- Today we're talking about Mia Khalifa.
She is a content creator, a businesswoman,
a host and also has had a background being a sex worker.
So, Mia Khalifa has recently had a wonderful "Bustle"
article come out.
I've had bustle articles and I think that "Bustle"
really tries to have journalism geared towards letting women
tell their side of their journeys.
And I love seeing it, I love seeing
that she's sort of rebranding herself.
It's interesting 'cause when we read the article
she's actually been rebranding herself for many years
which I can totally relate to.
When women rebrand themselves,
you can speak to this knowing what I've been going through
with starting a YouTube and everything,
it takes a long time.
- Long time. - To change
people's opinions of you.
- Yes. - Would you say
that's even a gender thing or is it just...
- Hard to say but I definitely know it is a media thing
for sure.
- I think the more people know you for a certain thing
the less they want to accept you
for all the other things you have to offer.
- Well, they have a narrative in their mind
about who you are.
- A comfort level, yeah. - This is why people
like Miley Cyrus, you know, Demi Lovato, et cetera.
That's why immediately post Disney channel shows,
they had an entirely different persona
because it's like I need to break outta that thing
as rapidly as possible so I don't get pigeonholed.
Back in the day when you were doing stuff like that,
that wasn't like, that wasn't-
- That was looked down upon big time.
- Right, people weren't also weren't hip
to how to rebrand quickly in order
to 'cause now like you just said it takes years.
So if you come out of the gate fast-
- Right. - And try to rebrand,
it can help shave down the time it takes
for people to understand you in a new light.
- Well, interesting. Miley did it in a way
that was really who she is.
Like everything that she's done since Disney I think
I mean, I really thought, and I'm quoted as saying this,
that she was gonna come around and stop being so wild.
Like what?
No, she's, that's who she is.
Like that's legitimately like she's a-
- She's a rock star. - She is a rock star.
Now the thing is, is that once she did that,
it set the bar for other people having
to go that far for a while.
So I think people probably felt the influence
of well Miley did it, so I've gotta do it just as much.
And so, you know, mentorship, this is why mentorship
is so important.
Now, you know, something in the Mia Khalifa article
is it's sad to me that she hasn't had a lot of community.
Only until recently where she's got millions
of followers on TikTok, a wonderful content creator
and an interesting person with a really interesting
backstory.
We are friends, which I'm excited to say that Mia and I
are friends on TikTok and we've,
I think she's commented on stuff of mine,
liked stuff of mine, vice versa.
- Yeah, I mean, you're awesome.
- There's a bond happening.
- I think this whole notion of rebranding,
we should unpack a little bit because it is very relevant
to what you're doing.
Obviously, she was in
porn. - Adult entertainment.
- Yeah, adult entertainment. - Yeah.
- But she was only doing that for,
from what I understand a couple of months.
- I had no idea.
So she's got such star quality that, you know
her abilities in the adult profession, whatever
but like her personality and her choice of name,
like she created the name, Mia Khalifa,
'cause Whiz Khalifa the rapper is,
you know, one of her favorite rap artists
at the time and it also sounded Middle Eastern.
And then she, you know she took everybody
by storm in a big way But yeah, she got out of it
in a few months because she wore a hijab
during a scene and was getting death threats.
- Yeah.
She's Lebanese, I believe, right.
- She is but she was raised Catholic.
- Okay. - So she is so many things.
She is not just one thing.
And I think TikTok has really allowed
for her to find community, which by the way,
I'm not only am I a part of that community for her,
but I also have found community on TikTok
where you know, with Instagram, it's a marketplace.
I make sponsored content there.
Sometimes we'll do sponsored content here
just to keep the lights on.
But at the same time, like rebranding is,
it's unique to every single brand
but it's not unique in that you have to like,
what he was saying try a lot of different things
so that you don't get pigeonholed into one thing.
- So I can talk about it from my perspective.
- Yeah. - Which is,
just so you guys know.
I have an agency that I'm launching that is
for celebrities and some influencers.
And what we focus on is, is branding and authenticity
and connectiveness to your audience and continuing to evolve
and make yourself more credible in the marketplace
we'll say.
It takes a lot of testing in order for a person
to be able to start to paint a new narrative-
- Yeah. - For their audience.
- And to me, the ultimate thing is authenticity, right?
- That's the starting point of any good idea.
- And so- - Is how does it
authentically relate back to you, your talents, your value?
- Right. - Why are you invaluable
to your own brand?
- Correct.
So, it's not just about making content
that will continue to hit.
Matter of fact, it's definitely not about that.
When you're making content that you don't like just
in order to get an audience to connect with you,
you're gonna start to hate making that content
and your content will suffer
because you're not doing what you like.
So you have to find a happy medium between-
- Happy Medium, yep. - What you like
and what your audience likes. - Yeah.
- Which is why, you know, testing new formats,
testing new, different types of content,
but that are within the wheelhouse of things you like
are key.
But it takes a long time to get your audience on board
for this showing this new version of who you are.
Especially if you, you know, are known
for being an adult film star.
That's gonna take a long time.
You're gonna get a lot of misogyny, a lot of hate.
And if she has stayed the course
and now she's starting to overcome that,
and I think that's extremely commendable.
You know, people fall into this stuff
when they're young, fall prey to it because they think, oh
this is like an easy way to make some money, you know.
And there's obviously there's ramifications,
the porn industry is known to be brutal.
You know, another person that's done, this is Chloe Cherry
who's in "Euphoria." - Right.
- She's done the same type of thing.
- That's true. - Right.
She's been able to kind of break through this.
But even she said, like when she was working
in the adult film business, she lost a lot of friends.
They thought they were gonna sleep,
she was gonna sleep with their boyfriends
all kinds of preconceived notions that especially
young people have.
When we're talking about branding,
if we're looking at you, it's like,
how do you still accept, you know
the past without living in the past?
So, you know, you have said this yourself,
it's like having one foot in the past,
one foot in the present/leading up to the future.
Right? - Yep.
- And like, if you only do the thing that you were known for
then you're gonna miss an opportunity-
- To grow. - To grow
and for new audiences to get to know who you really are.
That's what's so great about today is
that people wanna know the authentic you.
This is why paparazzi our rendered moot.
We've put the power in people's hands,
in, not just celebrities but social media stars,
influencers, etcetera's hands
and they're able to create their own narrative,
right. - Yeah,
I think what's really great though,
going back to this concept of community for Mia
and what I have found too, is that, you know,
yes, there's a marketplace and you can
make money doing what you're known for
and you can rediscover what has brought you joy
about your brand.
I mean, certainly like doing nostalgic content is fun
for me, but you know having the marketplace of TikTok
and even Instagram to be honest, 'cause sometimes
I'll do pictures that, you know I would never normally do.
So it's like, wow, this is exciting and fun and interesting
and I can just show people a different side of myself.
So I think it's really important as a creator
to experiment with your brand.
I think like TikTok has provided you instant feedback
which is mostly positive, which I think as a creator
you really do need to get hyped up by your fans.
Like you need people to engage with you
otherwise you just, you're gonna stop, you know
- Same with YouTube
- Anywhere, anywhere, anytime that,
I'm so grateful for all of the positive commenters
and there's some people that I know their usernames
because they've just been so positive and uplifting
so consistently that like that's free admission
to my show, you know?
Like thank you so much. - And I think like that,
like when someone has a critique like for example,
we're talking about, you know popular topics or whatever
and breaking them down from our perspectives.
I think when people have input that even if it's not
necessarily what you agree with,
but is constructive let's say feedback
or criticism or critique, those things are useful too.
It's the, obviously it's the trolling,
you know that just doesn't- I mean think
at this point- - Make sense.
- And that's the thing is like, I think at this point
trolling is just like, I think everyone's just
sort of written it all of- - Kinda played out.
There's only like four or five different like versions
of comments, hate comments that anyone can really say.
There's like, like you can't get that creative with hate.
What you can get creative with is your opinion.
Your opinion matters on pages like mine,
pages like Mia's because she's looking at that
and it's important to her and growing her brand
and rebranding herself into not being just
a former porn star.
She's a person too and she wants people
to know that and she has many stories to tell us.
And I really, I support what she's trying to do.
I think we should all try to get on board
and see what she has to say to us and judge her based on,
you know what it is she's providing
for the creator community, not just what she's done
in her past.
I also think just as a side note with Mia,
she's also trying to do some really cool stuff
when it comes to, she hasn't OnlyFans,
but she says that it's spicy but safe for work.
And she's, you know, making money with that.
She's living in a, the suburbs of Miami,
a place that she never thought she'd live again.
She even moved to Austin at one point, I think in 2017
so that she could kind of try to reframe her whole brand
which I find ironic because I did that.
- We're all moving to Austin.
- Yeah, I think Austin here.
Or if you're a person who's struggling
I think remove yourself from that environment
and go to the safest place you know.
- For people who probably look
at Mia's like past and can't get over, you know
what she used to do or what she used to be.
If you think about, you know a particular path you had
that lasted a few months you know,
let's pretend that that path was public,
you know, people will rebut and say,
well that was a choice she made.
But yeah, we make silly choices when we're young
and I'm not even saying her choice was silly necessarily
but we make choices when we're young.
And if those choices define us,
especially the ones that we may not want
the whole world to remember us by,
like that I think is very unforgiving.
And I think we as a society should be striving
to be more forgiving, maybe not even forgiving
but just like we should be evolving.
- Right. - Like, you know
if somebody had that path when they're younger
that doesn't mean that they aren't
all these other many talented things.
- Yeah, yeah.
What I appreciate about Mia is that she's trying to
essentially do good
with the negative that she's experienced.
I can relate to that, but let's just try to evolve
like you said, and you know, don't jump to conclusions
before you watch a person's content.
I don't like it when people just don't even watch
any of my videos or our videos
and they'll write an entire comment.
- They have like a thread
and it's like- - It's like like,
did you even watch the video? - It's so clear.
Yeah.
I'm like, we covered that minute two.
- Yeah. - Like, you know,
and it's, and they just see something and they gotta get
their point across without having any context.
- I think there's like an old saying
of don't trust a person who will salt their suit
before trying it. - Oh, wow.
That's actually a really good saying.
- You like that. - I've never heard that.
- You've never? - No, that's really good.
- I feel like I've said that to you before, no?
- Never.
The one you say a lot is don't be surprised if you go
to bed with a snake and it bites you.
- Oh.
- That's the one that your dad used to like to say.
I remember - That's different,
that's different here,
But- - Don't meaning don't judge
before having context like, or getting
to know a person - Absolutely.
Absolutely.
- We should- - Because she has a lot
to offer and you might just be surprised.
So, you know, great work Mia.
And I certainly hope that she gets more
of a supportive platform to grow and to rebrand.
And I could only hope for the best for her.
(mellow music)