Who Sues the NYT? She Does.

So, I had the opportunity to speak with the CEO of Influences, Ariadna Jacob.

(actually, it’s the second time around!)

She is actually been at the center of a controversy that’s escalated into her filing an unprecedented $6.2 million defamation lawsuit against the New York Times and Taylor Lorenz, who’s the New York Times technology reporter, who published a wild story about Ari in August of 2020.

That made my stomach drop when I first read it.

So this article–that is currently behind a paywall, but we will share a link in the show notes–shares harsh criticism of Ari’s management company, her business practices and even her ethics. It recounts multiple stories of former clients who were either in lawsuits with her trying to get out of their contracts and willing to go on the record about their negative experiences with her.

So in 2020, when most people’s businesses were struggling due to a global pandemic, her life’s work was decimated overnight by a New York Times article that tried to cancel her.

I am curious what you guys think after listening to her side of the story, everybody, everybody deserves to share their side of a story.

There are two sides to every single story. I think that if you take nothing more from this conversation, it’s that everybody deserves the voice and everybody deserves the opportunity to defend themselves, especially in a situation like this work.

There are some pretty wild accusations going around. So this is absolutely at the core of what Wim is it’s supporting women in business. And the assumption can never be that somebody is presumed guilty, and they have to prove their innocence. It doesn’t work like that here.

And I feel really strongly that it shouldn’t.

I hope that you read the articles that you feel informed about what the story was, we sort of get into it a bit, of course. I asked her some really difficult questions. She was very candid with me. And I hope you listen to the story with an open mind, but also as a cautionary tale, because this type of thing could happen to anyone, whether you’re guilty or not.

And I think that’s the wild thing about this whole story. So very curious what your thoughts are about this story, definitely check out our Instagram, which is @iamwiim and sound off, let me know what your thoughts are.

It’s a very intriguing story and super grateful that Ari shared her side.

Jessy:

Ari, thank you so much for being here. I am really looking forward to chatting with you–your second time on our show. How are you feeling?

Ariadna:

I’m feeling great. It’s actually really good to see your face. As I was telling you before. You’re somebody that’s done a lot for this industry and for women specifically. And I just really am grateful to be here.

Jessy:

It’s great to see you too. I’m grateful to have you on. I’m excited to chat with you. The first time you were on the show. It was under different circumstances. And I think you’re gonna really, really make a big impact with those who are listening. I know that your goal for being on here, you told me prior tell everybody why you wanted to do this interview.

Ariadna:

I really just want to be here so that I can offer support and learnings from challenges in my life and career that could help other women entrepreneurs specifically. As I know this is a very niche industry, so some of the things that I learned–I don’t know how I could have possibly learned it without actually going through it and I certainly don’t want your list–first, you have to really go through what I went through. So if I can offer anything that could help people in our industry, I would really be happy about that.

Jessy:

I really respect that, you know, if you google your name right now, maybe the first couple things perhaps in there is going to be this New York Times article that came out. And that’s one of the reasons why we’re chatting because there’s been some updates, I guess, on that story in terms of your response to it. I guess before we dive into it, you know, maybe people are seeing your gorgeous face for the first time hearing your voice for the first time, walk us through that New York Times article and the impact that its had and sort of where we’re at.

Ariadna:

Sure. So to give just a quick background, I didn’t really just come out of nowhere, although I started Influences Doc, or Influences, Inc. and incorporated that in 2018. I’d actually been working in the influencer marketing industry before my space before influencer was really a term and I taught myself how to code at an early age. And I really just was super passionate about learning about social media and this space and really wanted to become an expert. And I had essentially in 2019, I discovered and developed some of the biggest internet stars in the world, including Charlie D’Amelio, Addison Ray, and many others and influences.com which I purchased, I think, in 2013, was finally becoming that vision that I always dreamed it would. And all the blood, sweat and tears from bootstrapping—not having, you know, big investor or any type of seed funding–it was very rewarding to finally be in a position where all the work had accumulated into this very lucrative potential opportunity. And everything was going great. In my eyes. It was probably around the time that I spoke to you or, you know, maybe a little bit before but you know, a very prominent reporter at the New York Times named Taylor Lorenz. She’s their star tech and tick tock journalist, she wrote a scathing article full of lies about my company, and she had to know they were lies, because we actually answered all her questions, factually, before she published the story. And you have to understand that we had a very short window of time to answer dozens of questions. And my attorney stopped what he was doing, and responded at length to all these questions. And these lies that we had already told her lies were still found in the article, whether they were quotes from people or what have you. They were still published. So essentially, it blacklisted me as a expert in the industry, and really destroyed my company and everything that I had to work to build.

Jessy:

I just want to interrupt you for one second, because like just a pause there, you did not come out of nowhere. I mean, you’ve been working in this industry for years, built this entire company up for months and months, years and years. And then all of a sudden, right seemingly out of the blue, you got these questions? What hours days, maybe before the art was unprovoked?

Ariadna:

And yeah, it was days before, I had heard sort of rumblings from people that there was something negative being floated around. And remember, most of my clients were over 18, but we’re very inexperienced in this world of entertainment and social media, etc. And when a powerful journalist at a big company, like the New York Times, calls you and says, you know about the allegations of your manager, and very aggressively sort of puts this negative cloud over your manager. What do you think most young people are going to do? What do you think their parents are going to do? They’re probably going to say, we don’t want to get involved in this right? or, frankly, maybe we need to lean into what she’s saying, in order for us not to get cancelled as well, I don’t know. But I can just imagine that an incredible amount of pressure and stress for a new creator who essentially is counting on their personal brand not being tarnished as a matter of their career.

Jessy:

I mean, especially you’re working with like a lot of TikTokers at the time, right. TikTokers, barely 18. This could legitimately be the first job they’ve ever had in their entire life, right? I’m certainly not experienced in terms of entertainment, PR how to handle a journalist in New York Times comes calling what do you do and look, that’s a real moment where hopefully their parents did help them out or some sort of support system in their life help them out, but ultimately, there were a handful have people who are quoted in the article saying some really shocking things transparently I mean when I first read the article my jaw was kind of on the floor because right like we had rare pretty recently connected to record a podcast episode together and just talking about the successes that you had and I think that’s what’s really hitting me as a fellow female entrepreneur you put years of your working life into your blood sweat and tears into essentially your baby, your company right? And to so quickly have not only people you don’t know turn against you but people who you didn’t know turn against you in like the blink of an eye. I mean, I think about 85 big name TikTokers, including five of the seven creators currently listed on the Forbes top earning TikTok creators list have left your agency since that Times article brands pulled their contracts. I mean used to work like you mentioned with stars like Addison Easterling, Charlie and–chick seeds–Emilio, I’d love to hear from your perspective, how did those relationships begin? And like, Where are those relationships today?

Ariadna:

Well, it’s a great question actually. Because when I started working with the first TikToker, you know, Influences was really a consulting firm for brands before it became a company where we represented talent. And so I was really on the lookout for, you know, creators that would match the brand relationships that I had. And as I got to know, the creators, a part of me saw who I was when I was 18, and I really wanted to be a YouTuber, but when I was on YouTube, that was not a career, there was really no way to monetize being on YouTube. And there was certainly very few mentors who could have assisted me in becoming that I mean, I had a company called ViaVideoBlog.com where I would literally go to a company like a venue like a restaurant and just create video reviews on my, you know, little social media SanDiegoExperience.com. And I mean, that was like, unheard of, I was doing it with a Blackberry. And you know, and I met Gary Vee in like, 2009. And he really encouraged me to keep going with my dreams and my ideas, but I didn’t have the money to sustain becoming a YouTuber, as well and be able to pay my bills. So when I saw these young people that you know, some of them are didn’t come from nothing or what have you. But their parents were very inexperienced with this whole world. They’re like, how do I support you know, Addison? Or how do I support? Charlie. I remember before Addison’s family moved to LA, they, you know, were across the country and she was so vibrant and wanted to meet with everybody. I mean, I invited her to the Streamys because I was there with another client. And I remember she shows up to my house, you know, with jean shorts on and not looking like she was ready for this like kind of Gala. And so I put a dress on, I was like, wear this dress, I put some red bottoms on her and you know, gave her a Chanel bag. And I was like, let’s go like, and she wasn’t supposed to walk the red carpet. But I snuck around, I wrote her name on a card, and I’m like you’re going in. And it was so cool to see just her shine, as well as all the other creators that I got to get to know. And so for me, it was really personal relationships. I actually cared personally about these people. And so when they exploded, and a lot of it was I think, in partly due to Taylor’s initial article about the hype house, which by the way, I was representing, I think four or five of the creators in that house at that time. And I wasn’t mentioned in that article at all. Thomas Petro really got sort of the credit for being the house manager, when in fact, I was representing those creators. And at that time, I actually encouraged Tony Lopez and Andreas Lopez and the girls to figure out agreement with Thomas that would equate to them maybe having vesting interest in the hype house brand, because they were building up that page. And I knew because of my experience representing Nick Crompton, who was in Team 10. And representing Chance Sutton and Kade Speiser–these were the original members of Team 10. And they had come to me way before this to tell me if we had done it again, I wish that we owned a piece of what we built because we built Team 10 with Jake and when we left we had nothing to show for it. We own nothing of that IP. And so I was really encouraging my clients Tony, Andrea Addison Dixie Charlie to figure out how they could, you know, basically own a piece of what they were helping create bills because I also saw a lot of the friendships fall apart once a lot of the money came into play with some of my former clients. And so that’s where I think experience is so important for young creators. Like I think I heard a podcast where somebody was like, Well, you know, it should be these kids getting managed by somebody their own age and whatnot. And it’s alarming when an adult is coming in trying to take advantage and that’s really not the case at all these creators need somebody with experience to be able to mentor them and give them helpful advice that will help them advance in their careers. And so I believe that at that time, it was sort of frowned upon by some of the people that own eyebrows like why is are you trying to do this and I think perhaps there was some space that was created between me and my clients at that point. And when some of the creators left Influences I was devastated because I just wanted to be part of it. Like everybody was exploding everybody was on these huge talk shows imagine they were on Jimmy Kimmel, or you know, he entertainment and of course personally it hurt a little bit because I’m like, I felt like I had helped them and I felt like I was part of it. But I sort of took it on the chin because I was like this is business this is Hollywood. As much as I thought that some of those agreements that had been signed with some of the creators would have some weight I realized very quickly that if you’re a manager and you go around suing big talent that you might not be very popular in the future. So I decided at that point, maybe just I have this experience from building and developing some of the biggest creators that exploded on TikTok so why don’t I take that experience and help another group of people so then I build a new group of creators that I’m investing in and developing and really building personal relationships with I brought them a bunch of them to playlist it’s called Playlist Live in Florida, I think I rented three houses and I got sponsors for those houses and a lot of those prayers wouldn’t have been able to go How do we not help sponsor their trips so you can imagine my surprise when just about a month later after going on that trip them chanting, “Ari, Ari” on that videos and I didn’t imagine that they were very excited, grateful, excited for the future. And then the pandemic happened like shortly after that, and then there was this chatting, you know, sort of behind the scenes. I don’t know when this all started. I don’t know when Taylor Lorenz got involved, although again, I know she was involved with speaking to my clients way early on, I didn’t even make any type of sinister connection. I mean, I didn’t I had no idea of anything at that point. I just, you know, again, I took what I learned from those initial creators, I thought maybe maybe I did something wrong, or maybe I wasn’t, you know, good enough at that point, maybe I didn’t have enough experience, you know, you start questioning yourself as an entrepreneur and I think that I wish I hadn’t done that as much I wish I would have been much more confident in my background in everything that I knew. But we’re human beings right? And I think that confidence is especially for women it’s something that many of us are challenged with throughout our lives. And by the way, I’m single I have no kids. I sort of gave that up for this dream I had about this company and in a way the kid you know, even though they’re over 18 the influencers were really like my family I treated them like family. I skipped you know, Christmas with my family to be with Britney when she did her super bowl commercial and Charlie and it was a really trying time for me because again, I was bootstrapped so yeah, so that’s kind of the story of how I met the influencers and then I find a bunch of new people and then this article happened.

Jessy:

How many influencers were you representing when you had the most amount on your roster?

Ariadna:

I don’t know. I believe it was around 80. Now some of them were people that had signed physical contracts. Some of them were people that we just had sort of a handshake understanding. Some of them were people that wanted one off opportunities. And one of the things that was interesting is that you know, many of the managers they don’t use like a domain name for example, for like, if I’m representing Charlie D’Amelio, I was using charlie@influences.com and then all those emails that were sent into charlie@influences.com would get forwarded to me and I had a whole system like actually like a CRM pipeline of opportunities that I feel like we really organized in a way that no other management company for influencers had been doing and I tried to explain to people that influencers and celebrities are very different in that if you’re Brad Pitt, you Have an agent that is going out to figure out who is casting for a movie that you would be great. And when it comes to digital marketing budgets, there’s no such thing as that. In fact, many of us find out who’s spending money because these brands start to email, the big, you know, talent such as Charlie D’Amelio, etc. And so that is powerful in the sense that if you have these huge celebrity influencers, and you’re getting inbound deals many times at that particular point, the brands didn’t know who else to hire besides Charlie, but they needed to spread their budget across many influencers. So of course, it was great that they had somebody that could walk them through who is out there that would match my brand, and that we could spend some of our budget with, of course, I always and the people that worked for me and with me, we would always make sure that that creator who the deal came in for was priority. But after that deal was done, if that brand came to us and said, Hey, we have more budget for this brand engagement. Who else do you suggest? Well, of course, we’re going to suggest people that we were working with and people that were signed to other companies, because again, like where we I think excelled and the difference between us and a regular Talent Agent from the past was that we were really consulting with the brand, my goal was to hit the brands KPIs to make the brand happy, so that they would come back and want to use that creator again, because I had seen so many times when a brand had hired a specific influencer on Instagram, and the paid post did not back out. And then those companies never called us again. And the influencer had a bad reputation within the marketing space of like, hey, that person doesn’t convert, don’t hire them. So we were doing something, I think a little different and disrupting this industry, that’s very much I think, in the past, like, Oh, you want my client, like, I’m just gonna throw out the highest number. And if it doesn’t back out for you, I don’t care, right, because that’s what my clients worth. And that’s just not how digital marketing people think.

Jessy:

Sure, it’s a very different world, certainly from you know, acting and Hollywood, like that’s the world that I come from, I can attest to that. And you’re learning the details and nuances of all of this as you go. I mean, you’ve got 80 clients that you’re representing a team of how many people were working with you at that time.

Ariadna:

I mean, we had like five to 10 people that were like contractors and, you know, working with the different talents. And honestly, that’s the biggest thing is that this article didn’t just destroy me and my personal reputation, there was many people in my company that I’d put in a lot of, you know, that we’re supposed to get a lot of sweat equity from, you know, that we’re putting in their time and doing it so that we could build something amazing. And it destroyed all of our dreams, not just mine.

Jessy:

And I don’t want to even like for a second understate that right? I mean, I want everyone to sort of like really, truly understand the gravity of all of this and how it played out and how many people it affected. And like, you know, you see a story in the times or you see something on social media, and it’s just so distant, right? They could feel that, right. But these are real people. You grew up in this industry, for all intents and purposes. I mean, you’re telling me that, you know, you’re like I’m a single woman, and I made a choice and you made a choice for a good reason. I mean, you were good at what you did, you had a passion for it, and you expected it to continue to flourish like it was and grow on it to itself. But there were definitely sacrifices made. And again, it’s a lot of people that were affected by this story. And by sort of the, how it all dissolved. So when something like this happens in life, whether it’s exactly like this story, or more commonly just something startling, or shocking or negative, or really difficult to go through as a human, I just firmly believe that your real people show up, you know, a lot of people will go away, because human beings are human beings, and they’re unpredictable and they have their own agendas. But you have people that show up for you. And those are people that really show themselves and you got to keep those people around forever. Were any of those people, clients or employees.

Ariadna:

Absolutely. employees, clients, advisors there, you know, friends, family, people out of the Woodworks from my high school. I mean, not right away though, because when something like this happens, they tell you don’t go out and talk about it because if people don’t know about it, then then you’re going to show it to them, right so it’s this very like weird dance that you have to do. And I just want to say that although this happened to me on a really big stage, I know that many Women are attacked in their workplace are attacked as you know, entrepreneurs with by their competitors in small ways, you don’t have to have an article in The New York Times for powerful people to start rumors about you and for people to plant a seed in somebody’s mind. And many people I think, have experienced some form of somebody being jealous of their success, or who knows what reason to go after somebody in sort of a nefarious way is because I don’t personally have that I don’t think like in my blood, like I, it’s very hard for me to understand why somebody would want to, like hurt somebody else, especially if you know if they’ve been told that and shown evidence to the fact that what they’re saying is untrue. You know, it’s one thing to go after someone because you know, that they’ve done something horrible. Anyway, I just know that many people have experienced some type of being cancelled within a small community. And I just want people understand that hopefully, some of what I can share helps with even those situations, because again, I believe that some of it started perhaps before and many points in my career different companies I’ve started I’ve had people really make things up. And it’s unfortunate because when you’re a woman, you know, the things that can make up could be even worse than you know, for man, for sure.

Jessy:

Absolutely. So once you filed this lawsuit, and I want to sort of hear in your own words, maybe even what drew you to ultimately take that step because that’s a huge step. Once you file this lawsuit, you’re sharing your story with a journalist. And that’s when Taylor got word of the story and quote, called the journalist editor and ranted that you were literally an abuser, that’s a quote and that they shouldn’t give you a platform. I just want to know what has Taylor or the New York Times response been to this lawsuit.

Ariadna:

They haven’t had much of a response except like formally besides saying that my clients came out and said that they are damaged and I’m upset by what they said but that’s not really the facts. What I’ll say is this Taylor Lorenz had a financial partnership with my direct business rivals United Talent Agency so essentially could be possibly a financial conflict of interest. Okay, she, UTA, is this huge, powerful Hollywood talent agency. And Taylor writes a glowing article about UTA in the New York Times without disclosing that UTA represents her and soon after that glowing article, it’s announced that UTA got Taylor Lorenz, a book deal. And recently, about a month ago, a New York Times journalist, I think her name’s Karen Kraus was asked to resign because she had a conflict of interest. She wrote a feature piece about Michael Phelps, that she was hired to write the book about Michael Phelps, that is a clear conflict of interest. And it’s a big No, no, as far as, you know, journalistic ethics and she was called to resign. And then she’d been there for many, many years. I’ve spoken to people who are experts on sort of the New York Times and the background of the New York Times, and there’s an author named Ashley Rendsburg. He goes through the history of the New York Times, and he was telling me that the New York Times has a history of really protecting their star reporters and sort of letting them get away with things that other people don’t get away with. Now, I don’t know if Taylor drives a lot of clicks and traffic through her sort of being you know, somebody that is controversial or sort of starts a lot of fights with prominent people. I just want to say that I had no beef with Taylor or the new york times before this all happened. In fact, I used to tell my clients that she was a really prominent reporter who could really explode your career because I saw what she did with Charlie D’Amelio. I had no idea that Taylor Lorenz was represented by UTA, I mean, that was like mind blowing, when I heard that and–

Jessy:

–and that she was represented at all, or that it was by UTA–

Ariadna:

–that she was represented by UTA, because when I lost many of my prominent clients, who should they go to, but many of them went to UTA.

Jessy:

I’m like, what percentage? Are we talking? Like? How many of those do you feel?

Ariadna:

I would say, a large percentage of the most successful ones and UTA didn’t like me from the very start. I already knew that I heard them speaking poorly about me, like with my own two ears. Obviously in the beginning, I had kind of like a monopoly on these really prominent TikTokers, because they signed physical contracts with my company. So of course, there was many companies that didn’t like me, you know–

Jessy:

–saying like, is it you know, I’ve had up I own talent management agencies yes it just like the third trying to schmooze your clients and just say like oh like you know you want to come with us because like no other company could do what we do or was it personal?

Ariadna:

Well let’s just say I listened to I was privy to a conversation where the agent said is already in the room because you need to get away with from her right now. There’s people suing her I guess because I had bought domains like to help to give them to the influencers that I was representing or as a way to, like contact them like that I was Oh, blackmailing that I blackmail people. He didn’t go into what he meant by that. I’m assuming he meant because I bought a domain name with the intention of giving it like you don’t say like, I don’t really know. But it was really badly you would thought thing of like the Wicked Witch of the West when I heard that. And the influencers was like sitting there with me like, I don’t know what to say like this is my team, like this person had been trying to connect us so we could all work together because I had some ideas and XYZ and he was like, I really want her to be part of the team. And then this phone call comes in and it’s like, get away from her she’s gonna try to manipulate you she’s gonna try to put ideas in your head and once she gets in there, I won’t be able to like, you know, get through to you. It’s like, “what?!”

Jessy:

And so you’re hearing this conversation happening, what did the conversation sound like between you and that influencer when they got off the phone? And like, I don’t know even on that specific story, like how did that relationship at you know and are still exists today?

Ariadna:

That person didn’t really feed too much into it. Like, after they got off the phone. They were like, Man, that was kind of weird. And I was like, Listen, like, you know, that person was like, Don’t worry, like, I get it. You know, this is like competitive space. And you know, whatever you bring me like, well, we can work together. I think it made them look bad, to be honest with you, because he knew me. And I had given this person other opportunities to, you know, interview with Gary Vee. And I personally connected this person to other prominent people. And I was really just lending my advice, honestly, at that point, without a contract as somebody that was helping, and this person was like, of course, whatever comes in, I’ll take care of you. But that person actually unfollowed me the day that Taylor’s article came out in the New York Times. So I think what Taylor’s article did was sort of like give credibility to all these like untrue rumors of from my competitors, or, you know, started by her. I don’t really I can’t speculate on you know, where something started. But I can say that when you work at the New York Times, and you put something on paper, that’s a really different than just like people talking about about you.

Jessy:

And it feeds it, right. I mean, if anybody had, you know, heard any rumblings of anything, any sort of negative something, or they thought something–

Ariadna:

Well in the competitors want to pile on, if you hear something negative about your competitor, you know, most people are like, yeah, oh, my gosh, did you hear but they spread him faster, even just because it’s not, and it’s somebody that’s prominent, so they’re like, well, Taylor Lorenz, saying, and by the way, there’s not that many people that explain the creative economy for you know, in layman’s terms for a wide audience, so Taylor Lorenz’s role is really as an educator for the masses to understand our industry. And there are so many other journalists that look up to her and follow her beat. Of course, they’re not going to go around or against somebody that is who they want to become one day, right? Of course, they’re not going to you know, sort of challenge that person and I what I found out was just man is everybody in this industry friends with Taylor Lorenz. I’m like, you know, the Business Insider comes out in that she had come from Business Insider, she had been at the Atlantic, she had been on all these places. And then she was friends with all these other journalists that I thought maybe would tell my story fairly. And in fact, that didn’t really happen. So yeah, that was really challenging. What was challenging was feeling silenced. And even at that point, I really didn’t think there was any hope to file a lawsuit to file a lawsuit against the New York Times is incredibly challenging, almost impossible. I had very intelligent people that I respect who told me Ari, you know, we don’t think that you can sue the New York Times and be successful or even just have the means to sue them in the first place or find an attorney that will help you because it’s a very challenging thing. And so I sort of look to my wounds and I’ve had a lot of terrible things happen to me in business and just as a woman that I just got up from and was able to endure and just be like, you know, my goal is this company like I’m not gonna like feed into this negativity and people talking bad about me or whatever things that are completely untrue. I’ve had attacks on my reputation in the past, but not ones that hit this heart. This one hurt I think, because imagine being broken up with by 85 boyfriends all in one day. I mean, these are people that you love that you care about that you wanted to see succeed, that you hope care about you as much as you care about them. Obviously, we know this is a business, but it’s really hard to separate when you are in that position of mentoring and helping and whatnot. And even with the brands that I had, you know, many brands hadn’t invested budget into a creator house, so I had to build all these decks like for months I had been pitching and you know, with some of the big companies, it takes months to get a contract signed, and so I’d finally gotten those contracts and so when the DocuSign gets cancelled on the day of the article, like it’s, it was heartbreaking. And so I didn’t really have any recourse but there’s not much recourse for someone like me who is a non celebrity to get the truth out after somebody this powerful sort of smears you and says things that are untrue and on top of it, I probably sounded like a conspiracy theorist because I didn’t know what was going on. I’m like, something is weird. I feel like I’m being attacked. Like, I don’t know why, like, I’m and you start questioning, like, Am I a terrible person? Did I, like do anything to these people? And I knew I didn’t, but like, I really almost started going a little crazy.

Jessy:

If enough people start saying something. I mean, what’s the common? You know, the commonality? It’s you.

Ariadna:

Yeah, exactly.

Jessy:

You know, and but it’s like, you know, it’s in the New York Times, I mean, even you I’m sure before you’re saying I pointed people to her articles before. I mean, she asked, check her resources, and she has to check the people that she speaks with. And this can’t be we have these ideas of how things are you trusted these people, you worked with these people, I know that yes, of course, it’s a professional relationship, managing talent, incredibly personal. For anyone who is watching, listening, I can vouch for that. And I’m one who I always like to keep a distance between myself and clients. It’s just my personal preference. And then avatar, just you form very personal relationships with these people give a client list of you know, 80, something people, I’m sure not all of them were as close as others. But a significant amount of those people in the blink of an eye. Again, when I read this article, when I first learned of this story, my heart sank, because I just relate to your position so much, I know how hard and challenging it is to devote so much of your life to building something that you believe in, that you’re good at, you feel like this is my purpose, to just have all of these people, hopefully, it wasn’t all of them. But so many of these people just turn on you. And people just believe this story based on the fact that it’s simply published in a publication like the New York Times. So I want to ask some pointed questions that were in the article as well, you know, accusations that were made, because I know that there are going to be people who immediately are going to empathize with you for a number of different reasons. And I know that you’re still gonna have some critics who are listening right now. And they’re like, what about this? And what about that, and I want to give you the opportunity to address these specific things. So if we’re okay with it, can I ask you about a few of the lazy fins, I want to hear what you have to say about them. And I think a lot of other people would as well. So you got into the tick tock house came like right at the beginning of its popularity, and it’s continued to be a thing. It was written in a bunch of different articles. I mean, it was such a thing with TikTok houses. These are not just the run of the mill houses, though these are homes that very few people in the world can afford. So let’s first just talk about the Kids Next Door house that recently sold I think, for $3.7 million when you get this house and what was the plan to pay a mortgage that costs over $16,000 a month.

Ariadna:

So the leader of the Kids Next Door, which was Marcus Olan, him and his girlfriend came to me and they said, “We have to get this house. We already looked at all the houses, we want this.” And I believe they tried to get it on their own, because they were apprehensive about having anybody share in their profits of what they’re making as creators. And I thought that they had a lot of potential and I had been working with them for you know, months before that, letting them film at another one of the houses, taking them to Capitol Records. I mean, really just opening up the door so they could get to know me because I never want to just be like, hey, you need to sign on the dotted line. But I think that it’s like a relationship you have to get to know each other and trust each other but they came to me and they said these are the people that we want in this house and this is what we want to do. And essentially they needed a cosigner because nobody was willing to sign a, you know, a lease with two young people with green hair. I don’t know if it was the green hair tax, but I liked their idea. I thought they could build like sort of a Nickelodeon needs Rolling Stone. That’s what I saw the Kids Next Door as and you know, they were adults, though. So it’s confusing when you say kids, because I think people in their mind, and I think maybe when Taylor Lauren’s article came out, they’re like, oh, the Kids Next Door, they must be, you know, 15, or whatever? No, I think Marcus was in his early 20s. And same with his girlfriend. So yeah, so basically, I decided that I could invest a piece of a deal that I had gotten for those creators, that was a long term deal that I had gotten for Marcus and his girlfriend, and that I could essentially, instead of keeping that commission that I could reinvest it into their project. And as well as I got them reoccurring music deal that paid into that, and a couple other things, so and then they had to pay their share of the rent. So essentially, between the brands that I got together, and the money that I put back in, we were going to pay, I think it was like half of it or or something like that we’re 8000 or something like that.

Jessy:

And what about like the down payment and stuff like that, like who was responsible for that?

Ariadna:

I got them a brand deal to get the down payment, the half of the down payment, or something like that. And then they were responsible for putting in their own deposit as well.

Jessy:

Got it. And so like, was there an initial plan? You know, like, Okay, we got the first piece, we’ve got this covered, that sounds handled, looking back on it now, do you feel like there was enough of a plan that you guys constructed together, that it would have been successful moving forward?

Ariadna:

I do. I think that, that I didn’t anticipate how much people would push back on rules and sort of what we agreed to in this production agreement that we did with them, and that we actually spent dozens of hours and eyes paid for an attorney to work with the Creator. So they got this perfect agreement that they could stand behind that, really, they felt like they did not get taken advantage of they had consultants looking at it, they had all these people. And you know, we get this agreement done. And I’m like, okay, you know, let’s move forward. Now, I probably should have noticed a couple red flags with some of these creators that were a bit manipulative things that you know, they had said, because they wanted to get the house and sort of pushed me in this direction of getting it for them, but I sort of chalked it up to like them being young and hungry, and just wanting to move fast. And these things, Marcus had done something a little odd when I gave my financials to the realtor, somehow, he talked the realtor into discussing that my financials to get approved for the house, and I got word of that and called him out. And I was like, Don’t ever do this behind my back again, because like the Who are you tricking? I mean, these are very intelligent people, although they’re only 21 or 20. They’re smart, right? So you’re getting somebody that’s really smart, getting a realtor to give them this. And first I was mad at the realtor. But then I’m like, these little manipulations, those were red flags, I wish I would have caught and just said, You know what, I’m not going to do this. This is too much money to be investing in somebody that would be sort of willing to cross a line like that.

Jessy:

And why didn’t they just come to you and ask you about your financial information? Like, do you feel like they could have come to you and just asked you if they had any questions about it?

Ariadna:

Yeah, they knew what the requirements were to get the house. I wasn’t going to give them my past, you know, four statements of bank statements to these influencers I was representing Absolutely not. I mean, I would have just said, sorry, but I’m gonna share that information with you. It’s confidential.

Jessy:

Sure, sure. Valid, super valid. And so that brings me I guess, to Brittany Tomlinson. So she’s another influencer. I believe she was also a client. Is that right? Yeah. Okay, so she was also a client, she sued you and claimed your withholding about I think, like $23,000. In fees. She said that, quote, demanded unconscionable fees of up to 20% Commission, I charge 20% commission just for what it’s worth and that you bought and are squatting on a domain name of Britney Brosky calm, which today is actually inactive. So I don’t know what became of that. She also claimed that you were acting as a talent agency without a license. This is a hot topic and a whim. People learn about that. And what’s necessary in each state. Is this case still active today. Like where does that stand currently, or how did it resolve itself?

Ariadna:

Well, it’s been resolved and we sort of moved on but I wanted to say that we’ve–Influences discovered Brittany and soon after United talent agency got in touch with Brittany and Brittany decided she wanted to work with United talent agency. And I said great, because I spoke to an attorney and he said, Listen, Ari, you can represent Brittany, as long as you’re only doing social media deals, because if she does entertainment deals, you have to work with a licensed talent agency, and she has to be signed to a licensed talent agency. He also said, as long as you’re working with a talent agency, you know, you are allowed to negotiate deals or what have you. So UTA is sort of involved at this point. And they are seeing all these brands that are coming into Brittany’s email account, you know, big brands, bolay, and all these brands that worked with Britney, you can go and look at them. And I believe that at that point, they came in and they said, Hey, this is going to be great, you are going to be Brittany’s manager, we’re going to deal with all the incoming brands, you don’t really need to talk to any of them. And the way I looked at it, I was like, so you guys want to be order takers, you guys want to, you know, take these relationships, and I’m sure give some of the brand opportunities to people that they represent. But I’m like, hold on a second here. If you guys bring a deal for digital, then we’re happy to do the split and whatever. I don’t wanna get into the details, but I was willing to work with them. And in a way with Britney, that was fair, so she didn’t get charged more than 20%. Right. And I was doing this legally. Because again, there’s been no precedent that says that you have to have a talent agency license to represent influencers. Wow, this is all before there was even a guild for the influencers, I guess now there’s this, they can join the sag. But this is before that. So you know, I’m not an attorney. But I really researched this specifically. And we weren’t doing anything wrong if Britney went to a meeting with a entertainment company, like Viacom, or anything like that her agent from UTA came along. And I just think that they were getting frustrated because they saw how many incoming brand deals he was getting. And then they saw that we met Charlie D’Amelio and that we began to work with Charlie, and again, I was on a conversation where I heard an agent that was saying that they should go to to her company and that, you know, maybe we were inexperienced, I don’t really you know, I don’t want to go into that. But what I’m going to say is that this particular influencer or creator was really I think being pushed in so many directions. Like you know, it was unfair to her because I mean, she would call me mom, I have text messages from her and she’s like, Mom, I’m so happy. Like, I can’t believe this is like changed my life. Initially, she didn’t even want to be a creator full time. She was like, I’m gonna stay at my job. And I’m like, amazing, like, and then all of a sudden, I think that when the hype house around the same time when that hype house article that initial hype house article exploded was around the time where Brittany decided she wanted to leave. And I don’t know about you, Jessy, but have you in the last two years experience when a brand pays late?

Jessy:

In the last few years, I’ve experienced my entire career where brands pay late, they never pay on time. It’s so rare.

Ariadna:

Whoa, imagine if you were being blamed for withholding money from your client, because a brand paid late.

Jessy:

Oh, that was all the time all the time. Yeah, you’re the one face to face right with the interaction. You’re the one you’re supposed to be moving mountains and you know, holding a gun to somebody’s head.

Ariadna:

You know, when Brittany had brands that had been brought in by UTA that had been been paid late. None of that was mentioned course.

Jessy:

Well, it’s interesting. I don’t know how UTA works transparently. But you know, I’m just imagining a large, huge company like UTA or any other company, they might have more money to float around, let’s say–

Ariadna:

–at least in my experience, they didn’t float any money out creators when brands had paid so in fact, I found it odd that they didn’t even pay for Brittany’s lunch when they were recruiting her. I mean, look, the article says, you know, like, almost in a way like you know, lure them in with like, by paying for lunches and dinners. It’s like I was broke. I literally was like, using the relationships I had in LA, my friends owned restaurants, you know, they would let me bring the creators in and take care of them. Because that was all I could offer. And I don’t I’m Mexican. I come from you know, I was born in Mexico City. That’s how we are taught to sort of be a host in sales all my life if you’re trying to woo a client you know, you take them to lunch and you you pick up the bill I thought it was bizarre that you know in the initial stages when UTA was you know trying to sign Brittany that she’s like oh, yeah, we split the bill for lunch. Oh, I don’t know. I mean, maybe they’re not that’s not allowed, but I didn’t feel like I was breaking some type of crazy role or like grooming someone was I was taking them to lunch. It’s like, give me a break. You know, and that’s sort of what the article is like insinuating. somebody like me that comes from really no wealth. You know, to me.

Jessy:

When I was sort of raised in, you know, with other talent agents and things like that, I mean, yeah, absolutely. That’s just something that you do. It’s a gesture. And it’s very common. So I certainly don’t see it as uncommon.

Ariadna:

I want to say to when Taylor wrote that article, I already had my talent agency license. So I went out and got the agency license, because I was like, Listen, I don’t want to be dealing with this situation anymore. Where I’m being questioned, even though there had been no precedent set on influencers with that talent agency. What I mean is, nobody has gone to court and won a case for an influencer situation like this on behalf of the labor commission, that has never happened. And you know, this case was resolved, in my opinion, I felt like it was resolved in my favor. I can’t really talk about anything more than that. But I’ll just say that Brittany was not owed 10s of 1000s of dollars. In fact, it arguably was the other way around. And so I’m glad to put that behind me. But Taylor didn’t explain in her article. In fact, she goes, she sort of lumps all these creators into one thing where she’s talking about a management contract, you know, a production contract, a handshake deal, she doesn’t distinguish between any of these things. And, you know, she writes that we were filming people without permission, when in fact, we know everybody that came into the houses for their own safety signed a liability formed with rules attached to it, XYZ, everything was very done above board for this particular reason that I never wanted to be accused of something terrible, because I really was trying to look out for these, these creators, if I wasn’t around, they would have been jumping off the stairs, like, you know, doing all sorts of tricks with skateboards in the house, I don’t know what they would have been doing. But I had to draw the line somewhere, one of them to have fun, but he certainly didn’t want anyone to hurt themselves.

Jessy:

And I think this is, you know, looking a lot of ways as a cautionary tale and a lot of instances, but I don’t know what comes to mind with what you just said, He’s like, you know, people just feel compelled to just go like willy nilly, like, into business and what could happen, and you know, I’m just gonna make money, and I’m just gonna figure it out as I go. And like, there is an element to that in a lot of instances, but you’re talking about, you know, I needed to cover my basis, you need to protect yourself. I mean, it sounds unfortunate that you’d have to go into business from like a defensive place now to protect yourself, but what would you tell anybody listening.

Ariadna:

I underestimated really having a base to protect yourself. And you know, I wanted to do a lot of this on my own, I felt like if I could get a brand to pay for something that I want to invest in that I would rather do that and take investment from the investor or a friend or whatever. And if I wanted to continue doing what I was doing, I probably should have partnered with somebody that had, you know, megabucks that could really fund a project where people would have been, you know, sort of scared to sue me. You know, when you look at some of the big house projects, like Talon x with sway, I think that was very well funded Team 10 was well funded by several people. And when you look at the clubhouse brand, I read this article that, you know, I forget how much money that this company was worth, or how much they were investing, but they had real estate properties across the country, hundreds of 1000s of dollars putting into their projects, I was able to build three different projects with really nothing but my own ability to sell and explain this concept to the brands. So I’m proud of that. Because you know, when you look at it, apples, apples, I mean, these guys, I think they went public and at one point, they’re worth like $750 million. And even those guys were smeared, I believe, I think in Business Insider. So I don’t know if because of how the media works, these creators are starting to get smart in the sense of understanding how to manipulate press. And I think that’s really scary because one of the things I wanted to teach the creators that I worked with was ethics and morals and the ability to understand that just because something is going to get you a step ahead today does not mean that you’re never going to see that person in the future. So you can’t just step on people and do things for clout that are unethical and you know, not have to face challenges for those things and repercussions for those things later mean several of the people that were critics of me in the article or outside of it have come to me since and apologized and said that their behavior was shameful and that they are very sorry that they were dealing with drugs at the time or that they felt pressured by this journalist to lie and or by their own fellow peers because you know, those people Didn’t want to pay the Commission’s that they agreed to pay they didn’t want to follow through I had to ask a creator to leave one of the houses because I was emailed multiple videos of him using homophobic racist incredibly disturbing videos of this person that I didn’t stand behind and it was in the contract that if you broke certain rules to see what I saw I was like you know I can’t be associated to this only that this person needs help on their own but I can’t have them be part of this brand that I’m trying to build and they know it right but when that person was asked to leave respectfully It was a huge blow up from many of the leaders in the house so I’m sorry but there was a line that I had to draw and that’s why you know, I don’t know what sparked a lot of the things but Taylor Lorenz from the outside you know, I didn’t even want to expose these things when she was asking me the question I could have very easily thrown these people under the bus and been like here are these videos these people are the ones doing all this stuff you know in the last year you can actually see that one of the houses wrote are is a bitch fuck Arielle over the walls so with scraping I didn’t want to disparage these creators to that extent because they’re young right? They’re learning they don’t know what they’re doing is how I was seeing but I certainly think that Taylor Lorenz and her editors The New York Times know what they’re doing but Taylor Lauren’s his editor that was there at that time has left and there has been some controversy about him leaving I read an article something about you know, he wasn’t able to sort of control or like you know, rein in this person that was tweeting uncontrollably and recklessly etc. So her boss is no longer there. He’s a different company now so as far as the creators go, I really don’t blame them for their inexperience I don’t like hold a grudge or hard feelings against them I really feel bad because many of them are not doing as well as they were doing when we were creating our project.

Jessy:

So Devion Young–is that how you pronounced it?–he was I think the founder of the Drip Crib. This one I think this sort of stood out to me and the article is like what really was very shocking to me. I really want to hear what you have to say about this one so he claimed that you leaked nude photos of him. He said quote right before we parted ways she leaked my nudes and sent them to business partners, people in my house and potential investors to slander my name, saying that I was unprofessional. I guess because he had nudes, I don’t really understand that completely. But your lawyer said that you did not quote publicly leak the nudes. What does that mean?

Ariadna:

I would really encourage anybody watching this to go to YouTube and search Taylor Lorenz there’s a whole video called content cop. It’s a creator journalists. His thing is boast wiki Alister Bostwick he did about a 10 minute piece that goes into a lot of this with receipts evidence that I showed him, I’ll just say that I saw messages from somebody alerting me to these pictures of Debbie on and when Debbie on was asked by me on text, essentially wired news on the internet. He has this long story about how his iCloud got hacked and how somebody sent all these nudes out. So I would just like to say how could I have leaked Devon’s nudes if he admitted to me that his needs were leaked some other way, so people should really go on the video. And on that content cop video, you have to scroll it’s a really long video, you have to scroll to like 41 minutes and 30 seconds or something like that to get to my section. But if people want to dig into this and sort of go down the rabbit hole, I really encourage them to watch that video because it’s just black and white evidence that shows you know that should exonerate me.

Jessy:

And so are you saying that you did not leak those photos? Correct. Okay, I will link that in the show notes for anybody who wants to go there. We’ll link that timestamp to it. I do want people to be able to see this if it’s a long story. It’s already been explained. I send them there. That’s perfect. I’m glad that that exists. That was just a really serious accusation in the store. I think that Yeah, like I think everybody’s sort of maybe one or two things really stood out to them. That’s sort of what stood out to me the most I don’t know this person. I wanted to hear from you. So thank you for explaining that in that other video. I will take a look at that as well. And we’ll link that in the show notes. So sorry. Yeah, in Las Vegas, right? Yeah. And I see you as like you’re recovering from what I’m sure has been like a really challenging probably traumatic experience for you. How are you dealing with the you know, the last year or two having gone through this experience?

Ariadna:

So there was a period of time where it had to take a beat because my advisors and everybody was just like you need to focus on your well being or health. I was not well I was I couldn’t sleep, you know, I went to a therapist and I just had never had such like depressive like thoughts and stuff because I really try to be positive and I’m like a go getter, I have a lot of energy most of the time. And this like really weighed on my soul, because I’m like, I think because I had worked in personal branding. And like, when you mentioned earlier, like googling your own name, I always was the one that was like telling people, you need to make content so that if like, something bad happens, like you know, that’s all the only thing that shows up. But like when your time writes a story about you, like, it’s really hard to get that off of the first page of Google, and I’m like, wow, it’s just so terrible that like, I invested, I gave up my whole life to do this. And then now when people Google me, they have to find this thing. That’s untrue. And I have no really like way to show that it’s untrue, except if I filed a lawsuit, but at that time, it didn’t feel like it was very a viable opportunity to do that. So I sort of just went along, and then I just was watching a lot of what was happening in the space andTaylor sort of started to step in it on her own, she started to attack Netscape founder, Marc Andreessen, after being on clubhouse and essentially lying and saying and tweeting that he said, a slur that he didn’t say, and she sort of started getting called out by all these, you know, tech people. And then she attacked Steph Cory, you know, the original CEO of a way luggage and in a way that was I thought was really unfair, she was sort of like looking at her social media page. And you know, which had like 5000 followers or something like that, and then tweeting this criticism of Steph Curry, who had already gone through some stuff in the media, so I was just sort of watching. And then people started to talk about how, you know, it’s not right for the New York Times and their Star Trek reporter to sort of make up these lies. And then Glenn Greenwald started to criticize her and Tucker Carlson started to criticize her. And as soon as Tucker Carlson criticized her on his show, all these other media, journalists are writing stories in defensive Taylor saying that, you know, she was being attacked by, you know, privileged white males, or, you know, I’m not really sure, but I’m sure watched the whole thing. And I’m like, this is insane, because Taylor doesn’t just go after, you know, it’s not just these wealthy, powerful people going after her. It’s like, I was not wealthy or powerful. I’m a female and a Mexican immigrant. And she went after me. So she doesn’t have a specific, you know, it’s not just powerful people that she’s attacking or trying to expose whatever. And so I think at that point, I got a little bit of hope that at least maybe some justice would come of it. Or maybe some people would start to see that not everything that she writes is factual. And then it was when Christy Smith reached out and she had actually gotten canceled on her own. So she was empathetic, I think, to me as just an entrepreneur, but she really just wanted to write my comeback story and like, learn about this new platform that I was developing. Because after everything I learned from the management world, I’m like, What could I build that could still put me in this world without putting me in this world in the same way and, you know, put some distance between me and the people that I’m helping, I felt like a tech platform could do that. I always wanted to build a tech platform. So Chrissy Smith, she publishes the story. And then she lets you know, that Taylor runs is going behind the scenes, calling prominent people in the media ranting that I’m a literal abuser, essentially, because I think she wants to silence me and make sure she cripples my career permanently, because maybe she doesn’t want all this stuff to come out of her conflicts of interest, and all the stuff that nobody was really interested in until I get a little bit of press around a new venture that I’m doing eight months later, eight months after she talked me I’m like, this is personal. I mean, I can’t even imagine destroying someone’s life with an article and then going back for seconds. And really, like, you know, making sure that they don’t get up. I mean, that to me is–

Jessy:

–it feels personal, definitely feels personal. Yeah, for sure.

Ariadna:

So I filed the lawsuit. And now when you Google my name, it’s not just her article, but this is really more about justice and accountability than it is about press I have sort of gotten past that whole like my reputation being crushed. I think I found that the people around me are what’s the most important with the people around me who work with me think of me as a lot more important than what’s on Google. And I think you know, putting out my own content, I think that anybody listening what you have done doing a podcast, you know, even somebody like me who’s always preaching about building your personal brand, I let that go for a time because I was so focused on building other people I stopped making my little videos, you know, they were buried in YouTube or on Facebook video. And so obviously I want to revive some of that stuff. So people can See, like, Hey look, I didn’t just come out of nowhere. But truthfully, like, this wasn’t about me being famous ever really, like that’s what I wanted you to do and when I wanted to be a YouTuber, but then I just realized like I could give these people so much more, you know, from what I’ve learned to being behind the scenes than it would ever take to, for me to like all of a sudden become this personality. But now I really feel like I need to stand up for myself. And so this never happens to somebody in the future because it’s really devastating. And I would hate for you know, somebody not to be strong enough and take this to something really dark place, you know, so I just hope that people know that literally, like if you’ve gone through something like email me, please orient influences.com. I will help anybody that I can. I think God, like I reached out to Rose McGowan somebody who’s been a victim and who’s been called crazy. And all these terrible things have happened to her. And she’s so brave, I would encourage anybody that is a business or like, read her book, if you’re in entertainment, read her book. It’s called brave. And it’s just so interesting about how the entertainment world works. And I hope that that world does not feed into the influencer world, it could very well a lot of the bad things that happen in old Hollywood could happen in New Hollywood. And I hope that we sort of put a pin in it before those things happen. And I think the only way that we can put a pin in it is if people like me, and anybody else who has been attacked unfairly stands up and fights back.

Jessy:

So you recently tweeted, quote, no one will understand how hard you worked until they see how many times you’ve tried, failed, and succeeded. Our last question of today is, what else would you want to share about what you hope everyone listening just takes from our conversation today?

Ariadna:

Well, it’s so cliche, but truly like, most devastating point in your career, like you have, whether it’s financial, you have barely any money to keep going, you know, you have been attacked, or your business partner does something that you didn’t expect, like there’s always a way to rebuild if you focus on rebuilding your inner confidence, and really take care of yourself and your health, because, you know, like getting out of bed and going to the gym going and helping other people. And that’s one thing that really, I think helped build me back up is a lot of these influencers start calling me like, hey, like, do you still have that Twitter contact? Like, hey, do you have any advice about this thing, like, and they’re kind of like doing it like, but you know, behind the scenes, because they don’t want to get attacked by people. But I realized I’m like, man, like, I really made a difference to these people. And I want to keep doing that, because that fed me in a positive way is helping people and it was like, I wasn’t even wanting to make a living off of it anymore. But yeah, just take care of yourself, be a mentor to other people. Like I think it’s all about giving and having empathy, and everything that I’ve learned, I think I can hopefully this unfortunately, in this world that we live in today, being canceled and canceled culture is going to become a part of everyday life for many young people and adults. And if there’s somebody that can give a support system to people that have been canceled, so that they can continue to thrive. And if they’ve been canceled for reasons that are fair, even that, you know, you should be able to rebuild yourself. And you know, just because you know that one kid or whatever released those videos that I saw in the house and had to leave the house doesn’t mean that I want terrible things to happen to him, I just want him to like, you know, get better. So that’s really been what has helped me and you know, I work at the when I got, you know, thank God, I was offered a position there, I’m helping with social media strategy, and their influencer program, which hasn’t existed until I got there. And it’s such an amazing brand, you know, I think there’s gonna be a lot of positive things. And I’m really hoping that we get this tech platform funded, because what it’s going to provide is sort of fractional business management for creators and aspiring creators. So imagine that you might need a publicist for an hour or 30 minutes because you tweeted something that you regret or whatever and you’re a creator, and you don’t have $3,000 a month to pay a publicist, you could actually pick up the phone, use our platform, and be able to talk to an expert for 30 minutes or an hour or a manager, let’s say you need a lawyer look over something really fast. So it’s gonna provide that to a bigger audience. I think there’s something like 750 million people that want to either have an audience larger than 10,000 followers or aspiring so that’s the part that I really loved anyway, is like finding those little gems and helping them turn into unicorns. So hopefully, this platform allows that and it’s gonna allow for collaboration and all sorts of cool things. So that’s sort of what’s on the horizon.

Jessy:

It’s a story of triumph. It really truly is love. The reality is that I’ve personally experienced as I’ve watched you go through this, it’s The first time it’s happened to someone and unfortunately, it’s not the last, I’m just proud of you for speaking up about it. Because in instances where people go through, you know, similar things where they’re somebody more powerful than them who just sort of eat us says a lot of stuff and they their silence, they’re not free to, you know, they’re presumed guilty before the end have to prove their innocence. And that is not society that we live in.

Ariadna:

We just really need to be kind and lean in to people, despite what you might think, and be open to hearing out someone else’s story. If you read something about someone, especially if it’s in our industry, and before you begin to spread those things, like really take a moment. I mean, even myself, when all this happened, I was encouraged to talk to some of the other people that Taylor had smeared, and I remember being like, Oh, I read that article, I don’t want to talk to that guy. Like, he’s obviously a fraudster. And then I got connected. And I’m like, and I learned his whole story. And I’m like, he wasn’t a fraudster. And you know, and so we have like this little support group of people that have been attacked. And I think if people really wanted to get into it, they can go to NYT do better.org. It’s just we curated a lot of the articles about, you know, sort of tell these stories of people that have been damaged. And I think it’s important for people to be able to read those things, despite them, maybe not being as published as widely or seen as widely as some of the New York Times articles. But it’s just important to learn. And I’m not saying, you know, the New York Times, I’m sure has some amazing journalists, that’s the biggest thing I want to get across is that I think there’s somebody incredibly talented that could have Taylor Lorenz’ position, and really use that microphone of the New York Times to showcase the Creator, economy and the people in this industry in a way that is fair and ethical, and doesn’t, you know, more of a service to the hard working people out there. Because, you know, despite creators going through burnout, I’m sure a lot of female business owners in the industry space, we go through burnout too, and we deserve to be paid for our work and be fairly covered in the media.

Jessy:

Yeah, absolutely. That’s all it is. It’s about the truth. It’s about fairness. But you know, it has to be true. I mean, ethically, it feels very wrong and very misleading, if something isn’t true. So if you know if that’s what happened, I hope the truth comes out about the story I’ve been, I’m grateful to hear your side of it. I’m here. And I’m glad that we could, you know, tell your story and get your version of things. It’s really important.

Ariadna:

And I want people to understand how important that is that you’ve done. I mean, despite whether you agree with me or not, or just being able to give somebody a platform to say their side of the story, when something that has affected them This greatly. I just think that that’s commendable. And I really just want to say thank you, because you’d be surprised. But many journalists and podcasts other people, there have been people that have said, you know, I’d love to have you but I’m just a little worried about if that’s going to put a target on my back with, you know, certain journalists. So I just want to say thank you for your courage and bravery to have me on I wouldn’t be here if you know, I wasn’t telling the truth.

Jessy:

I just wanted to hear your story. You deserve a platform to be in my opinion, you deserve every platform, you deserve a platform the size of the New York Times to be able to say your response to what was said about you, everybody does and that absolutely do. So again, thank you so much everyone listening. So we’re gonna list all of these resources that are shared in the show notes, so you can visit all those websites, email her if you want to get in touch and just super grateful for you to come on. And I’m excited to learn more about the rest of your journey.

Ariadna:

Thank you.