7. The Cool Kids Now

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Welcome to the meta woman podcast we address the

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issues, opportunities and challenges facing women in the

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development of the metaverse the biggest revolution since the

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internet itself. Every week we bring you conversations with top

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female talent and business executives operating in the

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gaming and crypto industries. Here's your host Lindsey, the

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boss poss the metal woman podcast starts now.

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:24

Hello, and welcome back to the metal woman podcast.

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:28

I'm your host Lindsey the boss path. Together, we're going to

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have conversations about what it's like to be a woman in the

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gaming industry, from struggle to success recovering at all,

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try returning listeners, thank you so much for supporting the

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show. I look forward to reading your messages when you send them

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so nice. Please be sure to leave a five star rating and review

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and tell a friend about the pod that whole spiel that I'm sure

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all of you listen to podcast get every time you listen to a

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podcast. And for our new listeners. Welcome. I hope you

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enjoy today's episode. We have a really awesome guest this week.

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:58

I'm so excited to introduce Thera dope, who is a celebrity

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:02

entertainment and photography extraordinaire. Sara's

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experience is for real so cool. I got to meet her last week. And

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it was a lot of fun. A lot of interesting stories about the

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music, entertainment and gaming world. So I'm just so excited to

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have you on Sara, thank you for coming. having me. Yeah. And to

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start I would love it. If you could give the audience a little

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bit of your background

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for a little bit.

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:26

I know there's a lot. It's fine, too. It's a

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:29

good. It's an interesting background. I thought so. Yeah.

Unknown: 00:01:32

My name is Sarah dope. I work right now. I guess like,

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I work in the entertainment industry. Everything has kind of

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melded together. But I've I've had a very long relationship and

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long time, mostly in music. But you know, along the way, I have

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gotten into gaming, I've also worked a little bit with, you

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know, certain companies in general that are also in the

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film. And so now I like to say entertainment, because I have

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worked in all kinds of aspects of gaming counts to Yes, gaming.

Unknown: 00:02:09

Absolutely. Yeah, you have. I mean, you have like such

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:14

an interesting career with artists you've

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:16

worked with, and influencers and all kinds of people. But how has

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:21

your music experience kind of translated into gaming? Because

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:24

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe a lot of

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:27

your background has been with music and touring and I know

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:31

that you've done other things, but it seems like musics been

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:34

kind of the big one. So can you just tell me about how music has

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:37

sort of translated into gaming for you?

Unknown: 00:02:40

Yeah, I mean, I, again, you know, with with music,

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especially like I have, I have worked so many different

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positions in music, primarily marketing, but also along the

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way. And when I say marketing at this point, I do mean both old

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school traditional street marketing to now what is now

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digital and and I've also had experience on the road selling

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merch, I've had experience doing graphic and layout design for

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different musicians and record labels. But again, you know,

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I've been doing this on and off for 22 years now. I started very

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young as you know, this, this fan like street team kid back

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when street marketing was the thing before, before the

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internet really hit up before interactive marketing was still

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brand new. And like what does that mean?

Lindsay Poss: 00:03:37

In applicators were super in Yeah.

Unknown: 00:03:41

And like, I was very much one of those people like

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outside of every chair like I was that person handing flyers

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when my next show and similar to yours. And then and not to say

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like physical physical advertising is still very much

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important. I think it goes on. But, you know, again, this is

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before, where we are at now didn't really exist yet. Um, and

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over the years, you know, gaming has been has taken on a whole

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transfer. Right? Like, when I was growing up, it was still

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seen as, I don't want to say taboo, but it was like, oh, like

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a nerdy. A nerdy thing. Yeah.

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:18

So going in your mom's basement. Yeah.

Unknown: 00:04:21

And like very much that stereotype and, and I feel like

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a lot of people, whether they were musicians or actors, like

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anybody, you know it if we didn't want to be seen, as you

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know, oh, like, weird kid in high school, or some sort of

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social outcast or what have you, um, we have to keep those

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interests like hidden, right? Because otherwise, like we will,

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nobody really wanted to be friends with us. And I think

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over the years, especially, especially in the past few

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years, is we've seen gaming become a little more mainstream

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and, quote, socially accepted. The ball. And now if it's almost

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like, oh, like, Oh, you like video games you like, books you

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like all this, like, this is like really cool and like this

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makes you cool. And and now I think we're seeing a lot of

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people start to really open up to what has always been a part

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of their lives, right? Because they no longer have that fear of

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having to be shunned or made fun of like, whether it's, you know,

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random people or like their even their own friends, you know, I

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get snow. It's the new normal, I guess. And, and I think with,

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like, especially in the last couple years, as we've seen live

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streaming among everybody, and not just you know, the hardcore

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gamers that lived and breathed gaming no matter what, before,

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you know, before the pandemic, before lockdown, we started

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seeing all of these musicians and athletes and celebrities

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really go, Okay, well, I can't do my normal job right now. And

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I need to do something, whether it's, you know, as a hobby, or

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make some money off of it, or, you know, what have you and

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everyone really started looking at live stream, okay, like,

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maybe everybody else was really onto something here. And like,

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oh, I can, like, publicly talk about this. And people are

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accepting me and it's not weird anymore. And this is kind of

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where I started with music, especially like, I remember, I,

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you know, I had always told so many friends for at least the

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past five years, like, hey, you know, like, you should consider

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like, streaming on wage, and it's no longer just a video game

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thing. Like there are people like they have started opening

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up other outlets, and there are people doing this, you should

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really consider this if, if anything, like as an extra

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marketing tool. And I remember, you know, even some of my own,

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like personal friends like, oh, Sarah, you're crazy. And then

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lockdown happened, and all of a sudden, my phone blew up. And it

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was. So remember when you were telling us about wage? Like, can

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we hop on a call? And you mean this thing I've been telling you

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to do for like a few years now. Yeah.

Lindsay Poss: 00:07:21

That satisfaction from being great, though, had to

Lindsay Poss: 00:07:23

be sewn. Yes.

Unknown: 00:07:24

And I think it's cool. Like, especially, you know, and

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we kind of touched on this the other day, where, especially

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where live stream platforms are now where they have also opened

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up like, hey, we don't want to be just a game streaming

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platform, or we do want to open up to these other types of

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streams, whether it's, you know, IRL, or like sending musician

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perspective. You know, there are musicians, streaming their shows

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the rehearsals, sometimes it's like, it's literally just them

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chatting. And it's just that kind of extra look into their

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lives. And if you really think about it, it is another form of

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social media and just having that personal connection with

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somebody who, you know, again, especially back in the day,

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like, we didn't have that chance of like, speaking to our

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favorite musicians or, or, yeah, like there was there was none of

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that they were just completely not accessible. So yeah, that's

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where that's where I kind of, like slid right in was like, Oh,

Unknown: 00:08:23

I can talk about all of these things. And I can make these it

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made the dots easier to connect. That's what

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:30

do you have? I mean, I obviously know that. We

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:33

all know that Twitch is by far the biggest platform and all

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:36

that and, and I think that at least in when it comes to music,

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:40

I've seen sort of a lot more creative things like even zoom

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:43

concerts and whatnot. Yeah, but is there? Is there any platforms

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:47

outside of Twitch that you're kind of looking at these days as

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:50

like, No, this, I don't even know if it's a cutthroat

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:54

competition type thing like this is going to take away from

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:56

Twitch, but this could grow the way Twitch has grown, or this is

Lindsay Poss: 00:09:01

a good this is a better platform for music, or this is a better

Lindsay Poss: 00:09:03

platform for celebrity influencers. Like are you are

Lindsay Poss: 00:09:06

you looking outside of Twitch at all?

Unknown: 00:09:08

I am definitely always right. That is an important part

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of our jobs. Right. Because if even if you think about before

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live streaming really often it was you know, the Twitter and

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the Facebook and MySpace is of the world. I mean, I remember

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there was a period of time where we all thought MySpace was gonna

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be King forever. And then look where it's at now like at some

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point, Facebook, Pinus will like swooped in and they fixed a lot

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of the issues that they were having and the kind of opened up

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on some colleges and they became like a new MySpace and then

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eventually, you know, like, now I think, you know, especially

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with a lot of other issues that platform is having, like, maybe

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it's arguable, like debatable to say like, maybe Twitter is like

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that new thing, but there's always going to be somebody

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right should never just assume that you're going to be safe

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forever, because that's just not how life works, you know? And

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so, you know, I do take a look at other platforms, I will say,

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Twitch, at least my opinion is that Twitch is still the king,

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but the dominator,

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:19

yeah, I do think

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they do have a lot of other issues that they do need

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to work on. And it's very possible, like maybe YouTube's

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gonna be the next is usually I would say, like, Twitch and

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YouTube or like neck back. And we're seeing that as like a lot

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of these other like, larger deals with Twitch are now being

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ended. And like, they're all going YouTube. Right? So it's

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gonna be interesting, which is wild.

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:41

Yeah,

Unknown: 00:10:41

yeah. And so in any other see, like, I've been

Unknown: 00:10:46

watching caffeine for a while, and I don't. I'm still trying to

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know exactly what they're trying to go for there.

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:53

I guess. So what actually I sort of I didn't

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:55

necessarily have it in mind to discuss, but that one was

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:59

definitely launched more on the basis of having celebrities and

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:03

influencers.

Unknown: 00:11:04

And just, you know, it hasn't quite worked out.

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:07

I think that's for a variety reason. I think the

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:10

staying power on Twitch is really high right now. I mean,

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:13

that's it really is hard to compete with those those types

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:17

of network effects. But I just wonder, I don't know caffeine

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:21

was such an interesting idea. I guess I I didn't necessarily see

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:25

it taking over twitch. But I did think it was it was going to be

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:28

a little bit more successful. And it's been. Yeah, I'm just

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:33

not sure that they got the right talent on there to make that

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:36

happen, either. So well, I feel sad again. Yeah.

Unknown: 00:11:39

I mean, it might be a talent thing. It might also be

Unknown: 00:11:42

and again, it you know, they're still I even though they've been

Unknown: 00:11:46

around for years, I would say they're so on kind of the early

Unknown: 00:11:49

stages. Um, so who knows, but the last time I kind of poked

Unknown: 00:11:53

around in there, like, maybe it has something to do like the UI

Unknown: 00:11:56

isn't just as friendly as, right, not as intuitive. Yeah.

Unknown: 00:12:02

And on both ends, whether you are the consumer, you are the

Unknown: 00:12:06

stream. So maybe it's that. Yeah, I don't know. There's just

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something that was like, well, they're still around, there's

Unknown: 00:12:14

really still getting all of this content, but at what point like,

Unknown: 00:12:20

what is the end goal? Like?

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:25

Like, how are you gonna take more market share?

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:27

Yeah, yeah. And that's not to suggest that the current talent

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:30

isn't good or anything like that. I always just wonder about

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:33

the the right mix of people, because it really is sometimes I

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:37

mean, we saw with the Kardashians for sure that star

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:40

power comes from some unexpected places occasionally. I just

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:43

don't know that. Caffeine, unfortunately, just hasn't quite

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:46

had the right. You know, the right Juju or the right mix to

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:50

kind of work work well together. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said,

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:55

Nobody should be getting comfortable. And that's not to

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:57

say that they can't really Yeah,

Unknown: 00:12:58

figured out maybe maybe it is an underdog that one day,

Unknown: 00:13:02

all of a sudden, they just drop it. Like, wait a minute. Yeah.

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:06

How did this happen? Yeah, exactly. I agree.

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:10

Well, speaking of all this kind of content creation stuff, I

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:13

know, I would encourage everyone to go look at your photography,

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:17

because it's, it's very cool. Like, it's, I think you're very

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:20

talented is really interesting. I think it fits so well with

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:23

gaming culture, that kind of creativity that you bring in,

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:27

and what you do with your photography, but how you know,

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:30

you're the, you're one of the first people I've had on the

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:32

show, that's kind of a, it has a really artistic and creative

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:36

side. I've talked a lot. I shouldn't say you're the only

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:40

one because I don't actually know. But I talked a lot about

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:42

business with a lot of other people and haven't gotten to

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:44

explore that artistic side with other guests. But could you talk

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:48

a little bit about like, this artistic side, how you bring it

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:50

into gaming, what you do with it in the industry, the interaction

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:53

between art and gaming.

Unknown: 00:13:55

Yeah, I definitely. Like multitask. Like, I've, I've

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always been the type of person to have my lot off. I was

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actually having this discussion with somebody else the other

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day, where, if you like, any job I go to, you know, of course,

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like any company, you have a job description, but I always

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ultimately end up doing things outside of that just because

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especially now that I am older, and I have all of this

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experience now. Like, especially now I'm like, Oh, well you know,

Unknown: 00:14:28

I do this, and I know how to do this. And I know about music

Unknown: 00:14:31

copyright for my time here so I can help out with this. And with

Unknown: 00:14:35

photography, like you know, like, even at my current job

Unknown: 00:14:39

now, like we have our own photography team, and they're

Unknown: 00:14:43

fantastic. But usually if if we are doing photo shoots, photo

Unknown: 00:14:49

and video shoots that involve some clientele that I manage,

Unknown: 00:14:52

like I will also bring my gear at the very least to get some

Unknown: 00:14:55

like cool behind the scenes stuff. And then that way, you

Unknown: 00:14:59

know whether that can gets used on social or maybe it's used

Unknown: 00:15:02

internally. And you know, on the next minute, we're trying to

Unknown: 00:15:06

show the rest of the company of like, Hey, this is what we did

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over the weekend. And this is kind of the direction that we're

Unknown: 00:15:10

going like, at least I have that to help, like, present and like,

Unknown: 00:15:14

give them an idea rather than just, you know, words on paper,

Unknown: 00:15:18

like, Yeah, this is what everything looked like. So

Unknown: 00:15:21

there's that. And then, you know, I do still do photography

Unknown: 00:15:25

as like, a side job, too. And, you know, I do photography for a

Unknown: 00:15:31

local wrestling promotion here in Minneapolis. And that's

Unknown: 00:15:33

really fun.

Lindsay Poss: 00:15:34

So fun. Got a little tangent about that, how

Lindsay Poss: 00:15:38

did you get into wrestling, like that's so especially local

Lindsay Poss: 00:15:42

wrestling.

Unknown: 00:15:45

So when I was a kid, like, I used to watch wrestling

Unknown: 00:15:47

with my, like, an older brother, and we used to watch wrestling

Unknown: 00:15:49

together, like here and there, and then they kind of fell off

Unknown: 00:15:51

throughout the years. And then they kind of get back into it.

Unknown: 00:15:55

Or say, like, hi, maybe eight or nine years ago now. You know, I

Unknown: 00:16:00

was living in LA at the time, and my best friend was really

Unknown: 00:16:04

into it. And at the time, she was actually training training

Unknown: 00:16:07

to potentially eat. She thought that maybe she wanted to pursue

Unknown: 00:16:11

that as like her new, like her new career path. As soon as soon

Unknown: 00:16:15

as she was exploring that and there was there's a local show

Unknown: 00:16:20

out in like, Rosita, California, and, and happens every month.

Unknown: 00:16:24

And typically, this is where a lot of like, the bigger elite

Unknown: 00:16:27

would like, oh, farm people, like a lot of people that are

Unknown: 00:16:30

now on WWE and impact and an ADW. Like, came from this

Unknown: 00:16:37

promotion. And so

Lindsay Poss: 00:16:40

all roads go through Rosita

Unknown: 00:16:42

was Yeah, was either California who knew? Not me. So,

Unknown: 00:16:48

like, I remember, she was going to these lovely shows. And at

Unknown: 00:16:51

the time, she like, there was a period of time where she was

Unknown: 00:16:54

going through a divorce with her husband, and it was like, kind

Unknown: 00:16:56

of not great. But one month, she was like, well, now I have these

Unknown: 00:17:02

extra tickets to the show. She's like I'm making you come with.

Unknown: 00:17:04

And of course, I'm like, the sort of best friend I was like,

Unknown: 00:17:07

Yeah, sure, I'll come with you and whatever. And I had an

Unknown: 00:17:11

amazing time. And I compare it to going to ball games with your

Unknown: 00:17:17

friends. Like it's just something about like the energy

Unknown: 00:17:19

you're there with your friends. You're all just drinking beer

Unknown: 00:17:22

and just having fun and whether or not you're really into the

Unknown: 00:17:24

sport, right. Had a great time. So then I started going with her

Unknown: 00:17:29

every month. And then she at the time, like she knew a handful of

Unknown: 00:17:32

the wrestlers I started becoming friends with. I just got really

Unknown: 00:17:35

into it into wrestling again. But specifically, like I prefer

Unknown: 00:17:39

the indie shows, like smaller shows, because again, it shows

Unknown: 00:17:42

something about the energy of like a smaller room, right? And

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through mutual friends, like there was there was a wrestler

Unknown: 00:17:50

at the time, his name was this hero. When he got signed, they

Unknown: 00:17:54

changed his name to pass this Oh, no. But he was friends with

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this guy, Eric cannon, who is a wrestler from Minneapolis. And

Unknown: 00:18:03

at the time, I was like coming back and forth between

Unknown: 00:18:05

Minneapolis and La cuz I started working for hip hop label based.

Unknown: 00:18:10

And, you know, Eric also happens to work because other job was

Unknown: 00:18:15

working as staff at First Avenue, which is the you know,

Unknown: 00:18:17

the notorious, famous venue. And I remember I was out here I

Unknown: 00:18:22

think for like a week just visiting and I run into Eric and

Unknown: 00:18:26

he introduces himself Yeah, like we have mutual friends like this

Unknown: 00:18:28

hero blah, blah. And he's a super nice guy and we hit it

Unknown: 00:18:32

off, we started becoming friends. He also owns a local

Unknown: 00:18:37

promotion out here first wrestling. And they do when I

Unknown: 00:18:42

moved here I was trying to find I was trying to find things

Unknown: 00:18:46

comparable to the things that I loved about LA right whether

Unknown: 00:18:49

that's certain types of food and then also wrestling I had this

Unknown: 00:18:53

in Rosita, but like I was like, I need something out here that

Unknown: 00:18:57

like gives me that same feeling. And first wrestling at the time,

Unknown: 00:19:02

like and they still do it too. They have you know, again in a

Unknown: 00:19:06

normal year, they have a bi annual show called wrestle

Unknown: 00:19:10

Palooza and it is a mix of wrestling burlesque and live

Unknown: 00:19:15

music.

Lindsay Poss: 00:19:16

Oh, yeah. Great event

Unknown: 00:19:19

and inside First Avenue. So they build they build

Unknown: 00:19:23

a wrestling ring on the floor, but they're able because it's in

Unknown: 00:19:26

First Avenue like you also get the production of like concert

Unknown: 00:19:29

lighting. And it's my my favorite shows a shoot now and

Unknown: 00:19:32

like for a while I was just going as like, you know a fan

Unknown: 00:19:35

and Sandy and finally one day like I asked, like, hey, so you

Unknown: 00:19:39

know like, he start shooting wrestle palooza. And I remember

Unknown: 00:19:44

he was like, Sarah, I have been waiting for you to ask me this.

Unknown: 00:19:48

And he's like, yes, of course anything you need. And so I

Unknown: 00:19:52

became like one of the staff photographers for wrestle

Unknown: 00:19:54

Palooza and then eventually, like, you know, they do other

Unknown: 00:19:58

types of shows around both Minneapolis and St. Paul, but

Unknown: 00:20:01

like any time I'm in town, I'm just like, hey, come shoot this.

Unknown: 00:20:05

He's like, Yeah, of course like, okay, yeah, maybe. Yeah. And

Unknown: 00:20:08

it's just really fun. And it was almost refreshing because I've

Unknown: 00:20:11

been doing concert photography for so long that with wrestling,

Unknown: 00:20:14

especially when I'm shooting ringside, like, I get kind of

Unknown: 00:20:20

like a new rush. Because some of those matches also include, say,

Unknown: 00:20:26

ladders and flying trash. And so I'm like, yeah, pretty wild,

Unknown: 00:20:30

where I have to be completely alert to make sure that I don't

Unknown: 00:20:34

accidentally like, hit right. Which sounds crazy and wild, but

Unknown: 00:20:38

I love it.

Lindsay Poss: 00:20:41

I mean, money in the bank? Yeah. Gotta have a big

Lindsay Poss: 00:20:44

ladder for that one.

Unknown: 00:20:45

Yeah. And that's crazy. Cuz a lot of Yeah, like a lot of

Unknown: 00:20:49

the regular wrestlers on the shows, like, you know, again,

Unknown: 00:20:53

I've become friends with them at this time that like, usually

Unknown: 00:20:55

they'll tell me beforehand, like, hey, like, I'm going to be

Unknown: 00:20:58

looking for you. For this business. I'm like, okay, got

Unknown: 00:21:01

it. Like, like, have a plan. That's so cool. I

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:06

think there's also a good lesson in there that,

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:10

that you asked to be included in this and to use your skills and

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:14

that the other the on the other side? There was such a reception

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:17

to it? I think. Yeah. I think that really speaks well, first

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:21

of all, to the environment that they've built for us wrestling.

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:24

Yeah, that helps a lot. But it's just, if you don't ask,

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:28

sometimes it's hard to get anywhere. So I think that that's

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:30

a good lesson overall.

Unknown: 00:21:33

And this stuff, especially has been like,

Unknown: 00:21:35

they've also been very supportive, you know, like,

Unknown: 00:21:38

like, I guess, like any show or like, anywhere you go, like, you

Unknown: 00:21:41

know, you're gonna run into people who are not as receptive

Unknown: 00:21:48

of a woman or their, you know, they're calling out things

Unknown: 00:21:52

towards like, women, wrestlers that are not so great, right? In

Unknown: 00:21:57

the past have been just heckling, blah, blah, blah. But,

Unknown: 00:22:00

like, what's great to see is like, this stuff actually

Unknown: 00:22:03

standing up to that was like, hey, no, we don't accept that.

Unknown: 00:22:08

Like, no, like, not at our show, right? Um, and even like, there

Unknown: 00:22:13

have been a couple times where, you know, people have gotten a

Unknown: 00:22:15

little too drunk when they're, you know, they're spilling their

Unknown: 00:22:18

beer on me, or they're saying something that, like, I

Unknown: 00:22:21

internally want to turn around and maybe punch them. But at the

Unknown: 00:22:25

same time, I don't want to like cause a scene. And then

Unknown: 00:22:28

afterwards, I was like, Terry, you should have said something

Unknown: 00:22:31

like, everybody would have absolutely backed you up. And

Unknown: 00:22:34

like, nobody would have been like, oh, you know, Sarah's

Unknown: 00:22:37

starting shit. But he's just kind of comforting to know that

Unknown: 00:22:42

like, hey, look, I've got their support.

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:46

Well, I think the more you're around, I guess this

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:49

is kind of a lesson that I've been learning as I delve more

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:52

into the industry too, is that when you find people that feel

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:56

like they have your back, and they back you up, it, like, the

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:00

gender thing kind of goes out the window much more. It's like,

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:02

oh, I actually can just be myself and like down that

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:05

barrier, and still have that support. And I would also, I

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:09

guess, encourage any listeners who are on the job market or

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:13

hunting for any positions like that, to see if you can, I don't

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:18

know, find like, it's so hard to like, form these relationships.

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:21

But I kind of like the way you also. I mean, I guess it's also

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:24

like, you know, you became friends, or you became involved

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:27

in this community first, and then realized that not only did

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:31

you enjoy the entertainment factor, but that the people in

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:35

the community were great. And then we're able to turn that

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:38

into a job opportunity. So I know, that's not like replicable

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:42

across the industry or anything like that. But it's definitely,

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:46

like, if you find good people, trust me something happens.

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:49

Yeah, exactly. Well, and you, you've been working in these

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:57

kinds of entertainment and creative music industries for a

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:00

while. I know. I'm so glad to hear that you have this

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:03

experience wrestling, but I know you've we also talked about last

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:06

week how you have this experience in music and on tour,

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:09

and how you found the right people were actually able to

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:13

feel like completely comfortable on tour with and I would love

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:17

for you to share that story with the audience. I don't want to I

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:19

don't want to share it for you. But yeah, I thought that was

Lindsay Poss: 00:24:21

such a good story. And

Unknown: 00:24:23

I mean, as you can imagine, again, like, like any

Unknown: 00:24:27

form of energy, or like any industry really, like you're

Unknown: 00:24:29

gonna run into, you know, stereotypical misogynist shit,

Unknown: 00:24:34

especially as a woman like, oh, that's with somebody to get that

Unknown: 00:24:38

position or whatever. Right. And especially music. Well, I do

Unknown: 00:24:45

think it's kind of gotten better over the years definitely still

Unknown: 00:24:49

needs a lot of improvement. But like, you know, maybe dating

Unknown: 00:24:53

myself a little bit here, but like, back in the 90s. Like,

Unknown: 00:24:57

that was unheard of. And like if a woman had Any sort of pass

Unknown: 00:25:02

that gave her extra access? Oh, she's, she's got to be a

Unknown: 00:25:06

groupie. She's doing this, whatever. And, you know, I've,

Unknown: 00:25:11

I've also worked towards where I've had to worry about myself,

Unknown: 00:25:18

like, on my right. And, and back then like, like, it's kind of

Unknown: 00:25:27

messed up. Because if you think about it, like back then, you

Unknown: 00:25:29

know, there were times were like, think about I'm like, Why

Unknown: 00:25:33

didn't I, like really speak up and like stand up for myself,

Unknown: 00:25:37

and are just kind of so hostile? Like, oh, no, like, I can handle

Unknown: 00:25:41

this, like one of the dudes or whatever. I'm like, Well, no,

Unknown: 00:25:45

there was that one tour where somebody tried to crawl into my

Unknown: 00:25:48

bunk and I had to literally push him out. Like, that shouldn't

Unknown: 00:25:53

have happened, and there should

Lindsay Poss: 00:25:55

be some, like laugh about that kind of stuff.

Lindsay Poss: 00:25:57

And I find myself still sort of laughing about oh, it's so crazy

Lindsay Poss: 00:26:00

that he did that. It's like, I mean, it is crazy. And it can be

Lindsay Poss: 00:26:04

silly, but what it's more a sign of usually is the very

Lindsay Poss: 00:26:07

unsettling power dynamic that a man can just crawl into your

Lindsay Poss: 00:26:10

space. And we're all

Unknown: 00:26:13

like, no, sort of, like, accountability after that.

Unknown: 00:26:16

There was no action done. And everyone was just drunk, right?

Unknown: 00:26:21

Yeah, we're all these things. Now. We're like, wait a minute,

Unknown: 00:26:26

wait a minute. Um, anyway, so So you know, moving forward, you

Unknown: 00:26:30

know, over the years, like, and I will, like, reach those bands,

Unknown: 00:26:34

until the day I die, because they're fantastic. Um, I for one

Unknown: 00:26:40

week, I went on tour Trivium, heavy metal band and, and it's

Unknown: 00:26:45

funny, because So technically, with my job now, like,

Unknown: 00:26:49

technically, they're my client, but they have all again, you've

Unknown: 00:26:52

also become very good friends of mine. And even before I was

Unknown: 00:26:56

working this job, we'd have so many mutual friends in music,

Unknown: 00:27:00

like, you know, we had one friend specifically, I was like,

Unknown: 00:27:04

I need you guys to be best friends. Because your you love

Unknown: 00:27:09

all the same things like you both love gaming, love music,

Unknown: 00:27:13

but also really love food. And like, good food. Like, we love

Unknown: 00:27:17

fine dining, we love finding like, you know, the best of the

Unknown: 00:27:20

best in every city that we're at. Right? And, and eventually,

Unknown: 00:27:25

so the singer of Trivium, his name is Matt, he had started

Unknown: 00:27:29

streaming on Twitch. And you know, he's, like, very early on

Unknown: 00:27:33

streaming directly from his Playstation. I was like, I was

Unknown: 00:27:37

like, you know, I love for being like, this is kind of my chance.

Unknown: 00:27:39

Like, I can educate them on like, if he's serious about this

Unknown: 00:27:41

on anything he wants to do, whatever. And so I can sit in

Unknown: 00:27:45

there was like, Hey, if you actually really enjoy doing

Unknown: 00:27:46

this, and like think you want to kind of take the next level,

Unknown: 00:27:48

like I'm more than happy to help you wherever I can. And we kind

Unknown: 00:27:52

of started talking. And you know, I was like, hey, like,

Unknown: 00:27:55

you're serious about this. Ideally, you want to be on PC,

Unknown: 00:27:58

you're gonna have more control better quality like this and

Unknown: 00:28:00

that like, here's some advice on like, what you see parts of it

Unknown: 00:28:03

if you want to build your own. I have friends at Twitch, I can

Unknown: 00:28:06

introduce you to in case you need, like, additional help

Unknown: 00:28:09

there. And over the years like he's he's really taking it to

Unknown: 00:28:12

the next level where you know, he doesn't do just gaming

Unknown: 00:28:17

streams, like he does music. And by that I mean like, pretty much

Unknown: 00:28:20

anything this means like he he now like when he's on tour he'll

Unknown: 00:28:25

stream the live shows sometimes a little stream soundcheck cool.

Unknown: 00:28:29

He also does jiu jitsu he has his trainer on the road with

Unknown: 00:28:33

him. So you know, if everyone's comfortable, they'll do little

Unknown: 00:28:36

streams, you just do stuff like literally pretty much anything

Unknown: 00:28:40

that kind of gets behind the curtain of like the mystery of

Unknown: 00:28:43

Matt a fee and the VM right. And it gives fans a perspective of

Unknown: 00:28:47

like, oh, this is what they do it shows and this is what

Unknown: 00:28:49

happens. And it's been really cool to see and you know, he's

Unknown: 00:28:53

become twitches primary example, like, especially during

Unknown: 00:28:57

lockdown, like all of a sudden, oh, like all these musicians are

Unknown: 00:29:01

coming at us very fast, like they need to do something. Well,

Unknown: 00:29:04

here's what perfume is doing. And, you know, let us introduce

Unknown: 00:29:07

you to them, and they can kind of give some additional

Unknown: 00:29:10

pointers. Show them. Yeah, yeah. So so when I started working

Unknown: 00:29:15

with Astro, like, I kind of was like, let me know when you're

Unknown: 00:29:19

ready to talk about headsets, but like, specifically for the

Unknown: 00:29:22

gaming portion of your streams? Like, I'll be here, just let me

Unknown: 00:29:25

know. Um, so we started talking, and we were something else. And

Unknown: 00:29:29

you know, we're still figuring out like, cool ideas that we can

Unknown: 00:29:32

do, like, solo music, but then also the band's music. But

Unknown: 00:29:37

because of that connection, recently, he hit me up and he

Unknown: 00:29:42

was like, hey, so I don't know if company would approve this,

Unknown: 00:29:46

but like, we wanted to run an idea by you. Like, we would love

Unknown: 00:29:50

to have you on the road with us to do some additional

Unknown: 00:29:53

photography like because, you know, they know that I can do

Unknown: 00:29:56

live photography. Awesome. He's like, you know, somebody who's

Unknown: 00:29:58

also focused on Getting like the sponsorship stuff to that he's

Unknown: 00:30:02

like both, like we can use and label and Astro approve? Hell

Unknown: 00:30:09

yeah. And so we went Oh, cool. Yeah. Honestly, the best

Unknown: 00:30:14

flooring experience I've ever had. You know, and I wasn't I

Unknown: 00:30:20

was a little pampered where, you know, we're on a tour bus. And I

Unknown: 00:30:25

remember a few days before I was about to join, he hit me up. Do

Unknown: 00:30:29

you like would you prefer a middle or a top bunk? And I was

Unknown: 00:30:32

like, oh my god, I couldn't choice. I was like, Matt, I, I

Unknown: 00:30:37

typically don't get a choice. Because usually everyone's like,

Unknown: 00:30:40

Oh, Sarah, she's the smallest one just sticker at the top. And

Unknown: 00:30:43

it is quite a challenge for me to climb up to the top bonk

Unknown: 00:30:48

without like, accident, like kicking somebody else or

Unknown: 00:30:51

falling. And it's challenge. Like, oh my god, if I have a

Unknown: 00:30:55

choice, like, I'll take a middle bus, he's like, yeah, no

Unknown: 00:30:57

problem. Like, wasn't like, whenever she was small

Lindsay Poss: 00:31:00

tangent, my cousin is six, six, and works on tour

Lindsay Poss: 00:31:03

and has a very specific book, fitness. So I have heard about

Lindsay Poss: 00:31:09

the treachery of choosing a bug for for various reasons.

Unknown: 00:31:14

So So there was that, and the great thing about about

Unknown: 00:31:17

talking with them is like, it's, I feel like, it's the first time

Unknown: 00:31:20

in a very long time, I've, I've never had to worry about

Unknown: 00:31:24

anything, you know, I didn't have to worry about like, weird

Unknown: 00:31:27

or like it on me or whatever. Like, these are all solid people

Unknown: 00:31:32

who have families, and most of them have kids, you know, what

Unknown: 00:31:37

actually, like, behave that way. Right? And, you know, being on

Unknown: 00:31:42

the road, like, even the room was super accommodating. And

Unknown: 00:31:46

they kind of kept making sure like, they're like, this is your

Unknown: 00:31:49

home for a week, like treat it like your home to like, it's not

Unknown: 00:31:52

just us like, of course, like I'm trying to be like

Unknown: 00:31:55

superfight. And, like, grab a water like Sarah, this is your

Unknown: 00:31:59

home, like stop asking. Like, unless it has a name on it, it

Unknown: 00:32:03

is also yours, like you are a part of a band. And then, you

Unknown: 00:32:08

know, they, there were times where some of the other bands

Unknown: 00:32:12

like, oh, like especially after a few days kind of get to know

Unknown: 00:32:15

everybody and people realize like, Oh, you're on the tour

Unknown: 00:32:17

now. You know, there are times other bands would like, ask for

Unknown: 00:32:22

something like, oh yo, can you also take photos of this or that

Unknown: 00:32:26

I don't and sometimes even some of Matt's other sponsors. And

Unknown: 00:32:29

every single time that was like, make sure you pay, like, let's

Unknown: 00:32:32

make sure that you get paid for that. Which is a new feeling.

Unknown: 00:32:36

Like I haven't had that in a very long time where it's not

Unknown: 00:32:39

like, oh, maybe you should get paid. No, no, she should get

Unknown: 00:32:43

paid for that, she should get paid extra, like if you're going

Unknown: 00:32:46

to have her do that she should get paid. That was just very

Unknown: 00:32:51

comforting.

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:53

It's amazing how just being shown any type of

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:57

value, because as you saw, as you spoke about before, I also

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:01

have a natural tendency to go above and beyond at a job. If I

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:05

like it and care about it, I will do my best at it and do

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:08

more than what is written in the job description. Yet, it's so

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:12

nice to have someone recognize that and instead of using it to

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:15

their advantage, or just giving you you know, a nice little pat

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:17

on the head moving on, actually sort of stepping in and saying

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:22

let's work out how you're going to get paid and speaking with

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:25

the appropriate people. And I think for me, that was a good

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:29

lesson in how to be a good colleague or even just a good

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:33

friend in especially to creative types where I think people have

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:38

this, especially since everyone has social media now and there's

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:40

a ton of photographers, videographers, graphic designers

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:45

for very cheap. I think that there's a perception that oh,

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:49

you know, this friend, this person that I loosely know

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:51

should just do it for me because they know me or this

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:55

photographer and Taurus just taken a photo of me because

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:57

that's their job or their job to cover. Yeah, exactly. It's the

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:02

same thing as an unpaid internship. To me, it's like,

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:05

yeah, well, I think that people deserve to be valued for the

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:09

work that they provide. And to have someone kind of step in is

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:14

a good reminder to all of us, because I thought God, there's

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:16

been times when I haven't stepped in or I haven't wanted

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:18

to pay for things. And that's that's wrong. You know, I should

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:21

be valuing people the same way I would like to be valued. Yeah,

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:26

it was. That was such a good reminder. And I do think that

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:29

women have a tendency to undervalue them selves much more

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:33

than men do. So it was nice to that you had a meal of ally and

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:37

companion they're really that help. Great. Yeah. And that's

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:41

something where as as we talked about with wrestling, it's like

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:44

oh, if you if you get into the right environment, and you

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:46

notice that the people around you are doing right by you try

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:50

to go further that environment or Yeah, try to find a way to

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:53

get yourself paid in that environment.

Unknown: 00:34:55

Yeah, absolutely.

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:57

Yeah, I think one I think that's a good kind of

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:00

segway because I wanted to ask about the work you do with Astro

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:03

gaming. I mean, I, you, you seem to work a lot with kind of non

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:07

gamer celebrity influencers, which I think is really cool.

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:11

And I wanted to know more about that and how those partnerships

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:14

work and how the audience sizes work. And what you guys look for

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:18

in a non gamer celebrity, like, are you looking at skill a lot

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:22

are.

Unknown: 00:35:24

So I don't want to say non tech, technically, yeah,

Unknown: 00:35:27

it's definitely the professional term right now. And I still hate

Unknown: 00:35:32

it is non endemic. And I hate it,

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:36

I actually avoided saying that because

Unknown: 00:35:40

it gives the same implication as non gamer, right,

Unknown: 00:35:42

because it implies that like, oh, they don't really fit in

Unknown: 00:35:45

this space, they don't really mean, and maybe, you know, maybe

Unknown: 00:35:48

for some companies, like that's true, like they care more about

Unknown: 00:35:51

like the celebrity of it all. But for me, when I, when I think

Unknown: 00:35:57

of not, you know, these non endemic influencers, which are,

Unknown: 00:36:00

you know, basically anybody who they're in a normal era, their

Unknown: 00:36:07

primary focus isn't streaming 24/7, it's not making YouTube

Unknown: 00:36:11

videos on gaming, right, because they're often the NBA, they are

Unknown: 00:36:16

on tour, they're in the studio, they're shooting a movie, and

Unknown: 00:36:20

that is their primary focus. But for me, like, it is very

Unknown: 00:36:24

important for me to work with people who are still authentic

Unknown: 00:36:29

in that space, like they have to, like, they have to actually

Unknown: 00:36:32

genuinely enjoy this, even if it's, you know, in secret, or,

Unknown: 00:36:38

you know, not as well known. And again, in normal times before

Unknown: 00:36:42

the world shut down, like, they didn't think about streaming,

Unknown: 00:36:45

but they just really love video games to horse, you know,

Unknown: 00:36:48

they're raving methods, Xbox, or Playstation, or whatever, and

Unknown: 00:36:51

going, you know, getting invited to these Hollywood gaming

Unknown: 00:36:54

release parties or whatnot. Because again, like, you know,

Unknown: 00:36:58

for us, like, that's really the only way any sort of

Unknown: 00:37:03

partnership, or Yeah, and you start partnership or sponsorship

Unknown: 00:37:07

is really gonna work for everybody. If it's, like, make

Unknown: 00:37:12

sense for everybody involved, like not just us, but like,

Unknown: 00:37:15

their team as well. And so, I got brought in. And, you know,

Unknown: 00:37:21

I've had a very long relationship with Astro. And,

Unknown: 00:37:25

you know, back in 2011, I was working for a gaming company,

Unknown: 00:37:29

for a year. And that's kind of how I met people at Astro in the

Unknown: 00:37:32

first place. And we've kind of kept in touch throughout the

Unknown: 00:37:36

years specifically, RSVP, Aaron, like, he has always been more of

Unknown: 00:37:42

like, a culture forward. And, and my relationship with him,

Unknown: 00:37:47

like, it's been great, because he, I believe, like, he was

Unknown: 00:37:51

actually like, a huge fan of like, my photography, when he

Unknown: 00:37:53

met, like, oh, Sears, like doing this cool stuff. And, and, you

Unknown: 00:37:56

know, she's working in music, and throughout the years, like,

Unknown: 00:37:58

no matter what job I took, we would always try to figure out

Unknown: 00:38:01

how to work together, right. So it could be something as simple

Unknown: 00:38:07

as, okay, products ceding to this, these artists that I'm

Unknown: 00:38:11

working with at this label, or, you know, again, as

Unknown: 00:38:13

livestreaming started to kind of pick up it was like, okay, you

Unknown: 00:38:16

know, I do have an artist that's interested on getting on Twitch,

Unknown: 00:38:20

like, what can we do? Like, again, obviously, products

Unknown: 00:38:22

eating super easy, but is there something else that we can do

Unknown: 00:38:25

that works more? Like, kind of a partnership deal? And what does

Unknown: 00:38:29

that really mean? And what does that look like for, for

Unknown: 00:38:31

everybody involved, and maybe it's a matter of, you know,

Unknown: 00:38:36

promoting your music somehow. And this was before everything

Unknown: 00:38:39

got super tricky, with the DMCA stuff. And even, you know, in,

Unknown: 00:38:46

it was like, 2014, like, the label I was working for, we were

Unknown: 00:38:49

actually working with Twitch on, you know, Twitch music library.

Unknown: 00:38:54

And I was like, their Beta version of basically working out

Unknown: 00:38:57

these deals with different labels, allowing certain songs

Unknown: 00:39:01

to be used by streamers without having to worry about that, that

Unknown: 00:39:06

copyright strike. And so we were the first hop label to actually

Unknown: 00:39:10

get involved with that. And so maybe it was a matter of like,

Unknown: 00:39:13

okay, let's figure out something there. Like, you know, it, since

Unknown: 00:39:17

it is stream safe, like, what can we really do to push that

Unknown: 00:39:20

out together? And then finally, you know, out, because we're

Unknown: 00:39:25

like, three and a half years now. You know, I was kind of

Unknown: 00:39:30

winding down on doing social media work. I was still like, I

Unknown: 00:39:33

had started freelancing for some people, and I still, we're still

Unknown: 00:39:36

doing social, but I knew I was like, I want to get out of this.

Unknown: 00:39:39

Like, I've been doing social media for 10 years. Yeah. And

Unknown: 00:39:46

what was gonna be my next move that I thought I might be happy

Unknown: 00:39:49

with? And coincidentally, around the time Aaron hit me up and he

Unknown: 00:39:53

was like, hey, so we actually have some space open on our

Unknown: 00:39:58

influencer management him? And would you be interested in

Unknown: 00:40:02

coming? To help us out, like we think especially we're gaining

Unknown: 00:40:05

is now and it's a little more, you know, open to everybody

Unknown: 00:40:08

else, like, you are that person that we want, because of your

Unknown: 00:40:12

experience with all of these non endemic people, and you want to

Unknown: 00:40:16

help us build this thing? Sure, yeah, let's do it. And so here I

Unknown: 00:40:21

am, um, you know, I think, still know what, technically what my

Unknown: 00:40:26

title is internally. But at this point, you know, I had like, the

Unknown: 00:40:30

head of Astro referred to me as artists relationship. So I'm

Unknown: 00:40:32

like, Yeah, influencer manager and Artist Relations. Sure.

Unknown: 00:40:37

But, you know, again, like I, so I manage all of the non endemic

Unknown: 00:40:41

people that kind of come through, and that can mean so

Unknown: 00:40:44

many different things, right? It's gonna be different for

Unknown: 00:40:46

everybody, everybody's gonna be looking for different things. So

Unknown: 00:40:48

again, maybe it's something as simple as, okay, you just want

Unknown: 00:40:51

some heads up, perfect. Or maybe it's something you know,

Unknown: 00:40:56

especially in music, I kind of start looking at every single

Unknown: 00:40:59

piece of the puzzle. It's like, you know, we have a good

Unknown: 00:41:02

relationship with quite a few labels at this point. It's like,

Unknown: 00:41:06

okay, how can we, you know, is there something we can tie in

Unknown: 00:41:09

with a new album release, or a single release? Like, we have

Unknown: 00:41:13

headsets that have us like, oh, like removable tags that you can

Unknown: 00:41:19

put any artwork on? So maybe it's like, something as simple

Unknown: 00:41:21

as like, okay, let's work out a licensing agreement for you

Unknown: 00:41:24

know, putting these speaker tags out, but like, Let's release it

Unknown: 00:41:28

with an album. You know, give us your marketing plan, like, let's

Unknown: 00:41:32

start getting everything rolling. Or maybe it's, um, you

Unknown: 00:41:36

know, okay, like, we've, we've definitely tested the waters

Unknown: 00:41:38

before of doing like music newsletters. I'm like, nothing

Unknown: 00:41:43

about headsets, but it's a musician that we work with who

Unknown: 00:41:46

loves our headsets? You know, he was putting out a new EP, like,

Unknown: 00:41:50

can we get one track off of that, where it's a free

Unknown: 00:41:54

download? And we're the only like, our newsletters the only

Unknown: 00:41:57

place to get that free download? Right? We've definitely done

Unknown: 00:42:00

stuff like that. So cool. Yeah. And we've Funny enough, we did

Unknown: 00:42:06

sponsor a music tour, and then the world shot home. Oh,

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:12

I forgot about that.

Unknown: 00:42:13

Yeah. So you know, there's this artist grieves. And

Unknown: 00:42:16

again, like, you know, it's, it's almost like the domino

Unknown: 00:42:19

effect in my life. Um, there's, there's a hip hop artist named

Unknown: 00:42:23

Greece, good friend of mine. Um, you know, I used to work for his

Unknown: 00:42:27

label. That's how we knew each other. And again, throughout the

Unknown: 00:42:29

years, we're trying to figure out how to do things together,

Unknown: 00:42:32

whatever it is. And again, like, he also uses our headsets. And

Unknown: 00:42:36

so he him and his manager came to me and they're like, Hey, we

Unknown: 00:42:39

have this idea of like, would Astra want to sponsor this tour?

Unknown: 00:42:43

This is how much we would be looking for, like basically just

Unknown: 00:42:45

helping cover the cost of Van life. And then they would, you

Unknown: 00:42:49

know, skin it with the Astro logo. And, you know, because

Unknown: 00:42:53

this is still kind of, we're like, yeah, like, Yeah, let's

Unknown: 00:42:56

let's do it and just see what happens. And but how do we also

Unknown: 00:42:59

use something that helps tie that in is like, Okay, why is

Unknown: 00:43:03

Astra sponsoring your music tour? And so the way that we,

Unknown: 00:43:08

especially for those who aren't familiar with him, so it's like,

Unknown: 00:43:11

how do we kind of tie more of this together? So aside from

Unknown: 00:43:14

that music newsletter that we did, we ran a contest of giving

Unknown: 00:43:19

away two tickets to every single one of his shows. But 10 lucky

Unknown: 00:43:23

winners also got kind of like a VIP upgrade, where they would

Unknown: 00:43:28

get to meet him and play games with him on this Astro bus, and

Unknown: 00:43:33

he was going to hand them a pair of headsets in person. And we

Unknown: 00:43:36

got through two shows of the tour. And then all of a sudden

Unknown: 00:43:40

was like, Oh, this kind of thing is really serious. And

Unknown: 00:43:43

everything has shown. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, we, you know,

Unknown: 00:43:47

we, of course, we still accommodated like everybody who

Unknown: 00:43:49

won that. Yeah, we can be able to see but unfortunately, like,

Unknown: 00:43:52

we just don't know, where the state of things are at. And

Unknown: 00:43:54

like, maybe if things open up again, and you want free

Unknown: 00:43:58

tickets, like we're happy to, like, accommodate, but like

Unknown: 00:44:01

right now, everything's got to be shut down. But yeah, so we've

Unknown: 00:44:06

been looking at like, a lot of different things. And maybe, you

Unknown: 00:44:09

know, maybe it's a matter of like, some super custom

Unknown: 00:44:12

headsets, like, like we did with a certain athlete really

Unknown: 00:44:15

announced recently, like, we're always kind of looking at

Unknown: 00:44:18

different I guess, not traditional ways of working on

Unknown: 00:44:22

these issues. Because like I never want to be I never want to

Unknown: 00:44:25

be the person who like gets a budget for something and then

Unknown: 00:44:28

just throws it at whoever's popular and they may be give us

Unknown: 00:44:32

like a social media pose and then call the day like I

Lindsay Poss: 00:44:36

strategy fire fest, like I want to do cooler

Unknown: 00:44:39

shit. Yeah, where do cooler and like more meaningful

Unknown: 00:44:44

things.

Lindsay Poss: 00:44:45

I totally get that in terms of like it because I

Lindsay Poss: 00:44:49

think the words partnership or the words partnership and

Lindsay Poss: 00:44:51

authenticity, collaboration, I feel like they get thrown around

Lindsay Poss: 00:44:55

a lot and maybe not in the in the best of ways that times but

Lindsay Poss: 00:44:59

I think Do you have this question about? Have you seen

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:04

people who you've managed to people who you've worked with?

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:06

Have you seen kind of their audience coming into astral

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:11

worlds commuter? I keep saying astral astral community. I know

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:15

I'm sorry. I know, I know, please, forgive me. But anyways

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:23

are like, I guess, because I've had this debate before, but is

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:26

it kind of the celebrity or the influencer bringing their

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:29

audience to the gaming community? Or is it the gaming

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:31

community being excited to have the celebrity influencer there?

Lindsay Poss: 00:45:36

Yeah.

Unknown: 00:45:38

I think it's a little bit of, I have definitely, which

Unknown: 00:45:40

makes the most sense. But yeah, um, you know, like, for example,

Unknown: 00:45:46

there's, there's this rapper MERS he's, he's like, you know,

Unknown: 00:45:50

rap legend, and specifically on the west coast. But again,

Unknown: 00:45:55

longtime friend of mine used to work for one of his labels and

Unknown: 00:45:58

like, eventually carried over to so he's also a gamer and he's

Unknown: 00:46:01

also gotten, like, you know, he I believe he might have been the

Unknown: 00:46:05

first rapper to be on Twitch and like, really, like use it all

Unknown: 00:46:09

the time. Whether again, whether it's gaming, he also did at the

Unknown: 00:46:15

time, he broke the Guinness World Record for I believe,

Unknown: 00:46:18

longest graph, like 26 hours. That happened on Twitch. Wow.

Unknown: 00:46:24

Yes. Yeah. Our longest freestyle rap, I think. And he it's been

Unknown: 00:46:32

interesting watching him because because, of course, like he's

Unknown: 00:46:34

gonna bring some of his fans, are you okay? I'm on Twitch.

Unknown: 00:46:36

Now, of course, they're gonna, like some of them will carry

Unknown: 00:46:38

over like, especially if they're already on Twitch for other

Unknown: 00:46:41

reasons. Like, oh, yeah, my favorite rappers on Twitch?

Unknown: 00:46:43

Within what's been cool to see is like, I will notice people in

Unknown: 00:46:46

his chat, like, Oh, my God, like, I haven't, I had no idea

Unknown: 00:46:50

who you were. And like, I just saw you on the front page and

Unknown: 00:46:53

decide to check it out. And like, you can rap and I like,

Unknown: 00:46:55

love your stuff. And, and that eventually, sometimes, transfers

Unknown: 00:47:00

like merch sales, sales like now that things are opening up. And

Unknown: 00:47:03

again, like, I've seen the same thing with RVM. I've seen, like,

Unknown: 00:47:07

I've seen the same thing with a lot of musicians. Kind of okay,

Unknown: 00:47:11

it definitely works.

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:14

Well, yeah. And that's kind of what I started

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:15

figured. But it's always hard to tell because I think I mean, I

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:19

know, it's, I don't know, I don't want to sound too judgy.

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:22

But I think that a lot of these collaborations just seem empty.

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:25

And I keep wondering, who's which side is kind of winning? I

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:30

guess, you know, is, is the celebrity winning more of the

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:33

gaming audience? Or is the gaming audience? Or is the

Lindsay Poss: 00:47:36

celebrities audience coming into gaming? So

Unknown: 00:47:38

I kind of have to depend on who doesn't? Yeah. It

Unknown: 00:47:46

really depends on how it's gonna look, I think, with some of the

Unknown: 00:47:50

partnerships that we see, like, again, if it's a matter of like,

Unknown: 00:47:53

very clearly, like, a cash grab, right? Like, just throw money

Unknown: 00:47:56

and call it a day, and we get maybe one thing out of it and

Unknown: 00:47:59

like it to say, like, oh, we just this whole thing was but

Unknown: 00:48:02

like, there's nothing that keeps going, then maybe like, maybe it

Unknown: 00:48:07

is one sided. Right? Um, I think as long as, as the both parties

Unknown: 00:48:13

are kind of keeping things consistent, whether it's, you

Unknown: 00:48:16

know, content, like static content, or live streams. Or

Unknown: 00:48:21

even like, you know, I've seen the trivium actually, they did a

Unknown: 00:48:25

special, like special edition of their albums that you could only

Unknown: 00:48:30

get through twitch. But you had to watch your live streams for

Unknown: 00:48:33

that rate to be brought to this like secret link, like, oh,

Unknown: 00:48:36

there's a special edition of the album. Like, I thought that was

Unknown: 00:48:39

interesting. I think that might have happened on Twitch. So I

Unknown: 00:48:44

think as long as you're like, finding, like continuously

Unknown: 00:48:46

finding new ways, like your audience and age, it can be very

Unknown: 00:48:50

meaningful for like, both gamers and you know, your typical hard

Unknown: 00:48:55

work.

Lindsay Poss: 00:48:57

Thanks. That's Do you have any advice for people

Lindsay Poss: 00:48:58

who kind of want to get into this management space? Their

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:03

artists relations, I don't know exactly.

Unknown: 00:49:06

Exactly what the right word is my advice, especially,

Unknown: 00:49:09

especially if you're like, do not let do not let anybody tell

Unknown: 00:49:14

you that. You know, like the amount, the amount of people

Unknown: 00:49:20

that I had told me, Oh, I can't do that. I'm like, it's just if

Unknown: 00:49:26

I would have listened to them, I definitely would not be where I

Unknown: 00:49:29

am today.

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:31

That's great. So I want to do a quick little

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:33

summary. Before we get into the very last little segment. I just

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:37

want to go through some of the things we've talked about. One

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:39

is that being in the right environments, and building

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:42

community, finding friends that are in the industry can be in

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:45

any industry really, I guess, can be really helpful. And if

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:48

you can find a way to turn that into something monetary, where

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:52

you're working with people who you already know are generous

Lindsay Poss: 00:49:55

and kind and inclusive, then do it. The other thing, or one of

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:00

the other things we talked about is just that. Sorry, I just

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:06

thought we just did a lot of things. Yeah, which was great.

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:13

But then another thing we talked about was how to be good to

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:16

other to your friends in the industry. So standing up for

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:18

people when it's appropriate, valuing artistic and creative

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:21

pursuits as they should be valued, and valuing people the

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:24

way that you would hopefully want people to value yourself.

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:27

And then the third point that I want to bring up is the one you

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:30

just said, which is much easier to recall that you shouldn't let

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:33

people tell you that you can't do stuff. So find the right

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:37

communities, find the right people, and make sure you value

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:40

yourself and others and then get after it, I think. Yeah, kind of

Lindsay Poss: 00:50:45

the little lessons that we learned.

Unknown: 00:50:47

Of course, I lost a lot easier said than done. Oh,

Unknown: 00:50:51

absolutely. I guess it's important to say sometimes I

Unknown: 00:50:54

have to remind myself of this like to this day is like, I

Unknown: 00:50:57

think it's important to remember that, you know, you aren't

Unknown: 00:51:01

alone, it can often feel that way. But definitely not alone.

Unknown: 00:51:08

And sometimes feel impossible. Definitely not. And I don't know

Unknown: 00:51:14

if there's, there's like one right way to go about it. Right?

Unknown: 00:51:19

Like you just you have to hear it. I guess to your point, like,

Unknown: 00:51:25

it is important finding your support, whether that is being

Unknown: 00:51:29

professional areas or personal areas, like people who will

Unknown: 00:51:31

really off your back and uplift you and help remind you that

Unknown: 00:51:36

like, Hey, you are fully capable of doing XYZ, you can absolutely

Unknown: 00:51:40

do this. Like, you know, I'm talking over your day, like we

Unknown: 00:51:45

will just through, you know, whatever you are going through,

Unknown: 00:51:49

and then hopefully you're to a place where you're going to

Unknown: 00:51:52

remember it yourself. You know what? Yeah, screw everyone. I'm

Unknown: 00:51:56

going, I'm doing it.

Lindsay Poss: 00:51:58

Absolutely. I talked so much about imposter

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:00

syndrome in this show. But it's because as it's just so hard not

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:04

to as a woman. I feel like that's the number one thing that

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:07

has held me back. I obviously my gender doesn't help that

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:12

certainly, right. That's certainly true. But I I really

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:15

feel like if I had started with me a long time ago, I'd be in a

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:18

different place. And I just wish and I hope that more people can

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:23

learn how to do that. It's I'm still learning, you know, it

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:26

takes a long time. We all are, oh, yeah. Gotta carve your own

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:29

path and sort of figure it out. But I, the one thing that's come

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:33

up actually, a couple times in sugar, I had Keisha Howard from

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:36

sugar gamer on she's awesome little gaming community too. She

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:40

said the same thing about you're never alone, you just have to

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:43

find the people who can support and uplift you. And I really

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:46

like that because I think it's very easy to, to forget that and

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:50

to feel really helpless. So it can be hard. And as we've

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:57

learned, there's definitely times you're gonna get burned.

Lindsay Poss: 00:52:59

But if you can keep your confidence and find a support

Lindsay Poss: 00:53:02

system that helps to keep your confidence it goes a long way.

Lindsay Poss: 00:53:04

Yeah. But okay, so the very last segment, and we've kind of gone

Lindsay Poss: 00:53:08

through this a little bit, but just to solidify your answer

Lindsay Poss: 00:53:12

here, I like to ask each guest for a quick moment of

Lindsay Poss: 00:53:15

reflection. So what is one thing you would like to tell your

Lindsay Poss: 00:53:19

younger self about getting into the gaming slash entertainment

Lindsay Poss: 00:53:22

industry and being successful?

Unknown: 00:53:25

Um, I mean, again, you know, don't don't let anybody do

Unknown: 00:53:29

it. I think, again, some, like some things that even in my

Unknown: 00:53:37

adult life, I remind myself, and, you know, fortunately,

Unknown: 00:53:41

recently, I had a friend, remind me of this where, you know, do

Unknown: 00:53:46

not let anybody try to devalue you. Like, do not let anybody

Unknown: 00:53:53

tear your value down, stripping away and make you feel like,

Unknown: 00:53:58

makes you feel like you're not worthy of any, because

Unknown: 00:54:01

especially when you have very clearly done a lot of work to

Unknown: 00:54:07

get to where you are like, do not let somebody tell you like,

Unknown: 00:54:12

oh, you still need to prove that you deserve XYZ that you can do

Unknown: 00:54:17

XYZ.

Lindsay Poss: 00:54:19

Yeah. I do think that's great advice and a great

Lindsay Poss: 00:54:23

play a great thing to end on. Sarah, thank you so much for

Lindsay Poss: 00:54:26

coming on this. Thank you. We've we've had the joy of speaking

Lindsay Poss: 00:54:31

once before and it's been so much fun each time so yeah, I

Lindsay Poss: 00:54:38

love to chat. That's why they gave me a podcast. But anyways,

Lindsay Poss: 00:54:43

where can people find you if you want to be found where can they

Lindsay Poss: 00:54:46

check out your photography some of your other work?

Unknown: 00:54:48

Most most social platforms not all because

Unknown: 00:54:51

sometimes i i lag a bit and then somebody squats my name. I get a

Unknown: 00:54:56

little upset about it. But at least on the main ones Twitter,

Unknown: 00:54:59

Instagram feed Okay, all Sarah, do I still have a website? Um,

Unknown: 00:55:05

it's mostly for like, my photography highlights. Yeah.

Unknown: 00:55:10

Oh, I've always since I was a kid.

Lindsay Poss: 00:55:13

No, I find it into the internet man. We were lucky.

Lindsay Poss: 00:55:17

I think we had the pleasure of seeing it start and yeah, and

Lindsay Poss: 00:55:22

seeing the joy of not having to live with it too long. Yeah. But

Lindsay Poss: 00:55:27

thank you so much for all of our listeners out there. Again, be

Lindsay Poss: 00:55:31

sure to leave a five star ratings and reviews it helps us

Lindsay Poss: 00:55:33

out a ton. You can catch me Wednesday night on the business

Lindsay Poss: 00:55:36

of esports live after show and you can catch this podcast in

Lindsay Poss: 00:55:39

your feed every Tuesday. We will see you next week.

Unknown: 00:55:43

Thanks for joining us here on meta woman. Make sure to

Unknown: 00:55:46

subscribe to this podcast everywhere you get your

Unknown: 00:55:48

podcasts, leave a five star review and tell your friends

Unknown: 00:55:51

family and colleagues all about us. Also, make sure to follow

Unknown: 00:55:54

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Unknown: 00:55:57

content anywhere. Tune in every week for another episode of meta