Dylan Marron

EPISODE 38: CHEAP ASS SPONSORED AD

Amanda: So that just sounds like a really cute company with a lot of people being a pain in their ass. And, uh, (Dylan laughs) I'm sorry to have been a small part of that pain.

Matt: That's appreciated, honestly, Amanda, to hear you say that. And honestly, when you were describing your own background and what you do, I was just like, "we should be friends with this person. You're basically describing us!"

[Instrumental of ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals begins to play.]

Dylan [VOICEOVER INTRODUCTION]: Welcome back to Conversations with People Who Hate Me,the show where I take negative online interactions, or otherwise contentious relationships, and turn them into offline chats. I’m your host, Dylan Marron.

This podcast is all about reminding each other that there’s a human on the other side of the screen. You’re probably familiar with that exact line, because that’s the tagline. You can hear it at the end of every. Single. episode.

Because, as we’ve seen for the last five (!) years of this podcast, behind every online profile is a thinking, breathing, feeling human being.

Well, except for bots.

But you get the idea: Social media makes it very easy to forget that the people we pass online are, in fact, people.

But what about… companies? When we scroll past a sponsored ad online… there isn’t really a human being behind that, right? Surely It’s just some faceless corporate entity hocking a product to us. And not anyone who has, like, feelings??

Today’s episode answers those questions with “... maybe.”

Matt & Meredith are the husband-and-wife team behind the apparel company Boredwalk. They sell shirts that boast progressive slogans like “Feminist is is my second-favorite F-word” “support your local library” and “nevertheless she persisted.” 

Like most modern companies, they advertise on social media and it was on social media that a woman named Amanda came across one of their sponsored ads—an ad that showcased hoodies that represented Boredwalk’s progressive values—and she commented “if you have these values you shouldn’t buy from some cheap ass sponsored ad but okkkk.” 

Maybe you’re thinking that this is a totally silly premise for an episode. “It’s just a sponsored ad! Get over it!” (That’s you, in your head, thinking that). But you’ll quickly find that this comment launched all four of us—me, Matt, Meredith, and Amanda, into a really fascinating conversation about surviving in the digital marketplace, socioeconomic anxiety, and why we take our big anger at the system out on individual people instead.

And on the subject of ads, please indulge me, I am contractually obligated to inform you that my book—also titled Conversations with People Who Hate Me—is coming out on March 29, 2022 and it’s actually available for presale now. It is both an intimate account of my journey through making this show, and an atlas on how to navigate difficult conversations of your own. Ashley C. Ford, the New York Times Bestselling author of Somebody’s Daughter, and just an amazing person, said that this book “shifted something in [her] forever.” To preorder the book, you’ll see a presale link in the description of this episode… or, Google to your heart’s content.

Okay okay okay that’s it for my ad. Now we can finally move onto this lovely episode that is also about ads. So let’s start by getting to know the people behind the apparel company Boredwalk.

[Music fades. Conversation begins.]

Dylan: Okay, Hi! Matt, Meredith! Hello and welcome to this little show!

Matt: Thank you for having us.

Dylan: How are you guys doing today?

Meredith: I think we're doing okay. We got to leave work a little bit early to come record with you, (Dylan laughs) so that's fun.

Dylan: I get that. So tell me about you two as a couple, how you met, who you each are, how you started Boredwalk. All of that beautiful stuff.

Matt: Um, so, Meredith and I are the co-founders and owners of a little eCommerce apparel brand called Boredwalk, and we just design original graphic apparel, housewares, decor items, that kind of thing.

Meredith: But we actually met back in 2004. We hung around a lot of the same music venues, kept running into each other, like, all the time, even though we weren't meeting on purpose (Dylan giggles) until eventually we decided to start meeting on purpose and started hanging out. And eventually we started dating. Got married. At the time we both had these two separate careers. I worked in tech, Matt was a graphic designer.

Matt: We both became pretty fed up with our respective day jobs, and eventually Meredith was making enough in tech that she was just like, "why don't you see if you can turn this little hobby that we had designing weird stuff into a real job?" And I did as best as I could by myself for about a year and a half, and then she joined me. I don't know, mostly we're into cocktails-

Meredith: Monster movies.

Matt: Monster movies.

Dylan: Monster movies. Okay, good.

Meredith: Art.

Dylan: Love.

Meredith: Yeah.

Matt: So yeah, it's both a creative outlet and our primary means of income. It's really our only means of income now.

Dylan: How would you describe the voice of Boredwalk T-shirts?

Matt: Progressive.

Meredith: Dark humor.

Matt: Dark humor. Not particularly optimistic. (Dylan giggles) But there's still a sliver of, kind of, bemused hopefulness in most of what we do. At least, I guess that's how I would describe it.

Dylan: So to be clear, you guys don't have a brick and mortar store, right?

Meredith: We have an office in a warehouse, but it's not a store you can walk into and shop in, um—

Dylan: But in terms of where your revenue comes from, it's from online sales, right?

Meredith: It's from online, yeah. We sell to stores and they carry our stuff, so boutiques and things like that, but not one of our own.

Dylan: So to sell online, that means you have to be engaging in digital marketing.

Meredith: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Matt: Yes.

Dylan: And also sponsored ads.

Matt: Yes.

Meredith: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dylan: Okay, you know where I'm getting here. How do you feel about that? Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Or do not even think about it and you're just like, "oh yeah, this is part of having a digital business, you buy digital ads and that's how it goes."

Matt: We hate it. (Dylan laughs) No, honestly. I mean, yeah, it is a fact of our lives that we have to do it, because when we did first start selling stuff online, we didn't really have any kind of marketing game plan in place at all. We just put stuff up on our website and on our little Etsy shop and we hoped for the best. And when we made the decision to just focus on eCommerce and just selling stuff online, we realized that we had to learn how to do the marketing side of it, and that is what eventually led us to hire some people to basically train us on how to run Facebook ads and how to run Instagram ads and how to set up-

Meredith: Email marketing.

Matt: Yeah a good email marketing campaign.

Dylan: So, advertising digitally, you know where I'm going here, but advertising digitally draws feedback from customers and, most importantly, the mystifying thing about digital advertising is that it draws feedback from non-customers, and people are enabled an allowed to share their opinions. So what does the feedback look like for you guys?

Matt: The overwhelming majority of the feedback that we get is positive, but when we do get that negative feedback, we just fixate on it and we ruminate about it, and it will really ruin, if not our day, sometimes our entire week, because there's that one person that apparently hates everything about us.

Dylan: How do the negative comments feel?

Meredith: Umm, I mean... man...that's a hard question that no one's ever actually asked me, and now I have to think about the answer. I'm sorry.

Dylan: No, no, this is... I love it.

Meredith: How do negative comments make us feel? I think maybe misunderstood, and it's frustrating because I can't reason with this person who's making this assumption about us and what we do.

Matt: Sometimes I do feel a little sad because sometimes the things that people say are particularly hurtful and, you know, it can be a bit re-triggering in terms of things I experienced as a young kid to have these same sentiments revisited upon me as an adult, even though the circumstances are wildly different.

Dylan: What is some of the stuff that you're referring to as a kid?

Matt: I mean, I was raised by a single mom with a drug problem who didn't handle the pressures of being a single mom with a drug problem very well, and so there was some physical and sexual abuse. She loved me in her own way, but she was a very flawed person and it still is a very difficult thing to experience people telling me that I'm not good. (laughs)

Dylan: Yeah, no, I get that. So not too long ago, a stranger commented on a sponsored post of yours and she wrote, referring to the t-shirts that it was advertising, "If you have these values," ostensibly progressive values, "you shouldn't buy from some cheap ass sponsored ad. But okay." So how does it feel to hear something like that?

Matt: It's just weird to me that because of whatever they have built up in their mind about companies that advertise on Facebook, regardless of size, regardless of what they're selling, regardless of what their company mission is, what their values are, that that would be what they thought was an appropriate thing to say. And, you know, the thing that's frustrating to me about that kind of commentary is that it can have really negative consequences for the businesses that are on the receiving end of those. Like I said, we have five other people that depend on the success of our business for paying their bills, making sure that they're able to put food on the table, making sure that they are able to afford clothes beyond the stuff that they're able to get from work, and if people see that kind of stuff that might make them think twice about purchasing from us. And so it does feel like a bit of a personal attack, not just on me, but on everyone that is associated with Meredith and I, including the people on our team directly, but also Deron, the mail guy that picks up from us every afternoon from the local post office, the people that sell us the inks that we print with, the shirts that we print on, it impacts other people besides us. And so it is very frustrating for me.

Dylan: So the person who wrote this comment, her name is Amanda, and you're about to speak to Amanda. How are you feeling about that?

Matt: I'm intrigued.

Meredith: I'm pretty much on the same page with Matt. Because it's not something I do or a behavior I could understand, I guess I'm curious as to how this person can explain their behavior to us. Matt and I try to understand what goes on in the minds of the people that leave us the comments that they leave, so this will be, I guess, a good insight.

Dylan: I'm about to talk to Amanda, but just hang tight and then we'll all talk together. Sound good?

Meredith: Sure.

Matt: Yeah.

[The conversation with Matt & Meredith ends. Phone rings. Amanda picks up.]

Amanda: Hello?

Dylan: Hey, Amanda.

Amanda: Yes. Hello!

Dylan: Hi! How are you? It's Dylan!

Amanda: I am doing wonderful. How are you?

Dylan: I'm good. You're packing for your big trip.

Amanda: I sure am.

Dylan: Okay! Wait, I don't think we covered where you're going.

Amanda: I'm going with my boyfriend, we're flying into LAX and spending a few days with my friend Logan down in Laguna Hills and then a few days in West Hollywood.

Dylan: Okay, glam! Amanda, I love this.

Amanda: Right?

Dylan: (laughing giddily) Oh my god!

Amanda: You got to leave Appalachia sometimes and live it up.

Dylan: Honey, you got to leave Appalachia. (Amanda laughs)That's the new tagline at this show, is "you got to leave Appalachia sometimes."

Amanda: You sure do.

Dylan: That is amazing. Can you just tell me a little about your day, just so I can get some sound levels right now on you?

Amanda: Yeah. I woke up at the crack of noon and I did some laundry.

Dylan: (laughing) Crack of— did you say "crack of noon"?!

Amanda: I sure did.

Dylan: Okay, Amanda. I'm proud of you.

Amanda: Thank you.

Dylan: This is all perfect. Your levels are wonderful. Hey, well, first of all, I just wanted to start, how are you feeling? This is just a relaxed one, just you and me, but how are you feeling in your heart?

Amanda: I am feeling good in my heart. No palpitations or irregular beats so far.

Dylan: Okay, well, that, I mean, we also pray for health, so there's that.

Amanda: Right.

Dylan: But this is the standard question I always ask on every one of these calls. But I'd love to get to know you, so in only as many details as you're comfortable sharing on a podcast that will one day be shared with many listeners. Tell me about you.

Amanda: Well, I'm 27 and my boyfriend and I live together in Southeast Ohio and we have two cats. I am an overnight supervisor at a university library where I also went to school for creative writing. Well, eight months out of the year I work overnights at the college library as a supervisor, which ranges from being extremely boring to filling out police reports. Even just yesterday, I came into work to work an afternoon shift, the first thing the other supervisor says to me is, "The cops just left. Someone was masturbating on the fifth floor."

Dylan: No!

Amanda: So that's just life at a library. Sometimes it's very wholesome and nice, helping people find books, and sometimes crazy things happen and we have to think on our feet and fill out police reports.

Dylan: Okay. So this is wonderful. We're getting a beautiful background, three dimensional view of Amanda. What would you say your relationship is to social media?

Amanda: I feel like social media is a cruel mistress in my life. I tend to either use it in a really positive way or in a really negative way. I recently was on what I would call a fitness journey and was very public about the ups and downs of it and have tried to continue to be, which has been so helpful for me. But then at the same time, it's easy to use the internet as someone's punching bag. I try not to be too much of a bully or anything, but I feel like sometimes if I'm in a bad mood, it's easy to find somebody who I see as a villain, like [name bleeped] is a great example for me...

Dylan [VOICEOVER]: So Amanda just named a conservative Twitter personality. I bleeped her name because she’s not on this phone call, but you get the shape of the kind of person she’s talking about.

Amanda: ... she says racism isn't real and she's transphobic, she attacks people. It's easy for me to say something mean to her on the internet. That doesn't make me feel bad, but it's still not good. I don't feel good about it really either.

Dylan: So, what we're getting is that, or what I'm hearing here is that, you identify as progressive as liberal, and so the villains you're identifying are more conservative people who are upholding perhaps, um... is that a fair read?

Amanda: Yeah. When people bully sex workers or trans people, I'm like, "I can bully you too. Maybe those people don't have a voice to stand up for themselves." But I did learn that sometimes I could have some preconceived notions (Dylan laughs) about a business.

Dylan: What makes you think that, on a show that you might be on to talk about up that exact thing?!

Amanda: I could never know. (laughs)

Dylan: Well, you did the segue better than I could have, but you come across a sponsored post for a company called Boredwalk t-shirts. So this is a socially progressive t-shirt company, and the caption of this was, we will not go quietly back into the 1950s, and there were two shirts that they were advertising. One was a Handmaid's Tale hoodie and the other was Voting Is For Lovers. So this is a company that seems to have similar ideals that you and I have, Amanda. But do you remember where you were when you came across this ad?

Amanda: I don't know if I remember where I was when I came across that ad, but that was not the first ad I saw from that company. So the first time I saw an ad from them, I was at work and it was an ad for their hoodie—one of their hoodies, I think they have more than one—that says "Support Your Local Library." And then I clicked on it and it looked like to be of nice quality. I didn't dig around the site too much. But I saw that it was almost $50 and I kind of scoffed and thought, well, anyone that wants to support their local library could give like 10% of that to the library and really help someone instead of buying this hoodie that just says that they help. And I think that's what I was actually angry at, not that company, but this idea of performative progressivism where some people want to just wear a shirt that's like, "I'm woke! I like to help! I'm a good person!" But sometimes it feels like that's kind of a false— a falsehood. Not everyone, obviously some people wear those shirts and they're super badass and they support their local library, but I just think I was more mad at what some of those can represent. And, you know, I think progressive crowds can sometimes be the toughest critics, because we're always challenging ourselves, hopefully, and other people, usually, to be better.

Dylan: Do you think that's why we in-fight so much?

Amanda: I do. I think we all get kind of excited about this path to make the world better and can sometimes knock things down along the way instead of look around and see who we could take with us or what other ways there are to go.

Dylan: Yeah. You know, this is all leading to the comment, and you wrote, and I quote, "If you have these values," you're referring to the hoodie and the Voting Is For Lovers t-shirt, "If you have these values, you shouldn't buy from some cheap ass sponsored ad. But, okay." (laughs) Do you remember what was going through your mind as you wrote that?

Amanda: Well, I do remember that I was, like, kind of in a bad mood that day. I don't think I am as quick to talk shit on a sponsored ad if I'm having a great day. But I think it was actually workplace frustration, and I took it out not on the right people, slash, the right company.

Dylan: Listen, it introduced me to you and for that I am grateful.

Amanda: Me too. I wouldn't totally take it back, because this is pretty cool, but I don't mean it anymore.

Dylan: Right right right. But for the sake of—well, I was going to say for the sake of this podcast, but also for the sake of truth, you at least meant it then.

Amanda: Yeah, I did mean it then.

Dylan: So you are about to speak to the people behind the t-shirt company. How are you feeling about talking to them?

Amanda: I am very excited. A little nervous. I hope that they're in a mood to reconcile (Dylan laughs) and find common ground, because I am.

Dylan: Yeah, well, I actually think, politically, there's only common ground that's shared.

Amanda: That's going to be a great little chat.

Dylan: I know. I'm really, really excited for it. And hey, big thing, enjoy the trip.

Amanda: Oh yes. Thank you so much. (laughs)

Dylan: You're welcome. I'll talk to you soon, Amanda, okay?

Amanda: Okay, sounds good.

Dylan: Bye.

Amanda: Bye.

[Phone hangup sound]

Dylan [VOICEOVER]: Now that I’ve spoken to both Matt and Meredith and Amanda separately, it’s time to connect them to each other. But first, let’s take a quick break.

[BREAK]

Dylan [VOICEOVER]: Alright. We are back. Now, as we left off, I am about to connect Matt and Meredith and Amanda to each other right now.

[Phone rings. All guests are now connected.]

Meredith: Hello?

Dylan: Hello.

Matt: Hello.

Dylan: Oh hi! We're all here. This is so exciting. Just quickly before we launch into it, Amanda, can you hear me?

Amanda: Yes, I can.

Dylan: And Matt and Meredith, can you hear me?

Meredith: I can hear you.

Dylan: Matt?

Matt: I can hear you.

Dylan: Okay, great. And then Amanda, can you hear Matt and Meredith?

Amanda: I can.

Dylan: Okay, (laughing) Matt and Meredith. Can you hear Amanda?

Meredith: Yes.

Matt: Yes, we can.

Meredith: Magic!

Dylan: Okay, well, we did it friends. So let's dive right into it. We've covered a lot of ground on our solo calls and I feel like I've gotten to know you. The point of this portion of the call is for you all to get to know each other. I typically say you two, but now we have a two and one situation, and that's wonderful. So Matt and Meredith, let's start with you. I would love to hear a quick introduction about who you guys are, briefly individually, but also you as a couple, and then you as business owners. So go for it.

Matt: My name is Matt Snow… (Matt’s voice fades in volume)

Dylan [VOICEOVER]: Now, in this portion of the call Matt, Meredith and Amanda all get to know each other. But you just heard all of this and your time is precious, so I’m gonna fast forward to the part where Amanda gives us a little more context about the day she was having when she wrote the comment.

Amanda: It must have been over the university's winter break because I was working day shifts. I go between night shifts and day shifts and we were in the middle of all the different news about how understaffed we would be, how much we would have to change around the hours, how much the budget cuts of the university might or might not affect us. We, in fact, had just before that seen this projected budget cut where there'd be a chance that our jobs would essentially not exist anymore in about a year. So I think it was definitely the kind of day where I was just feeling big frustrated and small frustrated, if that makes sense.

Dylan: Yeah, macro micro.

Amanda: Mmm-hmm (affirmative).

Dylan: I get it. So Matt and Meredith, do you at all remember even programming that specific sponsored ad or was that perhaps a different staffer?

Matt: No, I, this is Matt, I actually do all of our Facebook ads, and so that was me directly that was the one that was responsible for that ad. I definitely can empathize with your reticence to buy into what you have eloquently described as performative progressivism. That is definitely a thing. I think that there are a lot of online companies, and just companies in general, that have no qualms whatsoever about catering to every potential side of the political spectrum, so they have no qualms about having progressive stuff and really conservative stuff within their same site. But I also can totally empathize with your frustration. Even though we are self-employed with regards to the business, we have really bad days and sometimes weeks and sometimes months where we're like, I don't know if we're going to be able to keep the lights on. We may have to lay people off because for whatever reason. Our ads just aren't hitting the right people. I can totally understand your frustration with what you described going on in your work life.

Amanda: Well yeah, just... it's crazy from my perspective to imagine a company that would show you a sponsored ad having a moment where they're thinking about if they can even keep going. I guess I never considered that a small business, in a sense, a business that is not Amazon or Facebook, like I think a lot of people imagine the companies we see in sponsored ads. You have the same workplace struggles as I do, and I didn't think about that even as I was trying, on purpose, to think about the common ground that we had preparing to talk to you guys. So that's really interesting to hear.

Dylan: I feel it too, to be totally honest with you, when you see an ad, because presentationaly, the ad for Boredwalk t-shirts looks the same as Amazon, it is served to you in the same way. It's a picture of a product with the white frame of a Facebook post, and it says "Buy Now." So just as I don't think that social media is necessarily designed for us to see nuance, I also know that social media isn't designed for us to see backstory. Do you think that played into it, Amanda?

Amanda: I mean, I think it did. And I think that in so many ways we are very, as progressives, at least, prone to not want to see companies as people at all. And so I think your idea is interesting and I agree with it. But at the same time, I think that's something that a lot of people have to talk themselves into in any degree, is to see a company as made up of people and not assume that it's just some evil, profit-driven, Reagan era (Dylan laughs), Koch-fueled monster, and that not everything is like that in capitalism, but we have to put effort into not seeing companies that way, I think. A lot of people, at least.

Dylan: Yeah. Well, I think seeing companies as people... Now, it feels like I'm turning into a hardcore capitalist podcast. (all laugh) "Companies are people, damn it!!" (Matt laughs) Actually, my next guest is just Amazon the entity (all laugh). So, well, no, I think you said that beautifully, Amanda. I do actually think that companies are populated by people and created by people. So Matt, Meredith tell us about the people that make up this company. You guys individually, and namelessly since they're not on this call, other employees.

Meredith: Well, we're in the LA suburbs. It's where our office is. And we have four women that work in our office, who we have a great time hanging out with every day. Two of the them do customer service emails and pack up orders, and two of them print things for us during the day. And then we have two remote team members. One does just does intellectual property enforcement, because people are always stealing our art, and the other one works on partnerships with us with ambassadors and things like that. So that's the team as it stands right now. Um and it's a fun place to work, honestly. I think we all come in and have a good time at work every day. I hear from my team that they really like their jobs and love working there. We don't have a lot of turnover, because people that usually join our team it's like a fun little company culture and we have a good time hanging out with each other and making cool art.

Dylan: Amanda, now, hearing that, how does that reconcile with what you thought the company was before?

Amanda: I mean, I honestly have already looked a lot into the company to realize how wrong I was, (Dylan laughs) but hearing how small they are and how even with such a small staff, they still have to have one person whose job it is to make sure no one's stealing their art, I didn't think about it like that, about the creative end of that and how easy it is for that to happen either way. So that just sounds like a really cute company with a lot of people being a pain in their ass. And I'm sorry to have been a small part of that pain.

Matt: That's appreciated, honestly, Amanda, to hear you say that. And honestly, when you were describing your own background and what you do, working at the university and you just like to cook in your spare time and hang out with your cats, I was just like, "we should be friends with this person. You're basically describing us!"

Dylan: And Amanda, just to be totally clear, I think you know this because you know how we've spoken on the phone and you seem to be familiar with this podcast. This is so not a shaming show. You did exactly what these platforms encourage us to do, and what these platforms encourage us to do is act on our most impulsive opinion in the moment, and then they give us tools to vocalize and verbalize those feelings right in the moment. So I don't think you are by any means this (adopting an overly dramatic voice) horrible witch who has done this thing that no one has done on social media. I think on the contrary you do this thing that all of us do on social media.

Amanda: No, yeah, I knew I wasn't going to get gotcha'd or anything on the call. No, yeah, and I love this opportunity to have a big reminder to myself to be more conscious before I criticize, especially something on the internet, but just in general to save my criticism for when it's thoughtful and productive. And, uh, I think for me, my socioeconomic status can sometimes make me a little over-critical of other people and the way that they choose to be progressive. I think that lower income people are sometimes told by other progressives things that they should be doing that aren't realistic when you don't have a lot of extra money, like maybe vegan people insisting that everyone should be vegan when not everyone can afford it. And obviously most of my vegan friends are super laid back and make the best stir fry (Dylan giggles) and would never say things like that, but I think that since I have this low socioeconomic status and I perceive frequently that other people are looking down on me, that I do it to other people that I perceive as having more than me. So it's easy for me to look at some company and say, "Why aren't you doing a better job?" because in my idea, in my head, in that moment, they have so much more than me and I feel like I'm doing my best, so I have these expectations that other people with more should be doing more. And that's not fair because I, first of all, don't know shit about what people have from social media—company or not—and even if I did, I could never know their own abilities to do things to help other people because we all have to still have our own mental space for ourselves. But I guess in this case it was more like that first Support Your Local Libraries hoodie I saw, is, I think, more what I was thinking about that day, because I was like, "damn, yeah, support this local library." Like, (laughs) "I'm struggling right now and these people want me to buy a $47 hoodie. I can't do that." And I wish I could. I wish I could just... Because I looked at it and damn, it looks so nice. I want that hoodie now. (Dylan laughs) But in my head, I think sometimes there is a little bit of resentment or jealousy because it's almost like, "dude, I can't have that right now, just leave me alone. I can't buy anything right now. I'm struggling." You know?

Dylan: Yeah.

Matt: I can totally understand that, and I know that we don't have the cheapest prices on the internet. A lot of that is almost entirely a function of we need to make sure that we're doing right by our team and that we're paying them not just a living wage, but hopefully more than a living wage and also taking great pains to make sure that we don't expect anyone to work more than 40 hours a week and that we are able to be flexible when they need time off or when they need to leave early or something like that. Um, yeah, I get it. And especially when you're online and you're just trying to interact with your friends and every fourth or fifth post is some sponsored ad and someone's trying to sell you something, and you're just like, "I'm just trying to swap recipes with my buddy," or whatever it is. I totally get that. As a result, most of the time I don't scroll through my feed very much. I have some core friends that I follow, so I get notifications when they post stuff. But I don't want to be confronted with the commodification of existence anymore than you do. I totally get that.

Meredith: Yeah, and to the idea of, like, "oh, we just have everything and we're super rich," Matt and I... I mean, running business is a rollercoaster and I don't want to get too into the weeds about explaining how it all works, but basically in order to grow a business, sometimes you have to spend basically all of your money to grow it, and so Matt and I have had years where our personal income has literally been $0 and we're living off of savings. It's not like Matt and I are just swimming around in this Scrooge McDuck money bin and living the dream. I wish it was that way. It's not that way at all.

Matt: If we were, we would invite you to live with us, Amanda.

Amanda: Oh, good. I'm looking for a place in LA. (all laugh)

Dylan: Yeah!

Meredith: I know a lot of other entrepreneurs that are in that position where it's like, "yeah, I doubled my sales this year, but in order to do it I had to reinvest every penny and I made no money this year." Matt and I have months where Facebook's just not properly and so our ads are just not profitable and we're like $20,000 in the red that month or something. And that's scary. And, yeah, sure, in my dream world capitalism would be heavily regulated and we wouldn't have to fret so much about commodifying every little thing. That's not the world we live in.

Dylan: Yeah.

Meredith: So I think the notion that all these people that are running online businesses are just making all this money is not true.

Amanda: Right. And I think most of the time I know that that's not true. I think it's just when I really feel too caught in financial or other related stress to see clearly in general, that's when those frustrations can come out. And obviously I can only speak for myself because now when I look at the designs, they are so eye catchy and poppy, and they're nice, it's beautiful art, and I do agree with a lot of the ideas. But I think I do overthink my own sense of progressivism and do accidentally do these purity tests. So it's... you know... I have to compartmentalize those things when I see those ads and know that there are people who have the resources to both buy that and literally support their local library. Those people exist and should be able to buy those hoodies by the thousands. (laughs)

Meredith: Yeah. I agree. I mean, it's something that Matt and I spent a lot of time thinking about. And even with regard to pricing, we do try to have pricing that's accessible, but also we're constrained by, how much does postage cost? How much does ink cost? How much does it cost us to pay employees a living wage? We offer free exchanges, because we're trying to offer a good customer experience. How much does all that cost us? So if we wanted to drastically lower our prices, we couldn't do all those things. So it's not just a function of, "I'm going to charge these high prices and make so much money," it's more like, "how much do you actually need to charge to serve all those goals?"

Amanda: Right. And I think for me, I do try in most parts of my life to spend more money so that I can support people who I know share values, which I think a good example is trying to go to the farmer's market before I go to a big chain grocery store. So I love to spend the $3 on the organic avocado, but sometimes I can't even afford the shitty little one. So I think it's like that for me with clothing too. So it's not that I looked at that and thought that it was overpriced or an inappropriate price, it's just that I cannot afford any clothes sometimes at all. Most of the time. Got to wait for Christmas. For Santa. (laughs, Meredith laughs)

Matt: I totally get what you're saying. I think part of it is we've been conditioned by the Wal-Mart-ization of it all over the last 20 or 30 years, to expect those prices everywhere. And they're able to leverage this economy of scale, where they're buying millions and millions and millions of units and they're able to get stuff down to just pennies on the dollar relative to what we're able to do. Um, you know, there are a lot of emotional and psychological gymnastics that we have to go to in terms of making sure that we are doing right by the people that we're trying to put our art in front of, while not feeling so craven and money grubbing (giggles) with what we're doing.

Dylan: Meredith, you said something on this call that I really just think sums up this whole thing. And you said, "I would love to not commodify every little thing, but that's just not the world we live in." And I think that gets to the heart of everything we're talking about here, that we're all just trying to do our very best given the circumstances, and we can't express our anger and frustration at The Circumstances—capital T, capital C—so instead we, you know, kind of get it out on each other. And I think we're all figuring out how to survive in the current system we're living in and everyone who does anything for money, takes a job or creates work for themselves or creates a company for themselves or creates a project for themselves, has to figure out how they balance that and how they do that as ethically as possible.

Amanda: Absolutely.

Meredith: Yeah, completely.

Matt: Yeah.

Meredith: I mean, if there's one thing that I hope that everyone here, but also just anyone listening, takes away, it's just that let's focus on our common enemy that's a much bigger problem than any minor squabbles we have with people who largely agree with us, because focusing on a common enemy will make us much more productive in terms of doing something about it.

Dylan: Well, I will say this, if the theme of this call is that we all have to figure out our own little solutions to bigger problems, temporary solutions to big macro problems, I have one small idea, small, small, small idea that I can do on this call, which is, so, as you know, and now listeners can know, it is traditionally unethical to pay podcast guests, so I can't be paying you for your time, but Amanda, you did say that... You mentioned that you would love a Support Your Local Library hoodie?

Amanda: (cautiously skeptical) Yeah?

Dylan: Okay. So what I can do is I can buy the hoodie from Boredwalk and then send it to you, Amanda. Boredwalk is getting business and then I can send it to you as a thank you. It's my thank you to both of you. So that's our own little temporary solution for this beautiful little space that we've created here.

Amanda: Oh, Dylan.

Dylan: No, I think that's great!

Amanda: That's so sweet.

Meredith: That's very kind of you, Dylan.

Dylan: So if we've gotten nothing out of this call, we have the fact that you have one new sale of a sweatshirt, and Amanda, you have one new sweatshirt. So (laughs) this is all very exciting.

Amanda: So you think you got me, but really this is just me scamming all of you for a free hoodie, (Dylan laughs) so I really think I'm the winner here. (laughs)

Dylan: Oh, my god! Amanda, you put a lot of work in for a free hoodie, I got to say. (laughs) This is a long con. All right, well, this has been truly, truly wonderful. And are there any final things you want to say to each other?

Matt: I would just like to say, Amanda, it was really nice to meet you. I mean, I guess in as much as we can being so far away from each other physically. And like I said, it sounds like we would actually be really good friends if we lived closer together. And I'm glad that this had a happy ending because we want to please the people that see our ads, even if they aren't necessarily ready to buy something. Most of the time when I'm writing the copy, I'm just like, "I hope I make someone giggle or feel seen or empowered." So it was really nice to meet you. And I hope that we can continue engaging with one another on the internet in a friendly and respectful way. And feel free to comment on our ads again, and if you have ever do catch us doing something and you think, "Hey, you could be better," send us a DM and we'll do what we can. (laughs)

Amanda: Right. We'll do it in private. We'll hash it out in private. No, but yeah, it was so lovely to talk to both of you. And next time I'm in LA, we'll have to do tacos for sure.

Meredith: Yes!

Matt: Yes!

Meredith: Definitely let us know if you're here and we will take you to our favorite taco places.

Amanda: Amazing.

Dylan: I love this! What an incredible way to end this conversation. I really appreciate all of you coming on this call today, and we'll all see each other on the internet. Sound good?

Amanda: Yeah. Thanks again.

Dylan: All right.

Meredith: Thanks for having us.

Amanda: Okay, thanks everyone!

Meredith: Bye.

Matt: Thanks. Bye.

Amanda: Bye.

Dylan: Bye!

[Phone call ends with a hang up sound. The drumbeat from ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals kicks in.]

Dylan [VOICEOVER CLOSING CREDITS]: If you have an idea for a conversation for this show, head on over to www dot conversationswithpeoplewhohateme dot com and fill out the brief submission form.

Conversations with People Who Hate Me is part of the TED Audio Collective.

This episode was mixed by Vincent Cacchione, the theme song is “These Dark Times” by Caged Animals, the logo was designed by Philip Blackowl with a photo by Mindy Tucker, and this show is made by me, Dylan Marron.

You can preorder Conversations with People Who Hate Me the book by following the link in the description of this episode, or you can buy it wherever you buy books.

Thanks so much for listening. And guess what? We are weekly now! So stay tuned next week for a brand new conversation and until then, remember: there’s a human on the other side of the screen.

[Chorus of ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals plays.]