00:01Cliff Notes version is that I went to school to be an actor and then realized
00:06that I had a passion for the internet and studied graphic design. And when
00:10YouTube came out, which was my senior year of college, I thought this is the
00:15perfect opportunity for me to mix the things that I'm interested in, which are
00:19the arts and the internet. And so I started a YouTube channel and through a
00:25series of videos that did well and some cool contests and just making lots of
00:30content that I loved, I now am in a place where it's my job.
00:35My first videos were about hair, surprisingly. I'm actually really into
00:40hair. It is a huge thing and I swear every single day I either have someone
00:44that reaches out and wants to touch my hair without asking me, which is a little
00:48like, please keep your hands to yourself. But for me, I really like to think of my
00:54hair as a work of art. I like to use it to kind of, it's almost like an accessory
00:59for me and just the challenge of doing new things is really awesome. And also, you
01:05know, there are a lot of stigmas about natural hair. And so it's important for me
01:08to show people that our hair can be just as versatile and cool as anyone else's.
01:14In 2012, I had a viral video called Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls and it was a
01:20parody of the meme Shit Girls Say, which was kind of just like a funny video about all
01:25the stereotypical things that girls say. Growing up in South Florida, I had lots of
01:30beautiful friends that were white that I loved very, very much, but I was different from
01:35them. And so that sometimes kind of presented itself in these ways that were kind of
01:40uncomfortable and sometimes kind of hurtful, even though they didn't mean it. And so it
01:45really resonated with a lot of people and 11 million views later, it really catapulted
01:51my career.
01:52I was working as a graphic designer for a fashion brand and I was at my desk and all
01:59of these emails were coming in and I was just bawling. And my coworkers were looking at me saying,
02:04what is wrong with you? And I was like, my video's going viral. Everyone wants to talk to me.
02:09Um, I was interviewed on Anderson Cooper. I auditioned for SNL. I got some cool writing
02:16jobs. I got to go all over the country speaking at different colleges and I ended up quitting
02:21my job off of the revenue that I made from that video. And I got my agent and just really
02:27started exploring a full-time career in entertainment and haven't looked back since.
02:32I now host a show at MTV news called decoded and it's all about race and pop culture, but
02:38we use sketch comedy and motion graphics and we really just try to take big issues that
02:44are sometimes difficult to talk about or make people uncomfortable and quite literally decode
02:49them so that we can expand people's minds and make them think, but also kind of provide
02:55a little break from some of these tough issues and tough stories out there. And I really
03:01do think that educating people is the way that we are going to make progress. And I do think
03:05that we unfortunately do have a long way to go, but there are so many people who are ready
03:11to learn and want to be part of the solution. Um, and, and that is really encouraging for me.
03:18My mother has always just told me to be myself. And I feel like that is one of those pieces
03:24of advice that everybody gets that you feel is really cliche and is really hard to do because
03:30you think, well, who, who, who am I like be myself? I don't even know what that means. And I
03:36want to be
03:36like that person because they're successful and, or I don't want to be like that person. And I think
03:40that we spend so much time thinking about everyone else that we forget to reflect on what makes us
03:46happy and what makes us individuals and what we're most passionate about. And I think that as long as you
03:51can
03:52center and focus back on what's most important to you, then you're going in the right direction.
03:58I love to read. I love to talk to people. And you'd be really surprised how often you can send
04:04somebody a tweet or an email and say, I'd love to just go to coffee or here's a project that
04:10I'm
04:10working on. I'd love to get your feedback. A lot of times people will say yes. And the worst that
04:16can
04:16happen is someone says no, and you just move on and ask somebody else.
04:25You
