[Gaby Dunn] A lot of my clothes used to have bows on it.
Like, this backpack has pink skulls,
and it says 'Pink rocks!'
I guess just getting older
or being seen as like a serious person or something,
I've sort of now will go shopping,
and I have to, I'll like see a shirt with a bow
and be like, 'Ooh,' but I have to go, 'No...
The feeling that you're feeling that says
that that is a good shirt is incorrect.
That is a bad shirt.'
Well, the other thing is people,
if you do stuff on the internet, especially video,
people think that they know you or that you're their friend,
so they'll say things to you that they like,
wouldn't even say to their friend.
- [StyleLikeU] Like what?
- 'You've gained weight,' or 'I don't like that shirt
in that video,' or 'you look flat-chested.'
It used to bother me a lot.
When I was a freelance writer,
and I first started putting my stuff out there,
and I would get bad comments, I would cry.
Every single time.
I was like 22.
I get harassed mostly for feminist leanings.
I'll be like, 'Maybe men shouldn't catcall.'
And that'll lead to like three weeks of just like,
endless hate comments.
Now, I'm like, 'Oh, you think I'm a cunt who should die?
Okay.'
- [StyleLikeU] Can you take off your hat?
- Oh, yeah.
- [StyleLikeU] Or it could be your backpack.
- Oh, yeah.
I could do both.
- [StyleLikeU] I'm going to do the next one.
- Yeah, you get to see the backpack.
Pretty good stuff.
When I lived in New York, I would think,
'Oh, my God, this person in New York is writing a book.
I'm not writing a book...
This person in New York got an article in this publication.
I don't have an article in that publication.'
I think age, too, like I was like 22, 23, 24,
and so I had this thing of like, I have to be a wunderkind.
I have to be successful when I'm young.
I have to be the 22-year-old who gets everything,
and I was obsessed with like,
I had my first article in the Times magazine when I was 23,
and I was obsessed with that,
just walking around and being like,
I'm only 23, and I wrote for the Times.
- [StyleLikeU] What was it?
What was the article?
- It was about, I don't even remember.
It was about something about the internet.
I have no idea.
'Cause I don't care.
I didn't care what the article was.
I was just like, I did it.
I'm in the magazine, and I'm 23.
I think it was around the time Lena Dunham came out,
around the time Donald Glover was young
and doing stuff, and I was like,
'I'm also special, so...'
My family's from Florida.
Nobody's very successful.
My dad was an addict and an alcoholic for most of my life,
and blew through money,
and we never had money.
And so, my mom was a lawyer.
She's actually pretty successful in that regard,
but she worked in child custody
and divorce court and stuff,
and she was miserable, because it was so depressing.
- [StyleLikeU] Were they together?
- Yeah, they're together.
Oh, they never split up, which is crazy.
Although there were a lot of times
where she would go, like, 'Girls, pack your bags,'
and we'd pack our bags, and then she'd go,
'Just kidding, we're not leaving.'
And then we'd be like, 'Cool.'
I talk a lot about the adult children
of alcoholics and how you're parentalized young.
So someone was asking me, 'When did you first
feel like the parent in your household?'
And I was like, 'Probably at nine.'
Like, I have a younger sister,
and there was a lot of, like, 'She's yours.'
Like, 'That is your child.
She is your responsibility.'
Like, if she would act up when we were kids,
my parents would be like,
"What's wrong with her?
That's your responsibility.'
And I was like, 'Alright, I'll figure it out.
I'll calm her down.'
So they would try to take care of her,
and they'd be like, 'What's wrong?'
And then I, you know, sisters have this thing
where I would immediately know what was wrong,
so I would go, 'Well, she's upset about this,
and this happened, and then her friend said this,'
and they would go, 'We didn't ask you.'
And they'd be like, 'Oh, Gaby, she's just a busybody.
She thinks she's Cheyenne's mother.'
And I'm like, 'Yeah, but you made me Cheyenne's mother.
And now, you're like, 'Oh, you're just a kid.
Your opinion doesn't count.'
And I'm like, it counted yesterday.'
It was very weird.
That's like a whiplash that was like, most of my childhood.
That's why you do super well in school
or you try to accomplish everything,
because then you go, 'Hey guys!
I know everyone's like super busy
and everyone's fucked up and has problems, but I got A's.
Does anyone care about that?'
And then they like kind of care,
and then you're like, 'They cared!'
And so then you just continue like, achieving.
And then you're like,
start working for a newspaper at like 14.
'Cause I just recently stopped beating myself up
for like taking days off.
Like, if you do something and you take a day off
and then you go, I'm a piece of shit.
I don't do anything.
I've never done anything in my life.
But it's been a journey.
'Cause I like, had so much stress.
I mean, I had like psychosomatic symptoms of stress
all through 2012 and 2013
where I had heart palpitations
and couldn't eat and dropped a bunch of weight
and was like, 'I wonder why I'm sick!'
But nothing bad had happened.
Like, it wasn't, like, in my head,
I was like, 'Someone dies and then you act like this.'
I thought I was going to die.
I was like, 'My heart's going to explode.'
'Cause the physical symptoms of stress
feel like a heart attack.
But it was like, nothing.
There was no trigger.
Nothing bad.
I just one day was like, 'I can't,
I don't feel like eating.
I can't keep any food down.
Okay, now I'm like, dizzy.
Now I'm sleeping.'
And it was this long thing,
and then I had to go home to Florida for a month
'cause my dad came to New York to get me
'cause I was like not answering the phone and my roommate
was like, 'I don't know,
she's like asleep on the bathroom floor.'
But they made a self-imposed rehab
where they were forcing me to go to yoga every day
and forcing me to get out of bed and being like,
'Okay, today we're putting jeans on.
We're doing it.'
Which was kind of nice, 'cause now I think of it as like,
I never got to be a kid,
and so I had a breakdown
so that my parents would take care of me.
- [StyleLikeU] Totally.
- 'Cause I guess I had this idea that no one slept
and everyone was working,
and while I was sleeping, everyone was working.
That's why I wasn't where I wanted to be,
because I wasn't doing what everyone else was doing,
which in my mind, was working 24/7.
But yeah, I started dating this dude who was older
who was not great, but him being older was really helpful,
because it gave me the thought process of like,
life is long.
He was like 35,
and his friends would be getting married,
and I'd be like,
'So they've been together for this whole time?'
And he'd be like, 'No, they were together in high school.
They broke up.
They were with other people for five years.
They met up again.
They started dating.
They got engaged.
They broke off that engagement.
They got back together.
Now they're married.'
But in my head, at 24, I thought:
you meet someone, you stay with them forever,
and then that's who you marry.
And so that guy really helped me learn that
it's like a weaving journey.
It's like this.
- [StyleLikeU] Can you take off your sweater?
- Yeah.
- [StyleLikeU] So, then you,
so, when you...
The YouTube channel started.
- When I moved to L.A., yeah.
I met Allison at an open mic.
- [StyleLikeU] Oh, there you go.
- Yeah, I know, right?
I met her at an open mic.
She's just this adorable little JAP
with like a Michael Kors purse and Tory Burch flats,
and I was like,
and I was sort of masquerading as this like,
very put-together, normal person.
- [StyleLikeU] What do you mean?
- Like I had brown hair,
and I was like very mousy, and I wore a lot of sweaters,
and I just like, was trying to seem,
even like going to open mics and trying to fit in,
trying to make jokes that the men will laugh at,
trying to not be too feminist, not be too outrageous,
not be too sexy, not be too whatever,
almost like trying to hide being a woman,
like trying to hide being sexy or sexual in any way.
And it took a long time for me to go,
'Oh, I can be brash and blond and dress the day I do,
and you like, still have to respect me.'
Like, 'It's not my fault if you don't respect me.
It's your fault.'
A lot of times Allison and I go into meetings
with, and the entire meeting
besides the two of us is older men.
And so, the stereotype in Hollywood
is that these older men are going to be lecherous
towards us, or that they're going to come onto us,
or they're going to make us uncomfortable,
and I kind of do this thing with Allison
where I'll be like, very flirtatious with them.
And so Allison's like, 'They're going to just
start calling ahead and being worried about you.'
I'm like, 'You see that?
No wedding ring on that guy.'
And she's like, 'Can you... please?'
But I would rather go into it
with like that and then I have the power
than to be like some ingenue in Hollywood
who like, a producer thinks he can touch my butt.
I'll fucking touch his butt first!
My socks are Marvel, of Captain America and Thor.
We hung out before open mics and stuff a lot,
and I...
not like a crush, but I was like,
I was like interested in her,
but she would always,
I was like, 'Ah, she's a straight girl.'
But then I was like, 'Okay, but like,
who's straight? Nobody.'
And this is so funny, is that we would hang out.
We would hang out.
She would park in front of my house,
and then we would talk in the car
for another like 45 minutes.
And so then I would go into my apartment
and my roommates would be like,
'What were you doing?'
And I would be like, 'Yeah, I mean,
this girl and I are like falling in love.
I don't know.
Like, it's a real thing.'
And then she was like, 'Really?
I was just like, what a good friend that I've made!'
Just like, so Allison, so like, innocent and chipper.
And then I had a conscious thing
where we were going to start the channel together,
and I was like, 'Should I make a move on her?'
And then I was like, 'Let's just start this channel.
I've got enough shit going on.'
And so we just started the channel,
and I just put it in the back of my head.
And was like, 'Okay, don't make a move on her.'
Like, months went by,
and then I was talking to her about this girl,
and I was like, 'Ah, I'm sort of interested in her,
but she's straight, but we've been hanging out a lot,
so I don't know.'
And then Allison was like, 'You never did that for me.'
And I was like, 'Are you fucking kidding me?'
And I was like, furious.
And then now, just like,
we're like best friends and business partners
and like, we're probably going to be old ladies
on rocking chairs and a porch together
being like, 'Well, our husbands died young,
'cause women live longer.'
Like, that kind of... or maybe,
or maybe my wife will be also old with us,
and I'll be like, 'I should have married a dude,
because, can't get rid of this one.'
- [StyleLikeU] Take something off, right?
The shirt?
- I have so many layers of crop tops on.
- [StyleLikeU] Oh, she's wearing like 10 shirts.
- Get ready.
I like thinking I'm 10 steps ahead of everyone,
and I'm not.
And Allison and I were just talking about this.
She was like, 'I love you, but you try to game me.
Like, you try to be seven steps ahead of me
and anticipate what I'm going to do, and then game it.'
You know when like,
people who have been at war,
they walk into a room, and they case the joint?
Like, I kind of feel like that for like,
making sure nobody's emotions...
I'm like, 'Okay, I've cased the joint.
Everybody seems... no one's mad at me.
This is good.'
But that's because walking into my house growing up,
I walk in, I case the joint.
'Okay, how is my sister feeling?
How's my mom feeling?
How's my dad feeling?
Is he drunk?
No, he's sober.
Okay, great.'
Just like planning
seven steps ahead.
And I do that to Allison, and that's unfair.
But then, yeah.
But then she's like, 'It doesn't matter,
'cause you still make me mad.'
- [StyleLikeU] Can you take off
maybe like a couple, all the shirts?
- I can take off the two crop tops and then, yeah.
- [StyleLikeU] What is,
what does self-acceptance mean to you?
- Self-acceptance means being okay with flaws,
and being okay with things that are perceived as flaws.
You know, it's interesting.
Like, my boyfriend and I are non-monogamous,
and people will go,
'Well, when you get married,
you're not going to have an open marriage.'
And I'll be like, 'Why are you whispering? And also,
maybe.
I don't know.
I wouldn't...
I don't know.'
Like, I should just come back at you
and be like, 'Oh, you're monogamous,
but when you're married, you're going to fuck other people,
right? Because that would be crazy.'
But I spent so long, especially growing up,
thinking... 'cause I knew those things
about myself growing up and I was like,
'Oh, no, I got to fix, I got to beat this out of me.
I got to fix this.
I've got to do something,
because I'm never going to have a normal life.'
But like,
what did I think a normal life was?
And also,
I don't know that I even ever really wanted that.
- [StyleLikeU] So why, last question,
why in your body, meaning like, in your journey,
in your life, in your story, in your struggles,
why is it a good place to be?
- I thought I could outsmart my body by working so hard,
and then, your body says,
'No, you will be sick.
You will be... you need to take care of it.
You need food.'
I used to, I would resent so much
that I needed to eat lunch during the day.
And I would be like, 'If I could just train my body
to not need lunch, oh, man, I would be unstoppable.'
But it's like, there's a reason you need to have lunch.
It's so that you stop.
It calls you on yourself.
At least, mine does, all the time.
- [StyleLikeU] Thank you so much.
That was amazing.
- [Gaby] Yeah?
[StyleLikeU] I'm going to take pictures of you.
- [Gaby] Oh, okay.