Livestreaming Yourself To Death: Erich Schwartzel on Social Media Influencers Rachel and Dave Hollis

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2023

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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This week, Wall Street Journal Erich Schwartzel joins Meghan for a conversation about his December 2 article about social media super-influencers Rachel and Dave Hollis.

After building a multi-million by branding their own happiness and authenticity, tragedy struck when their marriage ended in bitter divorce and Dave died suddenly of a substance overdose. Erich talks about his months of research into the story and reflects on why so many people want to be influencers — and why even more people want to be influenced.

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RELEVANT LINKS

“Behind the Tragic, Instagram-Perfect Life of an Ex-Disney Executive” by Schwartzel for The Wall Street Journal (🔒): https://on.wsj.com/484qarW

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GUEST BIO

Erich Schwartzel, a film industry reporter at The Wall Street Journal's Los Angeles bureau, wrote “Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy.” Published in February 2022, the book explores China's growing influence on the American entertainment industry. It received accolades from New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Esquire. Prior to joining the Journal, Schwartzel reported on energy for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His journalism career began at a local paper in his hometown, Latrobe, Penn.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Knowing what was happening in Dave's personal life,
0:05.9	when I would go back and see what he was posting at the time,
0:10.0	I noticed there was this inverse proportionality
0:13.0	where the worst things were going in his personal life,
0:17.7	the more often he was probably posting,
0:19.8	and the more oftentimes it was
0:22.7	even kind of gauzyer or more sanitized than usual. And so I think there might be an element
0:30.4	where the personalities drawn to this line of work are like over-correcting for something in their past or in their personal life.
0:44.2	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dom. First, a couple of announcements.
0:50.8	My personal essay and memoir writing workshop on Zoom is happening in January and the deadline is coming up.
0:58.4	The application deadline is December 13th.
1:01.1	So if you're applying for that class, go to the substack.
1:05.1	You can find out more about it there or go to the unspeak easy.
1:09.5	And it is also listed there and under the drop down menu.
1:13.1	Although they're writing classes for everybody, it is not women only. It is not an unspeak easy
1:17.6	offering. But it's good. December 13th is the deadline. Okay. As for the unspeak easy retreats,
1:24.3	I won't run through them again here, but I do need to clarify that the retreat in
1:28.9	Louisville, Kentucky in April, is April 9th through 12th. I think I misspoke a few times here and said
1:36.2	it was the 8th through 11th. It was going to be that originally, but it turns out that there is
1:41.1	a total eclipse of the sun on the 8th. And we don't want any competition.
1:48.1	Cannot, as great as the unspeak easy retreats are, cannot compete with that. So April 9th through 12th,
1:54.7	go to the unspeakeasy.com to find out about all the retreats and do it soon because they are filling up.
	...

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