How to be a better man: in bed, at work and life
Aminatou Sow talks confronting trolls, building a brand and using it for good
The one question Aminatou sow gets All The Time? “How do I become an influencer?” ‘I’m like, “I don’t know.” We’re living in this scam economy. People just get picked. I don’t know what to tell you.’
This isn’t entirely true. Because, as evidenced by the insight-packed interview the multihyphenate super person gave on Airplane Mode
– a podcast about living smarter and staying sane in an insane world – Sow knows a lot about how audiences are built in a meaningful way. With more than a quarter million social-media followers and a successful podcast of her own, Call Your Girlfriend, she’s got plenty of influence in the online world. But at a time when “influencer” has become a pejorative, she tries to use her clout thoughtfully to build networks, to create connection and to fund the important work she wants to do offline.
In an episode, she opens up about how to build a personal brand online without sacrificing your soul (or being a dick!), while protecting time to get real shit done. She gets into what it’s like to confront your trolls, how to effectively say no to people and why you should never e-mail someone asking, ‘Can I pick your brain?’
Here are some of the best takeaways from our conversation.
“Personal Brand” Doesn’t Have to Be a DIRTY word
‘I don’t think about the brand work that I do as work. It’s a paycheck that I get to further other things that I want to do. Sometimes it’s a vacation. Sometimes it’s shoes. I really want that stuff. But also, it’s a real opportunity for me to be able to donate the kind of money that I want to donate to a lot of the charities that I care about, or an opportunity to talk about a lot of things that I want to talk about, like ambition and power and money for women – and have somebody pay for it.’
If You’re GOING to Be a Dick,
Do It In Person
‘I can’t stand people who are badly behaved online. This is the one place where you can invent yourself. You can be an asshole to your family and friends – those people will love you forever. Online, we don’t know each other. We’re not a family. This is conditional love.’
How to clap Back at Your trolls
‘A couple of times, people have said really egregiously racist things. A thing that I always find interesting about trolls is that when you Google them, the only thing you can find about them is their real name and usually where they work and where they live, because these idiots don’t have serious digital footprints. The first time that it happened was with this kid who called me the n-word, and I obviously found his school. First
I told him that I was going to call his school, and I 100% reported him to his parents and his school. He was losing his mind. He was like, “I’m on a hockey scholarship. Don’t do this to me. I’m so sorry,” I was like, “And I was just having a pleasant Saturday afternoon when you brought racism into my life, so you’re going to learn the consequences of this.” I think that especially as a woman, there’s so much that you have to deal with online and offline, and just this constant danger and fear. Weaponising that slightly against assholes, makes me feel pretty good.’