Our images of our bodies and the clothes we wear are influenced at such a young age, so how does that impact you as you get older? In today’s episode, Amber Rae of Grow Wild & Co, joins us for part one of this two part series to share the impact she’s seen young children have about their body from those around them, how she’s ensured her clothing company is empowering and inclusive, and how social media can provide positive influences for future generations despite the negativity out there.
Review the Show Notes:
Get to Know Amber (:58)
The Everybody Collection and Ambassadors & Influencers (1:37)
Social Media: Filters, Flagging, and Trends (9:19)
The SubBrands of Grow Wild and Co (20:31)
Body Bar (21:58)
Social Media Hate & Responding to It (28:20)
Approaching Social Media with Values in Mind (34:55)
Making Impact & Paving the Way for Generations (35:46)
Connect with Amber:
instagram.com/brunettetahoette
Review the Transcript:
Carly Someplace
Hi, y’all, it’s Carly someplace. And I’m so incredibly excited for y’all to hear this episode. my conversation with Amber was absolutely phenomenal. And as I tend to do, we spent so long talking, just to break it up. I’m going to put this into two episodes for y’all because the conversation is just too good and each section deserves its own little bit of spotlight. So without further ado, I introduce to you my very fantastic podcast episode with Amber array of grow wild and go. Welcome to someplace for everybody where we talk about the longing and being a human in our bodies in living in and learning to love our bodies. I’m your host, Carly someplace. This podcast is brought to you by some place images, good wall for everybody. You can see the full show notes at some place for everybody.com. Now let’s change some self perspectives.
Carly Someplace
Hi, y’all, it’s currently someplace. And I’m so incredibly excited to introduce you to my friend, Amber. So Amber is the founder of grow wild and CO which is a body positive and body inclusive, online shop. And I’m super excited to chat about it. So Amber, any other accolades, you want to add to yourself, please feel free. But I want to talk about like where your inspiration for grow wild and CO came from. And then obviously, it has branched into a lot of different sub brands, which I think is really, really cool. And I obviously love that you’re super inclusive.
Amber Rae
I love that. Thank you so much for the intro. Grow Wild and Co is my first baby. I love it. Yeah, on Instagram. And I always like to kind of describe the end ko portion. So it’s kind of and company, we really started by selling local to the we’re in the Reno Tahoe area. So think of like Tahoe, and all the local goods that people make around here. And it was one online place to sell that. And it really started shifting, and our customer base started shifting to we were selling to anyone and everyone that could check out our website online. And we were really new to e commerce. So figuring out our platforms, figuring out Instagram, and really working with our vendors, what we found was a lot of our vendors were female, and a lot of the products that they were making were for females. So we really started to shift into this, like woman owned woman made goods marketplace. So made by women, for women. And over time, we started to grow and our customer base really changed. It’s now a bit older, I think our average customer is like 40 years old. And okay, cool. Yeah, it’s really shifted. And our mama makers, I’ll call them mama makers, because it turns out that every single one of the women that makes something for our shop are moms as well. And that’s cool. Some businesses started to take off some clothes, their business and moved on. So we got really limited and only work with a few select vendors. And that’s where we could really start to influence the products ourselves. So now we had just like a select few mama makers, and we came up with different designs, and we really started to focus on T shirts. That’s kind of how we would launch our new designs to see does it do well on a t shirt? And if it does well on a t shirt, how does it do on a water bottle or a mug or a cellphone case or a hat, but we all need t shirts and they always were we’re doing the best and the one that really like kicked us off and blew up our Instagram. We had like something that was trending. One of our ads went viral was a simple phrase. The badass woman in me honors the badass woman in you. I paused because I wasn’t sure if I could say that
Amber Rae
it’s okay, but that was off. And it really surprised us. And we were like, wow, people are really empowered by this message. We were seeing what people were tagging their girl gang, their moms, their their sisters. And anytime an order was placed it was for like four or five shirts and and they would write in the messages. This is for all of my friends or something. And we were like, wow, like this is going viral just by people tagging it in and telling this people the message. So even if we didn’t buy the shirt, we started to make freebies free downloads on the website, because we wanted everyone to have access to these sayings and ordering things. Yeah, we’re so really motivated by it. And we got to a point where we said what do we love doing it was during COVID. So things start to get tough, and you have to pivot a little and really focus on what’s doing well. And because it was so tough, I wanted to make sure I was super motivated. So what did I really like about it? Because I knew we were going to go through a rough ride there. And that’s from from COVID. And where we had to pivot a bit, the every body collection was was formed. So we had always had a pretty lucrative ambassador program. And we had never really partnered with influencers, we didn’t have like the budgets, or anything. And we started with a simple concept. We don’t have this budget, we really like launching shirts that speak powerful messages. We really like your platform, do you want to work together and pick something that speaks to your audience that we can we have the branding down, we have the production down, we have the customer service, the E commerce, we’ve got all that? Do you want to just come up with something with us a co design, and with the profits 5050 Since we couldn’t pay up front? And that’s that’s how it was born. And since then we’ve had, I think, five individual launches. And they keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger with influencers specifically in the body positivity place in your space. There’s so many hashtags I’m learning on tick tock, hashtag polpo. I didn’t I didn’t know these things existed. And I’m watching your reels are taking off their tick tock videos. And it’s like, these were messages that people really wanted to hear, and maybe phrases that I wouldn’t have come up with myself doing my own design process. So working with others, and then getting to pay them weekly for their sales. That’s super cool to me. i Oh, yeah. And in love, I call it the femme entrepreneur portion. And my accountant is like, what is this? Why are you paying so much? It’s like, no, no, this is the contract, we signed 50% of profits. Every single week, I pay that out for us, sometimes it’s a break even, but I don’t care, I’m gonna keep doing it. I like to launch about one design a month. And we have grown with our collaboration so much with the collaborator they grow to, it’s so beneficial for both. And that’s how we also just working with them and what their customers want. And it was influencing our customer base, our customer base is now their customer base to right he started to go above and beyond what we were offering which was extra small to three XL, we now offer four XL and five XL. And our goal is to get to eight XL in our love that. Love it. Chin is called every body. So that’s how like we started to connect. I know that was a really long winded answer. But no, I love it. That’s when we got here. And we didn’t start out knowing where we were going or knowing that we wanted to get here. And I think what’s helpful, and I know Instagram just seems like silly social media, but you can get a lot of data and making data driven pivots and data driven decisions is what kept us afloat.
Carly Someplace
Yeah. Which is super important. And I think that and like you’ve said, like you were paying attention to your audience, which is obviously women who were super connecting with these, like empowering statements. Yeah. And like, I mean, even just like on the conversation of social media, like social media, there’s, I laugh at this. So my best friend’s little sister who was pretty much like my little sister, she was like, I don’t know why everybody says social media is so toxic. She’s like, I just follow all these dog accounts, and they make me happy. And I was like, I was like, that’s what it should be. It should be accounts that make you happier about accounts that make you feel good. Yeah. And there’s I mean, we can obviously talk about like, there’s, there’s so much like comparison and the Instagram game and like, I don’t look like this person or whatever. And I think that, like you were saying, like your audience changed. It changed and shifted. And like, had you were connecting with, you know, women who are a little bit older, a little bit more established, and like looking for those things that weren’t being offered anywhere else, which is like empowerment, and I love that y’all are size inclusive, like it’s so it makes me so happy. Because like as a plus size woman, it’s really hard for me to shop.
Amber Rae
We think we have a lot of work ahead of us too. And oh, yeah, not even every product listed on our site is offered through the five XL. So that’s, you know, we’re being critical on ourselves and saying, What can we do? Do we have to make tough decisions and switch suppliers? We’ve built relationships over the years. So we try to influence they see where we’re going. We’re showing them data. This is our average order size, which by the way is 2x l and whap. We shouldn’t that’s the average order. So there’s just as many orders above two XL as there are below and that shifts for us from a medium over right in the last two years, again, our customer base was shifting. The one thing that we noticed while doing all of this that we did not expect was, Instagram has some interesting rules for product tagging based on pictures we have, or things that we have. And we have never run into it before. So Instagram needs you to, to review their platform policy on maybe a model photo that I have. And again, these are customer provided pictures, a lot of our content, customer content. So we’re not, we’re not out here paying models for things and being prescriptive in any way. If customers choose to share, they do get rewarded for it, they get discount codes and such, but they choose to share that want to share with friends, we use those pictures. And what we’re finding is based on some of the messaging, everybody is a bikini body that was flagged, that statement was flagged on just a shirt, that shirt was flagged on a plus size model on our account. So what we’re doing is fighting back, I write daily reports to Instagram, to request reviews of products, request reviews, a policy and platform I’m a major spender in on their on their ad platform. So I do access to a lot of channels to give that feedback, request those reviews and go through those types of processes with them. We had never run into that. So I think Instagram has a lot of work to do as well. Because yeah, what what content we’re putting out our creatives, our photos, everything. So I that’s something we found.
Carly Someplace
Yeah, I totally see that a lot. I get not necessarily like my images that I share as someplace images, but like my images that I share of myself more than anything, because I emphasize like I get a lot of my stuff my content flagged even when you switch and pivot to a different platform on tick tock I literally any single thing that I post goes under review. My journal that I co wrote with my co author, I did like a montage video on Tik Tok of like the behind the scenes making of imperfect journal like whatever immediately got flagged. I was like there’s not even a human and it’s literally paper.
Amber Rae
Victoria’s Secret body inclusive runway that they did one year ago. Now, I’m not sure what time, but we posted it and completely got flagged, could not believe that. We’re Yeah, we’re always doing the same thing. Requesting review. Tick tock is interesting, because it’s literally a platform for trends, repeat the trends that I see others do. And the fact that it gets flagged, that really speaks to some policy changes that need to happen.
Carly Someplace
Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of policy changes that need to happen in social media. And it makes me so incredibly happy to hear that you have like a larger platform like that. And like, again, you’re like I have influenced because we spend a lot of money was a million dollars a year in exactly like that’s a lot of money.
Amber Rae
Way bigger than me brands are spending a million dollars a week, I wish they would speak up, I think they’re scared, I do notice we get shadow banned after some of those processes that I go through those right, new processes. Sure, they could shut your account down, that is a real risk. I guess I’m careful about it. And I’m gonna still use the platform to do that. I wish some of the platforms that were bigger than us could do like 1/10 of what the fighting I guess I’ll call it that we do. Right. But it’s it’s such
Carly Someplace
a, I hate to be like it starts small, but it really does like, and you guys aren’t necessarily like a small small account, you know, you have quite 10s of 1000s of followers. But when you’re looking at that, like it’s it’s so important to see that there are real people behind that fight. And I think that that’s the big thing. And I think that coming from a lot of these corporations and these, like bigger companies, these massive companies, they’re not there, they’re getting a free pass on things like that. So like you were saying, like the Victoria’s Secret runway show that was size inclusive. So they’re getting a free pass, because they’re Victoria’s Secret, and they spend so much on advertising and they’re not even gonna, like, double check them at all. But when you’re reposting the same content and getting flagged it’s like come on seriously. I’m like And I really like and I think that that’s where it lies in those companies is that they don’t have to fight for it because they have so much power. Yeah, in that ad spends like it’s it’s truly like it’s truly crazy. Like just the marketing world in general is like such an insane place.
Amber Rae
Yeah, it really is. And it would it would kill it would kill our business. If if our Instagram and Facebook were shut down, right? It it would be a business killer. So Right.
Carly Someplace
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you, I do a lot of things. Obviously, the majority of my business is run from Facebook, but from Facebook groups instead of Facebook pages, and just being able to have that, like, I’m always super cautious about what I post, I’m really like, honestly, conservative, like, I take pictures of mostly nude women. That is my job. That is what I do. And in doing that, or even an even just like, again, I shoot all genders, and I shoot all bodies and different things like this. But like, there are literally like, I can put images up of people who are in a straight size, and like Instagram has no problems with it. If I put anybody up who’s in a plus size, one, I can see that like my like, reach goes down. And I know, I know, for a fact my demographic, it’s not that my demographics not engaging with it. Because my demographic that I read, which is a much smaller account, they’re like, Oh, my God, yes, look at this, and she looks fierce. And she looks amazing. And it’s not that they’re not saying that about my street size clients. But they see that in other media, what they’re not seeing is those plus size bodies in other media. And that’s what’s getting like, we’re talking like, all posts, straight size body and get 150 200 likes on it, I’ll post a plus size body in a similar scenario, different thing different day, whatever it like, and I’ll get 35 likes, and I’m like, How is this? How, like, I just don’t understand, and like, there’s such a part of me that’s like, oh, my gosh, this algorithm, but like, I’m like, or is it just that my reach is honestly being suppressed? Because I’m showing things that are different, like, I will look
Amber Rae
at, I mean, they suppress you if you use certain hashtags that are even popular or trending ones, I always know that I’m suppressed because we have our own hashtag hashtag everybody, by GW Emco grow out and go, Yep, it’s our own hashtag. There’s not 1000 things that there’s like five things there. And my own things will not show up my own posts will not show up under my own hashtag, because they’re shadow banned. So that’s, that’s how we tell Yeah.
Carly Someplace
It’s that it’s just so crazy. And I think it’s just like such a like, like, truly, like mind boggling thing, when you can see the actual data on your side of it. Like to literally see the data that’s coming in and be like, what is this going on? Like, that’s such a crazy thing. And it’s like, we’re all like, oh, yeah, it happens. But like, you’re like, No, it really
Amber Rae
happened. And I see the whole thing translates we have are so data driven stories is the same thing. Stories can have, you know, 2000 views or 200 views. It’s like, Well, what happened day to day, and on days where we have 2000 story views, we may have 1000 link clicks, so click there. So my website has 1000 people on it. And then those 1000 people convert to so many purchases, on the new days, it’s a really bad day for our business. So it’s, it’s tough. It’s a tough space to have a ecommerce business in I’ll say,
Carly Someplace
Absolutely, and I but I think what the craziest part of me is that so much of that hinges on like, literally, you’re just posting different body types, and you’re posting things that are truly empowering people. And like, and people are really connecting with and those are the things that they’re like, nope.
Amber Rae
And I mean, when I think what made me upset was I would post me now versus me when I was pregnant. And how do they know I was I was pregnant, maybe the hashtags I was using. I mean, it was really obvious, I suppose.
Carly Someplace
My pregnancy, at some point, it usually becomes apparent that you have a baby.
Amber Rae
Because of it. I mean, they were all like bump updates. And I did a lot of that on my personal account, which still has 10,000 followers, and then my business account. So I see similar trends on both. It’s not like they just target businesses know my personal creator account has the same thing going on. And when I was pregnant, it was like, maybe more cute. And those things flew might those those posts are still probably trending out there. And then the second it was like the postpartum it, but I felt like the reach went down again. I’m like what I know like family members XYZ always looked at my stories, why are they not seeing them? And they would tell me, they would type my name into the search field and it would not come up.
Carly Someplace
Oh my gosh. That’s I just like it’s just mind blowing. It’s just mind blowing. It’s like it’s just mind blowing. And it’s, that’s the thing is it’s mind blowing. And it’s real. And I think that it’s such an issue and it’s such a problem in social media in general. And then and then we look at these things like I said back to like the social comparisons and when looking and we’re like, Well, why is everybody that I’m seeing and everything that I’m seeing only the sizes or only these, whatever. And it’s, it’s because of things like that, and I just like it, it blows my mind.
Amber Rae
We’re having a hard time getting verified the little blue checkmark. And I’m really right for why we meet all the criteria. When we go through the process. We our documents are perfect. They asked for certain documents, everything uploads perfectly. I don’t know there’s something up. And that’s, that’s honestly why we branched out and created sub brands and those sub accounts. Right, because there is a risk to our to our main account.
Carly Someplace
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So tell me a little bit about your sub brands and how those kind of like blossomed, obviously, you know, you, you obviously have a lot of different things going on. And obviously as there’s like different markets for it. But I think it’s so I think it’s so amazing to have those different sub brands that still obviously fall in line with your business value.
Amber Rae
Yeah. And compartmentalize and also to like, resource allocate. So when we had interns last summer, it was really easy to like divide up scope of work, because we create our mentalized our site. So I mentioned everything that we’re doing with apparel, there was so part of me that wanted to get back to other types of goods. That’s how we did clearly liked it for a reason. So we went through all sorts of things, and you’ll find remnants still on our website. Jewelry, of course, as as, as one does. Don’t have the heart to part with certain things. But but you know, it’s not on the homepage. It’s not blown up. It’s there, right? dropdowns
Carly Someplace
are like it exists and I’m still attached.
Amber Rae
And so there goes the data driven side of me, but we’ll find that I really liked sticking to like soaps, we had a lot of essential oils that was really popular. during COVID times we had hand sanitizer at one point. I mean, who went and yeah, exactly everybody did, are really our hygiene line was doing really well touring then. So I mean, I’m sure there was so much other struggles going on. But if one thing did good it was that and what stuck from it was our soaps. So we went to a local Reno Tahoe maker and said, Hey, we want to like bring this back in house. This is what we’re thinking we still get to like, combine essential oils shore and I call it the growout body bar. And so far, what’s launched are two different body bars on our website. It took a really long time to do product development, which I didn’t write for, and getting it right. So one’s more of like a facial and one’s like literally your whole body. So there’s a badass body bar and an every body body bar. So I love that you know they both go with our like two most popular t shirt saying so that kind of ties it in. That’s its own separate account. Um, and yeah, we’ll use it to drive traffic as needed announced our launches, not take away if we have influencer launches going on our main account will kind of go there when they want to connect with we do very limited like small batch releases. The soaps honestly lasts forever. So I’m kind of worried that you’re like, here
Carly Someplace
they are, forever, but also come back when forever is
Amber Rae
good forever for your whole family. So far, how we’ve labeled them has mostly just been on the label, so you eventually take the label off. But those messages we love them so much. But I want people to see it when they’re going to wash their face. So we’re being stamped as we speak. And they will launch I don’t know if it will be end of this month or next month. Soap cure curing time is really long as well.
Carly Someplace
Things I’ve never thought about. I’m a chemical engineer
Amber Rae
by trade, which a lot of people don’t know,
Carly Someplace
I did not know that at all. So I was really digging deep
Amber Rae
into the show manufacturing process like taking it to levels that we shouldn’t have taken it to. And I really I really have to step back from it. Because yeah, you can over engineer things but anyways, making to the makers and I really focus on the forum and system side. I will say so now the soaps will be stamped. We think we have like the recipe to a really good spot where the stamped portion it like will not wash away either. Oh, cool. Yeah. So you’ll be able to see that little reminder anytime you’re in the shower in the morning. And we have a phrase no important Yeah, we have another phrase. Oh, important.
Carly Someplace
That’s I think that’s so cool because I feel like so, in my self love Journal that I was saying that I like co authored one of the first things one of our first chapters like talks about like mantras and being able to like repeat things to yourself daily and like, these phrases and stuff like that. And I honestly feel like if I got in the shower every single morning and saw my soap be like, You are a badass, I’d be like, Yes, I am. That’s so cool. And so just like, it really is, like, I feel like that, like constant reinforcement of, of empowerment is in any way in any place that you can get. It is so important, especially now, especially, like, our society is changing so much the body positive movement is like really, truly taking off and like and I hate that it’s a movement. I’m like, No, it should just be a thing. But like, yeah, it’s a movement, we’ll call it a movement. But being able to, like go through this and be able to like see the effects of like, what people are changing. And even like you said, just like it’s a, it’s a small thing. But it’s like to be able to see that every day is so cool and so powerful and really empowering, like really empowering to start your day. And I just love that. And I love that you’ve engineered it, so it’s not gonna wash off first. We’ll see, like, this is important, it has to stay
Amber Rae
far enough with a patent, I’m not sure. But we’ll see. Close. And I really want to like put a lot of time and effort into it. The other collection that we had was for a while baby. And it really came from I don’t know, when I guess it’s true, like leading up to pregnancy during pregnancy, post pregnancy, you’re just like obsessed with all things, baby. So I was and maybe the rest of my own company was like, Okay, let’s let Amber like go off and do this for a second. But this will stick. And it’s been a really fun way to like, include my daughter in the business and share that. And then the, I guess two launches ago with Chelsea, we were able to, to incorporate her daughter into her influencer launch as well. And have like really cute sayings, like surviving and thriving, mostly thriving on the baby onesies. And it just really, really cute things for the babies to wear to. So I loved it, she loved it. And I’m glad it kind of worked out for that collaboration too. So it’s still there. The soap bars are also like geared literally towards everybody, including babies. So right Oh, not for babies. So we’ve been using that platform to also kind of promote the soaps. Yeah, we’ll see where that goes. It’s super, it’s a super sustainable product line for us, too. So a lot, you know, the chemical engineer in me wants that to do really well. But we have to see, there’s always a risk with lunch, when we really went through our transition into the body positivity, field space, we did lose followers. And I swear those followers, they might not follow us, but they still watch us because they come down here. And they will comment on things and their comments are not so nice. It’s interesting. Some people are really not on board with it. Even our it’s crazy. which I hate. I hate to say or like I’m not like calling out specifics, but it’s it’s a real thing. And there’s still you know, kind of trolls that come back. Yeah, back to our account. Yep, there. I
Carly Someplace
mean, there’s a lot of like, we can’t say that the Internet doesn’t have things like body shaming, and, and bullying and different things like that, like there’s so much that happens within those platforms that like the it’s it’s such a like, it’s such a catch 22 in so many ways, like you can reach so many amazing people, you can do so many amazing things with social media, but it also can be such a harsh place. And like being able to like I don’t want to say like be a keyboard warrior, but like make comments on other people that you probably wouldn’t do in person. Like that happens a lot online happens a lot on Instagram and for people to just like, troll people and say rude things like that’s not I want to be like Did your mom or not raised you raised you better than this because like, Excuse me.
Amber Rae
It happens on our paid advertisements. We literally pay for this beautiful space that we curate so carefully and put so much money into and it helps the algorithm
Carly Someplace
it’s, it’s, it’s right. I know it’s one of those things like I think about it all the time. Like it’s I hate that it happens but like at this point in my life, I have real thick skin like you can’t say anything that’s gonna hurt me cool. Call me fat. I don’t give a fuck like great, fantastic. It’s really not gonna hurt my feelings. I’m okay with that. Like, tell me you don’t like my hair cool. I don’t really care. I do it for me, not for you. Like there’s like all of these things. And I have like so many like, I’ve really thick skin at this point in my life, which is like is definitely something that’s been developed from obviously like being bullied and having like, just like different conversations like that. And like and I’ve had, so I had, oh gosh, this was a while ago, like maybe two years ago, maybe a little bit bit more. I had somebody like go on to my Instagram under a fake account and essentially be like, You’re a disgusting whale. And like all this other stuff like you should never be seen in a bikini, why are you wearing your underwear online? Your body is disgusting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like multiple comments on multiple photos on my account. And all of my friends were like, Who is this person? If you find it out, like, I like this terrible, and I’m, like, whatever. And I was like, I was like, Okay, I so appreciate the support, but like, this doesn’t hurt my feelings. Like I don’t have, I feel sorry for this person that they’re extremely self conscious. And they can’t see the fact that like, I’m just living my life and being fine with it. And like, what they
Amber Rae
were ready to, like, come after them. My friends
Carly Someplace
were like, I’m like, Who can I hurt? And I was like, nobody. It’s totally fine. But I think that that, like, so much of that comes from again, like, I was bullied in middle school in high school, like, I’ve been bullied by my own family members, I’ve been putting up with like, comments about my weight, and my body my entire life, which I wish didn’t happen. But like, I have real thick skin now, like, nothing you’re gonna say is gonna hurt me, and nothing you’re gonna say is gonna offend me. Because at this point, like, if I don’t want that type of thing in my life, I say, Okay, bye. And walk away. Like, I don’t need people who do that. I don’t need people in any sphere of that whatsoever. I only want to be around people who empower me and who lift me up, and who have those same morals and values. And like, you can say something rude to me, and I’m just gonna be like, cool, glad you think that you’re not the type of person I want in my life. And that comes again, from
Amber Rae
I’m not a customer I want like, if this is how you’re acting now, how are you going to be when your shirt doesn’t come in six hours.
Carly Someplace
Right? Exactly. Well, and it’s just like, it’s such an I actually had a conversation earlier today talking about how like, not taking money from people that are terrible. Which is like, like, if I could just like go through and like curate my client list. I just want people who believe that everybody is worthy. And I just want people like, like, if you’re gonna like shame other humans, I don’t want to do business with you, I don’t want your money, it feels icky. Like, I don’t want that I want to be able to like, earn the things that I’m doing. And I also want to be able to, like, empower others with what I’m doing. And if like, you’re an icky person, I don’t want your icky money.
Amber Rae
I love that. What I’m talking about is others who like don’t have the thick skin, but read those comments to our customers. And some of them like, definitely expect us to lash out or they they expect a response for sure. They will tag us right you got what do you what do you have to say about this? Or will you respond there? There’s there’s others with more insecurities that maybe are real. Yeah, I need the help. I need the reinforcement. So So I try. I’ve like Well, personally login, an answer. Facebook, like respond to Facebook commenters. I feel like it’s worse on Facebook than Instagram. I don’t know what to do there. But they write novels. who they are. You can’t ever tell who they are, like fake, not fake accounts. I’m not quite sure
Carly Someplace
fake accounts, or people who have like no profile picture and have been on Facebook for like seven weeks and are friends with like three random humans.
Amber Rae
Yes. I’m also not going to stop like I know logically like I’m an engineer, I think logically I solve problems logically, we have a start, we have an end we move on, there is no end for these people. So you have to keep that in mind. And I’ll usually say maybe one response, they’re going to respond 1000 more times. But I will say one thing, and I do it in the hopes that those other people see Yep, see my response. And they like how I answered or they, they, they agree with how us I’m speaking as the company as a brand. They agree with how the brand represents itself in kind of takes that type of feedback, right?
Carly Someplace
And you can’t you you really can’t battle every single moment. But like you said, but being able to go and respond and like
Amber Rae
ads forever. Like if I stopped right, we’ll have to stop paying for the ads, start a new ad and then build all this social proof over the next four years. So it’s right, exactly. Live on.
Carly Someplace
It’s true, but and you’re right. And so like the people who don’t have the thick skin and like Yeah, and just like the bullying in general and like, I mean, making the internet a safer space. But it really does like what you’re doing in responding to those and being like pretty much being like this isn’t acceptable and we don’t think this way is. It is so important and it is so good for people to see that that exists in the world. I
Amber Rae
want them to see it. I want my 16 month old daughter to someday see it. Right, exactly. And I think that that’s what important, I almost respond to people like, you must not have any daughters or you must not remember what it was like when you when you were younger and that age. Right? What baffles me is when it’s some, it’s, you can usually tell like, I will go there account, maybe see some background, if they’re a mom or a female? What are they doing? Right? That’s what I cannot understand.
Carly Someplace
Right? Exactly. I just like yeah, it’s such a it really is such a like, mind blowing thing to me when people make comments. And I’m like, You’re what, like, how do you not? How do you not relate to having an experience as a woman if you’re a woman like, and I understand that, obviously, everybody’s got everything.
Amber Rae
I really watch, like how I speak to myself, like, before, before this, I was mentioning, I you know, I went to these fitness classes. And I don’t know if I’ll go forever. And it took me years to eat, right? No today, but I went and I brought my daughter and she’s in the little daycare area press pressed up against the glass. And all I kept thinking was I was looking in my own mirror, this could bring tears my eyes, thinking like, wow, things really changed since pregnancy, or Wow, things changed since I was 18. Like last able to do, like a good class like this and thrive, right? I was clearly not thriving in that class. Watching myself in the mirror, like, Oh, my form doesn’t really look like others, or you have things maybe aren’t, aren’t the same. I’m watching how my body moves. And when you’re a full body mirror on all four sides, it’s a whole thing. And I kept looking over and I was like, You know what, my daughter is watching me and she just sees me getting stronger. And I’m gonna keep going in this class. And I’m gonna keep doing this. So even just like the emotions I was showing, yeah, he picks up on that she, she feeds and reads off of my emotion. So kids are so smart. Yeah. And that doesn’t even me like speaking out loud, any anything that I feeling, she just can sense it. It’s wild.
Carly Someplace
It’s, especially at that age, they’re like, just like sponges, they’re absorbing everything, everything. And I think that it’s like, just the way that we speak to and about ourselves in front of kids or in general, in general, not even in front of kids, the way that we speak to and about ourselves is so incredibly important. And even more important when you’re standing in front of, especially I don’t, I don’t want to like not say like boys, but like literally young girls, it is so incredibly important to let them know. And like, if there’s anything I can be so thankful for is that we are the generation that is changing so many different things, we are making it acceptable to just be who you frickin are and be loud and proud about it. And I think that the generation of daughters that we’re raising, and I’m obviously not a mom, but like that, like my friends are raising, like one of my best friends, like her daughter is everyone who’s in their life. Yeah. Everyone, like my so one of my best friend’s daughter’s is to and like, and she’s like, and she thinks Auntie Lee is really cool with her tattoos and her blue hair. And like, I just want her to have the influence of like, be whatever you want to be. And like, and it’s so incredibly important to like, show kids that and like really show kids that and I get like, I get a lot of kids who are super fascinated with me because again, I have blue hair and a shaved head and big tattoos and like one of my my cousin’s daughter as well, she is one and a half. And so like she just like keeps, like, every time I pick her up, she’ll just like touch my tattoos being like, what is this. And I want to be like you can be whatever you want. You can have whatever you want, you can put whatever you want on your body, like it doesn’t change who you are as a person, it it’s just an expansion or an expression of yourself. And that doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with it. And I think that
Amber Rae
there’s going to be wearing a shirt that says the badass woman in me honors the badass woman in you
Carly Someplace
at like age three. And I love that I love that
Amber Rae
these are all much all of all of our shirts, all of our returns or anything that’s maybe a defect that she’ll have on. And she’s just gonna walk around
Carly Someplace
and be like, I’m a badass. Yeah, I’m like age four onwards. And you’re not ever gonna be able to be mad because you’re like, it’s fine. You can swear you can say that word. It is it’s it is really like, it’s so important to see those things to see. Well and like you were saying, like she’s watching me and she’s absorbing this, even without words, even without anything like that. Watching you go through the motions, and I had another interview on recently and we were talking about how she was like, my mom was always on a diet. Always she was like I was then pretty much like convinced that like I had to be on a diet because my mom was always on a diet period. Like she’s like I didn’t grow up in a healthy eat environment. And she’s like, and I’m struggling with it in my 30s because my mother was always on a diet and pretty much like restricting herself and not letting her do any of these things, and just live in exist. And I think it’s so important, like, as we like, see the effects of things like that our generation is the generation that’s like, oh, let’s, let’s maybe fix this broken link here. And like, let’s go to therapy and talk about it, and also talk about it out loud, and like, other generations aren’t doing that. And it’s, it’s really nice. And the generations that are younger than us are like, way more on top of it than we are, but like we’re paving the way.
Amber Rae
It’s true. I think, like any, you’re right, any meal choice you would make, or if it would be very obvious to my daughter if I was on a diet, even if I didn’t say it, and I was trying to follow something and the one this this memory will forever stick with me. I was thin all my life. So I was I was always, I guess sporty or athletic build. I don’t know they have that silly chart. Are you an apple? Are you a pair I hated that. I was I was a wreck. I could play hockey and I could kick some ass and I played basketball. And I did. And I was always just focused on being strong. I guess I had good genetics, you know postpartum we’ll get there. That’s a whole other story. But I had I had pretty good habits. And this memory will forever stick with me because it never was a thing for me. So How lucky is that? That I didn’t grow up like even knowing things. This existed. I didn’t even know there was diet culture. The other side of it. I was literally just like a little tomboy, like Sporty Spice sort. Yeah, yeah. Ever. I was a camp counselor. I was very bubbly. I loved it. I’ve always loved kids. And I was a camp counselor. I guess I won’t say the name of the camp but it’s in California and it has all celebrity kids. So Kylie Jenner was my my my camper. I visit her counselor at this camp. That’s just one person there. Everybody was at this camp. Kendall was not but anyway. People grew up in these celebrities. The world’s first supermodels daughter was also in my bunk. And right how they spoke was so foreign to me. I was from Pennsylvania, just a little sporty person. I didn’t even know like a lot of these celebrities, which is why they wanted me to be a counselor there, right?
Carly Someplace
Because they weren’t like you’re not gonna be starstruck
Amber Rae
on zero risk. I’m wearing like basketball jerseys and they’re in like, I’m in and I was, you know, we’re doing like water balloon fights. I was there as a wakeboard instructor for people learning. There was like mud fights. It was a camp, you stay there for two weeks. You eat around a campfire, you eat s’mores, you do nachos. I had boys like for two of that two of the weeks. And then I had the girls it was I don’t know if they were short on guy counselors, but I added a bunk of boys and I didn’t know what I was doing. was they didn’t want to shower. Get me to the girls. My problem with them was they didn’t want to eat. Could not believe it. The boys powered they were teens. So little know their little teens are tiny little people. Right? Like they’re right. Yeah, they’re really small. I guess I was a teen like they were even younger. They were like, little children. The boys pushed through the lines that could not wait for it to be mealtime it was a whole thing. Yeah, the girls. I’ll never forget, I switched to the girls camp. And they were all telling me I could kind of like pick up maybe who they were or what their last names were. And like I maybe knew something. And I’m like, wow, these people like grew up in a very different life than me. I can tell by the closet that they have at Camp camp. Yeah. would ring the bell for dinner and my girls table wouldn’t get up and I was like, ready for the little boys table. I’m like, come on, like, we gotta gotta get the food before it runs out or whatever. It was like a game how quick you can get up there. And they’re like, Oh, I think I’m gonna skip this meal, or I don’t think I’m going to eat. And I was like, Well, if we don’t eat now that you know, the dining room closes and what do you mean, we can’t get food then until tomorrow at breakfast when we all come back. Now that guy skipped lunch too. So some of the girls in my camp were were skipping the meal. I could not believe it. One girl said she looked at my plate. And she’s like, your whole plate is white. I had like bread, potatoes and nachos. Probably. And, like your whole plate is white. And I was like, huh, yeah, I guess it is like never nobody’s I don’t know. I just grabbed what looked good to me. And she said my mom told me never to eat food that’s white. And I I stopped and I was like, she told you what? And I was like, what food is white and then she started listing all the white food. I’m like you have This list in your head of white food, and your mom told you wait, I’m science major science background. Why can you tell me why? It what what’s like the theory behind that? Can we break it down the five? Why I’m like, we need to dive into this. Like, should we talk about the chemistry like tell me more biology side. And she had nothing besides that fact. And it stuck in her brain and she was not eating because of it. And I could not believe that. I couldn’t believe it. By the end of that week. Yeah, my girls were first in line pushing those boys out of the way to get those nachos, all the white food that was up there. To break that I don’t know what ever happened to them after that. And that made me really, really sad. Because I was in college at the time. And I I wasn’t around anything like that. I don’t I don’t remember that being a thing. We were all like really poor. And literally eating whatever the cafeteria meal plan gave us. Whatever we find, they probably had a lot more choice maybe. Clearly. And it was it was like a pivotal moment. And from that point on, even like the rest of that summer, I was really cognizant of what decisions might my table and my campers and my bunk was making and right and to ask them why they were making those decisions. Like I’m not I’m not wasn’t their mom, I would have no influence on them after those two weeks. I don’t know if I get stuck. I would love to find them and see if they even have memories of that camp. But to what you said, like people knowing when even if it’s not a parent, if it’s like an aunt who’s on a diet that sticks with them. And that became really toxic. These These girls are so small like their children at this kid. Just it Yeah. 10 years old, baby 12 Max, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even know how to have those. You can’t have those complex thoughts at that age.
Carly Someplace
Yeah, those those shouldn’t be thoughts that you’re having at 10.
Amber Rae
I still think about when anytime I eat food I look at I’m like, well, all my foods white today, like but because literally, I had that experience, like I think all the freaking time. So I did not believe that. That was I don’t even know what diet I never even Googled it. But that was awful.
Carly Someplace
That’s terrible. That’s just, that’s crazy. And I think that that is like, I mean, more prevalent
Amber Rae
than I got to even know. And I’m lucky that I wasn’t exposed to that, I guess. I’m super, super interesting. Somebody needs to go to that camp and do like a case study on what’s going on there. It’s not the camp, it’s just the campers, right.
Carly Someplace
And that’s, that’s where that influence comes in. And even like, I don’t wanna be like, again, social media. But now kids that age have social media. And now kids that age, are seeing things that one other people eat, like how many people how many people just like take photos of food and post them in their stories like, well, this is what I’m eating, this is whatever. And like, it’s such a like, it’s such a crazy concept that like, they’re seeing all of that from so many sides, and not just the people that are actually around them and actually influencing different influencers,
Amber Rae
Kylie Jenner, and they’re like, oh, look, how does she looked like this? She posts this. Is she eating that every meal? Is she eating it once a week? What’s going on? Like, you don’t actually it’s all out of context. That’s a really good point. Oh, yeah. Oh, so it’s crazy story for kids? Oh.
Carly Someplace
It really is. I mean, it can also I, there’s two sides to that it can be really beneficial. They can find people who are amazing and good influences and actually, like, in that space, but I think there’s, there’s but that I mean, let’s come at it from a parent side that takes parent interaction of like, what accounts are you following? Are these healthy for you both mentally and physically to follow? Are you being able to like see these differences and see, you know, what’s healthy and what’s not healthy and stuff like that? And that’s, I mean, especially tweens, essentially, they’re not going to want your input. They’re not gonna want that. But I think that even what you’re saying, like having these like taking your daughter and letting her see that you’re strong, and you’re doing this class and everything like that, and like, cool, maybe your form is not the best, but like whatever she’s seeing you do it. She’s seeing you do it. Like that’s the big thing. And I think that having, again, like the generation of women that is being raised and you know women our age who are having kids and being able to move forward and have like these different relationships with their daughters Then we had or that the influence was that we were given. It’s so incredibly powerful and I’m really excited for like the world to come of these up and coming generations and how much more they’re just speaking on on these things that again, were like, not things that we were really taught or not things that we really even like. Saw. Yeah. It’s even like i Well, I I say that and then I’m like, I look at middle schoolers, and I’m like, where did where’s your awkward phase? Why are you stopping? Not awkward? Like, I literally, I see some of these teenagers and I’m like, why are you a supermodel? You’re like, 12 Where’s your blue eyeliner and really bad frizzy hair?
Amber Rae
Oh my gosh, I don’t even know what I was doing. Oh, God,
Carly Someplace
I was like such a dweeb. I was such a dweeb.
Amber Rae
Huge nerd. I was into sports, but he’s also a nerd in high school, and
Carly Someplace
I hope you all enjoyed listening to this conversation with Amber and I like I said, this is a two part episode. So please tune in next week to Episode 26 to get even more from this conversation. I can’t wait to see you all then. Thanks so much for listening to someplace for everybody. If you love this episode, would you mind leaving me a review in your favorite podcast app and subscribe to the show. If you’re looking for a community to love on you and support you and your self love Journey, come join our all gender Facebook group someplace for everybody which can be found in the show notes at someplace for everybody.com Until we meet again, be kind to yourself.
