Podcast appearances and mentions of Phillip Picardi

Environmental activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez (Xochimilco), L.A. LGBT Center communications officer and former editor-in-chief of Out magazine Phillip Picardi, and “On Being” founder, executive producer, and host Krista Tippett visit Zócalo to discuss how society might draw strength and coax vision from the shortcomings and failures of its collective past, moderated by University of Pennsylvania historian and author of Hattiesburg, William Sturkey. Featuring a special live performance by the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arktet. This is the final program in Zócalo's series, “How Should Societies Remember Their Sins?,” supported by The Mellon Foundation. Find all essays and previous programs in the series here: https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/feature/societies-sins-mellon/ Follow Zócalo: X: https://twitter.com/thepublicsquare Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepublicsquare/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/z-calo-public-square

When you think about it - influencers have changed the face of media over the last decade with the rise of social media. Elementary school kids now aspire to be “instafamous” as the new traditional career path…but there's a vibe shift coming….or it could actually already be happening? So how will influencers evolve as media (social and all) evolves? Will they lead the way or follow? Pam and Phill will investigate with this riveting conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you think about it - influencers have changed the face of media over the last decade with the rise of social media. Elementary school kids now aspire to be “instafamous” as the new traditional career path…but there's a vibe shift coming….or it could actually already be happening? So how will influencers evolve as media (social and all) evolves? Will they lead the way or follow? Pam and Phill will investigate with this riveting conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the shadow of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, what do hope and faith mean? In this bonus episode, host Brittany Packnett Cunningham joins journalist Phillip Picardi, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, and Jamie L. Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, to talk about religion, and the revolution ahead. This conversation originally aired on Twitter—follow us @TheMeteor for more.If you can, please support abortion funds at: https://abortionfunds.org, check in with your local abortion fund, or support a fund in the trigger states: https://wearethemeteor.com/people-are-trying-to-get-abortions-today/We're following organizations like We Testify (https://www.wetestify.org) and I Need An A (https://www.ineedana.com/) to stay connected, and to stay in the fight. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the shadow of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, what do hope and faith mean? In this bonus episode, host Brittany Packnett Cunningham joins journalist Phillip Picardi, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, and Jamie L. Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, to talk about religion, and the revolution ahead. This conversation originally aired on Twitter—follow us @TheMeteor for more. If you can, please support abortion funds at: https://abortionfunds.org, check in with your local abortion fund, or support a fund in the trigger states: https://wearethemeteor.com/people-are-trying-to-get-abortions-today/ We're following organizations like We Testify (https://www.wetestify.org) and I Need An A (https://www.ineedana.com/) to stay connected, and to stay in the fight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Phillip Picardi is known in part for his work as an award-winning journalist and editor. He rebranded Teen Vogue (where he became the chief content officer at age twenty-six) and he launched and founded Them, a community-driven platform for LGBTQ+ youth. After years of working in journalism, Picardi decided to go back to school—Harvard Divinity School, where he just received his master's degree in religion and public life. In this episode, GP and Picardi talk about why he decided to re-examine his relationship to Christianity, the duality between his identity and his faith, and what galvanizes his beliefs today. They end with a game: Picardi puts GP to the test with Pride Month trivia questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Samantha Bee sits down with Phillip Picardi, former Chief Content Officer of Teen Vogue and current host of "Unholier Than Thou" on Crooked Media to talk about understanding teens, Hot Jesus, and how voting is the least we can do--not the most. 

Josh Rivers, creator and host of the podcast Busy Being Black, speaks to journalist Phillip Picardi (formerly CCO at Teen Vogue and founder of .them), fashion designer Charles Jeffrey, and gender non-conforming musician James Potter from the Scottish band Walt Disco about their personal experiences with faith and identity; how they fell in love with fashion; and how individual actions can lead to collective change. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Annie and Nick talk with former beauty editor and current host of the podcast Unholier Than Thou Phillip Picardi about a controversy in the skincare community surrounding Krave Beauty and the chosen church of its influencer-founder, Liah Yoo.Plus, Annie and Nick discuss electrolyte drinks, The Carlyle Group, and more.

Phillip Picardi shares how he found his voice reinventing the editorial mission of Teen Vogue as an advocate for often overlooked groups. This talk was filmed at TEDxTeen. All TEDx events are organized independently by volunteers in the spirit of TED's mission of ideas worth spreading. To learn more about TEDxSHORTS, the TEDx program, or give feedback on this episode, please visit http://go.ted.com/tedxshorts. Follow TEDx on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TEDx Follow TEDx on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tedx_official Like TEDx on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TEDxEvents

Another 5 million people cast ballots yesterday, bringing the vote total to over 80 million so far. We explain two recent Supreme Court decisions over voting rights in Pennsylvania and North Carolina… and what they could mean for the post-election count. The GDP went up by 7.4 percent in the third quarter, but the economy is still 3.5 percent smaller than it was pre-pandemic. Plus, we check in on the chances for a new relief bill after the election. And in headlines: Trump HHS can’t find one celebrity to make a PSA with, Jerry Falwell Jr. sues Liberty University, and Taiwan hasn’t had a domestic COVID case for 200 days. Plus, Phillip Picardi joins us as a special guest! Show Links: Listen to Phillip's show "Unholier Than Thou" https://crooked.com/podcast-series/unholier-than-thou/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Phillip Picardi, host of the “Unholier Than Thou” podcast from Crooked Media, drops by to talk God, religion, the difference between ‘em, the importance of allyship and Christina Aguilera, Teen Vogue, and a thousand other things. Plus... get ready... we have a winner in our Vocabulary Contest! GUEST Phillip Picardi Host of the Unholier Than Thou podcast from Crooked Media Journalist and Editor https://crooked.com/podcast-series/unholier-than-thou  HOUSE BAND Harry Orlove Jazz Guitar Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Influential editor, podcast host, and writer Phillip Picardi started out as a beauty editor, and this conversation is a fascinating look at many of the questions he raises around beauty. He challenges us to think about things like the difference between harping on insecurity for profit and trying to solve legitimate beauty problems and to consider how our perceptions of beauty might be intertwined with racism. At the same time, he gives us all steps to take to help make the world a better place—listen in for a thought-provoking, action-inspiring conversation that ranges from career and beauty tips to religion, queer and trans rights, race, and more. (For more, see The Beauty Closet hub.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Digital-media darling, Phillip Picardi, joins us to share his spiritual journey from growing up in a Catholic home to starting his podcast “Unholier Than Thou.” Phil shares the important role media played in his own coming out and how he now works to ensure more positive queer representation in the media. We talk privilege and the process of starting “them” at "Teen Vogue" and how Anna Wintour championed for him. “Unholier Than Thou” is now available on Crooked Media : https://crooked.com/podcast-series/unholier-than-thou/  To follow Phillip Picardi: https://www.instagram.com/pfpicardi/?hl=en  Don't forget to sink your teeth into: www.theforbiddenapplepodcast.com  

Gaby and Allison give advice to a listener who wants to set boundaries around her boyfriend's friendship with a girl who tried to sabotage their relationship. (YIKES!) They then speak to journalist Phillip Picardi about his new religion podcast, Unholier Than Thou, being queer and spiritual and how his relationship to God has changed over the years. Lastly, QAnon! What the actual fuck?!  Listen to Just Between Us Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW JUST BETWEEN US: https://www.instagram.com/jbupodcast JUST BETWEEN US IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST: https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/just-between-us/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gaby and Allison give advice to a listener who wants to set boundaries around her boyfriend’s friendship with a girl who tried to sabotage their relationship. (YIKES!) They then speak to journalist Phillip Picardi about his new religion podcast, Unholier Than Thou, being queer and spiritual and how his relationship to God has changed over the years. Lastly, QAnon! What the actual fuck?!   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the third annual Ira and Louis Variety Hour, they discuss the socially distanced VMA ceremony, Adele's Bantu knots, Club Future Nostalgia, the NBA strike, unfollowing Shaun King, and the shocking loss of Chadwick Boseman. Plus, a conversation about finding faith as queer people with Phillip Picardi, host of the new Crooked Media podcast Unholier Than Thou. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A little over 12 years ago, photographer Scott Schuman, also known as The Sartorialist, camped outside Milan’s Spring 2007 menswear shows to photograph attendees. Schuman’s pictures, a luxury-focused interpretation of “street style” photography, were published on the now defunct website Men.Style.com. The incredible response the images received from viewers and the thousands of amateur bloggers who reposted them on Tumblr led to a major shift in the fashion industry, birthing a generation of creators who built their careers around street style. It also helped lift the veil of an otherwise closely guarded industry, turning previously unknown editors, buyers, and socialites into public figures. Today, street style photography is more than just a sub-genre — it's a lucrative business. Dozens of photographers gather outside fashion shows to capture images of attendees for major publications. At the peak of its popularity, some in-demand photographers were earning up to $20,000 in one month. The magazines, in turn, receive significant advertising revenue from the web traffic the pictures generate. And the stars who appear in the photographs could leverage their exposure to develop partnerships with brands that want to increase their visibility or hype around their shows. But with the COVID-19 pandemic limiting the number of in-person runway shows and causing many cities around the world to cancel their fashion weeks altogether, industry experts believe the high-end street style world that Schuman helped birth is ready for a major evolution. The sudden break in the fashion calendar, increased financial pressures, and a changing social climate have made it necessary for companies, photographers, and influencers to reevaluate their relationships with the genre. Even prior to COVID-19, many insiders recognized a flaw in how the cycle operated. “I think it had hit a fevered pitch,” says The Yes creative director and street style fixture Taylor Tomasi-Hill. “It was an echo chamber of people who weren’t necessarily being original or showing authentic style.” Authenticity and innovation is what Tomasi-Hill is known for. When street style was still in its infancy, she was among a group of Teen Vogue editors who made colorful and bold statements with their Fashion Week wardrobes, while other editors at the time strictly wore black. Over time, Tomasi-Hill believes that commitment to personal style became compromised: “There were too many people taking money or clothes from brands to promote themselves as influencers without being true to what they actually loved.” According to Vogue photographer Phil Oh, the budding influencer-brand-relationship put a strain on the creativity exhibited at fashion weeks. “Street style at fashion weeks became less about actual personal style and more about marketing brands’ upcoming collections — which I suppose is the main function of fashion shows, after all, but that made street style feel a bit more manufactured,” he says. “It is maybe less relevant for the viewer at home, but probably more important for the brands’ bottom lines.” With a renewed focus on personal style, Tomasi-Hill believes influencers can reclaim their relevance. “They’ve had time to reset and strategize on what’s important and forge meaningful relationships with brands that they believe in,” she says. “Truly original style makers will continue to thrive, and I can’t wait to see that creativity continue to unfold.” The societal shift that has occurred during the pandemic, particularly in relation to race- and class-based disparities, may also encourage companies and photographers to evaluate who the real “stars” of street style are. “I think street style will be more focused on people with style and not how much money they have,” says veteran photographer Seleen Saleh. “I have always looked for people I thought were interesting to me. I will continue to do so. My focus has always been and will always be highlighting Black creatives of the diaspora." Based on the industry’s current desire to deliver more inclusive content, the number of Black people featured in front of and behind the camera may see a significant increase. “We may also see a lot more inclusivity within street style galleries and in the way people are represented post-pandemic,” says photographer Darrel Hunter, who was one of the first to publish inclusive street style at Teen Vogue in collaboration with then-editors Phillip Picardi and Jessica Andrews. (Andrews is now Bustle's Deputy Fashion Editor.) “During the pandemic we had brands and publications now waking up and suddenly taking an interest in inclusivity and diversity and scrambling for all of the diverse content that they can find," adds Hunter. "Hopefully this isn’t just a trend, and this isn’t something that people are trying to do in the moment to pacify their readers and be seen as inclusive.” Change is already underway at Copenhagen Fashion Week. Hunter attended, photographing various street style subjects including Ellie Delphine and Lois Opoku. Notably, there seemed to be more diversity and fewer sponsored brand moments, perhaps signaling a shift toward inclusivity and a return to personal style. The fashion industry’s current financial crisis, which could alter the number and scale of lavish runway shows, may also impact street style. “If shows stop happening or the format changes, then fashion week as we know it may not exist,” says Hearst Magazines staff photographer Tyler Joe. “Maybe designers decide to condense four seasons into two and combine both men's and women's shows in remote locations to allocate their money more efficiently, thus creating a more meaningful experience for the viewer.” Cutting down on fashion week budgets may also alleviate some of the financial stress photographers face when traveling to cover shows. “Street style photographers already spend a lot of their own money traveling to four different cities around the world to do their job,” he says. “If these shows are no longer happening back to back in the same locations, then it doesn't make financial sense for the photographers. The brands might pay for the editors and influencers to go, but not the photographers.” Street style veteran Tamu McPherson, who started behind the camera and now is one of the industry’s most photographed subjects, says fans are looking beyond Fashion Week for street style imagery. As evidence of the genre’s enduring impact, she points to the fact that brands and bloggers now produce street style-inspired shoots on their own. “Street style is now a strong and effective medium for communicating style and promoting product,” she says. “As proof of its influence, brands direct influencers to shoot sponsored content respecting the street style aesthetic.” On Instagram, influencers like McPherson regularly post street style-inspired photos that aren’t necessarily captured at Fashion Week. No matter the future of runway shows, “one thing for sure is that influencers will continue to produce personal street style images for our inspiration,” she says. The fashion industry as a whole continues to go through an internal reckoning that may permanently change the way the industry operates. Street style as a creative genre hasn't been exempt from this internal audit. In fact, it may have needed this time to reevaluate more than any other part of the business. But as the world struggles to contain the spread of coronavirus, the future of street style — and Fashion Week as a whole — is still largely uncertain. “There is no way to tell what will happen post COVID-19,” McPherson adds. “The street style coming out of Copenhagen Fashion Week looked great. However, cases of the virus are rising around Europe and may impact Milan and Paris fashion weeks, pushing out the next opportunity for Fashion Week related content to February,” she says. “It’s hard to know what the world will look like then.”

Journalist Phillip Picardi sits down with Cameron to discuss his fiance who has been working in the ER, what he learned about tokenization in media, and his new podcast Unholier Than Thou.

A pee pee protest, UFOs are real?! and diving deep into stormy summer weather. After that, we have journalist, and media mogul Phillip Picardi (Teen Vogue, OUT Magazine) to talk about working with Anna Wintour, having dinner with Whoopi Goldberg, and finding religion in his new podcast "Unholier Than Thou." For Do Better White People, we're talking about the surge in hate crimes and harassment against Asian-Americans. There's a new campaign from Advertising Council and Alan Yang with the tagline "Fight The Virus, Fight The Bias," and you can read more about it in the New York Times. This week, Bari watched an episode of the Ken Burns documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea on PBS and Matt watched HBO's I'll Be Gone In The Dark and Moonstruck (arguably one of the greatest movies of all time). You can follow Bari @finkelbaripie, Matt @MattBellassai, and Unhappy Hour @UnhappyHourPod.

Phillip Picardi is the former editor in chief of Out Magazine, CCO of Teen Vogue, founder of Them Magazine, and currently hosts his new podcast Unholier Than Thou, and is a contributor for GQ. We chat about moving to LA, apple watches, the Kardashians, loving ourselves, body dysmorphia, Pride, Adrian Brody, our love of Charlize Theron, masturbation, Phil’s podcast, The Apocalypse, Phil’s father, coming out, plus how and why we need to help Black trans people now more than ever. twitter.com/pfpicardi twitter.com/donetodeath twitter.com/themjeans --- This episode is sponsored by · Ever With Jaleel White Show Promotion: In his debut podcast Ever After, Jaleel White most famous for his portrayal of the irksome 90’s uber-nerd Steve Urkel, on ABC’s smash hit Family Matters, deconstructs child stardom with rare insight and empathy https://open.spotify.com/show/505LmqAFfiFIcVVQ1VF7RX?si=8BVv4gsdS3KnJvFNPD27JA --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/howlonggone/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/howlonggone/support

Subscribe to Crooked's new podcast, Unholier Than Thou: apple.co/unholierthanthou - first two episodes available today. Award-winning journalist and editor Phillip Picardi is on a quest to better understand his relationship with spirituality by learning how faith plays a role in other people’s lives in Crooked Media’s new podcast, Unholier Than Thou. With the help of the spiritual, religious, and agnostic, he’ll guide listeners through the ethereal and worldly problems of the day, informed by his own on-and-off relationship with God. Through lenses both saintly and secular, Picardi will take a look at everything from sex to climate change, and how religion informs those discussions. New episodes every Friday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Award-winning journalist and editor Phillip Picardi is on a quest to better understand his relationship with spirituality by learning how faith plays a role in other people’s lives in Crooked Media’s new podcast, Unholier Than Thou. With the help of the spiritual, religious, and agnostic, he’ll guide listeners through the ethereal and worldly problems of the day, informed by his own on-and-off relationship with God.  Through lenses both saintly and secular, Picardi will take a look at everything from sex to climate change, and how religion informs those discussions. New episodes every Friday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Phillip Picardi (Out Magazine, Them) opens up about being a triple fire sign, his Saturn return, and navigating the complexities of religion in the modern world. Support the show on Patreon for monthly forecasts, horoscopes, bonus episodes, Q&A videos, and more! http://patreon.com/badastro Instagram & Twitter: @badastrologers Email: badastrologers@gmail.com

In this episode of How To Slay Kendra Bracken-Ferguson, Founder and CEO at Braintrust talks to Constance about the importance of social media strategies and story telling to help your brand grow and how she became a leader in the field by taking her ideas into action. Listen to her story and learn How to Slay!

Darlene Gillard, founder of Digitalundivided, talks to Constance White about the state of women in black entrepreneurship and how at some point black women were only able to raise on average 36,000 dollars for their companies, whereas tech companies that were started by white males that were failed companies raised over a million dollars. But what did Darlene do to help this situation and create a positive change for black and Latino women? Find out in this episode of How to Slay!

Is there a one guiding principle in the life of a woman regarding her career, balancing it, and being successful at it? What are the pieces that a woman should always have in her closet? Listen to Nikki Ogunnaike's advice! She is Elle Magazine's Style Director who also talks to Constance about why she thinks the modern woman knows that she can care about fashion and beauty while at the same time caring about what's going on in the greater world. It is okay to have that mix.

Erica Huss, Entrepreneur, Health & Wellness enthusiast and Co-founder of Blue Print Cleanse talks to Constance about her journey and adventure being an entrepreneur, the challenges she had to face, and how women can find the environment in which they feel they can thrive. Join us in this fun conversation!

What are the perfect couple skillsets to make a business work with your partner? What are the challenges that have to be overcome? Niki & Shaokao Cheng owners of Calligaris, a high-end retail furniture brand, talk to Constance about how they have made it possible to grow their business while at the same time bonding and growing as a couple. They also discuss the joys and strengths of working with your spouse. A lot of laughter is to be expected in this episode of How to Slay!

In this episode of How to Slay, Channing Hargrove, Fashion Writer at Refinery 29 and Louis Johnson, Image Maker & Trend Specialist at Harlem Haberdashery talk to Constance about the racist eruptions that are happening in fashion and what it means for our society.

In this episode of How to Slay Agnes Cammock Former Fashion Director, Trend Forecaster, Stylist & Consultant talks to Constance about why a strong diversity and inclusion strategy is necessary to attract top talent and drive innovative results in the fashion world! What have big leaders of the fashion world done to succeed? She also tells us how to launch a Diversity and Inclusion initiative that works!

Kelly Cutrone, CEO & Publicist for People’s Revolution has a fun and insightful conversation with Constance about her most deep beliefs about what really is important to her. She also talks about how she overcame every single barrier life presented her. She never really wanted to be famous, her main goal was to raise money and help people, because she had been through what the people in her life need to go through. Minorities, especially women are the groups she is most interested in helping - breaking down the societal rules regarding acceptable behavior has been one of her main goals. She was determined to make a difference, so she did. But how did this make her one of the most important publicists and women within the entertainment business? Find out in this episode of How To Slay!

Carly Cushnie, CEO and Creative Director of Cushnie, talks to Constance in this episode of How to Slay about how she started her career in fashion, how she built her fashion business, how she uses her business to empower women and more specifically women of color, as well as how all of this has taken her to improve diversity and inclusion within the fashion industry.Cushnie is a luxury women's wear and accessories brand. It is one of the most exciting brands out there for women!

In this episode of How to Slay, listen to Lorine Pendleton, Angel Investor and her advices on how to invest but also how to find the correct funding for your business initiative. She knows minorities go through the biggest struggle when it comes to finding someone to believe in your project, and here she tells you exactly how to fix that.

It’s well known that empowered women empower women, and this episode proves this statement to be true! Listen to Chief diversity officer for Macy’s, Shawn Outler in this fun conversation about her initiatives to help diversity in businesses and empower women, how to add value to companies and what is the right perspective to think about your business to increase growth and success.

Femme Power are the two words that describe Nicole Cokely, Vice-President at Bloomingdales. But how can other women build a career without being road killed while trying to move up the corporate ladder? Listen to hear tips and tricks in the insightful conversation she has with Constance in this episode!

Are you a free spirit? Editor in Chief of Out Magazine, Phillip Picardi, says he has never been a free spirit! But what experiences shaped him into the amazing leader he is today at just 28 years old? Fashion Director of Out Magazine, Yashua Simmons, also talks about his experiences in the fashion industry and what it’s like to work at the iconic Out magazine. Find out in this episode of How to Slay!

Phillip Picardi joins Nancy to talk about his first job at McDonald's, his recent job as Anna Wintour's protégé, and his new job as editor-in-chief of Out Magazine. — Phillip Picardi is the editor-in-chief at Out Magazine. He previously served as chief content officer at Teen Vogue and them. — Phillip's response to the Women's Wear Daily article can be found on Twitter. Music in this episode by Jeremy Bloom, Alex Overington, BoxCat Game  ("Mt Fox Shop"), and Drake Stafford ("Matte Black"). Theme by Alexander Overington. Support our work! Become a Nancy member today at nancypodcast.org/donate.

Welcome to the periodcast! Yep, today’s show is all about menstruation—the good, the bad, and the get me a frickin’ heating pad already. So grab your period product of choice, and join us as we get comfortable talking about the politics of periods, what it’s like to talk about your cycle at work, and why we refuse to keep quiet about this super normal bodily function. Our guest is Nadya Okamoto, executive director of PERIOD, a nonprofit she founded in high school that’s dedicated to turning menstrual care from a taboo topic into a basic right. She’s also the author of the new book Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement, which comes out October 16. > Eighty percent of our congressional positions are held by men. And if people in power continue to be afraid to talk about periods and do not acknowledge it as an actual need, then where it counts, periods will continue to go unaddressed. So that’s why we need people who don’t menstruate and people who identify as men to be involved. > > — Nadya Okamoto , founder, PERIOD & author, Period Power We chat with Nadya about: How experiencing housing instability as a teen led her to see what happens when people can’t afford period products Why PERIOD is on a mission to make periods something we celebrate, not hide Why she ran for Cambridge City Council at the age of 19—and what she learned in the process What it’s like to be running (and scaling) an international nonprofit at the age of 20 Links on bloody links PERIOD Nadya’s Instagram On Nadya’s city council run Pre-order for Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement Also on the agenda: Bringing up menstruation on stage Monster post-pregnancy periods The unbearable gender-normativity of way too many period-tracking apps The magical properties of heating pads Stop calling us “girls” already And finally: if you’re eligible to vote in the U.S., time to check your registration—your state’s deadline might be coming up in the next couple weeks, and you don’t want to miss all the awesome women you could be voting for in the midterms this year. Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers for more. Harvest, makers of awesome software to help you track your time, manage your projects, and get paid. Try it free, then use code NOYOUGO to get 50% off your first paid month. Transcript [Ad spot]   Sara Wachter-Boettcher This season of No, You Go is sponsored by Harvest—my favorite tool for tracking time, projects and payments. Today I used Harvest to send a couple invoice reminders and to run a quick report on year-to-date payments. It only took two minutes and now I feel totally on top of things, or at least on top of that one thing. Try it for yourself at getharvest.com and if you like it, make sure to enter the code NOYOUGO when you upgrade to a paid account. That will get you 50% off your first month. That’s getharvest.com, code NOYOUGO. [intro music plays for 12 seconds] Jenn Lukas Hey, welcome to No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. I’m Jenn Lukas. Katel LeDû I’m Katel LeDû. SWB And I’m Sara Wachter-Boettcher. And today’s show is all about periods. Not the ones at the end of a sentence—although I do really like to talk about punctuation—today we’re talking about menstruation. And it’s one of those super normal things that we just don’t talk about enough. We are joined today by someone who is working to change that. She is Nadya Okamoto and she’s the founder and executive director of Period—a non-profit she started with a friend in high school that is dedicated to turning menstrual care from a taboo topic into a basic right. She is awesome! And I have to say, I freaking love talking about periods. I seriously bring them up in almost every conference talk I give, which means I bring them up a couple times a month. KL That’s so awesome, and I have to personally say I’ve seen you do it twice recently and I’m [laughs] so excited you’re doing that. SWB Yeah, so I remember the first time I did it, I was actually really nervous about it. It was 2015 and at the time I wanted to talk about things like bias in tech products. And I realized that period tracking apps are a really great way to do that because there’s so many assumptions about gender and sexuality in them around things like pink and hearts and flowers, but also things like assumptions that you must be using this app because you’re trying to get pregnant or trying not to get pregnant. And so I decided it was important to talk about this on stage, both because I thought it was a good example and because I was just like, “people have periods, we should talk about them! ” And so after that talk—I will tell you—people loved it. People came up to me, tons of people—definitely mostly women—and they told me that it was so powerful to hear me up on a stage just acknowledging periods as something that exist like it was a totally normal thing because they felt like that wasn’t something they had been allowed to talk about. And I was just like “fuck it, I’m talking about periods every time I get on stage now!” [SWB and JL laugh] JL Yeah, I mean I knew about period tracking apps, but I never really used one until I heard it in one of your talks and then I was like “oh.” And then I actually started using it when I was trying to get pregnant again. And also after you have a baby, your period is so irregular, so I was also just trying to have any semblance [laughs] of like what my body was trying to do. So I started using one regularly and it just was really helpful. And I mean I do have to admit, I really, really love not having my period right now, [SWB laughs] but of course that’s really going to come back to haunt me after I give birth and I bleed for possibly up to six weeks, which is really pleasant let me tell you. KL Oh yeah, that just does not seem like the appropriate treat [Jenn laughs] after having given birth. JL People don’t really talk about that part. KL Yeah. JL It’s like you skip a period for nine months and then it’s like [laughing] “hey! remember me?” KL Your body’s like, “hey, what’s up!” [laughs] JL [laughing] Yeah! SWB It just sounds so tiresome because you’re already exhausted, you have a newborn and then when you’re on your period, you’re losing all that iron, that just wears you out all by itself. And so the combo sounds deadly. JL Yeah. KL Seriously. I tried a period tracking app for a little while because a couple years ago, I wound up being off the pill for a little bit. But when I went off the pill at that point, I realized that it was the first time in twenty years that I’d been off the pill. And when I started having a natural period—which was all over the place and hence the period tracking app—I felt kind of sad because I was like “oh.” Like I haven’t really understood what my body is doing for this whole time, so it was kind of cool to get back in touch with that, but I also felt lots of feelings about it. JL I had started the pill really early because I had really irregular periods so before sexual activity or anything like that. And I had really bad cramps and once you change that, your body is like…it reacts! KL Yeah. I had no idea what to expect and I feel like when I went to my doctor and I said, “okay, I’m going to do this, I’m going to go off the pill,” they just don’t really tell you a whole bunch of details. They’re like “okay, it may do this, it may do that [laughs]. You may get lots of periods, you might not get any! [laughs] And it’s sort of like, why don’t we know this? [4:55] SWB And I think part of it is everybody’s body is different and who knows what’s going to happen, but then part of it is that a lot of women’s health stuff is just so chronically understudied— KL Yeah SWB —that nobody’s done the research to figure out what tends to work or what tends to be a good way for people to do this. I also went off the pill to get an IUD and I had been on the pill for a very long time and I had not gone on the pill because of cramps and heavy periods, but I had cramps and heavy periods. And I remember being sixteen years old or something and getting like nine-day periods. [JL sighs loudly] I know that’s no six-week, post-pregnancy period, but it was still awful and it was just very, very draining. When I mentioned it being exhausting, like that would wear me out, and I’d just be craving spinach and steak—[laughing] because I’d like need this iron supplement [JL & KL laugh] and so I feel like being able to have access to a range of different ways to lessen the impact of the period on my life has been obviously really important for me. Like if I had to go through these massive nine-day periods to this day, I think that it would be harder for me to get the things done I want to get done in my life! JL Yeah, I mean, but that’s the thing, right? Like who do you talk to about this? It’s one of those things you didn’t talk about. You didn’t turn to your friend and be like “hey, are your periods nine days also?” SWB I know, I talked to my mom about it and her periods were also really heavy! [laughs] KL [laughing] Ohh! SWB But of course—what do you feel like you’re going to do about it? But of course going on the pill helped me a ton, but now looking back on that, I think like, well shit, we should all be talking about periods a lot more—which is, hence, why I get on stage and talk to hundreds of people about periods. Because they’re just periods, right? They’re just a normal thing that a huge percentage of people have and it’s totally fine to acknowledge they exist and to acknowledge the part about them that sucks and also the part about them that’s really cool. JL Yeah, I won’t ever forget the time that I worked at Lockheed Martin. As you can imagine, it’s very business [all three laugh] and I was sick one day and my manager was asking me if I was okay or something and I didn’t want to talk about it, I was just having really terrible cramps and I just didn’t want to talk about it. And what I would normally do in that situation is like make something up like, oh, I don’t know, I had food poisoning or a cold. And then I remember finally saying like, “I’ve got my period and have really bad cramps” and he was like “oh, okay.” And I remember feeling so free! KL That’s amazing. I want to start doing that more and just being like “you know what? [laughs] I’m really crampy and I’m really not up to doing this particular thing right now.” SWB Excuse me, I need a no bullshit day— KL [laughing] Exactly! SWB —because I can not handle any bullshit. KL Can we just like write each other notes to get out of stuff for period cramps and period nonsense? SWB [laughing] I mean yes, although a part of me is like, I would so abuse the privilege. JL I mean I don’t necessarily want to get out of it—right—I just want people to acknowledge that I’m coming from like— KL Totally. JL —they have the Myers-Briggs test and these color tests and I just want you to know that my personality right now is period. [SWB & KL laugh euphorically] SWB Completely! KL You are so right, you are so right. SWB Well I mean if you had some other issue like if you had a migraine, for example, you could tell your coworker “I’m sorry, I need to be in a dark space, I have a migraine.” I think having really bad cramps is similar, right? Where you’re like, “I’m sorry, I just have really bad cramps right now, and it’s hard for me to focus”—it’s a totally normal thing to say if we just let that be a normal thing to say. KL Yeah, you’re totally right. And I was just thinking that I still—there’s always one day whenever I get my period now where I want—like all day it would actually be ideal if I could sit there with a heating pad. And I do it for as much of the day as I possibly can, but it’s like yeah, if we could just say, “this is something I need to do to like actually get work done today,” so. JL [laughing] Yes. SWB So I think clearly we have a lot of thoughts about periods, but there is a lot more that we haven’t even gotten into about some of the politics of periods and how people get access to period products and who pays for those and I think we should hear from our expert on the topic. JL Yeah, definitely. _[music fades in, plays alone for five seconds, fades out] _ Interview: Nadya Okamoto KL Maybe you haven’t picked up on it yet, but we’re always looking for reasons to talk more about our periods. But why do we have to look for reasons? Why can’t we just talk about them? We are going to ask our guest today that exact question. Nadya Okamoto is an activist and entrepreneur and she was sixteen when she founded PERIOD, the menstrual movement—four years ago. She did it after realizing that menstrual products are not reliably available to those who need them the most and we have so many questions about Nadya’s journey and what’s next for her, and we cannot wait to dig in. So, Nadya, thank you so much for joining us on No, You Go. Nadya Okamoto Of course, thank you for having me. KL Well, let’s start with PERIOD. Tell us what it is and what y’all do. [9:56] NO So, PERIOD—we are a global youth-run NGO that provides and celebrates menstrual hygiene through service, education and abbacy. And we do that through a number of different ways. We do it through primarily the global distribution of menstrual products to menstruators in need and we mobilize young people all around the world through our campus chapter network to push forward social and systemic change around periods. So, as you were saying, we work to change the narrative around periods to be something that’s more positive and normalized, while also pushing for systemic change towards menstrual equity. So in the last about three years, we’ve addressed over 300,000 periods through product distribution and registered over 200 campus chapters at universities and high schools around the US and abroad. KL Was there a moment that made you decide this is something I need to do? NO Yeah, so my passion for periods comes from a really personal place. I started the organization when I was sixteen after my family experienced housing instability my freshman and sophomore year of high school. And during that time my commute to school was about two hours long each way and my bus stop was in old town Portland, Oregon, where there are like ten shelters in a two block radius. And at that bus stop was where I actually became sort of accidental friends with a lot of homeless women who were there trying to go to their local shelters or just trying to [laughs] pass the day. And I think I was really curious about their stories, especially at this time when my family was on paper legally homeless and through hearing their stories of hardship, but then also sort of collecting this anthology of their stories of using toilet paper, socks, brown paper, grocery bags, and cardboard to absorb their menstrual blood and take care of their period, that I essentially became obsessed with periods and would spend my free time learning that periods are the number one reason girls miss school in developing countries, are a leading cause of absenteeism in the States for girls in school and about the sort of systemic barriers like the tampon tax that exists here in the US still. And so it was really after becoming obsessed with it, learning a lot about the issue, realizing that there weren’t really any non-profits around that were doing what I thought needed to be done that I decided that as soon as my family got our feet back on the ground, that I would start my own organization. KL This is so interesting to me because I feel like very specifically you talk about period hygiene and it seems like it’s one of the tenets of PERIOD’s mission. So why is that aspect so important and why is it a focus for the education part of what you’re doing? NO I think we really operate off of the idea that it’s a fundamental human right to be able to discover and reach your full potential regardless of an actual need, right? So we support menstruators feeling clean, confident and capable regardless of whether or not they’re menstruating. And I think that the word hygiene is very controversial in this space because it implies that menstruation is inherently dirty and we’re not saying that menstruation is inherently dirty, but we’re saying that when people do not have access to period products and they’re menstruating, it can be an unclean experience that can one, cause infections, can cause discomfort. Because of the stigma around periods, the shame around free bleeding or the nervousness about bleeding through your clothes or just people finding out that you’re menstruating can cause someone to feel less confident about seeking and reaching their full potential while they’re on their period. And that’s something that we’re really fighting. KL Related to that—how do you see the taboo of talking about periods manifest itself most in terms of that stigma? For example, when we’re at work, there’s been a long history of just you’re kind of trying to scuttle to the bathroom and hide your tampons or your feminine products and that just feels really shamey. How do we get past that and just talk about it more? NO That’s something we’re really working on as well. So making sure that we’re pushing schools especially—but also workplaces—to hold period products, make them available and make it known that they’re available. Being able to have a workplace where you can say, “hi, for all menstruators in the office, we have free tampons and pads in the bathroom,” because like—treat it like toilet paper, it’s something that we all have to do and that happens to us and that’s a healthy part of life that we should really be supporting. I think a big part is one, making it clear that people deserve access to period products and creating a space where people if they’re having cramps, if they’re struggling with their period, can feel comfortable talking about it. KL Does everyone want to talk to you about their periods? NO Um, no, but I usually push them to do so. And I will tell you—I think as a young activist, I get so much excitement and pleasure when I meet someone who doesn’t want to talk to me about their period and I push them to. Like I think every, single person in our chapter network in our team sees it as sort of like an exciting challenge to make people think about periods and realize the need for the menstrual movement. And I think that’s why we’ve been so successful. That’s why we’ve been able to grow so fast and so big. We’re now the largest youth run NGO in women’s health in the world and a lot of that is due to being able to convince people that they need to care about the menstrual movement very effectively. SWB So you said that you oftentimes find yourself pushing people who don’t necessarily want to talk about periods to talk about them, how do you do that? And is there a time when you’ve done that where you feel like it really changed the conversation? [15:05] NO Of course. I mean, we do it every day. We’re constantly meeting people who don’t want to talk about periods or haven’t even thought about it before. You know, our tactic is really being able to frame the menstrual movement as a small part of the larger movement towards gender equality, right? So being able to talk to people and say ‘if you believe in gender equality and global development or breaking the cycle of poverty or you call yourself a feminist, you inherently have to join our army of what we call [laughing] ‘period warriors,” right? We’re a movement of people who are fighting to normalize the conversation of periods because we can throw stats at you about how periods hold people back from equal opportunities in education and employment and if you really support equal opportunity in every field and support our achieving gender equality, it is an integral part of progress to be able to accelerate the menstrual movement. And I think that we’ve also mastered being able to combat ways people might challenge us. You know, we often get ‘oh, I get what you’re saying, but what about climate change or sustainability, or what about equality in sports?’ Like anything like that. And regardless of what people throw at us, I think we’ve found ways to bring periods into the conversation. So for example, with sustainability, that’s the one I get a lot. How do you prioritize periods when we’re really talking about the Earth and I can say ‘well, you know, the average disposable pad or tampon can take up to five to eight centuries to decompose and people are using tens of thousands of products in their lifetime, how can we open up conversation for more sustainable use of period management?’ Right? So I think that there’s ways that we’ve been able to find avenues to bring people into the conversation regardless of how they’re coming into it and I think that that’s been a big way Period has grown our movement. SWB You know, there’s a couple things in there that really caught my attention. One of them is this idea that there’s this what-about-ism, right? With every time you bring up one issue, it’s like ‘well, that’s not the biggest thing we should be worried about right now.’ And that’s such a derailing tactic I think is oftentimes—even if it’s unintentional, I think so many times that ends up derailing conversations where it’s like, well, nothing gets better if we don’t talk about it, and so if you create the situation where it’s simply undiscussed, then there’s no way to actually improve things for anybody. We’ve had guests on before who have talked about things like racism in the workplace and how reluctant companies are to even say the word race or to even talk about black employees and say the word “black”—they can’t do it because they’ve been trained that somehow talking about race is the real racism. The result of that, is they can’t put their finger on the actual issues, like how can you actually affect specific gendered issues—in your example—if you can not talk about what they are as what they are? So I really love that message of like, “it’s just a fucking period, talk about periods!” NO Yeah, of course. I think a big part of it is—we will tell people like, “do you know that in 36 States, there’s a sales tax on period products because they’re considered luxury items, but Rogaine and Viagra aren’t?” And I think that we bring up the tampon tax a lot because I think it’s such a clear example of misogyny in the US that people don’t really think about and take for granted and we say ‘we need to talk about these issues’ and in the US, less than 20% of our congressional positions are held by women. So whether or not you get a period, whether or not you identify as man, woman or anything in between, we all need to be talking about periods. KL So, I think I read somewhere recently that you’re taking leave from your studies at Harvard to focus on scaling PERIOD and speaking more, which is amazing. So what does scaling mean for the organization—you know—now and kind of as you look forward? NO As an organization, we have full time staff now, which is still crazy for me to think about and as an organization, we’re constantly thinking about how we can push deeper impact in our focus cities. Right now we have offices in Portland and New York City and interns at both places and remotely. And we’re continuing to figure out how we’re going to scale. Right now our focus cities for 2018 were New York and Portland and Boston and we’ve really scaled up our distribution there. But it’s making sure that we’re supporting shelters and supporting legislation in those areas and really deepening our impact with chapters. KL So, related to that, what has it been like to be such a young entrepreneur, but an entrepreneur in general? NO I think every day is a challenge and I constantly struggle with imposter syndrome and feeling like I’m not doing my job well, [laughs] but I think that that sort of insecurity is definitely what keeps me working really hard. I think one of the biggest challenges on a personal level is maintaining self care and confidence because I think that—I run into all the time people telling me that I’m doing my job wrong, or I could be doing my job better, or people telling me they disagree with what I’m doing. And of course we get a lot of support, but as a perfectionist, [laughing] those are definitely the comments I remember. And I think also PERIOD the movement is growing so fast, which is so exciting, but our resources are not growing at an equal rate, so a big challenge for me has been teaching myself and then learning how to do non-profit development when I don’t have a degree in non-profit or business management. So it’s been very much learning as you go. And I think the reason we have been successful thus far is because I’ve sort of adopted this mentality of being completely unafraid to ask for help, Google questions and admit when I really don’t know what I’m doing. KL God, everyone loves to tell you how they think you should do something from the outside. I have also learned this and [laughs] I feel like it’s extremely frustrating. Is there anything that you kind of felt surprised to learn along the way? Like something that has made you grow? [20:25] NO I’ve been really pushed to think about gender when I work on this. Like gender is a social construct because when I started this organization I started it to help homeless women and I wasn’t even thinking about—to be completely honest—trans identity and experience with periods for trans people. And it’s been through working on this organization, being called out by trans people about the need to be more inclusive that PERIOD has sort of become one of the leading organizations in being gender inclusive and that’s very much because I think for me it was a surprising learning experience to be able to take a step back and realize that I am not the person to be leading those conversations, but we’re building a platform to have conversations like talking about gender as a social construct and people who don’t identify as women but also menstruate. SWB We’ve talked about trans issues on the show a lot of times—both with guests who are part of those communities, but also with each other, kind of talking about how we’ve learned and continue to learn, right? Like still have a lot to learn when it comes to questioning things about gender and it’s so useful to say the way that you came to this issue is via these homeless women that you got to know, but that you’ve realized that it is not limited to that and it’s not limited to women and that you were able to kind of hear that and make that part of what you do. And I think that’s so hard to do in the moment—it’s so easy to go to that place of defensiveness like, “ugh, I mean well though, like don’t they see that I mean well?” And to learn that skill of holding that feedback and processing it and then choosing to do something productive with it is great. Was there anything that you found helped you learn to do that well? NO My biggest inspirations and the people who keep me extremely grounded are my mom and my two younger sisters. I think that it was very much my sisters and my mom who taught me to listen and know when it’s my time to take lead and know when it’s my time to empower others. And I think from a really young age I have always thought about leadership as truly being able to empower others to be leaders themselves and I think that that’s something I carry really deeply within me as we grow PERIOD and we’re not just about recruiting volunteers, we’re about recruiting chapter leaders and people to lead activism in their own communities. KL So we heard that you’re now also releasing a book about periods. Can you tell us about that? NO Yeah, so a few months ago—actually like last, oh my gosh, like last year in 2017—I signed with Simon & Schuster, the book publisher, to write Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement. It’s my first book and it comes out October 16th and I’m very, very excited for it. KL Congratulations, that is amazing. [laughs] SWB I want to ask some questions about the book, but before we ask questions about the book, can we just say, like, hell yeah, that’s so great, congrats! It’s so much work to write a book and you mentioned like, “oh my gosh last year.” Even that—that’s moving pretty fast. Most books take so long— NO Oh, I wrote it in like a month! [laughs] SWB Wow! What was that like? NO It was crazy, I was constantly behind deadlines. I missed most of my deadlines and my literary agents are incredible and were really the ones who kept me on track and then thank goodness some higher power might have been watching out for me, [laughs] but I ended up getting stranded at the Tokyo airport for 30 hours coming back from a speaking gig in Singapore and wrote half the book in my extended layover. So I think that it was definitely a hectic process. I don’t think of myself as a great writer so it was definitely a challenge of believing in myself, but my tactic was just I would say the words as I would write and I just sort of thought of me explaining to a little sister—or someone I thought of as a little sister—about their period and how I think that they should think of their period and what they should know about it, what they should know about the menstrual movement. And I would just write down what I was saying out loud. And that was sort of my strategy with writing. SWB That’s so cool. Was your audience for it as you were working on it—were you really imagining that being sort of like the younger sister, the younger version of yourself—is it really meant for teen girls and young women? NO Yeah, so it’s young adult non-fiction. KL Well, I definitely want to read it regardless. [laughs] NO My dream is for this to be a manifesto for the fourth wave feminism. Of young people using social media to mobilize thinking about feminism in a very intersectional way. But I want this book to be super accessible to people of all ages and of all genders and of all menstruation or non-menstruation experiences. [24:50] KL This makes me think of how, you celebrate periods a lot and I think that is so important. Like on PERIOD.org’s website, the team’s bios have a stat and it’s essentially ‘menstruating since’ and I—for some reason I loved that so much because I thought about when I first got my period and I was like, hell yeah. I’ve been menstruating for a long time and that’s really fucking cool. And it’s just this little thing that starts to destigmatize—and again—celebrate our period. How do you advocate that people start to do that a little bit more? NO The whole book opens with my own personal story of my first period about how when I got it, it was a really scary experience. But when I told my mom, it was a really happy experience because she was so excited that I was a woman [laughs]. And I think that for me, I talk in the book about how this is something that tells us that our body is growing and working. Like framing periods as something that’s like about growth. There is so much we can know about our bodies from getting our period. Whether it’s knowing whether or not we’re pregnant or—you know—knowing how our blood health is. Like anything like that. I think being able to frame periods as like—this is something that first of all—makes human life possible, but also, is something that is positive in many ways. Like the experience might be hard, you might get cramps, but at the end of the day, getting your period is something that should be celebrated. KL Totally. SWB So Nadya, there’s one other thing I wanted to ask you about. So earlier, you were talking a bit about how you really want people who have periods to have more access to information, feel more comfortable talking about it, and I’m curious what your thoughts are about people who don’t have periods and what their role is in the period movement. NO I always use the example of US congress. The movement can make noise about how we need to make access to period products equitable, how we need to get rid of things like the tampon tax and how we need to change society and change systems to advance the menstrual movement. We can say that as much as possible, we can make people care. At the end of the day, in order to do that successfully, we need to engage both people who have periods and people who don’t have periods. For the most part, people who don’t have periods are men, and we still live in a world where almost 50% of our world identify as men and don’t get their period and still even in progressive countries—quote, unquote progressive countries like the US—80% of our congressional positions are held by men. And if people in power continue to be afraid to talk about periods and do not acknowledge it as an actual need, then where it counts, periods will continue to go unaddressed. So that’s why we need people who don’t menstruate and people who identify as men to be involved. SWB Yes and—I don’t think that any of our listeners are in Congress probably—I don’t know if they are, that would be great, but—you never know!—but I do know that we have at least a good chunk of listeners who are men. And so men, if you are out there listening, learn to talk about periods. It’s not that hard! KL Yeah, seriously. Well and speaking of Congress, I want to ask you about in addition to running an organization with increasing visibility, last year you ran for Cambridge City Council. What was that like? NO It was one of the most terrifying, exhausting, but of course meaningful experiences of my life. I was constantly feeling under scrutiny, but I really believed in what I was doing, I had an incredible team and I was really passionate about the platform that I was running on. KL So you didn’t win, but you were nineteen and if you had been elected, you would have been the youngest and first Asian-American female city councillor in the city’s history. That’s badass! NO Yes. Well and it was really exciting! Actually, one of the most surprising learnings I got out of it was learning to be proud of my racial and ethnic identity. I grew up feeling really ashamed of being Asian and it was actually running that I first experienced extreme hatred for being Asian, but also a whole new level of support for being Asian. Because I didn’t know, but Asians are the fastest growing minority population in the US, but more underrepresented at every level of government than any other racial or ethnic group and that’s the same for media and politics. And so I think that it was an incredible experience of learning to be okay with myself and who I am, but it also taught me to be completely unapologetic about myself because every way I turned, there was always someone telling me what I was doing wrong or what made me wrong. KL Right, yeah, absolutely. What made you decide to run in the first place? NO For me, it was really the passion about housing affordability. It was me going on runs, being able to see gentrification in the city and then just wanting to learn more, get more involved, ended up with an 80-page word document of what I thought city council could be doing better and then when I started hearing jokes of “oh if you have so many ideas, why don’t you run yourself?” I decided to look up what it took to run. I saw that you just needed to be 18 and I was 19, so I sort of thought, “okay, I’m qualified” and went for it. KL [laughs] I was reading a Teen Vogue article that you had been interviewed in earlier this year and you talked about campaigning and the toll it took on you. You were understandably tired and exhausted and you also say you felt alone at points and didn’t feel all that confident. That sounds really fucking hard. How did you work through that? [30:03] NO I mean, I think that it’s something that I still deal with—I still feel very alone at times, especially when things start to ramp up. I got really close with my mom actually. My mom and I have always been really close, but it was an experience where I wanted to talk to my mom a lot more and I think she was the one that I would always tell I was feeling tired when I was really feeling tired. I think that support was really meaningful for me. KL I get the sense from following you on Instagram because we follow you and you’re—you’re wonderful [laughs and NO laughs] that you’re always inspiring folks with your energy and your creativity and your drive. What do you do if you’re the one in need of inspiration? NO I watch a lot of videos of Beyoncé performing. [laughs] I watch a lot of videos of Sean Lew dancing and I follow some incredible people that I really look up to like Alli Webb, the founder of Drybar. Like Blair Imani and Phillip Picardi of Teen Vogue, Elaine Welteroth—I really use Instagram as a place to just be inspired by people and I think a lot of it is—or what I’m inspired by—is people who give their all to what they do and also give us insight into their world of self care too. So, being able to see Beyoncé performing, I’m just always in awe of how much she gives herself to every performance. Like I have friends who aren’t big fans of her or her music, but I’m like, okay, you can not watch a video of Beyoncé and say she doesn’t give it her all, right? No person gets up on stage on tour for two hours at a time and just goes that hard, you know? And I think that I very much use that as inspiration especially when I’m on speaking tour—obviously not performing for as big of crowds or as often—but I sort of take that mentality of no matter who I’m performing, even if I don’t know anyone in the audience or I don’t know what organization I’m actually speaking at, [laughs] I give it my all and I get up on stage each time thinking, like, there’s someone in the crowd who what I’m going to say could really mean a lot to them. KL Yeah! Hell yeah! I think we—we can all benefit from channeling some of that Beyoncé energy and that drive and just—I really feel like you can feel it. Whether you’re watching on YouTube video or there in concert, it’s like—it’s, yeah, it’s very cool. NO I completely agree. KL So one last question. What is next for you and PERIOD? NO Yeah, I’m not going back to school for this year so I think I’m just going to be growing a lot of it and then we have PeriodCon 2018, which is our global conference. That will be in December in New York City. So it’s doing Period, really working on those and also I guess getting ready for my book to come out! KL Well, that all sounds amazing and we will absolutely be following along with you. Thank you so much for joining us today. NO Thank you so much for having me! [music fades in, plays alone for five seconds, fades out] [Ad spot] KL Hey everyone. Let’s take a sec to talk about our favorite topic: careers. This week’s focus is interviewing. To help us, Shopify’s VP of UX, Lynsey Thornton, tells us what she looks for when she’s trying to grow her team. Lynsey? Lynsey Thornton So I care a lot about bringing people into the team who are passionate about the problems we’re solving for independent business owners and who aren’t afraid of challenging us to be better. So that’s what I look for when interviewing at Shopify. What’s different in your company, project or team because of you? And that doesn’t always have to be a big thing. Maybe you were the first person to bring customers into your project process. Or perhaps you were the one who took the initiative to update your companies job descriptions so they were more inclusive. Changing things for the better, even the little things, shows not only that you care, but that you can act. KL I love this tip. If you’re looking for a new role, show your potential employers how you grow and hey, maybe your new role could even be at Shopify. Check out Shopify.com/careers to see their latest roles. [music fades in, plays alone for five seconds, fades out] Vocab Swap KL So girls, should we do a vocab swap? SWB Bleughh, girls! [all three sigh and laugh] KL It’s—why. It’s so terrible. SWB I have been called a girl so much recently. In fact, Katel, me and you—we were at the beach a little while back in the summer with two other women and literally all of us were old enough to be president [KL laughs] and yet, our Airbnb host—as he was showing us around this house—kept calling us girls.’ And I don’t know, it feels so infantilizing to me. It feels like nails on a chalkboard, I hate it so much. And I have been called a girl at the airport, at a hotel, I was at a farm stand buying some fucking tomatoes—I feel like I’ve been called a girl so much in the past month and I am so over it. KL I know, I am too. I mean, I feel like it’s probably not—you know—everyone’s intention of the person who’s saying it to infantilize or shut things down, but that’s how I feel about it. And—it just seems so flagrant. Like when you’re addressing a group of men, you never think to say ‘well, boys.’ [35:11] JL Right? Speaking of vocab swaps, there’s plenty of things to say. Women, ladies. I’ve always been a really big fan of ladies because I just think it sounds classy as fuck. [laughs and KL laughs] Just like ‘yes, I’m a fucking lady.’ SWB And I know not everyone loves the word “lady” either, but I do think it’s definitely—for me—always, it’s always a better option than girl. KL Yeah. JL I used to work with this man and he was not my direct supervisor, but I would hear him talk to the women that he worked with and he would call them over and he’d be like “girls, girls, come over here”—to talk about their designs. Like he was in an episode of Mad Men! SWB Super gross. JL It was like, every time I’d hear it—“girls, girls”—I would just vomit in my mouth and I was like, “this is the worst—please stop belittling them!” SWB Yes! I’ve heard some push back about this like, “well, what are we supposed to call groups of women in a casual way like we would say ‘guys’? There’s no equivalent to ‘guys,’ so ‘girls’ is the equivalent to guys.” And the reality is there isn’t really a precise equivalent to the term “guys”—which has its own problematic backstory—but it turns out you don’t even necessarily have to replace “guys” or “girls” with anything else. Sometimes you can just say “hey, how are you all doing tonight?” or “hope you all have a fun weekend,” right? You don’t have to say “girls” or anything to fill that gap in there, because there’s really not a gap. I think it’s just this assumption that you have to add some kind of gendered statement in there and…turns out you don’t! KL Yeah, the guy who showed us around the beach house, he could have just said, “here’s where the keys are.” [all three laugh] Still works. JL It’s like magic! KL So this isn’t so much a vocab swap for us, but it’s something I really wish more men realized and—you know—so just men listening, everyone listening, just please think about it, y’all! Okay? [all three laugh] JL So, fuck yeah to that statement! But that’s not even our fuck yeah this week, is it? FYOTW KL Oh gosh, I think I’ve got something. I know we’ve been talking about this for a while, we even talked to someone who is running for office—Liz Fiedler—early on in our first season. But with the midterm elections coming up, there are just so many women running for office and it’s fucking amazing and I just thought we should take a moment to look at who is running and just—I think it’s amazing, it’s so cool to see so many people. SWB Well, there’s a few that we’ve talked about in the newsletter, so folks like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York or Stacey Abrams running for governor in Georgia. But there’s so many other people out there who we are just starting to research! KL Yeah, it’s not just the first time we’re seeing so many women, it’s like then—these people running are breaking through all these firsts in their own areas. Like Ilhan Omar in Minnesota—she, in 2016, she became the first Somali-American Muslim legislator in the US and now she’s running for Congress in Minnesota, which is just amazing. And there’s also Deb Haaland in New Mexico and she will be the first Native American woman in Congress if she wins. And she is currently favored to win. There’s a lot of women currently favored and I think that’s just so fucking cool. [38:28] SWB I have recently been following this organization that is called the Voter Participation Center. And what they so is quote increasing civic engagement among the rising American electorate. Which they mean unmarried women, people of color and millennials. And so I think that’s really cool because obviously those are groups that I care a lot about and I care about making sure younger people, people of color and women of all kinds are able to get out and vote. So, they’re looking at stuff like which states are closing polling locations or if states are enacting legislation that makes it more difficult for people to vote and they’re also doing things like keeping track of when different voter registration deadlines are. So, I was taking a look at their site because it’s a little complicated. There’s online registration deadlines and mail registration deadlines for different states and so they have kind of done all of the math for you so you don’t have to read the thing that says ‘within 28 days of this, this has to happen’ and instead you can just kind of get an update on when it needs to happen in every, single state. JL That is so helpful. KL I know, that’s really cool. SWB It is very helpful. And I looked at it and I wanted to give a shout out to them because a whole bunch of states have deadlines in just a few weeks like in early October. The earliest one I saw is October 7th. And so if you’re a US citizen and you want to vote and you’re not 100% sure that your registration is current, I think it’s definitely time to double check because this is the time of year when you want to make sure that you are going to be able to get in and vote. And also if you know people like college students, people who are often really busy in the fall, maybe aren’t paying attention to this, this is a great time to check in with them and make sure they’re registered too. KL Fuck yeah to women on the ballot and to all of us going to the polls. I hope everyone does. So if you don’t need this list, please share it. SWB Fuck yeah! JL And that’s it for this week’s episode of No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. NYG is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia and is produced by Steph Colbourn. Our theme music is by the Diaphone. Thanks to Nadya Okamoto for being our guest today. And if you like what you’ve been hearing, which I assume you do because you’ve made it this far, [laughs] please be sure to subscribe and rate us on wherever you listen to your podcasts because your support helps us reach more people and keeps us going. And we’ll be back next week with another great guest. See you then! [music fades in, plays alone for 32 seconds, fades out to end]  

The cast of Netflix's update of Queer Eye - Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Tan France, Antoni Porowski and Jonathan Van Ness - sit down with them and Teen Vogue's Phillip Picardi for an inside look at a smart, funny, and surprisingly moving second season. The conversation was recorded on June 19, 2018 in front of a live audience at New York's 92nd Street Y.

Teen Vogue's Elaine Welteroth and Phillip Picardi discuss how the magazine has been transformed into a vehicle that explores serious political and social issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bryan and Chris, neither of whom have ever touched a vagina, talk about coming out of the closet. They talk about the challenges of coming out and how if everyone had just come out of the closet, they could have all been fucking the whole time. They talk about how to react when someone comes out to you. They move onto pride which Bryan deems worth going if you've never gone. At 20:54, they are joined by Phillip Picardi, Chief Content Officer at Teen Vogue and them. They talk about the meaning of Pride, them (a community platform dedicated to celebrating LGBTQ voices), fashion, and more. At 34:18, they take a question from a listener asking if her boyfriend is gay who wants a male-male-female encounter - more for his benefit than hers

Phillip Picardi is one of the fastest-rising stars in media. At just 26 years old, he was recently named Chief Content Officer of Teen Vogue, and earlier this year launched Them, an LGBTQ-focused digital title and the first new brand to be launched by Conde Nast in 14 years. If his name rings a bell, there’s a chance you may have seen Forbes’ latest "30 Under 30." Phil and I met last year while training for the Hood to Coast team relay race, a 199-mile race that takes place each year in Portland, Oregon. We were two editors out of a group of 11 that Nike invited to run the race as a team. Over the course of seven weeks of training together and one week spent traveling to and from Portland for the race itself, I got to know Phil and became fascinated by not only his unparalleled success in the most competitive media landscape in the world—New York City—but also his energy, selflessness, and overall outlook on life. So, a few months later, when I started to consider whom I might want to interview for this podcast, Phil’s name was on the list before I even had to think. In this wide-ranging conversation, we talk about the keys to succeeding in a competitive environment, how to successfully launch and develop a brand, strategies for mental health, advice for anyone considering coming out as gay, tips for a lasting relationship between two people with crazy schedules, and much, much more.

What is gender identity? What is gender expression? Dr Shazhan Amed, model Hanne Gaby Odelie, Teen Vogue’s Phillip Picardi and activist Laith Ashley shared their personal and professional experiences with gender on the #BoFVOICES 2017 stage. To sign up to the Daily Digest newsletter click the link here: http://bit.ly/BoFnews  For a limited time only we are offering our podcast listeners an exclusive 25% discount on an annual BoF Professional Member. To get 25% off your first year of an annual membership click the link here: http://bit.ly/2KoRRBH, select the annual package and then enter the invitation code PODCASTPRO at checkout.  To contact The Business of Fashion with comments, questions, or speaker ideas please e-mail podcast@businessoffashion.com. For all sponsorship enquiries, please e-mail advertising@businessoffashion.com. 

Elon Musk is a South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, investor, engineer, and inventor who is the driving force behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX. He has been telling everyone who will listen that advancement in A.I. technology is reaching a point that will actually pose a threat to humanity. Is he right? The U.S. congress has made an effort to help Charlie Gard, we'll talk about it. Rumors about a possible Senate run are swirling around two unlikely candidates. Repeal of Obamacare has failed again. Teen Vogue editor Phillip Picardi reacted to the backlash to the magazine's recent "How-to" article, and it shows why they thought it was okay to publish it in the first place.      I'll have the "Culture Wars" segments and don't forget about the Edwards Notebook! All of this and more as time allows. Listen live, join the chatroom, be a part of the show.

Elon Musk is a South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, investor, engineer, and inventor who is the driving force behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX. He has been telling everyone who will listen that advancement in A.I. technology is reaching a point that will actually pose a threat to humanity. Is he right? The U.S. congress has made an effort to help Charlie Gard, we'll talk about it. Rumors about a possible Senate run are swirling around two unlikely candidates. Repeal of Obamacare has failed again. Teen Vogue editor Phillip Picardi reacted to the backlash to the magazine's recent "How-to" article, and it shows why they thought it was okay to publish it in the first place.        I'll have the "Culture Wars" segments and don't forget about the Edwards Notebook! All of this and more as time allows. Listen live, join the chatroom, be a part of the show.

In 2016, Teen Vogue became a leading voice for youth activism and civic engagement, while shifting to a digital-first format. Brian sat down with Phillip Picardi, digital editorial director, and Marie Suter, creative director, to honor Teen Vogue’s leadership team with CDT's Digital Visionary Award at its 2017 Annual Dinner, Tech Prom, on April 20. Why we chose Teen Vogue: http://bit.ly/2qbwYiD More on Marie: https://www.instagram.com/marie_suter/ More on Phillip: https://twitter.com/pfpicardi More info on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

Phillip Picardi, the digital editorial director of Allure and Teen Vogue (and a former beauty editor!), discusses gender and body politics, how writing about beauty has changed in the past few years, and growing up as a makeup-loving boy. Before that, we get deeeeep, with real talk on salon tipping, the dark and spiritual world of Dr. Bronner's soap, and Jess's (two) breast-reduction surgeries. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.