Hello and welcome to another episode of iWay with Jameeda Jamell. I hope you enjoy today's chat.

It is with one of my favorite social media voices and presences, Matt Bernstein, who you'll

know as Matt to XIV, perhaps. He is a fabulous, funny, smart, scaryly young man who talks a lot

specifically around gay rights, queer rights, the whole LGBTQIA plus community and has an amazing

knack for breaking things down, very complex and upsetting public circumstances down in a way that

we can all digest and unpacking them in a way that is palatable and memorable and grabbing.

And he's been working on making that content that he makes not only for those who agree and

already care, but for those who might not care or understand. He's very, very talented as a communicator

and I always look to his work whenever something terrible happens because what he says and how he

talks about it really helps me guide how I feel or how to even make sense of something.

And so I asked him to come on my podcast because I think that he's fantastic and he was, he was a

complete dream. We discussed in this episode how he became an influential voice on social media and why

he believes you don't have to be a public figure to have influence. We discussed his mental health

journey and his realisation that mental health isn't merely a checklist to compete. And we discuss

body image in the queer community, something I've been dying to discuss with someone and how quickly

your identity can get wrapped up in how you look, regardless of how you look, regardless of whether

or not you do or don't feel like you fit in with the increasingly insane beauty standards and

body standards within the gay community. And it's a vital conversation to have so fucking needed.

It is a body ideal image crisis that is starting to almost equal what we're seeing amongst women

and people are doing increasingly dangerous things to their bodies in order to achieve these false

ideals. And so it was a lovely chat and I really, really, really like and rate and I'm excited to

watch what he's going to continue to do with this ever growing platform of his because I think

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