GenZ thoughts on the Pandemic

Welcome to Everything You Need is Within, a Spotify Greenroom live audio show and podcast produced by and for Gen-Z, with me, your host, Gigi Robinson.

I'm going to start in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Hello, everybody, it is me Gigi, your host, and I am going to be coming at you with another episode of "Everything You Need is Within" a Gen Z, focused podcast about all things current events but mainly, the goal is to give you the tools that you need to get through, basically any difficult situation. We're here to address privilege. We're here to talk about post traumatic growth, and in today's episode we are actually going to be talking about our thoughts on the pandemic, and how it has affected us, predominantly, because we're the ones that experienced the pandemic, while we were in school. I feel like this was definitely one of the more difficult years of my education but at the same time, I had a lot of awakenings I think that were very helpful to me and my journey as a student and as an author, and I will definitely be jumping into that. I would also first and foremost in the first, you know, minute and a half of this episode like to address the privilege and honor that I've had to be able to attend university and to be able to graduate from high school because I know not everybody has that experience. But my hope is that you can apply this somehow to your life or to your job if you're in the position to work remotely because that is what this episode will primarily be about throughout the episode, feel free to ask questions down in the comments below, and I can answer them towards the app. So, without further ado, let's get into it. So, Gen Z

is a generation that grew up with technology. We grew up using it pretty much since the second that we are born, I'm pretty sure we had access to TV the second we were born and then they started making interactive learning devices for us. They also made... Gameboys was like pretty early on in my life from what I remember. And that was something I think I took for granted, up until the past year, because it was again, something I grew up with, there was nothing inherently different or strange about growing up with technology. Obviously now that I'm older I acknowledge, again, the huge privilege living in the United States having access to a large amount of, again, like money, resources and energy with within the education that I've received but ultimately it's been something that you know, my dad could come to me a couple of years ago and just give me his phone and just be like, I don't know what to do. You know, I would figure it out in a second. Technology is so second nature just so many of us because, again, we grew up with it. So, this past year, although it was challenging. I think we got to a point where we inevitably were headed that way we were headed to a place where technology is going to be how we communicate whether that's with work, whether that is with, you know, partners, whether that's education. I think that it is going to be something that's, you know, it was inevitably going to happen. I just think that the rate at which it happened was much quicker than any of us had anticipated. And as the change makers that we are we adapted really quickly to this change.

And with that, I think it all shocked that the. Okay. The past year has shocked like a lot of us, but I think it was like a good shock, again because it was going to happen anyway. And for me specifically, I believe that it forced me to figure out who my real friends were, what my real relationships were with people, and also to spend time at home with the people that I grew up with, which, again, acknowledging all of that because I understand that not everybody has that luxury to be in a safe environment when they're home, and I had so much extra fear around this pandemic, not only because you know, I would be alone and isolated. I think that was difficult for a majority of us. But on top of that, I had to deal with my chronic illness. I was coming out of a semester where I had a medically reduced course load because my condition was really flaring up and I was having a lot of difficulty completing my schoolwork my assignments, going to events managing all the things that I essentially signed up for. And I came home, basically just had to pick all that up again. My internship was canceled, my doctors were completely remote so it was like really not helpful considering, three of them were different therapy appointments, and it was just so difficult to all of a sudden just be placed at home and not have access to that or have access to any of my friends because they all live at home with older people, or they were, you know, still on campus, which was an interesting choice, in my opinion, I got on the first flight home once they closed the university. But, being chronically ill, made me so cautious, I don't think I really took my mask off until I was fully vaccinated in March, on my second... my... once I was like fully vaccinated was like March 28th. So that was only a couple of months ago, but I was really just scared to even see my friends and I was really scared to even like go to the grocery store or go to a restaurant, I obviously got very used to not wearing my mask outside around people. After I was fully vaccinated, I felt a lot better but I don't really want to like tell you more about, you know, my specific story with with this pandemic, I want to talk about kind of like the relationship that I think we need to address here with the way that everything went being virtual versus, you know, all of that being taken away, maybe that's in three months, maybe that's six months, maybe that's a year from now. But, to think that, you know, a year and a half ago we did not have any real work from home mandates, we didn't have any remote learning mandates if you were sick, there were no real accommodations for people, and I was honestly a bit pissed off at first, I was pissed off, first of all at the universities for not being flexible with their tuition, I get it, you sign the contract when you go into university or into like school, and you're like, Yep, this is what I agreed. This is what I agreed to pay, and this is what I'm here to do, to learn, you're paying to learn. And, yeah, I just came home, and they're like, Yep, it's gonna be the same amount of tuition, whether you are home, or whether you are in person, and I went to the University of Southern California, again, I know a very, like, I don't even know what, what to call it just, it's a very pretentious kind of school and I, I, I always try to acknowledge that because it's something that you know people are always saying oh University of spoiled children and like, yeah, that's it, but I did work my ass off to get there. In actually last week's episode I talked about my portfolio process and everything about that but going to that school at the rate of which it is, scholarship or, you know, grants or whatever kind of situation or even like full tuition. It's absolutely obscene. I think the student debts obscene, and I think we, too, you know, Gen Zers are very, we have, we have our plans here, which I'm not going to be getting into this episode. But, I was outraged when they told us we could not whether we moved back to Los Angeles for the fall or spring that nothing would be in person, and we still had to pay the same price. It was definitely really difficult and as somebody who pays back like student loans every, actually, well, COVID like made it suspended so I don't know who mandated that but the interest on loans was suspended which I think was great, but I don't know how long that's gonna last. So, I have just put a lot of what I've made into that again. I don't think student loans are good, I don't think the high tuition for schools are good, not the point of the episode. The point is that we had the opportunity to, I think, take control of a situation where in the past, like, I spent all of my fall semester of 2019 so desperately trying to stay afloat, but had I been given the option to zoom into that class or like take the class remotely or submit my, my papers remotely, that, who knows what I have been burned out what I have exacerbated myself so bad to the point where like I was in the hospital like a couple times a week like I really don't know the answer to that, but in this past year. If there's anything.

A lot of other disabled students would request would be that universities take our needs more seriously. And pay attention to when we're struggling. And believe us when we say regardless of if you can see it or not, number one. Number two, make these online accommodations that you so willingly, so willingly dropped on all students because of a public health risk. Make those available if somebody needs them. If not, it's inherently ableist. And that's a whole other situation that I think we have to tackle and that Gen Z is definitely working on in terms of equality, overall, whether that is with gender, whether that's racial equality, whether that is a disability equality in general. So that is high up on our agenda. The other thing I think, this past year has really forced us to look into a bit more is like, how can we transition our life that we've lived the past year, from URL now into IRL, like in real life right now. So that is what I personally am struggling with, especially around the topics of, I would say dating has been particularly difficult for me, because I'm not sure what kind of boundaries I should and shouldn't accept with the same thing with friends, too. I'm like, okay, like, I really do want to see you, but I'm not exactly sure if I can, because I know that you've been partying and I'm like a little bit nervous. So like, what are what are your situations, could we go to a park? Do you want to hang out, like in your backyard? Do we want to like go out to a restaurant? A friend of mine invited me out to this music release party that she had, her name is Jordan Rose, she's one of my besties. So go follow her @Jordanrosemusic. She's not on here. So I don't know she's gonna see this now or later, but we went out and we ended up going to a bar. And this was like, literally the first time I had stepped foot in a bar since probably October of 2019. Again, I did not go out at all in the fall of 2019, or beginning of 2020, because I was so sick. And so going out and seeing like all of these people was definitely a real shock to me, it was a real wake up call that a lot of young people are ready to like, go out and get at it, again, whatever that means for them. I think it's gonna be different. There's people there that were wearing their masks, including myself. And then there are people that were just super fearless in just not wearing their masks, you know, hanging out right up close next to people. I don't know how many people are uncomfortable by that right by now. But I am still uncomfortable by it. And I think it's going to take me a lot more time to be okay with even going out. But I also think it's really interesting. So, I actually got sober and I stopped drinking as my new year's resolution for 2021. And this came from a bunch of different things. But it's been really interesting to get back into because people want to go out for happy hours. And people want to just like go out and have a drink what whether that's like for brunch, lunch, dinner bar night out. And I think nothing against anybody who wants to use alcohol. Like I think it's very fun. It was amazing during college for me. And I definitely want to say to everybody listening drink responsibly, of course. But the past year just made me realize like, okay, I I think that I just need to take a pause and see how this actually makes me feel when I'm out. And it makes me feel really vulnerable a lot of the time. And I think vulnerability is great, but obviously not when you're in a mind altered state some of the time so I gave up alcohol. And since alcohol is a very social thing to do for a lot of young people, I've just found it really difficult to go out and socialize again. I'm more of like the kind of girl that you want to like go out on a picnic with or go to like the beach for the day or an amusement park like I'm very I don't I don't know, I think I would say that's like activities driven versus party driven and to each their own. But I think also like Gen Zers have been really great in honoring other people's ability or interest in doing things. But I find it so interesting how a majority of people are like, Oh, yeah, let's just like go out for a drink. And I'm like, don't even drink. Like, it's like this really interesting, awkward thing. But I'm also uncomfortable by even like the thought of going out to a bar. Again, I don't think I'm going to do that for a long time, chronic illness COVID, not my my cup of tea. So that is kind of like my first thoughts on being a student during the pandemic. I also thought that it was incredibly difficult to manage friendships this past year. And I think that that one was probably like, the biggest lesson that I had. I don't know how many people here listening right now have experienced a loss. And I, a good friend of mine, had mentioned to me because I was like, you know what, while it's like such a coincidence, like, things happen for a reason. She's like, you know what, it's not a coincidence. Like, there's reasons why people come into your life at certain points in time. And there's also reasons why they leave. I'm a firm believer that you can outgrow people and outgrow friendships, if it has happened to me, a lot of times, I love all of my friends sincerely. And I think it's just a, it's a very difficult thing. And I don't think we talked about the loss of friendship enough. I don't know if anybody has related to that more than I have. But losing friends has been something I've dealt with a lot of the time. And, and I don't know exactly what the true answer to wrapping your head around the loss of a friendship should be. I'm also just going to pause and take some water. So if you're listening, you know what time it is. Don't forget, let's let's hydrate together.

I always like to do these little hydration breaks one or two times in my shows, because it's very, it's very important to stay hydrated. So, yeah, I think in college, I mean, unfortunately, I, a lot of the friendships that I had... a couple were classic instances of like, real misunderstandings of people and just bad roommate situations. And I feel like we've somewhat dealt with that at some point. But others are just these kind of slow and steady breakups with somebody you shared so many memories with. And that has really been very difficult and very pleasant for me throughout the pandemic.

I think a lot of it comes with your own personal awareness, and the awareness of what your purpose is your true purpose. And if you if you're not sure what your purpose is, there's an exercise I talk about all the time in my social media literacy lectures, where I call it the big why. And essentially, you jot down like, oh, why is the work that you do important? Or if you want to get super granular? Why is your podcast important? Or why is your your business important? Was your job important? And you write down what that is. And then after you have that first tagline of what what you think is important, you ask yourself again, so why is that so important? and so on and so forth. So I got about like seven to 10 times, usually, but I mean, I guess you could keep going in circles and circles. But for me, it gives me these pillars of my personal like life and identity that make up my value system. I think that really helped me understand holistically, who I am, and why I do the things that I do, who I do them for why I work within the nonprofit space on social media, why I host spaces like this to talk about seemingly difficult topics. And I think that it's just so important to do this every like year or every couple of years. Because if you look at your values now, they may change in a year. They may have changed in the past year. And that was again the biggest thing that I think I realized because some of my values changed and I learned how to set boundaries and said boundaries, again is not like this selfish thing that you're doing. Ultimately, you have this one life. And if you need to function a certain way, and you need things done a certain way for your business and for your mental health, then you need to stick with that, obviously, do this in an important and respectful way, Don't be a jerk about it. I think a lot of times people think boundary setting is just about people either copping out of a situation or, you know, just completely saying like, No, I want to do it my way. Because my ways the highway, you know, my way, the best way or otherwise, beat it. And those kinds of people, and those kinds of thoughts are definitely problematic. But when you're doing it with an intention in mind, for example, back to the drinking situation, I'm out here like, Hey, I am not really feeling too well. I know if as much as I love you, and respect to you, friend, I, personally, Gigi has a chronic illness that is very debilitating. And if I overextend myself, I'm going to be miserable for the next three days. And that's going to put me out of three days of work. And three days of my time and energy that I know would be better used somewhere else to do the work and to fulfill my true purpose. Obviously, you don't need to, like say this to your friend, I think I actually said that to one of my friends, they might look at me and be like, Gigi, are you? Are you doing okay? But ultimately, if you can figure out a way to have a conversation like this with a friend of yours, I think it's really important. Back to the whole thing about dating, I would say I've definitely had to set up some boundaries there. Because in the past, there have been some not so great things that I have experienced, unfortunately. And it's put me in a position where I have to be ultra aware of who I'm letting into my life and who I'm putting energy into. It also has to do with the fact that having a chronic illness on top of this is something that I'm going to be dealing with likely for the rest of my life. There is no cure to Ehlers danlos Syndrome, unfortunately. And there's only things that you can do to manage it again, like not going out to party at night, going to bed early waking up doing my water aerobics, you know, keeping it keeping it real here. And that can be really difficult because a lot of the time, believe it or not, some of the answers when I have been on these apps has been like, oh, like I am super upfront about this stuff, right? So like, back to the boundaries, I don't want to like, get into something with somebody, lead somebody on and then dump this kind of big news on them that like, Hey, I actually have this debilitating illness and I'm gonna live with for the rest of my life. So I am upfront, I'm like, hey, new person that I potentially interested in. I have this chronic condition. I talk about it on social media, social media is also my career, which, by the way, has also been a very interesting thing to speculate and to conversate about with a new person, particularly some, particularly somebody that is not interested in people doing social media. I've had people before just kind of tell me like, Oh, yeah, like, I don't really care, like social media sucks. Like, whatever, like you do. You girl, like I'm not into you. I'm like, Okay, cool. That's nice, goodbye. But ultimately, you're looking for somebody that like a true partner that's gonna be there no matter what. So, there's other times where I'm like, Yeah, like, I have this chronic condition. And these people, I mean, you guys, you would not believe the things that some of them would say, or maybe you would, but to me, I am just dumbfounded. And it makes me want to avoid dating even more. On top of the pandemic. I'm like, if somebody is not willing to meet me over like, FaceTime, or over like a video call or a phone call, even why would I meet them in real life? Like, ew, that's weird, first of all. Second of all, I don't understand like when I say this, some guys are literally like, well, best of luck. Like, I am so sorry. But like I deal with this chronic illness, which I understand maybe where they're coming from, but I think coming out of the pandemic, people just need to overall be more respectful of people with disabilities and understand that a lot of the accommodations down to dating, even doing something virtually should have existed before the pandemic, within the app, you know, I may not want to give, let's just call this you know, Person A, I don't want to give them my phone number until I know they're not like a serial killer, like, I want to FaceTime them first, make sure. And I don't know why this didn't exist before. But to me, it comes down to again, inherent, inherent ableism stuck in society. And I don't know, who is going to dictate that kind of conversation in the future. But I hope that it is Gen Z and millennials and any ally of Gen Z, I would say and anybody interested in helping not only fight towards the gender and racial equality, but also equality for disabled people and our rights because it is definitely very, very, I don't, I don't know if trauma is the right word here, it's very just difficult to deal with as a 23 year old woman, I also have definitely put myself out there, like, if you know me, from any of my social pages, or you've come to any of my speeches, or my shows, you would know that I'm somebody that is very open about body image, mental health, chronic illness, and inequality on my pages, and fighting for dismantling all of those. And I think that just becomes that much more difficult when I do put it all out there. And despite that, people in a way think they're like, special and they might get special treatment from me, for you know, not doing their research. Maybe I'm not even sure what the logic is behind it. All I know is it doesn't work and I would love to just see some major shifts in the way that people respect not only women, but again, people with all disabilities because it just it breaks my heart especially knowing that this is not just a me thing. This is something I have bonded with some amazing friends over the past year about online. And fortunately now in person I now that I'm getting vaccinated, my friend and I we were able to get together in the city on Izzy Kornblau, she's another Ehlers danlos Syndrome patient and genetics counselor in training. And she is, you know, she, she's just like a very genuine person. And it was really interesting to me, because I was like, you know what, like, I'm going to go meet this person who I've been talking with, like, for a year, we've like FaceTimed, we have a very parallel story with our conditions. Why is it so you know, bizarre to just go meet a different stranger if I'm like dating them? Or why is it so anxiety induced when I go to meet people at like a bar or something like that. And I think part of it just comes down to some of the unfortunate situations I was in during college, as well as some of I think, my own my own struggle and letting go of control. And I would say I'm also a type a kind of person. So I like to know what I'm doing. I like to have a plan. I like to have notes. I like to have everything lined up that I talk about and I research thoroughly. It's something, it's just... you get the gist here. But in thinking about starting something with somebody, I think, in a way, I kind of like push them away, and I challenge them upfront, because I don't want to give up control in my life, especially around like my heart. And if you're listening and you're somebody that has had relationship difficulty, I would say that it's extremely important to acknowledge like, what it is that maybe is troubling you. Yes, it's some of the people that you are attracting, but you're attracting them for a certain reason. I will not be sharing, at least right now, about what I have gone through because for me, it was somewhat traumatic and I'm still processing it, but I might talk about it in the future because I think it provides a lot of insight into the way that I have relationships with people and the way that I defend myself in those kinds of romantic situations. And that said, I think, especially within the past year, a lot of people have either resorted to just wanting, you know, attention from people, again, totally fine. We live in a society where like, that's totally chill was chill in the 80s. It's chill now, like, you know, we got this, but I personally am, like, I would say, more of like, the monogamous person. And I don't know why there is also a lot of ... how should I say this, I think misogyny and sexism within our education systems, and also not really teaching us kind of how to be respectful and how to lead with gratitude and compassion and empathy. So I know other Gen Z, or is have that I've spoken to, you have had some difficulty with this, because they grew up behind this the screen. So I was, I was, I'm 23 now. So I'm like, I'm like an elder Gen Zer in comparison to, you know, the elder millennial idea. But these other kids, you know, they grew up with tablets in their hand at the age of one so that they stopped crying. So how is that generation going to actually act with people in real life, you know, a lot of their personalities, and a lot of the things that they will, I think be doing in real life will be based off of things that they're consuming online. This also feeds into a lot of the work that I do in social media literacy, where we're looking specifically at the content that we consume, and how it affects our mental health and how that manifests physically in real life. So when you're looking at that, I just think, I think, I mean, if you have any younger person in your life, obviously monitor the content that they're consuming, but monitor the content you're consuming. A lot of the times I sit back and I'm like, following these influencers, and I'm like, wait a second, like, I like their style, but they're also not doing anything to save the environment. So like, why what's going on here? This is not aligned with, I get back to my why, who I am, what I do what I believe in, to why am I engaging in that if it's just going to make me feel upset and sad. So typically, I, if it's a friend, I usually just mute their account, and I don't look at it, which is totally fine to do. Do what you got to do to have a healthy boundary with social media, do not let you know social medias perspectives or do not let your personal perspective on mental health, physical health, wellness, you know, and your own your own view of yourself and your confidence be influenced by social media. I feel like a lot of times people can't figure out how to compartmentalize their relationship. And that is part of the biggest problem with social media. But ultimately, these younger kids are being fed what a relationship should be, or they're being fed stories about perfect, you know, first experiences, for example, the first kiss, this is how it should be the first time you you know, lose your virginity, this is how it should be. And it's really glamorized in a way. And I think that's extremely dangerous. Because once you experience it in real life, you're almost like, inadequately prepared, but also maybe unsatisfied, because you're like, it was supposed to be this fairy tale moment, according to, you know, Cinderella story or according to like a High School Musical, but it just does not happen that way. On the kind of adverse and maybe more dark side of this. We don't talk about consent, and sexual education, far enough. I think, a lot of what we may or may not see in the upcoming months now that people are kind of like getting back into it and getting together again, we may see some interesting trends with like, I don't know I feel like a little weird thing here, but I think it could happen with like STDs and really interesting short term relationships. I'm really taking a turn here. I was not expecting this to be like this tonight, but it's okay. We got this. I love the spontaneity. And I think a big part of this is also that we've been inside watching all of these like crazy shows and in the past year, you know, we watched Bridgerton we don't talk about like the assault and like the lack of consent there, we have been watching, you know, the Queen's Gambit, she's got this like, kind of F'ed up relationship with like her friend that's like her coach, and then they're like, together, then we've also got, you know, just a bunch of all of these other shows, and they're not talking enough about what to do when you get yourself in a bad situation. And in the future, I'll definitely be bringing on a guest about this and like how to talk about this where to seek help, mentally, professionally, and like physically, if you do find yourself in a precarious dangerous situation. But I just find, and I'm worried that all of the next generation of people are going to grow up in a little bit of a dissatisfied and kind of like, you know, just like jaded view of what real life experiences should be. And it's very frightening to me, it's definitely very funny. And I hope that there's going to be more education about this in the near future, whether that goes down to creating children's books about, you know, maybe like sexuality, and like gender. There's also like a bunch of books that exist about that already. So I think people need to be introducing those at a young age to people instead of tablets. But I also think that there can be films about this. I know this past year, there was also a soul came out to Pixar, Soul. And I think that that was a great one, because it was about the afterlife. It had a really creative, in my opinion, like heartwarming touch on what that could look like. And to a young kid, I think that's, that's the beauty of these animation studios, and why I think they're so successful. that's to do with like the storytelling. So if we lean more into storytelling, whether that's on social media, or whether that's in all of these movies and these TV series that we're making, I think that it is possible, that some some kind of way, that ventually, maybe people will be able to cope better with difficult difficult things, for lack of better words. On that note, it's time to hydrate people. drink your water.

Also, if you have any questions at all, please slide them down into the comments, I want to answer them. Also, if you have like a quick question that you want to like, come up and ask, I usually like to leave last, like 20 to 15 minutes for comments and questions. So I can have real dialogues with you on ways that either you see Gen Z, or the way that Gen Z will be going in the future. I know it's definitely it's a little bit of a learning curve here again, into our weekly group. This is only Episode Four. But thank you to all my friends there in the audience. I see you, I appreciate you. I love you. And I think there's a couple more things that I just want to talk about relating to comfort zone before we log off tonight, but please read just raise your hand if you want to come up on the stage and just like ask a question at any time. I guess I'm going to need to get a water sponsor for my show. Anyway, so getting back into it. How can we take all of the difficult things that we've experienced in the past year, whether that has led us to be more patient, whether that's led us to be more vocal about things we believe in, whether that be more selfish with what we need from others and what we need in the workplace and in our personal life. I think it's forced us to get out of our comfort zone for so long. At least for me, at the ripe age of 23, I had not really voiced I think my true purpose, my meaning. I had not been intentional with anything that I was really doing. Aside from just kind of like going around here in there like doing jobs, doing internships, you know jumping into clubs, jumping into organizations in college. I was the kind of person that again, type A, took advantage of everything was on an eboard, was always an office hours, was always turning my papers in ahead of time, like I was a little bit of a nutjob. In grad school, I will say it's a bit difficult for me to manage my time management. I'm also writing my book, which was a very spontaneous decision that I made this year. And that book is specifically going to be about what it is like living as a chronically ill patient, pandemic aside. But it's going to be this, I think, collection of stories and thoughts and patterns that teachers should recognize and honor. That's not the point of this conversation. But it is forcing me to get out of my comfort zone, I like to call myself on my own shit all the time. Maybe sticking to a schedule where I have carved out like four to five hours a week to write my book is scary for me. And that's why I haven't exactly done it. And I've just kind of pushed it off. And I've been in the real research ideation phase. But I really need to stick to it and start talking more about my book. And I need to write more about my book, I'm holding myself to it now. So if you're listening, I want you to write somebody down. That's like, super scary to you right now. And I'm going to hold you to it so you could dm it to me on Instagram. Eventually, I'm going to be featuring all your DMs like on my pages and things like that, though, I have big plans for this. Another thing would obviously be starting this show. I am so so excited about being here and being able to hold a space for people who want to learn about what the next generations thoughts are on a variety things. But also like, just to even be able to have a space where I can express myself as a disabled woman has been really special and exciting and scary at the same time. But again, I appreciate all of you right here right now, listening and doing this intentionally with me. I think the first step, which also goes into my social media literacy lecture is of jumping out of your comfort zone is acknowledging where you're at right now, doing that self audit, understanding fundamentally what you believe and not just like, Oh, yeah, I, you know, I believe that, like, we should save the turtles, so I don't use, you know, a plastic straw. Like, what, what is the real reason? What are the facts? Do you know anything outside of that? I personally eat plant based and I you know, what's my why there? Well, part of it is that I do have a good friend and for me socially, like I, I agree with ending animal cruelty, I think we should get certainly like, human equality down first. But shortly after, I'm going to say that I think we should fight for animal equality outwardly, I really believe that I I've seen some of these videos that my friend has like, filmed herself. And her name is J Lo Kurt's Miss Jamie Logan. And she is one of my good good friends. And she is actually somebody who I have been friends with since high school. And she inspired me in the first place. She, she pushed her... her boundary was I'm not going to eat meat at the same place as you. So if you want to hang out with me, we have to go to a vegan restaurant, right? And that was a boundary that like I respected. So come come a year later. She's only been vegan a couple years. But I'm like, Jim, I'm really scared about like, you know, going out, I know, you're still going to like, you know, film, these things, you're going to your activations where you're like talking about animal rights and everything. And I'm just like, not in a place where I feel comfortable hanging out with you. And I think the most beautiful thing about our friendship was that didn't matter. We could still FaceTime we could have phone calls, we could text and again, acknowledging a very privileged position to be in not everyone has access to that kind of technology all the time. But for us, it really did work. And I think moving forward any friend of whether you are chronically ill, or whether you have a friend that's chronically ill, just or elderly or you know, has a underlying condition, you just have to be more respectful of their boundaries and also open to challenging why you might like be mad. When I was in college, I would have a couple of friends. And I did have a couple of friends, a certain group. And they literally were like, stop being so lame, like, why did you turn into this like lame person. And I literally kid you not, like all of these stories about the way that people treat me... At the time, I was not outspoken, I was not a person that like really stood up. For myself, I just kind of brushed it off and was like, I don't really care. But looking back, I'm like, wow, that's f'ed up. Like, why didn't I challenge somebody who was my friend at the time, like, they had no right to be calling my calling me lazy, because I didn't want to go out and party. And that was really, really, really frustrating, I think because I took it as like, Oh, my friends just like don't give a shit about me, which, I mean, that's like kind of what happened. So I don't regret it. But I had to set a boundary with myself and just say, if certain people are treating me that way, that I can't allow that in my life, I can't allow that in my workflow. It's not sustainable. For me mentally, it's not sustainable for me emotionally. So I'm gonna just get myself out of there. And back to that whole heartbreak thing of losing a friend, it is extremely difficult to let go of somebody who you've had great memories with. But as you are doing your audit, and you're remembering all of the memories that you had with this one person, even though your values change, you still have those amazing memories, right? But the reason why something didn't work out, is... it's not a coincidence. Like you were supposed to have them so that you can experience a certain amount of things, so that it would lead you either away or closer to that friend, and to where you are today. So I truly do you think everything happens for a reason, and certain friends are destined to do what they're going to do and whether you're a part of that or not. I personally think having love for those people regardless, is very important. I think it you should just try to move through life with with love. And I think Gen Zers do this. We also, unfortunately, I don't know where the idea of cancel culture came from, it seems in a way that it came from the newsroom, in my opinion. Starting with publications like the New York Post and the Daily Mail, I don't know exactly what causes them to want to just make people feel bad and like provide all of this nasty commentary on people. But I think because Gen Zers are consuming so many ads on Snapchat, and you know, people are looking at Twitter so much. That's where those stories succeed. And it has that viral kind of popcorn effect where one thing goes off about this person and then another person related and so on and so forth. And somebody liked something that was really messed up and I think it's important to kind of call people out when they have done something I stopped but I also think it's important to let those people own up to what they've done it apologize or make a statement on it. And then after that, implement a frickin change. I think the biggest problem with canceled culture is the fact that people get cancelled and then they make a notes page apology, they post it on their social media pages and after that, what happens? Nothing changes, a couple months later, very similar thing happens to either an influencer, the same influencer or an influencer, adjacent to that. And, Gen Z does not want to see one another treated this way. 100% no. Everyone that I've talked to is how can you have a healthy relationship with social media when you're scared you're going to get canceled. That was like literally I was on a call yesterday from like a 16 year old, right. So, that's not really healthy at all and I feel like we didn't really hear much about this. I think I would say like, you know millennial generations and up like, thinking back, I'm like okay we had those like magazines where, you know, they had all those quizzes on the back and it's all there like scratch and sniff magazines I forgot what they were called, those magazines were dumping on people, I think that was mainly in like tabloids that they were dumping on real public figures. Now that we have influencers who are also like celebrities and dating celebrities and actors and actresses. It just gives us a wider margin to criticize people, and it's got to stop. I personally don't think as a user who is not involved, like with as a social media user, like all of you you're on hearing now like, whatever you are consuming on social media, whether that is looking at cancel culture, or you're looking at like an influencers content who you don't like. If you know, we're taught this in literally kindergarten, if you don't have anything nice to say, do not say it. And that's the problem with people, they are saying all of these really nutty things that I don't think people would ever have the heart to actually say to somebody, face to face, or like that. Somebody might ask somebody at a press conference or a jump kit. And I think that that is again one of the bigger problems with social media, and the way that we portray our self image, and the way that we're kind of dealing with our personalities online versus who we actually are in real life.

And with that, I'm going to end episode four. Thank you all so much for listening to me. I hope you enjoyed -- seriously, if you have any other questions, I'm going to stay on for the next, like, seven minutes and answer any questions, bring you all up. But thank you again, this was amazing. And, yeah, Gigi out. I seriously appreciate all of you coming in here and listening to my show. I hope you liked it, I really appreciate it. You’re really sweet.