Welcome back to the Girl and the Gov® Diaries.

If you’re new here — hi, I’m Sammy – the blonde behind Girl and the Gov®. This little corner of the internet, or arm of GATG rather,  is where I share what’s been crossing my desk and my DMs: the internet finds I can’t stop sending to friends, the things I added to cart, the sidequests I found myself on, and convos with people doing genuinely interesting things. I’d hint at what you’ll find when you scroll, but that would ruin the fun ;)

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Things of amusement I’d send to a friend

Misc rants, rambles, and happenings of note

If everyone’s famous, is anyone really famous? This has been the question zig zagging its way across my brain the last two weeks since I binged both Off Campus and My Life With the Walter Boys – two YA/new adult shows that have become central to the pop cultural zeitgeist. In my watching process I also hit play on both cast and production team interviews, and it’s the contrast between those interviews that struck a cord, or rather lit a match to the question ‘if everyone is famous, is anyone really famous?’. 

In just about every Off Campus cast interview, the interviewers asked the cast how they were handling the onslaught of eyes on them and the explosive reaction to the show; the question in and of itself an acknowledgement of the overnight success of the show putting these cast members into another stratosphere despite almost all having worked on film and tv projects of note beforehand. The “before” though is clearly that – something that’s easily observed in the millions of followers cast members generated in a window of time that’s faster than express shipping. 

In contrast to the interviews with the leading cast members of My Life With the Walter Boys, there are thoughtful questions, sure. There’s some acknowledgement of the virality of the show, which with the drop of its new season has stayed at the top of the streaming charts for weeks. The questions though don’t touch the scale of those asked of the Off Campus cast, they more show scale – that in applied to pre-social media era of fame [think 90s and 2000s] that My Life With the Walter Boys would be the equivalent of soap opera stars and the Off Campus cast would be the equivalent of movie stars. One more famous in a niche and one more famous generically. 

But here’s the thing, social media is involved today; a huge change agent or variable really making it harder to draw the line on how famous someone is or if they’re actually famous at all. The number of times that a person comes up on my FYPs that I’ve never seen before that has over 100K followers… I mean, it’s a daily experience. If applied to the pre-social media lens to the concept of having 100,000 people that know who someone is, that would be fame – or at least fame junior. But today, again, does that really make you famous? It’s the question isn’t it. And when so many people could fit in that qualification, then is anyone really famous? 

To drag this analysis onto an adjacent path, one led with a question as well, is fame the last achievable American Dream? Is it the ceiling that can still be broken? The equalizer that with a sprinkle of effort that can change someone’s lot in life?

It certainly can be the most expedient, and for that, a reason that so many people have expressed their desires to be influencers/content creators/online personalities. And while on the surface blowing up on social media can be relatively easy with the right hook [emphasis on can be], it’s sustaining interest from an audience, cultivating community, and keeping quality across content created that requires hard work. The hard work that most would typically say is required to achieve the American Dream. The hard work that can break a barrier down. And if fame is the one last way or one of the few ways to make the American Dream a reality, and there’s an increase in people trying to become famous, do our parameters for understanding fame change? Do the metrics then shift because what is fame? And to add the laundry list of questions, is fame scale or is fame connectivity with a group of people? Is a person with 50K followers whose 50K knows them like the back of their hand more famous than someone with 500K followers that has a less engaged audience?

I don’t have the answers to those questions, and having an answer[s] was never the point of this collection of words. The point is and was to ponder, and to perhaps lightly connect the strings between the behaviors we see and what they actually mean in society today.

Finds, things I’ve got my eye on, & generally cool sh*t worth a click

ICYM-a-link, here they are [full ShopMy here]

Side quests, main quests, & generally fun sh*t to check out or do

Convos with friends at the intersection of culture, politics, & everything else

What does the next generation of reporting look like? Well, Dylan Wells, can certainly speak to that, which of course, is exactly what she did in our convo. If you don’t know THE Dylan Wells, let me give you the quick 1-2-3. Dylan reports for The Washington Post, and cultivated a following online as well while covering the 2024 election from the campaign trail. Now, Dylan’s coverage has shifted with a whole new beat – the creator economy, an ever-growing omnipresent segment of our worlds that many are still trying to wrap their minds around. Dylan’s coverage lifts some of that curtain and it’s one we get into, so without further ado…

astrological sign:

pisces

playing on the headphones:

I ride or die for Taylor Swift, since debut. 

the closet essential:

I’ve been obsessed with phone charms since a trip to Japan and Hong Kong last fall where I bought way too many. Functional and fun!! 

must-scroll accounts:

Selfishly I think people should follow @washingtonpostcreator! It’s a new brand account around our still-very new creator vertical at the Post where you can find my recent stories, and my colleagues who manage it deserve more eyeballs on the work :) 

THE CREATOR BEAT:

SK: “You have a new role covering the creator beat, which used to be in the political beat, but I feel like there's SO much intersection. What would you say surprised you the most in this transition?”

Dylan Wells: “It's really just the wealth of stories. I've of course been an avid extremely-online consumer of content for years, but when you start covering something fully as a beat, it introduces you to so much more that goes unseen below the surface. Every week I meet a creator who has hundreds of thousands of followers, if not millions, that’s doing something incredibly interesting online, and I’ve never heard of them. It’s so saturated on the internet right now that so many people have found success as creators in different niches. It's been really helpful to have this broader purview to be able to get more insight into those different industries. 

It's also really interesting to kind of live the merging legacy and new media life. For a lot of creators, they haven't really spoken to the press before, which is also so different from the political world that we both come from. It's been interesting to see that despite how rapidly the creator economy has grown, and its importance, it does feel like there hasn’t been as much legacy media coverage of creators.”

SK: “Totally. There's that classic phrase where there's ‘a lid for every pot’ and whatnot, ‘an ass for every seat.’ There's 5M variations of that analogy. In the creator space, it's the same thing. There are so many niches; it’s truly endless. I always think back to my PR days in the design industry and all of the subniches that we had and all of the trade publications, right? To your point, it's so vast. Trying to even figure out how to cover that, has got to be not only interesting, but is it overwhelming at all?”

Dylan Wells: “It’s a blessing and a curse that it’s so wide. It means I won’t run out of interesting stories to do, but as one person, it can feel a bit intimidating. There's so many different angles to tackle, and so many different stories we can be doing, and trying to find the right ones for each moment.” 

CREATOR JOURNALISM: 

SK: “It's kind of like going into a library and being like, "Wow, there's so many genres, where do you even begin?" And, you know, picking up what book you want to read, which I do think makes it interesting seeing that there's been so much “politics” finally added to the shelf. I also feel like every time I speak with a client, the thought around creators has shifted – what the vibe is towards creators, how they're utilizing, how creators feel about the space in general. There's so many gray areas in that particular niche and the gray area is seemingly increasing. One of those pieces is this question of is a creator a journalist? Is a journalist a creator? You’re now interestingly kind of at this intersection yourself. You are by trade a journalist, so coming from that end of it but what has been your experience now creating content?”

Dylan Wells: “Sometimes I even struggle with how to define myself within this like journalism to creator spectrum. I think that really speaks to how tough it is and how many blurred lines there are right now. I didn't go to journalism school, but I went to work in so many news rooms that I am a trained journalist, but I can approach things like a creator. I think that the blurriness can get really messy right now when people are conflating that every creator who might share news updates in more of a commentary style or more of an aggregation style on social media, that doesn't necessarily make them a journalist. The same way that I don't think being a journalist and doing reporting makes you a creator necessarily, because I think you have to do different things when you're thinking about how you’re producing your story and how you're sharing your story. There's an instinct to try to have a strong definition there. 

Oftentimes it isn't even like the creator seeking that journalism label, but it's being thrust upon them either by the industry or by their viewers. We have to remember that most people who see a video for the first time on TikTok – they don't know who the person is who is delivering that information to them. We as journalists need to think about that when we’re producing the reporting.

It sometimes feels like in the media there's resentment of creators, particularly those who are sharing news on social media and kind of viewing them as competition or not serious, or at their worst spreading misinformation – which some do, and I think we need to call that out. 

At the same time, I think that by and large the journalism industry really ceded that space for a while to creators and a lot of news rooms [speaking like for the broader industry, not my specific company], it wasn't a priority. When people are using these social media sites every day, I think it does need to be a priority. If you're ceding that ground to creators, you can't then be resentful that people took the mic in that period. Which is why I think it's really important that traditional media and trained journalists are really thinking about how they can be sharing their information online where people already inherently are. I mean, that was the entire job I was initially hired into at the Post was to do campaign reporting for off platform and for reaching those younger audiences where they already exist. I think that it's definitely informed how I go about approaching stories and the value that I feel like there is in being a reporter.”

POLITICAL CREATORS: 

SK: “One of the things that I've seen, especially in the political niche, is we'll have a bunch of creators and they’ll support a candidate – and “support” in loose terms. They might interview a candidate. They do this with an elected too. They go to an event of theirs, whatever it may be, and then after that person does something that they don't like, then they throw an online fit essentially being like, "We gave you our profile or our yeah, our platform, like how could you,” yada yada. I find it to be this weird thing because a lot of those same creators want to be considered journalists. But then if you’re inserting your opinion in that way, it’s no longer journalism from my vantage point. It's creating this interesting tension between campaigns, organizations, electeds that have been like, "Oh, wait. We're finally going to buy into the creator sphere, but then now the creators have a whole different perspective on looking at it and like how they behave. And I'm curious what you've A. seen and B. what your thoughts are on that?”

Dylan Wells: “Yeah, it's very messy. The political creator thing is so interesting. I feel like I spent a lot of the lead up to 2024 and the time after the year since really just trying to sell people even on the basic idea that creators are important to politics. I broke the news that both conventions were going to have creators credentialed for the first time. And a lot of the reaction was like “why would we even do that?” The point I was trying to make then was that these creators are going to be the crucial surrogates, the policy advisors, the candidates themselves. There was a real dismissal of the importance of creators at the time. I think after the 2024 election there was a bit of a wakeup call, but I don't know if the right lessons were learned with that wakeup call. It feels like now there’s an understanding in the political space that creators are important, but they can frequently still feel like a checkbox. 

To our point earlier about how this political creator space compares to the different industries creator space, I think politics has been really slow to adapt to the creator economy. And in some ways those like examples you list are an example or are proof of how slow to adapt the political system has been and like the negative consequences of that which can be a lack of transparency, which can be this weird conflation between treating creators as surrogates or treating creators as media. And a lot of campaigns and candidates want to have it both ways. And I think like this because the broader political and campaign and congressional space is not really aware of how creators function. I think as a result it gets really messy.”

SK: “Totally. “It’s a mess” would be like the understatement of the century. I think one of the elements too is it seems like normally if you were like to do like a typical business transaction right it's like two companies one's going to buy the other let's say – both are aware of what the other company wants; what the exchange is, what it's about, what the variables about negotiation might be. I feel like with so many niches, especially the political niche, there’s such a misunderstanding and confusion around what either end wants. It literally feels like two ships passing in the night in seeing some of these conversations. I literally want to scream and be like you want this and you want this and neither of you are communicating. You know what I mean?”

Dylan Wells: “And like there's bad actors in those who are just seeing it as a money grab. You're right, it’s like an understatement of the century that it is a mess.”

SK:” I am curious since your beat is inclusive of all creators and the creator economy at large, do other niches have the same BS?”

Dylan Wells: “Yes, but I feel like politics is so personal for everyone that it feels particularly relevant. I think people build parasocial relationships frequently with a creator because they really believe in them. I think that gets further complicated when it's a political candidate or a political policy that someone is talking about, not just like a new lipstick or a new shampoo. 

Trading on access is not unfamiliar in other parts of the creator space. Like look at brand trips, look at creators being brought to like a fun concert to make content with a brand. But I think consumers of content are kind of trained to recognize that for what it is and there's an understanding that I love this creator. It's cool that they're going on this and having this opportunity and like yeah, I kind of trust them for recommending this product, but I also am aware that they are currently on like Tripping with Tarte, and of course they're going to be showing me Tarte products while they’re there. When you're trading on access to a candidate or you're trading on access to a political event, I think that's also harder for people to understand because is that actually access to ask all your questions? Is it not? Is that the purpose? Is it just a cool experience? Like it gets really messy and I think people are much harsher and feel it much more personally because politics is so important.”

Le fin.

interview edited for clarity and brevity

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