This post is very Eminem-as-“Rabbit”-in-8–Mile-circa-2002 of me.

“But this is no movie, there’s no Mekhi Phifer.” Get it? Okay, I’m done. But, let’s take a moment to appreciate just how great that film was, shall we?

*moment of silent praise for Eminem and our collective angsty youth*

Beautiful. Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to the good shit. I was indulging in reading reviews of our podcast, Unzipped, today and saw a couple terrible ones that I couldn’t help but share. A couple of things to clarify before I get into those…

I don’t read or review comments to inflate my ego or obsess over negativity. I’ll admit, sometimes it’s difficult not to take negative feedback personally, but I don’t share content on social media to be liked or validated by strangers. Creating content is my job. This job is what feeds my kids, so I take it very seriously. While the folks who consume my content, like yourself right now, do it for free, I still consider you my employer in a way… and I always respect the boss! If you’re not enjoying the content I put out there, it reflects on my engagement and growth and that hurts my income from the brands that do pay me to create content, which in turn, allows me to continue creating all this free content for you. It’s important for me to critically consider the negative feedback I receive so I can learn, grow and pivot to keep you – the boss – satisfied!

That said, there are a handful of folks out there who are just plain trolls.

The kind of people who tune in and leave a comment just to be mean. I learned a long time ago that “haters are gonna hate”. Due to being ripped apart so wildly in the media at a young age, I’m pretty good at turning a blind eye to keyboard warriors with ease, but these negative podcast reviews were different. They struck a chord. Someone who indulged in a brand new project of mine for 30 minutes or more of their valuable time is someone I greatly appreciate. These folks and their opinions matter to me and are not to be dismissed. I see you, I hear you and for the most part, I don’t actually disagree!

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A couple of comments mentioned our potty mouths. Eek!
They said: “they drop way too many f-bombs” and “sad about the amount of horrible language”.

SO TRUE.

My husband actually said the same thing after listening to our first episode. I swear like a sailor, especially when I’m shooting the shit with my friends. It’s a terrible habit and something I’m becoming more conscious of now that my kid’s getting old enough to repeat the things I say. I can’t promise a curse word won’t escape our lips because well, that’s life and genuinely just our banter, BUT I can say we’ve cleaned up our act!

I noticed the same thing after our first few episodes myself and we’ve been super conscious about cleaning up our language ever since! I’m a mom and usually only have time to listen to podcasts in the car, oftentimes with my daughter in the backseat. I want people to be able to tune in when they’re with their little ones, so this is something we’ve definitely taken to heart as we find our feet as podcast newbies!

One comment read “these girls aren’t psychologists. For them to pass out advice on very serious mental health issues is a slippery slope.”

Can’t argue that! We are most definitely NOT psychologists! We are well aware of our professions. We’re creatives and entertainers, not doctors. Not even close. That said, we are human beings that have feelings and have experienced various mental health issues throughout our lives. We DO NOT solicit advice or discuss our experiences under the false pretence of expertise. We DO speak to our personal experiences and feel passionate about sharing them in case there’s anyone out there listening who can relate. Our hope is simply to de-stigmatize mental health struggles by sharing our own openly so others may feel less alone in their journeys. We’re still on our own respective journeys of getting our shit together and coping with our mental health, so when it comes to “psychological advice”, you best believe we leave that to the experts, whom you’ll hear interviewed as guests on the podcast from time to time!

A couple comments read “hard pass on the discussion of political correctness at the end” and “don’t we hear enough about politics every day. Podcasts should be an escape.”

Being considerate of how we view, speak of and treat other people is not political. At least, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be considered as such. While we do discuss social issues on Unzipped, we ARE NOT a political podcast. We don’t actually discuss politics at all. We ARE a podcast that highlights real human beings of all walks of life and their stories and perspectives. Day to day, we all walk through life in our shoes and ours alone. That only allows us a very biased experience that provides a narrow lens through which we see the world. As people, AnnaLynne and I are curious by nature and eager to spend our time on this planet growing and evolving into the best versions of ourselves that we can be while we’re still here. Having a platform where we can learn from and share stories, perspectives and experiences that are different from our own is what excites us about this podcast. We hope those listening feel the same. If you don’t, you’re totally entitled to that and you’re right, this podcast isn’t for you. I personally listen to podcasts to learn, not to escape reality. If you simply want an escape, I totally get that and would recommend tuning into some fiction, but please do not mistake our passion for compassion as political. It has nothing to do with red or blue.

It’s simply a human thing!

There have only been a handful of negative reviews on Unzipped so far and so many more beautiful ones, so thank you, thank you, thank you for that! I’m highlighting the not so favorable ones here, because I truly value the voices of everyone who spends their time listening to this podcast, even the ones who don’t like it! Thank you for bearing with our technical difficulties, potty mouths and evolving formats. Thank you for supporting us by listening week after week. We are brand new to this podcast game and figuring it out as we go. We don’t know much about how to create the best podcast in the world just yet, but we do know how passionate we are about this project. We hope to create a safe space that nurtures compassion and curiosity and we love having you a part of it every week, so thanks for listening!