[Music] welcome to ear biscuits I’m Rhett and I’m link joining us today at the round table of dim lighting is youtuber vlogger filmmaker producer actress and comedian Anna Akana and as a jack-of-all-trades content creator she writes directs and stars in her productions which are some of the highest quality produced videos on youtube the special effects in her short films are impressive and the costumes look like something you see on a sci-fi channel series just take a look at the short films like Miss Earth here she is and of course one of the most popular web series out there Riley rewind which she both wrote and starred in she also has made a name for herself with her polished comedic vlogs on her channel that are one of the coolest combinations of vlogging and sketch comedy that we’ve seen here’s a clip from one called types of toxic friends we’ve all had or been toxic friends at one point or another in our lives but sometimes it takes you a while to recognize who they are or when you’re being one there’s the copycat do you like my new outfit I mean I guess it looks a little bit like yours it’s exactly the same are you copying are you copying me the Negative Nancy I can’t believe I got that promotion so much extra responsibility is so much stress a social climber I heard you like friends like a famous person can we be friends I like jogging to have if you have a toxic friend in your life and talking things out just isn’t gonna work then break it off pull the plug nothing healthy is gonna come from that relationship do it right now do it right now I’ll do it right now Anna’s also known of her involvement in the suicide prevention community due to the very unfortunate loss of her sister in 2007 she really opened up about it in her emotional youtube video called please don’t kill yourself in 2013 she received a lot of positive feedback from the video and quickly became an inspiring voice for suicide prevention here’s a clip and I’m getting a lot of questions from people on the Internet of like I want to kill myself what should I do if you commit serious I I don’t even know like I don’t even know what would happen to you all I really know is what happens to the people around you after you die I think he’ll be really really hard for your family to live normally we appreciated Anna’s willingness to talk candidly in this biscuit about her sister suicide and how it made her who he/she is today her past relationship with raywilliamjohnson and what it’s like to be one half of a youtube power couple her vow to be single for a year and how that really didn’t pan out and the many creative projects that she’s juggling right now we know you’re gonna enjoy our conversation with Anna but first we want to mention our sponsor EF college break POF college what EF College Break they make travel easy affordable and even more fun for anyone ages 18 to 28 college not required you know traveling around the world one of the most exciting things you can do especially 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gonna be meeting new people making lifelong friends by sharing those experiences with them it doesn’t have to be intimidating to plan a trip outside of the country an EF college break makes it possible I’m looking on the site right now how does this sound a tenday Costa Rican advance sure oh and I love Costa Rica there’s wood down there I bring back bowls for people like Linc how about an eight day escape to London and Perry sounds good or a ten day grand tour of Spain the world is out there it’s waiting to be explored and the planning’s already been done yes head over to our special URL great way to support the show and enrich your own life go to EF college break comm slash rhett and Link and we’ll hook you up with an extra $100 off your next adventure that’s right $100 off using EF college break com slash rhett and Link and now onto the biscuit the first time we met maybe and maybe the last time we saw each other yeah because when you showed up just a few minutes ago you mention it as if the last time we saw each other and I was thinking first time it’s Julianne Smith’s birthday party cool party he’s not a small private party you and Ray were there this is this is it was a year ago no it might have been it wasn’t three was I two years two years ago and first thing you said to us was I love your Star Trek middle school musical which just came out it like been out less than a week and it wasn’t doing well it wasn’t it wasn’t one of our in it never became one of our more popular middle school musicals we did Breaking Bad after that which was a lot more successful so I was kind of disappointed but I immediately liked you as a person I like you as a creator I know some of your work but yeah Oh compliment right off the bat yeah it’s easy to like people who like you and if you like my stuff especially stuff that people aren’t liking I’m like oh she’s great oh and I has always been great because you push the right button on that one even if you weren’t even being sincere you could tell me I love that you guys make so much like high-quality legit production value stuff I really appreciate and admire that and plus Star Trek it was that your jam or something no I don’t I didn’t even like Star Trek but I watched it and I was like now I get the appeal of Star Trek and it’s like more entertaining because kids are singing to me interesting that you okay so what you’re obviously into sci-fi and stuff because you’re you like to put people into costumes that look like they’re from Star Wars so are you a Star Wars girl I’ll Begley like Star Wars that was all like a little bit before my time so I’m more into like dystopian why a novels and okay that whole Jam got it yeah just dope you what dystopian young adult oh why a no yes why I novels okay the yah novels I don’t even know what the word dystopia means you it’s the in it’s the Armageddon man you know antithesis of you taupe when things hit the fan man oh well then I dunno what it is I just didn’t know that’s what that meant well welcome to 2015 I’m listen I’m setting the stage to be totally open and honest here and if anyone that doesn’t know what any words mean besides me feel free at any point to say that but are so dystopian why a novels what what are these what do these do to the psyche well what’s what why does it resonate with you um I like speculative fiction I like imagining what the future is gonna be like what kind of class systems we have what our monetary systems are like and with why a novels in particular you get like that that like a really cute love story with it so I’m like a boy sorry are you hopeful about the future or do you think it is it we are gonna be in a dystopian future I think it’ll be kind of the same as now where there’s a lot of happening but it’s still a pretty nice place to live are you a prepper no I should be you’re know you’re out you’re a prep prepper I’m not prepped for the earthquakes but but you’re prepping to prep yeah I like mentally tell myself oh I should get more water like Oprah’s apparently busing in water because of the drought I was like I should do that you need water yeah we all need water no what you need is a friend who is a prepper or an aspiring prepper and then he’ll buy stuff for you I do have a friend who’s a prepper he built this property out in the desert and has like guns and like water and so really yes and I said he because I was referring to Rhett Oh do you have a he to it could have been a she yeah I have a he what’s his first name I don’t want to say you don’t even want to say his first name of that desert compound because we’ll be there as soon as the big one hits why can’t you say his first name he might listen to this say a name is not his first name and we’ll talk to him as if he’s that guy well say his name is Ben okay Ben is out in the desert he’s got guns he’s got water it’s so prepper to like not even give out your real name I love it like that’s perfect he probably doesn’t even give you his real name well he’s a known figure so I don’t wanna oh we’re getting closer now the compound is just happy just bought it oh it’s a bug-out location yeah so he’s an actor no but in the industry yes okay we’re getting closer see you don’t dangle stuff like this for me on any or biscuit because I cannot let it go first of all links gonna be at my house okay I mean that’s what’s gonna happen with him and I’m probably gonna be at my bug-out location that he doesn’t know about you know I mean I’m gonna bug out to my location and Lane it’s gonna be at my home with the stuff that you live no way I’m staying in the valley in the middle of it oh the city would be the worst place gotta get out have you seen not been it’s a bunker I have not I just know that it was purchased and where it is see a conspiracy theorist or is he just he’s a little mentally unstable he’s a director maybe yep it mentally unstable equals director okay but it’s interesting that you know about it that means that you’re invited I am I am invited to see the bunker should things ever go down that’s a you know what you’re way ahead of me did the invitation come with like you take it out and it’s what is this like little vellum piece of paper P on it and then you see what it’s written no it’s all verbal nothing can be recorded or ran down except on a podcast so we met that day and we haven’t seen each other since but I mean I’ve you know I’ve seen your work and felt like I’ve gotten to know you more since that point I just wonder why our paths haven’t crossed since then it seems weird that our first meeting was our last over two years ago I don’t hang out with a lot of people who do stuff online like I don’t even know how to meet those people because everyone’s always like in their studio or in their home like I’ll see people in passing at VidCon but that’s about it yeah we keep our head down you’re super busy I mean you’ve got so many different things you’re doing and I mean we’re gonna get into many of those over the course this conversation but of all the things and I saw like you gave a glimpse of your calendar and like a recent vlog it was all color-coded you got some OCD happening I like a little bit of synesthesia where like I associate colors with like numbers or specific ideas lien doesn’t know what dystopia means he’s not I don’t know what that means yeah actually I didn’t know everything about that there you go but you know your your calendar is like so full of stuff going from this this pilot audition to recording the podcast I tried to pause it to see if we were on there mm-hmm like I couldn’t look that closely to calendar but it felt stalkerish so I stopped but what do you I mean what are you most excited about at this point with so many things you’re juggling I’m excited to make a movie I want to make a movie this year I want to so it’s not even something that are you writing it or it’s just aspirational it’s like the next thing it’s the next thing it’s a it’s something that my former assistant wrote called wedding wreckers and it’s very funny two female comedians are the stars and it’s very sharp very rated-r and so I told her I wanted to produce that so right now I’m and legal with like optioning it and going out for financing and developing is that one of the reasons that you’ve been on the short film kick lately like trying to you know you’re doing a different thing on YouTube you’re doing something that not a lot of people are doing you’re making short films looking actual short films is that in preparation for like oh I’m gonna do a feature yeah I wanted to do a feature I’d say three years ago but I was like I’m nowhere near ready for that so I’ll make as many short films as I can until that feature comes out and we’re talking as a director and talent or not just directed I’ve directed all of them yeah but the film you’re you’re gonna direct the film no for my first film I want to act and learning from the short films directing and acting are completely different sides of the brain and so and I’m much more geared towards being like OCD and analytical and very much in that space so if I do direct my acting suffers if I’m doing both at the same time mm-hmm got it so tell us about the the short film commitment that you kind of made either to yourself or to your audience there was like a number involved right yeah in the beginning of 2014 I said I was gonna do 12 so I was aiming for one a month and I was like I don’t know how realistic that is because I’ve never made a short film and I only did six for the whole year but I also went through like a big breakup and like moving and so that sent me that felt like two three months behind and so this year I’m working on another one but I told my audience I’m gonna take my time with this one because last time it would be like pre-production for one while I’m also editing the second one while I’m also you know in development for the third one so everything was happening at the same time and so I’d like to see what I can do if I really take my time with something that’s maybe 20 to 30 minutes long what and then you did is the most recent one miss earth is that the last big short film and that one was over 13 minutes long that was a and it had a lot going on yeah I mean that was a pretty major endeavor yeah that was the most stressful experience of my life yeah yeah directing acting producing I lost some friends over it I invested my life savings into it it was a very good learning experience awesome friends tell us about that what did whose fault was that I think it was just miscommunication and like like expectation set like I’m very paranoid about treating crew really well and like paying the day of and I almost have this tendency like as a you know just as a female and also like someone who’s always eager to please like going around and making sure everyone’s okay and I’d worked with the same crew the entire year and so at this point I was much more and I like cold but I wasn’t as like serving to people and like checking in and two of my best friends thought I was a quote/unquote bitch and I was like while I’m doing three jobs and this is the biggest thing of my life so far and it’s my life savings and you’re not doing your job so I need to scold you about it and that kind of led into a big fallout so I had to learn a lot of lessons about having friends on set and also being a boss and when to differentiate those two things so they stayed on set and did their job but they didn’t remain friends no how did it it ended on the very last day in the very last ten minutes of of the shoot yeah was it whether emotional explosions in via yeah it was really bad like did spit fly or tears fall or what um I cried and said a couple times during it but in that last 10 minutes yeah it was me and my former DP screaming at each other and I was like this conversations over like we’re trying to wrap and get out of the studio I not talking about this anymore like people love it when everyone’s waiting for the director to like call it’s a wrap yeah and you’re like Marty this is a bad time yeah exactly and I was not everyone is standing around made up like aliens all watching this happen no it’s gotta be a little weird yeah it was it was very awkward it was it was a very awkward time in my life so what what else did you what you said you learned some things too so what’d you learn yeah I learned that you know ultimately it’s about the project and a lot of the times I want to cultivate a really good work environment and I want to serve people in the sense of making sure everyone’s comfortable and taken care of but I also have to make sure I’m taking care of myself and I’m taking care of my project because it’s all self-financed and so I learned a lot about being a boss people said so no one that’s listening now is ever gonna work for you it’s all about the products you totally switch no I didn’t switch completely but I have to know what to put first you know like and I had a really good convo with my dad where he was like never changed the way you work cuz I think it’s great that you try so hard to make it the best for everyone and I’ve done like I’ve done grip and I’ve done sound and I’ve tried to do camera op and like do every job on a set so that I know how to make that person’s job easier and like know how to be a better director but at the same time I’m always like Oh am I being a bitch or like is this unreasonable and I think I need to stop that more often before it gets out of hand are you a perfectionist I used to be not so much anymore now it’s like just do the best you can do the best you can you mentioned your dad we want to we want to find out about you people your fame where you’re from were we born Monterey California and then I moved every two to three years of my life till today I moved I’m a military scenario Oh dad’s Marine Corps Marine Corps so like major dad the old television show McCraney and I’m your dad and I come home and wasn’t this gonna be a funny sitcom because I’m a drill sergeant there’s your dad does your dad have just a mustache no he had a beard most of the time a flattop I don’t know what a flattop is over the Marine haircut where the hair is goes up and then it’s just flat oh no I’ve never heard it used to have one middle school yeah wow that’s sad when you get a flattop at the barber they give you a special brush to take home what yeah because a commemorative brush right at the top where it you know hits your the top of your Scout it sits like this standing up it’s like that tall but in order to be flat it’s got to be a little bit taller on the sides as it goes out and so they give you this brush to take and go over the corners to keep it up Rudolph Blanchard any air cut that needs a special brush you just didn’t get like well I don’t have it anymore so you moved around a lot as a kid you said every few months every few years so Monterey where else I’ve lived in Japan Hawaii Korea over thirteen states Wow yeah I had a group in the south no I grew but like I had a North Carolina accent for like a long time really yeah okay that’s what we have oh yeah yeah where are you guys Carolina are you yes I thought you were saying that because you’re like as a point of reference but yeah North Carolina so you had a North Carolina accent yeah I grew up and when I was living at a talk I was in North Carolina what part fatal tree point it’s a Cherry Point okay guys how did Jacksonville yeah so it was interesting to be like this little Asian person with a with an accident well that part of North Carolina is pretty distinct mm-hmm that’s eastern North Carolina if I in fact interesting is you mentioned that because I won’t I won’t mention names but somebody that we know his sister who grew up in California just moved to Cherry Point with her military husband and I was asking him how are they because they moved from San Clemente awesome beach town California and I know what Cherry Point is like so how they do anything was like she cries every day you know it’s a I mean nothing is on Cherry Point right now it’s just different you go from you go from this you know amazing beach town to a military town and Eastern North Carolina that’s not easy I mean did it did that lifestyle growing up did that prove to be challenging for you it’s I have habits that I shouldn’t have like I I’m ihrer people a lot like if I want to fit in or I want people to like me I just mirror their body language and their speech I do it like a lot really subconsciously or all like chameleon my personality to kind of match theirs or be complimentary so it’s it’s had a lot of identity issues growing up I’m like wait what am I really like if I’m not influenced by people I’m around did you experience any racism in the south yeah yeah I remember I moved and someone was like go back to town or drink and I was like I was born here so it was weird so you didn’t have a volatile response to that you just tried to explain yourself yeah I mean I always felt white inside I didn’t really realize I was in minority told much much later in life so that was like oh oh that’s weird right I felt white inside so when was the realization probably like when I was 8 and me and my friends were playing like Spice Girl dress up and like I wasn’t allowed to be any of the Spice Girls so I was like oh that’s oh that’s interesting right because it wasn’t there wood there was no I never thought about that yeah I knew something was missing and where’s your mom from my mom’s from the Philippines okay and was she and did they meet in the Philippines so this was her her first time in the US when she came with your dad yeah her and my dad dated long-distance for like two years and they moved her out here and they got married and she was pregnant with me and so did you what was your I know a lot of times the friends your friends can especially in the south I’ve noticed this if your mom is different then your friends will ask questions and they kind of see that oh your mom talks different your mom cooks food differently or whatever did you experience any of that ah no my mom’s always been like the very much the life of the party so people like her quite a bit when when they meet her and they’re never like off-put she’ll just be like yeah I’ve eaten dog before and people are like what that’s crazy you I have not I’ve not eaten dog she didn’t she didn’t she didn’t bring that dish no that was only when she was dirt poor and apparently like their family was starving yeah I can understand it yeah I know that part of your story is just the harrowing experience of your your sister passing away so I wanted to talk about that how many siblings do you have I have a brother he’s younger younger – mm-hmm or about or each like two three years apart okay yeah so he was next and then your sister was the youngest of three yes okay tell us about that uh well it was she was I always think she was bipolar or had some kind of mood disorder she was very manic depressive but I also don’t know if that’s just because she was like a 13 year old girl going through puberty but she committed suicide in like 2007 right around the time all the cyber bullying was kind of happening she got threatened by a bunch of guys at her school that they were gonna beat her up and so she brought a BB gun to protect herself because she had told her teacher and her teacher didn’t say anything and this is before like all those suicides started happening so bullying wasn’t something really on our social radar and she got expelled from school for bringing that BB gun and kind of like spiraled into this depression and eventually killed herself how close were you we were pretty close I mean we would fight as much as we would friends just like with his typical sisters that’s that’s what you gotta do yeah it’s like something you sign to say yes I will be a good sister yeah we will fight so I I get that I mean do you remember finding out like how you found out yeah it was a Valentine’s Day and she had fought with like every member of our family and then had come to me and we fought and it was so weird cuz like the last thing I ever said to her was like I hate you like go away and then I went to the park with my boyfriend at the time to like surprise him with a picnic and then there were like fire trucks and like ambulances going by at one point and like we didn’t think anything of it but then I got like this really like weird feeling and it’s the only time I’ve been like maybe I’m psychic because maniacally I was just like we have to go but there’s something really wrong we have to go and so we packed up the picnic and my brother called me while we were packing up and he was like what I’m about to say is gonna change your life forever Christina tried to kill herself and so we got home and paramedics were like leading her out and I remember they were like joking about something and like what did she what did she do oh she hung herself in the closet with like one of her scarves yeah and my brother had only found out because she was playing this same song on repeat like at the loudest volume ever in her room and so finally he came in to be like can you please shut that off and then he couldn’t find her and then he found her in the closet so it’s always been like oh man like my brother definitely had the hardest job being the one to find her but she had been dead I guess for something like 15 minutes so they couldn’t bring her back and even if they could they said she would have suffered intense brain damage so we as you showed up as they were wheeling her out yeah at that time you didn’t know whether it was it was she had actually died because you said your brother said she attempted it yes yeah we all kind of thought it would be okay cuz they put like the breathing masks over her so I thought she was gonna be okay but my dad knew based on like trying to give her CPR and like her lockjaw and stuff that like she was there is no chance well you know I appreciate your candor and just being able to share and I know that you you’ve chosen places to to bring it up and you’ve logged about it extensively and you please don’t kill yourself video that you made and even as you know it was extremely powerful to see you be that vulnerable in that video and to honestly process even in kind of a meta way the fact that you were making the video and I found it to be extremely powerful and honest that you not only were talking about it but you were talking about talking about it because there’s so many questions associated with what you know presenting this to to your audience or to the Internet at large as it was uploading I read the I found myself reading the description that evidently you were writing as the video is uploading what you seem to still be processing kind of like journaling just a stream of consciousness with the vlog as it was uploading wrestling with how people might perceive you speaking about it and then I keep reading down and you read the comments and it’s you know it’s it’s extremely powerful and effective in getting people to pause and to think about it at no point is it easy to talk about and I even feel I’m you know I appreciate your candor here but it’s even getting you to talk about it now getting you to go back to a place where you’ve all that has to be so painful that you’ve been on you’ve gone on record that you know I I find myself having the same dialog that I think you had when you’ve logged the thing is it should should we even talk about this should I bring this up is it to benefit anyone hmm so I guess I just summarized and resonate I with your struggle and so how much is that defines who you are as a person and as a as a person who blogs a communicator a creator oh god like percent like that moment is my before-and-after like before my sister committed suicide I could not talk to people I was so shy like if I had to use the bathroom someplace I would like whisper to my brother and my sister like please find out where the bathroom is and like I’d always wanted to perform but it was like crippling I was like I’ll never do that I’ll never be able to be that kind of person and Christina was the complete opposite she was fearless like I love this story that like in middle school every year she would go in the talent show with her friends and she would choreograph a dance and every year everyone would bail and so she would go up on the stage and do that whole choreographed dance by herself and at a certain point it was just like these friends of yours but like how fearless and like brave of you to do and so after she died I’d say like maybe two or three years after that like I really realized like there’s no point and really being afraid because death was finally something that I felt like I really understood and in that sense of like we really don’t know what’s after this so I might as well try to make this the best that it can be for me and it feels like kind of cliche of like yeah just gave me perspective and now I’m going to be a comedian but ultimately I think it’s the best and the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life wherever a sense that because she Cristina you said was her name yes was a she was a performer and she was she was fearless that now that she was gone it was kind of your job to sort of take that up what’s her sense of that well all three of us had always wanted to be performers since we were young it was like a very common thing like we shared and so we’d like perform for each other with each other but definitely when she died it was this pressure of like oh I have to do it for the both of us now and I think she would she would be happy with it you know like I finally just started to do stand-up about it it’s taken me seven years but I’m like okay how can I try to make this funny like that’s the ultimate parks I couldn’t I could not laugh about it for the longest time and anytime someone said in the conversation like oh if I had to sit in traffic for one more hour I’d kill myself it would just it would set me off for like hearing people the way we use suicide in common language but now I’m okay and now I can crack jokes about it and that’s that’s what I feel like has been the most healing was there I mean guilt that you had to deal with there oh yeah well I mean I was the last one to talk to her and I was like I hate you go away forever so it there appear ially helped in your vlog you say everywhere you turn it’s there meaning that the fact that she took her own life you said I’m a different person I don’t know if it’s for the better or for the worse and I mean these are not key this is obviously from the heart you’re just kind of processing this thing do you know if it’s for the better or the worse is it I don’t but I try to consciously make it for the better how are you a different person um I’m a different in the sense that I’m no longer afraid of a lot of the stuff that I used to be afraid of I am I go after what I want more I kind of tried to take every thing that I have and make it work for me and yeah it kind of it does kind of it’s like the filter through which a lot of my decisions are made and do you remember how your how did it change everybody else oh how did it change your parents how did it change your brother well your relationship with them and we’ve never been like a close-knit family like dinner would be ready and we’d all get our dinner and go to our rooms like my parents are very hardcore gamers so they would always be in from the computer Sega Genesis or whatever and me my brother would be off on our own space and so after she died that kind of exacerbated it brought us together briefly but then we all kind of like went to go process our grief on our own and now it’s now it’s much different and I’m able to be like completely honest with my parents without the fear of judgment or without the fear that they’ll get angry with me and I mean I dropped out of college even though they didn’t want me to and moved out here despite their protests and even though they were like well are you sure you don’t want to go to college and get a degree into it uh they were still happy with my decision and so my pair seems to be very typical Asian parents like uptight and get an education and get a good job but after this happened they sort of realized like no we just want you to be happy like we we realize that there’s a lot of stuff that we’ve been doing wrong and so we just want you guys to go do what you want and we will support you and be supportive of that so do you remember the first thing that you know as you were processing you said it took two or three years yeah it seems like it led you to that change that it occurred it within you is what led you to where you’re at right now so do you remember the first sort of application of that change like I’m going to go and perform in this way or yeah I it was like think two years after she died I was watching a Comedy Central special and it was the first time I had laughed in those two years and so I was like I’m gonna go do stand-up and so I pursued stand up from like 19 to 22 what was the special do you remember that it was a compilation it was like Gabriel Iglesias and Margaret Cho and they had some Mitch Hedberg up in there it was just I watched it I think for a couple hours and I just I fell in love with how much I was laughing I was like I want to do that I can do that and you where were you living at the time I’d Sur macula California okay mm-hmm very boring very small so what did you do specifically I started writing jokes and a notebook and recalling everything funny that I thought had never happened in my life and then I booked a show my first time I went up I had eight minutes it was very weird because normally you’ll do an open mic when you start out with like three minutes but I had an eight-minute set and all my friends came out and my parents came out and the first time they saw me do stand-up was when they’ve really started to get it and we’re like oh no go ahead leave college oh really yeah so that was the first as you said I’m leaving college to do comedy before you had ever done one stand-up yeah okay a self-fulfilling prophecy here your parents bought in and that’s when you just moved do you move with anybody just rent a high school friend and I moved in together with my three cats we lived in Marina del Rey mm-hmm yeah and then what I did comedy for a few years XJ no-cost stand-up comedy and then I started doing a bunch of web series and then I got a very crippling social anxiety so I quit stand up for like three years but I went back in it so what what what happened was there something that precipitated it specifically I don’t know it was like the better my set got the more and more worried I was and I can’t really explain what it was it was just like this unexplainable angst of like knowing oh my god I’m gonna be on stage tomorrow like I should leave town I should tell them my grandma died and like cancel the show and I think it was just like having never gone to therapy to like deal with all my it was that building up so it wasn’t that you fell flat on your face an embarrassment it was within your mind yeah and it was a little bit self sabotaging like sometimes I would make decisions that would purposefully lead me down a dark road because of the guilt and like this feeling of like oh no I shouldn’t be allowed to succeed so would you just you wouldn’t show up at things or you just said I’m not booking things anymore I just completely stopped doing it so once my last show was up I like didn’t book any more shows and I like didn’t go to any more open mics and I just stopped for three years yeah and so what happened in those three years did you stay here YouTube okay because I was like I can be home alone I don’t be with anyone I can just make videos in my house so interesting because that the transition from you know sort of getting into stand-up comedy and then moving to YouTube is is that’s happened several times more than more than a few times but usually it’s people being in front of an audience in a you know Chinese restaurant or someplace where you why am i doing stand-up here you’re like why am i doing this for 20 people when I could be doing it for 20,000 people on the internet for you interestingly it was I am intimidated by this and I have a social anxiety about this this group of people that I’m seeing so I’m gonna go on the internet where more people will see me but I’m more comfortable in a yeah with my surroundings I can deal with the troll you know but I couldn’t deal with like a bunch of people smiling at me at a show right so let’s come back to YouTube but let’s skip ahead to going back onstage for the first time through years later yeah what was that like um I’d been wanting to do stand-up again for a year or so I like had the itch and I was like I think because I ran away from that I should go back to it and I should confront it and I started writing again so I wrote like a bunch of like suicide jokes and it’s taking me a lot of open mics to like figure out where the punch lines are cuz and it’s still a little bit wonky because people don’t know that it’s okay to laugh like it takes them like three or four jokes and to be like okay I’m allowed to laugh with you with this but it’s been great I’m like it’s funny because now I’m like I made a video that a hundred thousand people saw this morning like this bar full of four peoples nothing and so it’s been fun to like go from a two-hour line of people wanting to take a picture to like going to a bar and like drinking alone till it’s my turn to go on you know do you get backlash for the suicide jokes like I mean do you mention your story specifically or is it I just isolated from that you’re talking to it’s very personal what’s stand-up like the more personal it is somehow the more relatable it is so you get blowback at that point not the audience can you yeah how could you exploit that experience for laughs yeah I’ve heard that online but I’ve created jokes to like address it and also it’s like this weird thing of like no you should feel worse about the terrible thing that happened you you shouldn’t get over this stop making light of this tragic event so I don’t take it personally I’m like that’s if you can’t see what I’m doing on stage that’s your own problem with your own life but no one has confronted you face to face about it correct found that interesting in a good way that well I find it fascinating that it fits the profile of a troll that yeah and and maybe there’s a there’s actual when you’re there in the room it conveys in such a way that people get it yeah and you know it’s slowly but surely the more confident you get in your jokes I’m sure if you pass around papers someone who still say something like a jerk but they’re you know if they don’t have to sign their name – right pass around some little comment shape sheets of paper you should try that actually are you they could give you the thumbs-up or thumbs-down drive to the stage okay well we can’t talk about your YouTube without talking about raywilliamjohnson okay how do we talk about ray just tell us you tell us how do we talk about you can tell I’m can if I can’t say anything I won’t say anything you know but I’m open to talking about it start at the beginning Ray and I met in 2012 at a showcase and I think I’d met him once before that I was like a hoe on breaking for like one of my friends was like I need someone just to be in a pretty dress and come down and do this for like an hour so I did it for her and then we let her met and then we started dating and I think like three months later we like moved in together so when you say showcase he met at a showcase this is a stand up it’s a sketch it was a sketch showcase for CBS okay for them to be like we’re not racist look at all these people of color on our stage yeah yeah and he was just in the audience know the VP of casting for an Ornstein invited him because her sons were fans of him and so she watched him and she was like oh this kids really funny so she brought him into the showcase versus like the rest of us were like auditioning to try to get into the showcase he was an invitation judge but he performed yes and in this guy in one of the sketches several of them yeah we were all in like several different ones so what was your first interaction with him did you know did you know him from him equals three no not really I wasn’t savvy to the Internet and I’d like only ever seen my episode of Breaking so I was like I don’t understand what what this is like I didn’t realize it was a vlog versus like a show or anything like that because I was merely at the time putting stuff up on YouTube I wasn’t I didn’t know it was a full-time job I didn’t know there were vloggers I didn’t know there were sketch teams on it and so we kind of got together and my sketch group fell apart and he was like you should keep making videos under your own name just learn how to clone yourself and like keep making sketches and so that’s kind of what I started doing so you were on he you started your channel because he encouraged you to do it mhm and but you weren’t on his channel for a while but you met in three months you you you started dating immediately and three months later you guys were like real serious living together yeah starting to show up in instagrams yeah those type of things we started working together much later cuz he was very tentative about working with the partner and like doing stuff with with someone you’re romantically involved with what how would you describe Rey’s reputation publicly like what people think of Rey and then what’s right and what’s what’s wrong about that dispel some myths I have the opposite so I knew him personally before I ever saw equals 3 and so Rey in person was always like a very serious and like somber and like hardworking and like quiet man and then I saw his persona on equals 3 and I was just like laughing so hard cuz like you seem like such a dick on the show and that’s not you at all and my parents actually didn’t want me to date him because that’s all they had seen of him and it wasn’t till they met him in person that they were like oh we get it this is like kind of like a persona or a character so a lot of the times like it was weird to have to tell people like he’s playing a character you know that right because he’s so convincing and I was told himhe I was like you have face you just have that face that people are like you look like so it kind of like helped that persona but it sucked for him because people would think he was like that did you feel like you had to clarify that obviously you had to clarify with your parents yeah did you have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder when it came to friends and people that found out you were dating him yeah people didn’t who did not know him and who only saw his content on the internet had an opinion of him and I had to constantly be like that is not who he is he’s a generous hard-working very kind person that’s a character but it was also really interesting because a lot of my friends who thought that were actors and like did have characters so it was like why can’t you get it you know right yeah something lost in the genre yeah yes a YouTube video right the presentation is that this guy’s being himself and he’s just talking about videos so I could get that mm-hmm right it’s a it’s a quick assumption but it I wouldn’t say it’s fair but it’s it’s an easy assumption absolutely and it might be a safe assumption giving given the breadth of like I’ll say vloggers yeah you know when did you begin to experience internet hate because I’m sure that came as soon as the very first time you appeared in anything publicly yeah he was like find your voice make a video however often you’re gonna make a video and then once I like kind of nailed what I felt like my thing was he started promoting me and yeah people were just like uh Beutel uh [Laughter] and it used to like really bug me and that’s when I kind of got it cuz he used to like get upset about trolls or be like why do people like hate me so much you know which is a very natural thing to feel when you get a lot of hate on the internet and I would be like it doesn’t matter they’re not a part of your life don’t let it get to you and then when it’s at you it’s like oh god this is a totally different feeling it’s so easy for me to say one thing but feel the other and so it’s been a constant battle but you were so you were learning the ropes of this mm-hmm and he was at the top of YouTube at the same time yeah so you were there for yeah and he was very but my impression was that he you know he had a tendency to isolate himself mm-hmm like he I mean he wasn’t you know whenever you show up at YouTube events or like you never meet ray yeah like he was he was an island and still is he had a lot of social anxiety so crowds he didn’t like to do like any kind of social event he got very anxious about it and it’s something that he dealt with it in his own way but yeah it was this weird and accessible thing but also like primary primarily I think he’s a producer and an actor and so he already experienced a lot of biased for in the traditional world being like oh no you’re that guy in the Internet you’re that guy who does stuff in your bedroom and didn’t want to perpetuate that and you were the the lead in Riley rewind which was his first correct me if I’m wrong but the first for Ray his channel into something that didn’t feature him yes I mean now you see he’s he’s basically not on there he’s not the face of his channel anymore I think Riley ryona was the first thing right yeah it was certainly I mean that was a collaborative effort initially between you two initially I wrote it for my channel because I was like I want to do scripted like at that point I had kind of a significant following but everyone didn’t believe I was an actress or a stand-up comedian and so I was like oh that makes sense I have to put stuff on the internet that I want to be seen as so I wrote it and he really liked it and was like I’ll produce this like I want to produce stuff and I’ll direct it and so that was our first real collaborative effort of bringing something narrative I mean YouTube and how did you guys make the decision to put it on his channel was that the once he saw it and liked it he was like we’ll we’ll put this on equals three yeah yeah he he he sunk a lot of money into it and he was like I want it to have the best possible chance of getting a lot of views and maybe we can sell it to television so we’ll put on my channel and how was that process of collaborating it was good I mean we had a lot of a lot of tough things happen on that shoot and a lot of like the budget was missing and like a lot of the people on board we were like what’s happening there’s all these miscommunications but ultimately we were really happy with how it turned out and then you you also collaborated in a number of different ways you guys did a podcast together and I mean you you know you became a youtube poop lick power couple yeah I mean I like working with the person I’m with it’s just how I especially in this industry when you’re on set for like 12 hours a day like why wouldn’t I want to be with my partner on set for 12 hours a day so it was something that I was always on board with and something that I kind of pushed ultimately but I like to I mean I don’t have any regrets though the collaborations that you were pushing that yeah I mean did you either a feel like the first lady of YouTube when he because he’s at number one yeah or resent people treating you that way it was a little bit of both you know like it was great because any questions I had he could answer and give like really good business advice on and so it was it was this nice relationship of being able to talk out stuff business-wise but then again it would suck because I would have people come out of the woodwork who would like try to contact me to get through to me to get to him or we would go to places and people like push me out of the way to like get to him and so it was a little bit both so were you behind the controversial tweets to like make her and stuff like that say here let me let me handle that for you know I encouraged it because a lot of stuff happened behind the scenes that never made it public publicly and it was at a point where I was like you’re going to get completely screwed unless you do something so I did support that decision and why’d you guys break up um I think power dynamics I mean as you said he was at the top of YouTube and I was at the bottom you know I I and I feel like now that I’m at that kind of I’m not at the top of it but I’m at a place where I’m successful like I would be kind of like weary of someone wanting to work with me and like maybe question their motives or something like that and I mean he sustained me financially like helped me quit my waitressing job so that I could pursue stuff creatively and did a lot for me but I think ultimately I was more like the Robin to his Batman and then the Superman to his Batman are you guys still friends well we haven’t talked I mean I how did it end oh we it was kind of mutual we both decided to just cut off all contact and and go our separate ways and you so no contact sense yeah so that was just the agreement the agreement wasn’t it wasn’t I hate you I’m never talking to you again it was like this is how we’re going to do this we’re going to do this write it we don’t talk to each other anymore yeah I mean I was kind of like the girl about it I would call him and then be like I don’t want to do this anymore like be my friend and then it was just like no take it over each other like you have to go away so that’s how it’s been and shortly after that no well I mean basically when it happened you were pretty public about the fact that you guys had broken up you know because people find out that kind of stuff anyway so you kind of owned up to it and then he private it like we can’t you can’t see the podcast where you guys were together no it’s on iTunes and I get that you know like sometimes to get over someone especially in the Internet’s like someone tweets about him everyday or like I see several comments it’s hard to get over someone if if you’re constantly reminded of them right so I get that and you but you also made essentially a public Val you’re like I’m gonna be single for a year and you talk about this in the sure you talk about it more than once but I saw it in at least you’re the Dan’l Daniel Radcliffe video why’d you do it I had a friend who did it and I thought it was really cool and so I wanted to present the extremist side because I also knew I was gonna do that Daniel Radcliffe video so it was a strategic move of being like I’m gonna publicly announce this extremist point of view and then I’m going to do the follow-up with the Daniel Radcliffe video of Daniel Radcliffe telling me to stop being an extremist because I have been a serial monogamist and then bowing to be single I thought was the complete opposite of that and so I was like I want to present both of those sides in different videos and then I want to have the somewhere to meet in the middle with freaking Harry Potter did you literally have a ring yeah okay had you had you did your friend do that same thing to do the ring part the ring part was a joke but she actually did I didn’t see that video what’s the ring that’s Lord of the Rings not Harry Potter I’m confused no like I bought myself a wedding ring I was like I’m single for a year so I’m married to myself oh and did that did you notice that that worked in public like a guy would come up to you and he like he would see the ring and you would back off did it have its intended effect really I didn’t wear it for that long I would wear it for fun out in public to be like whatever but no but it didn’t you didn’t make it a year no I never intended to okay yeah I was always like I’ll just go with the flow and whatever happens and then you met Brad yeah yeah how did that happen Brad was the he runs a couple of shows at nerdmelt at meltdown comics and he was the host first show that me and my friend Megan Rosati we do comedy songs together live so we did a song there and that in they’ve been longtime friends so that’s how I was introduced to him okay and you know it’s interesting I was gonna ask you this question I’m still gonna ask you the question but then you you specifically said something that kind of speaks to it and talking about your the reason you broke up with Ray being the power dynamics and it’s kind of reversed in the in this situation right and that’s you know and when it comes to the public perception of you and your success and then if you’re just talking about YouTube into you know independently you know Brad’s getting his footing on YouTube he’s doing a lot of stuff with you he’s Robin to your Batman so what what what is how does that dynamic different now that she’s on the other foot I think he does so much live comedy and that’s kind of what I wanted to get more into when we had met and so it was this great aspect of like him wanting to do more video and me wanting to do more live comedy and I think I don’t think of our power dynamics as uneven because he’s such a good character actor who comes from like a Groundlings background and is like so talented in that regard and very capable like I was surprised most men aren’t very organized at least the ones that I’ve met and he’s incredibly like organized and thoughtful in that sense I mean I am I’m are successful in terms of like online yes am I more financially stable yes but I I also know how to avoid any kind of like weird power high jinks because of my previous relationship and so now if I’m like oh maybe we shouldn’t do this because I don’t want it to affect how I see you or how you how equal we are in this partner give us an example um like okay like he has a web series and he wanted me to act in it and I was like well am I gonna be all but how obligated my to promote this and so you know cuz this is the thing I mean our promotion is kind of our power online and so he would be like I don’t expect you to promote it in any way whatsoever and so I was like cool and so went going why do you want to promote it explain that I do but I don’t want to be cast because of that and so I I just I like now I’m on a binge of like if anything comes up just ask just clarify just be as honest and pop as possible and like express my worries or my concerns and that’s been very beneficial and so anytime I feel like that’s gonna happen or like what whether we do a podcast as well explain things to me which is like educational side rice or science stuff and so I’d be like well what’s our role in this like if I’m fronting all of the money to get it started how are you going to contribute are you doing all the editing are you doing all the producing and so we make sure going into everything that we feel like we’re both equal equal yeah and so what’s the what’s the Equality split well how do you what how do you divide that up for say the podcast for the podcast like I front all the money for it he takes care of all of the di t he takes care of all the editing he also works in conjunction with my assistant to make sure everything is produced correctly and so we both feel like we’re contributing equally to this project unless it’s something that we agree oh you’re the boss on this one and I’ll be the boss on the next one and how much conflict is happening because because you’ve made in order to promote the podcast you made a comedic vlog where you kind of it was tongue-in-cheek you were kind of a tyrant yeah so you kind of hit it head on yeah the audience perception of oh she’s working with her boyfriend yeah again yeah and she’s you were making fun of yourself of like being in charge yeah I mean that’s just who I am as a person I’m always not like bossy but very assertive and very like no I want to do things I want to do them right so I why is that not bossy I just don’t like the word or you’re really not bossy I think the word bossy is so negative I don’t I don’t like the connotation of bossy because it’s just feminism and yeah so I don’t know our main conflict comes from me being really grumpy and like Brad having to bear the brunt of me being cranky but he’s very calm and like chill I’m like no it’s cool you’re a human being I get it okay so so he he can he can take it yeah we weathers the storms yes it’s like you know I’m fire and he’s like sand and you are I mean you’re doing so many things now you know you’re the podcast the your channel talking about a movie you’ve got the pilot auditions yeah yeah and sundry series what’s that called a craft lab craft lab so all types of stuff uh are you you feel like you’re doing too much sometimes yeah sometimes yes especially because I’m also in all the improv schools right now and like on two different improv teams I’m like constantly trying to make more sketch but I really like working really like it so I’ll keep probably so what what’s your how does that impact personal health like you seem to be pretty healthy and happy yeah I am I try to make enough time to like take care of myself you know and like hang out with friends like make sure I get that one night off a week where I can just stay in bed and like watch a bunch of Netflix so to make sure I don’t become too much of a workaholic I also put stuff on my task list schedule of like make sure you get lunch with a friend this week or make sure you like chill for an hour but if you had to choose is it the film that you talked about at the top is it is it landing the role and then in the sitcom that you’re auditioning for in pilot season you know if you did have the power to decide what the big thing was what would it be it would definitely be landing a steady acting gig like in a great TV show or a movie but I would probably still do all the other stuff on top of that but you would your ultimate passion interestingly because you said at the top that you have to use two different parts of your brain for directing and acting that means if you had to make that choice you would be doing the exercising the acting muscle yeah definitely it’s the most fun it’s the least amount of responsibility on set everyone is so nice to you yeah and you’re usually not paying for it you’re getting paid yes that’s it that’s a nice thing yeah that’s great I mean producing your own stuff is amazing as well but it is so much work that once in a while it would be nice to act and then go into a trailer and write and then go back on stage and act you know right yeah all that downtime is Brad honey how do you think he is dealt with your success because you kind of talked about how you see him and the things that he’s done well what is it like a what how is your relationship with him you’re like okay I remember what it was like when I was with Ray and he got recognized Brad is an anomaly he is the only person I will ever know who like peaked in high school but keeps peeking in life you know what I mean like like the one word to describe him would just be kind he’s like best friends with a very successful screenwriter and like knows everyone in this town but is never jealous of anyone success he’ll get jealous if someone has like a really good idea or a really good character but he’s everyone who knows him is like he is such a supportive and helpful and generous person so he wants you to get that acting yeah he’s so supportive like he would he wants to go to VidCon and just like hang out the whole time and I’m like wouldn’t you be bored like sitting next to me for two hours at a signing he’s like no man I think that’s great I just wanna watch you meet your fans I think that’s amazing so he’s a very very special person it sounds like you’re in a great place and we’re super happy for you people are gonna tweet at you afterward okay and what do you what do you you probably need to go ahead and tell you tell them what to not tweet about the race stuff I’d prefer if people didn’t because it would make my life easier yeah yeah sorry we had to bring it up that’s okay it’s a podcast I expected to talk about everything did we miss anything no suicide and relationships and and great work high-quality work on the unit Angus so yeah we’re fans and thanks for hanging out with us let us get to know you [Music] and there you have our ear biscuit with Anna Akana tweets at Anna using hashtag ear biscuits let her know what you think of the conversation I always appreciate when I look through the hash tag ear biscuits I search by that and I just I love only search Twitter by that only I love it when I see that you guys are talking back to our guests and they come back up to us and say you know I’m still hearing about my episode on air biscuits and it’s meaningful to them so it makes a difference they see it we see it Anna will see it her twitter handle is Anna Akana lots of 80s and lots of ends in 1k a double na a ka na that’s three four five that’s five days Wow three ends one you only kick in any random order well no no specific order Anna is a great example of somebody who took a very difficult circumstance in her life and turned it into a positive and I’m always inspired by that because when you experience something traumatic when you experience something that’s incredibly difficult those are crossroads in people’s lives and you know it’s interesting we get to talk to a lot of people who have accomplished a lot you know we’re talking to people who’ve done a lot in the entertainment industry and mostly the YouTube industry for every Anna there’s somebody who let an event define them in a negative way I think that should be encouraging for people out there who are going through something difficult that even as something as difficult as your little sister committing suicide which is a horrific thing that you would never wish on anyone it’s a crossroads in your life and it’s up to you to how are you going to react to that and how are you going to deal with that are you gonna let it define you in a negative way are you gonna let are you gonna ultimately overcome that and you know let it define you in a positive way and there’s no track for that I can’t prescribe that I had that kind of thing happen to me right but you can look at somebody like her as an example of light you can she’s never gonna there’s no doubt she’s ever gonna get over she’s never to her over it but it can you know she’s incorporated into her story which she’s moving she’s moving forward with it yeah it’s part of who she is and you know I think I from a lot of your biscuits you see plenty of successful great people who have overcome or who have dealt with or who are still carrying some some hardship or some level of adversity that I can’t even imagine so that’s I counted a privilege to be able to have these conversations I’ll go up I’ll add something to Anna’s story you know I really wanted to dig in to the specifics of her vlog please don’t kill yourself because she spoke there were so many things happening it’s such an it wasn’t that she had dealt with something and then she put it out there as an example she she put out there the honest place that she was that I mean this is this was six years after the event and it was still extremely painful but she was being raw and honest and having the conflict in the in the video with herself and conflict with herself in the description as the video was uploading to figure out it just to deal with how she communicates and how she talks about it and so I’m extremely encouraged that just her honest way that she just put that out there in that vlog people responded to it and that’s one of the instrumental ways that she became a positive example anise and a light to other people when it comes to suicide prevention but she you could tell that she it was not calculated no you know she was afraid that it was gonna be seen as a calculation in the other direction like a calculation for views she she you know she said their consecration because there are little any of people who would do who would do that I’m just grateful that she decided to post it anyway and that she was completely honest there’s you know I think about if something horrible were to happen to me I have it you know we have a connection with our fans but like how would we deal you know I would I’d want to you know my instinct would be to be very private for a certain amount of time but at a certain point do you just present how you processed it or do you let the people who know you through the internet become get window into the process itself that’s an interesting interesting because we don’t use we don’t use our platforms that we have like would give it the good morning or really even your biscuits as an opportunity to tell you like when we talk about stuff more personal stuff in good mythical more but it’s still kind of light-hearted I mean that’s we that’s a decision that we’ve we’ve made to be like we’re going to tell you about ten people who had their stomachs or whatever I’m not saying that it would be a path that we would need to take I’m just observing that when she chose to do that even though I don’t know that she fully realized the impact and the way that that vlog would come across that there was a power in processing it honestly and not having all the answers or not have landed somewhere but just putting that out there yeah and that was extremely powerful yeah and I appreciate her coming on here and talking candidly even more about that and other things thanks again to Anna and thanks to you here biscuits here for listening and hopefully you will be back again next week because you know what we will we’ll be here making a biscuit [Music] [Music]