Does Adam know who I am now just because I have now touched his mini gift here?
SPEAKER_03It is always thrilling to have a video go viral. The first 24 hours, very exciting. It's a huge dopamine rush. All this love, all these people who are like, yeah, this is fantastic. The next 24 hours after that is trash. In order to go viral, you are going outside your little bubble of the people who have engaged with this community that you have built. Now it's outside of the crochet and knitting world into just anybody's feed. And so then you're gonna get hate comments, you're gonna get all the negativity.
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome to Yarn Library with me, Adam Clevely, the podcast where I talk to fascinating people in the fiber world about knitting, creativity, community, and the stories behind the stitches. Pick up your needles, pour a cup of tea, settle in, and welcome to the Yarn Library. Hello and welcome to the Yarn Library Podcast with me, Adam Clevely, and I'm very excited to announce I have a guest. And today's guest is one of the most recognizable and entertaining voices in the online craft world. She's built an audience of hundreds of thousands across multiple platforms through crochet, humour, snark, chaos, honesty, and an extraordinary ability to collaborate and bring people together. You already know her online as Get to Hook in Crochet because over the last few years she's become one of the standout personalities in the fibre art social media, creating viral sketches, sharp observations about crafting culture, and sharing her unique and occasionally somewhat embittered take on the craft world. She absolutely deserves her self-proclaimed title of Crochet Royalty. And by the time you're listening to this, I very much hope she has received the thoroughly well-deserved accolade of becoming a New York Times best-selling author for her latest book, Snarky Crochet. What you may not know, despite our occasional online spats, is that she's also been a longtime role model of mine and one of the biggest supporters of other creators in this funny space. I'm genuinely honored to have Lisa Hart on this podcast to talk about the weird world of being an online crafter and influencer. Welcome, Lisa.
SPEAKER_03Hi, Adam. You're gonna have to edit out as you were reading that very lovely introduction, me making all these weird faces as I'm reacting to all of these accolades I don't deserve.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I I I think you do. And I think like one thing I imagine that anyone switching on to this as a podcast interview is gonna immediately imagine that this is gonna be an hour of you and I shouting at each other.
SPEAKER_04That's very true.
SPEAKER_00I mean, how how do you how do you reflect on that? That that we have this animosity online.
SPEAKER_03We do have this animosity online, and most people understand it's a bit, but there are people anytime you are posting a video, you have to assume that nobody understands who you are, what you do, anything like that. And so you become their uh, I guess their projector screen for them to project all of their feelings onto you. And so it often becomes, yeah, you get that man. I don't know you, but I'm on your side.
SPEAKER_00And I mean, I think we see that more on TikTok for the videos we've done. Don't uh how do you feel about that?
SPEAKER_03And YouTube too, because there are younger people there than Instagram and Facebook. That's where all the youngs are. And they have been taught, especially as women, don't let the man get you down. And you are the man, Adam.
SPEAKER_00I know. I I just I just come along and I fill that role instantly, and then I mean, what else is there to do but hate me? That's that's it.
SPEAKER_03Yes, right. And so, yeah, people think that it's a real rivalry or they understand the bit. And so I just got back from HH America's and there's an H in it's a German company, so they're in Europe too, so they go all over the place, and the amount of people who wanted to talk to me simply because of my proximity to you, Adam, was so amazing.
SPEAKER_00But I get that too, I get that too. Like people approach me and they say, Oh my god, Lee, your videos with the me Lisa, they're amazing.
SPEAKER_03It's so funny, and so then, Adam, for those of you who are listening who have not seen our interplay, we did this whole thing about crochet versus knit eye chords. And a knitting I chord, I believe is pretty common in your craft. It's not common in mine. Crochet art chords are really not a thing, you can approximate prox proc approximate one. It's a horrid process, it is just the devil's work. And Adam, very rightly so, got upset at me for crocheting an icorn and sent me a gift in the mail. Do you want to describe this gift, Adam?
SPEAKER_00Uh well, I mean I sent you an iCord, Lisa. I sent you what you I I've got what you sent me back. I keep it on my shelf behind me.
SPEAKER_03Same, same. And so here it is.
SPEAKER_00So I mean, because this goes out mostly as an audio podcast, but it is on video as well.
SPEAKER_03Right. And so I will I will describe it to those who are listening. So what Adam sent me is this knit eye cord. It is yellow, and then it has two sa it has a head on it, which is bulbous at the tip, and then two sample sizes of yarn on either side of it. So you can imagine what it may look like.
SPEAKER_00I have no idea. I mean so I was I thought I in my head, well, it's funny, you know, you talk about people seeing your videos and they go viral for the first time. Oh, you know, it's people seeing you for the first time. I remember I came across your videos long between but long before I launched my Instagram account, and I remember like you putting a tiny penis inside of like other crochet gifts, and I was so I like in my head it was like it was quite a sweet thing to send you something back like that because it was it was harking back to like I felt like it was part of your origin story.
SPEAKER_03It is, it's part of my villain origin story, and in fact, my my whole book, Snarky Crochet, came about because of hiding penises, like little mini crochet penny, you might have to censor that, into crochet items, but you can't actually do that in a book because there are several stores that are not gonna carry it if it has male anatomy in it. And so there had been a long stretch of time where people had found both of our accounts who had no idea that this was my origin story, and then all of a sudden it looks like Adam sent me something incredibly inappropriate in the mail.
SPEAKER_00I mean, which I did. I've I totally own that. 100% I sent you something inappropriate in the mail.
SPEAKER_03And so it so, along with this I cord with the um dick and balls, I'll just call it that.
SPEAKER_00Let's just be real about call it what it is.
SPEAKER_03You can just censor that out. There was also a mini peen, knit peen inside of it, which I took to this conference and I had it hidden inside a middle finger cactus. And when I revealed it, the collective gasp from the people who saw it who knew exactly what this was, they were just delighted. I mean, I had people who were like, Can I touch it? Can I take photos with it?
SPEAKER_04Does Adam know who I am now that I mean just because I have now touched his mini gift here?
SPEAKER_00That's horrendous.
SPEAKER_02It is horrendous.
SPEAKER_00I mean, also kind of wonderful.
SPEAKER_02It is both those things.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's amazing. I I tried, I I genuinely I tried to follow your specific instructions for making that. I uh as best I could. I'm not a brilliant crochet by a very long stretch, but I I did my best to follow your instructions. Thank you. There we go.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, uh and here's the other thing, you made it out of wool. I'm allergic to wool. So every time I touch the thing, I start wheezing. And so it's like an extra subversive gift.
SPEAKER_00I didn't realize that. Oh, that no, no, that I wouldn't have done. I didn't realize you're allergic to wool, Lisa.
SPEAKER_04Well, I know that you didn't realize that, but to me it added to the humor.
SPEAKER_00You just have to carry an epi pen round with you whenever you're whenever you're.
SPEAKER_03I do have an epi pen, actually, so it's it's fine.
SPEAKER_00Let's just take on a dark twist.
SPEAKER_03It yes, but isn't that cra the world from craft to dark craft is usually quite wide, and my goal is to get that gap to be narrower.
SPEAKER_00It's interesting you say that, because I remember posting about um sort of inappropriate um knitting and crochet stuff over last summer, and I was quite surprised by how conservative my audience was in regard to that, because I was expecting that to be a relatively rich seam of content for me in terms of like as a as a creator, you think about areas that people are interested in, and there was this kind of whole taboo sector of the online pat patent database rivalry, and I found it and I was digging through it, and thinking whole you know, no one's done anything big with this yet. And I tried to publish stuff on it, there weren't a lot of takers, like it wasn't popular content that I was making.
SPEAKER_03That's I remember that series. I'm really surprised to hear that. But that's what I have learned about social media is that it changes every couple of months. And so people who don't know you, Adam, as having this crunchy side to you, and I don't mean that in the way that we define crunchy as like granola, but like, you know, he's a little acerbic. And uh if you're not reintroducing that side of you every once in a while, people forget or people don't know. And so social media is such a tiny little window into your world. And so when you step one little bit outside that box, all of a sudden it's like, well, who is this person? I'm not that's not what I signed up for. Unfollow, unfollow, unfollow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I I I I think about that quite a lot, actually, is as you as you build an online audience, actually you kind of get increasingly trapped into a smaller and smaller space unless you keep pushing out against those boundaries. Otherwise, the only thing that ever works for you is like one video, and that's one bit and that's it. That's all you can ever do.
SPEAKER_03Yes, like for my YouTube, which I love my YouTube followers, they keep me young in a lot of ways, but they love a yarn-based pun like no other audience. So I have this series I do about crochet anything in 90 seconds. Somebody requests something, and then by the end of that 90 seconds, I have crocheted something that is not in the, it is not what that original person meant. So can you crochet a ball in 90 seconds? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. And so I'll just take yarn and wind it up and like all of a sudden I've made just a crochet ball, but I have not crocheted the ball. And people get very angry or delighted, and both those things drive engagement. They love that type of pun. I can't do that every, not even every week. I'll run out of puns. And so and I can't be known for the person who only does that, but so you have to continue to push and take people along with you to show different sides of yourself within the old boundaries of this is my private life, this is my online life, and this is how much you get to see. And I can see how for especially younger people, not olds like you and me, Adam, but people who come to age with a camera in their face, how that boundary becomes blurred because you're always chasing the dopamine of the likes and the shares and the comments.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I find that wild as well. And I have quite clear boundaries, and I have there's like I I've tried to mark quite clear boundaries about what I'll discuss online and what I'll do online, and and and where I'm prepared to go there. Obviously, I'll take off all my clothes, walk into the river for a bit, but I but there's a whole bunch of stuff that I won't talk about online just because you're like it's it it's my it's my boundary. But yeah, you're right. I think maybe that's an age thing that we're able to do that as older people, more familiar with the boundaries of like where a camera is a new thing in our face, whereas yeah, younger generation, that's much harder to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. And especially with the craftivism, uh, there are so many people who want you to take a stance for uh like this new hobby controversy. I'll pick that one because it's relatively safe, right? Hobby got into trouble by making their CTO made a LinkedIn post where he uh put a photo of himself that was AI generated, and it said, At hobby, we use AI all the time. It saves us from awkward photo shoots like this. And they meant it as this funny tongue-in-cheek post, and it did not land well at all with the audience because the background is that all of us in the craft space have been obliterated by AI. It is dominating Etsy, and it's not taken over Ravelry because Ravalry is so old school and hard to post to, but a lot of the places where the those of us who go to buy patterns or to post our patterns, we can't compete against AI. They're chugging out five patterns, fake patterns a day. This is the background to this hobby post. Well, I have people in my DM saying, Will you lead a protest? Will you do all these other things to take a stand? And my answer is no, I'm a crochet comedy account.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it's it's interesting, isn't it? Because what I mean, that's a surprising thing that's come with the size of the account. Um is that people expect you all of a sudden to take very strong political or or pseudo-political type positions on everything, and they want to know what you think about it and to be their spokesperson for it.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes, and that's not we're just people. I mean, I am the same person now as I was when I had a hundred followers. That doesn't change just because you get better at lighting your video, just because I my kid and my husband picked up this yarn wall from buy nothing and set it up all profesh in the background. Like that that doesn't change who we are. We're just just regular old people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I completely agree. I I personally I find that really difficult sometimes. But then, you know, it again it comes to boundary setting. Like, what what are you prepared to talk about? What are you not prepared to talk about?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. That doesn't mean that in your personal life you aren't taking stands and you aren't doing whatever you can as a person to make the world better, but that doesn't mean that your public life has to match.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, completely. Lisa, I want to go back to basics a little bit with you because there are some there are some introductory questions I'm desperate to know about you. Have you always crocheted, or when did you start crocheting?
SPEAKER_03I started crocheting when I was eight years old. I had an aunt who taught me, and she taught me one stitch which was double crochet. I did not know the name of it, and she taught me how to crochet in the back loops only. And so for the knitting world, I don't even know what that would be. That would be like you only learn the pearl stitch, you never learn the knit stitch. I I have no idea.
SPEAKER_00But we'll we'll take that.
SPEAKER_03Just take it, take it. And that's all I did for a very long time. And so this was the age before the internet. If I wanted to crochet a pattern, which I never did, I never learned how to do that. I freehanded everything, you would have to walk yourself to the library and pick up like the Vanna White crochet Afghan book and then read as an eight-year-old, nine-year-old all these abbreviations and all of these instructions of how to crochet something. There was no YouTube, you could not watch a video. So I didn't do any of that. And it really wasn't until, I don't know, 10 years ago or something like that that I was like, wait, you're supposed to crochet into both loops. It was probably longer than that, but but what is supposed to mean?
SPEAKER_00I mean, it doesn't make I I don't know what why is it wrong? Like it's just a different stitch.
SPEAKER_04You tell me, Adam, because there is nobody who is more this is the way it's supposed to be, than knitters, and I'm gonna die on that hill that we crochet.
SPEAKER_00No, I agree, I agree. Like I just as a small aside, I completely, I completely agree with that, and it's I find it really challenging because when I put out a tutorial I say like this is the way you should do it, or this is you know, I get I get such heat sometimes, and sometimes sometimes it's on the post, sometimes it's in DMs. I know that I make a lot of people really upset.
SPEAKER_03Right, you know knitters are never going to beat the allegations being pedantic.
SPEAKER_00So what what changed crochet for you then as a I guess as a hobby at eight years old? It I'm guessing that that that was always a hobby for you. What what changed it to be something else?
SPEAKER_03Right? So many people learn to crochet, especially during the pandemic, as a mental health uh release. And I know that you have talked uh uh about that. I was about to say ad nauseum, but I'm trying to be nice here.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna be like that, is it?
SPEAKER_03You know it's always gonna be like that, Adam. Uh no, everybody, that's that's not what's in my heart. That was just what almost came out of my mouth and then did come out of my mouth.
SPEAKER_00It's a reflex.
SPEAKER_03A reflex. It's a reflex. I see Adam. I have to snark Adam. It's just a reflex. Uh, but anyway, so there are two kinds of crocheters. Those who learned during the pandemic as a form of mental health, as a new hobby. And then those of us who've been doing it forever. So I fall in the I've been doing this forever. A lot of people take breaks for like lots of years. I've just never taken a break. It's always just been something that I have done. And so when I approached the social media world as kind of just a thought experiment, I was like, what am I gonna post about? Because it has to be something that you can talk about, like Adam and his mental health ad nausea. And I'm being facetious. I hope that those Adam knows this, but I hope that's not.
SPEAKER_00No, it's okay. A lot of the audience is British, so they, you know, they have a very ironic sense of humor.
SPEAKER_03Good, good. That's maybe why I have so many British knitting friends.
SPEAKER_00Very well met sense of humor. So but but that's interesting. Your first thought was what am I gonna talk about? Is that because you you first posted videos online? Because that I mean, I think that's quite a big step to rather than just posting photos.
SPEAKER_03So I just I watched particularly TikTok for about a year. This was after TikTok had already become a thing, and all the young people in my office were like, you should get on TikTok and just not create content, but just like have a TikTok. And I'm like, what are you talking about? That's nonsense. It was the same way I approached Facebook back in the 2000s. I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. But I did, and I was like, oh, okay, this is interesting. I really enjoy how every 10 days or so it'll show the same video to everybody. And it's like we are having this big moment as a culture, as a society where we are all watching and consuming the same fun content all at the same time, and then it goes away. Now, the algorithm has changed a lot since then, but that was really intriguing to me. And so then I decided, okay, you know, um, so one of my a friend of mine started an account and she started posting, and I was like, oh, I should do the same thing. So we kind of just did it together, and so her niche was kind of lifestyle outfit of the day stuff. And so I was like, well, what am I gonna do? I don't know how to put an outfit together. So that's why I wear t-shirts all the time on my videos. But I can talk about crochet, I can talk about that all day. I can talk about that from all different angles. So that's what I started doing. And at first, believe it or not, I thought I was gonna be one of those like um evocative, poignant storytellers with my crochet.
SPEAKER_00Well, you mean sort of calm, relaxing, and you know, the relaxing.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I was gonna tell stories about my life, about my culture, about the way that craft and crochet can bring people together, that it can be allegories for other things. And nobody liked it.
SPEAKER_00Beautifully poetic.
SPEAKER_03Yes, because again, we're showing sides of ourselves, and you can still see little bits of that, like uh me and Simon Fannin, who is another British knitter, sometimes we'll do these collabs where we're telling these stories that you know tug at the heartstrings, but there's always some subversion at the end of it. And that uh, but nobody wanted that straight from me. They wanted me to be funny, and the more I showed the funny side of myself, the more people responded to it. And so you just I just leaned into that part of myself. And the lesson that I learned was that the more I leaned into that, the more I realized it was pulling something out of me that was always there. That for one reason or another, all of these cultural expectations, all of these burdens of youth and trying to fit in, the older I got and the more people responded to that, the more I shed that. And I was like, you know, I think I'm just being more myself and not less.
SPEAKER_00And then this is what the rest of the world then has to, I was gonna say enjoy, but maybe endure as a result of.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they have to endure it.
SPEAKER_00This episode of Yarn Library is sponsored by me, Adam Clevely. Well, by Maker Getaway Retreats, which I also run and co-host. They're three or four night retreats where knitters and crochets spend proper time together, learning, relaxing, focusing on their craft. We're in Cambridge this September and Edinburgh during the Christmas markets at the end of November. There are classes, plenty of time to yourself, and a really lovely group of crafters coming from all over the world. I really hope you'll come and join me. If you're interested in these retreats or any others we run, sign up at makeagetaway.com. Limited places remaining. What was the first time you knew that you were going big in the social media world?
SPEAKER_04I'm not in the I'm not big in the social media world at all.
SPEAKER_00You are you've got you've got what is hundreds more than a hundred thousand on on Instagram. You've got this you've got massive audience on on YouTube, massive audience on TikTok. That that makes you big.
SPEAKER_03Do you know a lot of the um, I guess, as brands are looking at influencers that they want to work with, anybody under a hundred thousand is still considered a micro influencer. And so n Instagram is my biggest channel. I don't know what it has, less than you, I believe. Not not that I'm counting or anything like that. And so I'm just like on the other side of a micro influencer.
SPEAKER_00But but you are there and you are established, and you're, you know, you I that and there have been points to your growth. I've observed it because even if you don't watch my numbers, I watch your numbers and I watch loads of people's numbers because I'm interested in it. I'm interested to see like what moves and shakes and what changes for people. Like I remember our first collaboration together, which is where we did like you you want to come to a British netting circle. Right. Yeah. And that's that is still that's still like one of my by one measure it's still my best video. And and that but that was that was like the that was a huge moment for me, and that was so many followers came off that. And that was that was like a that was a huge exciting moment quite early in my journey. But you were already there, you were already big. Like what was what were there any uh moments, either connections with people or other bid videos that went big for you that gave you that thrill?
SPEAKER_03I mean, yes, it is always thrilling to have a video go viral. And again, as you can tell, I am a tough grader. I am a crochetan. And so one time in college, I got a C plus on in a class because I bombed the final. C plus, I retook the class at them. I'm a tough grader, and so for me, a viral video is something like two million views within a four-day period. So I have like one viral video. It is very exciting, and you know this as well, I'm sure. The first 24 hours, very exciting. It's a huge dopamine rush. All this love, all these people who are like, yeah, this is fantastic. The next 24 hours after that is trash. So it won't, because in order to go viral, you are going outside your little bubble of the people who have you have engaged with this community that you have built. Now it's outside of the crochet and knitting world into just anybody's feed. And so then you're gonna get hate comments, you're gonna get all the negativity, and so it's this huge rush followed by this huge dip where you're just having to delete comments, at least I delete comments because I don't permit that on my page. And it and so it's both. It's both those things. And for me, at least as a content creator, every day that I show up on this app, these apps, I have to assume that nobody knows who I am. Because that's the approach that I take to my content. I used to, when you and I collabed early on, I had this little community in Instagram that was really, we really built a community. And then the algorithm changed. So those people are not necessarily seeing my content anymore. Maybe they were creators themselves or trying to be creators and they've given up on it. So all of the frequent flyers that I have or normal people that I consider my friends, I'm DMing them, but they're not in my comments making making uh public comments anymore. And so what that does is it changes the entire vibe. So now you're fighting for your life every post. And so for me, I haven't made it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, because you're such a harsh critic of yourself. I mean, I I recently came across the measure of virality being three to five times your audience number on that platform. So if you've got 10,000 followers, a viral video is when you're hitting 30 to 50,000 views. Oh, you know what because because it is always relative, right, to your to your core audience. I mean, that that's something as well that I mean I'm I'm surprised by when I talk to people in real life, because people think they see your content, but in reality, the numbers show both of us any piece of content either of us produce, typically, I'm guessing saying for you, is seen by less than 20% of your audience.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, if if you're lucky, and I'm not often lucky.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a it's a very small amount. But but how does I mean if you're spending all this time then thinking about videos and creating videos, which I know is a huge amount of time, how does where does crochet fit into that? How much time do you get to actually do crochet?
SPEAKER_03Isn't that insane that when you're making content you can't create content? Lucky for me, crochet is also my hobby in addition to what I do. And so I am incapable of just watching a movie, for example, or watching a TV show with my family. I'm always crocheting something at the same time, and it's not often something that you're seeing on camera. If you are, then it's just b-roll. And so I turn the cameras off and I go crochet, which sounds crazy.
SPEAKER_00But you do get time to do that at least.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Does it infringe on family time? Sure, because am I really watching this anime that I'm supposedly watching with my family? Uh, like half of the time. But we're there, we're together, and they just accept this because it's always just been part of what I do.
SPEAKER_00What sort of stuff do you crochet in real life that's not on camera then?
SPEAKER_03Uh well, and so like I said, a lot of it is b-roll. Right now, my aunt's mother passed away, and so she asked me to make a baby blanket for this center that her mother had volunteered for. And so you see it in the background of some of my videos when I went uh more recently. So that is one that I'm working on. I have this embroidery, which is behind me now, but it is uh a friend of mine crocheted, I mean, embroidered a photo of me holding a bit of crochet. And wow, yes, and so I am reinterpreting that as a tapestry. Now I have talked about that on my page, but it takes me an hour to go to do one singular line of this tapestry because I'm watching TV at the same time. Usually it's some in a language I don't speak, and so it's subtitled, and so it goes very, very slow.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_03So I stopped posting about it because there's not much to show. Like, you can't show, like, oh, I'm two rows in more like farther than the last time you saw it. I am also crocheting um Van Gogh Starry Night.
SPEAKER_00I have seen I've seen that a couple of times in your videos, and then like I want to see more of it.
SPEAKER_03Yes, but it's so slow because it's a pandemic project, and so it has so much weight to it that when I engage with it, I almost feel like I can't finish mentally. I'm kind of like Penelope from the Odyssey. I just I'll undo parts and then redo it and undo it again.
SPEAKER_00Is that is that because you're enjoying the process and you want to remain engaged with the project, or because you're not satisfied with it and you want to redo it?
SPEAKER_03I think that those who are listening have probably picked up that I'm not satisfied.
SPEAKER_00You've got you've only got a C plus on it.
SPEAKER_03I've only got a C plus, I've got to redo it. I mean, if Van Gogh, it's not Van Gogh level, which maybe is not the right standard.
SPEAKER_04Come to think about it.
SPEAKER_00That's that's Lisa's standard. If it if it's not good enough, if it won't hang in Van Gogh Museum, then it's not good enough.
SPEAKER_03It's not good enough. So maybe now that I've said that out loud, that releases me from that burden and I'll just finish it and mount it and be done with it.
SPEAKER_00I mean, now I also know that as soon as you do publish it as a finished article, then I know that you have the ego to be able to say that you are Van Gogh in the crochet world, which is just gives me gives me more next time I introduce you.
SPEAKER_04I love that you called me crochet royalty because I'm like, do I call myself crochet royalty?
SPEAKER_00Oh, you definitely have. You're like, uh you referred to yourself as the queen, not a queen or anything, the queen.
SPEAKER_03The queen. Okay, I can see myself doing that. I know that I do tongue-in-cheek call myself the best crocheter in the world.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's it's legitimate, and you just say it enough times and it becomes true, surely.
SPEAKER_03It becomes true, right? I am manifesting my own destiny.
SPEAKER_00Amazing.
SPEAKER_03And so, what titles have you given yourself, Adam?
SPEAKER_00I don't think I've given myself any titles. And so far, people have been polite enough to not call me the names in public, so they've kept them in their private messages, which I'm very grateful for.
SPEAKER_03That is very funny. I can only imagine what your DMs look like. Oh, I will tell you a title that I have given myself recently that I've been leaning into, that which is your crochet auntie. And so something that you have to I'm gonna give you a small cultural lesson. So I am a Vietnamese American. My family came here during the Vietnam War. I was born a couple of years after that. So I was born in America, and in Vietnamese, there are dozens, maybe there are so many pronouns. So in English, you have he, she, they to talk about a person, for example. In Vietnamese, it really has to do with age and hierarchy. And so whether you're on the mom side or the dad side, and so we Vietnamese Americans and other members of the diaspora, when we're referring to our family members, you always use the pronoun gong, which means child. So for your entire life, you are a child. And so those of us who have aged up have to come to the realization that you can no longer call yourself child when you're referring to strangers, when you're talking to strangers. Now you're like, you know, I'm 43. So now I'm an auntie. And it's just this like personality, like it's an identity crisis. Because, like, what do you mean I'm not gong anymore? What do you mean I'm go or g or uh it's crazy?
SPEAKER_04And so I've just and I have children, and so this should not be this big identity crisis, but it really is.
SPEAKER_03So I've just been embracing it and going on this journey, and those of um other um Asian Americans I think get this, who engage with my content. They understand that when I'm calling myself the auntie, there is a warmth and also a mentorship and a um there there's a lot associated with that word that other fiber art other crochetiens and knittatians understand. Yeah, that was not it. That little improv did not work.
SPEAKER_00But I think I think that's something else that I don't know whether that would come across to people who haven't been in your DMs or been supported by you. I don't know how much the rest of the world would know about how much support you do give other people in the community. Because I I was blown away when we first interacted by how generous you were with your time and your support and your advice, and and and that's continued. Um and I see you doing that with other creators in the space and and how you nurture them, and that's I mean it it's quite remarkable because I don't think there are many people around who do that.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much for saying that. I mean, my philosophy has always been that I'm just a person, and I happened to catch the algorithm in a place where it enjoyed my content and started serving it to other people. And I know that there are thousands of other fiber artists who are looking at it and feeling jealous because I feel jealous myself at times, you know, it's some it's a human instinct. And I've always been a person who wants to take others along with me, you know, the rising tides. But the only way that that happens is if me personally, for me, is if I am also reaching a hand back out and taking others with me. So that's always been part of my platform. I remember when I made a post when I hit a thousand followers, and to me, that felt like a huge milestone. And it is a huge milestone for anybody listening who is just reaching for that. And I I remember thinking, I made a post about it and saying, if you want to get here, you can. And so I did a follow-for-follow, which is something that you're not supposed to do. I've since learned to do that, which is like you follow me, I'll follow you. But I dropped an encouraging comment on anybody who said who said, Hey, I'm here too. I went to their account and I looked at their stuff. I found something nice to say about everybody who commented in that. It was, it took a lot of time. But now that my account is larger, I don't want that ethos to go away.
SPEAKER_00But it's hard, right? I mean, because I I noticed that very much. Like I that first bit of growth is really hacky in the like you're doing it piece by piece, follower by follower. It is individual actions that make a difference. But there is a point where that is not doable, not sustainable. Like, did you have you felt burned out by that process? Like trying to reach out to other people or replying to every message you get on your on your posts?
SPEAKER_03Um, so I don't reply on every message because it's just impossible. I try to read them all, but again, there are some that fall through the cracks because of the way that they show you your comments is not always easy to see them. Uh but for me, I can't turn my content brain off. And so every once in a while, not every once in a while, very frequently, a sketch idea will come into my brain. And if it is something where it makes sense to be a collaboration versus just me in front of the camera, I'll put out a content call. You don't have to have a big account, you don't have to have done this ever before, but just join me in this. And so it for me, it is uh, I wouldn't say second nature. I can't turn it off. And so burn it out. I I have always had some form of creative outlet at this time of my life. It is social media. At other times of my life, it has been any number of things. I was an ASL and American Sign Language interpreter for a time. I was on the radio for an NPR affiliate. I was a gestational surrogate twice. I once in college, I thought I was gonna get my skydiving license. I starred in an independent film once. So just that curiosity has always been part of it. If uh when I'm ready to lay social media down, there will be something else.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's amazing. That that list of things is incredible. And it's I mean, the it sounds like you're the kind of person who just doesn't say no to going to a party, like whether that party is do you want to learn to skydive or more literal. Yeah, well, metaphorically, because you know, I I like a lot of fiber artists are very awkward socially, and so but uh in the No A genuine party for us is at most maybe five or six people sitting in almost silence, just doing our little crafts.
SPEAKER_03Yes, but there are life experiences out there that I have not experienced that I would like to, and I like to say yes to those curiosities as they enter my mind. And I've only given you a small list of all of the wild things that I have done. And so when I started posting content, people in my life who know me are just like, oh well, that's just Lisa, she's just doing one more thing.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so the so so people outside of your online community your online stuff seems normal. It just fits in with who you are, and it's uh it's it's it's just can continuous, is it?
SPEAKER_03Yes, for my friends. Now there are people like uh this is the other awful part about going viral, is that people in your real life will see your nutty content, and that's humiliating. And maybe that's because I'm an old.
SPEAKER_00But it's Lisa, Lisa, I'm I'm a year older than you, so can you stop saying that, please?
SPEAKER_03Listen, if part of my journey is accepting the fact that I am a an auntie, you are an unc.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I'm I'm perfectly happy to accept it. I just don't need it rubbed in every five minutes.
SPEAKER_04And um I don't even remember where I was. Yeah, so people people in real life.
SPEAKER_00The embarrassing, the cringing nature of people seeing outside your your viral videos.
SPEAKER_03It is so embarrassing, especially because in social media you have to be corny in order to get any traction. Like you have to be willing to put yourself out there, you have to be willing to be the most energetic version of yourself on the very best day when you've had uh when you've bathed in endorphins. That's the d that's the version of you that you have to bring to the camera. And then you're gonna go to the grocery store and run into somebody that you know from work who's like, I saw your video. Oh my gosh, it's so embarrassing. I don't know if you've experienced this as well.
SPEAKER_00Dude, I for me it's in a slightly different way. But I tell the energy thing, I totally agree with you. Like I've tried shooting video only having had one coffee in the morning. My normal routine is I have three or four coffees, you know, before midday, and then I don't drink coffee in the afternoon. It is my my content is noticeably worse if I do that. Like I really have to make sure I am fully juiced up, ready to go. I've been to the gym or I've been out walking the dog or whatever it is, I have to be there energetically, or else, or else it just doesn't work. You're it is it is such a fine balancing act.
SPEAKER_03It really is, yes. And that is the other thing that I have learned. If you go back and watch some of my early videos where I'm just being myself and I'm not being like up here, there's a there's a huge energy difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I guess I guess you just you learn what the routine is to to turn that on.
SPEAKER_03Or you don't. I mean, I have videos. I posted one the other day. I think uh I don't know what platform one of them is not a s is still there, where I had been up packing all my books. I'd been up until 1 a.m., which is really late for me, and then I was up again at 7 or 8 a.m. back at it, and I was filthy, I was greasy, gross, and I was just I turned the camera on, but I'm like, here I am. And so it it's a little bit of both, at least in my world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. No, I I absolutely appreciate that. It's and I mean that that's something that's thrown at us as creators, is you know, the advice is be more authentic, be more real, be be more of yourself. And you've got like that, that's a there's a balance there, right?
SPEAKER_03Yes, and it's actually not true. My authentic self is not me smiling while I'm crocheting. So I look very serious, I have RBF. I like that's not real, you know.
SPEAKER_00So I'm not lighting it. Exactly. Oh my god, the lighting helps so much. People see me in real life. Oh, that's the big surprise. Like, oh, you look much older in real life.
SPEAKER_04People say that to your face?
SPEAKER_00I've definitely I've had that comment, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00Uh yes, of course I have found a way to light myself that looks better. I obviously have done that. That is at least I I had a I had another kind of reflection recently. I've been listening to a podcast uh another podcast by a British comedian called Romesh Ranganathan. And he he interviews all these other comedians and actors and so on. And there's this sort of pattern in what he in in what they talk about in that these actors and comedians never really read reviews or engage with comments about their performances and or you know they don't they generally regard it as a as a mistake to go and read the reviews of films or whatever that they perform in and I was thinking about that recently and I was thinking about you particularly because you present yourself as a as a comedian in you know within within the crochet world and I was thinking how different that must be for you I know it is for me because you've already talked about engaging with with comments. Tell me about how you think about that difference and would you ever go to the state where you you just ignore all feedback?
SPEAKER_03So uh the most the closest equivalent to this are book reviews. So I just released my book it came out last week and it I have I have learned that there's this etiquette where you don't engage with your reviews. Authors are not meant to engage with reviews that breaks some form of etiquette where people will feel like they can't be honest. But for me the main reason why I don't read them is for that exact reason. I don't want to know what they say. I think it's a mistake to edit myself back when I go to write the next book based on whether people like it or not. And that's where I'm very much holding that line. If you hate it fine that's that's great for you. That's not going to impact me at all. With crochet comedy that is meant to be like sketch comedy online the good thing is a lot of people aren't going to get on there hating your content because they have some sense that the person who posted that is the person who made it, which is a little bit different than a stand up show where it might be your production company posting something or a big big creator, like an actual big creator not me, who posts a video and they get hundreds of comments and people are engaging with it as if that's not a real human who edited and posted it. I'm not there yet and so usually on like YouTube or something you'll get something that's or occasionally TikTok but my TikTok doesn't do very well it and it'll say like oh that's not funny. And as we have discussed many times during this podcast I'm a harsh greater so I'm like yeah you're right it's not funny. I had somebody uh I had a journalist tell me to my face that she thought my patterns were in my book were they're okay. And she's like it's all right.
SPEAKER_02And I'm like yeah you're right yeah I don't disagree she said it was a bit disappointing.
SPEAKER_00I'm like yeah I can see that perspective so did you pick that quote and put it across the front of the book it's not on my copy.
SPEAKER_03I have behind me here snarky crochet no why isn't that on the bottom it doesn't say stick it there somewhere the big space yeah I was talking to uh my publishers at my publisher and what we're going to do is reviews taken out of context and so I just had the book list write a review it hasn't come out yet but but the book list is the American association of librarians American Librarian association journal it's a big deal over here in the States and so we're gonna scour it find something to take out of context I'm gonna take one of your uh comments now yours is in context because it is very snarky I mean I couldn't believe that you reached out to me or your or your um publisher reached out to me asking for a review I was like Lisa really wants me to review her book but you asked so that that's on you. It's really funny because like I said I have this whole collection of knitting friends now who don't crochet and so for my book endorsements I probably asked like eight knitters who don't crochet to endorse my book I'm trying to build a bridge here and then I'm going to burn that bridge.
SPEAKER_00What a good job you're doing of it.
SPEAKER_03I mean it's at least a C plus bridge thank you thank you so then I must burn it down there can be no C plus bridge. No exactly do it again try harder um I'm interested as well about other creators you work with are there any people do you have like a list of people that you want to work with that you haven't yet been able to work with I am very impertinent Adam and so if there is somebody that I want to work with I'm gonna be in their DMs. And there has only been one who never got back to me but has gotten back to me in other ways. So I can't really divulge more than what I have said in that moment. But so because you still want to work with them. Yes so that is incredibly vague and I'm gonna stop there because I don't want this person to watch this podcast at our like minute number 40 and like listen all the way through and be like is she talking about me?
SPEAKER_00Because I'm sure that's gonna be we won't go any further I'll ask you a different question. Is there something is there something that you wish more people understood about you outside of like the the the online community is there something you under wish that they understood more about who you are as a person which you don't think people get um once again I am very impertinent and even though I have strict boundaries I feel like I am very open and honest about all the ways that I fail in multiple ways.
SPEAKER_03So I I think I I have disclosed as much as I can so that when I make a mistake people understand that I'm I'm not out here trying to be the most aesthetic the most perfect creator I'm not trying to be the person who never makes a mistake I give a lot of crochet advice I do a lot of tutorials but usually they come from a place of I just learned this technique. I'm gonna try it for the first time on camera.
SPEAKER_00It may or may not work and what I hope now that I'm an author is that that grace is going to extend to the book because I've already found three typos and one of them two of them are errata I don't know how to say that word but one of them is just a straight typo no matter how many people read and look at your content there's going to be mistakes and you have to be okay just showing up including the mistake at least for me including the mistake letting all the errors just show up and I I feel like I put that out there quite frequently I'm very imperfect to to be real have you I'm I'm also interested about whether you've like in the book publishing process how does the book publishing process differ from your life as a content creator where you are you know as a content I I presume you create and edit all your content yourself I've never I've never got a whiff that anyone else does that for you but but tell me if I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_03No I I definitely do do all my own editing and shooting that's why it's so cruddy at times but how how does when it comes to writing a book for the first time which you've done with Snarky Crochet presumably all of a sudden you are working with other people but with your content yes and so what are the differences there? There's a lot more of a safety net. And so for me writing patterns is not my strongest point. My weakest point is color work. And my next one would be writing patterns because you have to do so much math and you have to count. And so there's a tech editor there's also a content editor you have your publisher who uh is and their whole team of people from sales to marketing to everybody is looking at it through these various lenses you have the art director you have the designers I have an agent who is also helping me on days that I just can't and so there's a lot of different people who are there to support your work. And so in a lot of ways it feels like there's a safety net that you don't have when it's just you and your camera in your basement. Which I think Adam goes back to when you're asking about how did I know that I made it in this social media world. I'm still alone in my basement with my camera.
SPEAKER_00I I think the alone in your basement with your camera continues. I mean I think you could have a million followers and I think that's still the case.
SPEAKER_03Right yes and I still have family who think this is no no big deal. I have a teenager who especially thinks that this is the worst thing to have happened to him is to have his mom become a social media influencer. So that all of that just ties together in this messy tangled knot.
SPEAKER_00Crochet Yes amazing yeah I've I find um I find children's attitude towards the world of online influencing a an interesting one because on the other on one hand they have to admire I presume your teenager has to admire the fact that you have gained a large audience and that any of their friends at school would be jealous of the fact that you know you've become a content creator but on the other hand it's it is well it's it's your mum and it's crochet and therefore get in the bin.
SPEAKER_03Yes, absolutely and so yeah the worst thing to happen to him is when one of his friends finds out because again when a video goes viral it can go outside of your network. And so I had a cousin in Korea who said that her friend sent me one of my videos sent her one of my videos and she's like that's my cousin and that happens all the time I posted a a photo shoot that I had with my sister where I had hired a voice artist to read parts of my book and parts of my crochet book in this um it as if it were a romanticy novel.
SPEAKER_02Amazing and my sister had a friend send her the post saying this has your vibe to it that happens all the time and so it is it is a bad day for my son when one of his friends finds out that his mom creates content.
SPEAKER_03But he has said that if I get a YouTube play button, I have 76,000 followers I don't normally follow like where my counts are but on YouTube I have 76000 and I'm following that one really carefully because my goal is to get a play button so that I can finally be uh noteworthy to my son.
SPEAKER_00When is the play button is that 100,000 followers 100,000 subscribers.
SPEAKER_03Yes as long as you don't um screw anything up in terms of content guidelines.
SPEAKER_00No no community violations or whatever I can't I can't remember that I think that's what they are on Instagram. I can't remember what they're called on YouTube.
SPEAKER_03Yeah so I I don't know what it's called either but yeah I have to play nicely and get to a hundred thousand subscribers I'm at 76.
SPEAKER_00And I presume that will be beautifully illuminated on the shelf behind you.
SPEAKER_03No it's gonna live in my teen's room okay just to rub it in as much as possible. No just so that he can he has he he can feel adjacent to YouTube stardom because that's the other weird thing about this day and age is that I think something like one third of Gen Z, Gen Alpha say that they want to become a content creator when they grow up and Adam and I are here to tell anybody listening that that is really hard. It is hard to make a cent or a pound or a dollar in this industry. It is difficult.
SPEAKER_00Yep yeah I was I yeah for I mean for my part I had I'd hit a hundred thousand followers like in 2025 the end of 2025 I hit that uh as well as I was probably 5000 on Facebook and less on TikTok like uh 12,000 on TikTok at the time and I still hadn't made a penny from um from any online platform paying for the videos like it it is it's extra like my my number one piece of advice to anyone who says I want to be a content creator would be for goodness sake go and find something else to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah absolutely I mean I went viral with a series of videos where I responded to what I thought was a scammer thinking that oh this will be fun I'm just gonna play with this scammer and it wasn't a scammer and I ended up making this blanket which the pattern itself is a viral pattern. It's a crochet blanket that you fold up and it turns into a flower bouquet. It takes forever. It took me 60 hours to make this and I am really fast.
SPEAKER_00Uh and uh it it went viral ish, you know and so I had no sorry I have to I have to put the errata in immediately it was absolutely viral cross platform. It was a massive video. So it was a it was this huge circular blanket and these beautiful flowers around the outside and Lisa isn't doing it justice because it was an incredible thing and it was a large blanket like the kind of thing that would cover a double bed.
SPEAKER_03Yeah and and so yeah and the patterns by little artialo let me get that in there.
SPEAKER_00And it was millions of views the first video was like it was it was an instant hit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah it was it got two million I want to say on TikTok and maybe two million on Facebook and those are my two monetized channels it it raised like $400.
SPEAKER_00Which I then which you and I know is big money for a single video. That is big money.
SPEAKER_03Yes but that's a huge amount of views and these social media platforms are raking in all of these dollars from ads and they're giving very little back. And what I did with that $400 was give it back to the customer the so-called scammer so it is very hard to make money in this profession.
SPEAKER_00I remember we had we were DMing then and you were worried as well I sorry if you didn't want me to share this but you were worried because that was too wholesome a content for you is what you you you were concerned that you were getting too many wholesome people following you expecting more wholesome content which you're not about yeah my biggest video has like 9.5 million views it's not pinned anywhere because it is so freaking wholesome and I don't need people to think that I'm a good person on the internet It's fair enough. I mean but as you said earlier like that's the problem with viral videos once they go you know you never know who sees them and it's not the people you necessarily want. All of those all of those lovely knitters who might be coming across your account and thinking oh what a charming lady she is I'll follow her.
SPEAKER_03Yeah and then Adam sends you a penis in the mail and they're like whoa whiplash just for the shock value.
SPEAKER_00Lisa is there is there anything I I is there anything else that you want to share and tell the world about uh I mean we we've talked a bit about your book is there anything else that that people should know about you which I haven't asked you about no I think we went through the most important one which is that Adam and I really are friends.
SPEAKER_03So if anybody is watching our video and think that we actually have a rivalry that is incorrect.
SPEAKER_00It's factually incorrect we can point them to minute whatever is of this real in in the future that this could be the like everything else is a bit off this.
SPEAKER_04Point zero of the real where it says here is my friend or the caption where it says we are just we are just playing around.
SPEAKER_00People miss all those things to stellar like people don't read the captions people don't watch to the end of the video people don't uh yeah yeah yes but it clearly states we are just messing around well I'm delighted that you've you've spent the time talking to me you know being interviewed on this podcast because it's a total delight to talk to you and I have to say not just thank you for the podcast but genuinely the amount of support and advice that you've given to me over the last 18 months as a or at least at a year since we've been in the same space and that you've helped me with the create I'm so immeasurably grateful for that. And I would definitely give you maybe even a B minus for your for your support. Like it's really really significant.
SPEAKER_03I will I will happily accept that B minus and this is what I also would like people listening to know is that the first time Adam's video came across my feed I was like this guy is going somewhere and I'm gonna help push him there so that I can ride his coattails and I have continued to do that. So it has been nefarious this entire time my motivation but I've now just said it publicly. Entirely self-serving yes so thank you for proving me correct which of course I was going to be correct.
SPEAKER_00Well of course you were because you have the Queen of crochet the world's best crochet that's how everyone should know you.
SPEAKER_03World's best crocheter.
SPEAKER_00Lisa it's been an absolute delight having you on the podcast thank you so much. Thank you Adam Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Yarn Library. If you've enjoyed the conversation please do follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you have a moment to leave a rating or review genuinely helps more people discover the show. If you have a question comment or idea for a future episode someone you want to hear me interview email me at podcast at clevelynits.com. And if you'd like to see this conversation or watch my longer form videos head to Clevelandits on YouTube. I'll be back very soon with another episode. Until then, thank you for listening and happy knitting