from
the BBC. Like there was very little
awareness of where that was coming from.
It's just like, this seems like an informative article.
I'll click the link because it's come across my feed.
So at that time, it seemed to me like, OK, this newer generation,
there seems to be like some space where we can take that
news and directly publish it on the platform.
Not only that, but fill in a lot of the blanks for like a younger
generation. Like obviously if you're reading
an article on the ABC or the BBC, you know, generally like
solid, trustworthy, established new sources.
There's nothing wrong with that. But there was heaps of assumed
knowledge, like if it's a story about the attorney General, like
that assumes that you know what an attorney general does, let
alone like who the current attorney general is.
And those little like bits and pieces of information were like
missing from the news at that time.
And it sounds silly almost to talk about now because explainer
journalism now is like everybody, like everybody does
that. Big publications do it, small
publications do it. Like certainly now it is not,
it's not innovative. It's nothing new.
But at that time it like was pretty new.
So they started out as producing these little like condensed and
not even explainers, but like providing some context around
what the biggest news story was that like week or that day or
whatever on Instagram was the was the focus at that time.
Again, does seem kind of obvious and outdated now to say that,
but like that was really where the motion was.
And so that's why I started it. But it has evolved as a
publication so far from that now because so much in the industry
has changed, not just the media industry, but like so much about
online life, like so, so many platforms have popped up in that
time. We're obviously now dealing with
AI as well. So that's where it started, but
I wouldn't say that that's where it is right now.
So where would you say it is right now?
So now it's much more what what we produce on Z feed is much
more commentary and analysis and going context heavy on those
things. Everybody does explain us now.
But not only that, like now you can just get a fairly decent
explainer from an AI chat bot or a Google summary.
Now, is that wrong a lot of the time, yeah.
But I think we're silly to pretend that that's always going
to be the case. Like the more money that gets
invested in these things and the more that like people, powerful
people in the tech industry are invested in making that a really
good alternative source of information.
It's going to be pretty hard to compete with that.
Certainly as like a teeny tiny, like a micro publication in
Australia, It's hard to compete with that.
But what AI can't do is have an opinion.
What it can't do is like really properly analyze it can't
understand where it's audience is coming from, what their
perspective is and like bringing them information that kind of
like matches what their perspective is and what the gaps
in their information in their knowledge might be.
So I think that's what we do right now.
And then also in Australia, I mean, the mainstream media here
is has such a serious conservative lens.
I mean, even through like big trustworthy news organizations
like the ABC, there is like, I'll say centrist, like a
centrist at best. Yeah, yeah.
You know, lens on on things. So Z feed is like unashamedly
feminist, intersectional, like everything we look at is through
that lens. And we're, you know, out loud
and proud about that. So that might mean that some
people go, OK, well, I don't like what you're saying because
you're looking at it through this lens and that I'm OK with
that. It's not going to be for
everyone. But the the difference is it's
like at least I'm telling you, I'm saying we are looking at
this through a feminist lens. You can take that or leave that.
Other organizations will say when neutral, when not having
like a bias on this, when not having a bent on this, but it's
impossible to produce any kind of like a news or journalism
that way. It's just, it's just simply not,
not possible. So yeah, that's where it is now.
Very, very different to like, who is the attorney general on
Instagram in like 20, 2019. It's a very different place.
No, I love it though. And that's just what this
industry is all about. Like it's crazy to say that, you
know, six years ago, like we were so different to like Sean
and I did a Patreon episode yesterday and we were talking
about how when we started on TikTok, like he gave us the idea
to put our stories on TikTok. And I had not seen anyone do
that up until that point. And this was 2019.
So it was very early in Tik Tok's kind of journey, but
regardless, and it sounded crazy on the Patreon to say, I feel
like Sean made-up that idea. He literally created this idea.
He hadn't even crossed my mind. And it was only six years ago.
Where are we gonna be in six years from now?
It's. It moved honestly so quickly,
even just from, you know, if we talk about a lot of youth
publishing through the same period that we've been doing,
this was like platform first. So it wasn't even necessarily a
website or or even a sub stack, which again, wasn't true at that
point, but it was like a going to Instagram posting directly.
Even on Instagram, it was static.
It was like images and like the the classic Canva, like textile.
Then Tik Tok's rise and rise and rise meant that there was such
this big pivot to video, which is the second pivot to video
that I have survived in my media career.
The first pivot to video was Facebook video.
Oh yeah. We're not going to talk about.
That's like that's a whole discussion and of itself.
But TikTok, like it was a new way of producing that type of
content. And also I think really
solidified the person first, creator first, you know, mode of
disseminating journalism and information, which now again,
like a lot of the big publications have taken on
board. And I actually think is
generally like a good, there are some pitfalls, but I think it's
a good thing. Like, I think you should know,
Yeah, is giving you the news that they're giving you.
So you can have a little bit of understanding of the
circumstances around that. It's not all been good.
Yeah, yeah. And it's really difficult,
especially like as a smaller publication, it's really hard to
make good enough quality video content That's like what you've
done so, so well is adapt to that.
But it's not easy. You can't necessarily just like,
stick up a phone and start not recording videos.
It's not that simple anymore. I know, but I mean to to
properly adapt to video from podcast perspective and also a
TikTok perspective. Like we had to get rid of so
many ways that we published for me to actually be able to like
make that work. It's so crazy.
And I think, you know, starting a publication, even if we
started, I don't know, five years before when we started
ours, like we would have been publishing on a.com and like
maybe on Facebook. And, you know, when we launched,
we already had to have 4 platforms or whatever that we're
publishing. And now it's even more.
It's so exhausting. It's impossible to keep up.
And even like now, I still feel quite old school in this segment
of the industry because I, I am a writer.
Like that is what I am. I remain true to the written
word. And so, you know, whether that
isn't like a print publication less and less so these days, but
like an article, sub stack or a blog post or something that is
written. I maybe it's ill advised.
You know, maybe we're all going to laugh at this in like 10
years when it was, you know, just down downhill from me from
from here. But I still think there needs to
be a lot of journalism and, you know, essays and analysis and
opinion or whatever it may be in the written form.
Because the thing for me, especially with like online
information, it's so important to be able to link where I got,
if I'm making a claim, if I'm sourcing, like if I'm citing A
statistic, if I'm citing even something that somebody else has
said, like I'm quoting it in my piece.
I think it's really important to be able to very easily link
anyone who's reading it back through that source to see it
for themselves. That is very, very important.
And it is difficult to do with static imagery like Instagram
captions don't link. Like it's just a little bit more
tricky to do. And in video, it's like, OK,
well, I can put those in the caption and I can put those on
the screen. Like, you know, we can do as
much as we can, but copying, pasting and that taking that
information into a search engine to go and like verify it is just
not that easy for the person who's reading it or consuming it
or watching it or whatever. There's still something
beautifully simple, simple to me about like that is the number
that she cited. She said it was from here.
I'm going to click the link and see it for myself.
And I think it is really, really important to preserve that as
much as we as we can. So I'm old school about it.
Even in the video, even in the video journalism era, I still
think we need to write some shit down, guys.
Well, I don't think that's even a hot take.
Like, I think that's why Sub Stack has become so popular,
partly because of that, right? And also I think video fatigue
has really helped with the rise of platforms like Sub Stack and
newsletters and all of that. OK.
So I wanted to talk to you about a topic we discuss here and
there in our friendship offline about kind of the friction that
we can feel finding growth or success even in a single piece
of content, but sometimes off the back of someone else's
misfortune. So can you talk to me about how
you reconcile with that? Because obviously covering the
topics that you cover, politics, commentary, women's issues, race
issues, I'm sure you feel that. Often, yeah, it is like, can be
a really horrible business to be in because all day, every day
you are learning about awful circumstances that people are
in. And that can be the important
stuff. It's, it's important to shine
light on these things and make sure that doesn't slip under the
radar. But yeah, it's tough to be in
that immersed in that all the time.
And I think that trying to do that as like thoughtfully and
carefully and ethically as possible has always been really
important to me because, like, why I do this is I'm interested,
I'm curious, I'm interested in people, why things are the way
they are, like how we all live our lives.
There can be a tendency at the moment to go kind of like
crashing and bashing into these issues and like trying to, you
know, stick your flag in the ground and stake a claim and
like own an issue, you know, an issue of like injustice or, you
know, someone being done wrong by or some sort of scandal.
That's not really how I like to approach it.
Like there's been mental health benefits to me for that to not
feel like I have to rush into things really quickly and like
claim my space. And also I think people really
respect that I don't do that, that safe feed doesn't do that,
that we take out time with things because it a lot of it is
so just like big and heavy. You can't always just like a run
into it head 1st and especially again, being like so small
limited resources, like, you know, I'm not trying to compete
with big mainstream publications.
And so why would I try to run head first into it like they
like they can because they're better equipped to do that.
But sometimes I think there's a tendency when when we're talking
about an issue where something bad and injustice has happened
to a specific person or a specific group of people.
And you know, you'll see it like online on social platforms, like
people will want to really run in there and in like a, a way of
wanting to do good. They're like, they want to go in
and stand up and like, make a statement, have their take on
it. Like discussion about all these
things are good. But the thing that really
strikes me is like when they don't first reach out to like
the person who it happened to or the group who it happened to.
Just this week, I'm not sure when this episode will be out,
but like just this week, we've had a big new story in Australia
where the Prime Minister has said something really horrible
about Grace Tame, who's a, you know, a famous advocate,
activist, a really inspiring woman, former Australian of the
year. And there's been like a lot of
news around that, a lot of people having takes about that,
you know, like it is part of the discourse and I will be
publishing something about that on Z feed, but core to that.
And before I'm going to write about that, crucial to that was
reaching out to her and being like, hey, letting you know I'm
going to be writing about this also, like some questions of
clarification is like a journalistic practice that you
learn when you do come up through these mainstream
publications, like you need to go to people for comment.
You need to like reach out and let people know that you're
going to be like weighing in on this.
I think that has been a practice that is not always it's, it's
not so common all the time, but it's something that I'm going to
stick to. And I think is what has made our
stuff a little bit more, yeah, a little bit more thoughtful and
careful about who we're, you know, who we're talking about
and the way that that we are talking about them.
And that's not saying formal training is the be all and end
all. Like I'm not.
There are loads of very unethical journalists who work
for big publications. Like that is by no means to say
that you that there aren't heaps of news creators and news
influencers And also just like people who are, you know, who
are in these communities having their say that aren't doing it
correctly. Like I think there is a lot of
care out there and that's the stuff that I tend to gravitate
towards where you can see that there's been like an effort and
some consideration and that's been part of the process, yeah.
OK, something that I feel like is unique about you is no matter
how immersed in this space you are, it seems like you never
lose your passion for it. So on top of Z feed, you're also
readers editor at Crikey. And the fact that you can do
basically 2 journalism jobs at once is so impressive to me.
Thank you. That's very kind.
It must take such, I imagine for me at least, it would take a
huge toll and it would lead me, I believe, to lose a lot of that
spark. So how do you keep that passion
for what you're doing? I don't think my answer to this
is going to be particularly satisfying, but I just love it.
Like I just, it is hard for me to not to, to switch off from
following the news and like what is going on and feeling like I
have my finger on the pulse. Like we, my husband and I went
away on a holiday at the end of the year, right after, right
after Christmas and we'd spent Christmas with my family and
everyone was like, you need to switch off.
Everyone's like, it was like an intervention.
They were telling me off. They're like, you need to just
log off, disconnect. You need to just take this time.
We're going on quite a long holiday as well.
It was like three weeks away and that probably doesn't sound that
long, but that's long. Oh.
It's long, yeah. You know, it's a long holiday,
overseas holiday. They're like, you need to switch
off. You need to not look at the
news. And they were like to my
husband, don't let her look at the news.
And he was like policing me every day.
He's like, don't look at it. You're going to you're going to
be in a bad mood, you're going to ruin your day.
And look, I did very much stay offline as much as I could at
that time. And I did feel like great for
it. But I think that just speaks to
like how much I want to know. I'm just curious.
I like to know why things happen.
It's like I think that's what it is.
It's not just about, oh, this is happening and what is happening.
It's not the news of the day now, now, now, minute to minute
to minute. But I like to know why things
are happening. I think about history a lot and
like how these cycles repeat. This is sounding so weird, but
it's like when you're in it and you're feeling the rhythms and
you can see where things go. And it all helps to have an
understanding about the world that we're in.
And I would like to think that I'm having a positive impact on
the world with the work that I produce.
And that obviously means if you think you're having a positive
impact, you you want to make more of it.
So that's kind of what keeps me in it, but I don't know that
that's like a particularly useful answer.
I feel like the answer there is you.
I mean, it's so core to who you are.
Yeah, it is. It is.
It's like there's been times when I've dabbled in, like,
trying to get out and do something else and I just can't.
I just can't. I just can't do it.
I know this is getting dangerously close to that
bullshit of like, do what you love and you'll never work it
out in your life. And I want to be clear, it is
work. Like, it's not that it doesn't
feel like work. It fucking feels like work every
second of the day. It's just, I'm just curious.
Yeah. I just want to know what is
going on. Yeah, you were born for this
industry. I think so.
I knew I wanted to be a
journalist when I was like in high school.
That's just all I ever really wanted to do.
And then I started doing it and my career now looks like totally
different to what I imagined you would look at that at that time.
Like, it's not, it's not like I brought to life the vision I had
when I was 16. But I mean, it's pretty cool.
Yeah, it's a very cool career. So something else that I feel
like you are acutely plugged into is the culture of
inflammatory content online. Given the spaces that you
reported, can you tell me how you feel the rise in rage bait
is influencing journalism? It's currency, like rage bait is
currency. We do definitely live in like an
outrage culture right now. And it's coming from all this is
like something I think that often gets characterized as
being of like a, a feature or function of content from the the
new right to the alt right or, you know, those kind of spaces.
But it really is across the board.
And I think it's because like that is what grabs people's
attention. Attention is currency with this
is like friggin cliche bingo, but it grabs people's attention.
It's become like a new hook. I think to say something
contrarian is like really the spirit that it's in.
It's like, I'm going to say something that most people would
disagree with to get them to listen to what I'm saying, to
interact with my platform for the sake of it.
Just to have like size, just to have numbers.
I don't think there's always necessarily even an interest in
a broader layer of discourse. It just is, you know, that's the
way to like get yourself seen, whether you have ambitions to be
like a journalist or whether you have ambitions to be like a
different type of creator or voice online or just like known
people also just like to be seen and heard.
So yeah, it's, it's everywhere. And I find it really exhausting.
I don't know about you. I don't know if it's just like
we're hitting really peak rage culture right now and like rage
based rage based content, like saturation, it's just
everywhere. It's like doesn't matter what
you're into. Like, obviously it happens in
the new space A lot. And like people talking about
politics, like those things are quite natural.
But even like entertainment, pop culture, beauty, fashion,
discourse, like any community that you're into, it seems
there, there are these people who have an impulse to make
contrarian takes, put it out there and just like, you know,
set, set the match, like the match, throw it on, throw it on
the haystack and just watch the flames go up.
Sometimes I feel like people do it as well, not just to be
contrarian for attention, but also to feed their ego.
I feel like everybody is constantly looking for the right
take. They want to have that hot take
that everyone says, Oh my God, you're so smart.
Like, I never thought of it like that.
And now we're all going to make think pieces off the back of
your think piece. Yeah, absolutely.
OK. So how would you say that it's
impacting audiences? I don't think it's good for
anybody. I think it's like really bad.
It's like training our brains to look for that and have that
reaction. I think you can feel it when
the, when they're like the take or the content is reactionary
for the sake of it. And it's not kind of like
genuine. There's like a kind of holiness
to it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.
Yeah, yeah. You know, like it's not.
I don't think it's good for anyone to exist in this like
constant state of being like activated and enraged is
probably too strong of a word. But like always reacting to
something like every single thing that you see is like
trying to provoke something emotional from you.
I don't think that's very healthy.
And I think that it then dulls when there is something really,
really serious and really important that does deserve a
strong reaction from, you know, from the public, from us, from
from us as like human beings. Because everything is like at
this level of like 8-9 or ten, the things that do deserve that
get like, they just become the same as everything else.
And so I feel like it's almost dulling people's ability to
perceive like what is really worth their time and attention
and their emotional investment and what is just activating them
for like no real purpose other than numbers in an algorithm.
It's a very odd feeling. I feel like the Epstein files
stuff is a good indicator of that, not us getting into C
files on A on a touch cross. You're not the first.
But because of the volume of just like horrific revelations
in that and just how much the conspiracy theories around that
like seem to be validated and like, yeah, they're really, I
mean, yes, not to not to get into it, but it's like, yeah, it
was real. It was happening.
And every story that comes out of it is like more and more
horrible than the next, which almost LED some people, I think
to go digging for like further level of conspiracy where there
it's like all there for us already.
What's happened is awful enough already that some people I think
are looking for another level of like, but what if it was even
more more awful for that? Like, as if the abuse of these
vulnerable young girls and women, it was like, not enough
in some way. I don't know if that's a good
way of explaining it, but to me that that's just something where
it's like you're. So you're just hit with so many
awful things at once. Yeah.
None of them kind of seem that bad.
And some people go looking for them something like even worse.
Yeah, No, I, I talked about that.
I mean, it was in relation to the Selena Gomez like conspiracy
theories that are happening on TikTok right now.
And I brought up the Epstein files.
You know, why are people believing these Selena Gomez
conspiracy theories? And people are, and these are
like grown adults that are believing these conspiracy
theories and they're so outlandish.
And that was, you know, one of the examples I gave, just one of
my theories is I think over the past, maybe like 10 to 20 years,
a lot of the quote UN quote conspiracy theories that we've
seen with like elites, let's say, that felt so outlandish.
They started to be validated. And Epstein files is an example
of that. So then it makes people be like,
OK, well now there's got to be conspiracies everywhere.
You. Know there's also another aspect
of like, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm a journalist, I'm not
an activist. But I think with a lot of the
political discourse online and it's like tendency to, to kind
of like devolve into rage baby type content, which is meant to
spark like engagement with other people online.
And that can sometimes spin into like personal, like conflicts
that are fully played out online.
I also think there's something to be said for like, it's easy
to forget that is very much happening in an online space.
That is not to say that online advocacy isn't important and
can't be impactful. It absolutely, it absolutely is.
And we have so much to thank that has come from online
activists, especially on global issues, which we otherwise like
it may not have known about at all.
But I do think there's something to be said for like this type of
hyper engaging rage bait content keeps you locked in the online
space. And it's really easy to forget
that like that is not actually the only place or even maybe the
primary place where we want things to change.
It is the material world where we actually need to make some of
those changes. Even if people are wanting to
make changes to online platforms, it's like you, you
can't only do that by talking about it online or getting into
like back and forth, like stitching wars with other people
online. There is a different layer of
like activism and advocacy that still has to happen.
And I think that's what it takes away from us as well.
It's like it, it kind of makes you forget where the priorities
should be because there is just something so addictive about
like watching two people go back and forth with each other, you
know, getting into the minutiae of like who said this and who
said that? And then another third party
jumps in like, but that is all that can be very unproductive
and just so siloed where it's like sometimes it's only
happening on one platform. It's like it's only happening on
TikTok and the people on Instagram don't even know that
this is happening. And people on YouTube like don't
even know this is happening. So that's another thing.
I think we're losing touch. We're losing touch a little bit
with the online base. We are losing touch.
I also think there's probably something to be said for doing
quote, UN quote online activism or getting involved in online
discourse like that and getting essentially the positive
reinforcement, the dopamine hit from that, that like, let's all
be honest, if you're doing, whether it's activism online,
offline, a lot of it comes back to, you know, like you're doing
it for from the goodness of your heart, hopefully, but also
because it makes you feel good, right?
And you get probably a lot of us probably get that same similar
hit when you're doing it all, like within the TikTok comments
and you feel like I'm validated people are agreeing with me.
So look, I'm making a difference.
But that's actually, like you said, it's in such an enclosed
small ecosystem that it's really not making as much of an impact
as we probably feel it is. And it's also not particularly
intergenerational or the communities online tend to be
very much like Gen. Z, millennials, yeah, some Gen.
X, like some boomers. More alphas in the comments than
I think people realize. Like that is like my, I think if
I was to have, if I was to be able to get some government
money to have like a public service that's been ad that runs
like across all like television, radio, billboards everywhere.
It would be something along the lines of like stop, like think
twice before you argue with someone in the comments because
that person might be 16. And you as like someone you
know, who's like 28 might be going back and forth with like,
yeah, a 16 year old, which is not something that I like to
think most of us would opt to do in real life.
You know, that's not something I I spend my time doing or even
thinking about. So yeah, it can really lack like
if you're just talking to a lot of the same people, I think it
can lack like that broader context of who we all are in the
world and in the society and who is getting information from
where. Like when I talk to my parents,
like I don't live in the same city as my parents.
So I talked to them once a week. We have like quite a long phone
call and it's like to try and explain when they ask, they're
like, oh, like what happened this week?
Like what was what was big? What was news?
And sometimes it's like, well, I spent a lot of time thinking
about this thing, but I actually even know where to begin to
explain to you who these people are like what this was really
about. And it is important.
Like the thing was important, but I actually can't even get
into it with you because you just we have to do too much
background. Maybe I should maybe I need to
do now the reverse context thing that was originally for Jen says
we now need to do it for like boomers to help them understand
the context of online life. Yes, maybe that's that's missing
venture. Yes, that's.
Missing. Wait.
I love that. I actually think a lot of young
people would appreciate that from you.
Yeah. So that they think about it.
Their parents. OK, so being a woman who is so
visible online in both of your respective, I guess, positions
both at Crikey and Z feed, how do you handle the criticism?
How do you handle being visible online and covering topics that
are sensitive? It is like a very much an
ongoing work in progress. Like I'm sensitive.
I'm a very sensitive person. I take everything to like a way
to personally, I buy all rights should not be saying anything
online. I should not be saying anything
in public because I take it all like quite personally.
But I'm getting better all the time at just blowing things off.
I think there is something within my personality because
I'm curious about what drives other people.
And that's what makes this job, like feel just so perfect for me
and why I love doing it. But it also means you like
really badly want to be understood.
So I've had to really work at when people do misunderstand and
it's inevitable. Like that's just life, but you
know, when they'll respond to something that I've written or a
video I've made or a podcast that I've done and
misinterpreted or misunderstood a statement and then got like
mad at me for that or like, you know, this was like a bad take
because of XYZ. Resisting the urge to get in
there and explain back I think has been a journey.
I used to do that too much. I don't do it anymore.
I have still have to resist the urge to do it, but I don't do it
because that's just not a good use of my time that it is.
It's rough. And also, I think being a woman
online, I mean, I can't speak for the experience of men who
are very visible online. I also like worry more about my
appearance than I would like to. I I think in my day-to-day life
offline, I don't worry that much about how I look.
But as soon as there's like a camera and as soon as you're
seeing your own face all of the time on like all of these
screens, it can be really confronting.
Yeah, 100%. When like I'm with my friends
and, you know, you're having a bit of like down time and
someone will like in a scroll, then like when you hear, I hear
my own voice coming from their phone and see my own face.
That is very disconcerting. Yeah, I don't like that.
Don't scroll near me. No, I find I actually, because
when you're filming yourself so much, you can control the
lighting, the angles. And I find it really confronting
when I just take a casual photo with a friend or something and
it's like a an angle that I don't normally feel myself at or
I don't look at myself. And I'm like, Oh my God.
And like I have an image of what I look like in my head, not from
the mirror anymore, but from the camera.
Yeah, yeah. It's so bizarre.
It's very, it's a very strange experience.
And I think also, you know, talking about politics, talking
about sensitive issues, talking about injustices, talking about
the government online. I mean, it's a fact.
Men get a lot less criticism for doing that.
And also men get a lot less, not 0, but a lot less critiques of
their appearance while they're doing that, like completely
unrelated to the things that they are saying.
So that's just like hard to deal with.
It's just a lesson in like getting in the comments enough
to take the temperature of the thing that you've put out there.
And I do think that's really important.
I would never ever advocate for not looking at the comments at
all because like you need some feedback.
Like you do need to, you do need to have an understanding of how
things are being received and like who what you're putting out
there is resonating with. But you know, it's you need just
enough to get the feedback and then move on.
But it's like a lifelong process, I think.
Yeah, and it's harder and harder when platforms hide comments for
some people and not others and they do all these weird things
with the filters and you even if you haven't put the filters on,
it's so. Confusing.
Yeah. I mean, This is why I think we
kind of like vaguely touched on this, but the push for like the
resurgence of newsletters, I think is in large part been
because the engagement like hacking experience of the other
digital platforms has been like quite fatiguing.
So that's why a lot of people have gone back to like writing
things in a newsletter form and like sending that directly to
the people who want to hear. I mean, there are still a lot of
frustrations with like deliver things around deliverability and
it even not getting to the people who say they want to see
it. But I put a lot of stock in the
people who'll take the time to e-mail me about something or
like, go out of the way to find a contact detail and, like,
e-mail some feedback that hasn't always been like, that's not
just compliments. Like sometimes people will be
like, hey, I saw that thing that you wrote.
Like, I think that you should consider, yeah, this like, I
don't think you paid enough attention to, like, this aspect
of it. I still think that's quite
valuable because there's like some more effort I think that
has been gone into. Delivering that message.
And so far, this is not true for everybody, but so far I have
found e-mail feedback a lot less aggressive, much less trolling,
like a lot less of the toxic stuff that makes you not want to
hear from anyone else. That's always worth in the
comments. But having said that, that's
just only been my experience. I know a lot of people get
really awful e-mail, really awful e-mail feedback.
Yeah, a lot of female journalists.
I know a lot of female journalists I know who are not
white get get horrific feedback. And I think it's to do with the
size of the platform as well. Like, yeah, you know, when
you're in a really big outlet and it's going out to, you know,
millions of people, it's sad. It's really, really sad to say,
but it just comes with the territory.
Yeah, so having essentially 2 full time careers, the code
switch between Crikey Z feed and maybe even just like your
personal life. Yeah, it is tricky.
I think I've been very fortunate that or not fortunate it.
It is also by design that the audience of Z Feed and the
audience of Crikey, which if people don't know is an
independent news organization in Australia.
Actually, it's Crikey's 26th birthday as we're recording this
month. So they've been at this since
the year 2000. Wow.
Which is like really, I think in the independent space, like
Incredible also started as a newsletter, I believe.
So crazy that newsletters are back, literally.
But the audiences for those two publications are quite
different. So even though the topics and
the like, the material is a lot of the times it's very similar.
Like there's a focus on Australian and international
politics and social issues and that type of thing because
they're talking to two different groups of people.
That helps because I can go into like Crikey mode when I'm doing
Crikey stuff and then I can go into the Z feed mode when I'm
doing Z feed stuff. Z feed is very much like young
feminist women and just feminists in general, but like
really heavily skews kind of like young women.
And so I feel like I can have a little bit more like of my own
personality in that and speak a little bit more colloquially,
even in the newsletters that I write.
Like it doesn't always need to be so like, you know, news
voicy, like I don't think I have a great news voice anyway, but
it doesn't need to be so straight.
So that helps kind of like creating that divide.
I think the other thing that has helped me more than I thought it
would is taking like the, the parts that you learn from
working in one place to the other and vice versa.
Like with Crikey, I'm working with a bigger team of people who
are all different from different backgrounds.
Like some of them have been in the industry like a really,
really long time. And so I learned so much there
as well that I'm able to like put into Z feed.
And then part of what I've been doing for Crikey as well is like
bringing them more onto these platforms, like trying to grow a
little bit more of a youth audience who are interested in
the same type of topics. So I'm taking what I've like
built at Z Feed and the skills that I have there like to that
other workplace as well. So it's kind of like you're
taking one thing over and then you like put that down and pick
up something over here and bring it over.
I don't know it. Kind of compliments.
Yeah, each other. You feel like you're learning
and there's enough difference that it doesn't feel like the
one job yet, like, all of the time.
I am really proud about what I published in both places.
I do think it would be hard if if I had a day job where it was
like, I'm really not, like, stoked about promoting this.
You know what I mean? Like, yeah, because I'm really
proud of what I do regardless. I think it takes less of a toll.
OK, well then, but I don't advise.
I don't advise again. All of this is like stuff.
That I do is very hypocritical. It's like these are all the
things that I do that I would not recommend other people to
do, so I'm not sure if I'm the best guess.
Yeah. Well, that's why I wanted to ask
you final question. How do you touch grass then?
It does not happen as much as it should.
As I said, there are times when interventions are staged.
But one thing I do really like to do, we have a record player
at at home and quite a little like growing collection of
records now. So it's really nice whether it's
like even like a weeknight evening or on the weekends or
just whenever really to put on a record because you have to
listen to that thing in order like beginning to end one side,
flip it over beginning to end the next side.
And it's service that like interactive, like pick whatever
you want in that moment. Like over stimulation almost
that we get from online like media consumption.
Like you can't just skip ahead 2 songs because like that's your
favorite song on this album. You have to go slow and you have
to consume something incompletion.
I find that really helps to like, slow my, you know, energy
levels down a little, a little bit, even if it is like an
upbeat, like, even if it's like a, you know, a puppy dancey
album. There's something about taking
the time to consume something the way that the artist created
it from beginning to end with no interference from you.
Yeah, I find quite calming. So I do like doing that.
And then as I said, like my family lives in a different
state than me, so a lot of my spare time actually is like a
long phone calls. Yeah.
But it's really nice because I'm the most online.
Yeah. No one else is as online as me.
And so you have these, like, really normal, lovely
conversations that I find quite grounding.
It's again, oh, groundbreaking. Like spend time with your
friends and family. But there is something about
that that I find. Yeah.
Helps. And I mean, look around like it
is beautiful down here. I mean, obviously I live in
Sydney. Like, that's how we know each
other. But the pace in Tasmania is so
much slower than Sydney and Melbourne and even like even
Perth, which is where I grew up, like it just there is so much
access to nature here. She's like very helpful.
And there is just a slower pace of life that has really helped.
I think like bring my anxiety down.
Like I don't think it would be surprised anyone to be like, Oh
my God, you reckon using you having?
Anxiety. Yeah, yeah.
Literally same, join the club, but it was really, it has really
helped and I just love it down here, yeah.
I love. That So those are the tips.
Have friends, have family. Have a record player?
Have a. Record player and moved to
Tasmania. I love that.
Well, thank you so much, Crystal.
Thanks for having me. Centennial World Podcast Network
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