From Canvas to Catwalk: Xixi Amethyst's Unapologetic Journey.

I feel like if you're doing art or design, Asian parents, they'll be like, "Architecture?" And I was like, "I have no interest in architecture." I kind of started posting all the outfits I would wear to go nowhere. People were kind of like, "What are you doing?" And here I am in full-blown dresses. I had pearls and chains and I'm just going to library working. And that was like the outfit that like made my account pop up. Growing up, my friends and I all had immigrant parents. And they were all tough. They all were really strict in what they wanted from us. They pushed us really hard and nothing we did was ever quite good enough for them. On today's episode, CC Amethyst talks about the

same with her Asian parents doing the same thing for her and pushing her so hard to do a certain direction in her life. And it's a story about how she said, "Fuck you. [ __ ] you to the world. I'm going to do my own thing." And from that has created a pretty cool brand following her passions doing fashion and art. Let's jump into the episode. Welcome to the podcast. Great to have you here. Thank you for having me. No, thank you for coming. Um, why don't you quickly introduce yourself and then we'll kick off. Hi guys, I'm known as CC Amethyst on social media on YouTube, Instagram, and Tik Tok. And at the moment, I'm posting about my fashion and art stuff. That is my focus

for this year. Um, I post like vlogs on YouTube. I'm kind of like everywhere. Yeah. Posting everything, just going with the flow. I love it. No, I love it. Wait, you just said something there that's quite interesting. I'm known as CC Amethyst. Um, why before I This is I know I just told you I was gonna ask you a different question to start with. Yeah, go ahead. No, but like tell me like why where did that come from? Okay. So CC is not my government name. I have not revealed my government. Okay, got it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like my artist slashdesigner name that I come up for myself, but Cece spelled XIXi was actually a nickname my parents gave me. Okay. So,

instead of calling me my actual name, they'll just be like CeCe or they would just say C when they're like mad at me. They'll just be like see where that's funny, you know. And then amethyst because it's like a purple gemstone and I like purple and can't tell. Couldn't tell. And funny enough, in intermediate, me and my two other friends, we started a YouTube channel just posting random stuff, stupid things you do in intermediate. And we all had a nickname. So, I was nicknamed Amethyst. Got it. And then I just kind of put the two together and now I am CC Amethyst. No one has taken that name on any social media platform. So, that is just my name now. I love that. That's that's

one. Obviously reading the name. Well, maybe not CC. I could probably argue that it could be a real name because I've seen that name before, but Amethyst, I was like, that's definitely not a real name. Like, there's no way that that's your real name. But, um, what was the reasoning for not wanting people to know your real name? Was there any was it just to have some an enormity or to protection like what what's the reason around it? Um, a little bit on the protection side and also like no one's ever called me by my government name. I've always been known as CC cuz when I did have like my actual name on the roll call in school, no one would be able to pronounce

it. I mean, you could also argue that CC XIXi, who is going to know how to pronounce that? But I kind of kept that for the fun of it. Yeah. Because it's like, oh, it's like C, not like, you know, because X who can pronounce Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. No. Okay, that's cool. Okay. Well, then that told me a little bit actually cuz I what the first question I told you I was going to ask you is where did this all start? But actually, it starts before when I know cuz you're saying you did some YouTube stuff back at school. Okay. I don't know if that counts. I think it does, but it kind of talks to the idea that making videos isn't something new to

Tik Tok for you. And is that something that you did a lot of at school or like you played around with or something like that? Um during intermediate it was just more for fun with friends and I feel like I didn't really get into like video stuff probably uni. Okay. So that's like around lockdown period where probably that's where it really started. Yeah. So tell me about that journey like why and how did it start? Okay. So before the Tik Tok page and all the socials I have right now, um I actually used to be known as Emmethus Lynn, that's my username before, as an artist. Okay? Because if you go to the very beginning, I started posting on social media as an artist. So

like think acrylic painting, oil painting, water painting. Like I've done all your traditional art you probably think of. I've trled it and I've posted online because like growing up I loved art. Like art is all I did. Okay, cool. I lived and breathed art basically. And I was like thinking should I be a visual artist when I grow up? But then you think about like money and then my Asian parents they're like like artists like what are you going to do especially in New Zealand. But then I did follow a artist called HappyD artist. She was posting all her oil paintings online on YouTube. So that kind of inspired me that she's like getting out there posting all her work. And I remember specifically this

one advice she said that if you want to do what you want and get out there for her as an artist, if you want to be an artist, you need to post your work out there. Like you need to get yourself out there basically and they're like start posting your stuff now. So I was like okay. So I was 15 years old. I made my Instagram and I started posting all those random like weirdly filtered bad photography type pictures of the art. So I was just like posting just like all throughout high school. So I was known as like the artist. But that kind of didn't go anywhere. I only had like um few hundred followers on Instagram. Y and then came year 13 to

university. I don't know what I want to do. Yeah. I was like, I don't want to go to university to do an art degree because I was like, I feel like there was a point wasn't a point to it because I was already self-exploring. Exactly. I was already like doing pretty well. Like, not to brag, I was like really good at art in high school that I got artist of the year, like all the art things you could think about. And did all the art exhibitions basically I was a very art girl before any of the social media stuff. Got it. And then during lockdown was when Tik Tok started getting popular. So I was like, "Okay, let me like post video form of my

Tik Tok because there was another creator I followed said, oh my god, there's this app called Tik Tok." Like that time lockdown didn't actually happen yet. Yeah. So they're like, "Post on Tik Tok." And I was like, "Okay." So I spent like half the year scrolling Tik Tok getting the gist of it. And I was like, "You know what? I'll start posting my art on Tik Tok." So this is 2020. Yeah. So 2020, August, September, started posting my art up until beginning of 2021. I gained like 30kish within that short few months and got an audience from it. And I was like, whoa, like what is this? And then it translated onto my Instagram. So it felt like, oh my god, people are actually seeing

my art and they actually like my art. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just chucking everything at the wall to see what works. And then kind of found my audience like from the very beginning at that stage. Yeah. And then I created an art business as well. Selling my art during that time. Just going about cuz I wasn't doing uni. I took a gap year because I didn't know. Got it. Straight out of high school. You did gap year. Y. And then afterwards was when I decided, okay, if I'm going to go to uni, Yeah. I'll do something I want because I didn't want to go to uni and study something that my parents wanted that was either architecture or like

because I feel like if you're doing art or design as your parents they'll be like arrite and I was like I have no interest in architecture at all. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. What year was this now? 2021 would be my first year of uni. Okay, cool. So during 2020 2021 I was like having this big ass argument. They were like, "Go to UOA." And then I was like, "They don't have a fashion degree." And then they're like, "Okay, how about you do business and design?" And I was like, "That would have to be at AUT." Yeah. Cuz um they have a fashion degree and a business conjoint thing. Yeah. But then they didn't like AUT and I'm like, "Stop stuff you. I'm still going to

apply and go." And then so I started the degree as business and fashion. Yeah. And then after a semester I dropped business. Oh, I think I was super happy. I don't I actually forgot. I mean there was a lot of on and off argument being like I'm going to do what I want and they're like no we want you to do this. And I think my relatives were like just let your child like cuz apparently one of our like relatives they did the whole architecture degree up until getting the license and certificate. They gave it to their parents. They went and started a bakery. Oh, that's so that's like their entire like go on. So I think my parents got freaked out by that. Yeah.

So they're like, "Okay, maybe you can do do your fashion." I love it. So then you just went full-time fashion still from 2021 to 2023. Love it. Yeah. That's so funny. That is when the fashion Tik Tok and social media started taking over. Yeah. Cuz during that time lockdown was still happening. Yep. like 100%. It was a bigger one in 212 21, right? It's even longer. The back end. Yep. And then I feel like 2023 was like the only full year of uni I properly had. So beforehand it's like they're kind of at home half the time. So I kind of started posting all the outfits I would wear to go nowhere, like just at home. And so people were kind of like, "What are

you doing? You're just in lockdown?" Cuz people were posting PJs and like lounging around. And here I am in full-blown dresses and like cool jackets and everything and stuff. And then so it kind of took off from there. Yeah. And then when we started getting back into uni, we still had to wear masks and everything and it was still very on and off like some lecturers online. Like it was really annoying. Yeah. So going to the library to study and write all my portfolio work, but I would be dressed in these like outrageous I mean, okay, I wouldn't think it was outrageous, but that's what people like other people said at the time cuz I would have like this white crop blazer. I had a

red like cutout top. I had pearls and chains hanging all around me and I'm just going to library working. And that was like the outfit that like made my account pop off really cuz I was posting consecutive get ready with me to go to the library in this outfit. So it was a whole bunch of people people going like what the hell are you wearing and then the other half of people going oh my god that's so cool let me follow you. That's the best type when you get people competing against it. Yeah. Just having many arguments comments. Okay. Yeah. Funny. Yeah. And so over that time you're doing these more fashions and then that one sort of pops like where how was the account

growing? Was it growing steadily or was it like big step change of growth? I had a uh what is it 2021 September I think when I properly started posting fashion stuff and then over the summer holiday jumped 30 40kish. And then until May was when I started doing my library get ready with me videos and then it jumped to like 200k. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So there was like a big jump and then now it's like interesting. So it was like a that library piece was like a differentiator for people. Yeah. I guess so. This wasn't just a normal group. They're like you're just going to study. You're just going That's quite interesting because it's like we talk about this a lot like um we call

it like the circle of like relatable and absurd. And you either be really relatable or really absurd. But most people sit somewhere in the middle and it's ne neither or both. But if you can make those things overlap where going to the library is really relatable and getting ready is really relatable but doing the tour together is a little bit absurd because it's like you don't need to do that to go to the library like that's that's the perfect combination and then it takes off. So that's actually quite um quite smart like when you're doing that like was it a happy accident or did you like deliberately plan to make that did you think and study it as you did it or do you just

kind of oh let's try this thing? I think I've always experimented with dressing up and like things I had in the wardrobe or stealing my mom's wardrobe. So, I was also kind of known as the girl that would dress up on Muffy Day as well. I remember people going like, "Oh my god, what is Cece going to wear on this Muffy Day?" Like, I literally wore a pink neon sweater at one point. Who does that going to school? But then I literally did not give a [ __ ] about what people were thinking. So, I was like still doing it. And then during the time that I started my fashion Tik Tok to post the outfits, I was going through a breakup. Okay. So, I was super

sad. Yeah. And I needed motivation to get out of bed. Okay. So, my motivation to get out of bed was to dress up in these like, you know, extra big outfits and then show up online. Yeah. Everywhere essentially like that. So, basically a confidence booster. Got it. For me. And so that sort of And that you said that started to slow like recently. Has the sort of growth started to slow or has viewership and everything started to slow? Like what when you say it started to slow, what has slowed? Um cuz I graduated 2023 and then going into 2024 last year. I was kind of figuring things out in terms of my life and career. So I kind of put prioritizing posting on the back

end. Like I still posted here and there. I was like, should I try and get into a corporate job? So, I started working part-time at an office as their social media manager, and admin stuff. Yeah. But the business isn't going well, so they started cutting my hours. And funny thing, you actually caught me at an interesting period. Um, yesterday at work, I just told them I'm quitting. Oh, really? The same job, the social media job it was. Oh, yeah. I told them I was quitting. And what are you going to do? My own stuff. Oh, cool. I want to start working on my art and painting. Like my first initial passion and interest along with my fashion and possibly Can I just stop for a

second? Sorry. So, this is you going to uni cuz your parents told you to. And then you did the business conjoint with fashion. Then you dropped out of fashion. Then you did a fashion degree and then you're like, I'm going to go start a bakery which is cuz you're going back to the first. You're not even doing the thing with the fashion degree. No, I am still doing I'm still wanting to explore the fashion side as well, like art and fashion. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I think it's awesome. But like but it's quite funny how like like that's what I kind of was my question. It's like where does the fashion come into play now? So you're going to do some art

stuff. Like how does that world look like? I'll let you carry on. You keep telling me your story, but I just thought it was so funny. No, cuz I was like, if I'm going to go to uni, I don't want to go for art. Yeah. I want to go there to learn something. And fashion was the one thing I didn't know much about. Like, I had an interest in it. So, I had an interest in fashion design, too. So, I'm like, but I don't know anything about clothing, construction, all the technical stuff. So, that is why I chose a fashion degree. Got it. In university to like learn something. So now I have the confidence to design, explore and make the actual cool thing. Yeah,

that's cool. And for my graduate collection, I actually combined both elements of art and fashion. So all the paintings I did, I got it printed onto fabric. Oh, cool. And then use that fabric for the clothing I design. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. So that is that is the plan. So that's the plan. Little cross over there. So tell me, what gave you the confidence to quit? Are you already making enough uh cash to be able to sustain your life already? For the past year, I got signed with an agency. So, they're managing me doing all the collaborations for social media. So, that at the moment has got me enough funds. Yeah. To keep me afloat and going. Like, it's enough. There's enough there. There's enough.

I'm living at my parents house still. I'm still waiting till I can move. Yeah. Absolutely. So, why wouldn't you? So you're so you're saying is that you get you had the confidence to quit going all in on this because your safety blanket is that well I still got money coming in from these collaborations and brand deals that I'm getting from the agency because you've got a brand and I suppose that like your brand's probably probably quite marketable because there's a lot of fashion content and fashion brands love using influencers. Yeah. Is that most of your collaborations? Is it that in beauty or like what sort of does your normal brand deal look like? What sort of brands do you kind of like to work with

you? Funny thing is fashion doesn't pay that much. They don't pay a lot. They don't They don't really pay. So, it's more so Okay. The campaign that I'm currently doing and what pays the most is actually a sports one. Oh, okay. Interesting. I'm not a sporty girl. I actually suck at sports. Like, I'm like the opposite. But then the whole campaign is to promote girls to be active. So they specifically wanted someone who sucked at sports. Got it. So Got it. Yeah. And then followed by makeup and lifestyle and other bits and bobs here and there. Fashion I actually don't think No, they they do a lot of um that is right. There's like fashion's an interesting one because there's so many fashion brands. They

often will pay quite little but they they do lots of it. Yeah. And there's only occasional you get a few brands who will do good money. those ones, you can tell when those brands are doing the ones who pay a lot because they're doing really well. Um, and they get the biggest guys on their team because they know what it's worth and they know the return, you know. But you're right. So, anyway, that's interesting. So, you're you're doing some brand deals, but actually because you want to build your own essentially business, right? And tell me a little bit about that. Like, so you've got create the art, create the patterns for the fabric, then turn the fabric into fashion. Is that the whole goal or

is there other elements to it as well? I also want to do like art shows. Okay. I used to enter a lot of exhibitions like every year through my schooling years. If there's a local gallery going on, I would have an artwork subhuman and I kind of really like that environment and showcase. So, it would be nice if I could have like a gallery show of my own. Oh, you should we should chat. So, we're working with some a particularly New Zealand artist at the moment actually who Roman Mitch um shout out to Roman is going to he's curating this space upstairs. Yeah. As a gallery and we'll do like monthly shows. Oh my god. Yeah. And so like the whole the whole like brand

of it is attention and it's the crossover between social media and art. Yes. And how they play out. And so for instance, like one of the concepts we had was um so I don't know if you've seen one of our series on our tent where Journey was tipping buckets of water on her head and we tipped all sorts of food on her head. Oh, I think I saw you might have seen some pretty bananas last year. It went off or the ground like cuz there was oil and tomato sauce and all sorts of stuff that was tipped over people's heads. Oil. There was a mess on the ground like it was stained. I've cleaned it since but it was yuck like on the on the

driveway. And we're saying like if we had have taken a really cool photo bird's eye view of that stain pattern that happened because of all the oil and the water and all the stuff that is a print. Oh my god, I knew you were going. Yeah, but that sort of idea we can't do that. But that's the go the goal is like there's something along that but there's a whole bunch of other stuff that comes into like where does social media is a performance art essentially. How do you turn that into more fine art? What do you mean? Well, how do you take a performance art that is on social media like Tik Tok, which is a video, and how do you turn that into

a like a painting or a still or like a photo or something? Like, how do you how do those two how do you get those two worlds to collide? Like when I started posting it, no, no, no, no. So, you've So, let's say um your get ready with me for the library. How do you turn that concept, how do you take that video that you make and turn that into a painting or a still but in a way that's like representative but not necessarily just like a take a photo of a take a screenshot. My mind immediately thinks of like an abstract version exactly of Yes, that's exactly it. How like and every artist will have their own interpretation and that's kind of the idea

behind the the the concept of the gallery. um to do it because like one we wanted we can't afford art at the price of what art costs to fill this place. It costs like if you go to artists it might cost a million dollars to fill this place of art you know because some like good artists might charge you stupid amounts. So, how do we do it in a different way where we can like work with artists, have this concept, and we bring lots of people through. Anyway, um that sort of stuff is like it's cool to do. Um so, anyway, we'll have a chat. Maybe you want to Oh my god, that maybe we'll work with them. Do a gallery night as CC Amethyst.

Yeah, that would be awesome. Anyway, so you want to do gallery shows? That's cool. I love that sort of stuff. I think it's awesome. Um what um why don't you do it then? Like what's stopping you? Just time. I haven't been working on it for the past few years while I was studying. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So now I want to get back to it and start creating like actual large scale things cuz before it was all for school or like criteria for exhibition competitions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now you want to curate a whole thing and do it like actually try and do my own thing. Yeah. Nice. So it sounds like me that like the goal is to live almost like a proper artist

life. No. and and include the fashion stuff of course and fashion just for all the video and post it all onto social media and then ideally that brand sells the fashion stuff. Yeah. So you have like a fashion store that's just all your clothes. Is that kind of how you see it or you selling it to you selling the fashion to um fashion houses? At the moment I'm thinking of just creating unique designs. Yeah. showing the whole entire process, posting it online to gain attention. Yeah. And then further down the line, I'll see how I can scale or work. It could just be oneoff clients I have or for special occasions and events like I'm not thinking too much in like large scale production brand

like I don't want to be in all retail stores. Not that type of vibe. Can't imagine. No, I I want to keep it like an art form. Yeah. Yeah. So really it's just about like let us build brand for a few years doing the thing that you love and then that will lead to opportunities in the future once you've built that brand. Is that kind of how you think? Yeah. Oh that's good. What what gives you that's like quite a there's quite a confidence there to be able to do that like is that just because you're pretty confident in your ability to produce the art and the fashion? Is that where it comes from or you just don't really think about it? I'm just saying

that I think I'm pretty confident in myself as a person and what I do cuz I think with whatever I want to try and go for in life, I kind of try my best until I can't. Yeah. You know, so I think anything I put my mind to it, I could get the outcome I want most of the time. Okay. Yeah. Where does that confidence come from? because it's not like I've met lots of artists, lots of creators and confidence in their abilities isn't as prominent as what I'm hearing from you actually. They're actually all quite um I shouldn't say insecure, it's the wrong word, but there's a layer of insecurity and often they're doing this thing as a way of like because they're so

good at it, but there is a layer of insecurity. So like where does your confidence and your abilities come from as an artist? Because it's it's not normal. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't always like this. Okay. Where did that come from? How did it develop? Underly lying. Um, because it's cool. It's quite admirable, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I think like not a lot of people have it. Yeah. Um, so art I would say I've been doing it like ever since I can pick up a pen, you know. So, in that sense, I'm confident in my art skills that I can develop it because I've tried so many different art mediums and every time I would master one and I'll be like, "Okay, I'm bored. Let me

try the next one." And then I would master that one and then move on. And then I think because I did art for such a long time and then going into uni, I'm like, "Okay, let me try and master fashion." And after fashion, I'm like, "Oh my god, social media. Let me try and master social media." Maybe it's just my mind that just likes psychoanalyzing and like doing all those things. Yeah. You know, just solving problems. Yeah. In a sense. Yeah. But then maybe that is also something that counteracts what my parents and family expects out of me because, okay, this just reminded me of something. Last year, yeah, you guys did reach out to me. Oh, yeah. for this. I don't know if you

remember. Well, I was probably one of the team maybe reaching out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then you went to New York. Yes, that's right. I remember now. Yes, I do. Cuz then we left. Yeah. I was thinking about declining. Yeah. Cuz I was like, I don't think I'm good enough. Really? I didn't. Interesting. I kind of had like a meltdown almost. Yeah. I was literally crying at the mall with my friend. I was like, I'm going to go away from the mic for a second. I was like this so all the tears would stream down so it wouldn't ruin my makeup because I still wanted to look good because like each week when I go out I do get recognized so I didn't want

people to see me crying out in public and my friend was like what are you doing? Why are you declining going on this podcast? And I'm like I don't know. I don't think what do I have to offer? Was that then back last year when we did it? That was last year. Oh my gosh. But I didn't know I could react like that cuz I I still had a sense of confidence. Yeah, that's so opposite to what I've just said about you. Like I think there was like a slither of moment that I didn't know I still had that in me. So is it some form of a mask that you have if like some rebellious mark against your parents? Mask against your parents is

the toughness on the outside kind of. I love that. That's so nor like actually makes you so much more normal than before cuz um sorry. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Mine is running all over the place. Um, this is should be Stan's therapy. Yeah. Okay. I was thinking that. I was like, if I'm going to talk about my creative stuff, it's going to go down a rabbit hole. But then I was like, you know what? If it goes down that sappy route, I'll just Yeah. Let it go. Yeah. But because I'm doing such creative stuff in my life, it's not what your typical like Asian strict parents would want, right? So for most of my life, I didn't really get this support. Yeah. From

them. Like they'll just be like, "Oh, it's so cute." You know, and then when it gets to uni, they're like, "Oh, [ __ ] She's actually taking us seriously." Like, you know, so whenever I came home with awards or anything, like they wouldn't like my mom would kind of congratulate. Yeah. But the first thing my dad would say would be, "It's probably cuz there was no one else." Okay. So, there's a chip on your shoulder. He would be like, he'll be like, "Oh, there was probably no one good. Probably no one entered." And I'm like, "Do you know how much effort it took me to get here?" So, that's like my entire childhood. Got it. Got it. Up until now. And then I It's all making sense.

It's all making sense. And I feel like when you have something like that, you can go either one of two ways. Go down the insecure route that you actually, you know, can't. And I think a part of me was like, let me try and prove you wrong and get that approval, but then I never got it. Yeah. Up until now. You know what's really what's really interesting about this conversation is um actually uh the episode that came out on Monday with Alex King. Um we had that exact conversation we had her and I have had and which is quite similar to you parents who were quite tough on us. And so my parents were like that. Like like my dad would I'd play a game

of rugby and I would score four tries, captain, player of the day, do all the things, right? Come off the field and all the way home dad would have been like, "You didn't do this. You should have done that. This wasn't good enough. You missed this." Yeah. And immigrant parents, right? Um my my dad. And so Alex was the same. But in Alex's world, what was really interesting is that she took it the other way where she's now has this expectation to deliver. And so she has like perfectionism built in now where she has to be perfect. Has won't try as much as she once an amazing singer, an amazing mu artist and musician. Released one song and the song blew up. You know, it's

done like 700,000 plays on Spotify as a as a solo release song. That's not that's pretty big for New Zealand artists of releasing their first single on their own. Never released another one. What? Because of that insecurity that she had because of the upbringing. And it was a real interesting conversation because you you hit the nail on the head. The same experience can make you go two different ways. Yes. Some people take it the way we've taken it, which is [ __ ] the world and other people take it the way Alex King can do it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's quite interesting that you you you so you've actually taken this [ __ ] the world approach, which is Yeah. [ __ ] you. I can do what I want. Cuz

my friends have asked me, they're like, "Cece, why do you not care?" Cuz I think within my like social group or year group, no one is really doing what I'm doing. And every time the first thing they asked me is, "Aren't you scared that people like people that know you in real life, like our friends or people in our old school and everything would see it?" And I was like, "That's really the last thing." I'm like, I'm not even thinking that. I'm like, I do not care. Like, I don't know. No. Yeah. You can't care about that. You can't care about it. I'm I'm with you on that. You can't care about it. Like, people are always going to have an opinion whether you like

it or not, and so be it. I don't make content or do what I do in life to um win back friends that I had once before, you know, like I do it to find new friends and new people and new acquaintances and stuff like that and people who want to do cool stuff with me. Yeah. So, [ __ ] them. Yeah. Yeah. I'm welcoming all the new people through the social media. Yeah. And one of the things is even with like, you know, you you talk about like tough Asian parents. It's no different to having like an immigrant father. like my father's um born in the islands so like moving here he's from Cook Islands and like he was a tough old man who was pretty

strict and stuff um and when you have that sort of upbringing like and it takes you down this path uh you kind of just uh because I don't give a [ __ ] or anything and whatever and I just do what I want to do. you sort of reach a point in your life anyway because you've done it so long. Like I'm obviously probably about 15 years older than you. I've had a little bit of time. But as you start to get that success and then your parents and your family start to turn around and go, "Oh, this is my son. I'm so proud of him. Like he's done all this. Look how good he's doing." Um and that's what ends up happening cuz like you get

to a point where like, "Oh, okay. They were right. Now I'm going to claim all the success." I feel like I'm like at that in between where they're like, "Oh, she's kind of doing something." But also, what the hell are you doing? Yeah. But what is it? I don't understand it. Yeah. Then I started this business. So I dropped out of uni and then people weren't stoked. Family wasn't stoked that I dropped out of uni cuz I was the first one in my family to go to uni and then I dropped out and then I went to Australia and then I worked in hospitality and everyone's like, "Oh my god, he's like a waiter. Like what's he doing with his life?" And even as I

went through my career, they're like, "What the hell?" And then I became a general manager of hotels and they're like, "Oh, okay, cool. Stan's doing well. How do you feel about my job that they don't know that I quit? Oh, okay. I haven't announced it today. Okay. Well, this is comes out in a few weeks. So, you hopefully you announced it by then. Exclusive. Drop it right now. Drop it right now. But, um, eventually like, so I got this good job and everyone's like, and my family, like, oh yeah, like he's doing good now. Like, stands like a general manager of hotels. And then I quit it and I started this business and they're like, what are you doing? Like, you're crazy. Like, they do

like what do you mean you sell LinkedIn marketing? Because that's what we did at the beginning. Wait, how long has five years? Okay, so we're in lockdown as well essentially. So I moved back in late 2019 to New Zealand. I was in Australia at the time. I moved back to New Zealand, started networking. My family are like, "What are you doing, bro? Like you had such a good job. You know, you've got no income. You know, you're living in my my house, my brother's house." And then like we kept on doing these things. I'm like, "This is crazy." And it wasn't until like maybe two years ago, three years in, maybe not even that, maybe a year and a half ago, that my family like,

"Oh, so you're like doing really well. This is kind I get there." But I guess that's my my advice is just like if you stick at it long enough, you're so talented at what you do, you'll get there anyway. You just take your own path and then they'll claim the success. I'm I don't know. I'm just trying to block out whatever they Yeah. So, at the moment, it doesn't matter. You don't you don't do it for them anyway. You do it. So, you just do it because you want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so tell me a little bit about like how do you you said the brand started to slow because you weren't paying attention to it as much last year and trying

to find stuff. So, how do you pick that back up? Like now that you've quit, like what's what's the plan? What's the next like once you've quit, what's the next 30 days, 90 days look like? I going to start planning Yeah. my next launch, my next video series. Yeah. for like across my social media platform. So that's in the works. Okay, cool. Because next end of next month, I'm gonna go down to Wellington for the Vivian Westwood exhibition. So I'm going to plan content around that. Hopefully make something for that as well. And then there's also another event in April. So I'm kind of like in the works of planning right now, which is why everything has slowed down. And I think also because working

my job as a social media manager for someone else and also trying to work out how to get money, I'm just like just figuring out the funds first for a year and then now I'm like, okay, I do have some savings, a safety net. Now, let me flip back to the creative side. Yeah. Nice. Um, what's uh now that you've that you've done that, so like you talk about all you got this show and all these other things, but like and you talk about a new series. How how does that process happen? Like how do you think about creating a new series? Like how do you strategize that out? Like a new content series? Is that what you said you meant before when you make

a content? Do you just come off that? You look at me like obviously I just do it. I basically I kind of just do it cuz you know like everyone watching here is like no no tell us cuz we don't know how. Like you mean like getting the idea planning? Yeah. Like how does that process happen for you? Do you just like sit down and go, "Oh, I'm going to do this ABC." I think my brain is like always Yeah. churning, always thinking like even before sleep, I'm like, "Oh my god, I have a new idea. Let me like jot it down before." Got it. So, you take you keep notes of all those ideas. Yeah, I try to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then sometimes

when I do come up with it and I'm like, "Okay, let me execute a little bit of it so that I have something to base it off of if I don't get it done straight away." or sometimes it just stays in my mind until I get to the point where I'm like, "Okay, time to plan it and shoot it." Yeah. You know, tell me about like a video like when you talk about planning videos cuz like say I watch when you get ready with me videos like Oh, those are just those are just done, right? So like and that's what I thought. So like when you're thinking about planning a video, what does that mean for someone like yourself? So for the art videos that

I want to do, obviously art takes time. Got it. It's not something that you can just do like a get ready with me video. So, I've actually already started taking shots of the inspiration that I'm getting. So, I have the inspiration for my artwork already. Yeah. And I'm gonna incorporate kind of like a montage because there's this Chinese artist where they're like up to one minute, two minute videos, short form. It's the entire process of her creating the artwork, but there's music. There's drama. It's not just painting. Like, it could be some dramatic scene like chucking flowers and then transitions into the thing she paints. So, it's like a very real story based. Yeah. Very story based. Cuz with my art, it's always been very

story based. Like there's a reason why I'm creating it. It's not just aesthetic wise. like there's a strong emotion, there's a strong purpose. Like I've always done that kind of naturally and how I kind of process things that happen in life because whenever I'm going through something I kind of draw it down. So it's like telling a story hopefully inspire, motivate, that's the gist of the art. Got it. Yeah. And then whereas for the fashion it will be the process of how I get to the final garment of the design. And even for my fashion actually, I'm incorporating some of the meaning and story that I get from my art into it. So, it's very much storytelling that I'm hoping to get into and showing

the art. Nice. And you're thinking about doing that like YouTube or short form video or bit of both. Bit of both. Short form would be like the polished version. Maybe include some fun short snippets. Yeah. And then YouTube, I'm hoping to vlog the entire process, behind the scenes, the raw because that's what I did for my uni. Yeah. So, I vlogged my entire uni, like most of my assignments, the ups and downs of like all the trial error and like that kind of gained me an audience on YouTube. I mean, it's still like around 8Kish, I think. So, that's like my smallest platform, but there's like a nice little dedicated audience. Yeah. Over there. And hopefully that can grow from there. and everything else. N

perfect. So, um that's YouTube is a lot harder too. There's a lot more to production and stuff, right? So, where did that come from? Like where did your like how did you get into video production or did you learn to selfeach? Self I still use cap cut for even your YouTube. Yep. It works on Yeah. [ __ ] if it works for YouTube. Do you Are you doing YouTube at the moment? Yeah, fair enough. It works. I cap Cap Cut's fantastic. I use it every day. Yeah, it's way easier. I am keen to see what this edits one comes out with and if it's any better uh for Instagram edits. Oh, I am keen to see if that's any better or not. Um just given like how

much pro features I mean we've got pro anyway for I got pro too. I was like you can't do anything on it now without it. It was free when I started using it. I was like what the pro feature the pro thing was such a they conned us all. They knew exactly what Gosh so smart. They're so smart. They made so much money off of it. Yeah. Um Okay, cool. So, you're quite selftaught. So, um I like that. So, when you're talking about your series, you're actually talking about an entire content like strategy actually. But this is just saying in your head, you just had the idea and you just execute it. Yeah. It's in my head right now. And now I just need to

plan the artworks and the shots. Yeah. And then schedule in my calendar. Yeah. And when you when you're filming and taking those shots, um, are the is a lot of that just just out of your head or have you got like actually for I've got a story board or I've got a script or I've got like a no storyboard script maybe. Yes. Especially if I'm wanting to tell That's what I kind of started doing over the past year is scripting. Cool. To get, you know, the story and things that I want out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's important. So like to get the story, you still got to essentially you're trying to craft a story and then build all the visual elements to tell the

story. Is that kind of how you think about it? Yeah. Okay. Got it. That makes heaps of sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of um it's kind of the same for a lot of like the stuff that we would might do when it comes to it. It's like what's the what's the story first and then you find the visual elements to tell that story afterwards, right? because it's easier that way because otherwise like you go out filming, you take lots of content and you're like what am I going to do with all of this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's an efficiency thing. E something in mind before you go shoot the thing. Tell me a little bit about before we start to wrap this

up. I just actually want to ask what's your um network or friend circle around you for that creator artistry space? Like do you have other people in your world who do this as well or what's your because you said about you're bit of the outlier in your friend group like yeah I'm the one extrovert. Everyone else is an introvert. I don't know how this happened. Yeah, there's probably like a couple other extroverts, but somehow I'm just friends with all the introverts and I'm kind of like telling them like, "Can you guys like whenever there's events and stuff, I'm messaging a whole bunch of different introverts to be like, who can come out? Who can come out and take my videos? Who wants like you get

a free thing? Come and think I do have like two or three friends who were actually interested and I'm like, "Oh my god, you're interested in social media too, please." so that I could have someone to talk about this stuff like because you kind of need someone else. I mean there is someone else who's like much older than me that I connected with recently and we kind of share but it's like not like someone my age or my peer group. Yeah. My peer group. Yeah. So, funny enough is one of my friends from Australia, he flew over for the summer, like he comes every summer to for a little get together. And then he was like, "Cece, I think I want to actually start posting

on social media." And I was like, and I was like, "You have me. Use me. Exploit me please cuz I have all the knowledge and everything and I can actually help you like, you know, you have someone in your close circle cuz he wants to get into music and posting about music." Got it. And I didn't know I had this in me, but we literally had a full on consultation meeting where we planned and talked about the type of content he would do, what he wants, how that's going to happen, and everything. Yeah. To try and get him started, but he's going to start his master's degree instead. That's a shame. And then he said, I might start posting soon. And I'm like, and I

was like, what was the point of me giving you that hour? so many and hours of talk. I actually gave him valuable information that brands would be paying for or like you know like how to kickstart you know a campaign or a page and I'm like bro send them an invoice. Hey yeah we have we have guys in our team who always say the same sort of stuff like because probably about a third of our team are really good at making content actually and doing quite a lot of stuff and the other twoirds all want to. Yeah. Yeah, just like your friend. Oh, this time I'm going to do this or oh, actually I'm going to I'm going to start a YouTube channel. I'm going

to do more this. And then you go back three weeks later before we say, oh, how you going? Oh, oh, yeah. No, I'm going to start. Whereas like Connor and Joanie and Busky and although Busky's actually a bit temperamental sometimes actually, but there's a few other guys who are like really diligent at it, like really good. Like probably Connor and J are probably the top two actually. Like very good at just like consistently putting stuff out. myself um as well, but like the rest of them are like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, no. I want to do this and I want to do that." And but I think it's it's just one of those things that not everyone's built for it. No one everyone's built for being

consistently on social media. It's quite hard. Not everyone's not the value doesn't come to the same. Exactly. Yeah. They need something bigger than themselves to do it for some value for them. Yeah. I can only provide and give them so much because even my few other like close girlfriends, they would be like, "Oh my god, we're interested." So I started dragging them to all these events and I'm like, "I need to film for this. Why don't you film too? You literally give them free, you know, videos." They filmed and they didn't do anything with the footage. And I'm like, I'm not going to take you out anymore cuz that's like a wasted opportunity in a way. I'm like just chilling%. Hope hopefully I can connect

with someone else. I don't know. Well, that was that was why I asked the question as sort of like a wrap-up to this conversation is like um it's really hard to create a loan long term. It's unsustainable sometimes and actually artists go crazy. They do. That was one of my concerns actually. They turn into like I need to socialize. Yeah, you need to. But you also he makes you stronger. Like if you think about say Mr. Beast, let's just go to the extreme example. A lot of people look at Mr. and think he's fantastic. But he often talks about actually I built this knowledge that I have off of a small friend group of four or five guys who used to share all the knowledge

with each other daily and weekly. And if you think about our team, we've got this team that there's like 35 of us in the team now or whatever it is. And um we all share the knowledge all the time. And so like you know like Connor and Joanie will often talk to each other about hey I'm doing this. Like what do you think I should do? Oh I'm doing this. This is what I'm seeing. and we're sharing all the knowledge between us, which means that we're accelerating our growth way faster than someone on their own because they're only getting one lot of education where we're getting 10 lots of education from everyone. And so my advice is like for you as they see you brought

as you step into this world of like being your own boss. It's like there are lot there's actually lots of people who want to find other people, but they just don't. They're too scared. They're too nervous. They don't think other people want them. They don't think other people want to talk to them. But I guarantee like if you reached out to every other creator you thought was cool and you said, "Hey, do you want to grab coffee?" They would say, "Yes, 100%." I would do that. Yeah, you should. You should. No, especially as you're going out on your own cuz like Yeah, you're going to be working from home probably, I guess. And then like um it actually like your motivation slips because then it's

so easy to just be like I'm not going to do it today. And if you got brand deals coming in and things are happening like I don't need it. motivation starts to slip. But then when you put yourself in a room with people every day and you're like, "Hey, what should we do? Should we try something new?" That's why like as bad as they are, the creative houses worked for a little bit that they worked in. They might not have worked long term relationship wise, but they like but they worked in the short term because everyone was like vibing off each other and figuring out new things to do. Um, and they learned so fast. So, if I was going to give you some advice

and be like, how do you find those people? Just reach out to the creators. There's heaps of cool creators in New Zealand. There's actually heaps of them. And like, like this is the thing I love about this podcast. Like, yeah, like like Connor was saying, like you're number 70 now. And I would say 60 of those 70 I didn't know before I met them. Like, I'd never seen their stuff because you don't get served it. Yes. I try to look for it sometimes and I'm like I want to find someone who's also interested in this stuff cuz I'm not I don't know. I don't think I would connect with someone that's like doing sports entirely or like something that's like different like some sort of

some similarity. Yeah. Yeah. Some similarity. Like one of the girls that starts with us next week, uh Sarah, she does like um visual effects makeup and she's done it for like Lord of the Rings and other stuff and all sorts of things and she's awesome. And I I had never I'd only seen one of her videos is where she got her studio was broken into and everyone stole all her stuff. You might have seen it went viral last year. Yeah. And she like like they just came and stole all these props that she had got off movies and all this stuff that she had. Yeah. It was real bad. But um her then like when we went through the hiring process with her, she's coming

to work for us. Looking at her videos like they're awesome, but I would never get served them. You know, even like you saying to you like of course I'm not going to get served get ready with me videos of girls getting ready. Like it's just not saying I'm going to watch naturally, but actually like it is good to watch and find these other sorts of content and the people out there. So anyway, my point of the story is there's lots of cool people out there doing cool stuff. You should just reach out. Yeah, they sto like creators are all lonely. They all have friends of great group friends of introverts. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Well, it is getting towards an hour. That went pretty fast actually.

Fast. Yeah, it went really quickly when I looked down. Um, hey, thank you so much for coming on. I think it's awesome. I think you should definitely um don't have that crying moment again. I think you're doing some pretty cool [ __ ] I'm real excited to see what this new series is. Please um I need to make sure actually maybe email us when it happens because I might not see it because your stuff doesn't pop up. But I'd love to see this art transition because that sort of content is really interesting to