This week, we check in from the Netflix studios in Los Angeles for our very first in-person recording and get N 2 Deep about our thoughts on Drake's Certified Lover Boy. Then, we share our thoughts on Netflix's new series 'Clickbait' and how it mirrors today’s viral internet culture. Finally, we share our own stories about navigating the highs and lows of viral moments and the ways it influences careers in the media industry. P.S. We're still in our feelings about Steve from Blue's Clues, too.
Okay, This Episode is Going Viral
Scottie Beam You're listening to OK, Now Listen, a bi-weekly show where we chat about what's on our minds, what we're binging, and what's blowing up our timelines. I'm Scottie Beam, media personality, content creator, and music enthusiast, and a wing connoisseur.
Sylvia O’Bell And I'm Sylvia O'Bell, culture writer, host, producer and lover of Beyoncé.
Scottie Beam And ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in OK, Now Listen history, Sylvia and I are recording in a studio together!
Sylvia O’Bell Together!
Scottie and Sylvia Reunited and it feels so good!
Sylvia O’Bell Cut the tape, that’s all we can afford.
Scottie Beam That’s it, that’s it. That is it.
Sylvia O’Bell Don't come for us.
Scottie Beam I think that was a little bit much. Reu-
Sylvia O’Bell Reu- Goo-
Scottie Beam That's it. That's all you’re going to get.
Sylvia O’Bell I truly cannot believe it. But yes, we are here in the brand new Netflix studio. And you're here in Los Angeles. You love to see it. You love to see it. First of all, I love that, apparently, breaking news, bwom bwom bwom bwoom, We're the first podcast to record in the Netflix podcast studio.
Scottie Beam Absolutely, making history already.
Sylvia O'Bell Black woman making history,
Scottie Beam Making history.
Sylvia O’Bell Again!
Scottie Beam Our picture will be up on this wall. You think I’m playing.
Sylvia O'Bell Please don’t put a white podcast and let them tell us that they were the first because you know, that's what happens.
Scottie Beam No, trying to erase history. I see it already.
Sylvia O’Bell Don’t erase this Black History.
Scottie Beam Exactly. It’s right here.
Sylvia O'Bell But no, the studio is beautiful. It's like coming, like getting a new job in the pandemic and then going to the office for the first time. That's how this feels.
Scottie Beam It feels so good.
Sylvia O'Bell We have not recorded a single episode of this podcast in the same room. We have not done this since the pilot. And I'm saying all this because I just really believe that in addition to how this L.A. sun has been hitting your skin and how you've been out here thriving this last week, I thought these were all reasons why Scottie should move to L.A. @ her on Twitter, if you agree, because look at it, we're in the studio together. We was in Malibu. We've been, we've been doing end of summer things. We was at all white Pauli's.
Scottie Beam Yes, we was.
Sylvia O’Bell I mean, haven't you been having a good time here?
Scottie Beam I have. I have been having a good time here, guys. Thankfully, I have amazing friends out here. Most of my friends are out here, I think like,
Sylvia O’Bell At this point.
Scottie Beam Yeah. So it felt good to see y’all faces, to party with y’all, to talk to y’all.
Sylvia O’Bell To touch you.
Scottie Beam Yes.
Sylvia O’Bell Hug You.
Scottie Beam To, to actually be in the same room as y'all like. It was very spiritual. Touched my heart. Of course, I had my anxieties. I had went on Instagram, you know, prior like a day before coming out here. And I was like, I am stressing, you know, one, because I don't like being away from my family. I have a hard time separating myself from my family physically. Also, you know, with the ideas of what L.A. is supposed to be, I felt like I had to be a certain size. I had to, like, slim down. I had to do certain, like I was really putting myself through the fucking wringer, y'all. So coming here, hanging out with my friends. It's been thirteen days.
Sylvia O’Bell It's been two weeks?
Scottie Beam It's been thirteen days.
Sylvia O’Bell Wow. It’s sneaking by so fast.
Scottie Beam Yes.
Sylvia O’Bell I need it to slow down!
Scottie Beam So, so far I am enjoying it very much. I am.
Sylvia O’Bell And you are my neighbor.
Scottie Beam We are literally like next door to each other. Also that was very important. I was like, I am not going anywhere if Sylvia is not close by.
Sylvia O’Bell Walking distance to be exact.
Scottie Beam I’m sorry.
Sylvia O'Bell And I love it. This is, we've never lived this close to each other in our whole friendship.
Scottie Beam Right.
Sylvia O’Bell Even if it's only for a month.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell So I'm here for it, I love that you're here. It's a great way to end the summer, you know what I mean? Like, as summer is coming to a close, and I do love that like, after being in the house, in the house for so long and missing all of last summer, that we do get to have a bit of that together. Like, that's fun.
Scottie Beam I love that, closing summer together.
Sylvia O'Bell And you know who else is closing out the summer? You know who is getting in our feels right in time for cuffing season is Mister Certified Lover Boy himself, Drake.
Scottie Beam You know it.
Sylvia O'Bell Aubrey Graham released an album the day after you got here, actually, to be exact.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell And it was like he knew.
Scottie Beam OK, as the certified Drake stan herself, what did you think?
Sylvia O’Bell Well you know, dabbled in Drake a little bit.
Scottie Beam Ain’t no dabbling. You know everything about Drake.
Sylvia O'Bell I love Drake. So, cuz like, I be in my feels, and I'm a little hopeless romantic and Drake is a toxic, hopeless romantic. He’s toxic, he’s toxic, but he’s, but he’s always singing, you know, he's always talking about relationships, women, situationships. The album is literally called Certified Lover Boy.
Scottie Beam But, it's not. But, that’s what I’m saying, the album ain’t lover boy shit, that’s for sure.
Sylvia O'Bell There's like, yeah, there's no love ballads.
Scottie Beam It’s toxic. He said, I remember that I told you I miss you. That was more like a mass text.
Sylvia O'Bell Or who the fuck is he talking to in the fucking last song? That last track? Bitch, I said, is it Rhianna? He's said, everybody's, You’re unhappy and everybody knows it?
Scottie Beam Jesus Christ.
Sylvia O’Bell Even your boyfriend off at the shows. I said, who the fuck is this nigga talking to like this? Or when he was like, I know you was mad, imagine when your girls told you I was pregnant, you were probably mad at me, you probably wanted to kill me. I know. I know. And he harmoning this shit like it’s romantic. Like you said, it’s toxic. But I love Drake. And, you know, I think that this album, I'm a Drake fan. The reason I don't say stan is because I can critique Drake. Like, I do know certain people who are like he don’t miss, he don’t take no left turns, he only take right turns. You know what I mean? Like, I think that this album to me was better than Scorpion, because I will say I did not like Scorpion that much. I mean, I just like Scorpion was too long. Certified Lover Boy, while, you know, he did start trimming it down a bit, I think he stuck to his formula and he, he gave us a solid album. I don't think he went above and beyond, like, changed up his sound or like, evolved in like a huge way. But I think for those of us who love Drake music, you’re getting Drake music. Like it's the factory album, like whatever. And I, for me, somebody like me who does love Drake music and I love, love, love the times when the production just slows down or comes in or switches up mid-song, or when he's just talking about things that probably aren't romantic but the way he's saying it sounds romantic so I'm feeling it, you know what I mean? Those are my moments. Like, I love a Drake intro, like, you know those memes that they were putting that where it was like: Drake? Yeah. And then, like, tears? That's me because I love Drake into tracks. So “Champagne Poetry?”
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell Standout song for me. Love how he comes in with it.
Scottie Beam Love the sample.
Sylvia O’Bell Love the sample.
Scottie Beam Talk to Masago.
Sylvia O’Bell Yes. And one of, I think it was one of the best beats on the album, especially like that, how it ends. Like I love the, I love you, I love you.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O'Bell But, I also love, “In Too Deep.” I decided that “In Too Deep” is my favorite song on the album. You know I said, I love how it switches up mid-song. You get, you get flow wine, and then the beat comes in and it's a party. Future comes in and it's like, OK, we out, we out. And so those are my favorite songs and I think, you know, there’s good songs throughout. What do, do you have any standouts for you?
Scottie Beam I got some standouts. You know, it's funny cuz you say you like the slow, love song Drake. I like I'm that nigga Drake. Talk shit Drake. Y’all really was playing with me and I’m still here Drake. So I’ve always been a big fan of talk shit, like, I love when he talking shit because it makes people so upset. And I’m down for it.
Sylvia O’Bell They do get so mad.
Scottie Beam They get so mad, and I love how he turns the knife. He just keeps, I'm still here. Y’all said I wouldn't be here from the first mixtape and look at me, still here.
Sylvia O’Bell Still number one.
Scottie Beam Drizzy Drake. From Degrassi. Remember that?
Sylvia O’Bell I think the Billboard charts are just all him, this week, every song.
Scottie Beam Right, so while listening to it I did enjoy it. It's not my favorite.
Sylvia O’Bell Album?
Scottie Beam It’s not my favorite album.
Sylvia O’Bell Right, right right.
Scottie Beam But, um... If You’re Reading This is. And I would say, “No Friends in the Industry.”
Sylvia O’Bell Hmm. Mm hmm.
Scottie Beam “Fair Trade,” with Travis Scott.
Sylvia O’Bell Fair trade’s a good one.
Scottie Beam Sounds like a fair trade to me. That’s all I can afford. That right there. “Knife Talk,”
Sylvia O’Bell With Savage?
Scottie Beam With Savage and Project Pat. We cannot forget.
Sylvia O’Bell Project Pat.
Scottie Beam Project Pat. But yeah, I like those, those pieces because, you know, that's the type of time that Drake, you know, I just be like, y’all really be playing with my dog. And I hear y’all because he's so lovey dovey, and he's for the women and you know,
Sylvia O'Bell And he has the formula, he has the winning formula.
Scottie Beam He gives so much to the women. But you know how that makes niggas upset,
Sylvia O’Bell It do.
Scottie Beam Because they can't perform like how he performs. They can't do what he does.
Sylvia O’Bell That’s why he’s constantly reminding them that I’m your girls favorite rapper.
Scottie Beam Exactly, right. And the fact that he can do both, I'm your niggas favorite rapper and your girls, so what’s up.
Sylvia O'Bell What's up?
Scottie Beam What’s up? You gon have to choose.
Sylvia O’Bell You like talk shit, Drake. I like talk to me nice Drake. And he gives you a little bit of both on this album. It's definitely not my, oh this is my new favorite Drake album. But I do think that it's probably the best he's given this since Views for me. Like I feel like I feel about the way I felt about Views. Views really aged well for me. So I think sometimes there's Drake songs where I'm like, like at first I’ll hear it and I’m like, eh. And then, like time will go by or I'll hear it out in the club, like how we heard “Way Too Sexy” out at the All White Party, at the RnB party.
Scottie Beam Shout out to his work husband, Future.
Sylvia O'Bell Yes. And it's like, when that beat dropped. Let me tell y’all something. Don't say, Certified Lover Boy don’t got no hits. A lot of times Drake just knows me better than I know myself and I've accepted that. And that's why I don't argue with people about Drake no more like the same way I stopped arguing with people about Beyonce. It's like, I'm not Jesus. I can't make the blind see. You can say a lot about Drake, whatever, whatever, but what you can't say is that he doesn't know how to create viral moments because he always excites the conversation around music. The anticipation for this album was ridiculous. It was like, all the time I was talking about for weeks beforehand. And the cover alone has memes coming out less than 24 hours after it was revealed, like, I am not a fan of the cover, but like it instantly took over. Like, I don't think of anybody who's listening to this podcast who hasn't seen it, but it's all pregnant emojis and different races. I see that he made a point to make sure there was more Black pregnant emojis than not. You know I counted. I was like, I'm looking for a spectrum of color shades here. And he did give that.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell But the memes that came after, it's like he knew he was like, you know what, instead of going for high art, imma go for low art. But it’s gonna to be, the Internet crazy, like.
Scottie Beam I mean he always went for low art because the meme shit is crazy.
Sylvia O’Bell Yes.
Scottie Beam Like, I, first of all Drake was birthed in that blog era.
Sylvia O’Bell He was.
Scottie Beam Like, Internet made this nigga right? And for him, he always has been in control of his narrative.
Sylvia O’Bell Yeah.
Scottie Beam He always knew what was happening with the memes. Remember when he did Views, and he was sitting on that thing and then he came out with that meme generator? The album generator?
Sylvia O’Bell Yes, and you could put yourself on,
Scottie Beam You could put Drake anywhere on you, or anywhere in your picture?
Sylvia O’Bell Yes, on the little corny, perfect.
Scottie Beam Yes, being ahead of his shit.
Sylvia O'Bell Hotline bling in itself. That video was a huge joke meme.
Scottie Beam Right.
Sylvia O’Bell We meme that thing for the whole year.
Scottie Beam Right. He knows that, you know, people will make a mockery and he is going to have to figure out how to be in control of that. And I love that. And that's why he will always remain relevant. Like it's never, for me, Drake is never too much. It's never been too much.
Sylvia O'Bell I love all the brands that went for it with it. Shout out to Trojan though. They won because when Trojan made all the pregnant emojis not pregnant, that was my favorite of all the ones I saw. I thought it was hilarious.
Scottie Beam He owns the viral. he owns the viralness and I am down for it. You know that video when he says, look around, look around.
Sylvia O’Bell You see this?
Scottie Beam We created all this shit. It's here.
Sylvia O’Bell It's true!
Scottie Beam It's true. He didn't lie. He never lied.
Sylvia O’Bell You look at this. Look at this. You see this, I did this. I made this.
Scottie Beam I did all of this. So the king of memes, I really I, I give it down. I gave it all to him, you know. Speaking of going viral. No, no. Speaking of viral,
Sylvia O'Bell Speaking of it.
Scottie Beam Sylvia said, girl, she called me up, she said, girl. She said, “girl, have you been watKaing this new Netflix series called Click Bait?” I said, no, not yet. I see people talking about it.
Sylvia O’Bell I said, get to it.
Scottie Beam And I, she said, get to it girl. I went through it, and got to it. Sylvia we got a lot to talk about sis.
Sylvia O'Bell Oh I know you do. And I need to talk about the power that going viral has because we've seen the best and the worst of what it can bring. And it's time to dive deeper into this as well. So let's have this conversation,
Scottie Beam please. Let's do it.
Sylvia O’Bell Let's do it.
Sylvia O'Bell OK, so spoiler alert, before we get into the plot of Click Bait, we want to let you know to click out now if you haven't seen it, because we get into it. OK, so Click Bait is a series about a family man, Nick Brewer, that gets abducted in a crime with an online twist and those closest to him have to race to uncover who was behind it and why. So the show premise is crazy because it literally starts with the main character getting kidnaped, essentially. And the family finds out because he's on like this YouTube type platform. The kidnappers have put it up on streaming for, and it's like, if it gets to five million views, they say they're going to kill him. So before we get into the craziness of trying to figure out who the killer is, can we talk about that for a second? Because what was frustrating to me was that, like, the family kept, Pia specifically, kept watKaing the YouTube video. I’m like, do you want him to die?
Scottie Beam Pia wanted that nigga gone.
Sylvia O’Bell I was like, do you realize that every time you watch this video, the views go up? I feel like Pia is responsible for a million out of them five million
Scottie Beam The fact that she didn't even keep like, you could, you could have dragged that little thing, that little dot to the front.
Sylvia O’Bell Refresh!
Scottie Beam Right, you be refreshing the shit, out of the page.
Sylvia O’Bell Watched it on her laptop, her cell phone, her iPad.
Scottie Beam Telling other people to watch it, hey, check this out!
Sylvia O’Bell Did you see that? I said, do you understand how this works, sis?
Scottie Beam Pia wanted her brother gone.
Sylvia O'Bell I said, I know y'all in that argument, girl. But do you understand this Is not how, it’s the opposite. But it was a very sinister twist to make going viral, like, it's like making everybody a coconspirator in this murder in a weird, like psychological way where it's like, it shows that people can't help. I felt like it was trying to illustrate something about how we can't help ourselves. You can't help but watch.
Scottie Beam Yeah. Can’t look away.
Sylvia O’Bell Like you can't help but watch, even if you know that you watKaing is going to contribute to the end of somebody's life.
Scottie Beam The harm of someone else.
Sylvia O’Bell You can't stop. That thing reached five million views the first day it was up.
Scottie Beam Yep.
Sylvia O’Bell And what's sad about it is I don't feel like that's so fictional. Like, I feel like if that was to happen in real life, it would be the same thing. And that’s crazy.
Scottie Beam Absolutely, 100%. Black Mirror, every... There are so many different. First of all, we see it with like, Like this 10,000 times and I'm going to do this.
Sylvia O’Bell Yes.
Scottie Beam You know, we see it on Instagram, we see it on Twitter. So we're not that far removed from this happening. I do believe that this can happen.
Sylvia O’Bell Yeah.
Scottie Beam So, yes, that's the sick thing about it, that people can't look away ever. Somebody could have recorded it and sent it somewhere else and watched it there instead of watKaing it again.
Sylvia O’Bell Screen record it! There’s so many ways! Screen record it, send a screen recording.
Scottie Beam I don’t want to contribute to the views.
Sylvia O'Bell I said, Nick, baby, I feel like your family hates you. I don't know how to call it because these niggas won’t stop watKaing.
Scottie Beam Exactly. And so, that's that. Another thing I have to do is I need to publicly apologize to all the cast members.
Sylvia O’Bell That you accused?
Scottie Beam That I have cursed out and accused and said, good for you and I hate you and that's why you did it. I blamed everybody, including Pia’s leather jacket. I have I have literally I have blamed everyone. There's no one that went unseen.
Sylvia O’Bell I definitely blamed Pia’s haircut at a certain point. The bangs, everything, it was your fault! Somebody got mad because they saw your sister’s haircut in the club and they said, “he’s gotta go.”
Scottie Beam This is unacceptable. If I see this leather jacket one more time, I’m throwing him up.
Sylvia O’Bell Was she hot? I said where they at, California right?
Scottie Beam I don’t know.
Sylvia O'Bell It was in Oakland. Yes, they were in Oakland.
Scottie Beam Oh, Oakland, yes.
Sylvia O’Bell And I know it's a little Kaillier up North. She ain’t hot?
Scottie Beam She ain’t have another jacket? A sweater? A Poncho?
Sylvia O’Bell She be over here, running around mysteries, trying to solve mysteries like a member of Scooby Doo’s gang.
Scottie Beam My girl did not shower one time. She was taking care of business. You hear me? She thought she was a cop.
Sylvia O'Bell Pia was annoying. And I have to just say about the whole series, never in my life have I yelled at my TV like this. You might as well have called every character Tiffany on America's Next Top Model, because I was Tyra, bitch. We were rooting for all of you! And you all failed this in multiple ways. Each focus in episode, even if I knew that person wasn't the killer, I said, damn, you could have gone about this a lot better. The only person on the cast I fuck with 100% is Sophie's mama.
Scottie Beam Oh, girl!
Sylvia O’Bell Sophie’s Black Mama? When she took a hose, to the press?
Scottie Beam She said, she don’t play about her daughter. You hear me?
Sylvia O’Bell And I fuck with that.
Scottie Beam I love the awful, like, that was so often, because she was not about the shit. She said, I'm not here for all the bullshit. I will yell at Nick Brewer’s mom, even though she just lost, her son.
Sylvia O’Bell And we know white lady you are sad about it. But you got one more time to sub-call my daughter a nigga without calling her a nigga. Even with Pia, I said, Pia had a whole lot of energy for Sophie when she thought, when Sophie, it was revealed that Sophie had cheated. But when Nick had cheated, suddenly it was. How do we know? OK, well, it does seem, hushed tones.
Scottie Beam I too was also, I also yelled at Sophie a few times like bitch, what's wrong with you? Why would you do this? One: I thought, you know, I was like, damn, this is, this is going to go the way it's going to go. Like, he, it was a passion thing and there might be something under it. But then when I found out Nick was cheating, I thought Nick was cheating. I was like, Nick, you got to go. Oh, well, I don't feel bad.
Sylvia O’Bell I'm over here. Try to describe how I feel about the reveal because I feel like the creators of this show took us on a journey where they purposely wanted to make us think it was everybody before being, like, surprise! Let me just sprinkle it in at the end. Here’s who it is. I think like for the average person, if you're not Detective Beam, you are probably like when the, when the killer is finally revealed, you're like, what? Because it’s like, we didn’t even get, the killer didn't even get their own actual episode ever, really, until the end, like it wasn't any of the people who they spotlighted. It wasn't like any of the mistresses. It was. I just knew it was Matt.
Scottie Beam I’m gonna say, they led everybody to Matt.
Sylvia O'Bell They led us to Matt only to be like psych, it’s the old white woman behind, behind Matt, at the desk.
Scottie Beam Uh-hmm, and I knew it.
Sylvia O’Bell How the hell is it this old woman who was at the desk? And, but it’s so sick because, because it was like, I think for me, the only thing I appreciate about the reveal, even though I felt like they could have left more breadcrumbs to make it a bit more satisfying. I do think that it was such a like it went back to the basics of the Internet and how it's dangerous, because essentially this old white woman was so bored in her life that she decided to catfish as Nick and that shit got kidnaped because she was bored and wants to pretend to be somebody she wasn't. And it makes you wonder how many times people who are catfish end up obviously not in this scenario, but end up hurt or like accused or whatever, because somebody sick pretended to be them.
Scottie Beam Tons.
Sylvia O’Bell Like, that is like something to fully think about where I'm like, yo, like people are really just out, like people think catfishing is all harmless shit, and it's not. And poor little Nick got kidnapped, had us thinking, I called Nick every name in the book.
Scottie Beam Oh Kaild. So sorry Nick.
Sylvia O’Bell Because I was like, Nick, I owe you.
Scottie Beam You ain't deserve it.
Sylvia O’Bell You ain't deserve the things I called you.
Scottie Beam I really was calling out your name.
Sylvia O’Bell I really called you out, y’all.
Scottie Beam Everything but a Kaild of God, because I was pissed.
Sylvia O’Bell I was like, how dare you? And all this time you really were a good dad after all. My bad homie.
Scottie Beam Yeah
Sylvia O’Bell But what you were were dumb because what a fool.
Scottie Beam I knew she was going to go into this!
Sylvia O'Bell Would you go to the person's house? You get free, you get free from a kidnaper. That itself doesn't happen. You get free and instead of calling your wife, calling you kids. Hell, call Pia if if you got to. Instead, you go to the woman's house who you know was catfishing you?
Scottie Beam He was very, he was very emotional during that time because about his father, his father had also committed suicide. So when that whole thing went down, I guess something had triggered and he was like, I need to figure this out immediately. And that's why he's, I swear, I swear I'll get home, I’ll find out.
Sylvia O'Bell Call someone, senda text. I know you ain't got no phone, but like, go home first. Be like, and then Imma go with the cops to the person whose house, because he said, I only told one person about my wife's affair, so he knew instantly who it was. Go home first, get some backup. But you know what, that's where Kai’s dumbass get it from. Because Kai.
Scottie Beam I love Kai.
Sylvia O'Bell Kai has heart right?
Scottie Beam I love that heart.
Sylvia O’Bell But Kai is as bad at decisions of his father.
Scottie Beam But better ones because he escaped. You know what I'm saying?
Sylvia O’Bell Barely!
Scottie Beam He escaped.
Sylvia O’Bell Because the cops were there. Because his mama brought the cops to him.
Scottie Beam But he escaped out of that damn whatever that little, uh,
Sylvia O'Bell Oh the trailer.
Scottie Beam Right, he ran. He knew he was younger than these old people. He can outrun them.
Sylvia O'Bell But yet and still, So here's the thing. Kai, Yes, he got smart when he hopped out the thing. But Kai, you got to the house, your mama texted you, told you not to go in. Your brother told you to come home. Everybody said no and you said nah, I’m gonna go to a murderer’s house with a bat. He didn’t know who was going to be behind that door. You only one person. It could be a gang of people behind that door. You wasn't thinking it through. Then you sit down, then you eat the food like you haven't read every fairy tale book that they teach you in school.
Scottie Beam Yeah, that was nuts.
Sylvia O’Bell And then you get in the car with them, and let them take you home? Kai wore me out in the last hour.
Scottie Beam I understood. But yes.
Sylvia O’Bell I can’t believe them old white, I was like, wow, old white woman’s responsible. Go figure.
Scottie Beam Right. And like you mentioned earlier, what's scary about the series for me is that I feel like something like this can actually really happen. Look, like folks will tune in to see what's going to happen, even though that's exactly what they shouldn't do, because that's how viral culture is now. You just can't look away from it.
Sylvia O'Bell That's sad, but it's very true. So, OK, let's explore the viral culture a little bit because first we should define it. Right? How do you define going viral? Because for me, I think I feel like the simple way to describe going viral is more so, I feel like I've gone viral when I know it's gone beyond my bubble of followers, my audience, like, thousands of people who I don't know, who don't follow me in any way are sharing my content, like when it surpasses the bubble for me. How about you?
Scottie Beam Viral media is much like a viral infection, like it’s something that spreads rapidly through a population by being frequently shared with a number of individuals. With the possibility of harming you and others. So it's much like a viral infection!
Sylvia O’Bell OK, bring it down Professor Scott.
Scottie Beam But that's what that is for me. You know, I don't have a specific number.
Syliva O’Bell Yeah
Scottie Beam I don't know what qualifies as viral anymore.
Sylvia O'Bell I think the more viral you go, the more the number has to go bigger. I remember, I'm sure there was a time, probably the first time either of us ever broke into over a hundred shares in anything that probably felt like, woah.
Scottie Beam Yeah, that was big, right.
Sylvia O’Bell And then and then I remember the first time I broke into a thousand and I'm like, whoa. And then it's like, and then like now you're like, oh, a thousand or whatever. Yeah. It's like it's kind of like it's like you, I feel like it's really based on the person and your audience level. That's why I kind of say like, I think there's, I think everybody who goes viral knows that there's a moment where it's like it starts out with everybody liking or agreeing with what you're saying. And then when it reaches the people who just because that many people like it and want to argue against it or say something against it to me, but I break that ceiling that's not like, oh, I've gone viral. Time to mute.
Scottie Beam Right. You remember when you first gone viral?
Sylvia O'Bell Oh, my first time going viral. I don't I can't say I remember, like, the first tweet or funny like one off thing. I remember the first time I went viral for work I've done. And that was the Blac Chyna story I wrote about how she beat the Kardashians at their own game. That was the first time I ever tweeted out a story and it literally went viral as if it was just a tweet or a joke, because I was used to like, oh, one hundred eighty five characters going viral, but like a four thousand word essay breaking.
Scottie Beam Right,
Sylvia O’Bell And then also it broke a million views, not only not only a million tweets or whatever, but also a million views on the BuzzFeed website. It was like my work went viral and I feel like that was such a different experience than maybe just like a tweet or a photo. But so that's why I think it stuck with me. I was nervous, too. I was really nervous because there's a lot of people who love the Kardashians. And I didn't know how people were going to feel about me talking about how Blac Chyna had beat them essentially in this moment. I think also the thing about going viral is, I never guess it. Like I always think it's like there’s times when I think, oh, this might go viral, and it doesn't. And there’s times where I never think things go viral and it does. Like when that Blac Chyna story went out, I remember my, my manager saying, are you ready for this? And I'm like, ready for what? I didn't think it was going to go viral. I didn't like, I go for lunch. I come back and I'm like, oh my God. What? Like, I just did not know it was going to go viral, but everybody loved it. And I think for me, it was one of the few examples of positivity going viral because I hadn't written long form in a long time at that point. And I think it showed me that, like, even though my version of long form writing wasn't like as academic or as like political or whatever else, and it still had the ability to gain attention and for people to connect to it. And then my voice was able for people to connect to it in that sense. That kind of gave that initial affirmation that it's like, oh, OK, good to know because I had to fight for a lot of these lines and things and I didn't know how I was going to be received, so it felt very validating for me.
Scottie Beam Wow. And what was the negative about it?
Sylvia O'Bell I think for me, the first time I realized the negative impact of going viral for your work was a different story. Well, essentially, my desk, the entertainment desk was tasked with finding different angles for the one year anniversary of Weinstein's arrest.
Scottie Beam Right.
Sylvia O’Bell So different angles of the Me Too segment. I knew everybody was covering different stuff. So I decided to talk about hip hop and how, in the music industry in general, RnB too, about how it's permeated a lot of the other sectors of Hollywood, but not music and why I felt like music was going to be the hardest for it to. And it was really interesting because up until that point, I felt like, I had, very much a lot of my writing was, you know, I was used to white people being upset or racists being upset or like, you know, Trump supporters being upset. But this is the first time I critically took a look at us as a Black community. And it was the first time I, like, men, Black men specifically, showed me how much they are not trying to look at themselves in that way or question or be held accountable for how they treat Black women like instead of seeing that as a story about look at this industry that hurts Black women the most, out of all of them, like, this is what's hurting Black women the most. You're looking at it like, you're this is, but this is Black men the most, so let’s care more about the Black men hurting the Black women, then the Black women themselves. And it was such a sad moment for me because I don't think up until that point, cuz this would have been like maybe 2017, or, yeah, I didn't think up until that point, I didn't realize how misogynistic or how deep rape culture had really put its fangs in our generation, I thought it was like an older generation problem, but I'm like, wow, no. Men, y’all really hate us.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell That's crazy, like I'm sitting here explaining to you,
Scottie Beam Especially with hip hop, it is the greatest embarrassment.
Sylvia O’Bell Were happening to women, and you're, all you can see is, Nah, he made Illmatic, so, can't talk about him or not. He may love this, you know, Step in the Name of Love. So how, you know, that matters more to me than this. And like it also just showed me how people don't read stories. They just read the tweet or the headline. Because in the story I explain why it's a sensitive topic. I explain how it was used, you know, by white women and white the white community to victimize Black men at a certain point in time. But I also then pivot to like, but we're not talking about white women here, kind of a thing. But nobody read, you know?
Scottie Beam But, you know, you want to hide something from some people, put it in a book. And, and that, they refuse to do that. Even with Instagram captions. They don't even read Instagram captions. They go just what they see on Instagram picture or video. And that's it. That's it. It's just it's so embarrassing. I remember when you posted that story and I said, OK.
Sylvia O’Bell You knew.
Scottie Beam Yeah, because I read it. I loved it, but I was like, should I share it? Because I didn't know if you wanted me to share it, especially to the type of people who, people who follow me. Unfortunately, it's a lot of men too. So I was like, I don't know if she wants me to share this because how vile these men get.
Sylvia O'Bell I haven't ever been talked to like that in my life. Like, the way, I'm used to, I was used to white men saying they want to come find me, lynch me, kill me, hurt me, raped me, ironically, all of that. But I was not. It hurt more when I was like,
Scottie Beam Absolutely
Sylvia O’Bell My brothers? Like y’all are talking this way?
Scottie Beam They ain’t brothers.
Sylvia O'Bell Exactly, is what you realize.
Scottie Beam They ain’t your brothers.
Sylvia O’Bell It’s also like, but you guys know what it's like to be oppressed. I understand why white men are confused. They don't know it's like to be oppressed like that. But you do. But you can't see past your own oppression. And that's a privilege in itself.
Scottie Beam Yeah,
Sylvia O’Bell That's the male privilege we talk about. And like when, you know, men who are certiain allies in certain ways or men who follow me and support me, like DeRay, who has a huge activist following, I mean, a lot of white people who just love to hate DeRay follow him, but he retweeted me and I was like, “awe, Hell,” when Elliott retweeted me. I was like, “Awe, Hell.” You know what I mean or whatever else, because I knew that hip hop community don’t play about they people, they don't care if you watched them shoot somebody in the street that day. They don't want to talk about it.
Scottie Beam Nope.
Sylvia O’Bell So it was very, it was just very sad and eye opening to me. And I think that was when I saw the dark side of going viral. I definitely like logged off that weekend, luckily it was homecoming weekend. It was in the middle of G-Ho and I was like,
Scottie Beam Put the phone down!
Sylvia O’Bell You know what, put the phone down, pick the Crown Royal up, and called it the day, didn’t think twice about it!
Scottie Beam Also this, too, shall pass. It goes by so fast.
Sylvia O'Bell It goes by so fast. And to me, those are the moments where it's worth it, though.
Scottie Beam Right.
Sylvia O’Bell Like, I never felt like it wasn't worth it. It needed to be said.
Scottie Beam Right.
Sylvia O’Bell We need those. And people were citing, people cite that story today. People cite that story when On the Record came out, with Drew Dixon and their story or whatever else, like it's a resource, it's research done. It needs to be in the lexicon of what we talk about digitally. So it happens. But I know you go viral so much that you probably can't remember the first time you went viral?
Scottie Beam I don’t remember. I don’t remember the first time I went viral.
Sylvia O'Bell But do you have, what's the time that you remember going viral for a positive reason?
Scottie Beam I had to really think deeply about this because we talked about it during our prep and I was like, I have to really try to think of the first time or the or I guess my favorite time going viral. And I think that is something I mentally block. Viral is cool. Yes, it has its very cool moments, but I also know the darkness that comes with it and I have experienced the darkness that come with it. It's something I pushed to the back of my mind because, you know, you can become prisoner to these moments.
Sylvia O’Bell For sure.
Scottie Beam And I just don't subscribe to that. I try not to because I've watched people become prisoner to these moments.
Sylvia O’Bell Yes.
Scottie Beam And lose their dignity, lose integrity, lose it all, because they just want to go viral again. They want to recreate that moment again.
Sylvia O’Bell Selling their souls.
Scottie Beam Selling it child, it’s on the corner for $3.99. And it's just it's something I just I can't do
Sylvia O'Bell So wait, so, cuz I feel like and speaking of that, too, like I think this goes hand in hand. I feel like there’s probably a lot of people who are surprised that, like, when you go viral for being beautiful or for being like everybody's big, like crush or for being like such an advocate for music or like, you know, I'm thinking about the tweets or whatever. When you go from being advocate for Black women or when Black women are like, Scottie’s vulnerability is what carries me through. When you go viral in those moments,
Scottie Beam That's, that's amazing.
Sylvia O'Bell Do you, do, they don't stick with you?
Scottie Beam They, the words stick with me, what people say to me.
Sylvia O’Bell OK.
Scottie Beam The viral part doesn't really stick with me, it's the fact that people respond to me, just like when we do this podcast and the responses that we get, the stories that we get, that's what sticks the most to me. I make sure that I keep those moments because I don't ever want to lose touch of why we're doing this. You know, viral media will make you lose touch with yourself. A lot of the viral moments that I have, it's because I was myself and it was the things that I stand and protect.
Sylvia O’Bell You’re stickin beside it.
Scottie Beam So, right, I'm stickin beside them, even if it's my bikini pictures, even if it's, I stick beside it. And, you know, so it's the responses that I really do enjoy, that I love to keep close to my heart, because the viral part of it will make you want the numbers. You know, what do they say? It's like, if you live off a man's compliments, you'll die from his criticism. So I know that I can't, I can't allow that to control my life. I can't allow that to be my compass for what my journey is or what my career looks like, although, like, it's really cool again. But that's how you lose the audience that you gain.
Sylvia O'Bell Trying to make them on the other side happy.
Scottie Beam Exactly. Trying to make the other side happy.
Sylvia O’Bell Being a little turncoat.
Scottie Beam Or the people who aren't looking. Focus on your audience and what they want from you.
Sylvia O'Bell Yes, that is a word, because too many people are too busy focusing on the people who
Scottie Beam The more eyes!
Sylvia Beam More eyes, the people who, who are never really going to love you in the first place.
Scottie Beam Exactly.
Sylvia O’Bell Who are never really going to give you what you're looking for, who are always going to be critical of you. You just want to please them, and that’s a lot of them pick mes. A lot of these women who I see talking about like, oh, yeah, you know, let's hear Tory Lanez out, girl, that I don't care how many times you support, they're not going to be there for you when it's you. They're not, it's going to be us. The girls you're talking to, that are going to be like, all right, let's go help her out some style, because the guys that she thought would catch her when they fall won't. You know?
Scottie Beam Exactly. So that's exactly what I try to remind myself of every single time. You know, you try to emulate this, what people want from you and what the people who aren't looking at you want from you. And it's like, oh, I got to do these things to get more to gain more followers to gain, you know, the retweets, the things that people want to see. No, just focus on what exactly your story and your mission is. Why can't you do that? I don't get that. I don't understand that. So, you driving your audience further, further away from the light when you do that and yourself from the light when you do, that
Sylvia O'Bell Yeah, and it’s not worth the trade to me. It’s not a fair trade to me.
Scottie Beam It's not, it's not, it's not a fair trade.
Sylvia O’Bell To circle back around.
Scottie Beam Circle back to Drake.
Sylvia O’Bell You saw I reference, you saw what I did there.
Scottie Beam Exactly. But I had my negative moment. It’s very teachable.
Sylvia O'Bell I was going to ask because I will say that you have more, I will say because I think you're more outspoken than me and I'm getting better at it, but you've definitely had more negative viral moments then I've had to experience and I always wonder, I think I want to ask you, like, what was one that sticks out to you? And then also how do you mentally cope and deal with those moments to keep the fortitude to keep going and not let it drive you off the Internet?
Scottie Beam If I can retweet everything that you said about your negative moment, that would be it. It was when I had spoke on State of the Culture about rape. And um, I, I knew that they were going to be people who weren't against R. Kelly, or weren’t against Bill Cosby. But I didn't know to this magnitude. I had no idea.
Sylvia O'Bell No you didn’t know, he was trying to buy NBC girl.
Scottie Beam I had no idea that this many Black men hated, like hated Black women.
Sylvia O'Bell Especially like behind the man that told them to pull they hot pants up and stop listening to hip-hop. That Bill Cosby?
Scottie Beam I was over whelmed.
Sylvia O’Bell Girl
Scottie Beam And it was the biggest heartbreak to me, to, for me to realize, this is the reality that I'm living in. And because I have been so far removed from the audience outside
Sylvia O’Bell Of the people, of logic.
Scottie Beam Right. That I was like, oh, this is the real world. This is what I'm dealing with. This is for real. Like I kept saying to myself, this is for real. Like people were wishing death, of course, wishing that I was raped, wishing that, just wishing, hoping on a star that some harm would be done to me. Every single day I would get so many responses. So, it was a very teachable moment because it made me open my eyes to understanding that there is a place outside of my audience which I don't want to be part. Ever.
Sylvia O’Bell Oh, right. Scary corners of the internet .
Scottie Beam But it did open my eyes to know that this exists and what we're fighting against.
Sylvia O'Bell Because I think that the positive side is like, it's hard to find one, but it's like, oh, this is why these conversations still have to happen.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell I think for for a moment I thought to myself, like, oh, we all know that rape is wrong.
Scottie Beam Exactly!
Sylvia O’Bell right? I thought that was a safe assumption to make about, you know, just life. But apparently not. And honestly, the irony of wishing rape upon people whilst claiming that people don't rape people is just.
Scottie Beam Right, especially me. In that conversation I had opened up about me being sexually harmed. Right? So that was, and people was like, good for you. I hoped he went further. I wish he went further. I went, you know, certain things like that. So it was like, damn, that's nuts. But it is any time that I open my mouth about Black women to protect Black women, and it was always a struggle. It was always a problem. And it always went viral.
Sylvia O’Bell Always.
Scottie Beam So that for me, I was like, OK, we have, we got some fighting to do.
Sylvia O’Bell We do.
Scottie Beam And so that's what I think the biggest teachable moment was for me. I was like, OK, I need to open my mouth more. Clearly people need to talk more about these situations because this is not OK. And these are the people that are harming women and harming so many Black women with their words, with being physical, emotions, everything. They are harming the shit out of Black women. So that was a big teachable moment for me. I, I was like, damn it does make you want to never talk again. But I knew the bigger picture was I was doing something that needed to be done and will be done again. And I will stick to what the fuck I say every fucking time I speak.
Sylvia O’Bell I know that's right.
Scottie Beam 100 percent
Sylvia O’Bell Not going to let that scare scare her.
Scottie Beam Ain't no way what Venus, what Venus Williams say? What she say?
Sylvia O’Bell Come from me if you want to, but you won't come again.
Scottie Beam You will not come again.
Sylvia O'Bell From my cosmopolitan cover story featuring Venus Williams, out on stands in October.
Scottie Beam At all!
Sylvia O’Bell Plug plug plug plug.
Scottie Beam Plug plug plug plug.
Sylvia O'Bell But, but she, that's what, she said, listen, there comes a time in your life where you realize that you don't have to tolerate disrespect. And it's like, I was like a word, you know what I mean? And I think I mean, obviously, the Williams sisters, my God, I can only imagine the things and the names they've gotten called over the years.
Scottie Beam Which is why.
Sylvia O’Bell Which is why, it's like... there's a mental fortitude that you have to have to be in this. Like, to be in this. Like I think there’s a lot of people like I wish I had one hundred thousand followers on Twitter or over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram. And yes, there's perks to that, we'll talk about that in a second. But it's hard. It is, the Internet is a very dark, scary place. And anybody who's gone viral knows that shit is not fun after a certain point it is not fun. Like you get your kikis, and your laughs. There's a reason why any time I see my tweet or anything over a certain amount, I mute.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell I'm mute the conversation. Y’all be arguing by yourselves. I hope you know, because I don't even, I don’t even see it half the time because it's just not fun. But it also is why it's so confusing to me. While people force going viral. Can we for a second talk about like, it's to me the darkest, when somebody dies, a celebrity dies. And then we see, oh, TMZ wants to be the first one to get a story out. Somebody, somebody on Twitter wants to be the first one to say something thoughtful so it can get clicks.
Scottie Beam Yes.
Sylvia O’Bell Somebody wants to be the first one to share these photos, like, oh, what's the angle?
Scottie Beam Yes.
Sylvia O’Bell How can I capitalize and build my following off of grief?
Scottie Beam Right. It's like what? And then do you understand that when you do that, people are only looking at you to give them this news that you only probably gave once?
Sylvia O'Bell Like now that's the way you want to be? That's the role you want to play on the Internet?
Scottie Beam This is who you'll play now.
Sylvia O'Bell Not even, like, how many people can you really care deeply about before it starts to look like, oh, you just putting on.
Scottie Beam You chase ambulances
Sylvia O’Bell Or you chasing clout? Because that's the other side of that.
Scottie Beam That’s nuts.
Sylvia O’Bell There's people who are on the other side of it chasing clout. Try, want to get all these clicks and views and followers because they want to feel popular.
Scottie Beam Right. Like on Click Bait the reporter was like I was the first to report,
Sylvia O'Bell That fucking reporter.
Scottie Beam The boundary!
Sylvia O'Bell That's the kind of, they make us look bad as a people. And you know, I was mad at that episode. I said, these are the journalists that give us a bad name. But yes, there's a lot of people out there who are just trauma porn.
Scottie Beam Trauma porn.
Sylvia O'Bell Like just all about it.
Scottie Beam And into it. It's really dark. There is a dark place in the Internet that I haven't gone to yet. Like dark, dark, you know, like the dark web.
Sylvia O'Bell Oh, yeah. I don't even know. It’s like in The Lion King, where it’s like, “You see those hills or shadows over there? Don’t go over there.” That’s me. I don’t go there.
Scottie Beam I do not touch that, but the forced viral shit makes you look so desperate. And I hope you know that, whoever is listening to this feeling like they have to do or say whatever they need to say to go viral. The shit that you say about Issa Rae, about her not being that cute or whatever it is, because you want people to respond to you.
Sylvia O'Bell A popular opinion, or you just want to ride on the coattails of hate.
Scottie Beam Right. Right. That's that's where you want to reside? That's it?
Sylvia O’Bell That's the neighborhood you want to live in?
Scottie Beam Why is it that you want to reside in this area? What is it that you hate about yourself?
Sylvia O'Bell Get therapy, child, because that’s the work that needs to be done.
Scottie Beam It is! And the fact that you're going to have to put that mask on every single fucking day and do this hate shit every single day will get to you. You will live shorter. I’m telling you.
Sylvia O'Bell It's always like somebody somebody somebody's beginning with a miserable life and just wants to make everybody else miserable or something like that too, a lot of times. But it's like it's not the move. But I think the the forced going viral, that is the saddest to me or makes me feel the most because we care about Black women the most. Or like the, ones when I see, I think this probably happens more on Instagram, but people feel like they have to do certain post or show parts of themselves are like do whatever to get attention. And it's like, I love the body positivity movement, I am here. You can tell the difference when a woman is posting for herself. Right? And like for, because she wants to, you know, I look good and I’ve worked hard for this or I'm not going to be ashamed of what people tell me not to be whatever for. But it's like I also want women to know that, like, just because you didn't get 2,000 likes on your picture does not mean you're not pretty. You know what I mean? Just because you got, it does not mean you have to take up another item of clothing, if that's the only reason why you're doing it. Like, please know that these likes do not equate to your self-worth. Like, that's the darkest part about going viral for me, is how much it has made people start to question their self-worth, like, oh, I'm not pretty enough. Oh, my body is not nice enough because this person got this many likes and I didn't get this many likes, so something's wrong with me.
Scottie Beam Yeah. Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell And it’s like, no.
Scottie Beam They think that that's the mirror, right? Where I know a lot of people who started out showing their body, not for the reasons that you said previously. And they continue to do it. They, they got a lot of response, they got the good responses and then they continue to post more body pics and they're not getting as many. So they feel like, oh, people are tired of seeing my body. What was the reason why you started doing it in the first place?
Sylvia O'Bell Was it for these likes, or was it for?
Scottie Beam Was it for the likes or was it for body positivity? Was it for, you know, yourself? You know what I’m saying? And I want people to understand before pressing that post button, you have to check in with yourself and say, now, am I doing this because I want a lot of likes? Or are you posting this picture because you just want to? There are pictures that I post of myself and of random things. And people have told me time and time again, it doesn't fit the aesthetic of your Instagram. It doesn't, you know, you have to go in this direction. I thought that you was going to- it's not, I don't have a direction of a social media platform. I do not. I got here without one.
Sylvia O’Bell Right.
Scottie Beam I'm good, you know? So I'm still going to post what I want. I'll post a random album photo. I'll post about my platform- my playlist. I'll post a random tick tock that I did with my brothers and his friends and stuff like that.
Sylvia O’Bell Ate those kids up for no reason.
Scottie Beam Ate them up, honey, go and check it out. It’s in my reels.
Sylvia O’Bell Ain’t no reason she had to do that to them kids.
Scottie Beam Okay. I've been practicing that dance for weeks.
Sylvia O’Bell I could tell! The focus was on your eyes! It was in your eyes!
Scottie Beam But you got to remember that this is your platform.
Sylvia O’Bell Yeah.
Scottie Beam What you want people to see. Right? And know about you. That is it. Not what you want people to like about you, what you want people to love about you, no, I don't give a fuck what you like or love about me, or hate about me. What you will know is me, or get to know is me, and this is who I am. Now, you can unfollow. You can unfollow, you can unfollow. There is a unfollow button that is provided at the top.
Sylvia O'Bell We get- OK.
Scottie Beam Immediately.
Sylvia O’Bell All right.
Scottie Beam But I just want people to know that you have to do that self work because it will tear you the fuck up. I'm not saying I didn't go through that at one point, where I was like, damn, they don't like when I'm talking about, you know, Black issues, man, you know, when I'm talking about Black women. Oh, I remember someone I was like, hey, can you talk more about music? Because, you know, this Black woman shit is tiring. And I’m like, okay?
Sylvia O'Bell Child, that's the other part the followers and audience need to realize. I think social media has given people a lot of feeling like they own people or that they, like, people owe them stuff. And that is not the case, baby, just because somebody goes viral and you follow them for that reason does that mean they owe you a thing about it. That is not your page that is their page, that is not your body, that is their body, that, it is not, they don't owe you nothing.
Scottie Beam How do you feel, why do they feel like?
Sylvia O'Bell The sense of ownership and entitlement. It’s the entitlement, and even in the smallest ways like you post a couple of things. You tag a sunglass, a hairstyle. Suddenly everybody feels like it is your responsibility to tell them every lash on your eyeball where you got it from.
Scottie Beam Yes.
Sylvia O’Bell And it's like, you know, I can post a picture and not tag a thing. Right. Like it's I am not a personal shopper. I am not your stylist. I am not none of that. So please like, the entitlement that comes with going viral, that’s another dark side of it. It's like, wow, people really think I owe them a lot more than just my work.
Scottie Beam Yes.
Sylvia O’Bell And I don't
Scottie Beam Right.
Sylvia O’Bell Which also transfers over to the next part because going viral, we can't, like, we definitely can't ignore the fact that going viral on the Internet and our popularity and social media has helped our careers.
Scottie Beam Yes.
Sylvia O’Bell It has definitely helped our careers. That is definitely a privilege of having a big audience. We do not, we're not blind to that, like for sure. I think when we were talking about having to hit certain numbers or like wanting women to not feel like they have to hit certain numbers to feel validated, it's so funny because it struck a chord with me, not with the looks part, but with the work part, because a lot of media companies, definitely, especially in a certain era when Twitter was like at its peak. You know, I mean, Twitter’s still, you know, out there, I'm just saying that like when it was becoming very apparent that Website home pages were no longer where people were getting their most news from. Nobody was typing in BuzzFeed.com or HuffPo.com. They were looking at the Twitter news line and that's where they were getting their news from. So then it became like, how do we get our stories' attention on Twitter, or on social media? And then it became, if your stories are not going viral, or they’re not hitting certain numbers, they're not good. They don't matter. They're not good enough. And that's the thing that hits from, at least my perspective of like, going viral for work that was hard for me. Because I definitely have worked places where it's all about quotas. It's all about how many views something gets. And it's like, I'm not posting a selfie. I'm writing about an issue that matters to me. And definitely to your point about talking about Black women less or whatever like that, I've always been very passionate about writing about Black issues, Black culture. Oh, my lens is always going to be about Black culture because I feel like there's not enough. And also, I was tired of other races writing about our stuff. I mean, take ownership over our narratives. That automatically is not going to do as well as if I'm talking about white artists or white issues or whatever else, because, (A), they outnumber us just like a statistical point, but then also like to get the Black audience on any type of platform, it takes trust, it takes building. There are, there's like a lot of things that come along with it. So having to deal with like this new rubric of like my work, it almost felt like it was like, oh, when you would get graded in school and as a perfectionist in type A, it would drive me crazy that like what I had to attain my value to was how many people would read or click something and not, was it well reported, was it research thoroughly, were the quotes good? You know, what I mean, did it make a difference? And I think that's where at least on my end, it really gets tricky in media and how much emphasis we put on going viral for work.
Scottie Beam When I was a digital producer at Hot 97, the quota was important. That was it. That’s number one. Your quota, your numbers were important. The praise that you get was based on the numbers, not based on the quality of work. But it was the numbers that you got.
Sylvia O’Bell Exactly.
Scottie Beam So whatever it was that people were talking about, I had to become a slave to that and post it, because that is what people were talking about.
Sylvia O’Bell Right.
Scottie Beam You can't change the direction. You can't, you know, try to switch the narrative. Nope. We're talking about this, post this.
Sylvia O’Bell Mm hmm.
Scottie Beam So that was it. It literally was click bait. That had to be, like, the headline was it. It doesn't matter if they're reading the story. It doesn't matter, you know, if they checked out, you know, to the bottom of the page, as long as they click that title on Twitter. That is all that matters. Even the re-tweets, you know, because you can post the story, they won't read the story, but they, it was enough that the headline said what it said.
Sylvia O'Bell Hmm. You’re competing with like, it's like, oh, I'm just throwing out, I never worked at Hot 97. So I'm like, oh, Mary J. Blige opened up about the abuse that she experienced in her life. Oh, well, you know, such and such said something funny. And so we're going to value that over that.
Scottie Beam You couldn’t even post about Black people doing well in something. Right? So let's say Mary J. Blige opened up a coffee shop called No More Drama. Right?
Sylvia O’Bell Right. She should do that, though.
Scottie Beam Right? That would not do numbers.
Sylvia O’Bell Right.
Scottie Beam So you would be like, oh, all right, we got to a certain- Or you could say, oh, we could do it, but we got to post a really great picture of Mary J. Blige.
Sylvia O'Bell Yeah, you had to think about, like suddenly headlines everything.
Scottie Beam right?
Sylvia O’Bell It was like, we, we were driven crazy to figure out ways to optimize, to get people to click. And it just, sometimes it just takes a soul out of work. And I'm hoping that the pendulum is swinging back to find some more balance. But that to me is definitely like one of the negative ways in which going viral changed my career, or like the importance of it. We also, as millennials are kind of on the cusp of like, my first, Instagram popped up in my senior year of college. Twitter popped up, like, I think I joined Twitter in 2010? I was halfway through college at that point. So never when I was in high school dreaming of being this person did I think that I would have to think about these things.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell That was like a switch for us. And I think now for Gen Z, it's going to be easier because they just are coming in knowing that's the game. But we had to learn a new game in the middle of the dreams that we had. And it was just, it made it a whole lot more complicated, I think it was.
Scottie Beam But we build this.
Sylvia O’Bell We built this!
Scottie Beam We built this.
Sylvia O’Bell We did.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell You see this?
Scottie Beam You see this? You see all this?
Sylvia O’Bell You see all this?
Scottie Beam We created this.
Sylvia O'Bell But I do want to talk a bit about, like, the positive parts of going viral and how it’s changed our careers because we like, you know, to end things on a good note.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell But I think from me, I can easily say that one of the reasons I love Twitter and why Twitter will always be my favorite platform is because it really helped me gain confidence in my writing voice. Sometimes, especially as a Black woman, when your voice is not heard in the boardroom or in this room or whatever, and you have to constantly try to prove yourself, Twitter in a lot of ways gives, gave me receipts to back up.
Scottie Beam Right.
Sylvia O’Bell Because my work wouldn't be enough. It should be enough.
Scottie Beam That is absolutely nuts.
Sylvia O’Bell But it's like, it's like you see, oh, I want to write a story about this, I don't know how well it's going to do. Let me, like, and a lot of times I'll tweet things as like a tester.
Scottie Beam Like a feeler.
Sylvia O’Bell Like a feeler, like, you know, this thought has been in my mind. I wonder how people will react to it. It goes viral. OK, can I write about it now? Oh, dang, you were right. I guess people are interested in that. Why was my?
Scottie Beam Why can’t you trust my voices?
Sylvia O’Bell Why was My voice?
Scottie Beam Right.
Sylvia O’Bell I got one of y’all little Ivy League degrees that y’all wanted me to have so badly, in addition to my HBCU one.
Scottie Beam And that’s still not enough?
Sylvia O’Bell And that’s not enough? OK, I wish I could have saved me the 90 grand, but whatever. But like it's really, I will say that the good side of it is that it helped me see that there are people who identify with me in my unique voice, my unique writing style, my jokes or my humor. My fears, my insecurities, just, all the ways in which Twitter helps people feel seen and represented. I wouldn't have known that there was so many people who felt represented by me, or seen by me if it wasn't for Twitter.
Scottie Beam Yeah.
Sylvia O’Bell And I think also it helped me opened up to be more vulnerable because I didn't realize the importance of it
Scottie Beam I retweet everything you said, 100 percent. I just, I believe in the power of language. So, you know, I,
Sylvia O'Bell Words mean things,
Scottie Beam Words mean things. And somewhere somebody took something and applied that to themselves to make themselves better, you know, or, or create something or do something that they've been trying to do for a very long time, but they never, they never took that step. Twitter, Instagram is really that place for some people. You know, you empowered me to do this. Yeah, that, that is the biggest thing. I think it's really cool to like, I was watching the VMAs yesterday. The fact that Ashanti is there is because of social media.
Sylvia O’Bell True.
Scottie Beam Because the VMAs people don't really know the power of Ashanti and what she's done. It's because of the relevance of social media and her going viral, it’s because she's there at the VMAs.
Sylvia O’Bell Yeah.
Scottie Beam So things like that. I'm like, yes, I don't care how she get her flowers, give it to her.
Sylvia O'Bell Because they owe it to her.
Scottie Beam They owed it!
Sylvia O’Bell And it's like, like because there's a time limit. It's like yes, during “Always on Time,” Ashanti would have of course gotten invited, but we're a decade plus removed from that, which makes me feel old. And that's why Versus was so beautiful, too, because it was giving people viral moments to come back into relevance to get money in they pockets.
Scottie Beam Right.
Sylvia O’Bell And that's the, that is the positive thing about it.
Scottie Beam Ron Isley is out here working.
Sylvia O’Bell Eating, eating.
Scottie Beam You hear me?
Sylvia O’Bell If we got a Tiny Desk of the Isley Brothers, never thought I’d see the day.
Scottie Beam Never would have. I never would have if it wasn't for the viral moment with the Verses. So that kind of stuff, those moments is what I love to see. So, yeah, that's, that's the positive with everything. Just hoping that everybody gets their flowers or goes out and gets their own.
Sylvia O'Bell So I have a question for you, though, huh? If you had to pick, would you keep it or do away with the whole concept of going viral? Like, if you had the power?
Scottie Beam I would keep it, but throw these niggas into therapy.
Sylvia O’Bell I didn’t know that was an option.
Scottie Beam I don't care.
Sylvia O'Bell Listen, but no, I agree. I would not get rid of going viral, even with all the negative that comes with it. I think the positive does outweigh it. I think it's really just a matter of like, if you go viral, how do you like, just keep your heart three stacks?
Scottie Beam It’s gonna be hard.
Sylvia O’Bell Keep your heart, because people lose themselves on the Internet every day. And I think the number one way in which I have grounded myself is to make sure you have a life offline. Make sure you have people who love you and that you surround yourself with offline people who can remind you this is not it. It can feel like the biggest deal in the world if all, you're on a screen all day. Take a step away, put the phone down, go to the park, take a walk, do something, go spend time with your family, go to dinner, like put your phones down. Feel touch and like, a group of people in real life and connect with people so that you can remind yourself that while the Internet is there and vast, huge, and scary, you have a life outside of it that you have built for yourself. Don't stop building it.
Scottie Beam Please don't forget that. Absolutely.
Sylvia O'Bell Because that balance is necessary.
Scottie Beam Please. You’ll need it. That's beautiful. That’s great. 100%.
Sylvia O'Bell All right. Well, that's our show. Thank you all for tuning in.
Scottie Beam Our show is a production of Pineapple Street Studios, in partnership with Netflix and Strong Black Lead. Shout out to our team. Our editor is Jess Jupiter, and our producer is Taylor Hosking. Our music is by Amanda Jones. Special thanks to Max Linsky and Jenna Weiss-Berman.
Sylvia O'Bell Make sure you share your thoughts with us on the episode using the #OKNowListen. Follow Strong Black Lead on the socials, @StrongBlackLead. And follow us too, I’m @SylviaObell.
Scottie Beam And I’m @ScottieBeam
Sylvia O'Bell until next time, folks, stay blessed.
Scottie Beam Bye!
Sylvia and Scottie We did it, we did it, we did it.
Scottie Beam Oh, shit, that's what I don't want to talk about my man Steve.
Sylvia O'Bell Oh my God, y’all really was just in your feelings about that white man coming back for y’all.
Scottie Beam Here's the thing. I didn't know Steve left. But I said, Steve left? When Steve left? But also, something is to say about these people that can touch you, like can talk that sounds like physical touch. It's very weird. When Steve is talking, I feel like he was brushing, like a Tabitha. How are you talking like this to me where I am crying. I don't fucking know you? Asmar?
Sylvia O'Bell ASMR? Like some people have, like a aesthetically pleasing voices.
Producer Not Asmar!
Sylvia O’Vell She said, she said Asmar. She did, and you know, you see, I picked it up without even hesitation.
Sylvia O’Bell But what is?