Financial Feminist - 38. Debunking the Starving Artist Myth with Comedian Chelsea Devantez

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

Where did the myth of the “starving artist” begin? Why did it become so pervasive, and is it even true? Or is it just another way for a society that doesn’t value art and arts careers to push creators into “traditional” roles? Today, we’re joined by actor, comedian, and Emmy-nominated writer Chelsea Devantez. You’ve laughed at Chelsea’s wit on The Problem with Jon Stewart, Girls 5Eva, and Bless This Mess. You might also know her from her podcast, Celebrity Book Club, where she recaps famous celebrity memoirs. In this episode, Tori and Chelsea dive into the mythology of the starving artist, breaking into male-dominated industries, and how Chelsea is working to build a more inclusive space in comedy and media. They also dive into a fascinating discussion about the ethics of the stock market, financial feminism, and hacking the patriarchal financial system for the greater good. Get resources mentioned in the show, learn more about our guests, and read episode transcripts: https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes/starving-artist-myth-chelsea-devantez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, financial feminists. Welcome back. Excited, as always, to see you. We have such a fun interview for you today, especially if you love comedy, you love women in comedy. It's such a good conversation. especially if there's a particular episode that really connects with you. It truly makes our day. And yes, we do see it. Like I see it. My team sees it. We see those messages and we so appreciate them. Okay. Today's guest, Chelsea Devontez is an Emmy nominated, just got nominated for an Emmy, Emmy nominated writer, comedian, actor, and director. She's most recently worked as the head writer on The Problem with Jon Stewart on Apple TV, but she's also written for Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, and Meredith Scardino's show Girls 5 Eva on Peacock. Both seasons of Liz Merriweather's Bless This Mess on ABC, Liz Merriweather, famous creator of New Girl, among other shows as well, Mike Schur and Josh Malmus' Abbey's on NBC, Jon Stewart's HBO project, The Opposition with Jordan Klepper on Comedy Central, and Mike

Myers' Gong Show Revival. She also has a great podcast called Celebrity Book Club where she reads famous women's memoirs with a guest each week. And I was recently on that show talking about Carrie Fisher's incredible memoir, and we just had an absolute blast. So if you haven't listened to that episode, go check it out. This episode is fantastic for anyone who is in any sort of creative field or considers themselves to be creative, which I argue is every single person listening. We cover how Chelsea overcame the starving artist fallacy, her childhood of financial instability, and how she's using her status as a head writer, as a woman in comedy, to change the power balance in comedy. But we'll also get into a really thrilling conversation on investing, on creating your own content, and so many other

things. This is a candy bag episode full of so many beautiful gems. Chelsea's just the shit. We love her. Excited to have her here. Let's go ahead and get into it. I feel like I had all of these hair accessories. I mean, just this is fashion in general, I feel like is, you know, you have all of these things and then they go out of style. So you give them all away and then you just need to hold on to them and wrap pack them for like 15 years and they'll come back. Oh my God. That's exactly right. Oh, my low rise jeans. Just kidding. I never wore those.

Never was happening for me. I remember, was it Rihanna that was on the cover of a magazine like two, three years ago and she had pencil thin eyebrows and everybody revolted and they're like, we're not doing this again. I do refuse that one. We refuse to do this. That's how I feel with that and low rise jeans. I'm like, never again. I'll just be choogy. I'm not that one. We refuse to do this. That's how I feel with that and low-rise jeans. I'm like, never again.

I'll just be choogy. I'm not doing it. That's a word that I understand vaguely the definition to, but I've never – I just – You know what someone said to me, and then I was like, I fully understand choogy. It was Alexis Novak. She runs like a vintage style company. And she said all wedding dresses, like wedding dresses in general are chewy. And I was like, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Like when have you ever seen a wedding dress that like campy? Um, no, just like, um,

it's a, it's a moment stuck in a time that we're no longer in, you know? Oh, sure. You're talking like previous wedding dresses or like previous like 80s wedding dresses oh no I'm talking even now like it's always just wedding dresses will just always be slightly corny really no matter what like you could even be in an Instagram wedding dress wedding dresses just as a concept always slightly corny and I feel like that's choogy you're just always slightly corny how do we feel about colored wedding dresses ultimately everybody You're just always slightly corny. How do we feel about colored wedding dresses? Ultimately, everybody can wear whatever the fuck they want. But like color, how do we feel about like a red wedding dress? I love, I love. I will not be wearing white down the aisle myself. I'll be, I will be changing

into some white dresses. But yeah. Oh my gosh. I, I, I don't know. How do you feel about them? I would not do it. However, it's a statement. I think it's fun. I would maybe do like a blush. I would do like a white adjacent, but I wouldn't wear a purple down the eye. But I feel like the most important thing about weddings is that it has to fit you. And weddings have all these rules that don't fit everyone. And so that's why it feels off. But I feel like if you're the type of person who would wear purple, like that'd be an incredible move. And if you're not, you'd be like, what have you done, Tori?

Tori, you know that's not you. Put a blush on. No, you just, you have to do what's right. I think that's the big thing with weddings is you end up trying to appease a bunch of people. And I'm just like, my wedding will be extremely tiny and I'm not inviting anybody that I don't want to be there. Even if I quote unquote should. I'm like, wow, I love your boundaries. You seem good at boundaries. Oh, I'm trying to get better at boundaries. No, but like, I just, it's not

worth it. You know, it's just not worth it. Yeah. I think I'm the opposite. I've been, I've been to weddings, you know, that were just so awful that I'm just like, to weddings, you know, that were just so awful that I'm just like, this wedding is for you to have a good time. Not me. I just, I just can't, I just can't make someone go through some of the weddings I've been through, you know? So all I'm thinking about are the guests. That's healthy, right? No, that's actually really sweet. Normally that's me. Cause I'm such an Enneagram too, is I'm like, how can I make your experience better? I'm a two. You're a two that, yeah, absolutely. That is you. I'm a three. Yeah. See, I would want everybody at the wedding to have a good time, but I'm more mean, like, these are the people that I want to be there.

Like I'm not inviting like a random relative that I haven't spoken to in five years just because I quote unquote should. But if you're there, you're having the best time possible. I love that. I love that. This is not how I expected this conversation to start, but this is great. Weddings and chuginess? Yes. Tell me a bit about your story of getting into comedy writing. Were you always an actor writer or did one develop before the other? What did that look like for you? Acting developed before the other, specifically because in the years I was growing up, it was not in our zeitgeist or culture that any other job was available to women. And still, we didn't have famous female directors. You had famous male directors and male writers. So I just didn't know it was available to me to be anything

besides Julia Roberts in My Best friend's wedding. Like I was like, you're Julia Roberts in my best friend's wedding or you're not in entertainment. And so I was like, I was also from a lot of small towns. I grew up all over the Southwest. I just, I mean, I wasn't exposed to a ton. And so I thought if you want it to be entertainment, you go to New York city. Cause that's where Broadway is. And I mean, just very, I just didn't have a lot of info on it. And so I went to New York for acting that's where Broadway is. And I mean, just very, I just didn't have a lot of info on it. And so I went to New York for acting school and it was there that I discovered improv and comedy. And the moment I discovered comedy, I thought, oh, this is what I have been

meant to do my whole life. And I can now look back to school assemblies where, I remember we didn't have TV. And so friends described to me the SNL sketch, Tostito burrito, what's coming out of your speedo with like Will Ferrell. And then I changed the words for our school and performed it based off my friend's description. So I think I had more opportunities and language in my life. I would have known this was the path I was on, but I didn't find it till I was in New York City. And then I was like, Oh, it's always been comedy. Goodbye, everything else. And then, um, that's when I really became a writer. That's amazing. Okay. Talk to me about second city. Cause second city is like this,

uh, like comedy. I don't know if you want to call it a mon, like it's so just well-known at this point. And there's so many stories that have come out like it's the incubator if those if you're not familiar with comedy like second city is like where you go if you want to be on something like saturday night live if you want to do comedy professionally so what was it like to be part of second city and as soon as you had that kind of oh she you know went to Second City or was part of Second City. Was there a certain pressure that came with the Second City label? Well, so as we used to say in our touring company intros, Second City with famous alumni like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Cecily Strzok, you would just start listing all the famous people and then you would perform your show.

So that is a lot of pressure where you're basically saying this is the lineup I'm in. So, okay, wait, the second question was, is there pressure that comes with that label? Yes and no. So Second City, weirdly, it has a lot of training classes. This is the same with all other comedy theaters like Brownlings and UCB, where a lot of people put it on their resume because they took classes there. So there's kind of no way to differentiate if you were like on the main stage, like not to brag like I was, or if you like took a class there. But when you get out in Hollywood, like the label kind of means nothing. When you're in Chicago, it definitely meant a lot, at least at the time I was there. And I definitely felt, especially towards my third show, where it's almost like you're a ballerina who's 28.

Your time is up. You know what I mean? You don't get to dance anymore at a certain point. So when I was at my last show, I thought, am I going to go beyond this? Or is this it? Are there jobs beyond SNL? And definitely felt that pressure. I loved, loved, loved Second City.

And that being said, if you read the news, you know, problematic, cultish, takes your money. Not great. Sounds like a lot of theater communities, just in general. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's why I still have love for it because it's not unlike the rest of the world. Misogynistic, sexist, fucked up, ready to fuck you over at any moment, wants to take all your money. That's sort of like every entity, every institution, every institution. And so the thing I loved about Second City is that the people there became my community and the people who got me through things. So on my very like level one, day one, first class at Second City, I met my best friend, Ashley Nicole Black, who is now

hugely famous, but has was just like my support system. It's like I met her there. So I can never begrudge that theater. And all the hardships really trained me for the even worse hardships that come when you're in Hollywood because it only gets worse. It doesn't get better. I was going to bring this up already, but speaking of best friends, my best friend, my favorite person in the world is a semi-professional comedian, wants to pursue improv full time. However, she is based in Seattle and we've had many conversations of she spent significant time in Los Angeles, was in LA, you know, trying to pursue comedy mixed with pandemic. That was just a wild time. So for you, what, do you still feel like comedy is isolated or segmented in certain cities? Because I,

at least in her experience and tributaries for success. Yeah. Yeah. Like you have to, you know, if there's, there's this, I think it's, it's at least in her experience, it's pretty valid of like, if you want to do this full time, if you want to quote unquote succeed at comedy, you have to move to a LA, Chicago, New York. Yeah. I mean, I, I hate to say it, but 100%. That being said, it depends on what your idea of success is. So if success to you is having a great comedy community that you like performing in where you have sold out shows, that can happen in any city that in any town you want to build that in. If success to you is writing on a TV show

or having your own show show or performing live in a really large way in touring, like, yeah, you got to come to a city. If success to you is being an internet comedian like that, that can happen from anywhere. The tough thing with that is that if you ever do want to perform live or take it from the internet to television and film, and you never got that training, you will, you'll be setting yourself up for failure. You'll have a million followers, but you can't yourself up for failure. You'll have a million followers, but you can't do a live show. You'll have a million followers, but you can't write a script. So if you do want any of those film and TV successes, it's such a detriment to not be in a place with the resources for you to train and mostly meet the people who you need to meet.

And I don't mean hire up famous people. I mean like the person next to you who's going to build a career with you. They're probably in a city. Right. Or you have a million followers, but you can't work well with others or you don't know how to write or collaborate with somebody else. And stuff that works on the internet really often doesn't need the skills that make something work on television. So like a true hard joke punchline is really unnecessary for most internet videos. You can create a laugh off of much smaller moments. But if you never learn the larger story arcs or structure or joke structures, like you're going to be failing later on. Right. Well, I think about my own training in theater, right? I took so many different classes that were acting in a certain environment right like stage

acting is extremely different than camera acting yeah right yeah like it's it's very different and I grew up theatrically trained and I remember the first time probably when I was eight or nine doing on camera work and they were like you don't need to be so loud because I was used to projecting right that was like the perfect example of like something that had to change. And so that's a great point of like, yeah, if you built a following on TikTok or something or blew up on the internet, but you don't have any, you know, training and how to actually do this offline, there will be a disconnect. Absolutely. And also vice versa. Like I know a lot of really skilled comedians who have not learned the internet and they suffer for it too, because, you know, internet has this level of

clout that gets you booked on things that gets you attention that, you know, it's like, sadly, you do need both at this moment in time to like build true success. I think in the early, earlier days, let's say like maybe early 2000s back when we, uh, it was, it was like, Oh, women are funny, which is ridiculous, right? Yeah. The Christopher Hitchens piece of shit that ruined our life for seven years from vanity fair. Sorry. No big deal. It still haunts me. Yeah. We'll link it in the show notes if y'all want to read. No, um, no, I feel, I feel like for a long time, and I would love to know if you still feel like it's this, women in order to get platforms had to write their own shit. Like

that was the only way. So like we look at like Mindy Kaling or something, right? Like in order to build a career, right? She started as a writer off Broadway first, and then it was like, you know, writing for The Office, writing, you know, and producing all of these shows. So do you feel like that's still the case of like, if you want to be a minority in comedy, you kind of have to write your own shit? Oh, 1000%. Because our structures are still run by straight white male culture, whether it's those individuals or not, it's still the power structures. And I think the an example that I think breaks this down well, is that I remember performing a sketch at Second City for that I that I that I wrote and I wanted it to get up and the director said to me like I

just this just isn't a joke like it's just this isn't funny I don't even understand like why it would be funny right and so I threw it away and then there was one night at the end of our Second City process where you have this night where you get to put up anything you want and the director doesn't have to choose it or not. And I pull that sketch back up and it destroys it. And I'm like, like, I'm not exaggerating. Oh, yeah, it was about feminism, which now it now it's like definitely dated because this was oh, my God, how many years ago is this?

But it was it was a sketch where i'm like on a date and i say that i'm a feminist and um the guy has this like pretty intense reaction to like what it is and i do do a bunch of jokes about what feminist actually is it doesn't sound funny but it has it was really good um and so i mean and it just it just destroyed and to the point that it's still touring now, like people will once you write with Jefferson City, other people take it on. So it still goes on the road. Yeah.

Women still message me and they're like, oh, my God, I do your feminist sketch every night. It still kills. And I'm like, it should be so dated. It's not funny anymore, but it's still like news to people that, you know, feminist art monsters. Was it like the one? Oh, gosh, it was a couple of years ago, especially strong. I think Aidy Bryant on SNL where they were like approached by guys at a bar and they're like, oh, I'm sorry about that guy. Like, I'm super chill. And she's like, actually, I'm not interested. And he was like, fuck you, bitch. Like or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It was all the time.

it it a different joke than that but yeah so a relevant relevatory concept like that you know that was present in culture at the moment but what was so interesting though is that the director truly um he was this you know very experienced male director who'd done so many second city shows truly did not know it was funny like he wasn't judging it like i don't like feminists he was like this isn't this no equal comedy. And so like avenues do not exist for our humor, for ourselves, for our layers, for who we are, unless we create them ourselves, which it's so much work. It's such a, it's like, no, you can, you bitch, you gotta produce the whole thing yourself. Walk us through that. That was one of my questions was walk us through. So, okay. You're a woman in comedy. You're realizing, fuck, I can't get any opportunities unless I write

them myself. For somebody who isn't in this space, what are the steps? What do you have to do to get something on its feet? So I will give you the real, real, which might either be depressing or inspiring, depending on how you take it. When I was 22, I was in Chicago and we had an idea for a TV show, which was sex in the city, but for girls who are ugly and poor. Like what do you do if you're ugly and poor, but you want to like be dating, you know? Yeah. And so you can sit there and be like, okay, well, we're nobodies in Chicago. We're 22. What are we going to do? Like write a script, try and meet someone famous. Like we didn't have any, I've never known someone in the business.

I've never had a cousin who knows a cousin. Like what do you do? So we're like, okay, we're going to make a web series. And then we're like, who knows how to do that? Nobody. They're like, we should get a director. Well, we don't have any money. So I, my friend always teases me about this, but I was like, okay, I'll direct them.

I, my friend always teases me about this, but I was like, okay, I'll direct them. And so I held the manual to a Canon camera and the camera in my other hand and shot this web series. And I studied everything I could. I was like looking up stuff. You know, I was going to resources, but you're still a newbie. And I look back and I'm like, that shit was actually pretty good. Like your unbridled creativity before it gets squashed by network notes and stuff like that is like so special. But all that to say, we create this web series. And it got us a little buzz in Chicago, but then nothing. So then we created another web series. It was a pilot presentation. We did the whole

thing again. It's always on no money. It's was a pilot presentation. We did the whole thing again. It's always on no money. It's always with no resources. We do it again. Then I did it again and again. I have created a short film web series pilot presentation or some sort of like larger video content every single year for the past 10 years.

And I've done it all by myself or with the help of friends. And I say that to say that the last short film I did went to South by Southwest and now it's becoming a future film. Thank you so much. But that's 10. That's 10 blood, sweat, and tears. It takes so long to not short videos, but like really film something seismic and write and produce. And especially if you don't have money for production, everything has to be set in your friend's apartments, you know? And, and so that being said, every time I've made something on my own like that has always pushed my career forward sometimes in small steps, sometimes in big ways. And it's like Ashton, Nicole Black and I, we got our agents by putting

together a showcase of 10 women doing solo pieces. We got five women who already had representation and five women who didn't. And then we had to hustle and get reps to come. The women who had reps could invite the reps. Women who didn't would have to produce harder. You have to rent the space, do all the comedy. And then that became a running show that helped like women get representation each year, like each year, five unwrapped women, you know, went into the slots, but it's, it's just a lot of like blood, sweat and tears.

And a lot of like, it just takes so, it just takes so much of it over so long, but it does work. it over so long, but it does work. Obviously, we know that the entertainment industry in general is sexist and specifically comedy. What sort of ways are women specifically taken advantage of financially in the entertainment industry? Finan financially is a good one. Well, let me think specifically. I imagine like an example I think of is like an agent potentially, because agents take 10 to 20%, right? Or managers, right?

But like, are they actually bringing you gigs? Are they, we've all heard horror stories of the agent who wasn't really an agent, taking somebody's money. I think about like something like that. I will say the financial ways this industry takes advantage of you are probably pretty equal opportunity where like an agent will take anyone's money, you know, gender aside, they're here to fleece you. The advice I give with agents and reps are that you're just so, you're so desperate for one that you'll be like, Oh, I just need an agent so bad.

But, uh, one day my lawyer said to me, it's like dating. It's like dating. So like you want to have a bad boyfriend, have a bad boyfriend, but you, you should be scouting and not settling until you find someone who's like a true match for you and doesn't destroy your life. Finally, it made sense to me. I think women are, uh, not women specifically, but at least people who have feminine energy tend to be politer, nicer. I don't want to bother you. And then your reps will ignore you a lot more. They'll take you less seriously. If you dress a certain way, act a certain way, they don't see you as a director, a boss. Um, even like our voices and the sound pitch of them. The vocal fry. The vocal fry, me coming out.

I mean, this was something I battled for a long time, which is that I'm a very curvy woman. And I have very stereotypically feminine features that like really aren't going away. And I love to be feminine, but I entered comedy trying to be taken seriously. feminine, but I entered comedy trying to be taken seriously. So I was just always trying to play that play femininity down so that you could take me seriously as an artist. Right. So you can see the comedy rather than tits or rather than tits. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm curvy as well. And I mean, you can see from the cover of this podcast, tits are out, baby. But it's the balance of that of like yes I'm gonna show up and like I yeah there was a tiktok sound what is it like am I showing off my tits or

do I just have tits and exist right you know yeah seriously you know dichotomy of that we're also being like yeah I'm a legitimate person and I want to be taken seriously yeah yeah yeah, I'm a legitimate person and I want to be taken seriously. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, it's funny because we used to come out on stage at second city and they really do kind of cast specific types and lights would come up and it would take me probably 11 minutes for the audience to trust me and laugh at me. Whereas like counterparts of mine who match more common visual stereotypes of what a comedy person looks like, they'd be laughing. But I had to work so much harder because visually to them, I was an untrustworthy whore. You know what I mean? It's like, who's this bitch on stage? What is she about to say? I was literally, I don't know what friend I was talking to in a moment of vulnerability. And they

very much were like, I know this is my own internalized misogyny. They're like, if a pretty woman, if a beautiful woman gets up on stage, I am going, please be funny, please be funny, please be funny. Because it's like, it is so much more like pressure. Yeah. And they were like, I know that I'm sitting there expecting this woman because she's, you know, physically attractive to be less funny and hoping that that's not the case. Yeah, because she's guiding the torch for femininity in that moment. Like, can we be serious comedians? You know, it's so it's so sad. So I will say financially, we spend a lot more time on makeup, hair, looks, visual, all that stuff. And I've just flipped in the other direction. I am now hyphen. I like to wear an amount of makeup

and cleavage that's scary where they're like, ah, you know, and I'm like, yes, you know, I'm changing what I got them, you know, like you will not think of this as weak. And but it's been a real journey for sure. It's been it's been hard to like accept who you are, be who you are, and then like turn the volume up on it. Totally. You worked on The Problem with Daddy Jon Stewart. Yeah, Daddy. Daddy, it was noted in, I think, interviews about the hiring process that there was a lot of intentionality when it came to hiring writers. Can you talk about that?

Shed some light on that? I would love to. It's one of the things I'm most proud of from my work on that show. So when my very first job in television was from Jon Stewart from a blind packet submission, and it's probably the only way I got it. Wait, did you say a blind packet submission? That's right. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Can you explain to people what that is? Yeah. Yeah. So blind submissions are when your name and information is removed from the packet. So they just all they read is a packet. Then after that, they find out who you are, because as you know, and I'm sure you've spoken about, there's scientific tests out there that even just reading the name, you know,

Mary Smith on a packet puts certain readers into a little, you know, I'm not, this is, or if you, if it seems like an ethnic name to them and things like that. And so, um, so blind submissions are really the way to go. And, uh, most people don't do it. And, um, John was telling me, he was like, it's so frustrating. I ask agents and managers for more women, more people who are not fully white, more people who are not just white, just straight. Just I asked him for this. He was like, and they never send it. And he was like, the tributaries are broken. Like the, the system, like way before they ever gets to hiring, there's, it's already been to all the isms like we've we've cut we've cut anyone who could possibly be a minority out of the process so so he's over there asking and not

receiving not receiving because they don't have them because they haven't signed his clients right because they have all the same yeah it's like somebody being like i want to work with a woman director and it's like yeah there's like two yeah oh yeah I want to work with a woman director. And it's like, yeah, there's like two. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, we've only allowed two to work. So I'm there. Oh, of course. There's way more out there. But what is it?

There's still I think there's only been two women nominated, three maybe in the history of the Academy Awards for best director. Absolutely. And it's nuts. It's broken from the bottom. It's not it's not like, oh, the Academy is broken. It is. But everything before that is broken. Yeah. Women don't make good directors. Like, of course that's not it. Yeah. God. Well, so when John hired me as his head writer, one of the things I was most excited

about was how we were going to do the hiring process. Cause I, I've, you know, I've been a late night writer on other shows and I've always been like, why is it not done this way? And so I finally got to do it, which is that, uh, I'll take you through all the steps. You can cut them if they're boring, Tori. We love it. So, uh, first it was a blind packet submission, but secondly, it was only a single page long because a lot of these packet submissions are requesting seven to 11 pages of not only full research, but full writing. It's so much. Okay. So I want to go back even further. How, how are you the person who gets to submit? Well, that's the other thing. So you usually have to have an agent or manager. So you already have to be repped, which is why the pool

is skews so male and white. Um, because they're the ones who have, they they're repped the most. And even though they think like, Oh, you can't be a white man in comedy, it's still 90% them. It's just like 10% changed. And they're like, oh my God. So you have to have a rep. So the first thing I did is that I took that away. So on the packet submissions, I said, you have to self-submit because in the past, if they left an email address open, you'd be like, oh, can I sneak in and submit my packet for this show? And maybe they won't know I don't have an agent. But then you're also like, did I just do 10 pages of writing and work for nothing?

And it got thrown away. So I said, it's self-submit only. Here is the email address. We won't accept it from an agent or manager. It has to come from you. Then I said, it's one page long. So that, because I was always like working a million jobs. And so it's like, when are you supposed to do all this work for free?

What is that one page? Are you answering? Is it the SAT essay prompt? Like what are you answering? No, so it's one page of monologue jokes. And that's because those are the hardest things to write because they're, yeah, they're the, it's the corniest, oldest form. Everything's hack.

So if you can be interesting and make a funny joke, like you're a really good writer. Secondly, you only get two sentences for it. So if you're going to five sentences, like it's already a bad joke, like it's got to be a short punchy joke. And it shows if you do know structure and can you, if you can structure a good monologue joke, you can structure a good sketch. And so it's a really good, cause on the other end, this is the monetary problem in order to take in a lot of packets from a lot of people, me, the head writer, me, my staff, who's blinding them signing the legal releases putting in the process they have to have the hours to do that and so making it one page what meant i could read

i read uh i read 2 400 packets jesse yes i did because i opened it up take you god that had to have been so long you read did you read every single one that got submitted? I read every single one. Yeah. Wow. Because I know the pain of not being read. Yeah. No, but like, and I want, you know, like, that's so amazing. But also, like, no one deserves a cookie for doing that. Like, that should be what happens, you know? Totally.

But I'm also like, here's, take the cookies because that's amazing. Yeah. But it's also the thing of like, you got to have the will. You have to have the hours. Like, when you're in're in production like when do you have time to do it you have to like you know i had john's full support to like make sure i had um it was a basically a one or two week i think it was a two-week process of all of them coming in reading all of them whittling them down also other john read them people on staff read them but i was like i'm gonna make sure no matter, I'm not going to split it up. I'm going to make it to every single one. And it's really, if, if, if you can't write

one great monologue joke at the top of your packet, there's no way you wrote 10. You know what I mean? Like you can read one joke. If it's horrible, the second joke is horrible. The third joke is horrible. Like it's an easy read. You're like, you, you want to, and I will say it's second joke is horrible. The third joke is horrible. Like it's an easy read. And I will say it's very hard, like to do 10 banger jokes, you have to be an incredible writer. And we gave them basically 24 hours slash a weekend to do this so that nothing could be evergreen. I said it had to be topical. So it can't be like stuff you have in your back pocket. I also set it on a holiday to sort of as a trick. So it's like, how many President's Day jokes were we going to get? How many, like who, who can be innovative? And if I have a thousand President's Day jokes,

who wrote the one that stands out? And so that's how we did it. And I sent it basically, I sent it through comedy channels and I said, pass it to everyone, you know, who would want this job. And then it went around on Twitter. It was posted on Reddit. We got, we had international people apply and blindly, we read them all, narrowed it down to a second round of between 30 and 40. And then that round did a second, much harder packet. and it was narrowed down to the final seven writers that we hired. Do you have a favorite joke from those submissions? Do you remember? I do. I do. Oh, can you tell me? Let me think if I can. I want to say it so that- Like do it justice? Yeah, yeah,

yeah. I don't know if I can do it justice. I only remember. And it's funny because we hired that writer. And I will say my favorite joke, totally different from John's favorite joke, totally different from our producer Katie's favorite joke, which is, again, why you need diverse readers. You can't just have the same white straight dude reading all the packets. They'll all have the same favorite Batman joke. You know what I mean? Like, you need different ages. You need different races, sexes. Like, and we, and luckily we had that all of our top line people, like we had a variety of readers. So that wasn't just one type of comedy getting through. Um, it was a joke.

God, I can't do it. I can't remember the wording. So I'm not doing justice, but it was a joke about Eminem losing his battle to demons. Um, and I was something like dude you've lost the battle um something like that but it was uh from our writer rob christensen and it was just really out of the box and um made me laugh very hard and specifically hit a style of humor you don't often see in late night political comedy and i will say this i was I started to get when I'm, when, when this process was going, I had this text thread of other female showrunners. And I was like, you guys, you guys, what if I, first of all, it went viral. So it goes viral. And, um, at this point I'm like, Oh, everyone's watching to see what happens. What if this experiment turns out seven white

dudes from Harvard? Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. Cis men. They all did the lampoon. It was the correct process the whole time. Like we never needed to change anything. And I was like, because it was fucking blind. I was like, this might happen to me this. And, and here's what makes me so, I'm so happy to say this, but not every, there's so many, there's so many categories of diversity, but we had age diversity. We had race diversity. We had sexual preference diversity. We had, we had working moms.

We had military vets. We had, it was people from all over the country, people from the Midwest, the South, the Southwest, California, New York, we had upper class, we had lower class. It was like, oh my God, it's truly, it truly is like when you open the doors, talent rises and talent just comes from everywhere. It just does. And the fact that we think it only comes from a certain type of person, as we know, is just such a lie. Are we seeing more shows do that?

I hope so. I like that our process got so much attention. I hope it puts the pressure on. I'm talking to the WGA and have given over all the materials exactly like how we did it. Hopefully they can pass it on. I thought about putting it online. What year was this? Was this 2019? This was 2021. Was it? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And those writers are so talented. Oh my gosh, this is the other thing. Five of them were unwrapped. All of them but one had never written in television before. Wow. mean newest, like young, cause not everyone's young. It's just the freshest, sharpest point of view happened to be these writers. And they didn't even have agents and managers. And, um, they're also like really kind people. Like there wasn't one asshole, which was truly

shocking. I mean, just shocking. And John was always like, wow, these writers are amazing, Chelsea. Like, how did you do it? Like, they're all good people. I'm like, that part I don't know. Like, but they're all good people. And you can actually, if you watch The Problem with Jon Stewart, you'll see pockets of them are in the behind the scenes clips that are a part of the show. They're in the YouTube behind the scenes. They're on the podcast. And like, it's a cool group of people. Yeah.

Also, for anyone out there, straight white men also got hired. Like, do you know what i mean but like oh it's like soothe soothe use the balm to soothe the white male ego you still have jobs this might have been after you and i recorded i think it was um i'm in brooklyn right now and uh yeah you were kind enough to have me on your show and I think either that same night or like the next day guess who I walked past on the street Louis motherfucking CK no you did not and you're like hi I it was like seeing a ghost I could not believe it like we crossed the street he saw me clock him and I literally knew that he wouldn't turn back. And I did a full turn to watch him keep walking. I was like, you're just out. Yeah.

You're out in public. Yeah. I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it. I mean, he's doing sold out shows. Won a Grammy like four months ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's the thing too about like cancel culture is like, I think the thing we don't talk about enough is that it doesn't work. If it was an effective means of making society better than like, great. It's, it's actually ineffective. It's not real. We have to pick something different. Yeah. Yeah. Well, accountability culture and cancel culture are two different things accountability culture doesn't work either like it's i don't know if we held him accountable i don't know right like i'd fuck it oh no we absolutely held it the whole world knows what he did heard the stories like sure sure that was a really not not every comedy monster gets their uh

molestation stories shared the way his did and no everyone knows right so we all know and then right enough people made the choice that we don't care and so it's just i i this is my own little feminist soapbox but i really think we need a like the even with accountability and cancel culture i think like often the the, the, this, there's this fuck off and die is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to fuck off and die. And if that's the option for what happens to people, they're not going to take it. It's sort of like it's rehabilitation. It's like, it's even in like prison systems, which so fucked up for so many reasons, but like you have to show a means of like how you're going to get better and society is going to accept that and like that from you.

And right now that doesn't exist in the way we talk online. Because why? So why would anyone choose getting better? They're not. They're just gonna be like, oh, I tour red states now. Now my comedy is for Republicans. Bye. Right.

Nope. And there's severity. Like there's it's a scale, too, right? Like, what Louis C.K. did was horrible. Harvey Weinstein's in a whole other, like, realm, right? And I think that that's part of it, too, is, like, it's, there's so much nuance in all of these conversations, too. Oh, absolutely. And, I mean, first off, like, if you can get it to court, that's what should happen.

They should go to prison. Of course. They can rot in their forever. But I what should happen. They should go to prison. They can rot. They can rot in there forever. But I'm not even talking about Lucy Kay. I'm talking about even like smaller instances when like, it's like, stop doing that. You're harming people. And we just haven't offered people an option to stop.

We've only offered like, go away and get worse, you know, or, or keep doing it. And we just need that third option of like how can you stop being a monster right how can you actually learn and improve and not do it again yeah yeah absolutely it's been a weird and then i walked uh behind chris rock for four blocks like two days ago oh wow how's he doing new york trip he's fun he was out walking at 10 45 at night by himself yeah wow you're really out and about Tori I don't know how are you hanging out by the cellar and then I fucking I was at the cellar but this is not either of these instances oh no it was not and then I saw fucking James Franco at a play I was happening I got a little radar it's like apparently i don't know well chris rock i

don't know i don't know chris rock's whole history i don't think yeah yeah i'm not i'm not putting him in that i meant a comedy no no no well i guess james franklin's comedy you got a celebrity i literally saw i only recognized james franklin from his voice because he was in the lobby being loud and i was like why do i know that voice and i turned and i was like again weird hilarious hilarious yeah very bizarre okay you've talked openly about your background growing up working like, why do I know that voice? And I turned and I was like, again, weird. Super weird. Hilarious. Yeah. Very bizarre. Okay. You've talked openly about your background growing up working middle class with a single mom and how it left you in a kind of scarcity mindset and has made it now difficult to enjoy slash manage your financial success. Can you chat a bit about that experience and how that kind of

influenced how you view money or your relationship with money now? Yeah. I mean, my relationship is so bad, which is why I was like, Tori, please have me on. Fix me. Help me. So I, so yeah, so very, very complicated story. Not long enough for this podcast, but my mom, my mom's been married three times. And so there were dads and stepdads in the picture, which is when we were doing financially better because you had two incomes and one was a man's income. And then there were times when it was just my mom alone. Those were definitely our hardest times. Use like, it's weird when you think back to like, how do we label ourselves? There's times when maybe we were middle class and we were like taking vacations and like

just like blue collar middle class. There were times where like we had nowhere to live. And so it's just, I've sort of experienced like this range, but, and then later in life, things got very, very stable, but I was off at college at that point. And so money has always been the thing to me that ruins your life. Like money is why you're sad. Money is why you divorce. Money is why you can't have ballet lessons. Money is why you can't go play soccer with your friends. Like money is why this man is being violent. Money has just always been this horrible thing. And I knew I needed some.

I knew if I wanted to have a happy, stable life, I knew I needed money. So you're like, this is an abusive relationship with money, right? Money brings nothing but terror, but I still need it. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it's like, ooh, I know I need money because it's going to ruin my life if I don't have enough. And it's going to make sure I'm really you talk about money as feminism and as power, but like, especially if you are in abusive, violent situations. violence cases have some sort of financial abuse. Absolutely. Time and time again. Not only does it have financial abuse, but you stay in that relationship because you do not have the

resources to leave. Yeah. And and if you did, I think our stats would be a lot different. They'd be completely different. And we know. Yeah. To your point of like financial abuse, like often a partner will take, you know, their credit score and tank it. There was one case actually who was a community member who literally like her partner monitored her bank account and moved the bank account to like an hour away where she wanted to access her money. She would have to like go out of her way to do that. just regardless of the actual financial abuse, it's you don't have the money and the resources to afford your own apartment, to get a hotel for a week, to go somewhere else. Yeah. And let alone a week, the idea is you're going to live without this man. You're going to be on your own with two kids. How do you sustain them forever? And that's a pretty crippling thought. And yeah, some of the things you listed and way worse happened to my mom when she was trying to get free of her really, he was just really tough

marriage with my step, my former stepdad. And so, and I was like 12 when all that was happening. So I was really like a witness to some like pretty intense things. And that's when we like lived in a office clinic for a summer. We like lived in an office building and like showered at the community center because there was like no other way out. And so I was like, I have to have money, which is why I also thought I couldn't be an artist because I was, I knew artists don't get money. And then when things got better, when I went off to college, I took, I was like, okay, I am going to be an artist. I also don't think I have the emotional stability to not be. It was really like a mental health thing for me. And now I find myself with like quite a bit of success. Like I am a working television writer.

I was Jon Stewart's head writer. Like I, I am now a person, I would say like, people are like, Oh, I'm not rich. I didn't grow up rich. Like if you went to the grocery store and you weren't worried if the card would go through, you were rich. That's my line. Like if you can go buy groceries, you're not worried about it. You're doing great. And so I've been rich for quite a long time now. I know money is the true power. And I want to be one of those women who gets the power and shifts our politics, shifts our gun legislation. I know money is the true power. And I want to be one of those women who gets the power and shifts our politics, shifts our gun legislation. You know, I mean, all I want is like all the women to just have so much money because that's really what is controlling our political realm is money. So I want to be one of those people. And yet when I, I don't even, I don't,

I can't, I don't know how to get there because I feel so overwhelmed and like to invest and things like that. You take risks. And then, but when you have my brain, you're like, Oh, see, that's the thing. You're like, how do I feel safe? How do I not feel like everything is going to fall apart tomorrow? If I take this money and like, give it away to something that I don't need in this moment. Yeah. Yeah. See, that's the scarcity mindset. Chelsea, do you have questions for me? Yes, I do. We've never done this. We'll do this. Okay. What can I answer? I'm going to start off with a really tough question, if that's okay, because it's been on my mind a lot. Okay. So first I want to start with one question is,

do you often tell women to invest in the stock market? Yes. All the time. Okay. Yes. Okay. I've listened to your podcast. I figured, but I just want to. Yeah. Okay. So this is my question because it's something I really struggle with. Yes. Morally, uh, the, the stock market is really bad and beyond being run by straight white dudes. Um, and you know, funding like the prison industrial complex, all of the smaller ways to get in the stock market is often helping these men get richer. So like Robinhood only helps them get richer. You're not like becoming an investor. You're like helping them, you know, through payment for order flow. And so when I think about putting my money in the stock market, I'm like, I can't. So, so what do I do?

This is going to take me like five, 10 minutes, but. Okay, good. I'm Okay. I need it. First of all, Robinhood, I don't recommend it. I don't like there are ways to invest outside of Robinhood. Robinhood is super bro-y. Um, it does not offer any sort of retirement accounts, which are like the best ways to invest because you're getting tax breaks. Um, and it's very much gamifying investing, which is good from an accessibility standpoint, right? It's getting more people involved. But it's just it's it's like some through Robinhood, they're funding these larger hedge fund transactions who need people like you thinking you're investing to make themselves richer. So they put out all these ads of like, oh my God, it's all people of color and lesbians being like, I'm a Robinhood investor. And it's like, yeah, they only allowed you into the stock market now because they're making money off of you. They're selling your

orders for more money. And so it's exceptionally bad. OK, please. And still, just because you put a black woman or a lesbian in a Robin Hood ad, we know from the statistics that neither of those groups are really the ones that a Robin Hoodhood actually goes after, and B, that are actually a part of the Robinhood community. It's still straight white men. Yeah. Okay. I think of investing in two different ways, and there is no right or wrong way. Both are pros and cons. There's one way to do it, which we talk about more in my book that's coming out, that's just socially responsible investing. And you've probably heard this concept, which is like investing in companies that are not either not as bad or not bad. You get to define for yourself what socially responsible means. Is it like, I'm not

participating in any, I'm not investing in any companies that do fossil fuels. Okay. I'm not investing in any companies that are, yeah-grade weapons or to the prison industrial complex. You get to decide what that socially responsible investing means for you. The con of doing this, one, is it's going to take more of your time and research, but if it's something you're willing to do, cool. The second is it might potentially cost you a little bit more money in like fees. A lot of these like socially responsible funds that they put together typically have, I shouldn't say typically, some of them have higher fees because I think my not so conspiracy conspiracy theory is they know like women are largely going to invest in those fees or into those funds.

And so they're like, okay, well, they don't know that this is a higher fee. So we're just going to charge them. funds. And so they're like, okay, well, they don't know that this is a higher fee. So we're just going to charge them. And then third thing, again, depending on the fund, sometimes you just won't, these funds won't perform as well. Because some of the larger companies who might be doing some, you know, again, you get to define it, but some not great things in the world are making more money. Thus, you're getting more money from the stock. So those are the pros and cons. The method that I personally do that, again, I think a lot of people fully disagree with me on, I would rather go in, make my money, even if it's on companies that I don't absolutely adore,

and then use that money to go fuck shit up. Because I would rather invest in the stock market and use my resources somewhere else where I know that that's going to go further. If I'm investing in the stock market, I would rather go ham, get as much money as I can, and then use it to change the world. And in my daily purchases, I'd rather support Black-owned, women- women owned businesses because a dollar to Amazon doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but a dollar to a black owned business matters a lot more. So that's my personal outlook on it is I would rather go in, even if it fucking sucks, play the game a little bit, profit off of the game, and then take that money and do better, right? Build my own financial life, build other people's financial life.

You can do both, right? You get to decide what socially responsible looks like to you. There are certain companies where I'm like, yep, I will not partake. Like, I just won't. There's also, I think, this misconception that investing means investing in individual companies, right? Like the Wolf of Wall Street, like, I really need to buy this company and sell this company. Like, that's just not true. There's funds, right? Like the Wolf of Wall Street, like, I really need to buy this company and sell this company. Like, that's just not true. There's funds, right? And that's typically like the smart

way to invest is you're purchasing a share of this fund that has 100 companies or 300 companies or the whole stock market or, you know, only the companies that don't, you know, invest in fossil fuels or promote fossil fuels. So there's ways around that. That was my long winded explanation. No, I think that's it's it makes so much sense because the power imbalances are so strong because it's the evil people willing to do the evil things that always lead to the most profits. And then they have the money to make change. So here's a question. When you do use your money to fuck shit up in the world for the better, what are you primarily pouring it into? So who you purchase your goods from,

who your money goes from? Are you also like, okay, now I'm investing in businesses or is it full donation? What do you go for after that? Yeah. I mean, I donate a lot of money, right? It's primarily that. It's, you know, making sure I pay my employees fairly and compensate them good wages. I'm living in Bed-Stuy right now in Brooklyn, right? Which is a predominantly black community. And I have done more spending in this neighborhood knowing for the fact, like, okay,

I can go and afford to eat out four instead of three times this week. And also knowing that this money is being poured back into the community. Like, I'm thinking a lot about that. and afford to eat out four instead of three times this week. And also knowing that this money is being poured back into the community. Like I'm thinking a lot about that. In addition, I now have the sort of financial resources where I can start dabbling in angel investing. So that is something I'm now exploring of actually using my resources to start funding companies with missions and with founders that I believe in. So I've only literally just started dipping my toe in that. But that's the fun thing I get to

do now is it's like, okay, I've taken care of myself. Our whole thing at Her First 100K and Financial Feminist is it's like, you have to put on your own oxygen mask first. You have to take care of yourself first. And then once you're taken care of, you get to do really cool shit with that money to your point, Chelsea. Fuck shit up. Change the systems that exist that don't benefit everybody. So yeah, it's a lot of different things. And you get to decide too. There's so many things, you know, where you can literally, yeah, like not only just, of course, like invest in companies you believe in on the stock market, but you can, again, angel invest, or there's like community funded, like small business loans that, you know, happen in towns or cities where you can say, okay, I'm going to invest as a group with these 50 other people in this black owned business who needs some sort of money to get started. You can do that shit too. Okay. I have two questions. When have you fulfilled your oxygen requirements from the mask? How much air are we breathing in before we determine now I can start helping others? Great question. There is no magic answer. Great question. There is no magic answer. People feel, you know, there's certain people who are,

you know, at $12 million and only need two, but they're still not comfortable, right? I am financially independent at 27, meaning I will never have to work another day in my life if I don't want to. Oh my God. Sorry. So I'm really proud of myself. And I feel like I, I, I'm pretty much there. I'm good. I'm good. So, you know, a lot of my money now is either let me do cool shit that I never thought I'd be able to do mixed with again, how do I now take my oxygen? But this is not off.

That's a, that's forever money. You're like, I'm good forever. And now we start falling. But I'm also good forever as a single woman. If my life changes, if I choose to have children, my parents have been really smart and really frugal. So I don't think this is the case. But if they were to get sick, if something were to happen, that's going to slightly change my financial situation. So right now, I financially independent and I plan on being, my numbers, the way I've crunched them, don't really super change if my life changes. However, it's going to be less comfortable.

If I stay a single woman who is healthy and doesn't have children and doesn't have any sort of person depending on me, I'm good for the rest of my life. However, I don't know what the future holds. None of us do. And so, you know, I'm doing part of that planning that's like, okay, if I'm, you know, in 10 years, how is my life potentially different? At this moment right now, though, I'm doing like, I'm funding money back into the business to continue hiring people and giving people jobs to continue doing that, to be able to afford a nice trip every once in a while. And then I'm giving away a shit ton of money. Oh, I love it. You're Mrs. Bezos over here, giving the money away. No, but here's the deal. I don't want to like, you know, we love what she's doing.

I fully, if you are a billionaire, you have, you have exploited somebody somewhere. Oh yes. Fully. Except there's asterisks i'm like rihanna sarah blakely and oprah can stay yeah like she i don't know enough i don't i shouldn't be calling her mrs bezos that's not her name but i think that's marriage money right yeah her husband did all the well listen i would argue though that she built that business just as much as he did and i think that's our own misogyny going like, oh, she doesn't deserve the money and got it because they split up. And I'm like, no, no, no.

I said that in I hope she I wish she got more. And I love how much she's giving away. No, no, no. I meant like he did the exploitation, but maybe they both did, in which case I'm still glad she's giving it away. But back to my questions for you. OK, now I have two more. I'm just going to have so many questions.

The first question is, how often do you take your money out of the stock markets? How often are you like, ooh, I got a bump. I'm cashing out. Never. So what about in all, you don't care about the crashes, the lulls.

You're just riding it out forever. We literally, I don't know when this episode will release. Definitely after. But as we're recording this, we're literally doing an episode of like recession FAQs. And so, yeah, investing is for the long term. The definition of the word invest is to put energy money into something for a long period of time, right? Like, just like we're going to the gym, you go to the gym once, that's amazing, but you don't expect to walk out of there as Dwayne the Rock Johnson. That was really hard to say. Walk out as Dwayne, the rock Johnson. Um, you know, if I work out once I am expecting to lose

50 pounds. That's just me though. Oh, I mean in my head too, but then I'm not shocked when I look in the mirror, it doesn't happen. But like, that's the thing is a lot of the investing now that is popularized on places like Tik TOK or Reddit or Robin hood is not really investing. It's gambling, right? Like day trading or like buying and selling. Dogecoin. Investing. Yeah. It's meant to be done over literal decades, like if not years, decades. So for me, I have actually never sold any of my investments. I might, you know, if I want to buy a house or something like that. However, like I'm in this for the long term and especially with retirement accounts, very frequently, you actually can't remove that money without some sort of penalty if you are under retirement age. They're trying to incentivize you to keep that money in for

retirement, what it's used for. There are certain risks that come with selling early. I give a stat in our investing workshops that we do. If you put your money in the stock market and take it out the next day, you are likely to make money half the time. So if you put money in in the stock market and take it out the next day, you are likely to make money half the time. So if you put money in one day, sell it the next, you're going to make money 50% of the time. Those percentages increase to 68% over a year. So if you get a year, you're 68% likely to make money. Over a 10-year period, it's 88%. And over every 20-year period, even a 20-year period that included like 2008 or the Great Depression, you have been 100% likely to make money. So like the key to not

losing money. It's just how much though. Do you know what I mean? Like if let's say your retirement's coming in 2008, you know what I mean? Well, you have taken certain precautions and measures to not have the majority of your money in the stock market if you're retiring in two years, in theory. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like I have it out. Right. If I am if I am planning on retiring at a traditional age at 65 and I'm 27 now, I'm OK on the stock market because there's going to be dips. Right. But they're they're going to recover. Right. By the time I'm doing that for my parents who are nearing retirement age and getting to that point, they've been scheming for the last like 10 years and doing what's called like, you can Google this, but like a CD ladder. They've been taking money out, right? And putting it in

a certificate of deposit, which is like a fancy savings account, right? And so they've been strategic and only keeping some money in the stock market and they've withdrawn some every single year. Man. Yeah. I mean, really just, it's so interesting too, just how much, I think this is what makes it hard for anyone like me who trauma is just so deeply tied to money. So probably most people, how much like work and consistent mental and emotional effort it takes to be good at this. And then like, you're sort of also battling all those like inner child demons, like as you do it, it's so it's a lot. Totally. Not only of course, are we existing in a system that wasn't built for us? It's also just, um, these things have, um, I mean, some of them have been made

more complicated than they should be slash we're told that they're complicated and no one's teaching it, right? No one's teaching us how to navigate it. Well, that brings me to my next question. So as a kid, sorry, I have a lot. I hope you're okay with this seven hour podcast. So as a kid, I was like, this is, our life is ruined by not having money. If we had money, we'd be safe and free and fine. So I read all of Suze Orman's books. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

I read everything. I was like, let's take this in. Let's do this. I did not, none of it helped. And so when you know, why do you know why none of it helped? I think because I'm definitely overwhelming. Definitely. I was fucking 12. Like, so, you know, I don't know how much she was speaking to me, but none of that's applicable because you can't you can't go to the I mean, I guess you could you could like walk to the bank and open a savings account on your own but like i don't know is there any 12

year old who's doing that i i'm and i'm pretty sure that was some of the advice you know it i had the i read the like for college kids to like get out of debt which like none of that helped me and i was in a lot of debt but it was like you know open an account take your latte money and like put it in every day so um when you, when you are, cause you're, I know you're writing your book and like, and I love all these, uh, I love your podcast episodes and listening to you. I'm like, I know I need to listen to every single one. We're going to get all the power. We're going to change gun legislation. Um, but when you are writing your book, what do you think you're doing to make sure, like, I feel like Suze Orman fleeced us.

Do you know what I mean? A hundred percent. Yeah. And so when you go forward, like, what do you think is the main difference between a book you're creating and like one of the 19 books that I read of hers? You just threw a softball about 30 feet in the air and I'm just going to knock it out of the park. You like, it's like I paid you to ask me that question.

Chelsea. Okay. My book's actually done. It's going through the copy editing process right now. So for all intents and purposes, it's actually wrapped up and done. Okay. A couple of things that the old school money experts just got wrong. One, they've told you that the reason you're not rich is because you buy too many lattes. Suze Orman literally is on record saying that if you drink coffee, you're pissing money down the drain. She said that in an interview. That is not the reason. The reason you're not rich is not because you purchase something, quote unquote, frivolous, which is a gendered statement in and of itself, right?

Frivolous spending, dude season tickets to an NFL team is not deemed frivolous, yet a handbag is deemed frivolous, right? So even that is extremely gendered. The reason you're not rich is because of systemic oppression. The reason you're not rich is because of a trillion dollar student loan crisis and stagnating wages and sexism, ableism, racism, all of the above, right? So even the acknowledgement of that, which shouldn't seem that crazy, is incredibly different than pretty much every book written by the old school money experts who are again telling you you have to deprive yourself you have to hate your life dave ramsey literally tweeted the only time you should see the inside of a restaurant if you have

debt is if you're working there that was a tweet. So that's the first thing is the acknowledgement of systemic oppression. The fact that personal finance is only about 10 to 20% personal choices. It's 80 to 90% circumstantial. The acknowledgement of that is huge. The second thing is we do not do shame here at Her First Center K. We don't do shame. We don't do judgment. We don't do deprivation. 99% of diets don't work because the more you tell my brain you can't have fried chicken, the more I want fried chicken. It's not about willpower. It's literally our psychology. And I don't want you to hate your life. There is a way to be able to save money and to invest and to pay off debt and to do all

the things you're financially supposed to do, I put that in quotes, with having a great meal out and going on vacation and taking care of your family and yourself. Those things are not mutually exclusive. The third thing is, I don't think, I think very few people are talking about money in a way that, of course, not only acknowledges systemic oppression that doesn't shame people, but is also just like as accessible and fun as we can be. Like, I think in this very intimidating place, it is so exciting and deeply vulnerable in a beautiful way to be able to sit down and have a conversation. Even if, you know, there's, you come from different backgrounds, right? To just say like, it sucks to have debt. Like it fucking sucks because no one's talking about money. Talking about money is taboo, right? That's the narrative that gets perpetuated. And this narrative is meant to keep people underpaid and

overworked. It's the patriarchy's way of saying, don't discover that other people have debt and therefore you feel less alone. Don't discover that Chad and, you know, in your corporate environments, making 25% more than you with four years less of experience. Like don't talk about money. Right. It's impolite. It's gauche. It's taboo. When we talk about money, even if it's just like, God, this fucking sucks. Or I got a raise today. I feel so incredibly powerful. Yeah. It changes everything. Right. Like if you look at Brene Brown's work at all, who's incredible. Right. She talks about like shame shame living in shadow. The more we don't talk about things, the more we feel ostracized. The ostracization, it continues, right? So if you can just start being transparent about money, even if it's how much things suck, even if it's the

tiniest win in the world. We have a Facebook group where literally people will go on and just be like, I know this is tiny, which it's not, but they're like, I save $500 on my emergency fund. And the entire outpouring of love in the comment section is just like, yay. Like that's, that's the vibe and the environment you want from somebody who isn't mansplaining to you, who isn't using jargon. I didn't fucking study finance. You know this, I studied theater and communication in college. Right. So like, I don't have the jargon. I didn't fucking study finance. You know this. I studied theater and communication in college. Right. So like I don't have the jargon. I don't have the preconceived notions about how to teach this or the correct words to use. Like I'm teaching it in a way that's accessible, that acknowledges that racism and ableism and sexism and homophobia exists.

And that's why I'm different than Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey and the rest of them. It's funny. Now I realize I almost asked you like an interviewer, like what makes this a good- You did know, but it was perfect. Meanwhile, I already worship you and I'm like, please have me on your podcast. Help me. You were so right about the conversation. And I will say, as you were just saying that right now, I'm going to, as soon as we get off this, I'm joining your Facebook group. But as you were saying, like talking about things, it reminds me of the first time. And I, I honestly am so mad about this that I'm excited to put on your podcast, even though you probably

already talked about it. I didn't know credit cards with points were real. And I was using my debit card because I was just like, you know, I just never wanted to be in debt. So my friend was like, get a credit card with points and just automatic pay it off. So it's like a debit card. And every year now I have points and I get, all I do is get gift cards. And then I donate the gift cards to, Los Angeles has a group here of like families who want to have Christmas, you know, as you do want to have Christmas, right? But it's fucking free.

It's points. Like it's never even something you saw or needed. And I didn't even know points existed because we don't talk about it. I didn't know points existed till like two years ago. But what I loved, you said this and I didn't want to interrupt you when you said it just 40 minutes ago, you were talking about like your group chat of other women showrunners. Right. Like I have group chats. Anybody who's listening, especially if you're a woman identifying person, please get yourself a group chat. I have a group chat of women who are also entrepreneurs that I turn to and I'm like, hi, I was in this piece. I need you

to share it and I need you to gas me up because I need other people to see it. Or it's like, hey, my business didn't make as much money this month. And like, that makes me a little nervous. Like, let me know, you know, just, just, I just need to tell you, right? And the power again of like talking about money, talking about what you're going through, especially with other people who can at least empathize, maybe not fully understand, but at least empathize is huge. So if you're not talking about money with your girlfriends, if you're not talking about money with your partner, if you're not talking about money with your friends, your family, like it is so important and especially to do it with people you trust. Yes, I totally agree. And I will even say advise,

like we share our salaries on every single job. Every time we're up for something and they say, you're talking about money already, Chelsea, right? It's happening, right? Yeah. I'm just talking and crying in a corner. I'm like, um, but you know, and we, we have to do a lot of negotiation in my business and like, that's, it's so hard, but knowing what, what five other women made doing that job before you go in and negotiate was changes things. We do the same thing in the personal finance community. Technically we all should be competitors of each other. Yet we all, if we find out somebody is attached to it, it's like, hey, do you mind me asking what they offered you? And especially like for me as a white woman, I have a responsibility to other people in this

space, especially black women, women of color, brown women to go, hey, this is what they offered me. This is what you should be asking for. Like we have that responsibility as well. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Anyway, that was my soapbox moment for the last 15 minutes. Yeah, no, no. My takeaway is get a group thread. Talk about money.

Maybe I do need to wolf a Wall Street for a second just so I can get that money and take some of the matters. I mean, shameless plug. We would love to have you. We have an investing education platform that we launched. That's on the New York Times. That was launched a couple months ago. And literally, we teach smart, consistent investing that isn't the like bro-y culture.

So that's literally what we built. The only thing that stops me from every single piece of content you put out is the emotion money brings up in me. But Tori, I'm a follower. I'm a churchgoer of yours. Oh, thank you. You're my religion. That's so nice. No, we have, I mean, don't shame yourself. Don't judge yourself. It's just like, there is so many emotions around money. Literally the whole first chapter of our book is about, we don't go right to the actionable. We spend a full chapter. It's actually the longest chapter in the book talking

about the psychological slash emotional side of money, because you can't, you can't pay off debt. You can't invest. You can't do any of that until you've worked through some shit. That's so true. And even now, even now I'm like, oh God, I feel like such an asshole. Cause again, like I said, like I can afford all my groceries. Like who am I to sit here and be like, but, um, but it is real, you know, and, and I do want to, I want all the women in the world as is your movement. Like I just, we have to get the money. We have to get the money so we can change the laws. Um, and I'm just, I just love that you're helping,'re helping women get it. You're helping women get theirs. That's the idea. And the realization too that as many quote unquote negative emotions as

there are around money, there's just as many if not more positive ones. Like yes, money can make you stressed. It can make you have that scarcity mindset. It can make you feel, um, bitter. It can make you feel jealous. It can also make you feel beyond joyful. It can give you ease. Like that's my whole mission. It's like, how do we give women the amount of money where ease is just normal, right? Where it's like, fuck, I forgot the, I forgot the lunch I packed at work. I can go and spend $15 on a salad today and it means nothing. Right. Yeah. Oh, I, I, my toe, my car got towed. It was 400 bucks. That fucking sucks. But like, I got it. It's fine. Yeah. No, I, that's it. I totally agree with you. And I have a very controversial statement that I know I, you probably won't agree with, but they always say like money

can't buy you happiness. A lie. The person who said that was never poor. Chelsea. No, literally I break down every chapter of the book as we break down like the narratives you've been believing, like the patriarchal narratives. Right. And literally in the first chapter we go through one of the narratives is that money can't buy you happiness. And I go really motherfucker. It's in all caps. I go, motherfucker. I'm like, do you want to bet? Because money can buy you happiness. It sure can. It can buy you stability and ease.

And again, if you're buying a Porsche to make you happy, that's not it, right? If you're consuming things in order to fill a deep void in your life, of course that's not it. However, money can buy you all of the things in the hierarchy of needs. Yeah. Clean water. Health care. Good health healthcare, housing stability. Money buys you all of those things. So of course money buys happiness. If you're rich and not happy, you haven't bought the right things, but you surely can.

Yeah. Nope. Totally. Totally. Totally. Yep. I love that. I love that. I have a couple more questions for you because I'm just so fascinated by you and your story. Okay. You started writing for Girls 5 Ever. Yes. Did you know who you were writing for actress wise or did you like, was this pre-casting and does it make your job easier or harder if you know who you're writing for? Definitely easier. And so showrunners, they always have written the pilot before the staff ever gets there. So Meredith Scardino had written the pilot and that was all done, but we were there for the casting. So we got to see like who was coming into each role and the roles shifted. It changed some of the story arcs. And like, I, I think the decision, Oh, actually, hold on. Let me see. Let

me think of what I can give away and what I can't. One person came in who they thought it was going to be and they dropped out. And the person who ended up being cast is so incredible. Like you think like, oh my God, the show can't exist without this person. And once everyone was locked in though, then the storylines get super specific. You start writing to their comedy, their voice. But watching it being cast is one of my favorite things. That's why I love like being on shows too, of like seeing who gets it and also rooting for, you know, the right people.

Totally. If somebody is interested in writing for TV or film or just doing comedy professionally, where's the best place for them to start? You need to educate yourself fully. I went to acting school. That is not what I am talking about. I think that's a waste of your lifetime and money. There are so many books, creators, podcasts, blogs. It is time to get educated. I think you're going to go on two paths at once, fully educate yourself. The next step is create your own work. And the third step after that is get bold about putting yourself out there. And I think sometimes people mix the steps up. Usually they leave education behind. So there's so many times when, because especially me, it was so hard coming up with just

nothing, just no one to help you. And so whenever someone gets in contact with me and I'm available, I will always try and read, help, send something on. But there are people who have gotten a hold of my time and my brain when I don't have it and sent me a script, that is bad. And had they sent me a script in that moment, that was great. That was, and it's not good. You can't just be good. You just can't. There's too many people here. There's a lot of people who are good, but there's almost no one who's great. So if, if a great script gets in my hands, like I will, I now have you under my wing. I will recommend you to things. I will pull you into things. I will tell people about you. If I have spots, like I will put you in,

but a lot of people shoot their shot without a great basketball. Is that the metaphor here? You gotta be great. You have to be great. Like you, people have good scripts. It's not good enough. You have to be great. And then, um, and if you are great, your moment will come as long as you keep trying. If you stop trying, you could miss it. I will also say too, I think with creative people, at some point, your work needs to be done. It doesn't have to be perfect. It will never be perfect, right? At some point it has to be done because I have a lot of creative friends who are pursuing, maybe it's comedy, maybe it's somebody else, right? And they're like, they're like, it's not perfect yet. And it's like, yeah, but 10 years will go by and it will never be perfect. So like at some point you do have to decide, okay, I'm fucking sending

it. Like, yeah. Yeah. But I would say that's a, that's probably the number one skill to develop, especially in improv. If you can walk off stage and know that was a really good show or that move was good, that joke was good and know which ones were bad. That was bad. That was bad. That was bad. You are talented. If you walk off stage, you're like, I don't know if it was good or bad. Okay. Well you're now you have more growing to do. You need to know, was that good? Was it bad? And why you can have a horrible show and be a very talented person. I've had many, you know, like you, but you know why it's bad and that's your talent and you know why it's good. That's your talent. And you have to look at a script and be like, this is, this is, this is great. I'm standing out. Everything can always

get better, but like, this is a good script. I know. Cause I've read a thousand and that's what I did. I read a thousand scripts. So then when I write my own, I know this is a good script or just a bad script. What is your favorite thing you've ever written and why is it your favorite? Ooh, I like this question. So my favorite thing I've ever written, it's really tough because definitely the thing I'm most involved with in the moment is like always my favorite. Right now, I, my short film that went to South by it's only three minutes long, very short, which I was also, Oh, that's my other tip. Make something great. That's very, very short. And then you, and people think, Oh, short is 10 minutes. No short is three minutes.

Short is two minutes. It would have been better if it was one because everyone can watch one minute, everyone. Not a lot of people can watch five ten especially not the people whose attention you need so that's my tip but um i made this really short film and it got a lot of attention and a lot of connection with people and i wrote the screenplay for it and it's now um with a production company and it's moving forward and that is the film where i'm like if i don't get to make this i'm gonna lose my mind because I'm also going to try and direct it. So you're making the short film in the hopes that it leads to the feature film. Actually, the short film, everything I'd ever made in my life was always for a bigger purpose.

I want to sell it. It's a TV show. It's a bigger thing. This was the one thing where I was in such a exhausted place that I was like, I haven't made something for me in a while with nothing on top of it. And I just made it for me because I loved it. And of course, that's the thing that did well. And I was like, God damn it. It typically is. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't have intentions on it then. When people asked what the feature film was, I was like, there's not one. And then it like, I had like one of those lightning bolts where the whole thing comes to you. And that's my favorite thing I've ever written. And I hope I get to do it. The short film is called

Basic if you want to go see it. We will link it in the show notes, most definitely. Link it. What would you tell younger you about her journey through comedy? I would say you need to find a trauma-informed therapist right now. And don't be afraid of meds. of meds. Because I was, I did not know for most of my life that I had CPTSD, which is intense. And I just thought it was my shitty personality. I was like, wow, am I nuts sometimes. And when I, I did try lots of therapists, but I didn't have a trauma informed therapist, because I didn't have what money. And when I did get money, finally, finally had a friend really pushed me towards them. My whole life changed. And I definitely got afraid that like, oh, if I'm less severely upset all the time, will I be less talented and funny? And like,

is my rage actually helping me? And just like I have to be broke in order to be an artist. And being an artist means I have to be broke in order to be an artist. And being an artist means I have to be broke. I can't sell out. Yeah, exactly. Sell out and make money. Then I'm not a real artist anymore. And but you know what the great thing about selling out is, is that I didn't get to see any art house films when I was a poor ass kid living in the Southwest because they don't make it to me. You know what made it to me? Network sellout sitcoms. So it's like sometimes selling out in your art means that art is going to get to people. Like it's going to get out of New York, which is like where someone like me needed to see it.

But yeah. And, you know, otherwise in comedy, I would say if he doesn't have a top sheet, don't fuck him. You know, like they've got to have both sheets they really and their mattress needs to be off the floor that's my other tip for you know you know i'm not even gonna say that i did with some comedians and i did any of them have raised beds i don't think so um So, yeah, but the sheets, the sheets are real deal breaker. Yeah. And I would also tell myself, too, I really thought being so feminine and really, I really only give a shit about the feminine, you know, energy, personhood, not gender, but just like that's what I care about. And I really tried to fit into their box for a long time. And the moment I stopped is the moment I succeeded.

That's amazing. Chelsea, thanks for being here. Where can people find you? You can find me at Chelsea Devontez on Instagram and Twitter. My podcast is Celebrity Book Club with Chelsea Devontes, where we recap female celebrity memoirs. But it's really about women's stories and successful women's stories. So whether you respect all female celebrities or not, they are still successful women in

our culture. And we basically learn juicy gossip while discussing the depth of womanhood in society. So come on over, Celebrity Book Club with Chelsea Devontes. And I'm around. I'm around. Come see some live shows. I'm here. We had a great conversation about Carrie Fisher's book, Wishful Drinking, which- So good. You were such a good guest too. I can't wait for that episode to come out. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Bye.

A huge thank you to Chelsea for joining us on this episode. We've made sure to link all of her social channels below and in our show notes. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for her book as well releasing next year. And speaking of book, our book, Financial Feminist, Overcome the Patriarchy's Bullshit to Master Your Money and Build a Life That You Love is available for pre-order wherever you get your books, not only as a hard cover, but also as an ebook and an audio book. And y'all, we just got word. It is already a bestseller. And I'm recording this after we announced the pre-order about three weeks ago, and it is already a national bestseller, both at indie bookstores, as well as on Amazon. And I am just so humbled, so floored. Thank you for your support of the book. And if you haven't gotten your copy, please do so.

It would mean the world. And it's literally my manifesto. It's so actionable. It's every single thing you need to know about how to live a financial feminist lifestyle, how to save money, how to pay off debt, how to invest, all of that in one little book. We appreciate you listening, financial feminists. We can't wait to see you. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast.

Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Olivia Koning, Sharice Wade, Alina Hilzer, Paulina Isaac, Sophia Cohen, Valerie Oresko, Jack Koning, and Ana Alexandra. Research by Arielle Johnson. Audio engineering by Austin Fields. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolf. And theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, episode show notes, and our upcoming book, also titled Financial Feminist, visit herfirst100k.com.