the diary of a failed influencer

📥 sign up for my newsletter: https://cecexie.substack.com/ 🫶 follow me on IG: https://www.instagram.com/cecexie/ 🎙️ SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Wkb44PEYlsB9AGEbeedx5 🎙️ APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/currently-workshopping/id1648555789 It's the last day of 2022 and the last episode of Season 1! It's only fitting that we're coming full circle to reflect on how quitting a 9-5 to become an influencer is going--or more accurately, how quitting my 10-10 to become a writer (and almost necessarily by extension, a content creator) is going. To be honest, I'm pretty lost, which is why I spent a few hours this week researching three artists to see how they handled the art vs. money issue, AKA selling out. Did Kurt Cobain really mean it when he said that there's more to life than living out your rock & roll identity? Why did Jonathan Franzen have to write a personal letter of apology to Oprah after his novel was selected as an Oprah's Book Club pick? Did Gaby Dunn ever get rich, or did they die vlogging? [timestamps] 0:00 - intro 1:51 - kurt cobain 11:10 - the pain of unintentionally selling out 13:21 - jonathan franzen 17:10 - gaby dunn 20:39 - degrees of selling out [references] https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/26/why-is-selling-out-ok-now https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/nirvana-inside-the-heart-and-mind-of-kurt-cobain-103770/ https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/my-time-with-kurt-cobain https://slate.com/culture/2013/08/jonathan-franzens-the-corrections-and-oprah-winfreys-book-club.html https://splinternews.com/get-rich-or-die-vlogging-the-sad-economics-of-internet-1793853578 https://www.gabydunn.com/about https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21538544/kim-kardashian-private-island-birthday-twitter-tahiti 🖥️ join my discord: https://discord.gg/vFTnphbrzA 🚨 share your biglaw horror and non-horror stories with me: https://cecexie.com/your-biglaw-story ✍️ submit a question to ask cece: https://cecexie.com/ask-cece 💕 f o l l o w m e 💞 @cecexie everywhere instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cecexie/ tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cecexie twitter: https://twitter.com/cecexie website: https://www.cecexie.com 🎶 m u s i c 🎵 all music courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/UeKSDO0gWF/ ❓ F A Q s ❓ how old are you? 31 ('91 baby) which schools did you go to? yale (undergrad) and harvard (law school) what did you major in? economics what was your gpa and lsat score? 3.86/176 what sign/MBTI/enneagram are you? aries, ENFJ, 3w4 are you sure you're not a virgo? no part of my star chart is virgo or an earth sign, i swear