[Music] welcome to ear biscuits I’m Linc and I’m Rhett joining us today at the realm table of dim lighting is YouTube fashion and beauty guru Ingrid Nilsen Ingrid’s YouTube channel missglamorazzi is full of fashion tips how-to videos personal vlogs and it’s become one of the most popular beauty channels on YouTube boasting 3.7 momomo million subscribers and over 270 million video views Ingrid has steadily climbed her way to becoming one of the go-to channels for fashion and beauty advice and along the way her followers have been getting to know Ingrid in her up-close-and-personal vlogs most recently Ingrid released a video called something I want you to know coming out where she makes the emotional announcement that she’s gay here’s a clip of that video alright I guess I am just going to get right to it there’s something that I want you to know and that something is I’m gay now that video is 19 minutes long but it turns out there’s still plenty more to cover in a near biscuit right and on a typical episode of ear biscuits we go into the background of a person we talk about their growing up the process that led to them becoming you know the star that they are and there’s a little bit of that in this one but because this announcement has is so fresh in her life and it’s been such a big thing in her life that we just ended up talking mostly about that and you know I gotta say I’m glad that Ingrid chose ear biscuits to come and unpack more than details behind that vlog because this is that she says one of the first times she’s talked about it since the video so we talked about her childhood including when she realized she liked girls the environment she grew up in which was not a place where she felt free to express that to others and so she kept it secret we also talked about the incredibly intense process leading up to releasing the vlog including breaking up with her boyfriend and the aftermath of the video including fan reactions and whether or not she thinks that being openly gay will impact her brand we also address the Internet speculation about her relationship with Hannah Hart the internet has officially shipped them but have they shipped themselves stick around for that okay enjoy this biscuit with ingrid nilsen k 96.4 don’t encourage him too much i’ll go into the DJ voice if you want me to coming up traffic on the tins weather on the eights news is we got lizard in the chopper he’s gonna do is the give us a traffic update i don’t have yeah like um like if you had a radio show ingrid what would it oh you’d like to Lyla you know delilah late night yeah yeah well it’s like people will call in and give dedications like dedicate this song to my wife linda who but she restates it they don’t play that oh yeah why i’m yeah i’m thinking about the call that was going there yes right so you like if you were that guy you would call in a Dalila tangra hey Ingrid my wife what a bores her name where did I call her name Darla sure I want to dedicate this to Darla we’re not currently together we’re separated and there’s a restraining order against me but I still love her and I would like to dedicate endless love to her and then you would take that and you would you would restore their marriage right by dead in this song does uh wait what’s your wife’s name again Darla Darla and your name is Clinton alright Darla this goes out to you from Clinton good luck because he seems crazy and he knows it and you obviously do too because if they restrain here’s endless love right from a distance he’s not going to come within twenty five very firefighters but here’s the good news we don’t have to be good at radio right now or two got a job he should have dedicated from a distance that bette midler song hmm that if I had a really thought about that joke that would have said that from a distance that is a Bette Midler song right yeah from a yeah from a 100 from a 100-yard radius you were talking about the fact that you just took a power nap before this and I don’t want people to think that we’ve been living on the job but we also took power naps right before you showed it yes we have a mutual love of naps yeah we actually built nap like a nap zone into our office yeah hey the couch aka there’s a loft with a couple of recliners you didn’t see it right no exactly it’s unseen people don’t know what’s up there we don’t tell a lot of people oh my god I need this because I sleep on our couch at the office and I’m just out in the open and Eileen is actually creating a collection of ingred napping photos in front of everybody yeah I mean I mean who’s going to and fro at you’re off I’ve been to girls it’s okay me and two girls so it’s not that many people but I’m just out there in the open taking my power nap and Eileen will take photos of me in various positions but you need that they go on tumblr no she keeps them for her personal collection oh it’s black it’s blackmail sighs lose your mouth like sometimes she has pictures of me with hats on my head she has pictures of me with my mask you put the hat on your head or she puts out here I put the hat on my head so don’t be different sometimes I just need to pretend like a beauty mask well not quite maybe it’s more like shutting the world out right like this is my world bow inside this hat her hats in the face don’t talk to her listen to say it I mean like I was telling you a second ago I set my timer for 30 minutes because you know they say that the the perfect power nap is 20 minutes and I was like well it’s gonna take me a lot of fall asleep and can we back up because I don’t remove I just I remember I was on the couch asleep yeah lay it was on the couch we were having a brainstorming session that ended with Linc snoring okay there on the whiteboard riding an amazing idea and then I turn around and then he’s just his mouth is a gate no no you said I have to go pee really yeah and so you went to pee and awesome yeah and I went to sleep it’s a little time it took you to pee we don’t see about 45 seconds yeah so you know it says levy and ideas were so and then when I got in there I was like well I’m going up to the NAB zone I’m setting the timer and I did hear you going up the stairs and I was like okay yeah but I woke up 22 minutes after it started right and I probably took exactly a 20-minute nap I didn’t make it to the 30 minute mark I felt incredible yeah okay now let’s jump into the deep end here you’ve got this blockbuster announcement video that’s still reverberating through the internet at the time of this recording four weeks later you’re coming out video ten million views in the first month no it has 10 million views it does oh yes that’s eight figures that’s eight figures ladies and gentlemen I mean I haven’t I haven’t gone back to that video in a while because I put it up and it was just kind of like this is it you know and I think at least people I know that have made coming out videos they kind of post it and then they don’t watch it again because it’s like this big thing you put it out there and then it’s kind of like not your thing anymore it becomes you know something that you put out there for everybody so wow I just had no idea was it a million views and million and as you kind of described in the video I mean this was a culmination of 25 years of suppression secrecy struggle why now the timing I mean the timing just felt right I think that I’m 26 now and 25 was a really rough year for me and I think it’s something that’s just common in general with people around that age when you’re in your mid-20s you’re reevaluating everything regardless of what your sexuality is and so I was struggling with you know things professionally personally with my sexuality I always knew that I was gay ever I’m from my earliest earliest memories and I was just I just felt so stifled within my own self and I just felt like I needed to break free and as much as I tried to keep living this life that first had been set up for me and then I continued to just go along this path it just it just felt like I was trapped and I didn’t like that feeling and as scary as it was too I guess accepted myself fully and then think about okay well now that I have fully accepted this what am I gonna do now because this doesn’t just affect me I was in a relationship at the time this affects other people it was really really difficult so how long between making the decision knowing that you need to make a video and then posting the video what was that time period I mean when I decided Tim it really wasn’t that long I kind of knew in the back of my mind that I would probably want to post a video but I remember being on an airplane and just feeling like I was ready because I had told people in my life people in my personal life knew I remember just being on this plane I wasn’t doing anything in particular I was just looking out the window and I just had this feeling of I’m ready I’m gonna I’m gonna do this this week and that’s what I did because you had there was a you describe the process in the video at one point you talk about you reach a point where you felt like you needed to break free that’s what you just said it’s either you know in in in hearing people coming out stories it’s kind of there’s a lot of either a point where you break down or want to and then make a decision to like you said break free but that was something that it you kind of had this process where you left I guess left la yeah I mean you went to New York yeah so last last summer I made the decision to basically just drop everything and get an air B&B in New York for everything meaning your your YouTube content I mean I was career I bet well I didn’t give up all my YouTube videos but you know I had all of these things lined up I had shoots lined up and I basically just told everyone I need this for like my personal sanity because I just felt like I was being worked into a wall a lot of it was self induced because I I just I felt so overwhelmed but I felt like I had to do all of these things and they were also a distraction from thinking about what I really needed to be thinking about and so I just told everybody I’m going to New York so we’re just gonna have to figure it out and I told everyone that I needed some time and that was that it wasn’t there weren’t a lot of details it was just I’m getting away you make it work in my absence sir yeah have to be on pause yeah and I literally spent those couple months in New York by myself in an air B&B and I explored the city I wrote I read I listen to music I just know in why New York I’ve always felt a connection with New York my aunt and uncle used to live in Connecticut and I would visit them in the summers and I remember going to the city for the first time when I was about nine years old and I remember just having this immediate connection with it and it was interesting because I was always such a shy kid and very very introverted and to have a connection with a city that is so the opposite of all of that it was something that I wanted to explore more and I had never been to New York and just been able to experience it it was I was always there for work so I really just wanted to have an experience in a city that I felt a connection with but it was kind of in solitude I mean you didn’t have friends there that you were hanging out with I saw I knew a couple people there so I would see them periodically but I was in this place by myself like I didn’t have a roommate or anything and most of my days were spent on my own like a meditative state of I’ve got to figure this out like walking around yeah literally going to parks like reading I mean you know we actually went recently and I’ve always said there’s just something there’s you can walk in any direction for as long as you want and you’re constantly surrounded by people and culture and it just there’s just something therapeutic about it for me free I totally good but I can see how it would be an isolated experience in the midst of all that – so it’s kind of I think for the choice I think for me I really needed that because I technically wasn’t alone because I was around a lot of people but I was completely anonymous being in New York City like I didn’t know a ton of people there I could just walk outside walk aimlessly in whatever direction see where I ended up and it’s really what I needed I think it was the perfect environment how’d you come out to anyone over the course of your life I had she said you you always knew yeah and there was this suppression and a secrecy but my dad knew really really really early on I didn’t at that point like I didn’t know to say I’m gay but my dad knew and he was just always completely fine with it meaning there was it was more of a dialogue there wasn’t a moment where you came out to your dad because I was so young – you didn’t say you’re gay you just were like I like girls yeah pretty much and I remember I’ve never said this before aside I’ve never told this to people aside from my really close friends but I had this really awful nightmare as a kid that really stuck with me for like a week or more afterwards I had this nightmare in my mind about being forced to marry a man and I remember being so disturbed by it as a kid how old I was like seven or eight and I remember just waking up and running to my dad and just crying and crying and crying and crying because I said I don’t want to marry a man I don’t want to be with a man and he was great he was so comforting to me in that moment um I think he handled it perfectly and he just said it’s okay you don’t have to it’s interesting I think there’s a there are people who would try to explain away you being lesbian as theirs there’s got to be some external cause and and they’ll go to the dad thing and it’s a very powerful story to say that you know the first person you ran to with this with this nightmare was your dad mm-hmm you know I think that kind of shuts that down yeah right off the bat yeah and his reaction was what he just said it’s okay you don’t have to that’s what he said to me and that moment is just like stuck in my head because I remember him saying that and feel so relieved but then when I would think about the dream that dream just stuck with me and I I haven’t had a dream since that has stuck with me like that one has I remember just being so disturbed because I was also so young and it stuck with me for over a week and I just remember being like I had this sick feeling in my gut when I would think about it but even though the first person you told your dad it was a you know a supportive loving response yeah there was still a prison that was constructed around you that then you as you described it in your video at a certain point in your life you used took over the can the construction of yeah the prison the glass prison as you called it exactly so I while my dad was accepting of it that doesn’t mean everybody else in my immediate family slash life was so it was difficult so were they also ignorant of it they didn’t know about it or they just he didn’t tell him no my dad never said anything to anybody your mom even I mean I think yeah I mean I don’t know for sure but I I really don’t think he said anything to anybody because I don’t think he felt like it was his place hmm and where was this where’d you grow up I grew up in Southern California about 40 miles southeast of LA okay yeah and I pretty much just stayed there my you know my entire childhood we didn’t move around or anything so you kind of you hinted at this in the video too and you just said it some people were accepting some people weren’t I mean Southern California is isn’t it didn’t necessarily like hey I’m in South Georgia and I’m coming out at 7 years old or whatever but culturally like the culture that you were involved in was a conservative well it was very very very conservative so it was just no one really spoke of it and when it people did speak about it it was always in a negative way so naturally I felt very uncomfortable and isolated because I felt like everyone else around me wasn’t accepting so I I think that’s another reason why I became so close with my dad because I felt like he was my ally hmm I’d love to continue to go back from the background but I want to pick up with the New York thing and then we’ll go back more to the background because I’m also interested in you know just the YouTube story in your whole career fascinating so in New York having not come out to anyone except for that 7 year old dream confession to your dad yeah in this meditative state that’s when you were starting to say okay I know what the problem is and it’s it’s getting to be too much to bear to not be myself yeah was there was that the plane ride back is that the plane ride where it was like okay I’m gonna make the video or was it what was it what decisions took place in New York and what brought you back it wasn’t the I didn’t decide to do the video in New York that was much closer to the actual video being posted that was probably like a week out from the video being posted I was on a plane and I was like I’m gonna do this because New York was you said basically a year ago now yeah okay so and you’re at the time when you’re in New York you’re still in a relationship with a man yes that’s correct so what was your question again sorry what decisions came from New York like when you what brought you back and what did you do at that point so in New York I decided that this was something that I couldn’t stop that I was going to eventually come out to people and eventually the man that I was with I didn’t know the timing of it I didn’t know how it would happen and I was terrified when I would think about it I would just I I would a lot of times tell myself no you can just stay in this because you’re gonna hurt somebody that you care about it you know it wouldn’t really be that hard to stay in this but I ultimately made the decision that I need to strive to be the most authentic version of myself and I I think that I have an obligation to myself to be me and to do you know to give myself my best chance that’s my job that’s my number one obligation and number two my day job is to be me so that was another factor not only did I want to do this for myself but it’s like what I do I’m supposed to be myself and so there was a lot of guilt like layered into this in very complex ways not only with the people that I was hurting but feeling like I wasn’t being completely honest with my viewers and it was it was really rough so I just ultimately decided this is going to happen I don’t know when I don’t know how but I’m going to take this step by step and now that I have personally accepted that this is going to happen we’ll just take it in baby steps and figure it out but one of the things that made it so frightening was the that relationship you were in which how long had you guys been dating at that point it was over a year and a half so it was coming up on two years and that so that was like the big thing mm-hmm yeah I was I was so terrified and also I just felt so guilty because you know just because I’m gay I’m a lesbian and I have been in relationships with men and you know this last relationship it doesn’t mean that I didn’t care about that person doesn’t mean that I was just like whatever happens happens I wish concerned and worried and I wanted to be as thoughtful as possible about it because I realized this is another human being this human being loves me cares about me and you know I care about him and I love him but not in that deep way and what did he think you were in New York doing like sort de sorting things out personally and did he yeah just you know because I tend to be a little bit of a free spirit so he just thought oh you know this is Ingrid going off being like her creative self so I don’t think anybody really had any idea that all of this was going on while I was there and then when you came back how did you start to roll this out um I well first I lived in my head a lot I did a lot of writing and I remember just kind of feeling like I couldn’t be the first step was I couldn’t be in this relationship with somebody that I do care about but it’s not a full real relationship I couldn’t keep leading him on essentially that’s what I felt like I felt like I was leading him on and so it wasn’t something that happened immediately it took me time to you know go from deciding okay this is what I’m gonna do and then you know initiating a breakup conversation which was really difficult especially when you’re out of phase in a relationship where you’re considering moving in and you know getting more serious I think that period of time being with someone for about two years you’re starting to think about those things and so it was really difficult but I told myself you have to do this because it’s better to do it now than to get into something deeper and then drop this in it and at least from your in the way you anticipate at that point was kind of like you blindsiding him yeah there was no indication I don’t even know what he thought you can tell us but at this point before like having that conversation the assumption is from you I’m about to blindside him pretty much so you call it you call a meeting huh I mean logistically how do you go about this so I’m gonna make you a private youtube video cuz I’m good at those just watch this did you think about doing it that way well I mean there what happened was the relationship ended so we officially broke up and it wasn’t until it took me about a month after we broke up to actually tell him I’m gay oh so that’s what happened and when we were going through the process I remember him saying something to me and I have to say that this is the most kind and supportive you know parting that I have ever experienced I think we were both really thoughtful and kind throughout the entire thing and he still is very supportive so I feel lucky for that and I remember him saying you know I feel like there’s this unstoppable force within you where you are beginning to really step into the shoes that you are meant to wear and you know he wasn’t specific about it it was kind of vague like that but he said it you know there’s this unstoppable force I can’t stop it like I just I see it coming I see it happening within you and I just kind of have to accept that and step to the side because this is something that’s really important and he didn’t know exactly what it was but it was said that was the breakup yeah the cup was he initiated it it was it kind of started as a conversation that was I guess you know it was almost initiated by both of us because we could each tell you know that something wasn’t quite right and and you knew a little more than he did yes yes I know a little bit more that wasn’t the moment – okay well then yeah it didn’t it didn’t start office by the way yeah it didn’t start off as like I’m gonna go into this as a breakup conversation it started as you know I think a conversation with the two of us realizing that we needed to talk and then he’s probably expecting something after you have this period of time in New York like she’s gonna come back with some sort of I mean it was revelation about something yet there were months in between that okay got it we we still you know there were things that were happening in between that time and we just had to talk about everything and so you broke up and under vague for like he had a vague premonition that he put in a positive light like this is gonna be good for you great things are ahead for you we need to move on and so then later you went back to him about a month later about a month later you go back to him you know I’m about to fill you in on some of the of the details yeah I was very direct with him and his reaction was oh was it that it was like a lot more makes sense now and I think he handled it perfectly and I think it was actually I guess I mean I can’t imagine any other way now since this is what actually happened but I think it was good because we had that period of time it’s a kind of mourn the relationship and so by that point you know he wasn’t in the midst of it or anything he had had some he was having an emotional wreck had some separation and so when I told him I’m sure that there was still a lot to process but it was much different than hey we’re breaking up also I’m gay so go deal with that you know and he wasn’t the first person that you told no no the first person that I told was my friend cat and that came after driving 50 miles up the coast and stopping at this random spot there were just these rocks and she happened to be there she happened to be that she was waiting for on the PCH yeah so I drove I had been doing this Drive a lot for some reason I’ve always found it really comforting whenever I feel stressed or I’m anxious or trying to process something I always feel they need to get out whether it’s going on a walk just getting outside going on a drive and driving aimlessly that really helps me and for some reason I kept gravitating towards this PCH Drive it’s pretty iconic yeah it is but for some reason I just kept wanting to drive near water so this was the longest drive that I did I drove about 50 miles up from where I live and I stopped at these rocks I sat there for so long and that’s when I had you know I just had this playing in my head over and over again that you know well you know everyone deserves their best chance I think this is time that I give myself my best chance and I said what chance at life like a real full happy life and so when that hit then I was like well now I have this urge like I need to tell somebody I feel ready to tell somebody and it was just like I was about to burst and the first person that came to my mind immediately without any hesitation was my friend cat and she’s just always been somebody that I’ve been able to talk openly with we’ve had really intimate conversations and she was one of those people that was like you know I always kind of had a feeling but I just you know I don’t want to say anything but because we had had these intimate conversations she it wasn’t a total shock for her and I’ve just always felt comfortable talking to her about anything I think she’s one of the most open-minded people that I know and she’s always working on herself she always wants to improve herself and that’s something that I really admire about her and that’s I think a big reason why I felt so comfortable telling her I just I knew Kat has to be the person this may sound like stupid question it may be one I have a knack for asking those sometimes but so when you come out to your best friend your best girlfriend is there a moment where it’s like did she I don’t I’m not crushing on you or were you or are you or well I don’t think she ever had you know maybe she did have that thought actually I didn’t ask her but she never expressed it and I’m sure if she did have that thought she would have told me because she’s just that kind of person but I didn’t ever feel like I had to tell her well you know I’ve never had a crush on you so don’t start thinking that like this isn’t my love confession to you we didn’t talk about that at all and I think if she had that question she would have asked me because when I told her we sat talking for about two-and-a-half hours or so but I did have an experience like that with my friend after I came out to her we were in a situation where we were gonna share a bed and you know in the past it would just be something where it’s like we’re just sharing it back but I felt like I felt like I had to preface it with but it’s okay don’t worry like nothing’s gonna happen and she’s like Ingrid calm down it’s okay it was you bringing that yeah she’s like eager and it’s fine shut up stop it okay so shortly after that I guess you you you tell a few other people and how quickly do you know or was it also when you were on the rock that you knew I’ve got to tell my fans as well that this is part of this or was that sort of like a secondary thing yeah that was kind of in the back of my mind I knew that that would be a thing eventually but my main concern was telling the people around me first and then once I got through that phase then I would deal with the next phase and something that I’ve always known about myself and I think people around me now once I commit to something once I have made a decision it’s like I go full speed ahead so once I just you know once I told Kat I was basically plowing through everybody on my list and coming out because it felt amazing to tell Kat and I couldn’t stand being around these people all the time or talking to them and not having them know did some of those moments not go well they all went really well I mean I told a very small group of people and everybody was really supportive and it was interesting to see everybody’s you know initial facial reactions because some people you know immediately jumped up and smiled and some people were very calm about it so it was just really interesting to see these sides of people that but no one made that like face like something stinks but you don’t want to no no no act like you submerge something no no but these were also fun at lesbian smell I don’t I mean I did she’s checking their armpits right I put deodorant on today I will say I don’t know if it works so well because I had to reapply it twice yesterday so I actually said before I change switch up well I said before coming over here I hope I don’t stick because my deodorants a little questionable so these were mostly friends so you kind of anticipated a positive reception from them but did this also include coming out to people back home family I came out to one family member everyone else I’m not as close with in my family so I you know I kind of narrowed down the list of people that I was going to come out to two people that were I guess immediately in my life and important to me and so it was difficult coming out to that one person but I would say that I’m just not close with the rest of my family at this point so I that wasn’t something that was a part of the experience so before we get into the the coming out video I just think it’s I would just like to hear how you know when you talk about you what does it really mean to not be your true self as an experience I mean maybe just within the microcosm of a relationship with a guy when what what is that like when you know that this is not who I truly am and I love this guy but it’s not that kind of it’s not a romantic love and if that even work in is there from his perspective is it like oh this was never fully clicking now that I look back on it or was it something that you were just really good at suppressing I think I was really good at suppressing it but also sometimes also good at suppressing it and I think that I was good at suppressing it for a while and then it got to a point where I became frustrated with the situation that I had built for myself and I became frustrated with myself and it really was just like going through the motions that I thought I had to go through and I think I mean like acting like you’re attracted to someone physically yeah when you’re not yeah it feels very mechanical that’s what it feels like it feels mechanical and you in the midst of that you knew this is it was it I know that I’m basically acting to kind of play this role or was it like I don’t know maybe someday this will take maybe maybe I can be directed yeah I think you know especially earlier on in a relationship it’s much easier to suppress and then when you get deeper into it and you actually start caring about somebody if he comes much more difficult and I was not a good actress once we started to get deep into it you know I I was running away from a lot a lot a lot a lot and I think it it was just some that I I couldn’t continue to keep doing and in my mind I would think you know maybe if I keep doing this it will just become what I I’m telling myself what I want to want because this is the easier path and that was a big difference you know wanting to want something and what I actually want did you believe that it was wrong or what was your motivation to to put yourself through this and other people I guess I guess because it had started so early on in my life and it you know I explained it as it’s not something that I started for myself it was you know my surroundings and I being young wanted love and acceptance so I would start doing these things that I didn’t want to do I would be a person that I didn’t want to be and then eventually you kind of just get in the groove of that and it really sucks it’s like you get used to being someone that’s not fully you and it really really sucks and then it’s almost like you’re a robot in a way and you just get used to it you adapt and you just tell yourself over and over well you know so many other people have it way worse why are you complaining like just keep going so was it you were doing this because you wanted to like fit somebody’s expectations that’s exam was entirely that this is wrong and I got to suppress this was it was a world thing from your background or was you know partially while having you know my dad be supportive everything else around was pretty negative and so how did that impact your particular perspective on it it made me feel like it was something that I had to hide that it was bad that you know I’m not gonna be loved for this people are going to treat me you know horribly and I just want to to be loved and accepted by people around me and now I realize you know I was seeking love and acceptance from people that I don’t want love and acceptance from if they’re they’re gonna have that kind of mindset and I think this you can kind of transition back into the video that you make to tell everybody about this was there also you know given which we haven’t really got into talking specifically because this is just a big thing in your life right now but specifically about what it is you do on YouTube and what your the brand is and what the angle is how much did that factor into think okay I am missglamorazzi it’s about beauty and makeup and how you know stereotypically people might describe as girly things this girl doesn’t seem like a lesbian so how much did that factor into the decision and did you worry that coming out was going to impact a brand in a negative way honestly I was so in my head that I I wasn’t thinking about anything business-related at all I was like how am I gonna survive this personally how am I gonna do this in a thoughtful way with the people around me and how am I gonna do this in a thoughtful way to my viewers and in that sense I don’t see that as like a business thought so it wasn’t until after I posted the video and I was reading comments that all of that started to click in and I was just me oh my god these are things that I never thought about I was reading posts on tumblr that girls had written that I would just read and cry because I had no idea that people were going through these things and that my video relating to your story yeah and I I think what was interesting in the comments was to see because there’s this there’s this big this is a difference between you know the public reaction to me coming out and people in my personal life that reaction I would say for the most part people in my personal life were like you know we kind of knew but on the flip side public reaction everybody’s like whoa oh my gosh and the number one thing was oh my gosh I’m so shocked you don’t look like a lesbian right and and that’s when I realized oh my gosh like this this has nothing to do with how I look this has nothing to do with my superficial interest my aesthetic taste what I what music I listen to it has nothing to do with that at all but you know I because of this experience I’ve realized more so now than ever that these stereotypes are perpetuated especially in the lesbian community and I think it’s because you know there isn’t a lack of lesbians that are feminine it’s a lack of representation in traditional media and you didn’t and it sounds like you didn’t expect to be you’re representing kind of tearing down a wall in people’s perspectives and I did not think about that at all I it set in when I read the first post by a girl on tumblr I was just going through these Tumblr posts and I I wish I could remember the name and she I remember her saying that my video meant so much to her because she went down a similar path and she’s never been able to see herself reflected in the community with like a more public figure and I was just crying reading that post and that’s when I realized oh my god this is a real this is a real thing because it wasn’t something that I thought about before cuz I was so in here like how am I gonna do this in a thoughtful way and then I realized oh my god there are all of these stereotypes that exist and it has nothing to do with how people look at all at all and so that’s kind of like my personal mission now is to just hopefully break that down and to show people that you know it’s about who I love fully and deeply it’s not about all that this external yeah how do you in interpret the the fact that this is now your most viewed video well what does that say back what does that say about the audience I and then just how do you feel about it I I mean it’s still very overwhelming to think about but it makes me feel good because I think overall you know the comments that I’ve seen the the tweets that I’ve read from people the posts that I’ve read people have been very very supportive and you know I’ve read posts where it seems to be helping people and that’s just one of my main things in life like when I’m an old woman on my deathbed and you know if I’m thinking about this wonderful life that I’ve lived one of the things that you know contributed to that wonderful life is helping people and to see that this is helping people it just it makes me very emotional and I have two hectares because I’m very proud to crying especially with this but it is overwhelming to know that that many people have seen the video because I wasn’t expecting it it was like I’m doing this for me and I’m doing this for my viewers because I feel like I have this personal connection with them and they have been with me for all of these years and this is something that I want them to know I wasn’t expecting it to be a thing that got shared with people outside of you know my little community right and I think that that’s an interesting dynamic because your video is kind of you know there have been a number of other coming out videos for people that it may have been really unexpected some people may have anticipated or unexpected there’s something about a coming out video that it usually is the most popular video on a person’s Channel and you know you know it’s an interesting dynamic right I mean what do you think that says about this the current climate on YouTube that that’s the kind of thing that ends up popping bigger than maybe anything else anybody does I think you know one of the big reasons why that’s you know people are gravitating towards these coming out videos is the level of vulnerability you’re in them and I think that vulnerability just in general you know in your real life opens up so many doors because it allows you to be your truest self you’re putting yourself out there and I think people can see that in these videos and you know how much more intimate can you really get you know I think that this is something that’s so personal and so much a part of people where it’s not all of a person but it’s a very intimate part of them and in these coming out videos I think you see that vulnerability and people and I think people recognize that they can see it and they appreciate it yeah because there’s something about peeling back layers of personality that you know there’s that tension with where the with somebody who shares their life it’s like the further I pull this back the more intimate of a connection I have with with my viewers and then you pull something like that back and it’s like well this has been true all along and now we know about it we got to talk about it we got to share it we got a comment on it yeah it’s just that’s the that’s how and of course this in the issue of sexuality is such a hot issue it always has been but especially right now with the debate about gay marriage in our country and so this is just something that is sort of just beneath the surface and with everybody and everybody wants to yeah I think everyone’s curious people are curious too and I think that you know people who aren’t struggling with their sexuality still connect with these videos because of that level of vulnerability you know think it’s about accepting yourself not just your sexuality when part of that part of the fascination and part of the the buzz around the video like this it does you know it isn’t just the fact that oh isn’t this kind of ironic she’s the lesbian makeup girl or however people wanted to say it but how does it make you feel about your brand and he’s moving forward potentially being branded in that way if that’s how people would refer to you it’s because you have your initial fan base you know millions of people watch your videos this isn’t a part of your brain but tens of millions of people watch this video and that might be what people know of you yeah I mean well if it’s what they know of me it’s what they know of me but it’s not how I define myself I am a woman and being a lesbian is part of being a woman for me and it’s as simple as that my brand is about being a woman and this is just part of that I do have specific have you thought now that this is kind of rolled out and you’ve got this reaction have you thought about how to manage that moving forward it’s been like okay well I don’t want you know I know how people are and people like to put people in a box and people like to put descriptors on people especially with sexuality especially if there’s something that seems juicy or ironic has that impacted you know videos and your brand moving forward you know I think I’ve been in this kind of evolutionary process just in general I’m like in this transitional phase in my life very transitional and I think that’s been reflected in my content for a while and I I don’t really feel the need to you know explain myself or do things differently because of this I’m gonna keep doing and creating what feels natural to me and exploring different things than just following that natural evolution and because I have opened up like this this just makes me feel more liberated to create the things that I really want to create mmm and the things that are meaningful to me I’m interested in your start on YouTube and how having such an important section of who you are as a person being so secret and having that struggle and in parallel you’re putting yourself out there on the internet and I mean what the first video that I don’t know if it was the first one you made but its first one is still public with the red lipstick yeah yeah you know what what what you know what went into that video did you have any inkling that you would become the missglamorazzi though that everyone now knows especially now now knows you know absolutely not that wasn’t the first video that ever went live on my channel the first one you can barely see me because it’s like so dark and I don’t think I really said that much because I had no idea what to say it was a hair curling tutorial but I had no idea absolutely no idea when I started this was how old were you I was 20 okay so it wasn’t something that I was thinking you know later down the line this is gonna be your job no not at all it wasn’t I want to make this a career it was this will be fun it was something that I did because I was trying to overcome a fear I had made a goal for myself I remember it was in high school you know when they give you like the little planners for did you guys get planners in school no like a trapper keeper like a like a daily planner okay so they would hand out a daily planner every year and one year in high school it was in my high school well we didn’t plan anything we I think it was something that happened you know when I was later in high school so I didn’t know how about starting off but I remember in this planner there were quotes every single day and one of them encouraged people you know it’s basically said the best way to gain confidence is to do the things that you’re afraid of doing and so when I read that that’s stuck with me and I decided I’m gonna make this a goal for myself to do things that I’m afraid of and I was so shy so so so so shy but I always had all of these thoughts and ideas and I wanted to be able to share them with people and I had discovered out of boredom one summer people making videos on YouTube and I was a tomboy for most of my life and I just started getting into makeup around like 1920 more so 20 and I didn’t really have anyone around me in my life that I could talk to it up you know talk about makeup with and so I found these girls you know doing holes talking about makeup and I was like oh my god I’m learning so much and I decided maybe I should combine something that I’m really afraid of talking to people that I don’t know and something that I find really interesting right now that I am currently learning a lot about put those two things together and like just put myself out there and make myself vulnerable and do something that I’m really afraid of and it was something that I did for myself so when I posted that video it felt really great and no one watched it for a while and I felt really good I was like oh my god I just did something that I was terrified of and then I realized after a couple weeks people started watching the video and that’s what I freaked out a little bit cuz I was like oh my god these are real people like leaving comments on this video watching it responding to it oh my gosh so that was something else that I had to process but ultimately people encouraged me to keep posting videos and I decided well you know it still really freaks me out but I feel a little bit better so I’m gonna keep doing it and eventually I just started to grow into myself more more and more and more and I I really just grew to love it so much I loved it from the beginning and I just grew to love it even more I think yeah I find it interesting I think and I don’t know if you all your fans already knew this that the makeup thing was kind of a late development and you were almost kind of like learning at the same time that you were teaching yeah how can i phrase this is there a was there anything going on in your life at that time nineteen twenty where you were kind of dealing with the with thoughts about your sexuality and you thought well maybe I’ll do some of this this stuff that’s more traditionally considered girly as a as a way to combat what’s going on with me inside well I’m anchoring one fear of putting yourself out there but also insulating yourself more by meeting expectations of like a stereotypical non lesbian no I I don’t think it had anything to do with that I think I just genuinely had an interest for makeup and fashion and it wasn’t something that I really explored in the past and I was like this is now interesting to me and it had nothing to do with you know my sexuality which at that point was very suppressed especially you know when you’re at that age and people are hooking up with each other and I’m just like oh my god oh my god oh my god my body wants to do all these things and oh my god so you stay so the channels started to take off like really ramped up were you doing a lot of videos like every week I mean uh it grew it actually grew pretty steadily and slowly it wasn’t like an overnight success or anything which I really loved because I was able to form like an intimate relationship with the people that were watching my videos and also with other creators that were doing similar things and it just kind of slowly grew from there sorry what was the question yeah just how how often you were posting how quickly through um I didn’t really have a schedule at that point it’s just whenever I had free time to film some videos I would but was it always a slow growth or did something really pop like OH lipstick is really rare really pop this is the reddest of all the breads I think it’s always been just very steady gradual growth I mean it’s been you know more and more but I don’t think there was ever a time where it was like this is the big pink moment or anything like that it’s always just been like did you just steadily going and I think that’s you know that’s that’s actually what I prefer because I think if it had been this really quick success I would have probably backed out from it because I would have felt overwhelmed but because I started off with like this small group of people that I you know would I would answer all of their comments I was forming intimate relationships with other Creators and developing real friendships that I still have to this day it was something really special and I wouldn’t want to change that I wouldn’t want to go back and you know be an overnight success I really loved that period of time where I had that slow gradual growth okay so let’s come up to the present you know you’re you’re you’re living in the in the post coming out mega video and so now what and I I guess specifically okay let’s talk about the Hagrid thing oh my god okay here’s it like from Harry Potter right yes the character so the next video you release two videos later it’s a video with Hannah Hart and it’s the first in your series of sense of self which is really cool first of all tell us about that series so I never want to know about that um sense of self is a series that I just started on my channel where it basically stems from my personal noisiness I love looking into people’s homes and when I was in New York at this Airbnb I walked down the street and I would actually go up people’s Stoops and like look in their windows you would you would peek in yeah I mean nobody’s a video camera and made a series oh yeah pretty much that’s exactly what it is it’s cribs meets Ingrid yeah so I want youtubers exactly like I wanted to go into youtubers spaces and show people things that they may not know about especially because you know a lot of people shoot within their personal space or they have a studio and there are these things that people may see around but they don’t know the story behind them and I find the people in my life fascinating I think youtubers are fascinating so I want a cool idea I wanted people to learn more about some of their favorite people but the first person you choose is Hannah Hart and so the comments explode because I mean this is basically within a week or two of of your coming-out video and they’re just talking about how okay I ship them I ship them so hard you know putting you guys in this relationship together and so now you know we’re just we’re gonna play right into that now that but there was at least one comment I’m sure there were many of these too don’t ship to them just because they’re good I was just gonna say there were people who you know people who would say you know don’t ship them they’re real people and just because they’re lesbians does it mean they have to date you know so there were those comments but you did describe Hannah as a wonderful dinner that lingers late into the evening that you want to keep going oh my god how red is my face it’s dimly lit in here I gotta go okay great and then you were on the my drunk kitchen it was kind of like you guys ik exchanged she was on your show you were on her show yeah I mean Hannah and I have always gotten along really well and I think that we’ve always just had a really great connection and I I’ve always found her to be one of the most interesting people in my life I think she has an incredible story and I think she’s a wonderful person so I thought she was you know the perfect person to start that series oh well if the internet you know the internet is shipping you guys are you shipping you guys all right I’m just gonna say yes I ship it but I will let you guys know that the official name voted by people on tumblr is hand grid and not Hagrid okay yes okay that apparently there was an official vote I didn’t know that people so there was a Hagrid but that sounds it was there was a hat this is is it bad that I know this match but people it was either people really loved Hagrid because you know Harry Potter or they really didn’t like Hagrid because of Harry Potter because it was too hard to search because all of the Harry Potter stuff that would be up or vice versa maybe Harry Potter people were just like what is this who are these people that are just showing up so I guess there was an official vote that happened some time but I just saw this on tumblr and it was reposted a bunch and people voted so to clarify based on that official vote you are now officially dating that official vote oh my god okay so your vlog and you said I’m so excited just in moving on with your life I mean I would just I just wanted to kind of unpack that a little bit just that was how you ended this fog for 19 minutes you talk about guys this is what I’ve been through this has been my life and I found it extremely inspiring that that you were able to say that at the end and it I felt great for you so don’t unpack that a little bit the I’m so excited I you know I didn’t know exactly what was to come I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future but I just felt so optimistic because I I was essentially giving myself permission to live a full happy life and I think that a lot of people who find themselves unhappy realize that a big barrier in the road happiness is themselves and it just it feels so wonderful to be on the other side and just exploring this open life I think one of the the biggest things for me is the relationships that I have around me I feel like are more honest and they’re more true and they’re deeper because I’ve shattered that glass wall and I’m giving myself to people and in turn they’re giving pieces of themselves that I’ve never seen to me and that’s something that’s so special to me my relationships are really really important to me and it’s just been amazing to see sides of people in my life that I’ve never seen before and to feel like wow we have a real relationship now this is incredible and I feel the same way with my online community too I feel like we just we had a moment where we just really connected and now you know everybody’s just kind of moving forward which feels great and they’re gonna be bumps in the road but it just it feels good to be me it really does well that vulnerability resonates through the internet and through real life and we appreciate you coming on here and being vulnerable with us and thank you now it’s time to sign the table oh my god I’m so excited thanks for coming in thank you for having me [Music] and there you have it our conversation with Ingrid really appreciated being a part of that conversation and hey let her know what you think of her story and our talk here tweet at her that’s Ingrid Nilsen in il se en use hashtag ear biscuits I’m sure she would appreciate hearing from you guys right cuz it’s obviously it’s not easy to make the video that she made mm-hmm but it’s also not easy to come on here and talk to us asking her a bunch of question be grilled about it you know and so yes so just let her know that you appreciate that I know I know we did I think that’s one of the great things about what having a longer conversation with somebody is you’re actually able to get context you know that you don’t always get when you’re just hearing from one person in a vlog so thanks to Ingrid and you know you can count on us to contextualize more conversations we’re going to do that next week so you can count on us to bring another one into your ear and in the meantime you can support internat Ament by getting some merch at rhettandlink.com/store we got bobble heads we got hoodies posters wristbands shirts coffee mugs hoverboards and Foley catheter Oh check that out rhettandlink.com/store thanks for your support guys and for your ears for giving us your ear just one hour a week that’s all we need like don’t mail us your ears don’t even put that thought into people’s heads erase that thought from it like a van Gogh don’t do that please don’t do that we will not open it not open well we’ll open it and then we’ll see that it’s an American smell in here we’ll close it back smell in here return to sender [Music] [Music]