Hey all, Joe here and welcome to Under the Influence.

Today's episode is yet another grab bag of sorts where we are going to talk about all things Olympics,

what the heck happened to everyone's early influencer favorite, love Taza,

and my friend Ali Hoff KSik's wonderful frothy and fun new novel, too blessed distress. Allie's here to talk to me about all of it,

including my latest favorite ridiculous conspiracy theory.

Hello, Allie. Thanks for being on today to talk about one of my favorite subjects, the reason this podcast exists. Influencers.

Sometimes you just have to go back to what made you fall in love with it in the first place, you know? And I'm so glad that I can help you do that today. Well, we have a couple things. I've really been wanting to dive into

about influencer culture. But the first thing I want to ask you is who was your gateway influencer?

Oh, that's such a good question. So can it be a blogger? Does it have to be a social media

influencer? I think that blogger is separate. So you can say blogger, but then tell me the social

media one, two. Okay. I guess this person who was my my entryway, I ended up following her on social media, so I think it works.

My, my, my, my, my entree into influencer world was love Taza, Naomi Davis.

Do you know?

Oh my God, mine too.

Yeah.

Yes.

And then I really was attached to her on her blog, but she probably was one of my first non-friend or family member Instagram follows as well. So I think it counts on both fronts.

It does. It does. And that's the question. And I'm curious for our audience to ask themselves, who was the person you followed on Instagram, the first person that you followed,

who wasn't a friend or family member and who wasn't, like, distinctly a celebrity?

Yes.

That was just another seemingly normal person, but you didn't know who they were.

Yes. Yes. And I, I am still heartbroken that we do not know where Taza is.

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