Abby: It really frustrated me seeing a lot of people being like. “I can’t believe people are making their political decisions based off of like how much eggs cost.” And it’s like of course they are.

Most people’s political decisions through most of history are related to how much eggs cost or some other staple food. Right. And I’m even seeing this like from certain people who are political commentators, saying, ” oh, it’s all about messaging.

We just have to pivot our messaging and connect with people.”

And, even in political psychology, we have a lot of literature that supports the idea of what is materially happening, what politicians or movements are like, literally doing the way it affects people’s lives.

Like that absolutely matters like that is huge, right? Like people are not rational actors politically, but their own self-interest or the interests of other members of their communities, or even sometimes total strangers because people can be very altruistic, do play a role. So I think that’s the big takeaway.

Joel: My name is Joel and I’m a recovering nerd. I’ve spent the last 25 years bouncing between creative jobs and technical teams. I worked at places like Nickelodeon to NASA and a few other places that started with different letters.

I was one of the first couple hundred people podcasting back in the early aughts until I accidentally became an IT analyst. Thankfully, someone in the government said, “Hey, you’re a nerd that talks good.” And that spun me off into the world of startups, branding, and marketing, for the same sort of researchers and startup founders that I used to hang out with. 

Today, I help technical people learn how to get noticed, get remembered, and get results.

On Nerds That Talk Good, I want to help you do the same. I talk with some of the greatest technical communicators, facilitators, and thinkers that I know who are behind the big brands and the tech talk that just works. 

I am really happy to welcome Abby from Political Psych with Abby to Nerds that Talk Good today. Abby runs a YouTube channel about the psychology of politics aimed at activists and the general public.

And we got two, two very different audiences there. Sometimes. She spends her days researching and teaching psychology and behavioral science, and she brings a master’s in political psychology and a history and activism. Campaign work in the UK and US primarily around climate issues. Amazing channel creeping up on about 2000 subscriptions on YouTube.

So definitely go over, join the conversation. Abby, thank you for joining.

Abby: Thank you so much for having me.

Joel: I’m really excited because. I’ve started to have guests on in fields that I don’t know anything about. So, can you first start off just by, by maybe dispelling some myths or level setting for us about political psychology versus poli sci, which is what we sometimes would think of.

Abby: Yeah, so there is a lot of overlap between political science and political psychology. And I’m not the world’s most versed person in political science specifically. So if I say anything slightly wrong about political science, please forgive me, political scientists. But, really, I think that the main difference has to do with methodology.

I that tackling a lot of the same issues around understanding politics better. But political psychology comes at it from a standpoint of using theories and methodologies that are. Developed from within psychology. So things to do with personality. Some things to do with decision making, although there’s a lot of overlap with political science there.

Also political psychology is more likely to bring in things like brain imaging and more likely to involve, trying to understand how people form opinions and attitudes based on laboratory experiments. But there is a great deal of overlap with political science. Yeah, so that’s really it.

I also think that one of the biggest strengths for political psychology as a field is that you don’t have to believe that people will operate rationally in order to understand their actions. So I really think that’s one of the biggest strengths political psychology brings is understanding that there’s a difference between irrationality and like randomness, if that makes sense.

Right? we, we can’t expect people to be rational actors even in the political space and, I mean, I’d argue it’s not even really worth trying to make them into rational actors. But you can still use political psychology to try and achieve better outcomes even if the way to do that isn’t by getting people to be some sort of perfectly rational creature.

Joel: Got it. So it, it’s more on the individual models and psychology and science and biology and less on philosophical movements of crowds and things like you’d find in political science, maybe?

Abby: We do, a lot on groups actually. And movements. And that’s where you bring in like the social psychology element. So you’re talking, you know about those groups, dynamics within those groups what those groups want, how they operate, how they achieve power or don’t, but you’re conceptualizing those groups and those movements as collections of people,

Joel: Okay.

Abby: Yeah.

Joel: Awesome. Well, I’d love to know how you got into this. ’cause it’s a little bit of a different frame than I think a lot of people think. And so can you give us your nerd origin story, your background, some of the stuff that you’ve done and then what made you decide that you needed to communicate this, you needed to reach out to maybe normal people and launch the YouTube channel?

Abby: Yeah, so a certain level of nerdiness was kind of inevitable for me because both my parents are big nerds. Although in very different fields. My dad is a jury consultant, well, sort of, I mean, he started out in like economics, political science kind of thing. But we have very different angles on things now.

And my mom’s a physicist, so very different angles.

But then I got interested in psychology specifically when I was a kid because I have dyslexia. And I was diagnosed very young. So I had this awareness that other people thought differently than I did from like a very, very young age.

And it was never really my interest to study like neurodivergence, like I. I’ve written maybe a paper or two on dyslexia, mostly in like high school, but that’s never really been like my primary academic interest. That’s sort of, that’s just more what made me aware of psychology as a field at a much younger age.

Because I think I was aware of it from like the age of seven, which is not necessarily super normal. And then. I was always a big history nerd. It started out, you know, being one of those kids who’s like really into Greek and Egyptian mythology. But then I just, I got really into history. And then the interest in history sort of brought me to an interest in politics.

But the interest in politics is also very rooted in a, a general feeling of wanting the world to be a better place, for the people around me and that kind of thing. I’m definitely someone who felt that kind of stuff really strongly, even as a kid. Caring about what was happening to people who I didn’t necessarily know.

That was something that like really would hit me even when I was a little kid. And that’s not always for the better because sometimes I would get really upset about that kind of thing.

I got more interested in politics specifically. I was definitely one of those kids who was like endlessly watching the Daily Show and the West Wing, I’m sure I was insufferable.

And I was the student rep to the school committee when I was in high school. And that got me sort of interested in the functioning of government. And then I went to college doing psychology and modern history as a double major. And originally the idea was, oh, I’m gonna apply psychology to history topics, and that’s gonna be really interesting.

And I did do a bit of that, like my final paper of my undergrad was about that and that kind of thing. But when I was in undergrad, I got more politically active and I was sort of made more aware of how the world worked politically. I was in a sort of strange situation, which is I started college in 2016.

And I started college as an American in Scotland in 2016. Yeah. So there was a lot of. “Hey, can you explain this crazy thing that’s happening in American politics,” from my classmates. And then when I got home it’d be like, “oh, can you explain Brexit?” Right? So I had to become a communicator about politics or risk being rude in conversations.

And you never wanna be the rude American. And then the other thing was that. When I was in college, I really got to meet people who are to the left of like mainstream Democrats for the first time because I think I’d always in theory supported things like say universal healthcare. But I think I wasn’t really necessarily taught to conceptualize those things as achievable.

Or as realistic goals. And then I was in the UK and I was like, okay. I mean, things are a mess there. Like British politics are very messy. I think a lot of Americans idealize European politics and British politics are, they’re a whole thing, but they do have universal health care. And I was there and I was like, this thing that I’ve been told is like this pie in the sky dream is like a reality of my everyday life. Like I just went to the doctor. And did not pay a dime. Now you have to pay a fee as part of your immigration. But that’s way cheaper than even like a couple months of health insurance in the US and it covers all four years. So like technically there is that fee, but it’s so much less.

Right. So I was like, okay, well this thing that I’ve been taught to believe is unrealistic is just like a part of life in this place that’s not even really like much, it’s not like it’s heaven, it’s just another country.

And so I started to question like what other things that I was taught to believe were unrealistic are in fact normal things we should have.

So that, that changed a lot of my politics. I think. I think it was sort of a radicalizing moment. You know, especially having that experience while it’s also the first Trump administration.

So I also got a lot more involved in climate activism when I was in college. I helped to organize the largest protest in the history of the town in which I was living, that kind of thing.

And so by the time I was finished with college, I thought, okay, I wanna do something more related to what’s happening now than had been my original plan. So the thing that made sense for me was like, okay, I’m gonna go get my master’s in political psychology. And I did that. And around the same time as that I started my YouTube channel.

I think I literally released my first video like a week or two into my master’s program. I had been working on it the whole previous Summer, based on classes I had taken in undergrad. And part of it was, I think I had wanted to start a YouTube channel for a while. But. I started a little earlier because it was like during the pandemic by this point, and it’s not like I had a lot else to do.

And also, you know, I felt quite isolated. And I’ve always been someone for whom, like the way I learn is by talking to people really. And the way I remember things is by telling people about them . And it’s funny because I realized this and I really, I had realized this earlier. My YouTube channel was a tremendous study tool for me.

Like my grades went way up because I was talking about what I was learning on my YouTube channel. And also I had my Instagram account where I was like documenting what articles I was reading for class and that kind of thing. And it really helped me to retain the material. And you know, people started actually watching the videos.

I started getting some positive comments, that kind of thing. And so I’ve kept it going this whole time, which has been. Let’s see. I graduated. I would this, I would’ve started my channel in 2021, so coming up on I think four years.

Joel: Wow. Yeah. And I love in your profiles that you have this phrase “I’m learning right along with you,” which I think is , we see a lot of people who put themselves out there as experts or as communicators and subject matter specialists.

Who hold themselves up to be the end all, be all. But you’re putting yourself out there about, Hey, this is a discussion. Nothing is absolutely written in stone. We learn by developing together, I think puts you in a a little bit of a vulnerable position, but also in a position to invite more, more engagement.

Abby: Yeah, I think that’s part of it. I think also it’s basically I was always taught that science has very few completely settled questions, right? I mean, there are some, right? But that. There are instances in videos where I’ll be like, “Hey, the actual academic literature on this disagrees.

There’s no consensus even within the field.” So I’m learning not just because I am not the world’s greatest expert on political psychology, but because even if I was the world’s greatest expert on political psychology, that would still be a position in which I would still be learning. Right.

And also, I want to be fact checked, right? I list all my academic sources in the description of my videos. Like that is something I do because I, at some point we’ll get something wrong. I haven’t. Encountered an instance so far that I know of where I’ve gotten something majorly wrong, but it could always happen, right?

And I wanna open that up as a possibility. I will say that the other side of this though, is that I don’t run a debate account . Like, I’m not interested in. Arguing with people, like I’m interested in learning from people and having them learn from me, but I really can’t do that in a very adversarial context, if you know what I mean.

Joel: Right.

Abby: and I also have a very strict policy of deleting comments that are factually wrong. 

Joel: Sure. It’s your platform and. Even though some things are subjective you have the final say on that. 

Abby: I try not to delete items of subjective disagreement even if I disagree quite strongly. The one exception is that I absolutely do not tolerate bigotry. I, I, if someone says something racist or sexist, that’s getting deleted.

Joel: It’s interesting because you would think that psychology would be well, I would say less subjective, but maybe it’s more or less emotional. Politics is definitely especially now the political discourse is going is very emotional. And once you try to bring those two together , what have you found to be some of the more interesting topics that have ,gotten feedback or gotten gotten attention and engagement, like pe? What are people hungry about? Is it more the psychology or is it more the current political state?

Abby: You know, it’s interesting. I’d say…

I try not to do hyper current events just because my production schedule is pretty slow, so I don’t wanna put out things that are outdated. So I try and relate things to larger phenomena, right? Rather than like stuff that’s happening right now. So I find that things that are larger societal phenomena, or cultural trends that I can explore from a psychology standpoint are popular. Especially if there are things that, and this is something I very deliberately don’t like, run towards, but if they are something that people are mad about, that does tend to get a lot of traction. Because, I mean, I think it’s because people want something they can connect with emotionally, honestly.

‘Cause one of my most popular videos is about sexism like, um, hostile and benevolent sexism. And those are concepts within psychology that have been around for a couple decades. They’re not incredibly new you would probably learn about them in an intro social psychology course.

I did, and I’ve taught them now in, intro social psychology. But a lot of people have not taken an intro psychology, social psychology course or not taken one at a fairly progressive university in the last 20 years. Right. Or possibly even the last 10 years, I’m not sure exactly when it entered the curriculum.

That video on benevolent and hostile sexism really connected with people. ’cause I think so hostile sexism is just mean stuff people say about women mostly like the idea of ” oh, women are incompetent, or they’re not smart,” or that kind of thing. And sort of everyone knows to recognize that as sexism.

Well, except for people who are like incredibly blatant sexists. And I did get a couple comments from those people, most of which have been deleted. But. Benevolent sexism is something that I think fewer people know about. It’s the idea of like attitudes that on the surface seem like they’re complimentary to women, but are actually like. holding women back because it constrains them to certain roles, like the idea that like women are inherently more nurturing or more pure, that kind of thing. So that really connected to a lot of, with a lot of people, especially women because it’s ” oh, this is this thing that like. I felt weird about, and that didn’t seem quite right, and that seemed like it was maybe holding me back, but like I didn’t feel comfortable calling it out as sexist because it didn’t seem hateful.

And now I finally have a framework for understanding that.”

So I think that’s something that really connected with people, like giving people sort of a new lens to look at things through. That tends to connect with people.

Joel: It’s great to have a channel and to have someone who’s introducing concepts that are well tested and well baked, but not well understood or adopted. How do you find, and again, you’re doing an asynchronous, presentation, YouTube and then getting comments and things.

Do you have a picture of who your audience is? Are they a lot of political psychologist people? Are they curious? Can you tell when they’re commenting? How do you balance the audience that is, you’re not speaking to a closed room at a conference of everybody who’s at a certain level.

Abby: That has been difficult trying to figure out that exact balance. There are moments where it’s like, “Hey, I need to explain this concept. That seems really obvious to me, but I need to explain it in the video.” Type of thing. I try and talk through my ideas for videos was just like smart people who I know in my life, but who are not political psychology people. And that usually gives me a good idea of what I need to explain more. Right. In terms of my audience it’s really interesting because it’s. It’s really diverse, like it’s from all over the world. Like my analytics say mostly United States, but in terms of like people who, reply to me on Instagram or on my Patreon subscribers, like there’s a number of people in Europe and Asia as well.

So I do try and be like, Hey, I am only talking about like the American angle here, or I’m only talking about the British angle. Or actually the video I’m working on next in collective narcissism, I’m gonna be tackling it mostly from an American angle, but. A lot of the original research about it was done on in the Polish political context.

So I’m gonna be bringing that up. So keeping in mind that not my whole audience is American is a big part of it for me. I’m kind of happy that most of my audience did not seem to be children because I think that there’s a lot of sort of duty of care stuff if your audience is mostly children.

Whereas I’m like, okay, as far as I can tell, my audience is pretty much entirely adults. So I can feel comfortable being like, if I swear occasionally or if I talk about like serious and potentially difficult to talk about topics. I’ve had a couple videos that cover things to do with sex.

Like I feel comfortable doing that because I’m like, okay. As far as I know, my entire audience pretty much are adults.

I’d say that my audience are mostly people who are pretty curious and pretty well read, but a lot of the time in like very different fields than I am. And a lot of it is people who have already go, gone to college or are in college now and studied something else. Sometimes it’s something like political science or psychology, but quite often it’s something completely different and they wanna learn about this topic and they’re willing to think about it. Like I, I do try and this is something I’m like still working on.

I’m trying to make my videos like as engaging to as many people as possible. But currently they’re at a point where like they reward the attentive viewer, if you know what I mean. So I think my audience is pretty, pretty curious and has maybe some knowledge going in. Like I don’t assume that they know what an ingroup and an outgroup are, but I do assume they know what a hypothesis is, if that makes sense.

Joel: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s pretty simple to, to explain those concepts.

Abby: Exactly. Yeah,

Joel: If you do the preparation ahead of time.

Abby: exactly, that’s something I like about political psychology versus even some other disciplines within psychology is that most of the things are reasonably simple to explain in terms of oh, this word is this, and then you’re mostly. Explaining relationships between them versus it’s not something like biological psychology or neuroscience where you also have to understand like a bunch of other things to do with physics and biology and all that kind of thing.

Political psychology, the basic knowledge to understand one of my videos is essentially like are you capable of thinking analytically about people and about what’s happening around you? Then I’m gonna give you some information that’s been developed by this field that’ll help you think about that in more depth, basically.

Joel: Right. Yeah. And you’re not hamstrung by, okay, well, we have to remember our basic organic chemistry and how neurons work

Abby: Yeah.

Joel: and that, into a conversation.

Abby: Can you tell, I just. spent last quarter being a teaching assistant for biological psychology and did not enjoy it very much.

Joel: Hey, this is Joel just busting in here halfway through huge news. I cannot, I’m so excited. Be a nerd. That talks good. My book, the book I’ve been working on for like the past two years, the book that is gonna help you become an amazing technical communicator. It’s coming out in less than a month. June 11th, June 11th. The book is coming out right now. You can pre-order it on all the platforms. you can go to nerd talks good.com/book and there’ll be a link there. Um, but if you follow all the way down, join the book Army.

I’ve got amazing swag. I’ve got giveaways, stuff that you can’t buy, um, just for, uh, getting the book, becoming a member of the book Army. So head on over, uh, nerd that talks good.com/book. Uh, pre-order it. I’m so excited and, uh, let’s get back to this conversation. Really awesome with uh, uh, Abby. This is so much fun.

What’s creative process like? I mean, you obviously, you say you plan out and you have these ideas. Where does your idea to tackle something come from? What’s your typical process? It seems like you’re scripted, you’re not just riffing.

And then your post-production is incredible. I will say that the graphics are real fun.

Abby: Thank you. So basically it starts with an idea of topic. And I get those a number of different ways. Sometimes it’s hey, I really wanna talk about this thing. This seems really relevant right now. That’s why I’m working on a video on collective narcissism right now. Sometimes it’s oh, that’s a thing I didn’t cover in a previous video, but now I wanna touch on, which sometimes does get brought up by like a comment or that kind of thing, and people can submit questions.

The original idea was to have it be like mostly viewer submitted questions and that kind of didn’t work out exactly. Although I definitely take inspiration from questions people ask me. So basically the first thing is like thinking of an idea, right? And then I try and read relevant stuff about it.

Like I start with the research. When I’m mostly done with the research, I start with script writing. But I do fill in a lot of gaps while I’m writing the scripts in terms of research.

So I’d say if I have a video with say, 20 sources, maybe six or seven of those are found while I’m writing the video.

And those will be mostly things about filling in gaps, like of, oh, this specific aspect of this thing, or a good explanation of a definition or a news article. Because if I’m talking about like a specific event in the context of political psychology sometimes I’ll know I wanna talk about it in the script before I have a source for it.

But I do try and provide a news article if I’m talking about a particular event. So that’s something I might add in later. And then usually as I’m writing the script, I add jokes, write down what visual cues I want for what I wanna be showing on the screen while I’m talking about a particular thing.

And sometimes I’ll do that out while I’m still writing the script. Mostly because I like making the visuals and like sometimes I’m like, okay. I have half an hour, a couple hours to work on something right now, but I don’t really feel like writing a script, but I could make myself make visuals right now.

Right. Yeah.

Joel: On the level of spoons you’ve got at the moment. It’s like, all right, it’s time to do some drawing and

Abby: from that can come

Joel: inspiration.

Abby: Yeah, exactly, because I think especially for me, like my brain turns off for writing at 8:00 PM but I might still be able to record audio or make visuals or make my citations list or something like that after that.

 So yeah, that’s pretty much my process. I do rudimentary outlines sometimes.

I don’t usually do super elaborate outlines. It really depends on the video, the extent to which it like needs that, if that makes sense. And then I’m usually mostly done writing the script before I start recording.

I also don’t wanna do anything live. I’ve done some live streams and stuff, and I find it just exhausting.

Joel: I love the fact that you you include your resources and references. And I also, on this show, because nerds, love notes and extra credit, I always like to include any references. So who are some of the other creators maybe that you were inspired by when you got started or that you look to now who are doing a really good job in this area?

Abby: Yeah. So I think the biggest inspirations in terms of like YouTubers when I got started were I think like Philosophy Tube and Contra Points. That’s the Left Tube milieu that’s like what I mean, LeftTube or BreadTube is like what that sort of genre of YouTube is referred to as.

It’s maybe less of a coherent thing than it used to be.

And they’re both philosophers that they’re both content creators who make things about philosophy mostly and politics. And so that was a big inspiration of like, you can make really engaging educational content on YouTube.

They both have a very different style than I do because they’re, they both do really theatrical things with a lot of costumes and have some sort of like theater background and that kind of thing, and also show themselves on camera. And I don’t do that. That’s not my approach to things because I pretty much don’t appear on camera and I just do like graphics and that kind of thing and video, little video clips.

But that was mostly sort of my own style, my own way of doing things. And then I think a big inspiration for me in terms of just like how to talk about things really influenced, like my sense of humor and that kind of thing. Is Sarah Val who’s a historian and I was like obsessed with her books when I was a kid.

They’re not kids’ books. I was just a weird kid. But she is fantastic. And very funny. And then of course I mean very like early influence on me was like John Stewart’s daily show, like that kind of thing. But I mean, those aren’t really science communicators, so like figuring it out how to do the science element was like a very different thing.

I’m fortunate in that my mom is a scientist and does a lot of science communication things, so there’s a part of me that has sort of just modeled things on like how she does it, right? Even though she’s talking about like very different topics. It’s weird to say this, but like the idea of you should talk about science with really pretty visuals and make it so that people can understand and so that it’s engaging and make as many tools and resources as open to people as humanly possible was like something I was raised with.

It’s like something that was instilled in me from a really young age.

Joel: Yeah. What a concept. Actually getting people’s attention and sharing knowledge and leveling playing field. Wow. Who would’ve thunk?

Abby: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Joel: What? What’s a non-political piece of media like film, art books, even like a meme that you think secretly explains an awful lot about political psychology that people don’t quite understand.

They don’t, they’re picking up on it, but they’re receiving it.

Abby: Yeah, I mean I’ve actually done two videos on pieces of media that are sort of like this. So the first one of those I did was Hades Town the musical which I’m finally going to go get to see in person for the first time in a couple months, and I’m insanely excited. And that one I. It’s, I don’t, I mean, I don’t wanna give spoilers, but it is also just sort of a retelling of the Orpheus myth you know, Orpheus and Eurydice. But it has this very interesting angle to it where Hades, like the place, Hades is sort of like an industrial town. And Orpheus ends up sort of having a movement around himself for you know, hope and liberation for the residents of Hades Town. And it has a lot to do with collective action and the bonds between people, but also with the ways in which people are systemically isolated and disempowered by people in power. So I, I made a video about collective action, but I did it all through the lens of Hades Town.

Because I was like, this is the thing. This is really key to understand it. And also like Hades Town is insanely beautifully written. Not that there isn’t some beautifully written psychology literature on collective action, but I mean, Hades Town is like poetry, you know?

Yeah. And then the other one of those I did, I mean arguably 1776 is political media because it’s set in the Continental Congress writing the Declaration of Independence.

And that one I think is really something because what I love about that one is that it portrays these high powered political figures as people, right?

With wants and needs and bodily functions and just like very human. And I think that’s incredibly important and I think that at its best political psychology also sort of allow, allows us to do that, allows us to. To understand political actors as human. So I think that one’s also a good way to sort of get a grasp on political psychology.

I actually used it as a teaching tool in a political psychology class. I taught to high schoolers a couple years ago.

Joel: Oh, how cool. Yeah, we’re huge fans here, i’m outside of Washington DC so we go to Colonial Williamsburg very frequently and we’ve been there so often that we know many of the the interpreters not by name, but you know, we see them and they’re very good at portraying, the human aspects and they’re it’s, I think it’s a much more engaging immersive way of understanding history and the people that are behind it.

 So this is not your day job and, you know, your day job is a whole nother thing. But what do you do outside of your content creation that keeps you excited and balanced and juiced up and ready to go? Do you draw from your career and bring things in? Do you draw from outside?

Do you sometimes just need to shut the political psychology brain off and veg? Where do you get your inspiration from?

Abby: Yeah, so the answer to do I need to shut it off in veg sometimes is absolutely. Yes, of course. ‘Cause otherwise I would just drive myself insane. You know, I mean, I feel like there are some people who are like politics nerds, where they’re in it just because they find it all really interesting. I do find it interesting, but I am in it because I care. And caring that much, especially when things aren’t going well, can be really exhausting. So I try and mostly only think about it when I’m either learning or doing right. Right. Like I try I try really hard and I’m mostly successful at avoiding anything that approaches a doom scroll.

Right. So in terms of like where I get, energy from, I’d say. I like to do crafts a lot. So beading, needle point, weaving, all that kind of thing. I occasionally use the crafts in the videos to make like little props and stuff.

Joel: I was gonna say, I noticed that. I was wondering if you were doing all that. That’s very awesome.

Abby: Yeah. Yeah, I’m actually, I’m I’m beading a little gold thing that says “collective narcissism” right now. That’s gonna be in the thumbnail of my next video . So yeah. But most of my projects have nothing to do with the YouTube channel. Like most of it’s just, I love making things. And that’s nice because it gets you away from a screen too.

Joel: Yeah.

Abby: And then the other thing is I really like cooking. I’m like definitely the sort of person where I will cook a dinner that takes two hours to make on a Tuesday just because I feel like it. And I will often listen to like podcasts and stuff while I’m doing it, some of which are about politics or history or that kind of thing, but a lot of which aren’t.

And I do get ideas from that kind of stuff sometimes. Like I’m the sort of person where I like to have things going with, like people talking and that kind of thing. Not if I am writing anything or doing something really complicated, but if I’m doing something pretty mundane or if I’m just cooking, I like to have something going in the background that is entertaining or educational or both or that kind of thing.

And then the other thing is just like regular exercise, honestly. It’s not interesting. I’m not good at anything physical, but I do bar specifically, which is like a fusion of ballet and Pilates kind of. And I’m not like good at it or anything, but basically I don’t have access to my phone for an hour and I’m doing something that gets like those endorphins going.

Right. And that really helps. And then the other stuff is just that I don’t necessarily get energy from this, but I do think it’s really important is that like I do activist stuff outside of YouTube. And I wouldn’t necessarily want people to take my channel seriously if I didn’t.

Honestly. I don’t go into a ton of detail about what I do in terms of activist stuff on YouTube. Just because the activist stuff I do involves a lot of standing in public and talking to strangers, and I don’t like, want anything weird to happen to me. Sure

Joel: Sure.

Abby: But, you know, I run communications for a climate organization, that kind of thing.

And I think that’s, even if it might slow down my video production schedule is really important. And also that YouTube is something that I mostly do by myself. Like my husband edits my scripts. I like going on podcasts like this, but mostly it’s pretty solitary work, right? And, when doing political things, when doing activist things, having a sense of community, having people you work with is so incredibly important.

Both for efficacy, but also for your mental health. 

Joel: You recently did, I guess just two months ago ,a video on social media. And is it still useful? And I’m still working on my way through it. I think that might be one of your longest videos,

Abby: which at

Joel: an hour 15, that it I

Abby: think that is my longest video. It also took me the longest to make.

Joel: But it was fascinating, how you, you have to set up a model to do the evaluation. You can’t run on feels, eh, it feels good that way. It’s good. It feels crummy sometimes. That way it’s bad. And but I, and again, haven’t gotten to the end of it, so no spoilers. But what did you conclude about that?

Abby: Yeah.

Joel: Versus being out in the world and doing community.

Abby: Yeah.

I mean, I don’t really measure them against each other because I think a lot of organizations need both to be effective. I don’t think there’s a lot of instances unless you are trying to change something that is specifically happening on the internet where social media alone would be the answer.

I think it’s usually just. It’s complimentary to things that are happening in person. I do wanna say that I finished the video before Meta changed a bunch of its moderation policies. But I released it just after in the hopes that it wouldn’t become, you know, too outdated. And that even more with that I mean, it was something we were already considering with the, with changes at Twitter, but that there are certain social media platforms that are not worth it for certain types of organizations.

And that, that is like a very difficult balance, right? Like the climate organization I volunteer with isn’t on X anymore, isn’t on Twitter. Right. And that was made because it was like, man, everything that Musk is doing, the way Twitter is being moderated, like really does not align with our values as an organization. And, but also the fact that we weren’t getting a lot of engagement, there was definitely a part of it, right?

Because. There have been, you know, these horrible changes to the way moderation and things are done at Meta, the Meta platforms. So you know, Instagram, Threads, Facebook. We haven’t left all the Meta platforms because we have enough following on those platforms that there’s a feeling of ” hey, I think we’d be doing more harm than good by leaving or staying, allows us to do enough good that still being on these platforms is worth it.”

But yeah, I mean, social media can be useful. Like it is a tool, but I think it’s not, I don’t think it changes the way politics work, like completely. Right. I think there was a school of thinking, you know, around the Arab Spring of ” this is gonna bring all of our liberation, it’s gonna change everything.”

And then there was a, a way of thinking after the 2016 election of oh, “it’s all Russian misinformation. The reason our politics are like this is because of social media.” And social media has been related to a lot of political problems. I would say especially the rise of the very conspiratorial right in America.

But, there are real conditions that aren’t just social media that are really important to pay attention to. Right. I. It really frustrated me seeing a lot of people being like. “I can’t believe people are making their political decisions based off of like how much eggs cost.” And it’s like of course they are.

Most people’s political decisions through most of history are related to how much eggs cost or some other staple food. Right. And I’m even seeing this like from certain people who are political commentators are like high up in the Democratic party or whatever, saying, ” oh, it’s all about messaging.

We just have to pivot our messaging and connect with people.”

And I come from political psychology. I come from, you know, thinking about messaging, thinking about emotionally connecting with people. But the thing is, even in political psychology, we have a lot of literature that supports the idea of what is materially happening, what politicians or movements are like, literally doing the way it affects people’s lives.

Like that absolutely matters like that is huge, right? Like people are not rational actors politically, but their own self-interest or the interests of other members of their communities, or even sometimes total strangers because people can be very altruistic, do play a role. So I think that’s the big takeaway.

Joel: Yeah, it I think, and I’m by no means a political junkie myself, but I would say that a good 60% of the podcasts that I listen to are, when I need drag myself away from it. And yeah I do feel like it, it’s. One side or the other. Right. It’s we get wrapped around the axle of one, one way or the other, and then we take our eyes off the ball.

Abby: Although I will say that like I am very anti sort of bothsidesism right. Yeah. Like I am, like, I wanna be very clear about my politics here. I pretty consistently vote Democrat, but from my perspective, both parties are too far from too far to the right on most issues, like that that’s where my politics are.

Joel: Right. Understood. Yeah.

Abby: Yeah.

Joel: Well, I would love to to know what you think is coming next for you. Where, you know, is, are you on a steady path to keep, creating videos like this or are you looking at different media? Where do you think the landscape’s shifting?

Abby: Yeah. So I’m planning on still creating videos. I mean, I was literally scripting a video earlier today. Like I said before, the next video’s gonna be on collective narcissism, so that’s basically high but insecure self-esteem. But it’s about your social group rather than just yourself. And it has all sorts of interesting effects for aggression and the way people treat other groups and even members of their own groups. So that’s gonna be the next video.

In terms of other mediums, I’m not currently really looking to pivot. I really like guesting on podcasts. So I’m planning on doing more of that.

I might have an opportunity emerge where I might start a podcast, but I’m pretty sure I would only do that with someone like, I wouldn’t wanna do that by myself.

I’m still seeing YouTube going pretty strong as a platform. My, my growth hasn’t been massive, but it’s been consistent.

I’m doing a lot less on Instagram than I used to because. It’s that balance of, Hey, is this platform worth it? And worth being involved in. And it is for that organization I volunteer with i’m sort of still weighing about whether it is. For me, if that makes sense. I might get on BlueSky.

I’ve had people tell me I should get on BlueSky. My problem is I didn’t even like old Twitter. I just don’t really like the microblogging format, so I’m not sure it’s for me. But basically the short answer is more videos still on YouTube pretty much.

Joel: Well, awesome. I’ll definitely include a link to YouTube. Any other of the channels that you’re on. If someone’s interested in getting you on the podcast, obviously you’ve got your contact out there, probably through your Patreon. Is that the best place?

Abby: Patreon’s. Good. I think I have an email address linked on the YouTube channel. I’ve also got my Reddit link and I will reply to Reddit dms, but please make sure that your message request clarifies what you’re requesting about, because otherwise I might think you’re a scammer.

Joel: There’s a little bit of that happening over there, so

Abby: Absolutely

Joel: Well, this has been just fascinating. I have to finish all of your videos. I think my favorite one so far is 1776, but that’s because I’m a theater nerd. So, 

Abby: well, honestly, I really appreciate it because I overestimated how many people are into 1776, and that is one of my least watched videos.

Joel: Well, I will link to that one at the top of the homework. Nerds out there. Your homework is go watch that video.

Abby: Thank you.

Joel: Well, this has been a real pleasure. Thank you for joining and good luck with the with the channel and all your endeavors.

Abby: Thank you. 

Joel: if you want links to the resources mentioned on the show, head on over to the episode page. And for information on booking a message therapy workshop, getting your hands on the MessageDeck, to check out my upcoming book, or just buy me a coffee, go to nerdthattalksgood.com/podcast. 

 Until next time, happy messaging.

 Remember, you don’t have to speak well, you only gotta learn how to talk good.