Welcome to the latest edition of Decoded, Daylight’s series all about the journeys of change makers who are transforming their industries and challenging conventional thinking. This time, we’re shaking things up by bringing you Decoded in podcast form, as our CEO, Lee Lowndes sitting down for a chat with Shit You Should Care About co-founder and great friend of Daylight, Lucy Blakiston. From small beginnings, SYSCA has grown into a global media powerhouse with a massive reach throughout the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, boasting over 3.4 million Instagram followers and a hit daily newsletter. To mark the release of Make it Make Sense, her book co-written with fellow SYSCA member Bel Hawkins, Lucy speaks to Daylight's Lee Lowndes about creating a community online and her media journey so far.
The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity. It’s best absorbed as audio, but read on for a snippet of the conversation.
Lee: Kia ora! Lucy, this has no doubt been one of the biggest, and most bizarre weeks you’ve had since SYSCA started. Tell me about, what are you feeling?
Lucy: I released a book this week, which has been huge. Biggest week of my goddamn life! I actually wrote about this in the book, but I don’t really want to have kids and I don’t want to get married, so I never thought I’d have a big moment where people were celebrating me in a way that other people get to be celebrated. This has felt like I have given birth!
Lee: Take us back a little but. What kicked off this book journey, and how did everything come to life?
Lucy: We always used to have people in our SYSCA DMs saying we should do a book, as well as publishers reaching out saying, ‘Let's do a coffee table book of all the shit you should care about’. I was like, absolutely not! I love writing for the internet. It’s all I know and all I’ve ever wanted to do. And then, I met Bel, who was actually a Daylight employee at the time. And she was the most beautiful writer I ever read. After a while, she started writing newsletters for Shit You Should Care About, and one day she mentioned she’d been carrying around this idea for about 10 years for a book that helps young women feel their way through the world. And I very naively said I’d help her publish it, not really thinking I’d be involved or knowing what that meant. But when we started speaking to publishers they would say, ‘Hey Lucy, you actually have a media company and you’re a good writer. You should write some of the book too.’
Lee: So you've created a number of massively successful channels and audiences through Instagram and through your newsletter, but you also have this little secret audience that started as a bookclub called Discord. Can you tell me what it’s like having this intimate community?
Lucy: It’s the best! What’s that quote? ‘You just need 1000 true fans to make a living or a business’? I reckon that’s so true. They pay for extra, special content and to be friends and have so much access to me. I’m obsessed with them. They want and need a community connection and I get it. When I moved to Lisbon to write the book, it was one of the first times in my life I’d been really lonely. I can totally understand why people become part of communities like this online. Sometimes it’s really hard to make friends, and they feel seen.
Lee: Ok, hypothetical question for you to end on. You step into the role of publisher of one of the top American media organisations: Washington Post, New York Times, take your pick. What would you do if you were in that chair for one day? What would you change?
Lucy: First of all, I would say no more corporate email sign-offs! I think the tone of a company starts with all the people on the inside, not just the journalists. So we’re saying, ‘Have a fucking great day babe!’ Or, ‘Hi angel, I need this done..’ Can you tell I’ve never worked in a corporate? This would get me fired on the first day!
Next thing, I would remove all the checks and balances in particular with the social media people. I think if you’ve got journalists that have made a video, and it has to go through seven different people to get approved before it’s posted… it’s over. So, in my world, the journalist makes a video, it gets fact checked, and it’s posted. No lawyers are looking at it, we are not having an editor of the section. You’ve got to trust your people.
