The following episode was recorded before the WGA sag Aftra strikes of twenty twenty three.
Hey folks, we're going to deal with politics today and voting, which is something that is extremely extremely close to my heart. My mother was an activist in Philadelphia where we grew up. There was a kind of understanding in our family that you had to vote and that you had to use that power.
That the day that.
You went to get to the polls, to cast your vote and to make your specific opinions known were very, very integral to what it meant to not only be an American or in our case of Philadelphia, but also to be a human being. I think that there's more and more young people these days who are a voting age, and we need more and more young people not only, i think, to vote, but also to hold office. It's great that this episode today is airing on November seventh. Now,
this is an off year election. It's got gubernatorial and state elections in a few states, but they are very very important. There's a lot that you can do with
the polls. This is why today is the perfect day to share my interview with a lot of Glazer and her organization generator collective, fascinating discussion, and she's great and a lot of fun and very very politically active, so leaning, I'm very excited that we have a lot of Glazer with us, who, as I'm sure all of you know, was a co creator and star of broad City, which was a giant, giant hit for so many years and an awesome show and hilarious and great and uh, she's
also done a whole ton of other stuff. And we're so excited that you're here today on this on this show. It's so nice to meet you.
You too, Kevin, thanks so much on that talk.
Yeah, Like, weirdly, I'm always I'm always surprised when I actually meet somebody who's path I haven't actually crossed. As far as I know, we haven't met this or worked together or been in the same thing together even.
Right, Yeah, not yet. But life is long.
Life is long. Life is long. It's getting shorter for me, but it is definitely still we still have some time, I hope. Yeah, I'm I I'm so fascinated about your specific journey because I feel like it was kind of like a harbinger of things to come, and has us had had a certain uh, you know, you were kind of early to a lot of stuff, it seemed like to me. So tell me about this this. Well, first off, you grew up in New York.
Yeah, I grew up on Long Island, in uh eastern Long Island, in a real uh Jewish part of Long Island of Jewish. But this was like more Italian sopranos dial Long Island. That was really the culture there. And uh, I always was looking toward the city. I kind of always knew I was gonna come here and or just always wanted to.
Did you visit when you were a little girl? Did you come their parents take care?
Yeah? Yeah. My brother and I were really into musicals and plays and writing and acting and performing and my parents, my parents were too. They are a lover of the arts, so that was that was like our exciting thing.
They weren't in the arts though, they were, They were just fans.
Yeah. Yeah. They both are creative spirits, but never pursued it in a professional capacity. My dad's an amazing piano player. But yeah, so like their their creativity really stoked our agency over our creativity.
And what's the age between you and.
Your bro He's he's four years older than me. And he's also a comedian and he played my brother in Broad City. Yeah I know that, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what do you feel about working with family? I bring this up because, uh, my wife is an actress, my daughter is an actress. My son's a musician, and I also play music, so I I work with him sometimes on music stuff. And I have worked with my daughter, and I've worked with my wife. My wife's worked with my daughter, my my wife, heires my son the score of things. So what do you what's your feeling about family and making creating together.
You know, it's it makes it's it's easier in some ways and harder in other ways. The sort of like private culture of family makes the shortcut language really accessible. But then I think for me, so far, I think I'm like doing enough therapy that we're turning to doing work with my brother. I would probably be a more functional partner than I have been in the past. But you know, you carry that history with you and you're dynamics of being the first born or second born. It's
not it's so so deep in your spine. Can I curse in this? It's so deep in your fucking spine that it's like, you know, I think there's it's like an interesting marker that you bring it up now where I'm like, oh, I think if we returned, I would be a little bit. I would be able to have a little more fun. I think, like on Bread City sometimes I was tense in certain ways.
Was on all five seasons, he was I.
Think we started introducing our families in the second season, So four seasons, and he wrote on the fifth season, Kevin, you know what I'm thinking of right now, your movie The woods Men, which yeah, you and Kira and Karia speaking of working with family, that was so intense to work with your partner on Oh my god that I mean, it's so dark. That movie is so dark, but it's like one of my favorite movies of all time because
it was just so I don't know how. I don't know how you did that, but working with family that's like different than music and jamming.
That was like, that was oh yeah, oh yeah. It was also also just even if we weren't in it
together just to be parents. And you know, it's a movie for people that don't know about a child molester and and and Kira plays a woman that he has a relationship with And what's interesting about it is that she was if I can just digress with a little story about me for a second, she she was she was cast uh the director uh Nicole Cassell wanted here from the beginning and had never even thought about me for for for the other part.
Wow, And the.
Script ended up weirdly in my lap, and so I said, you know, well, let's do this together. And Kira was really really resistant because she felt really strongly that it was going to somehow take people out of the movie if they saw that that, you know, because they have a sort of like an idea about us as a as a couple that wasn't you know, applicable to that relationship. And she actually pulled out of the movie about two
weeks before we start shooting. And I was the producer on the movie, and I said, sorry, pal, but you can't leave now because we can't find anybody else in two weeks. It's going to play this part.
And I so get it because the material and the way you were approaching it was so heavy, you know, it was so heavy and diving into it. Yeah, like I don't like just the way that movie stuck with me and most depth performance or yesin Bay his name is now was so deep.
I'm not surprised. And of course, as parents, you're right, that is ooh, that's heavy. So it makes me laugh because it's not just oh, a comedy and you know, my neurosis around doing a joke, with doing a joke that way that was so deep and looked like it must have been hard.
Thank you, Well you know it was, you know, but it was worth it. And tell me the genesis. To me, the genesis of broad City is really fascinated, So maybe just explain to people how that kind of came together.
Well, it's funny also that you say a harbinger of things to come. I mean maybe our viewpoints were because of I mean, well, yeah, maybe our viewpoints were. But it feels to me now so old to have a TV show that you would say it's on on Wednesdays at ten thirty, like you know, like it's just like the I feel like we were I mean, we were in the last wave of TV kind of as TV used to be as an event to gather around. So it feels of an older world to me now.
And I guess I meant that it came out of YouTube that you you know, you kin'd that you kind of there there's a real di I y quality to it, which which I think a lot of people are kind of moving towards these days, you know, shortened kind of contact, you know, the stuff that goes down to like you know, TikTok and you know, ye start that way. But the fact that you found somebody and and correct me if I'm wrong, made friends, and yeah, it started riffing and
then you know, went on YouTube. I mean it's like, I think that I can't think of anything else really that maybe there are, but what's really happening in that way at that time, and it seems like that's what I kind of meant by that.
Yeah, it kind of feels like just like a band that got together. Now, like you know, like this like sort of og classic genesis of of a of art that I haven't seen in a while. So my brother had like entered you know, from my point of view, my brother had uh gotten to college four years ahead of me in New York City and was scoping out the scene and told me about you know, the scene that was emerging that at the time was like all comedy that you know, remember like mumblecore and like, you know,
just awkwardness or whatever. So he was like scoping out the scene. And when I got to the city myself for college, we got into the improv sketch and stand up scene. Improv centered around the Upright Citizens were Daid founded by Amy Poehler.
An amazing amazing Yeah, just Kara did their one of their courses. Oh yeah, yeah, I forget what it's called. It's like a like an intensive, like a two week intens or something like that. Yeah.
Yeah, And it's like I never went to my like my college experience was. I went to like this general studies program at NYU. I wasn't like acting. I couldn't get beyond that barrier.
General studies, general study.
It is literally like four kids who went to public school, like everybody else had got better education. I literally was like the classics, what do you mean the classics? You know, I did not, I mean my schooling. I went to high school with three thousand kids, So it was like, you know, a gateway for public school kids, and for me, college was this gateway to the comedy scene. And I was like sort of planning it since because I was
like keeping my eye on it. From middle school. I was just like, such an element.
You're focused on comedy, you were right from middle school. You were pretty clear that that's what that was going to be, what you were going to do.
Actually, like even earlier, my brother and I made sketch videos. Just that was like our childhood making sketch videos and then seeing like plays in the city think you were.
Funny when you when you and your brother would do stuff did they were they were? They a good audience.
They thought we were hysterical. They could not believe what we were totally, totally. They were a very receptive audience. So yeah, So we entered the scene and just were trying everything, you know, and for us, I mean sketched with kind of landing. And then when I met Abby Jacobson in uh the improv scene, she and I like got to this point where we just had a similar work ethic and a similar hunger and a similar point of view, and we both wanted to make something that's stuck,
something that could be shared with our parents. We always we always say like we wanted to show our parents what we were doing to say, I did an improv show last night, and they're like, what, like last night I actually did a stand up show and my parents are visiting and helping out with my kiddo while my husband's away, and my dad came to my stand up show and I was just doing a set, just like running material because I'm going on tour this week, and I was like, this is so weird, Like he doesn't
see this and to see me working it out, or he just doesn't see it that often. But I'm living my life and assume that they understand. But you know, that's what we wanted them to do. We were spending five or six nights a week in the comedy scene.
Wanted them to understand. So we started filming little bits and bobs, and the community at the time, everybody was looking for experience, directing, editing, you know, producing, So there were all hands on deck and we were all you know, most of us were in our twenties and had this energy to just try and go for it and fail and try again. And we found ourselves with like almost eighteen little webisodes in the beginning, and we this part is like a little more.
More nuanceda how did you finance them? How did you shoot them and finance them? And how did you how did you pull that together. It's it's it's it's so like I said, it's just so d I y that I I find that just like I'm so impressed by that there was. It was when I was starting out. There was almost nothing that you could do that would be like.
You know, babysitting and waitressing.
Wow.
And we worked at a bakery and you know what I mean, I was a friendly waitress. Pretty good.
Well that's a good start. That's a good start.
Yeah, pretty good. I'm I'm a natural server. I still feel like a waitress sometimes in TV and film I was pretty good, pretty good, and uh yeah, that's how we financed them, and you know, just hustling and it was fun, you know, like paying rank and paying and then running out to shows and getting drink tickets or whatever. It was just it was like to remember that time now so it feels like the eighties, but it wasn't.
You know, it feels like so long ago. For the way the world is now, people doing like TikTok and like corporate sponsorship. I don't even know how shit works.
You know, Oh it is, That's what I'm saying. It's it seems like it seems so like invention of the wheel type type thing and not that long ago, you know, that's what's so interesting about it. But but I do think that you were really kind of like ahead of the curve in that whole show and then to have it, you know, blow up in the way that it did.
And obviously those two women and that friendship between them and the stuff that you were dealing with and your point of view you know, spoke to a lot of young women and a lot of young people, I think, you.
Know, yeah, yeah, for us, like this thing of like we found ourselves with eighteen webisodes and we were like, let's call that a season, and let's make a season two.
And we had a party at the end of season one of the nine to two hy and a party at the end of season two, and that agency to contain our work, name it and claim it. To me actually saying this right now, it's something that I want to like take with my day. Like, you know, there was something in that agency and something in that selfhood, that personhood that I don't know fueled us forward, that pushed us forward. It wasn't just like something out here
and something out there. We learned from season one to season two of our web series to make a release schedule so people would anticipate it, and it really mimicked the TV show where you know, then we always had that. Well, we ended up thirty five short films in two years we made for the web series, and we always had that, and then we made fifty episodes of television and yeah, five seasons, ten episodes each. We show around head wrote, start and ship out of it. Yeah, yeah, we did.
It's now it's like it's so tender. It's like it's it's painful actually, you know, to think about the pain of all that creation and the strain on our relationship. It was impossible to be all the things all at once, you know, and at the time, I think it was hard to admit, you know, impressed. It was like I have friends, I have a friends, and it was like yeah, and we were we were partners and married and business sisters, you.
Know, like I mean, yeah, running a business is different than running a friendship in a lot of ways.
You know, definitely, definitely that.
That can be confusing when you put that element in. But I also think that, you know, the other thing is being two young women and having complete agency over what you were doing. Is is just you know, so impressive and and and and even now when when we
feel like we're trying to you know, move forward. You know, you look at the when you look at the numbers, and it's just unusual that you're that you know that that uh, you know, a woman is going to actually write and produce and show run and you know, do
the whole thing. I mean, I think the the exceptions to the rule become so uh it's kind of famous for having done that, But but the numbers are still not very strong, so I thought, so I yeah, claudiate, I claudge you for both of you for being able to do that and also being able to sustain you know, any kind of friendship at all.
Yeah, yeah, thanks, I appreciate that. And like the gain in our friendship and this softness since Bread City ended, it's it's been you know, it was like ten years of our life from when we started the web series until we ended the show. Show and I ended the show, it was like I had been a third of my life. And it's been such a it's been so interesting, so much more of a feminine spirit. The softness, openness, and nuance since Bread City ended, it was so it's a
natural unnecessary harshness to it. To create so much and be in charge of so much, it was it was really hard, but damn it was. It was a miraculous show, you know, the way like content, the way so much is becoming so divisive now and polarizing, like there's not Broad City could only have been made when it was made how it was made, And I'm so proud of it and obvious too. It's we're so it's it's miraculous to look to still be friends and to look back and be like, damn, I am so proud of that.
So I'm like, it's nice to find things in your life that you're proud of. Sometimes I don't think I know for myself, it's it's a that's not something that you kind of like automatically lean into, you know, because I think there's sometimes we get these messages where you don't want to be too prideful, don't be too prideful, you know. But yeah, and you can have that perspective to look back and actually feel proud of something that
you should feel proud of. I think that's awesome. Tell me about the the you said you're just going out on a tour. Is that a version of your special Your Planet is Burning?
It's like my next hour. I was it was so funny. I was out in I was out doing stand up. My next tour after The Planets Burning came out, was in twenty twenty in March. So I got a bunch of dates, a bunch of dates up before it lockdown happened and the tour was canceled and we stopped. So and then I kept doing stand up for a couple of years during COVID and so now and then I had a baby, and so now my.
Congratulations, I got a new hour.
Thanks, I got a new hour. Then I'm bringing around the country this year and early next year, and yeah, it's my.
Right.
Now I have maybe like fourteen or sixteen dates up, and I'm going to get fall dates up soon, like another.
Sixteen because I play in a band and tour. I have to ask you, how do you feel about the road. It's a different kind of road than the than the road of an actor.
You know. Yeah, I actually like the road as a comedian more than as an actor. I like control and I love like knowing. I love controlling my time. So for me, stand up is uh, I feel more in control of my time and I get so excited. That's a different thing too, Like as an actor, you like explore a location through a project. But I really and honestly, I have less experience on the road as an actor as a stand up So maybe I prefer just because
I know it. But what I love about stand up is that I get to see the people of the area, Like it's so charged. It's so it's such a privilege for me to like go and just get that like sort of whiff and that energy and that sense of a city is so cool. And you know, I guess like type of people like, oh, go ahead.
I was just going to say, it gives us a kind of perspective too, and if we're if we're coastal elites, you know, I mean to.
I was just going to say, like the kind of people I draw, like, you know, I have this and I mean it's so funny like my we'll be talking about Generator later, but.
Like my.
Advocacy organization like has been my sort of stage to crystallize my own political views, which are and we touched on this. I have a real gene ed general education, Like I went to high school with three thousand kids on Long Island, Like you know, to me, school is about social education and learning because I went to public school for me and like schools where I learned how
the system works, you know. And that's how I know how the world works now because of you know, a few people in power that you're like, are you sure you know whatever? You got to speak up whatever. So for me and the people that I draw, I'm always blown away by how progressive but not necessarily partisan. You know. I'm not like go democrats, you know what I mean. Like, I'm just like I love when people are loving, open hearted and believe that their neighbors deserve basic human rights.
And when I go out and meet people around the country, that's the sense I get that most Americans want their fellow Americans to have clean water and access to healthcare and don't give a shit what they do in their bedrooms, how they dress, you know what I mean, what their expression is of their own body. And it's for me, it's so hopeful to go out on the road and see and connect with open hearted, open minded people who just want to laugh together. It's fucking spiritual.
And and are you going to bring you your baby.
No, So this is another thing about my like like why I love stand up traveling for stand up is like I'm going to just go two nights mass at a time and I can control that, and I don't want to bring my baby. It's like I like splitting my attention. I find it really hard. It's much easier for me to work when I go away, go to the office. I'm so I feel so like my heart is like on the outside of my chest when I'm around her. So it's it's better if I just go myself, do my thing and come back.
I totally respect that. That's that's that's cool. That's cool. Like how old? How old is the baby?
She's too?
Now?
Having heard that, did that? I mean I know that. Uh, I didn't really think that. Let's see, how can I put this. I mean when I was when I was real young, I was a little bit interested in things of a political nature when I was like twelve and thirteen. But once I really started my own career, I got I got very interesting things in a Kevin Bacon nature, you know what I mean. I was like so focused on making it and you know, being a star and you know the you know, like acquiring stuff and all
those things. But after oh no, it's totally true. After my son was born, I think. And also I got married and had a kid, like within about a year, and oh wow. And Kira was already, you know, really focused when we met on climate which in those days was called global warming, and also having the child, I
think both of us. She was already there. But I sort of had to say, Okay, I'm gonna step out of my own self a little bit and start, you know, reading the fucking paper, you know, at least aside from the Hollywood Reporter and and and so that was a pretty profound thing. But it sounds to me like you were already pretty politically and societally motivated before the birth of your child.
You know. It's like I used to like put like reasons on it outside of my just the person that I am. Oh you know, I was. I was a minority growing up white, a white minority, and there and you know, there were brown and black and Asian people in my town who were a minority and had a much more challenging minority experience. But because I was a minority growing up, I have this you know point of view, or because I'm a woman, or because Long Island is really conservative, but it is just who I am to
have that. I've always uh been drawn to basic human rights basically just like fairness for people to be treated appropriately and respectfully. But I did not I did not know that it was like political really until Broad City when the web series. When we were doing the web series and we were starting to get press as a web series, there was this one article by a writer named Megan Angelo who were with the Wall Street Journal, and she said broad City is meek attack feminism. And
I've used that phrase one thousand times ever since. But it's it was the feminist part that was arresting to Abby and I. We genuinely didn't know it was feminist, genuinely. It was just we were just being we were fish swimming in the water.
Yeah.
And the big the more visible that the project got and the more reflection, I mean, it's it's it is such a privilege to me to be reflected in this way. People are like her characters by and I'm like, oh, really, I thought I was just queer and into different kinds of people and just into sex, sex positivity. You know,
these phrases that are like these labels. Like so it's like so funny, you know, to be reflected in this way as part of a category or a thought leader what you know, Like I'm just like doing my thing and comedy in the old days, my god, Like really the old days when there were no smartphones to capture anything and people were being super fucking naughty on stage. A lot of it was shitty. A lot of it was misogyny. That's not that's not a joke. That's racist,
that's not a joke, that's just sexist. But also like funny shit that was trans that was that was women doing naughty shit, that was men making fun of misogyny, you know. Like so like it was just this different time where there was less uh literally less looking at ourselves all day, looking at her own pictures all day. It is that is not natural for the brain, you know. So I feel like my coming to this consciousness is analogue at this point. But yeah, I've been told it's political.
I've come to the understanding of how it's political come to harness that political charged, that political charge for activation. But in my personal life and even actually in my advocacy work, I'm now like coming back to a place where I'm like, it's not fucking political. It's not political to not hate.
You know, we've actually used hate as a political tool.
Like, I don't buy it. If you want to talk about the way that.
We approach inflation, okay, that's politics.
I don't want to do that paperwork. I'm actually that's what that's above my pay grade. But hate, you know, you're uncomfortable with your own with your own gender inside of you, so you want to take that out as violence on children who are expressing their gender freely. No, that's not politics, that's violence. That's cool, that's you know. And climate, the climate crisis. You want to deny the
climate crisis. This isn't even reality, you know, Like I'm very like to me, it's like kind of about, uh, who on this planet is still operating within reality? That honestly is the majority? To me, that's the majority because such a small minority are actually benefiting from this twisted lie version of the world that I really I I do. I do have this like natural hope that most people, the majority of people are living in reality and want to Well, you.
Mentioned that that's what you're kind of seeing out on the road, and so that's that that I think is is is one of the great benefits of being on the road. And you know, you you can really get get wound up in this idea that that that they're that the that the majority of people and the majority of what you're reading it really is hate based. And I agree with you that I just don't think.
And that's part of the oppressive tool. That's the minority saying no, no, no will say you like, no, you won't. You're taking healthcare away from women, away from children, away from teenagers, the most vulnerable, Like that's part of the tool to make us scared, to make us paranoid and look at our neighbors fearfully. And it's not true, it's
not true. That's a privilege. Also, I think of living in a place with a lot of people, that energy of you know, whether it's going on the road and speaking a lot of people or naturally stepping out onto the street and walking by a lot of people, like human nature. While hate is a part of human nature, that primal instinct of fear or wariness of people not like you, that's a human thing. It's not like that
was made up and separate from our humanity. But this disproportionate, sort of like you know, costco amazoning of hate, the math produced cookie cutter version of hate. It's just it's unnatural.
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Well, I think this is a good segue to bring Glennis out. Glennis Bahar, who you start a generator collective with? Well, before we speak about the organization and what you do, how did the two of you meet and how did you come up with this idea?
Okay, so Glennis and I have a mutual best friend, our friend Matt, and when the election happened in twenty sixteen, we found ourselves saying how did this happen? How did this happen? Glennis had worked in DC and because of that I assumed she understood how she works in politics, and she was like, no, I have no fucking idea.
And we found in our in We found that in talking our mutual indignance at how the system is made purposely elusive to make us feel like we are too dumb to be able to access it and make use of it. So we started the Generator Collective and it was it was a s faith to gather and talk about politics without shame for not knowing how shit works. You know, as a comedian, I have I am down for people to laugh at me, so I bite the bullet for the audience and say, I actually don't know
how that simple thing works. I've heard about it a million times and I just don't know. And we started as like an online community, but moved in to a live event form where I interviewed activists and politicians and elected officials to ask them simple fucking questions. And also like ideally one hinges from one to the other. You know, Shirley Chisholm, the first Laft congresswoman, she was a community organizer first and then became a congress person. And that's
the ideal politician to me. And then we uh in twenty two, then we started these dance parties where we host just like fifth dance parties, but we take breaks every thirty minutes to have an elected official come on stage and tell the audience about the next election, and to create a cheat sheet for the people who came
so that you know, it's fucking hard. You have to like do research to find who to vote for, and sometimes you vote for you know, Okay, I'm voting along party lines, but actually this person might be a Democrat but they're whack. So to vote for the right people and to create a cheat sheet for the voting booth.
So in twenty twenty, we had a hybrid tour where I was going on stand up and I was like, let's take Jenny socials on the road too, And when that got lockdown, we pivoted our Jenny social messaging to digital and created an online series called cheat Sheet for.
The Voting Booth. We've been making digital messaging for to create cheat sheets in key states for elections from twenty twenty to twenty twenty two. That's my spiel, Glennis, Did I miss anything? Yeah?
I think there's just there's two kind of core tenants of Generator. I think Alana and I, you know, Alana assumed because I worked in DC. I worked for the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, where I learned a lot very quickly. I was a fundraiser. I think I was twenty three or twenty four. I was working for Priorities USA Option, which was one of the first Democratic super PACs, and Democrats had created super PACs in response
to Republicans creating super PACs. And I remember I think I had like one million dollars on my person walking back from the po box and I thought, this is disgusting corporate finance. Everything's awful. I'm going to go into the private sector. That was its own world right of six years and Alana and I were at the Cinner Party, and we woke up in a country that we felt
like we didn't understand. And there's a reason for that, because politics government was made purposely elusive, and we wanted to create something that we felt there was a real need for, which was a space to feel that you could learn and not feel shame around learning, with the hopes of ultimately engaging more as a citizen. Because we're seeing how polarizing this hyperpartisan world is that we operate in,
and that's not good for anyone. It's not good for how you feel, it's not good for human rights, it's not good for democracy. So, you know, post COVID and pivoting to digital media, we have really tried to use our social media platform to help more people engage with politics and in government in a way that does not polarizing.
It's awesome. It's awesome. I loved in the materials when you talked about, you know, feeling kind of politically dumb. I could really kind of relate to that because I can tell you that, you know, I read the paper, and I have strong views about a lot of different things. But I really find myself terrified to enter into any kind of actual political discussions with anybody that I think
is not in line with my way of thinking. And part of the reason is is because these days it seems like people will throw facts at you, and unless you've had the the unless you're someone that can hold on the facts, which I am not, I can't hold onto it. I can't hold on to anything factual. I can hold on the feelings. I can hold on to experiences or or or you know, I can drive to the store today, see that the sun is covered with
smoke from Canada. But but to actually get into an argument about whether or not that's just a natural occurrence or is actually, uh, you know, a result of human climate change is like something that I find really kind of terrifying, I think, And I don't think I'm alone in that, and I certainly don't think I'm alone in that in terms of like young people in the country. And so I think that that's you know, when you when you when you focus on that, I find that really really interesting and.
The exact thing feeling that's what like generator is. I think that's like the space that we're entering, like feeling politics. You shouldn't have to know facts to argue whether something is scientifically real or not. You know, Like I think that that the like news cycle and the divisive algorithms have made it such that we feel like we have.
To have a book report to argue our our views, and it's it's just you're exactly dead on about the feeling, like yeah.
Yeah, And just to add to that, Alana and I talk a lot about these, you know, the political system being physically disenfranchising, like literally I think this year alone, one hundred and fifty voter suppression laws have been you know, put out in state legislature, so you know that's physically happening, and then culturally, so many young people feel wildly disenfranchised because the system makes it impossible, to your point, Kevin,
to engage with it. Because if you don't know one talking point, or someone else knows ten more talking points than you, why are you going to go into that conversation. You're gonna feel demoralized put down when really you just want to stand up for what's right. So a generator, we try and embrace that that energy of I want to vote for my neighbor in a way that is going to be centered in human rights and just doing
more good for this country. And you know we do that mainly through digital media and just creating a culture by what you feel like you can share on your social media. Everyone has influence. Everyone has a platform, whether you have thirty followers or three point formula and like you have on TikTok I follow it's great. You know you have a voice and you should feel confident in using it to stand up for what you believe is right.
On a personal noteletus, how did you sort of come to you know, want to do this with your life.
You know, a great question. I got to bed every night wondering. Not really now, I don't know. I think just growing up, I've always this is going to sound so maybe immature, but you know, I love animals, I love people, and I've always, even at a young age, like standing up for what was right in a way that I was capable of doing was something that was
important to me. When I first graduated, I went to school at EVM University of Vermont, where there's a very liberal leaning, you know, community based ideology, very you know, hippie. I went and I worked in DC and I thought, this is how I'm going to manifest that in my life by working in public policy and raising money for people that I think should be elected, and then kind of flifting the hood on that and seeing how the
sausage is made. I said, no, not for me. But then, you know, being friends with Ilana, we had a real opportunity to use our strengths and create this thing that now I hope makes people feel more engaged and welcome into, like the democratic system.
And am I wrong that you grew up on one of the stops on the Paoli Local.
What's it Paoli local.
Did you grow up on the main line?
No, I don't.
Yeah, oh Abby, oh, Abby, Oh my god.
I have to ask her if it's mine. Is so funny.
I have friends you have, But I'm from Upstate New York.
I'm from there, from upstate Yeah, oh that's okay, which which you know, it's interesting because Upstate New York correct me if I'm wrong is a pretty red area generally, right.
Yeah, I'm from a town called Niskoona, which, strangely enough, G. E, R and D is headquartered in So we had a very diverse high school in terms of a lot of different nationalities, et cetera. But you know, living I live in New York City. In New York City is very much a coastal elye blue bubble, although we have a very very low voter turnout. I think in our last election
made to seventeen percent voter turnout. And I always say, if you're in New Yorker and you have an opinion but you don't vote, you can't have the opinion because that's the only way you can show up to I know. It's truly truly insane.
I think everybody just assumes it's gonna it's gonna go one way, and so they don't really you know, make their voice heard. Yeah, exactly.
But then you go on Twitter and everyone's saying something about their elected official when there is a primary. There's actually a primary June twenty sixth or twenty seventh, I.
Know, but I've sent my ballove is on the way.
I love it. We love to see it, yes, but yeah, I mean the state itself. My family has a farm in Cambridge, New York, which is the New York Vermont border. And you know, there's different wants and needs of a voter in overall county than there is in you know, a city. So and I think you spit in a lot of states across the country that the cities are these hubs for more progressive ideologies for whatever reason, and then you go on to the states and there's different realities.
Well, I'm always I always think it's admirable when and you know, the strange thing about that I always think about politics is that, you know, in its best incarnation, you get into it because you want to affect some kind of positive change, and time and time again we see that that doesn't always end up being the case. You know, you people get into it that once they're there, it really becomes more about holding onto a gig than than about actually, you know, staying talking about something that
you believe in. So I think that working in a way on the fringes of it not being an elected official, not that I wouldn't vote for you, a Glennis, but that both of you are starting doing this thing, which is you know, outside of the actual uh elected position, I think is a really positive, positive thing and you know, can be very powerful. What's what's up next for for what is what is the future for for Generator Collective? But what's the what's the what's the game plan?
Well, we're always fundraising. That's the one thing about running a nonprofit is you're always fundraising by how.
Do you find how do you find that piece of it? Let me just ask you that is it?
How do I find that piece? I flip a lot of mattresses. Now you ask a lot of high net worth individuals who are committed to the cause for contributions,
family foundations, different foundations. It's a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls, a lot of cold calls, cold emails, and just selling the dream right, you know, what you say, being on the fringes is uh refreshing, and it's sometimes I think Alana Night, we laugh and we we think we're delusional because we just keep pushing and pushing and pushing, because we believe in what we're doing and what we're building,
even after so many no's. I imagine it's not on like being in the entertainment space where you're consistently auditioning or you know, trying to get roles or projects launched and you get no, no, no. But you know, we believe in it, and we also think that for our audience it's important that we hold no. We don't know. We don't want to run for office. We were not academics, but we're not policy wonks or experts. We're here to
help you learn alongside with us. Not we're going to talk at you about a certain thing, but and that to that end, we're currently working on a new web series called microdos Democracy, which, if funded and produced, would
be a policy focused digital web series. I will live on social media, so on TikTok, on Instagram in short size bits, you know, true to the name microdosing these different things that we can all do as citizens to help strengthen our democracy, looking at how our democracy functions, some issues there may be. So that's ideally what's next.
We kind of want a microdose for gen Z and millennials the election coming up, rather than have being screened at last minute before the election and such a volatile experience as an American every four years to be screamed at. And yeah, just kind of prepare everyone to do some minimals of a engagement to activate. You don't have to sign up and become some full time volunteer, but yeah, education and minimal activation.
I love that. I love that. That sounds absolutely great. I think it's amazing what you've done in this partnership. I'm very, very in awe of it. Is there a call to action, a website, a spot where people can can can get the information or get involved or donate or whatever.
Yeah, people can follow us on social media. Instagram is our main and communication tool. We are at Generator Collective so that people can find us there. We have a sign up for emails. We never email people because everyone gets twenty thousand emails a day, but you can see any news or information on our Instagram.
What else is there on the Instagram? What else are we going to see news information?
Are there bits news information? You'll see our past web series. So we did cheat sheet for the midterms for twenty twenty two, cheat sheet for the voting booth to see the type of content that we create. A lot of memes, a lot of memes, a lot of TikTok voiceovers.
Yeah, but we really feel like, you know, the the side that is like using fear and hate as a tool is actually like winning these culture wars. And what we'd like to see is, you know, human rights politics start to use media and culture more effective, playing to point people to actually organizing around electoral work. So you know, that's what we're is, that's what we're focused on, is changing the culture.
I love it changing the culture. Well, Elana Glazer, Glennis Mahart, thank you, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been both extremely fascinating, educational and entertaining and.
I really appreciate it such a pleasure talking. Thanks for having us.
Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of six Degrees with Kevin Bacon. If you want to learn more about Generator Collective and all the good work that they are up to, head to their website at generator Collective dot com. You can find all the links in our show notes and remember.
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