Getting Cancelled (the truth)
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The thing that is so terrible about social media is that your intentions or your motives are never ever considered. It was brutal. It just felt like the world was caving in. I'm fully an adult and like this online hate was affecting me so much. There's literally kids on these platforms. People were tagging us on their stories. People were DMing us. We got some very aggressive DMs. Dude, we got death threats.

Hey, before we get started, make sure that you leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, whichever platform you listen on. It really means a lot. And let's get on with the episode. What's up, dudes? And welcome back to episode seven of the Unplanned Podcast. Here we are. I cannot believe we're here, dude.

literally so weird. It still doesn't feel normal to sit here and do this like especially for this episode like my heart is honestly beating really fast. We are going to talk about something that we've never talked about before openly on social media and that is getting cancelled. In fact we've avoided it like the plague. Yeah I mean getting cancelled is not fun. It's every creator's worst nightmare. Why am I already about to

And I think like... I think I have so many emotions built up to like talking about this because it's like scary to talk about. Yeah. And also you don't want people to be thinking that we're asking for like a pity party. Yeah. You know, because I'm not. I feel really grateful for this job and like the many blessings it's had for like our family. But this is just part of it that is...

oh it's like the dark cloud that's always looming you know yeah i mean it's it's honestly for creators more not it's not an if it's a when you get canceled because when you're online and when anybody and everybody can pick apart your life and find flaws in you and well not even your life anything that you put online like freaking miss rachel had to take a break because she

I don't understand that, dude. I don't even know what the controversy was really about. But it's just like that just shows that if Miss Rachel, someone as wholesome and pure, literally making baby videos. But I would say mama and dada. Yeah.

That just shows that no one is immune to this. Yes. But it's so hard to talk about. Yeah, it is. It's weird. It's scary because on a podcast, like we talk so openly and so authentically about our lives. So it's kind of scary. But at the same time, like I feel safe talking about it here because people are listening to an hour long episode and they're not just like taking bits and pieces of what we say and take them out of context, you know? So yeah, that's what's really reassuring about a podcast. Maybe this will be good for me to kind of finally...

talk about everything. I mean, cause it's happened more than once. Yeah. This whole getting canceled online. And I feel like it's been sprinkled with lots of mini cancellations, you know, I think there's something different though, between getting negative comments and then like widespread cancellation. Massive, massive difference. Cause everyone gets hate comments and hate comments suck. But like, I

I will say I laugh about most of the hate comments that we get because you just, you kind of become immune to it. But like canceling is different because they're taking like one specific thing and it's like a mob mentality of like thousands, if not millions of people coming at you and just

Just really trying to rip you to shreds and it's horrible. I think there's two major instances online where we have gotten officially canceled. So we got canceled in 2021 and 2022. Let's start with 2021. What happened? I mean, should we begin with just, I guess, our move to Hawaii? This is the one that is, oh my gosh. It's okay. It's the one that is like hard to talk about because of just like the fear that it caused in me. Like...

unresolved still honestly the fact that like just mentioning it is making me cry and like even when we talk about it with like close friends and like trusted friends like I'm literally fighting tears the whole time because I don't know it just it feels like a traumatic event even though it's so weird because it's all on your phone like nothing in real life actually happened it's such a weird thing to sort through because it's literally all on your phone yeah so I'm also pregnant so can we just excuse the tears

So we moved to Hawaii in 2021. And for those of you guys that don't know, Hawaii became a state in, I believe, the 50s. It was illegally taken by the US in the early 1900s. And so because of that, there's some very, very fresh wounds in Hawaii. People are very protective of Hawaii and rightfully so. It's a very special place. And there's people that are native to that land that really care about that land.

And, um, it's just, you gotta, you gotta be really careful and really respectful, especially when you, if you travel to Hawaii, you don't want to just like go around. I don't know. You gotta be careful. You want to be very respectful just as if you're visiting another country. It's almost like a different country in a way. Well, yeah. Well, as if you're visiting anywhere, you just need to be respectful of the culture that's there. And, um,

There's some very sensitive history, like you said, behind Hawaii. And we moved there and we honestly didn't move there not knowing that. Like we... I did a whole huge college project my senior... My last semester about the history of Hawaii and how it became a state and how...

It was, I mean, like you said, taken illegally. Yes. And a lot of people were hurt by that. I'm a history nerd. So like I did a ton of research too. And it's heartbreaking to hear about a place that was taken illegally, especially by the U.S. when like, look, I love our country, but like that's one of those dark sides of American history where you're like, that should not have happened. You know? Yeah. It's really sad. And so we went in knowing like, okay, as content creators, we're not going to share locations of hikes.

We're not going to be giving out all this information. The reason of not sharing locations of hikes is because then the hikes become extremely over traffic and it hurts the land. And it kind of ruins it for everyone. And that really hurts locals. So yeah, we came in with really like talk. We really talked to a lot of people that live there. I feel like we were very well informed, but there was one thing that completely slipped our minds that ended up coming back to bite us in the butt. Well, let's just say like we came in

not ignorant. Yeah. But obviously we were new there. And so you have to, it's really a time to just listen and learn. Yeah. And that's exactly what we were trying to do. It's very hard doing that under the public eye.

And we weren't like we had a following then because we were doing this full time. Yeah, we did. But it wasn't like I mean with every stage that it's grown like the stakes become higher. So the stakes weren't as high at this point. Yeah. But basically back then for all of if you have followed us from this point like that's pretty incredible. But then we would make the intro of all of our YouTube videos. We would say what's up dudes.

But then when we moved to Hawaii... Let me get backstory on that, though. What's Up Dudes originated because I call Abby dude. I actually see comments all the time, people that are like, why is this guy calling his wife dude? That's so weird. He would never say that. But I just do. I don't know. We're best friends and I call her dude. And so people thought that was hilarious on TikTok. There were some viral videos where

people in the comments thought it was funny that I was calling my wife dude. And so we just started calling our followers dudes. We just started all of our videos with what's up dudes and moving to Hawaii. You go into any store in Hawaii, you see Aloha like all over the place. Everyone says Aloha to you if you're a tourist. Like it's just, it's a very special word in the Hawaiian language and it means hello. It means goodbye. It means so many different things. And so naturally we're like, we should start saying Aloha dudes to open up all of our YouTube videos. Well, we were greeted at the airport

upon landing, moving in Hawaii, like it says, Aloha, like welcome to Oahu and like all these things. And even on the mainland of the U.S., like you go into Hobby Lobby, you go into Target, you go into Walmart, you see Aloha everywhere. It has kind of become...

universal in a way as like a greeting. Um, but the word Aloha, well, let's just keep going. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a very special word in the Hawaiian language. And so like you see it literally everywhere. It was kind of sad because the, the language almost completely disappeared at one point. And luckily there's a, uh, I believe a radio station that really, um, started the movement of getting the language back. And that's why when you go to Hawaii, you see a lot of things in Hawaiian because they're trying to, uh,

uh, bring back the language in a very strong way. So it's cool. There's a lot of people that name their kids now with Hawaiian names because back in the day, I, it was kind of like a no, no, I want to say, um, because they were trying to Westernize the people there, but Western culture kind of dominated Hawaii and it still is a recurring thing that's happening. Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent there, but anyway, the Hawaiian language, it's, you know, a beautiful language and, uh,

We just started using the word Aloha in our videos. Yes. And then several months, this was like five or six months into living in Hawaii, right? Yeah. So we moved there in January and then it was May that we decided to do merch. Yes. And let me preface merch by saying that I feel like very few creators use merch as like

a big way to, maybe some do, to make money. I think in the early stages of, like, YouTube, because there weren't brand deals to help pay the bills, like, creators would. Like, rely on merch. Would rely on merch to pay the bills. But I think more recently, merch is more of a community building. Yeah, at least that was our motive. Like, this was just a fun way to, like, build out our community. Like, I don't know, have everyone feel like a part of something and we can share it and we're the same thing. And it was really just a fun way

Yeah.

And our sister-in-law were doing it. It was kind of scary because like for the first time we wanted to try and do this thing where we bought all the product ourselves. We spent thousands of dollars of our own money cash just on this merch. And it was scary because we're like, okay, like now it's not like we're working with some t-shirt company. Like this is us. And hopefully we don't like lose money on this, right? All that to say it was still a fairly small operation. Yeah, yeah. And...

So on the shirts, because we'd started our, all of our merch before had just said dude. We'd always introduce with what's up dudes. So these shirts now said aloha dudes on the corner of them.

We made the logo, everything. It was very exciting. We had a photo shoot with a local photographer. Yeah, showed our friends in Hawaii. Nobody thought anything of it. It was just like, oh, that merch looks so sick. Like, I love it. I love that vibe, you know? Really cute. And then comes the day of launch.

And I feel like the day of launch went really well. Yeah. Because it was mostly our followers that saw. And they were just. Yes. Not like it was like sales were flowing in. But they were just excited about it. They really liked it. There was positive feedback. They were like this is so cute. Like I. I don't know. They like loved the design. Whatever. Whatever.

Then the following days, I don't remember exactly when it started to... I just saw like one DM of someone who was upset that we had made that merch. And I just kind of ignored it. It's like, you know, when you get hate, you just, okay, push it off. Like, just ignore it. Don't let it like pull you down. But then like the next day goes by and I think I saw like two DMs. Yeah. And then another day goes by and then it's like four DMs. And I'm like, okay, this is kind of odd. I would say it took until like day five where it got really crazy. So there were...

What's crazy is that the the hate was pretty much isolated to instagram. Yeah, which is not common I feel like hate is usually the worst on tick tock Well, we were actually very fortunate because when people get canceled oftentimes it's across social media platforms And tick tock is the worst it can be brutal and so it was really isolated on instagram because that's where we were Promoting the merch we had pictures of the merch up. Um

And we really like not as I didn't see a single negative or mean comment on TikTok or YouTube, but it was it was all on Instagram that we saw. I mean, I would never use the word lucky, but it could have been a lot worse. Yeah. So basically these like hate pages is really what it was. Yeah. We're bringing all this hate, telling this narrative that.

We were, you know... Exploiting. Exploiting the Hawaiian language. Yeah. And exploiting the culture and that our merch was like this way of trying to monetize off of Hawaiian culture. And that was like... Never our intentions. Never. And it just like completely broke my heart that someone could even think that, you know? That we're coming in here trying to just like make money off of the Hawaiian culture. Yes. And...

That's not to say that I don't understand like where they were coming from. But the thing that is so terrible about social media is that your intentions or your motives are never ever considered. Like if it was pretty clear to see from us that we had no ill intent in creating this. And, um,

That just doesn't come into factor at all. And so the hate was flooding in and it was. It was brutal. It was so scary, honestly. People were tagging us on their stories. People were DMing us. We got some very aggressive DMs, especially. Dude, we got death threats. Like. I wouldn't know if I would go as far to say. Oh, yes, we did. People were telling us. They were saying they drove past our house.

They said, we'll show you what we do with people like, like they called us Howleys. Yeah. Which is just a derogatory term for a white person or outsider in Hawaiian. We'll show you how we treat you guys. Like you need to go to the mother effing place that you came from. Like. Yeah. Go back to where you came from Howley. Whatever hole you crawled out of. Like the, the hate was crazy. It was videos. It was DMs. It was comments. Yeah. It was stories. It was.

The magnitude of the anger coming from these people was so scary. It was really scary. We would go out in public. And that's the thing. It's such a small community out there that we would go out in public and... People knew. People knew. And I will never forget. We went to the gym. And we knew a lot of people at the gym. But it was literally like we had a scarlet letter. It was like, who knows? And who is so mad at us? Who is like...

not going to associate with us ever again because we're like a threat to their brand or to who they are is like I don't I will never forget the looks we got when we walked into the gym that day and I was terrified to go to the grocery store I remember you left the house to do something I went to the grocery store oh you went to the grocery store and I was so thankful at the time that I that it was like the mask era like I had my my face mask on and I was like gosh I hope no one recognizes me here at the grocery and I was terrified because I was

home alone and I had read messages that said that they had driven by our house. Yeah. And this house was not secure. I mean, there was no AC. The windows were always open. You could easily break down that door. Like, I was terrified. It's freaky when people are like, I know where you live. I want to show you what I do to you effing... Yeah. The derogatory... Insert derogatory word. You know, it just... I mean, the messages were out of this world and it was... It felt like...

crazy thing about online hate is that like, like almost none of our followers knew what was going on. Yeah. But it still felt like everyone in the world hated us. And like we had done something that was like we had committed the ultimate offense. You know what the, you know what like really scared me, Abby? Um, which we can, we can cut this out if this is something that you think is too personal. But I remember it was, it was so tragic.

It was really hard on both of us, obviously. Yeah. But, like, I was just trying to figure out how to respond. Like, I was like, we need to make an apology. Like, we need to let people know this was not our intention. So we did that. But, like, remember at that time, it was so traumatic. Like, you, I remember you did some self-harm. Like, it wasn't, like, not cutting yourself. Yeah. But, like, it was so traumatic.

I think you were... I don't know if you were hitting yourself in the head or what it was. I just wanted it all to stop. It was so bad. But I had never seen you get to that dark of a place. And that was really scary. And I remember going up to you and just hugging you so that you couldn't do anything to hurt yourself. Because...

It just felt like the world was caving in. Like, it's so weird how, like, I'm fully an adult. Yeah. And, like, this online hate was affecting me so much. And, like, there's literally teenagers. There's kids on these platforms. Yeah. And that makes me never want Griffin or any of our other children to ever have their own social media platform because I can't handle it. Yeah. And I was an adult. And I knew my character. And I knew who I was. But to feel that...

I felt so vulnerable. I felt so misunderstood because that was never, ever, ever my intentions. That was never anything I'd want to do. And whether or not people think that what we did was wrong or wasn't certain, I think it was abundantly clear that we would never do that. If anyone actually knew this, we would never do... We had no intention of hurting anybody. Yeah. And...

I just felt like there was no way to solve it and there was no way out of it and everyone knew. It was weird because I just like – I lost my perspective. Yeah. And it was really, really a dark time and really scary to the point where we had already made arrangements to be off the island shortly after that. But if we hadn't, we would have booked a flight. Oh, yeah. Because it was so scary. Fortunately, we did have a flight booked for like –

I don't know, like a day and a half later to fly out to go be with family. And yeah, that was definitely good because then we were off the island for about a month and things did settle down while we were gone. But it was really, really scary. Wasn't it so weird when we landed on the mainland and it felt like... We felt like we were safe. Yeah, it felt like we were safe. And, you know, I think we've talked about this before, but like before that cancellation,

It's crazy how it totally flipped my perspective of living there because before we were even considering of like considering maybe settling down for multiple years there. Well, you told me you wanted to stay for about five years because I really liked it. Like I loved the culture. I loved all the friends that we made. I loved getting to surf and go on hikes. And you're just so active there and healthy. Like I really liked that. And I loved how simple our life was there.

people don't value possessions as much because everything's so freaking expensive in Hawaii that you just don't have a lot and you just recognize that you don't need a lot to live a happy life. You can just be active and be in nature and there's so much beauty in that. But I remember that all happened and we didn't go get counseling. Like we should have gone to a counselor and we didn't. I remember like our family...

Like, we got... We saw them and I don't know, like, I don't think anybody knew the... Like, how big that was. Like, how much it affected... No, our family was scared for us. But I don't think even our families realized, like, how much that affected us. Like, we should have definitely gone to see counseling. Like, honestly, we still should go to counseling for that. Well, okay. What I was saying, though, is about how it switched my perspective on living there is that, like, from wanting to be there for up to five years, I was like, I don't... I can't... I can't be here another month. Yeah. Like, I just felt...

so incredibly unwelcomed and so like i mean you don't need how many people do you need messaging you like go back to where you came from we don't want you here like yeah before you're like okay i'll leave and name calling too like i'd never been called names before like that oh awful the most awful things you and then they were digging up things from our past and just being incredibly it got off

subject completely and it was just like whatever we can do to torment these people like let's do it any bit of dirt they could find on us from the past I remember seeing like that's what canceling is you know but it's it's crazy though because like even if

I don't know. It's just, it's crazy how big and nasty it can get when people, I think like people that are, I don't know, going through something maybe in their life to where they're, they're in a really dark place and they take it out on you. Like you become a target and it's like, oh, I need to take out all my anger and pain on this person because they're the reason I'm feeling this way. And then you just become like- I don't even think people realize why they're doing it. Yeah, I don't think they do. And I think I hear a lot of people say all the time, like,

I mean, it just makes me feel better or not make me feel better. It's like, or I can just like, you know, have peace knowing that they're probably just living a miserable life. That's what they do. Yeah. That doesn't make me feel any better. Yeah. Like that makes me feel like, okay, I don't want them to be miserable and I certainly don't want them making anyone else miserable. Like, I don't know. I don't.

I don't want anyone to be miserable. So we get canceled. And like Abby said, this wasn't selling merch was not some like on a big business move for us. Like it wasn't about the money. So we literally were like, which is what so many people were. That was the narrative that was being told. We were profiting off of this. So yeah, we, we donated all profit to a local Hawaiian charity that helps support teaching the Hawaiian language to kids. It's in preschool, which is actually really cool. It's really, really cool. I believe it's called, uh,

I don't know if I pronounced that correctly, but we donated to that organization. And that was cool. And I'm like, I'm really glad that we were able to do that. That is like probably the best thing that came out of it. Yeah. Basically from that point on, like we tried to put on whatever filters you can put on on social medias and

It wasn't working. Well, that's the thing. Like none of the filters we put on Instagram worked. Like we had it. It made people more mad. Yeah. People got really mad and they got more creative. There was professional surfers that were like posting about us. And like I had heard, yeah, I don't even want to get into it, but like I, it just, it just got nasty. People that you had looked up to since you were a child making mockery of you online. And that just makes me so hurt.

to know that like you've looked up to him since you were to these people as a role model for years yeah and then for them to know nothing about you yet put you in a negative way on their platform that's massive yeah I never saw it but I I was told by friends that there was a really really well-known professional surfer that like posted about it just making fun of me and that that really hurt that that

Cause it was like, that was, I don't know. Like I never would do anything intentionally to hurt somebody. And so like that, that made me feel awful. And I was just like, I was so, yeah, there was, there was a night. I remember there's one night we had gotten back to the mainland and I just like, I lashed out. I was just like so frustrated by the whole situation. And I just didn't even know, like, I didn't even know what to do. Well, I honestly want to say like shame on that person for using their platform to

to bring other people down. And that's something you will never, mark my words, at least intentionally, you will never catch us. Actually, no, I can promise that there's, I don't think there's any one-off circumstance where this could even happen. You will never see us use our platform to hurt or bring anybody else down only to uplift others because what is the freaking point? Yeah. Other than to stroke your own ego is really what it comes down to. Yeah. And

That's why, honestly, that's why when I see other people or other creators or other celebrities getting heat online, it makes me want to come to their defense no matter what happened. Because the crime never fits the punishment on social media. Never. Ever, never, ever, ever. Like someone will do, like, can we just talk about the lash controversy? Oh my gosh, Mikayla on TikTok. What?

And every other, there were so many other influencers. This is what made me so agitated. Other creators that know darn well what it feels like to get hate, like just unfair hate. Think it's right to lie? No, it's not okay to lie. But do I also think it's right to defame someone completely for something, making a mistake? Mascara. Mascara. Like,

You don't know what happened. There was a controversy with this TikTok creator that she said she was using mascara. There was speculation that she, in fact, was using false lashes. Yes. And they weren't her real lashes with the mascara on them. Anyway, multiple of mass... Multiple massive creators...

and many other smaller ones made videos just scrutinizing her character and her entire platform. They saw an opportunity. They saw people getting so mad at this creator. They're like, oh, I can get viewership off of this. If I make a video bashing this creator, then I will get views. I will get clout. I can get more followers. I can get more money. Let's let's drive this. Let's dig this creator's grave. Right. Like, why not? What they were doing in turn was saying,

can't be trusted. Probably other people can't be trusted, but I can be trusted. And I just think that's incredibly manipulative to your audience. And there's multiple

multiple other people on the platform that you can trust. Like trying to create some type of monarchy on your page. Like you're being honest, but I'm pointing fingers. Everybody else is a liar out here. But me? Oh, no, I'm completely truthful all the time. Like, really? OK, are we really going to go there? Beyond that, it's just like, don't just don't put distrust in other people's minds on other. I don't know.

It's just ugly and it gets so incredibly ugly. Yeah. But social media can be a dog-eat-dog type of world. People just jump on other people's downfall for some views. It's sad. It's very scary, honestly. And –

I don't know if I can think of another career that is similar in that way. Yeah. I mean, I think about politics where people dig up the most dirty things about other politicians. I'd hate politics, dude. But like, yeah. Remember that ad that was going in Arizona? Oh my gosh. When there's political campaigns bashing on other people's political campaigns, like it bugs me when your best foot forward is just to bash the other candidate. Can you just talk?

Talk about something that you would do to better the state rather than just be like, this is why you can't trust them. This person's dangerous. Here's this person's nudes from when they were like 18. But the thing is, all that works. And when you can defame somebody, it can help you win. And that's why people do it. That's why people on social media do it. It works. I'll admit it. Why is it actually entertaining in some capacity to know about dirt or to see somebody have some type of fall? Yeah.

It's just like the movies. It's conflict so it's exciting in a way. But I think I have this new perspective now being on the other side of it where I'm just like all I can feel is just bad when something like that – like I just want them to know that there are people who love them. There are people that will forgive them. There's no forgiveness online. In cancel culture, it's like you've messed up. You're done. But –

I mean, how unrealistic is that? Yeah. Everyone's made mistakes. Yeah. Every single day. And it's so interesting that it's all about the story that gets picked up.

It's like, what, what's the narrative that everyone believes? And that just becomes reality. That just becomes truth. And it's like, what is truth? What is the actual story? Do we even know? Like, what's the other side of the story? When, when you hear about these people getting canceled, like I really want to know all the facts and all the details because oftentimes you never get the full story. You don't get the full story. And here's the thing. Heaven forbid that person tried to defend their character. Yeah. Because that will just get chewed up and spit out. And that's kind of the position we were in. Um,

Not that I even felt any desire to defend myself. I just... I felt honestly hopeless and weak and I just felt like the words had been ripped out of my mouth and everyone already had established what they thought about me and what they thought about me as a person. So I didn't want to talk, you know, but we did like apologize to those that we had...

hurt and affected and then donated the money and then moved on. Yeah. And ultimately that whole situation is really why we moved out of Hawaii. Honestly. Certainly. Yeah. We just, we did not feel welcome after that. And it kind of, it really did ruin it for us. So, I mean, if that was people's goal to get us to leave, I mean, it actually worked. That was their goal and it worked and they won. Yeah. Which is sad. Like you don't want to like let, let haters win. I'm not, I don't like that. I don't like letting haters win, but for us,

Um, I think, I think especially you too. I think, I think I was able to get over it after a couple months. It was, it was extremely hurtful. It's so weird because like, I think that people's negative, like negative, like people's thoughts on me really affect me normally. Um, because I, like I said, I am an adult. I, I know who I am and I have trusted people in my inner circle that I trust.

fully trust to correct me when things are wrong and just you know encourage like i trust that and i don't need the influence of strangers online yeah yet something about that situation like literally changed my like internal chemistry in a way like it is incredibly traumatic to look back at that time like for some reason and honestly i probably need

therapy. Yeah. But like it was incredibly it's so silly too because it's literally an app online. I don't understand how it had such a grip on me and how it still does. Um that was such a lonely time. Mm-hmm. Because no one really knew what it felt like other than you. Yeah. And you were hurting and I was hurting. And then um

people our friends from we had just moved there so we didn't have like a I was already struggling because we were lacking community there and then the small community that we did have I mean I obviously understand but there was no one really reaching out at that time and maybe they didn't know there was there was a little bit like we did have like a few people reach out but it wasn't like

everyone that we knew who, I mean, like everyone knew about it. So it wasn't like our, all of our friends were like just checking in on us that that really didn't happen and look like it wasn't like we were super close with them, but that sucked too, that we didn't have this community that was, you know, having our back.

And when you get canceled too on social media, people kind of, people get scared. Like other creators get scared. You can't associate with them. They don't want to go down with the ship. I don't blame them. Yeah. They jump off and they're getting as far away as they can from you because they don't want to get any bit of that hate. It's their livelihood. It's traumatizing. Yeah. And it's their business too. It was an incredibly lonely time. And from that point on, I was honestly really scared to engage with

because I was like, what if they know about this? What if they think... It was just an incredibly shameful situation and incredibly isolating. Yeah. And it still honestly is like a page in our career or in my life, honestly, that is very unhealed. It's a wound that's left open still. I remember when we got back to Hawaii. We just went to Hawaii for a month. And I remember when we arrived, I think you kind of had all the...

I don't know if PTSD is the right word, but almost like... Well, I've never been diagnosed, so I don't think you can use that term. Yeah, yeah. We can't use that term because Abby has not been diagnosed, but you did get like this, this like fear, I think. I feel like this is so overdramatic. I can't explain it. Maybe I'm just a dramatic person, but... No, it's okay. It's like your emotions and your feelings are totally valid, but you felt that way arriving back. And...

And it was hard, too, because, like, at the same time, I didn't feel that to the level that you felt that. Like, I was excited to be back in Hawaii. But part of me, like, I knew, like, this is where we got canceled. And this is, like, where, you know, stuff went down. And so... Perhaps this whole situation is why hate comments now don't affect me. Really? Maybe it's, like, because...

the worst thing, it felt like the worst thing that could happen happened. Maybe now I'm like, oh, that's nothing. Maybe what didn't kill me made me stronger. Well, I definitely, that didn't happen for me though because I got some hate at the tail end of 2022 and I kind of entered a dark place for a little bit. It was really scary. Yeah, so fast forward to Matt's cancellation. Fast forward to 2022.

In December of this past year. Yeah. So do you want me to kind of explain? Well, I can start. Okay. So we, you know, like I said before, we get hate all the time, every day. There's mean comments that come in every single day. No one's above it. We just ignore them. But a common comment that I kept seeing on videos that I would make or say, I'm doing the dishes or I'm picking up the house or I'm taking care of Griffin. I kept seeing these comments. It wasn't a ton, but it was enough to piss me off.

Because there were comments like, why isn't Abby doing anything for her baby? Why isn't Abby picking up the house? Why isn't Abby doing this? You know what's weird is that none of that bothered me. It bothered me a lot. That's sweet. Because I'm like, Abby does more around the house and for my baby than I do. And so I don't want people getting... Now you're about to get canceled again for saying that. Okay. Okay.

so scared to do this episode. I'm like, now people are going to just recancel us again and they see our wounds and they're just going to stomp on them, which I think is going to happen. Oh my goodness. I trust you guys. So please don't. That's the thing though is like Abby is a breastfeeding mother and for a dad to try it, like when you're breastfeeding, that's 40 hours a week that you're spending breastfeeding. We did the math. Okay. It's a lot of time. And for a dad, even a very involved dad like myself to try to

match that amount of hours like it's hard because you're just naturally well the only time I want to spend with my kid I don't want to just be breastfeeding too so it's like naturally I'm going to be spending more time with him and so I'm like here like I spend a ton of time with my son but my wife spends more and people are are defaming her character saying that she is isn't doing enough that she's never doing anything and the reality is I am passionate at

I'm very passionate about social media and creating video. I love storytelling. I've loved making videos ever since I was 12. I had a surgery when I was 12 on my back because I had a tumor on my spine and it kept me from doing theater for a little bit. I was like bedridden. And that's when I picked up like my love for creating video. And so that's why like a lot of times you'll see me. I'm the one that holds the vlog camera on the YouTube videos. I'm the one doing most of the voiceovers on our TikToks. Oh my gosh, are you okay? Are you choking?

I'm good. Are you all right? But it's my passion. And so like when I vlog my life, naturally my son is a big part of my life. And people in these videos were just like, some people were, you know, assuming that I did way more for Griffin than Abby. Well, because that's what they were seeing more.

That's what they were saying on camera. And it was pissing me off. And so I made this video where, you know, Abby was gone. I forget where you were, but I was at the gym. I was just picking up the house, right? And our house was very messy. And we work as a team. Like we do things together a lot of times. Like today we clean the house together. We clean the house together today. And at that time, just that stage that we were in, I was doing a lot more of the work on our videos. Like I enjoy editing. I don't know how to edit worth a crap.

I enjoy editing. I don't do any of that stuff. I don't like cleaning. Abby doesn't like editing. So because our job is social media, I do a lot more of the editing and Abby does more of the cleaning than I do. Sometimes I don't even like social media at all. And that's okay. Actually, probably 95%.

And so, and so anyway, so I'm just, so Matt does more of that. All that to say you do more of that. And that is our business. Yes, exactly. So anyway, I'm picking up the house and I'm like, Ooh, I should make a video where it's like, even though I'm picking up the house and I'm taking care of Griffin, I should make a video about how Abby does more than I do in that regard. Your intention and your heart behind that TikTok was to lift up your wife. Yeah. Yeah. In turn, you literally

literally dug your own grave. I dug my own grave and it was horrible. I mean, the backlash was insane. We made the mistake of not taking off duets and stitches off of our TikToks. It was mostly the stitches that really got us. Because on TikTok, look, people are scrolling on their For You page. And so if you don't provide a strong enough hook in the first like three seconds of the video, people are gone. They're not going to watch your video. And so most TikTokers provide a pretty strong hook in the beginning. Just share your hook.

Oh my gosh. See, my hook sounds so bad. Looking back, I'm like, wow, that was so stupid. But like the hook that I made was don't be fooled by me taking care of my son because most of the time my wife does that. That was my hook for the video. Yeah, which honestly doesn't represent you well at all. Really? And honestly, that's... It's not even truthful. That really honestly isn't truthful. I really did overreach. For instance, Matt was up with Griffin last night from 2.30 a.m. to 5.30.

30 a.m.? It was horrible. Yeah, it was like a three-hour stretch last night. And that was all Matt. I wake up with Griffin at night. I didn't get out of bed. I'm the one that puts Griffin down for naps. I sing to him when he falls asleep. Basically, all I say is that we co-parent. Yes. But we're married. Is that still called co-parenting if we're married? We're a team. We coach.

a team in every aspect and from business to home. Yeah, and because we're a team, if one of us is ever watching Griffin alone, we call it Griffin duty. So if I'm gone, Abby's on Griffin duty because she's the only person watching Griffin. It's no longer a team effort. She's watching by herself. I'm always a mom. You're always a dad. But when...

our son is one of our sole responsibility. That's what we call it. So Abby was gone. So I was on Griffin duty because we were not parenting as a team. And I mentioned that in the video, people were racking me for that. And like people just really came for me and there was, it got so, it got really bad. Yeah. There was like,

stitches that had over a million likes. And it was over the... Here's the deal. I could have been more proactive and probably, like, removed comments. Maybe I could have even deleted the video. We didn't even really know what was going on for a while. Because it was Christmas time. We were enjoying time with our family. We were kind of staying off social media. I wasn't aware of how bad it got. And...

Once I saw how bad it got, there was no going back from that. Here's how I knew how bad it got. People were starting to reach out. People were texting me. My sister-in-law, some of my friends from college, other people that create content were texting me. And I was like, yeah, this is getting probably bad. I did not even see a fraction of the stitches because as soon as I saw the hate, I was like, for me, I'm like, I don't want to consume that. Like, I don't need that. And I know that because it was about you that I would get super...

Claws out. You know what I mean? Yeah. Protect guard dog. And that's kind of what happened when I made like a, we call it the sassy TikTok I made. I made a sassy response back because. We literally titled the video sassy response. Sassy response. In our documents on our computer. Yeah. Because the thing was, is like, it was different from the Hawaii experience because this was literally so different.

Because you are such an excellent husband. You are such an excellent dad. For anyone to say anything different, it's just they clearly don't know you. And so that's why I was like so stupid. I didn't take it seriously. While I'm sure it hurt your feelings, everyone in your life is like this is the most ignorant thing that could happen. The most unfounded claims about you. So why?

While it was horrible, the hate you were getting, it was like, this is so not real. Like it just sucked to get on TikTok. And like the second I get on TikTok, it'd be a video about me. Yeah. And someone just like roasting me, like video after video roasting me. And it just like, it sucked because I became like a virtual punching bag. For all men. I think that there was so much anger that people had about their own husband and their own

Like, I don't know if they were a single mother without. There was just so much misplaced anger that got thrown on you. Well, it really became a trend to stitch the video to stitch my don't be fooled by me taking care of my son because my wife does that most of the time. I forget. Yeah. Whatever the line was, people would clip that and not like not watch anymore the video and then just roast. I'm sorry. What kind of bum dad would even admit that? Yeah. Yeah.

Like, you know what I mean? That should be their first clue that, okay, wait, maybe this was... Maybe I need to look a little bit deeper at this. How did nobody, like me, you, we also have an editor that works for us as well. Like, because there's so much editing. Like, I edit like 40 hours a week, but then we have another editor like editing 40 hours a week. Like, how did no one catch that? Like, we totally... Like, this video...

I think I was just like, it's Christmas time. Yeah. I was just... I don't even know if I saw the video before it got posted. Yeah. I don't know. Or I think... No, you know what? I think I saw it and you were like pretty much praising me the whole time. Yeah. And I was like, you're so sweet. I think it takes someone twisting the narrative to...

I don't know, make it seem bad. Yeah, it definitely, it was a crappy time. And I think what really started to hurt my feelings too was seeing like friends of friends of ours make videos about it as well. Like we have, I don't know, no one that like we're directly friends with made a video. I hate video, no, no, no. But like I saw mutuals of ours on TikTok, people that we follow and they follow us. And we thought we were friends. We thought we were cool. I saw them commenting. Because mutuals come up

I'm up top on the comments. You can see mutuals at the top. So I was seeing all these mutuals commenting about me and just like wrecking my life. And I'm like, wow. I thought we were... I thought we were cool. Like, do you seriously... Like, do you really believe that about me? Like, that really hurts my feelings. And that sucked. I think for me, I am... Okay, wow. This is really gonna just sound arrogant of me. But something about me, I'm like a ride or die for people. And like, I think you know that. No, you are. Yeah, you still are. Like, that's just... I'm loyal. And so you would never...

It's shocking to me that someone that could message us privately acting like our friend could then publicly comment. Keep in mind, none of these people had ever privately reached out even though they had our phone number. Or they could privately message us because we have the settings where it's like if you're mutual friends on the platform, then they can send you a private message or say like,

I saw this concerning video. Like, I really hope you're stepping up as no, nothing, nothing at all like that. It was the public comment. And that's just because it's their own ego. And there was, there was a very, there was a particular creator. I'm not going to say who it was. Cause I don't want to like, I don't know. I don't want to start anything. I know you're going to say, and then people are going to try to find, I'm not going to say who it was. Okay. But there was one particular creator that just like roasted my life in this Tik TOK they made. And it was a friend of one of our friends. I'm like,

They know that we have mutual friends. Like why? It was a friend of one of our friends, but more importantly. You were a fan of them. Major fan. Abby was a major fan of them. And I was like, you're kidding. Like this girl that we thought was so cool and so nice saw an opportunity for views and decided to just go off. And get this. Other mutuals that we know commenting on her video. Yep. And not a defending way to you. So I think that is literally like

has given me a jaded perspective of social media in general. Like now I'm like, this is all fake. Yeah. In a way, which it's not. There are so many genuinely amazing people and amazing genuine friends we have that make social media video. I know their videos are real, but I think it's what made me feel like in general, this is fake. Yeah. And this is

so shallow you know what was so interesting though about the video is we didn't get hate really on any other platform like it was just isolated to tick tock again just like our first cancellation on instagram

This one was just on TikTok. Our YouTube Shorts viewers, they understood the message. They're like, ah. Exact same video too. It was the same exact video. Nothing different about the video. But our YouTube Shorts viewers understood. They understood that I was recognizing Abby and recognizing the role that she plays in our relationship and that we work as a team. We take on different roles in this team that we're on. And so that was so interesting.

the same video got a completely different response on TikTok than it did on Facebook, on YouTube. We didn't post it on Instagram because we were about to and I was like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't. Heck no. Yeah, because after we got the hate. But yeah, that was really fascinating. Yeah. That whole experience I feel like has since marked our TikTok account as

No, there's like a target. Yeah. There's a small community of people on TikTok now that just I feel like no matter what we post, they just want to rip us to shreds. Dude, someone that's like married to one of the Try Guys made a massive video that was stitched that was stitching it. And I feel like that video, because it blew up so much, I think a bunch of her followers or people that saw the video ended up following us to be a hate follow. Yes. And now...

We are at their mercy. Wait, was that the video about how a surprise isn't picking up the house? A surprise is taking your family to Disney World? Is that the video? Which like... Which I mean, maybe if you're incredibly wealthy and have...

in what situation can there not be small and large surprises people in relationships divide roles in a relationship and so say say your your thing that you do is unloading the dishwasher and then your partner ends up unloading the dishwasher without you knowing that's a surprise that that really means a lot when your partner does something that you typically do just to show you their love like I could do something so small and like

expect you to be surprised by it and it's about love languages too it's like is your love language acts of service my love language is acts of service yes is your love language gifts i mean it really comes down to that and so that's why i was like man like people really are your love language language is making food for you i love food dude yeah you're such a good job that's but then i was in trouble because i was somehow like a terrible traditional role

That I, as the wife, was making my husband food. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, like, I said in that video that I got so much hate on that we take on traditional roles in our marriage. You know what's weird? Which, like...

Really, I would say a very extremely modern version of a traditional marriage. Honestly, yeah. I mean... Because like I do more of our business stuff than you do. But at the same time, like I wake up every single time Griffin wakes up in the night. I put him down for bed. Like... I would hardly call it honestly even traditional anymore because... That's true. Like anyone that spends any stretch of time with us, like we really are fluid in our roles. Yeah. And...

Yeah. But it's weird because now like I go on TikTok and the video will be like what I made my husband for dinner. Oh my gosh. And then all the comments will be like, does he ever make you dinner? It's just our culture right now. Like we are literally living in a man-hating culture. A mother to a son. That makes my heart really sad. Like I would hope that my son. Watch me. Oh, it's okay. It's okay. You got this. You got this. We can.

But I would hope that my son could grow up and there could be males and females uplifting him and rooting him on and not

hating him for his gender or thinking a certain way about him because he's a man. I don't know. That's just – I told Matt when I was feeling really spunky about this whole topic. I was like, I really want to make a story and I want to make it just say I can't wait for us as a culture to grow up and stop hating on our men. I see men step up. Give them room to step up. I don't know, but –

That's not the person to be. You're doing a great job. Thank you. Thank you. It was just the most outrageous thing. And that type of hate was honestly laughable because it's so not true. But I know it was hurtful too. Yeah. It was weird. I was almost like mad at myself for like how much I let it affect me. It kind of – it really ruined especially TikTok for me for a long time. Like we didn't – It kind of ruined Christmas in a way. Yeah. Christmas sucked because I was just like – Well, hey. Christmas didn't –

It sucks. I was really down, honey. I'm sorry. I was really, really down. I feel like you kept a lot of that in. I did. Yeah. I need to be better about opening up more and explaining how I feel when I'm down. Can we talk about... I've never seen you cry. Yeah. I don't really... I don't know. I don't really cry very much. But I filmed like seven response videos to that video. I really wanted to say something, but then...

I don't know. I couldn't get the words right. And then we just decided... Social media does not respond well if people respond to hate. And because people were painting Abby as a victim. So, like, Abby was like, I want to make this video because, like... Yeah. I don't regret that video. It makes way more sense for me to make it. Yeah. I don't regret that video because people were, like, literally making me seem like such a... Yeah, like you said, like a victim of a terrible husband. I'm like, that I am not. And that's honestly ridiculous. So...

I made a video. I normally, when we get hate, it's just like, we don't say anything. We don't respond to it because we don't want to bring light to negativity. That's not what our platform is about. We want to build our platform on positivity. And there's so many incredibly nice people. Also, I think about this fact all the time. Shout out to the silent followers. Honestly, all of you. Yes. I know.

if you're a silent follower, just like know that I'm so thankful for you because not because I don't want you to like or comment or anything like that, but like that is how I am with so many people. I'm like, I've realized I am such a dedicated fan and follower to many people that I've never once DM'd, messaged, or DM'd or commented anything public for. Oh yeah. I like, I never comment on people's videos. Yeah, I'm rooting them on. Yes. I am like,

I'm a cheerleader for them. Yeah. Yet I'm, they would never know it. And so, thank you to you guys because I know you're there and you don't have to comment anything. Just know that I'm thankful for you. And I know that, just know that your presence makes a difference in, you know, building our community and,

Making us feel encouraged. You guys are the absolute best. It's amazing. Like you saying that right now, I'm also a viewer. I like never comment or DM or really interact. I probably should more. But I just, I view content and I never like say something, especially if there's negativity about somebody and,

And I'm like, this is stupid, but I don't say anything like you don't want to get like people after you. Now, you don't want to get into like a comment war with somebody because then it ruins your day. Then you start having a bad day that you got into a comment war and someone's comments because you were trying to defend a creator that you like. Yeah, it's just it's so stupid. Yeah. So it's so stupid. I mean.

all that to say like the people that we never expected people to publicly comment whenever we were going down. We don't want them to go down the ship with us. And thank you to all the friends that like reached out to us during that time too. Cause it really means a lot. Like when you're getting hated on, on social media, it really means so much when other creators reach out to you, check on you, see how you're doing. To bring you back down to earth and just let you know that like not everyone believes this lie about you and that you are loved. And that

It means so much. And I kind of wanted to go back to us talking about the Hawaii –

I shouldn't say Hawaii. I should just say Aloha, dudes. Real quick, can we just talk about how the search, like this whole new TikTok search, I think affected the cancellation in 2022. This TikTok search bar is problematic. Because then on the video, what happened is like, it was like Matt and Abby canceled, Matt and Abby conflict, Matt and Abby controversy, Matt and Abby drama. So like now that there's a search bar on TikTok, it just spews all this drama. And really it's so smart by TikTok as a company because it gets people on the app longer. But it's made TikTok such a mess.

more negative platform. Yeah, it gets so negative. And there were literally drama channels being like the drama with Matt and Abby. I'm like, what drama? No. I never watch a single one. I just scrolled past if I saw them because I was like, what freaking drama? I watched a couple of the videos and they really hurt my feelings. So I just stopped because it just, it just hurt too much. The TikTok search bar is so problematic because anybody

given video you look at, it'll have that creator's name and controversy or drama next to it. So common. And it's just made the app such a negative, dark place, honestly. Which I think from the app's perspective, it makes sense. It keeps people on the app longer. People want to know about the controversy of all these creators. It does interest me. I'm not going to lie. But I think long-term, it's a bad play for TikTok because then it's going to spew more negativity towards social media and people are going to be like, I don't feel full when I leave the app.

Well, it's going to also discourage people from creating on the platform because it's scary, you know, to be at the mercy of so many like hateful viewers. Yeah. And all that to say, I don't want this episode to just seem so negative or like a pity party, like I've said. Like, I feel really thankful and there's been more positive than bad things that have come of it. But this is just, I feel like this podcast is, the purpose of this is to talk about things that...

maybe aren't, I don't feel as safe talking about elsewhere. Yeah. Because we can provide so much more context. Yeah. And so much more background to like our hearts and like our true character. Yeah. So. I love that people are like listening and viewing and they're watching an hour long episode. They're not just watching a 30 second TikTok, taking everything out of context and having a flawed view of us. I love that our viewers on the podcast, I think have an accurate representation of who we are. I hope. Yeah.

And so that's really cool. You were saying something earlier about Hawaii though, and I wanted to go back to that. I wanted to say that like what really got me through that hard time. And I'll be honest, like the months following it that we lived in Hawaii were honestly got worse for me because of personal circumstances. And then I had all those negative, horrible things still in the back of my mind. And I was like, I'm still living in this place where people don't want me. It,

What kept me through was community. Yeah. And that... And true real community, not, you know... There's true online community. Yeah. But specifically in-person community. And that's really why I got so addicted to CrossFit at the time. And I think that the people that were at that gym were like...

the dedicated members would have no idea the effect that they had on me and my mental health and just my sense of belonging there. I knew that I could come every morning and see them and they'd be real people and they'd be encouraging me. They'd be rooting me on and that is, I'm not a fitness girly. Like I love to work out.

as a hobby but like crossfit is i feel like it's for like the dedicated people which really isn't me yeah i mean and i'm not out here like trying to pr and it was our neighbors too i think that really helped we had some really good friends our next door neighbors that we did not know before moving to hawaii just became really close friends of ours and well that was my second point those were the two things yeah and then it was our neighbors like you said they they don't

We never really posted with them or ever said anything about them, but they got me through. We shared dinners, like home-cooked dinners with them, like almost every single night there. And I think no matter how horrible my day had been –

Like I knew that I could unplug and go over to their house or they could come over to our house and we could just eat and play cards. We played so many card games. We played cover your assets like every single night. Monopoly deal. And that really kept me grounded and sane through such a hard time online. Yeah.

I think for me, at the end of 2022, that forced me to get off TikTok. I was kind of off for a little bit and off the social media for the most part. I mean, I was posting a little bit here and there, but I wasn't scrolling. I wasn't viewing. I just I couldn't take any more of the negativity. And that was really good. It was like I need I need to have more time off of social media because it can be so damaging.

And then I went on a little snowboarding trip with some friends, actually with Derek Beeston, who was just on our podcast. And that was very, very fun and very refreshing. Yeah. And don't get me wrong. Social media can be in so many ways such a good thing. Like I'm inspired by people all the time and encouraged and excited. I think that, you know...

There's good and bad. It's just like real life. There's good and bad. And unfortunately, I feel like the bad is heightened on social media and the good is heightened too. You know, there's... Even though like the negativity is really bad, like I think there's also...

The same flip side with positivity. There's such a thing as too much positivity to where it's not healthy. What do they call that? Is it toxic positivity? Yeah, toxic positivity. Is that it? Where it's like you only talk about the positive things where it almost makes it seem like the negative things aren't real or don't exist.

Yeah, and that's just weird. Like, as creators that want to be real with you guys, it's hard to navigate that because we don't want to just sit here and talk about all this negative crap. But we don't want to sit here and also be, like, so positive and overly positive that everyone's like, okay, BS. Like, that's not real. It's a balance that's impossible to find. Yeah, we're always trying to find the balance there, so...

Anyway. Anyway. I was about to say comment if we're doing a good job of that, but then I'm like, yeah, I really actually don't. I don't know if that's like good to just get more. Like we shouldn't ask for more feedback because we already get enough feedback from people. Yeah. But speaking of feedback, this is the type of feedback that

that we want to get. Yes, reviews. We wanted to thank you guys. Reviews on the podcast mean a lot. Yes, you guys leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify does so much or whichever platform you use to listen in. It really means a lot. And to our YouTube viewers, thank you for subscribing and hitting the like button. It means a lot. We're going to read some reviews now from you guys. So shout out to Mackenzie Wagner on Instagram. It's at Mackenzie Wagner. It says, I follow Matt and Abby. Well, the title of the review is Truthful Heartfelt Podcast.

Aw.

So sweet. I love that. This one is from at Alexis Studdle 03 on Instagram. I've been watching your TikToks for years now and I love hearing more about your personal lives through this podcast. Thank you for always being so real and giving me something to look forward to on Wednesdays. So sweet. This one is so precious. This is from at Colleen DeVry.

I'm hoping I say that right. The title is Awesome Podcast and it says, love you guys. Thanks for sharing your lives with us. I am a 62-year-old Mimi. You make me smile every day. God bless your family. And then she had her Instagram and her TikTok.

on there so um thank you so much colleen these reviews mean so much so um if you have a minute just leave a five star review on apple podcast or also on spotify you can leave stars i believe um and if you make a review like a written review just put your instagram at and we'd love to shout you out um we're doing like three every episode so we love you guys each time we'll see you in the next episode and as always peace out dudes