- Also, I'm just getting going.
Dang, I ain't even telling y'all what I'm doing.
Look, can y'all tell I'm rusty?
Wow.
Cause like Hallease, first and foremost,
it's a tutorial, okay?
(upbeat music)
Hey everyone, it's me Hallease,
endeavoring to persevere as always.
If you're new here,
I make videos about my chaotic good life.
Subscribe, follow social media, all of the things.
I don't know why I got rid of the pop and parlays.
Back in 2020,
I used to do this series called Pop and Parlay
where I would sit and pop and separate my locks.
That's how I maintain my semi freeform locks
and just rap at y'all about stuff that was going on.
We are going to pop and separate my locks
to help maintain them and keep them how they are.
And then we're gonna talk about moving to Atlanta
because as the title of this video probably suggests,
I'm thinking about moving to Atlanta.
And I wanna get y'all's thoughts on it.
Oh, and by the way, if the audio is just a little weird
on this one, I'm sorry in advance.
I'm testing out.
Y'all know me.
I love gear and trying out new gear all the time.
And so I'm testing out a new recording device.
Also, I'm just getting going.
Dang, I ain't even telling y'all what I'm doing.
Look, can y'all tell I'm rusty?
Wow.
Cause like Hallease, first and foremost,
it's a tutorial, okay?
(laughs)
So, when I pop and separate my locks,
I usually separate my hair into like down the middle
which I know middle parts are like the vibe right now
for the youths.
The youths be rocking the middle part,
and I hate middle part.
On me, I think it's just not...
It just looks so weird to me.
Like,
it looks so weird to me.
And then I just take a couple of my longest locks
and I just wrap them around one side
and then just tuck them in to that same wrapped lock.
And that's how I keep those out of the way
while I work on the other side.
And then the next thing I do
to pop and separate is I just take my hands very lightly
and I just kind of comb down
and that starts to really like loosen things up.
Nice.
Ooh, that feels good.
But I do that a little bit.
And then from there I start popping and separating.
All right, so I take all of them
and then I just slowly start pulling them
and making sure to separate them.
And the whole point of this is that this is what defines me
as someone who's semi freeform is
that I don't let my locks just do what whatever
which would be freeform.
I let them-
I do try to have a little bit of just order to the chaos
that is my hair.
But as you can see,
I've also let many of my locks merge as well.
If it just seemed like that was going
to benefit the lock overall
and make it healthier then I would do that.
But this is pretty much the main way
I keep my hair maintained.
I don't retwist.
I don't interlock anymore.
If y'all know me,
you've been on this channel for a minute,
y'all know I stay having one foot out the door.
I live in Texas.
I love San Antonio.
It's a wonderful city.
The people are beautiful and amazing
but I think it's time to take another calculated risk
to get myself to what I think is the next phase, I think,
is the next phase of my career.
I see Atlanta as the path of least resistance to do that.
Now as y'all know, I'm a filmmaker,
video producer, digital storyteller, content creator,
whatever you wanna call me.
I am that.
And y'all saw I did the show.
This could have been an email,
did three episodes of the five.
I'm just realizing I do want the opportunity
to tell longer form stories.
I do want the opportunity to tell narrative stories
but the struggle
or the crux of this is I don't necessarily want
to move to California.
One, because the jump in cost of living
is just so much higher going from Texas to California.
The jump is astronomical.
Like, it's just really hard to make that jump.
Atlanta started popping into my mind a lot
because this could have been an email ended up being
in the BronzeLens Festival in Atlanta
which is an Oscar qualifying festival
for features, short films, documentaries, et cetera.
The show's a web series,
so obviously it's not going to the Oscar's or anything
but it was just really cool to go to Atlanta,
be part of this festival,
meet up with some folks IRL.
And I spent a week there in midtown,
so kinda like in the heart of it, you know what I mean?
Like I just really enjoyed the vibe
and it feels like a path of least resistance
to be more involved, if you will,
in the traditional Hollywood film scene
but in a way that feels authentic to me
or organic to me rather than moving to California.
So the goal is-
I'm gonna do the other side now-
The goal is to move there in 2023
and give it a college try.
Like really give it a go in trying to just establish myself
in a new place
and get myself to what I hope is the next phase
of my professional career.
Because the thing that's been fascinating for me
and my career thus far in filmmaking,
in content creation is that I have never moved for it
but I've never moved for my job
and just to like try to find what the next phase is
for my job, you know?
And yet I have been able to find success
even in not living in places
where I would undoubtedly have more access
to other creatives, the industry at large, you know.
I'm a Black girl in San Antonio and yet I'm doing okay,
which is amazing.
But then that also makes me think,
wow, how much further along would I be
if I did live somewhere
that it was just like more involved?
You know what I mean?
That's like on the career side,
moving to Atlanta is for that.
I love talking.
And this is why I wanted to talk to y'all about it
through a video because I feel like,
one, I've met enough of y'all in real life
that I feel like I basically have 90,000 friends.
I don't know if y'all can tell this
by the content of my channel,
but I am someone that loves a survey.
Like survey says, I love a good survey.
And I love trying to just see just like where I fit
within the realm of just existence and people, you know.
And so that's why I'm telling y'all about this is
because I wanna know y'all's thought.
I welcome feedback in me deciding to make this move.
Even if I don't agree with you, it's fine.
So on the personal side now,
it's interesting to live here.
If you're from the South, you know what I mean.
And it's interesting to live here
in San Antonio specifically as opposed to Austin.
Something that was very-
And I'm gonna get to the point I promise-
but something that was very fascinating for me.
I lived in Austin all through my undergrad
and then also all the way up until I was about 26, 27.
I'm now 32.
I genuinely had a culture shock coming
from Austin back to San Antonio
because I did not realize how much I had adapted
to being the other in Austin.
(chuckles)
And Austin, I love you.
I do.
You know, I went to college there.
I just became a whole adult there.
I really did not realize
how comfortable I got being the other in Austin
until I came back to San Antonio,
which is minority majority.
I did not realize how much I got stared at
and it wasn't until I came back to San Antonio
that I realized how much I had gotten used to it
because like San Antonio has its own problems
with race and cla-
It's more class.
There's a lot of classes here in San Antonio.
But one thing I can say for sure is that...
I've never felt othered here
in a way where I felt like I couldn't go to a certain store
or like followed or things like that.
And that's been most of my-
I was born and raised here in San Antonio.
That was like most of my life growing up.
I did not have to start defining myself
by my blackness as the first thing.
I always defined myself as Black.
But as the first thing,
didn't have to do that
until I went to a UT, a predominantly white institution,
until I went to the University of Texas at Austin.
I mean, hook and horns or whatever,
but like wow.
I really went through such a culture shock going there
and just being like, dang, I gotta-
Like Black is the first thing I have to be
to survive this,
and realizing how much I had
to actually seek out my people and find my community
to just survive the undergrad experience.
It was very fascinating for me.
And then I got used to it
and now I'll go back to Austin to visit friends or whatever
and I am just so immediately reminded of just like, dang.
You don't realize how much that grade's on you
until you leave it.
The point of that being,
I'm interested to move to a city like Atlanta
to at least a resemblance of understanding what it means
to be a dime a dozen.
I've never gotten the honor
of being a dime a dozen somewhere.
Like, truly
that has never been my existence.
I have always been the other.
My week in Atlanta really showed me that.
Like obviously, Georgia's old South
so that's a different vibe.
Like y'all think Texas is wild
and I'm sure the other like old South folks know.
The South is just,
it's different, you know what I'm saying?
But I think because of my background and where I'm from,
again, I'm from Texas but my family's from Virginia,
like old South, new South is like generationally who I am.
And so I've learned to navigate it very well
but I've never been in an old South state
and also been amongst...
my identity
in heavy numbers.
Being in Atlanta and frankly like seeing
that level of...
not even Black excellence.
Like I don't even wanna take it that far
but just that level of Black stability
and welcoming.
It was just so fascinating to be there
for that week for BronzeLens
and be amongst other Black creatives
who aren't just trying to get something out of you.
You know what I mean?
They really were just like, "Oh what are you working on?
That sounds really cool.
Let me know if you need help with that."
Like just excited to collaborate,
which you know I've had moments like that here in Texas
but it's just really hard to break into
and it's really hard to navigate.
And I was in Atlanta for a week
and folks were just like,
"Please come back."
If you're here, please let us know.
Like, whenever you come back, let us know.
It was just so welcoming in a way
that, again, I have experienced here in Texas
but I think not to that...
not to that level in just a week.
And so all that to say,
as we have obviously finished, how have we finished?
Do I wanna fix one of these locks?
I might want to.
All that to say I'm telling y'all this
because I want y'all to hold me to it.
I want y'all to hold me to it, okay?
By mid-year 2023, I need to not be here, okay?
So y'all should be seeing some,
"Hey guys, we're moving content by mid-year of 2023."
Because that's when my lease is up here at this apartment
and that's when we're gonna make the move to,
I feel, Atlanta.
(laughs)
Hold me accountable
because I think it's time.
Again, not to beat a dead horse
but I really do think it's time
to take another calculated risk for my career,
for the company.
And if it's not Atlanta then it's somewhere else.
I don't know.
Look, if San Diego wasn't so freaking expensive,
I remem-
Y'all don't even know.
I was talking to Glen, Beleaf In Fatherhood.
I was talking to Glen about moving to San Diego
like a whole two years ago, I wanna say.
And then I finally got around
to starting to do some research on the rent prices
and I was like, "Jesus!"
I'm not-
It ain't me.
I ain't it.
You realize where you sit within the whole nation
in regards to cost of living and quality of life,
like in regards to cost of living.
It really throws me when I realize
that if I was just born in San Diego,
I would be making the equivalent amount of money
to what I'm making now as just a higher dollar amount.
And so because of that,
I then have access to move
across way more of the country
because just like my doing okay
is Texas is you big balling.
It just blows my mind
when I just see how different the cost of living is
across the country in different ways.
But in the comments below,
a few things I would love for y'all's thoughts on:
one, if you are a Georgian
and you are familiar with the city of Atlanta,
you hook me up with some neighborhoods,
you know what I'm saying?
Like I need-
I'm starting to do research
about different neighborhoods in Atlanta
and just like rent prices, things like that.
Any neighborhoods that you feel
that a semi young, artistic, filmy person should live in,
let me know what those are in the comments below.
Also, if you are someone who has moved cross country,
out of state,
any tips around order of operations
of how to approach this would be greatly appreciated.
I would love to hear your thoughts
because I feel like there's so many ways you can go
around it.
Should I just sell all my stuff
and then buy new stuff over there?
You know what I'm saying?
Should I do one of those pod things?
Should I...
Ah, you know what I'm saying?
So all that to say,
pop and parlays are back.
Locks look good,
nice and separated.
I did not feel the need to fix any of my locks
with my crochet hook today because I think they're fine.
Big shout out to my Patreon producers, patreon.com/hallease.
There you get early access to these videos
as well as private exclusive content as well,
and merch, también.
All that is happening over on Patreon.
Also, if Patreon for whatever reason is not your bag,
you can do YouTube join as well.
I also put out content, exclusive content over there too.
If you made it this far in the video,
thank you so much for sticking around.
Consider subscribing because yo,
I am sitting at like 90k right now,
and...
(sighs)
Like truly, subscriber count does not matter.
Like truly, it doesn't.
It doesn't.
I mean it does, but like it doesn't.
You know what I'm saying?
Like it doesn't.
But here's the thing,
I have been on YouTube for like over almost-
Oh no.
Oh my gosh.
I've been on YouTube for over 10 years technically.
And I have a play button.
I do.
I have a play button for another channel
that I managed as a producer,
really proud of that play button.
But I don't have a play button for this channel.
And I feel like if I want one for this channel,
you know what I'm saying?
Because this is my baby.
This channel is the one, you know?
It is.
And so, subscribe is the point of the story.
It's always so weird to tell people to subscribe.
It's just like such a weird vibe
but like I want a freaking play button,
like it's been too long.
Again, I'm Hallease.
I'll see you when I see you.