Episode transcript

Edit transcript

Ryan Burgess
Welcome to a new episode of the front end happier podcast. In this episode, we are joined by Alice Lee to talk with us about branding and self promotion. Alice, can you give a brief introduction of who you are, what you do and what your favorite Happy Hour beverages? Oh, yeah. Hi, everyone. It's great to be on this podcast. My name is Alice Lee. I'm an illustrator and a muralist. I am based in the SF Bay Area. I've been freelancing for the last six or seven years. And before that, I was a product designer and illustrator at Dropbox. And sorry, what were the questions again? You've done them all except okay. What's your favorite Happy Hour beverage?

Alice Lee
Ooh, favorite, happier, happier beverage? Well, I haven't had a you know, I haven't attended to happier in a really long time.

Shirley Wu
We should have a happy hour when when we can again.

Alice Lee
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm really liking these. Cucumber, dry, botanical, bubbly, sparkling beverages that my boyfriend is a fan of so yeah.

Ryan Burgess
All right. Well, let's also give introduction of today's panelists Jem, you want to start?

Jem Young
Jem Young, Senior Software Engineer at Netflix.

Ryan Burgess
Augustus Yuan. Software engineer at Twitch

Shirley Wu
Hi, I'm Shirley Wu and I'm an independent creator of data visualizations.

Ryan Burgess
And I'm Ryan Burgess. I'm a software engineering manager at Netflix. In each episode of the front end happier podcast, we like to choose a keyword that if it's mentioned at all, in the episode, we will all take a drink. And what did we decide today's keyword is

All
exposure. Cheers.

Ryan Burgess
If we say the word exposure, we will all be taking a drink? Well, let's hop in. I figured it'd be probably good if we started by even just talking about like, what does self promotion or brand, you know, personal branding look like or mean to each of you? Because I know it can mean many different things to many different people. I guess I'll start. I think, you know, in this this day and age, branding and promotion to me is very tightly, you know, synonymous with a social media presence. And I think that I wouldn't have the career I have today if it weren't for that ability to promote myself and like, organically, I guess build a quote brand on social media. I'm sure if we were having this conversation, even five years ago, it would be very different. I guess the only thing I would add is if I think back to before social media was such a big thing. And everybody felt the pressure to have like a personal brand. I think the only other thing I would think of is like a personal portfolio of I think if I I mean, that's extremely important to me now as a freelancer. But if I think back to even before I started freelancing, and having a portfolio or as a software engineer, like every time I want to go to a new job, I think my GitHub, I guess you can make some sort of a argument that GitHub and LinkedIn is also some form of social media. But GitHub, I guess, is more like my work history and work experience. So yeah, I actually can't think of what else outside of that?

Alice Lee
Well, I actually had a question for you guys, which is, you know, I think it's pretty obvious that social media is like a huge part of promotion for people, especially in our tech industry, or tech adjacent industries. So I'm so not discounting that. But just putting that aside, because that's sort of obvious. I'm curious, what are other non social media channels that you guys have relied on or people in your, like industry or cohort would rely on like, for example, as a freelance illustrator, this is sort of slowly not become a thing because of the quarantine, but some form of promotion that freelance illustrators would do, especially if you're trying to break into like the editorial scene. So editorial illustrations, like newspapers, magazines, New York Times New Yorker, is people would send like physical postcards in with your artwork to art directors, like at their office. So obviously, you probably have if you were doing that you probably do some form of like email now, but I think that that's also slowly become less like necessary because of social media and the way that people's artwork is being discovered. So I'm just curious, like, what is their engineer front end engineer or like data science, you know, version of that that's sort of unique to your niche. I liked where your head is out there too, is like it's almost like looking for ways

Ryan Burgess
To, to get exposure to people to get your work to be exposed.

All
Cheers, cheers. Cheers.

Ryan Burgess
For me as maybe it's it's all been like the tech around it. So it's probably going to be somewhat tech related. But then it got me thinking of things like speaking at a conference or joining a panel going on podcasts, things like that. We're not really social media, but you're also sharing who you are, like, even how we introduce you, allistic. And what do you do and like, Who are you, and that's a type of your branding, you're talking about, I am an illustrator. And this is what I do. And so all in how you're even sharing your own bio in, in forums, like a conference, that is a form of like self promotion, or even in meetings, right. Like, I think a lot of times I'm meeting new people at work. And the way I saw myself is, you know, there's probably something it's like, basically reading a bio to give them a little bit of perspective of who you are. And so I think those are the types of forms that come to mind. And then another one that came really like, old, even when I thought of like, emailing and stuff, like, yes, this reminds me of things of like, I grew up doing a lot of graffiti, and to me, that is that is self promotion, like huge, you're like, writing your name on shit like that is like, you know, is totally promotion in it. But that, to me is always kind of also highlighted the like Guerilla Marketing style of things is like putting something out there in front of people. And just thinking a little bit differently. And how do you get noticed on those types of fronts? So I thought that was an interesting one that just kind of popped in my head as you asked that question. Yeah, that's so cool that you used to do graffiti? Oh, yes, we should definitely talk more. And like, I've always admired your artwork, and like, I still, like Miss doing large murals and things like that. It's like, a lot of fun to do I miss spray painting for sure. Yeah, I have so much respect for graffiti artists, like I think, first of all, it's so hard, you know, to just oftentimes, you know, you've you're working with these huge spaces. I mean, I think a lot of places where I see street art, like, I'm just gonna, like, how do they do that? Like, like a ladder, or like, they suspended

Alice Lee
the building? Like, how did they, like, get to that part of the wall? You know,

Ryan Burgess
but I think that's but that, to me is like, kind of interesting, like you sparked that my when you said that? Like, it's like, yeah, you kind of have to get creative in promoting yourself or like surely said, like, yeah, back in the days, which I mean, portfolios are still a thing. But it's like looking for ways in which to just kind of get noticed for the work that you're doing. And to me, it kind of, you have to get creative.

Jem Young
Yeah, we talked about self promotion. And what came to mind was actually work self promotion. And thinking like, a manager, or a particular, in this instance, like an engineering manager, you don't know what your direct reports are doing 100% of the time, all the time, like you just can't know. So from an IT perspective, it's good to brand yourself in a certain way. And at work, like I have a certain brand, I have a brand at work, I don't really know if it's positive, I think it's positive. But like, people will message me and be like, Hey, Jem, I saw your talk on this, or whatever, you might help me with this. And like, I won't say I'm probably known in ethics for this, but I'm pretty well known, just as Ryan is known in Netflix, as someone who's amazing at hiring. And if you need hiring advice, he is the person to go to. So like, I think it's important, I really love this topic. Because you have to control your brand and your, the way people perceive you. Because if you don't, people are gonna perceive you one way or another, it's better to have control of that narrative than to have people form their own assumptions. And if you ask me five years ago, like you self promotion, that's, that's so icky and gross. And I'm not about that. But now that I'm older, I'm like, actually, it is important, especially if you want to become a leader of some sort, in, in any industry. People need to know us something. And they will know your something, whether or not you control that or not is totally up to you.

Ryan Burgess
Actually, that's a really interesting point of like, I think a lot of us, we probably do it unconsciously, which is like, you know, we have a personality. And we put that out there, even just in the sphere of our own work, because like you mentioned, I remember how much I valued my first year at a full time job, because that's when I can establish my reputation as like someone that's hard working or someone that solves like that, like solving like specific kinds of problems. And that is actually I think, just self promotion or branding, just without that label attached to it of being like hey, you can rely on me to deliver quality work so you should trust me with you know, more work that I'm interested in. In the future.

Augustus Yuan
It's so interesting because Some of the things y'all brought up were like, for front end engineering, like we have this benefit of like, our social media presence is kind of our work. So a lot of people, they look at our websites, our personal websites to kind of get an idea of what the work there is. But then it's kind of like this. Like more recently, I feel like it's kind of exploded, the front end engineering industry as a whole has kind of exploded and being able to showcase your work in more different ways. So code pen makes it very easy to just create, like very, like, confined snippets of like small pieces of work. So like, if you look at Sarah Dresner, like many other people's like code patents, they're just like, freaking phenomenal. You just like go there, and, and you just like, go through your pages like wow. And it's like, these niche communities start to develop, like dev Datu for like, which, or medium for like writing. I know like for maybe for data science and data visualization, like Mike Bostock, Mike Bostock, the guy who created d3, JS, he started a new site called observable, which I think, surely probably knows more than I do. But I guess you can create notebooks for like data visualizations. So she's, like, really fascinating, all the different forums of how you can like, get exposure. Cheers. And then I guess one last thing I'll say is, like, you know, being part of Twitch, I'm exposed to a lot of different people who are creators and streamers. And the way they have been kind of building their social following is not through just Twitch, but they try to get as much I didn't want to use the keyword. Go case as much of themselves as they can, and, and tons of different social media. So for example, uploading all of their VODs to YouTube, and Reddit is a really big way of how they like get get surface, right, like some clip gets posted about them of like making this amazing play in this clutch situation of a game and then you get a huge following because it's it's honestly really incredible.

Alice Lee
Something that Jem said, actually sparked this follow up question that I had, when you were talking about controlling the narrative and your brand. And it got me to thinking about how like, you know, I think a lot for those of us who are like, always online cocoa are perpetually online. So possibly, many of us are all of us. This panel of, there's this interesting balance that I've had to more recently negotiate between, like who you are as a person, like your actual identity, and your, you know, brand identity. And those two things can have a lot of overlaps. But I have found that my brand, quote, identity, since it's what I choose to put out there, oftentimes, it is on a delay from who, who I am like, I'll, I'll grow I'll develop new skills. And unless I tell people about it, they don't know that. And so that's not a part of my brand. So my follow up question is, for you guys, has there ever been a time where you wanted to change your brand narrative? And it was like not up to date, or you just wanted to go in a new direction? And like, what was that process and journey like for us, just to make it like maybe relatable for anyone who's listening. That could be if you're like, a new grad, and you don't have a brand. But you you're really good, but people just don't know that and you you're trying to build that brand. Or it could be maybe you're the middle of your career, and you're known for data science, but you want to become a illustrator or something. But people don't know you as that. So they always, you know, ask you data science questions and invite you to data science opportunities. So I'm just curious if any of you guys have had to bridge that gap recently. And what your approach to that was,

Ryan Burgess
I don't think I've thought about it necessarily, like proactively been like, I need to like switch or pivot that. But I do think I've spent more time in management is even like conferences and things like I won't speak as much on like an engineering piece where I used to, like, give a tech talk, I want to talk more about leadership stuff. And like not to say that I still don't like the tech side of things. But I'm just like, closer has been spending more of my time thinking and breathing, being a leader, and like, what are those types of topics that are top of mind for me. And so I want I'm like more passionate about those right now. And so I want to speak on those. And so like, I don't necessarily want to speak on, you know, the latest JavaScript framework. I do want to talk about it because I'm still interested in it. But I don't know if I've really like thought about that though. Or like I have to pivot my brand to change that. But I've actively been talking more about that even on social media or to conferences like I probably want to give a talk like that. And so I'm actively doing You in it? I don't know if I've thought about like, I need to pivot too much so, but I love the question because I'm like, Wow, maybe I should be thinking about that thoughtfulness and not just doing something we didn't cover earlier is Alice and I, our studio mates. And so we have this kind of these, these conversations a lot. And one of the things that we've talked about is, I really like what you touched on, as part of that question Alice, about what how we present ourselves to the outside world, versus how we present how who we are internally, or like to our close group of friends or to ourselves can be different. And there are certainly like, we have friends where they're almost the same, right? Like, they share a lot of themselves online, and they're loved for it. Whereas I think we've talked about how I, my theory is that it's our business school background, because I definitely, I remember being like, you know, like, I remember it being like, just like drilled into our brains of like, be careful how you present yourself on the internet, because anybody can see that. And so I am very careful about only sharing publicly, like what's happening in my work life, but not necessarily always my personal life. And I'm, like, very private about that. And I think only recently have I started to be more like, oh, and that even goes to like how I feel about, you know, like, my opinions on certain like political topics, or what's happening in the world. I think, for the longest time I like strayed away from talking about those publicly, because like, I just didn't want to say any controversial things. But I think recently, with so much stuff going on that I'm like, I have really strong opinions about, I do want to say them more and more. I mean, there's still a lot of my personal life that I want to keep for myself, I think there's more and more of that coming into what I want to share, especially because I think there's so much conversation around like our responsibilities about talking about what's going on in the world. Just having that conversation. So that's, that's one thing I wanted to touch on that you mentioned in the lead up to your question. And I think in terms of like your question itself, I think it's super interesting. I know, we've had some conversations about wanting to pivot, like what we do, because I know Alice, that you pivoted from, take illustration into, like you wanted to do murals, so you just did it. And that's super cool. And it worked out super well for you. And I feel like I'm at this point where I think my quote, unquote, branding has been like, a lot about data visualization. And I'm happy for that. But I also have this weird, like, Don't put me in a box, I'm more than just, um, which I think we've also talked about that of like, we just tend to put juice, you know, like, very complex, like everybody's, so every human being is so complex, but we tend to just want to reduce them to one or two, like, tags or categories, so that it's easier to remember. That's a whole other rant. But I'm recently trying to like do less of what I used to do for data visualization, and more just like trying to explore different things and explore different creative mediums. And I do notice, and this is, again, something we talk about often of like the metrics that we see on social media, I do notice that I get less engagement on those posts that I share, because, you know, that's not what people want to see from me. And I am, but and then I think at first, it's kind of discouraging, because I'm like, Oh, maybe I should give, maybe I should just be doing what people want. But then I actually found a really interesting parallel in the YouTube world, which is like these, like, you know, YouTubers, they like become famous for something, right? They're a niche. And then when they try to, like break out of that niche, like they get backlash, because people are like, Oh, I liked when you did that one thing. Why are you why are you not doing that thing? Why are you doing this new thing? I don't like this new thing. And I've seen like YouTubers taught like, I've just, like, watched some YouTubers talk about it. And I liked what this one person said about how sometimes, like oftentimes, if you just listen to what your audience says they want, you'll never be able to grow. And then at the end of the day, you're the person that understands yourself the most and where you want to go the most and like what direction it is that like makes you the happiest, and just like follow that gut feeling. And, you know, there might be like backlash at the beginning people might not like it, but then hopefully, like if you just stick to what you believe in, then people will kind of like, gather around you for this new thing or this like hybrid thing that you're trying to do. And I found that it's especially encouraging and now loud. Now I'm just trying to be like, I'm going to stop caring about the numbers, which is really hard for me to do as someone that's like a data person, I just like, I just look at numbers so much. But I'm just like trying not to look at the numbers and just trying to think about, like, what is making me happy in what I'm creating, you touched on so many things there surely, but like, evolving, like you, we all need to evolve. And I think like, I think maybe it's ALS, maybe you can think of this too, is like, but artists like you don't want to create the same thing over and over again, you get like, you're passionate about that for a bit. And then you start to pivot, you learn something new, and your style evolves, and things like that. And you that, to me is important. And you're gonna see that naturally happen. And I love that you said that surely about like YouTubers, or someone like you've joined them for this specific channel, but that person doesn't necessarily want to stay in that niche box. They're wanting to, like grow from it. But I also wanted to bring it back to something you had said about the like, only sharing certain things online or, you know, how does that work? Like you have a online presence brand, or persona and then your real life one. And for me, I think that that was something similar is like I'd always been taught, like, don't share everything online. And and I still agree with that. But I also think that I've started to feel as though I want to show up be my authentic self. And so what I say online and what I am as a person, it's like, I want to share that as the same. And there are going to be people who don't don't like it, or are kind of like, Oh, why is he sharing that or whatever. I think I've gotten more comfortable over the years to just not really give a shit, where it's like literally, like, I'm gonna do me, haters gonna hate type Tality. But like, I got to do what I want to do for myself, and it's not I'm gonna make mistakes. And that's okay. I think I had to get comfortable with that. And so I'm literally like, try and have one voice like, the way I show up on here is the same way I show up on Twitter or in a meeting. Like I'm gonna say similar things in like my work life or family life that I would just and open presence. So I really liked that direction. You're headed with that. So I'm kind of curious, like, I went on my little rant there my thinking, like, How does everyone else think of that? Because there are two separate lives. There's a real life and online presence. Yeah, I definitely. I think that's a super good point. Because I feel like I should give a disclaimer that I think what I post online and who I am truly is, I think the same person, it just a much more filtered down version. Because your point I think if it's too different, then that comes off disingenuous of like you're one person online, and then you're like, actually a whole different person. It's a super interesting topic.

Jem Young
Alice, I love you brought that point, because it's something I thought about for a while, especially the past year, I feel with more people stuck at home, the filters have come off. I think we all had some sort of business filter on when we post on social media or content or whatever. And over the past year, that's definitely come off. I've been very similar to the campus use early where I never posted anything controversial and everything about politics. Because I think I was always like, well, let me wait until you know, I'm in a good stable position where I can do that. And then I'm like, You know what, now's as good a time as any. And I'm gonna like post like, yeah, Black Lives Matter. Yeah, I don't agree with the direction of the government. And yeah, I don't agree with these things. And if you don't like it, that's okay. But this is these are some of my thoughts and feelings on it. But so I'll ask everybody, how do you separate your authentic self from your social media self? And can you argue that they are different people, because they're AI as an example, there are people that post outrageous things out loud, like things that are deliberately there to incite people and get them riled up. And this happens in JavaScript to let people post controversial things about tech or opinions just to get people.

Augustus Yuan
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Jem Young
Because it works. We're humans, we're, you know, we're drawn to that dog whistle like what someone said something I disagree with. I gotta respond real quick, but, and then there's people like, oh, no, they're just joking. But like, how do you separate that? Like, how do you ensure your authenticity without being that type of person? And is there even a line? Can you say like, oh, no, Gus is on Twitch. total douchebag like that to me. He cheats cheat so bad, he's a bots like it, but in real life, he's a super nice person, but like, how far can you go? Because you're it's still still you posting? So my overall question is like about authenticity and posting in how authentic Do you be?

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, that's where I go I try and be literally as much the same as I am as much as possible. But I know what you're saying gem is like some people have their online persona and their real life persona and that that can be Different I, for me, it's like I want to just be even keel. And there was even things that I would maybe not share openly or were talking about. But now I'm kind of like, the the walls, it's blurry now. It's just like I try not to worry about that as much. And like I said, some people may not like it, and that's okay. I'm fine with that.

Jem Young
If you pretend to be someone long enough, aren't you that person?

Augustus Yuan
Oh, deep, that's

Shirley Wu
deep.

Jem Young
I told you, I've been thinking about this.

Alice Lee
Yeah, I so another factor that I I want to bring up is also that who we are online, I guess now we're talking about just social media, you know, and online digital promotions. But who we are in that space, is I feel always slightly different from who you are in real life, because the what you put forth in the former is like, it feels to me like more of a choice versus like, when you're just unfiltered and around your, you know, your family or something that's like 24/7, you could be putting an act on, but that's a long act. And like he said, then that's really become and for me, I used to be super unfiltered on social media, just who I was, you know, was truly, it was almost like a mirror reflection, right? Between the two sides. But I did encounter some pretty bad harassment a couple years ago. And that caused me to put up boundaries to protect myself. And so I still, I think, who I am on social media is still reflective of who, who I am, like, you know, in my at my core, like in real life, but it's definitely filtered now. And I think I'm a little bit less vulnerable than I perhaps might be. Think I'm like, my persona is more seems more happy because I don't talk about difficult things as much because I you know, I protect I have that boundary now. And I don't want to get as vulnerable like a place like Twitter or whatever. And it's different for like different places like maybe on Discord. I'm more willing to be like, open and stuff. But yeah, that that that's my answer to your question is, I think I am still myself, it's just like, less way less vulnerable, if that makes sense. And I just have a little bit more of a boundary put up,

Ryan Burgess
though, too, because also your like artwork, if any, like for our listeners, please go look at Alice's artwork, but it's very, like, happy. And so yeah, maybe that's part of your persona towards it. As you're like, I want to focus on being happy to share with that, I don't know if that's like conscious, but like, hear you say that when I think of your artwork, it sparks happiness. Like it really does, like beautiful colors. And like, I don't know, if that's like thoughtful into your own brand for that too.

Alice Lee
Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's intentional, but you're definitely right, in that I, I like to illustrate things that are more positive, I guess. I think even the pieces that I paint, when I'm like sad or angry kind of come off as feeling very, very, like the tiger mural in my studio, I was like, super pissed when I painted that. It's so beautiful. But I think it just ended up being pretty cool looking in general, and, you know, not like, ferociously, like, you know, turning you away, you know, still maybe feels accessible. So, yeah,

Jem Young
Alison, I'm jealous of you. And surely I'm jealous of any artists, I'm not an artist. It's just not out of my brain. But through art, you can be your authentic self. Right? That's, I assume, that's when you're creating the best art is like when you're really, really into it. And I'm so envious of that. Yeah. Because you can always be yourself through your art. Whereas like someone, a poor person with me with no artistic skills, like I'm very relying on the word so that choose, and like having a big lexicon that I can choose from, because like, that's all I have. Whereas YouTube, like you can just put everything you have your thoughts, your feelings into like the work you create, which is really cool.

Alice Lee
Yeah, I mean, sort of tangential to that, but that sparked a thought is, I think, an interesting that kind of talked about this in the past, it's like, the more you put yourself in your work, which is also then your like profession, another like edge that I've come across that I have to sort of negotiate the like balance between is like not taking it as personally when like I am rejected for my work. Because it's I think it's like so it's so much easier to just compartmentalize it when you're like, I don't really care about the work that I made like yep, or, you know what I used to do more like tech branding, like tech illustration branding, where I would make illustration styles for brands and I could feel a very distinct separation between who I am. And like that other brand that I'm making, because it's not me, it's like, you know, it's for that corporation. And I think when, when you, it's like when you the artists are also yourself and that is your brand and that the company is hiring you your brand, it can feel a little bit harder to like, distinguish when they're rejecting you the person as opposed to like you the symbolic role of, you know, brands craft or whatever, because yeah, that's another thing I've been. I've been a little bit about. Yeah,

Ryan Burgess
yeah. i It's funny, because I don't actually feel like I put. So I feel like because a lot of my work is client work. I feel like I don't, you know, inject as much of like myself into it. Although I suppose all of my personal work. That's true. I don't think I've had those experiences. I've gotten rejected a lot. But I don't know if I think particularly about I don't know, if I feel as much about if it's myself and my style that gets rejected. I guess the thing I wanted to kind of highlight that I really like what you've been saying Alice is this concept of boundaries. And I think it's that like, whatever we choose to share online or not choose to share online, I think is like, I don't think there's a right or wrong, I think it's like just this personal boundary of like, what we feel comfortable sharing, because I think there is this, and this is something we can touch on later. But I do feel like there is there is this danger of feeling like, I'm losing a part of myself for sharing, like, like by sharing too much of myself. Because I think, and I think it's that like as a freelancer because we are our own brand. Like what it feels like sometimes whatever I share is something that I'm trying to like trade as a commodity to build up my brand. And that makes me feel like I'm losing a part of myself. And so I think it's, that's I think, also why I'm like pretty protective of what I share, because whatever I share is now out there. And I don't think I have any specific examples of like, it's just this kind of, like vague feeling of sometimes I feel like I'm losing too much of myself by sharing too much. I don't know if this is like something anybody feels. I think a lot of what we're kind of saying is like, where those lines get blurry, it makes a lot of sense. And maybe on another note, too, is like, you know, we're doing a lot of this. And I'd be curious to hear your thoughts all on, like, what benefits has like your personal public brand helped you because like, there are some downsides, which we've touched on. But, you know, there is benefits to it, too. And I'm curious to hear like maybe even examples of things that have been have been beneficial for it.

Alice Lee
Yeah, I mean, also, I think the reason why I've thought so hard about branding, and you know, this public private persona stuff, and these boundaries is because it actually has been a huge force and a huge tool in my career. And I really would not have the career that I've had, I feel like I've made like five lateral shifts in my career, since like, I graduated, right, just moving from like one thing to another. And like, each time getting closer to like what I really love the most, but for example, I mean, I'll just sometimes put things on Twitter, or Instagram or whatever. And that will literally help me launch like the next couple years of my career. It's really crazy. Like, a few years ago, for example, like in 2018, I think I, I was feeling a little burnt out from like tech work. So on nights and weekends, I just started painting this mural in my studio. And it took me like a month because it was just my side project, I would, you know, just stay in the studio a couple hours late few nights a week. And I remember being feeling very scared to post it actually because it felt like much more personal than my other like tech brand work. And it was actually my our studio mate Amy, we Bo who posted a picture of it, like in progress. And then I saw that people were like, you know, encouraging me and then that sparked me to post the full mural, which then led to more mural opportunities and every opportunity that I got after that led to the next one. So and then it's been like, you know, three years of being a muralist and getting to meet so many cool mural artists, street artists, you know, graffiti artists, and so, that is a very specific example of how this sort of self promotion stuff has helped me, like pivot in my career. I would also say like, even at the beginning of my career, like I had nothing I like came from nothing in terms of an art art portfolio. I had the You know, I don't want to, you know, dismiss my minimize, you know, my privilege there. But I had a very thin art portfolio. And the way that I got my job back then as like a earlier member of the design team at Dropbox is, I, like launched this project, that that a lot a couple of the people on the recruiting team saw. So, it's, it's, um, yeah, it's not, it's not a force to be discounted at all, it can be a very powerful tool, if you, if you use it. For me,

Ryan Burgess
what boggles my mind and blows my mind in the most amazing way is this like thought process of, I think, before social media, or I don't, I shouldn't say before social media, like as if I knew what, you know, the working world was like before social media, because I'm of the generation that like, you know, graduated college in the midst of social media. But what I'm trying to say is, if I was to imagine it, it is such a mind blowing thought that we can put out artwork that are just like, we're just put out anything that's authentically ourselves, or, like, put out something that, you know, we feel like, it's things that, you know, corporations might not pay for, like, it might not be like in Alice's examples, like, for Alice, like you did a mural, because it was something that you just really wanted to do, and you were passionate about it. And then people resonated with that, because people had the opportunity to see that. And it wasn't a tech illustration in the sense that like, you know, it wasn't trying to like promote any tech company, it just was, like, just something that you were happy about and to do. And like so many people resonated with that, that you make a career out of it. And there's so many stories of that kind of thing online of like on Tik Tok, or wherever that's like, something that I think traditionally people around this might have been let in have been dismissive of be of being like, Oh, that's not gonna make you money. Like, you can't make a career out of that. But then like, because of social media, because you can reach so many more people. Like, even if you're a small sphere around you are like, oh, like, that's not a career. It's a numbers game of like, as long as if you you can reach like many more people beyond your like small sphere, then there's bound to be people that resonate with your art or your work. And then like, that has, you know, created like, careers that I don't think I could have imagined without social media. And I think that's what's so mind boggling to me of like, things that we would have thought could never be a career is a career, I think surely like you hit it really well is like passion is so important, right? Like, it's now open the doors like you can do what you want to do, and just do it and like getting that exposure is really cool. And it kind of opens Oh, cheers, cheers. Yes. Before we jump into pics, I did, I thought like, one great way to kind of leave everyone with like maybe one small piece of advice about building their purse around or just like something around that, like, how should they think about if they're approaching it, before we hop into pics. So

Jem Young
be authentic. It's, I think what people hate, or what what turns people off is an authenticity. So I think if you're authentic, then you'll never, you'll be true to yourself. And you'll never be like a liar. Which is weird to say. But if you present yourself as this, like I'm a morally upright person, and I'd only do good and shame on all everybody else. And then you get caught doing something really bad, then people distrust you. And trust is really, really, really hard to build up and it's easy to tear down. So I think if you're authentic, then you never run into that scenario. That said, like the big asterisk, like surely said, you had Allyssa, too, you have to have boundaries, and you have to decide what level you're comfortable with sharing people. I have more, but that's enough. Yeah, be authentic.

Augustus Yuan
Okay, I want to just add the kind of like a huge plus one to that. i This is a very common thing that creators on Twitch go through where they stream for a specific game, and then they want to pivot because they don't find a game fun anymore. But they have such a huge following on that game, that they it's like they kind of ask themselves, do I sacrifice a huge part of my community to do what I want to do? And I'll just tell you, like, from what I've seen, you know, not speaking on behalf of creators or anyone just just from observance. Like it's worth it. It's worth it because you're, you're just so much happier. And people can tell like when you're not having fun, right? Like if you're feel like you're forced to play something that you don't want to play or you're forced to do something you don't want to do then people will see it. I think Alice had such a really interesting question about like, when you feel like at odds of like something like you're trying To transition, but you have such a huge brand presence about something like, I felt like, for me in my career, I have such a huge brand presence in front end. But I've actually been trying to transition into like a full stack and learning more back end in my career. And I think the biggest advice that I can give to people is talk to your manager about it, you know, like, work with your manager, and try to find projects on like, how you can start transitioning. And I'll just, like, just straight up, be honest with you, this is like a conversation I've had, it's been pretty tough, but honestly, like, own own what you're good at, like, you're good at front end, own it. And, like, use it as a way to, like, educate people outside of you, like outside of your team outside of your org. And, and then opportunities for you to learn, like back end and stuff will start to show up. But definitely, like work with your like manager on that. So I

Alice Lee
used to be super like, tight. And just like, you know, always looking at the numbers and like super freaked out about you know, promotion and whatever. One thing that really helped shift it for me has been focusing instead on community and treating it like you are just trying to hang out with your friends and like you're sharing your artwork or your project because you think your friends, this, this might bring joy to your friends or, you know, the people who you're in the community with want to support you and trying to see it from that angle, as opposed to like, I just want to build like an audience or whatever. And trying to live it's kind of like what John was saying about, you know, being authentic and like building authentic relationships, I feel as part of that. And then I think it makes it a lot more enjoyable. And then you also get to like, see other people's work and really, you know, try to get to know others as well.

Shirley Wu
I like that

Ryan Burgess
a lot. That's all great advice, and definitely leads us perfectly into pics and each episode of Front End happier podcast, we'd love to share things that we found interesting. Want to share with all of you. Jam, what kind of pics do you have for us this episode?

Jem Young
Oh, going first. Good choice. Good choice. I have two picks for today. The first one is a TV show. It is on Netflix. It's Formula One Drive to survive. Season three just came out, I think a few weeks ago. And I have to say it's so underrated. It is by far the best drama on Netflix. And like I don't say that I don't say that lightly. I think our front end happier regulars know how critical I am of movies, TV show, you know all media generally. But when I say this the best job on Netflix. I don't say that lightly. Okay, so picture, you have the most expensive sport in the world, which is Formula One, each car costs over a million dollars. So every time they wreck it, that's just a million dollars gone, plus the labor that goes into fixing it. Yeah, so you so you have that drama like real, genuine stakes. And you have 22 or 20 of the world's best drivers like the people with the fastest reaction times that are humanly possible. And you put them in these super powered sports cars that can go 200 plus miles an hour. Plus, you have all these owners who are billionaires and just people with big personalities, because obviously they have enough money to fund a Formula One team, then you have the drivers who are like buddies with each other. But they're also competing because they're going to be one one winner. And to stay in Formula One, you have to keep winning. But you're also on a team with somebody so your friends, but not really. And then you have that extended to all the other rivalries across the teams. And then you have people that switch teams all the time, because they switch teams like every couple of years. So you have those rivalries going to. And you take all of that and you say like, Hey, all this beef and all this drama, you settle it on the racetrack on race day, and you don't know what's gonna happen random chance, the best person they win. It could be the worst person wins because it's just random chance sometimes. But it's all this drama and it gets settled on the race day. And then they like a few weeks later, they do it all over again. It's so good. I know God. But if you're talking about like something that get into it with real drama and real stakes, Formula One Drive survive is a great TV show. I highly recommend it. If you're not in the motorsport, it's just it's just good times. My second pick is one, right first I have to ask. We're all adults here. Right? Roll? Yeah, mostly surely, out of hand. Okay, so my next pick is a website it's called, but flog.io. And in the world of connected things, you know, like open API's, things like that. There's a group of people that are trying to get together to set open source standards, standards, and software standards and API's for controlling intimate adult hardware including sex toys. I know. People like Oh, sex toys, we're all adults. Like let's let's not pretend like we're not. But I think historically the sex industry has been marginalized and it's been pushed to like, the bad parts because we Look at that as like, Oh, this is a terrible industry, let's just pretend it doesn't exist. Even though it does we all know, it does it has since the beginning of time. So anything that kind of stops that and brings more attention to that particular area, I think is a good thing in general, for human people, like we're, you know, it's 2021, we can all grow up a little bit. Anyways, it's an open source API for controlling sex toys. I'd love it because they have gone through and they have broken down existing sex toys. There are a lot of companies out there now. And they've broken out their API, so you can reverse engineer them, and do use them as you like. I think it's a really fascinating area of open source that kind of, we just don't think about, I have more on this subject, but I will, as part of my personal brand of being authentic about IO.

Ryan Burgess
pod.io I love it, what it's probably one of the best URLs that we've shared on front end hack error.

Jem Young
If you go into the docs, the maintainer is like, why did you choose like one of the FAQs? Like why did you choose but like that I like you could have chosen, like, open source standards for adult toys or something like that. And he's like, it's funny. And it's memorable. And I like that's that's as good as reason as any. You are not going to forget that one. Exactly. Now, nobody nobody listening to this will forget this.

Ryan Burgess
Augustus. How do you follow Bob plug? No,

Augustus Yuan
no. I don't know if I can follow that. Well, I'll try. I, I had two pigs, but then I had, but then I added a quick third one, so I won't go too much into it. My first pick is this anime called magala box. It's on Netflix. Really, really good anime. It's about a boxer. And, well, I don't want to spoil it. But it's about a boxer. And it's it's pretty sick. So definitely worth checking out. My second pick is Raya and the last dragon if you have not seen this movie, you need to check it out Disney plus, it's probably one of the best Princess Disney princess movies ever. Like. It's just like phenomenal. Like I do not say that lightly, I think goes against all the typical tropes really, really phenomenal movie, great animation, and just like incredible storyline. And then my final pick is this YouTube video called summit one G quit fortnight and everything changed. And this essentially goes into what I was talking about how a lot of streamers and creators, they go through this huge struggle of like, choosing between should I stream category of like, what my community wants me to watch, versus doing what I want. And this like is a it's a, it's like a fan made video fan made YouTube video of this very popular streamer called summit one G he fortnight blew up on on Twitch, and he felt kind of forced to stream this category for a long time. And he absolutely hated it. And it kind of talks about how his struggle and then how he transitioned to like a very no name game, and then it like, and he like was able to build a huge following from it. So definitely worth checking out.

Ryan Burgess
Very cool. Surely what do you have for us? Oh, yeah, I have three things. We had enough time between this and the last recording that I've I've gotten some pics again. So the first one I have is I feel like I've plugged so many of Alice's things and work before. But I wanted to do like another thing again. And so I am going to plug Alice's Asian Art Museum mural. And it is so good. And so this is a mural that was outside of the Asian Art Museum in SF and also across the city hall for about I think, was it a month and a half?

Alice Lee
Oh, it was for six months six,

Ryan Burgess
oh my god. Sorry. I was out of the city for most of that. So I couldn't go see it. But I love the concept behind it, which was kind of like it was to bring the community together. It's a beautiful mural, but also it has a very interactive component to it, which is that community members can go up and answer a very specific question. And the question was together, let's be blank, right? I really like that. It's a crowdsource guide for everyday heroes. So I don't know why I'm trying to describe Alice's project anymore if you want to kind of like add in anything else?

Alice Lee
Oh, yeah, it was. So every month there was a different theme. And the themes corresponded to like the hero's journey. So it'd be like together, let's be brave. And then you would write how you plan to show up and be brave or like, together, let's be patient, and you would write it on a sticker and the sticker would correspond to someplace on the mural like it was color coordinated. So when you look at it from afar, you see the mural and then when you look at it up close, you see like like hundreds, if not 1000s of like responses. And they were so profound. I mean, some of them were like, you know, I'm going to go eat Chipotle or whatever. But then some of them were like, I'm going to like propose, like, you know, I'm going to ask for that promotion or, you know, and it was, it was really beautiful. So,

Ryan Burgess
yeah, I am, I got to see the making of this mural, because Alice was like, just painting it for like weeks, or what felt like weeks. And I never got to see it in person, because I think I was in New York for those six months. Yeah. But you helped me paint it. So yeah, I did a few brush strokes. So that's my first pick. And the second one I have is kind of within the area of branding and self promotion, which is I mentioned a YouTube channel called accented cinema before. And they they kind of concentrate on doing video essays for foreign cinema. I'm most frequently like Chinese cinema. And I wanted to plug a specific video, because I think I've been trying to share more things about Chinese culture and Asian culture on this podcast, because of, there's just so much anti Asian hate going on in the country right now. And I'm just want to share whatever it is that I can to be like, humans, we're all humans. And this particular video is called Chinese animation in search of a style. And it's a really well done essay, video essay. And I think at the core of it, it's talking about, it kind of like looks at Chinese animations like journey, which I didn't even really think about the fact that Chinese animation exists. And it kind of talks about how it's like sandwiched between two giants of Hollywood and like Japanese animation, like jibley Studios, and, and then how in the last decade, it feels like it's like really found its own voice. And I really, really liked this video, so please check it out. If you're kind of interested. Um, some very beautiful animations and imagery. The last one, I'm so obsessed is Wanda vision, which we watched last week, binge day in two nights and then watch the finale on like, a third night. Oh, my God, one division is it's it's about Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And I don't think I should say anything more, because anything more I feel like would spoil the whole thing. And that's my three picks. out this, what do you have for us?

Alice Lee
Yeah, so my first pick, and sorry if this comes off a little self promoting actually, in the theme,

Ryan Burgess
we are talking.

Alice Lee
First pick is, but it's really helped me it's a community that me and my friend Amy, we both started called Creative cuties. It's a Discord server, for creative makers who love cute things. So we have channels for like, doodling creative coding hacking surely has a data channel in there. And I also really want to highlight it because this past week has been pretty challenging, especially with the, you know, current events with the attacks on Asian Americans in the US. And so it's been a really nice like corner of the internet where I feel like we've just gotten to be very open and honest about our experiences. I think there's there's, I believe the majority of the members in the discord are identify as, you know, women so and then I think a lot of people are also like Asian American. So it's been a really nice quarter of the Internet to just get to like, share with with other friends. And also it's just been very uninspiring place overall. And then my second pick is a TV show. It's not the I think Jen described his show is like a cinematic the best drama on TV. So mine is definitely not it's like reality show. But it's one of the longest running reality shows on television. It's survivor Yes.

Ryan Burgess
Oh, I was I was gonna get survivor or Big Brother I can never remember what

Alice Lee
Yeah, yeah, I really obsessed with survivor if you're like listening to this, and also are like, legitimately very into survivor, like, please contact me because I don't have enough friends who are into survivor the level that I am like, it's the perfect show to watch during quarantine because there's like, 40 seasons, so I'm on like, season 17 You know, you can skip the you know, challenges are a little repetitive. But, you know, I think I feel like this show has taught me a lot about what not to do and what to do you know, how to, how to like, communicate well with others, how not to communicate well. Yeah, it's a very fascinating show. about social dynamics and perception and self perception, which I feel kind of ties into this promotion theme as well. So yeah,

Ryan Burgess
that's a great one. I like it. I have just one pick a book that I've been reading better allies by Karen Catlin such a good book on just like how to show up as a better ally for your peers. And just like just a really put you in that mindset. I believe I've picked the better allies newsletter in past episodes. If I haven't before, you should go subscribe to that, because it's every Friday. It's just like really short little snippets five snippets that you can do to show up and be a better ally for folks is so good. i The book is great. She's amazing. So I thought that would be a good pick to share before we end the episode. Alice, thank you so much for joining us. It was amazing. Sharing all all the great knowledge and you know, to end well his personal brand. Where can people get in touch with you? What where can they find you?

Alice Lee
Oh, thanks for asking. I'm by Alice Lee le e on the internet. So by Alice Lee on Twitter, Instagram. Bio asli.com Is my URL. And we didn't get a chance to talk about this. But I've also been thinking about like, having a studio name. That's not my name, but that's a different

Ryan Burgess
Can we all like give suggestions on this name? Yeah, totally fun, too. Yes, I like that. That's very cool. All right. Well, thank you all for listening to front end happy hour. You can find us at front end happy hour.com or on Twitter at front end H H or on Instagram at @frontendhh. Subscribe to us on whatever you like to listen to podcasts on. And any last words.

Shirley Wu
Yes, that's self promotion just now.

All
Exposure exposure exposure