#211: Freshalina

A Waste Of Time with ItsTheReal

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we traveled to Atlanta to sit down with the blogger's blogger, the influencer's influencer, the internet's favorite voice, and the first website owner to get kicked out of VIP by the celebrity of the hour, the founder of Crunk & Disorderly, Freshalina! Fresh discusses growing up in a small town outside Jacksonville, listening to "Up North" rap via her brother's friends, creating websites and jumping into chat rooms in middle school, working high school jobs at Arby's and Subway, getting into pre-fights with kids around town, and almost joining the Air Force, before going into Jobs Corps instead. Fresh talks about how she started Crunk & Disorderly as a side hustle to express her voice while working at a bank during the day, how people - and bigger companies - started to pay attention thanks to her singular style and unfiltered humor, what it felt like to receive a fan email from Pharrell, how traffic jumped after she posted the picture of Birdman and Wayne kissing, her time working for SOHH and XXL, and why she ultimately decided to focus her time and energy on her own blog. We get into her TV writing experience, her shift into marketing and consulting, what she thinks about influence vs checks, why she didn't sell out to a big network, how social media brought about a huge change in speed and tone while also spelling out the death of blogs, and how she learned early to have a bunch of different projects, so as not to just go down with the ship. All that plus her foray into podcasting, the most notable characters from her blogging days, why it's currently Nivea SZN, the blank CD hustle, being on Kanye's blogroll, the Def Jam conference calls, Brendan Frederick's influence on rap internet, and so much more!

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