In this episode, Katya talks to Ellen Jones, a writer, an activist a consultant and overall Multi-Hyphenated Gen Z-er. They talk about Ellen's experience in creating gif stickers for Instagram stories to increase the representation queer disabled people.
You can find Ellen on Instagram @ellen__jones (that is TWO underscores) and on
www.ellen-jones.co.uk
If you would like to learn more about the host and their work –
Website - https://www.blushcloud.co.uk/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/blush.cloud/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katyaveleva/
Series 01 started on the 29th of September 2021 with a set of six episodes that will be airing every two weeks.
Enjoy the conversation
Transcript -
Katya 0:00
Hello,my name is Katya Veleva and this is changing the atmosphere, a podcast aboutchange makers and how they did it.
Asalways, to look at the illustration that comes with this episode, please headto the book club website or follow the link in the description. Today I'mexcited to speak to Ellen Jones. Ellen is a writer, speaker, campaigner and acreative producer who works for and about the LGBTQI plus and disabledcommunity. Her work covers a wide range of topics including autism, genderLGBTQI, plus solidarity representation and mental health. Through her work, sheencourages people to broaden their understanding for the LGBTQI plus anddisabled communities with compassion and empathy. She has been awarded the MTVEMA generation change award, and has been named Stonewalls young campaigner ofthe Year in recognition for her work campaigning for LGBTQI plus and disabled inclusion.In 2018, Ellen was featured in the front page of the Observer Magazine as oneof the world's most prominent Gen Z activists. Ellen was named one of London'smost influential people by the Evening Standard in 2019. In 2020, Ellen wasnamed one of the advocate magazine's 101 LGBTQ trailblazers as part of theirinaugural global list. And I have known Ellen for about a year now and herability to create space for mental health and disability awareness always stunsme. Her vulnerability and conviction are things that I strive for. Enjoy theconversation. Hello, hello, thanks for being here.
Ellen
Thankyou for having me.
Katya
Soyou are an award winning activist, you have done a lot of things to furtherspaces for queer people and disabled people. That's amazing. And this is whatwe're going to talk about today. But before we do that, I like to ask my guestsabout something that's going to kind of bring them down a little bit, becausewe're going to spend most of us today talking about your amazing achievementsand how brilliant you've gotten to do them. But before that, can I ask you, hasthere been a silly trend that you've found yourself victim to?
Ellen 2:41
Funnilyenough, I'm not really someone who follows trends or knows what happens. But Iwas persuaded by my family that the French had invented miniature cows thatwere going to live in people's back gardens, and they were going to be called amini lash. And I believe this for months on end.
Katya 2:57
Sosomeone who's an award winning activist spends some time of their lifebelieving in mini cows.
Ellen 3:03
Yeah,like, like, imagine a micro pig but living in back gardens and providing milkto families. And I had been told that this was a joke. And then I was drivingalong with my mom. And I told my grandmother on the other side of my familythat my mom was gonna get these, these micro microcatheter in her back garden.It's brilliant. I mean, look, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that wewill at some point start breeding micro cows to provide for farmers. Yeah, it'snot the world's weird. I also thought that Nepal and Peru were next to eachother. It's not as good as one of my friends who thought that maple syrup camefrom Canadian bees. For a very long time.
Katya 3:44
Hmm,brilliant logic. They have like little bee passports that prove that they wereCanadian so that they can go into work on the maple farm. That's the movie too,right? Okay, okay, maybe we should just take this out, because there's somerights here that we want to preserve for a good project from the guy. Awesome.Thank you so much, Ellen. So we've seen you are a human being.
Ellen
I ama human being.
Katya
Youbelieve in micro cows. But alongside that you recently got to do somethingpretty amazing. You started creating representations stickers within Instagram,which have gotten you about a billion views, which is absolutely astounding.Now, before we go to the place where you decided to take on this project. Whatdid your life look like?
Ellen 4:32
Undertakingthis project was a bit of a weird one. Like most of the things I decided to do,I woke up one day and I decided to do it. There's very little planning process.There's very little lead up process or research process for a lot of what I dounless it's writing, but I will basically just decide I'm going to do somethingand then do it. And I think that comes from a place of just, I don't know ifit's confidence, but I'm not afraid to wing things. I'm not afraid to givethings a go. And if it fails, like it's low stakes, I think a lot of thereasons that I'm quite successful is, I guess, partially age. And the kind ofattitude I take towards my work, which is, you know, my activism work, it'sreally, really important, but it's also not what not what puts a roof over myhead. It's also not my freelance work, it's kind of separate from that. And soI give my energy to it as much as I can. But also, it's not something thatcontrols my entire life, even though big overarching things like homophobia andableism do so when I started doing the gifts and making so I probably shouldexplain more gift stickers are so gift stickers are you probably see them onInstagram or tik tok or Twitter. They're small, like stickers you can add tostories and the like. And they can be themed or like I say certain phrases, andthey can flash and change and grow. And I saw my friend Tamia, who is a climatejustice activist creating loads and loads of stickers and having a lot ofsuccess there. And I essentially was like, I could do that. And I looked at thestickers that are available for disability and LGBT representation. And I went,these are all a bit rubbish. Like, there were some good ones, especially forthe LGBT side of things. But particularly for the disability side, thereweren't really many good representations. And the representation that was therewas very pitiful of disabled people, it was the kind of I don't want to saylike autism mums stereotype, but it was like autism as a superpower. And it waslike a disability, you know, ability, not disability. And that's kind ofcounter to what a lot of disabled people feel. And so I just look at it when Ican do better than this. So I sort of just figured out how to do it. I went onYouTube, and I have an iPad. And I went and just went looked, how can I makethis and it literally took me half now it's my first one, that really, reallyquick, like, they're not difficult to me, there are some people who have muchstronger artistic and illustrative skills, and I don't want to like, belittletheir work. But my stuff that I make is much more focused on words and is muchmore focused on tax because what I'm communicating with often has to do withidentity and labels, and that and I just don't have any like, I do not haveany, like artistic skills, the skills that have are quite practical ones.
Katya 7:15
Yeah,that makes a lot of sense. And it is a big undertaking even though it seemslike you managed to, to get a hold of the skills very quickly. But before iteven crossed your mind. What did your everyday life look like?
Ellen 7:30
Imean, I was a full time student, I was studying classics and Latin, ancientGreek, I was also working in an art gallery and also freelancing and also keptpainting. So I've always been someone who's been doing a million projects, Ithink that's possibly just in my nature. But I mean, the day that I starteddeciding to do it I was speaking at the YMCA on the 170/5 anniversary with abunch of activists from across the globe who are part of the MTV generationchange sort of cohort that I was part of, and that they came after me as well.So I was with a bunch of global activists who were in London for the firsttime. I was working in an art gallery. I just came back from a holiday with myfamily to not from Norfolk. I was on my summer holidays from my second year ofuniversity. It's quite a normal existence. I think I don't have a very normal,unique experience. In particular, my unique experience is not at allconventional, like not many people were writing their essays about Pompei onthe plane back from winning an MTV era award. And I don't think my experienceis better or worse, but it is different. I mean, I graduated into a pandemic.And I had two jobs made for me, and I'm under no illusions that that is ananomaly. especially coming from like, you know, classics isn't seen as a veryprofitable degree. That scene is something that you should do for fun. It'sactually not true that loads of businesses really like classes. But you know,the jobs that are made for we've made for me because of my social justice work.
Katya 8:56
Soyou mentioned that the event was there something particular about the eventthat kind of was the lightbulb moment where you were like, I need to get onwith this.
Ellen 9:05
Ithink I just realised how big the problem was. I think it was just acoincidence that I happened to be at the event surrounded by art activists. ButI just sort of worked out that it wasn't that hard to do. It sounds reallysilly. But a lot of problems seem like they're really difficult to change andthat they're substantial things that can change. But actually I was looking at,I'm really good at looking at big problems and going actually the small thingsI can do. It was wholly an accident that that had ever happened. I think itjust happened to be the right time. I think also when you're at a conference ora convention, there's quite a lot of standing around and waiting sometimes. SoI was scrolling through Instagram a lot and I just realised how littlerepresentation there was. And I was like I could do something about this. And Iwas sitting watching a panel and I was sitting next to a person who is very,very high up in Agile das and he was like what you do later is that what I'mtrying to work out how I can make a rainbow like appear in different one colourat a time. I was explaining to him what this was for, you know, I haven'tactually made that many gifts, there's only 136 of them, I think so to have abillion views is quite a high 136 is not, but they take so little time. That'sthe thing. Like, I think of all my work that I do, this is probably the, insome ways the least labour intensive in terms of the actual process. It's notwriting 2000 words, it's not researching 2000 words. I think if I was doingmore complex illustrations or more complex graphics, they would take longertime. I think the longest part is thinking, and I just do that all the time. Imean, you know, me, my brain doesn't turn off. It's just always thinking, andit's always on the go.
Katya 10:41
Soyour brain was always on the go. And it felt like there was something missingin that platform that you Yeah,
Ellen 10:46
andI, you know, let's be real. I'm a Gen Z person. I grew up online, and I useInstagram Stories a lot to communicate about my daily experience. And so it wasreally apparent to me that they were just missing, and I could do somethingabout it. And it was only when I worked out how I could do that, that I startedactually realising Oh, wait, this isn't as hard as it makes out to be I think,especially sometimes around the internet, there's this, like almost a secretcode you have to know. And it can feel quite mysterious, trying to work out howto hack it.
Katya 11:24
Thatday, you first had a look at some of the existing gift stickers, and none ofthem worked for you. Today, when you have a billion views. Can you picture atimeline Are you seeing stages of how you approach the work
Ellen 11:37
Forthis particular project, the first thing is actually to get approved by giffy.And that's the biggest barrier a lot of artists face not because giffy is, youknow, trying to get key partners but they have an approval process whichessentially means you have to be, you know, have some sort of portfolio. And Ifound it really easy. I just wrote a bio of who I am. I submitted it along withmy website. But if you're an illustrator, you can put your Instagram you canput your you know, these gifts can be accessed by anyone in the world. So it'simportant that they are coming from a reputable source. And there's also quitea stringent vetting process, which is done by an algorithm. So I started that processthat was quite simple to do. It just took a while. So I think it was about amonth of waiting time. But I've heard it can be upwards of several months. Andyeah, I just think I started making them 10. It wasn't very difficult. Theyweren't very good, either. But they did the job. And I think some of them arestill my fate, some of my most popular gifts, or they were until very recently.And for a long time it was just something I was doing puttering along doing. Ithink the day that Brie Larson, who's one of my guests was, was prettyimpressive. Also Billy Porter. Oh, and it's like it's a small thing, because Ithink of it as such a small thing. But actually when you consider the distancebetween me and them, and then those people that then see that giffy doesn'tmeasure your giffs by usage measures and by views that actually, you know, tohave your message go so far, I think that one of them was unclear power. Andone of them was I made a Star Wars gift or Star Wars influence GIF, I shouldsay. And yeah, it does small things, but they bring a lot of joy.
Katya 13:07
They'requite large things. I mean, these are world famous people that have accessedyour art and then pushed it through their audience.
Ellen 13:15
Yeah,they've chosen not to. And I think that's the nice thing is it's not just thatthey've chosen to or they've not, it's not come up in their feed, they'veactually had to select it. And even though it was probably their assistant,like,
Katya 13:25
Still,we're gonna forget about this, it was them. Everybody has their personalInstagram, and they put a lot of effort into them, I'm sure specifically BrieLarson, like I
Ellen 13:32
Iwas gonna say, I started taking requests. So the next kind of thing isactually, it's not that I don't have ideas, I have many ideas. But actually,the thing that I'm keen on is actually having the skill set. And I have the,you know, I have the literal technology to do this. And I realise that everyonewho wants to communicate their experience might not have that. And so I startedtaking requests. And those requests referred to like other identities thataren't mine, I would feel really weird, creating, like trans specific stickers,without them coming from trans communities or like experiences that don'treflect mine. And I'd rather use what I can to uplift other communities. So I'mworking on some requests at the moment from like black and indigenous cratersthat are family through Tick tock, you want some autistic specific gifts thatrepresent their experience. And it's kind of a nice collaborative effort aswell. And it means that I'm never just, you know, I'm never just creating LGBTgifts or disability gifts for the cloud. I'm doing it because it's almost likea request or there's things that people want to share about their day and don'talways have, the technology hasn't always been there. And it's such a smallpart of technology, but it's emblematic of a lot wider issues, and if me withmy complete lack of my own qualifications, and they're so that I grew uponline.
Katya 14:48
Yeah,yeah. That is a good enough qualification. So the first step was to get throughthat gatekeeper keeping situation of UEFI. And the interesting thing here isyou don't have to be an artist, you have the background of someone who hadthings to say. And this is how you, you go to
Ellen 15:08
thegiffy. The giffy. phrasing is quite it says you have to be like an establishedartist or Illustrator. But I found that that wasn't the case. But that was itmight have been my platform, I think it's more they have to see that you're areal person. And that you're going to understand what, you know, you understandthat there are certain rules and regs and those kinds of things. So it's morethat that, you know, you're not a good enough artist, it's more just
Katya 15:31
realistically,you are not an artist. And you still managed to get through that because youhave something to say. So that's Yeah. and encouraging.
Ellen 15:39
AndI would say that I, you know, sort of plugged along for a while, and then veryrecently, and Giffy Arts commissioned me. So I thought, you know, I still hadlike 100 million views or something like that, I think it was 98 million orsomething. But Giffy Arts Commission means, but they actually commission andpay their commissioned artists really well. I've spoken to other artists who'veworked with them. So Giffy Arts is almost like a part of Giffy. It kind oflooks after their kind of cultural side, I guess. And they reached out andsaid, can we commission you for some gifts, and they paid really well. And theyasked for 10 gifts around autism and basically gave me free rein. And that wassomething that I didn't expect, because I've never been paid met guests before.And now I have subsequently as well.
Katya 16:20
Sowhat was the second step? Then once you got through the door? What was thesecond thing you did? make loads of gifts? Can you break that down a little bitmore?
Ellen 16:28
havean idea. Right, that idea down? make it an illustration. create lots of layersand change it slightly export, export with a transparent layer, upload tag,
Katya 16:41
though,you mentioned you spend some time learning how to do that. Where did you lookfor the information on how to
Ellen 16:46
Iinitially spoke to my friend Tommy up who, again, is like the gift wizard, andwas also the first person I sort of saw making not a career out of gift making.But her background is certainly more illustration based. And she's worked withsome very big organisations as an illustrator. So I asked her and she wasactually working on a tablet and I had an iPad and an iPad makes it a loteasier. Because you can just do it in procreate and then export it, you don'thave to kind of go through it. You don't have to, I still don't understand howit works. I mean, I do it broadly, but it's not my thing. So yeah, I would justdoodle out why thought would work? Fine. It kind of worked out what I wantedthe pattern of gift to be. So is this a gift that's going to be rotatingcolours? Is this a gift that's going to be flashing? Is it going to be a giftthat, you know, letters appear one by one, and then I would work out how tomake that happen. And I didn't always know I would just practice and try untilI also worked out that the way that I was doing it was making the gifts gobackwards. And so then I would reverse the order. And then I would work outlike, oh, what does this button do? Because when I say I don't like artisticskills. I don't know, there will probably be people who would say go and go andlearn and go and get educated on that. And I could, but I probably will at somepoint. But actually, there's nothing wrong with doing something that way you'redoing it for a bit. Just because you're enjoying doing it. I didn't think thatpeople would care as much as they do. But apparently they do. And I think thereare some other really fantastic autistic creators now, especially 21, andsensory, someone who's really, really great as well.
Katya 18:15
Sothat's kind of related to what you said before the start where you said it'sjust about getting stuff done. You weren't trying to get a three month courseon procreating and figure out how good it was through trial and error.
Ellen 18:28
Soit was a trial and error situation. And it was also, I mean, I went on YouTube,and I do have a skill share membership now, which I actually do recommend, andhashtag not spawn. But actually, you know, I'm always doing a million projects,I don't have time to necessarily like this. It is probably a personal fault, ora personal gift depending on which way you see it. But I don't always have thetime to invest in things that I really would like to learn more about. Because,you know, at the same time this was happening. I was studying two languages fora degree, working another job freelance working another job freelance, tryingto be a 21 year old. And just trying to navigate also, I think it's also quitescary. The work that I do, sometimes people don't realise that actually, youknow, I'm not always confident about myself as people perceive me to be and so,you know, the work I do isn't easy. And actually, it's quite nice to havesomething that if it does, you know, it's not the end of the world if you don'tdo well. That's not the point of this. It's almost a bonus if it does well. Andit did. Yeah, it just did quite well. I still don't really know how thathappened. I mean, obviously when I had a couple of gifts go viral. That was thebig thing. And apparently according to Tommy, in the Giffy HQ, they have a bigred button and that's how they would choose which gifts for the day. So I thinkthe ones that went viral I have one that was like hire me and my queer powerone I think went viral for a bit. But then when I got commissioned by GiffyArts, obviously those were all pushed to the Front. So autism representationwas on the front page of everyone's Instagram around the world. And that wasobviously a huge deal, especially because autism, especially in America, has areally negative connotation and a lot of places. And there's a lot of kinds ofmisconceptions and autism narratives aren't led by autistic people. And soactually, there was something quite empowering about being able to take controlof a narrative and have a platform that is so big, and it's almost subconsciousas well, I think we've probably all seen things that we see things online thatwe don't always process, but is there in the background is not the focus, butit's there. And I think there is something about subtle imaging that somescientists are probably very worried about, but I think it's quite cool.
Katya 20:40
Okay,so you got into Giffy, then you've taught yourself how to physically make themphysically, digitally, you made the giffs happen, even though you're notappropriate with or an artist.
Ellen 20:54
Andthen what happened, uploaded them, that's the next step is quite simple. It's abit like uploading to Instagram or uploading photos to Dropbox or any othersoftware, I just upload them and add some tags. So I just thought about adding,you know, Pride Month, LGBT rainbow. And then I shared them widely. And peoplethought they were really cool. My community, I mean, I have something of anestablished audience is not very big in the grand scheme of things. It's a few1000 people, but they are all people that are very heavily engaged in what Ido. So actually, even if there's only 5000 of them, lots of them will engageand lots of people did engage in sharing the tags with me in them, and it gotpeople to tag me when they saw them being used. That's actually how I found outthat Brie Larson had used it. Because people would tell me, and it hasn't hadan exponential, you know, hasn't had an impact on my following particularly.But it has meant people can communicate better. I think that's a lot of what mywork has been. Anyway, I work with a lot of different people. And sometimeswhat I do is they are like, copyright behind the scenes for them. Because I'm,I can use words in a way that other people can't, whether that's because theystruggle with writing, or English isn't the first language or whatever it is.
Katya 22:12
Soyou put them out there and they took on a life of their own.
Ellen 22:14
Theytook on a lot of their own babies, when they went and grew up. And some of theolder ones, you know, I looked at them, and I'm like, that was really bad. ButI think also, there's something also to be said about being one of the firstpeople to do something. That is the reason I was successful. And I think that'swhy skill is not always that I am someone who has the best technical abilities.I'm not someone who I'm not someone who cares. And that sounds like a reallycounterintuitive statement. But if something doesn't work, it's not the end ofthe world. And because like I know, if a project doesn't work, it's not the endof the world, because I'm so good, right? I can say I've got other things I'vegot, you know, I've got my own skills. And that's not a reflection on myabilities. That's a reflection on dress. Maybe it wasn't the right time. Youknow, I think we all know people who have, we wouldn't ever question theircapabilities, or their skill set or the fact that brilliant people but youknow, they can't find a job and it's like, maybe that's just you know, we'reliving at a time where it's not ours. I also grew up in this generation whereactivists were suddenly celebrated in the UK in a way that wasn't happening 5or 10 years ago at all. And there's lots of I have lots of criticisms of thatbut that is also you know, it was also a time and place thing
Katya
Andthere's something to be said about having this kind of network of things thatyou're doing and then it is so much easier to move on from things that are notperfect.
Ellen
Icome back all the time like I don't think about like if project most of the daybut then it's something that actually what I get asked to do I'm always reallyhappy to or I'll think about doing it for something but it's not it's not mymain thing and I wouldn't want it to be either I think I'm not very good at wetalk about the renascence map I think I've got like multi hyphenate Gen Z - tooyoung for millennial even though it would rhyme better.
Katya 23:59
Isit the slash? it's a slash I think for millennials at least I can speak formillennials myself. It's always a slash
Ellen 24:06
Yeah.I don't know what it would be like when people ask me what my career isn't ablack writer, Speaker campaigning, campaign consultant, creative dike. dikeprofessionally Yeah, professional like to be gay for a living. It's funny. Onething that's often said is that when you're young as my apparently still youcould get away with trying stuff out and getting it wrong. I think maybe that'spart of it. You know, if I was older and I, if I was older, I did some of thestuff that I do in my career. I would be judged so much for it, but because I'm22 I can just wing it. I can try and make a failed podcast. That's fine. I didthat. I was somewhat depressed because of me, but I did that. Right. That's thething is that you can try stuff out and it doesn't have to have
Katya 24:59
andit's really good. To be able to take advantage of that the way you are, yes, gogetting on with things. And really, judgments may be there, even if you maybeyou're not noticing it, but anyone can do that, like people about moving awayfrom maybe
Ellen 25:15
Ithink also like, I've had so much judgement on me personally, like growing upabout being queer and being autistic. You know, there are people who will notlike me, but are actually cool. I don't like a lot of people. That doesn't meanthey're terrible human beings, it means that I just maybe don't like them.Obviously, there are people who are terrible human beings. But it is what itis. Yeah, it is what it is right. And it's not, I think I'm quite good atseparating people's judgments. For me, I think it would matter. In some ways. Ithink it would hurt more if I cared a lot more. And there are projects thatI've got coming up that, you know, I'm working on a book proposal at themoment. And I think if I wrote a book, and it was hated universally, I'd hatethat. But also, you know, I have to contextualise that with loads of transinclusive books getting hated on. And so actually, if the people that I'mwriting for like the book and the people who hate me, anyway, don't like thebook, or maybe that's fine. There's just a lot of critical thinking thathappens in my brain all the time.
Katya 26:08
Yeah,that's, it sounds very, very familiar. And that critical thinking may besomeone else's voice. But part of the reason why what you're doing with thesegifts is good is because it expresses this kind of experience and makes it morefamiliar so that those critical voices could imagine maybe other people morecomplexity. So how long ago did you start doing them?
Ellen 26:32
Probablytwo years ago, maybe? Yeah, so I would have been just off the summer of justafter this. It's been a very sort of bitty timeline? Because I don't know ifyou've noticed there's been a global pandemic, oh, no, I don't know what you'retalking about. So like, I mean, I started it. And then I essentially starteddoing this in the summer, between my second year and third year of universitythat drove University, his third year of university, which is the last year inthe UK, and then pandemic, in my last term. And then I had to, you know, get ajob straight out of I literally went from graduate, I was working a full timejob whilst also having graduated or not having graduated yet, in a pandemic,
Katya 27:12
Withall the things that you were doing all the jobs, the school, what were themoments when you were sitting down to do these little illustrations?
Ellen 27:21
WheneverI could find the time, I think that the big thing is that I'm always doingstuff. And I'm always doing loads of free stuff as well. Often, it was justweekends or holidays, or I think they probably take a long time in my brain,but I'm not always aware of the things I'm thinking until I've “thunk” them,until I have thought them. And then they appear as if by magic.
Katya 27:41
Sowhen you started, how many did you think you're gonna make?
Ellen 27:44
Ithought we would make them more consistently than I did, I won't lie, I thoughtif I made like, you know, I could make one or two a week. And that would haveamounted to several 100 over the course of a year or two years. But the realityis, is that I tend to get energy for things in bursts have a very, and also,it's sort of easier to do like the physical process of getting out, making sureyour iPads charged, making sure you're like sitting down to actually put thingsdown deal with like the tech issues that can sometimes happen when sometimeswhat I really want to do is just watch Julia and disable the X Files orsomething ivig or not, right? Sometimes what I want to do is actually just takea break, but I'm someone who really struggles to take a break and struggles toturn off. And so it's actually quite therapeutic just to make these things.They're quite, the process is very literal. It's not something I have to thinkvery hard about. And actually, that's something quite nice is that I can stillfeel like I'm being creative, but it's not, you know, it's not writing a 2000long form essay about really triggering subjects. It's making some cutedoodles. And I think that's why it's worked so well for me is that it'ssomething that I enjoy doing. It's low stakes, it's had success, but thatwasn't the point. The communities I wanted to reach her responded positively toit. They're really quite therapeutic. I think the difference for me would havebeen like had I not had access to an iPad. And interesting, the reason I hadaccess to an iPad is when I won my Ma, I wanted to grant us money. And itwasn't a particularly big amount of money. But for a 20 year old, it was achunky amount and it was enough to get an iPad and then I use that forillustrating Instagram posts and other things where I drive change. So withthis particular project, what was the hardest thing to do? Learn about filesizes. I joke but you know, I don't come from a background that I can't tellyou how many pixels equals a centimetre that I couldn't tell you what I need tocompress how to get like I can tell you what I need to compress a file with tomake sure that it's the right size,
Katya 29:42
youmean that you don't that don't know that 72 DPI is the standard resolution fornow, did
Ellen 29:48
youknow that my mom is a computing teacher? Like I don't, I don't come from agraphic design background.
Katya 29:54
Nobodyneeds to know these numbers. This is something that I kind of have in mybackground and then when I realised how much I know the millimetre sizes of allthe formats off the top of my head. And I don't know why. And I really hatethat this is taking up space in my mind. Yeah, but unfortunately, this and itdoesn't need to
Ellen 30:11
Idon't need to. And I think I mean, there's other things like I probably shouldlearn how to use procreate properly. But also, I'm in no rush to, if it needsto happen, it will happen, you
Katya 30:21
seemto be using it properly, as you're churning out hundreds of
Ellen 30:24
Yeah,but they're really some of them are really bad gifts. And I think this is ifanything, the moral of the story is you can make something subjectively quitebad. And they can still be successful because your messaging is really strong.I think so I think this a lot with projects creative projects, is thatoftentimes people put the budget into making something look nice, like films,we see this all the time, they invest millions of dollars into, like the setand the costume and the cost, but they don't actually invest in the script.It's like fundamentally, if your script is awful your story is going to beoften no matter how much glitter you put on it, I guess like a lot of my work.And a lot of the areas that I see myself in the future working in a kind ofbehind the scenes, they're not in front of the camera, they're not all big andflashy. But I think one of the most important messaging is the most importantbecause if you don't have that you're screwed. And I think that's why I got sosuccessful so quickly. So actually, journalists really like me, because I canconsistently summarise big conversations, and big topics in a way that they canunderstand that can communicate back to their readers, that's really easy forme to do to you know, to be like this is you know, there are these I can expandand contract what I think really what I, what I'm trying to share with youeasily I can explain to a seven year old or a 70 year old, I can talk tosomeone who's a senior business person, or I can talk to someone who works in ayouth centre, it doesn't. For me, they're exactly the same process. And I don'teven have to think about it. And apparently other people do. I don't write downanything I say when I'm giving a talk, I just wing it. Again, there's no I'm notreally reckless at all. You know, I'm a really careful person. But at the sametime I've done this stuff so much now that you just get used to trustingyourself, I'm really good at trusting myself returns to your old there's aweird level of self assurance that I realised a lot of people my age don'thave,
Katya 32:06
I'mnot entirely sure why you seem to be taking advantage of it. And that's great.As long as it's there, take advantage of it if I can oshin some
Ellen 32:15
wisdom,some wisdom from your, you know, being a, you know, ancient, ancient wise.Probably holding you, madam,
Katya 32:23
hasthere been something that you haven't been able to do yet,
Ellen 32:26
Iwant to do more work, working, making gifts for other people. And I didn'trealise that that was an option until Giffy commissioned me and then that sortof led to some interest. But the difficulty is that I have a full time job. I'mlucky in that my work will let me do some freelance bits and bobs, but it's notit can't interfere with work. So you need to balance it out. And also just thetime thing, you know, I work very hard at my job. And I also do other freelancebits of writing and community organising. And being a 22 year old 23 year oldof you recording sending us out in September be on the cast on the cast on thecast.
Katya 32:59
Soafter you uploaded the first one, how long after that did Giffy commission you
Ellen 33:05
Awhile because I wasn't doing consistently. And I also think that theconversation so Giffy specifically commissioned me around otters open at thetime that I was talking about, or slaughter making gifts I was talking about myI was talking about mental health a lot more than just talk about autism. Andthat was because I got misdiagnosed as bipolar and I sort of was also in themiddle of a therapy process. And so I kind of wasn't as much of what I talkedabout. And then I sort of realised how much my life was being dominated bybeing autistic, and just hadn't ever gone acknowledged. And I think theappetite for conversations around autism changed as well over those two years.So I don't know if autism acceptance or Autism Awareness Month would have beensuch a big deal. And if he's calendar two years ago, so yeah, like two years,but
Katya 33:48
Somaybe the right time in the right place.
Ellen 33:50
Yeah,I mean, again, it's exactly what happens all the time. And actually, I will saythey were really, really good. They weren't telling me, you know, sometimes youget commissioned for things where you're given a really strict brief, butactually, they were really flexible with me and they said, you know, run withit. I think it's nice to know that, you know, especially in uncertain financialtimes as well. I love my job and at the time, I was working my job I didn't butI was quite new in my role. Whatever happens I can be gainfully employed,whether that self employed or whether that's, as you know, my day job is as akind of trainer and consultant and marketing person with a specialism andaccessibility and queerness like that's not a job that anyone else has. Butactually that's the way the world is moving towards the right. moving towards aplace where everyone can, yeah, live and do the things they enjoy doing and amgood at being 22 and I've got a lot of skills in my tiny brain.
Katya 34:41
That'sa very exciting place to be at for sure. That seems to be something reallygreat that you got the opportunity to really push your work really on the topof everyone's agenda. When you got commissioned throughout the process. Whatwas the best surprise
Ellen 34:59
Isort of knew that I would push it out to a global audience. I didn't realise itpushed, like a single gift every hour every single day for like a month. Wow.Or like, like two weeks or something that was a big deal. And yeah, it reallykind of catapulted it. So if you look at my statistics, because I like lookingat data, they just have catapults showing that month, and that didn't last.That's fine, though. I think most of us who do work around marginalisedidentities know there are times of the year when people care, there tend to bethose that work less well. But actually, people are still using those giftsbecause it relates something to the experience. And actually, some of the giftsthat are most popular aren't actually things that are to do with themarginalised identities. They're things like you need to eat. They're reallyuniversal truths. They're really universal statements.
Katya 35:40
Yetpeople need reminding, oh, you need to eat is not something that you're goingto easily find as a celebrated sentence in any way, shape, or form or a pieceof art. Okay,
Ellen 35:51
yeah,I forgot about that. I just forget diet culture exists. Oh, aren't youfortunate? I was gonna say, I thought you're gonna say that you're not gonnafind that as a problem in my house. Wow.
Katya 36:02
That'sa whole other conversation. And there's a couple of cats around here, whichmaybe soon we'll start mailing, same thing, that literal, literal sentence. Sowas that the best surprise that you got this big boost? That was quite close.
Ellen 36:16
Yeah.And also, I think even just getting commissioned as well. I don't even know howthey found me.
Katya 36:21
Sowho was the most helpful in that process?
Ellen 36:25
Probablymy friend Wednesday, most people will know them. There are they're a queertrans artist, that the act is Hello, my name is Wednesday. And they make reallybig, bold, queer art. There's like a massage for the eyeballs, which issomething that was said of their work. And they're a really good friend we mettwo years ago, again, around the same time that this all kicked off, I they'vejust been a constant source of like reassurance. And they also know thebusiness side of things like they are a full time Illustrator. They illustratefor brands companies like, and they also have a huge audience. And actually,I'm in a weird position, because whilst I have this port back, I probably havemore press than Wednesday. But Wednesday has a much bigger audience. Andactually, it's a really difficult thing to take sometimes. And also with my dayjob as well, like I'm interacting with huge, huge, huge organisations everysingle day. And my experience means I've interacted with, you know, hundreds of1000s of people. And I'm an expert in what I do. At the same time, I don't haveyou know, I'm not someone who's got, I think Wednesday at this point in timehas 250,000 followers, and even bigger Tick Tock following, I think it's likehalf a million is a very different situation. But actually knowing how tonavigate contracts or illustration stuff is a very different world, I have themin terms of my relationship to making it but it's really cool at the same timeto actually have someone who understands like, what is the going rate, likewhat should be standard, and actually like Wednesdays, taught me a lot alsoabout like, Instagram marketing and stuff like that. I'm trying to grow myInstagram following because I know that if, for example, I wanted to make abook, which I do I want to write a book, I need a good Instagram following.That's just the reality of stuff these days, I hire Instagram following musicand get a better book deal.
Katya 37:59
SoWednesday was someone that helped you with the technical aspects of things andwas there to just kind of
Ellen 38:04
justbe a friend and also just having someone to go to if there's a problem. I mean,Tommy was really useful in sort of the initial bits. I always have peoplearound me, that's the thing. We joke that all the boys know each other, but wereally do. I never have problems finding art where people are funny and so theywere always there supporting me. So it's always you know, I always have peoplearound me, keeping me on the right track.
Katya 38:29
Brilliant.So how did you know that you were on the right track?
Ellen 38:33
Ihave a real gut instinct about things. If I don't feel like something's goingright, I'll just change it.
Katya 38:38
Hmm.What does that gut instinct feel like?
Ellen 38:41
You'reasking an autistic person about feelings? What is your fundamental error? Idon't know. It's just that I was curious that you said again, it's not a gutinstinct. It doesn't I don't feel it in my gut. I just like it almost, it's notalways driven by rational reason, which I'm a very rational person. And yet,you just get it just it sort of comes to me, it just was like, This is not theright thing. Let me go and change it. And it's really baffling. And it's notthat something doesn't sit right with me. Sometimes that happens. Yeah, justlike, right, change it.
Katya 39:10
Andyou trust yourself into that, just as you trust yourself when you're on a stageand you
Ellen 39:15
Yeah,it doesn't scare me. And I don't know why it doesn't scare me because by allaccounts, it should. I just sort of pretended to be confident so that I finallybelieved it. Yeah, but also, I mean, I basically became confident by pretendingto be other people and imagining like rehearsing my oses speech in the loungewas singing musicals. Like that's what I did, right? I just pretended to becharacters that are played. It sounded so weird. And I realised that but I did.I would just pick people, I would just mimic them. I would listen to a lot ofpodcasts and comedy shows and I would, there's a stick that sound up to her,which is about the crematorium, which is that they cherry pick the best bitsfrom the species they invade like, like how humans take bits, like how theBritish took bits of Anglo Saxon and Norse and Celtic, like the credit teams dothat with physical aspects. I just do that with personalities. I mean, it'squite common for artistic and neurodivergent people to, to mirror people thatthey're with. But I literally consciously select elements of people'spersonalities to take, which I guess is maybe just like, potentially reallyartistic way of viewing myself, but I just look at people. And I think that'swhy I'm quite mouldable as well, I'm exactly as happy in a boardroom for themen. As I am hanging out with a bunch of quizzes getting pancakes.
Katya 40:28
There'ssomething really wonderfully intentional about that isn't there? Because somany people try to construct their reality, their careers and their livescarefully and intentionally, even though they want to do exactly what you'resaying. They don't necessarily make it happen.
Ellen 40:44
Peoplekeep asking me what my five year plan is. And a year ago, I wanted to be awriter, a speaker, a consultant, and I'm 22 and I'm a writer and speaker and aconsultant. Congratulations, I'm done. Like I'm done. Can I have a nap now?Like I
Katya 40:57
can,and then after the nap, there'll be some really exciting things to come up.Sure,
Ellen 41:02
Ithink that the problem I've got is that it's like, I can't predict what's gonnahappen. And so I would rather have a life that is flexible. And this iscompletely counterintuitive. For a long time, I thought I was gonna be abarrister, I thought I was gonna be a classicist, and I thought I'd either gointo academia, be an archaeologist, or be a barrister, or I'd go down a verytraditional career path.
Katya 41:21
Hewas then this latest project with the gifts which have been brilliantlysuccessful. But you've done so much more to drive change. If you're speaking tosomeone who feels a bit more awakened in the last couple of years to therealities of the world, and has this feeling that they want to also make somechange, move things forward. What will be your advice, looking back at thisproject, and generally?
Ellen 41:44
Peopleoften know what skills they have, like well, but they don't always know thatthose skills are useful and great and change. Like, if you can edit video, doyou know how many charities can't edit video do social media, or how manyorganisations could benefit from someone who can speak multiple languages, ifyou have any sort of skill, and everyone has a sort of skill, you can getinvolved in creating change, I think a lot of people feel paralysed by theamount of things that need changing. And that can be overwhelming. Butactually, if you break it down just a little bit. Now I was on a panel lastnight with another teenage activist who worked specifically in mental healthcare, and trained in the mental health system. And I'm changing the LGBTexperience of LGBT people. Although we don't have a big overlap, like our workoverlaps. Because inherently there are people who need LGBT services who havemental health and some people who have mental health, the mental healthservices need LGBT services. But we just sort of take the bit that we can dowhat we interconnect. So if you can just focus on your bed, and then like focuson what you can change, and then allow that change to percolate. Then that'swhat creates the change. Just speak to people find out what they need, like Ithink a part of my wife ended up doing this is that I'm basically the momfriend, that if you come to mind, you better bring Tupperware because I will begiving you dinner, I've always been the sort of person who you know, I carryaround a pack of essentials with me, so that if anyone needs anything, I've gotit. Um, a safe pair of hands. If you have something happen to you and you don'thave your family to support you, I will turn it off and I will be there, right?That's just who I am as a person. And it's actually something that lends itselfreally nicely to activism and campaigning. Because actually a lot of it isabout collective care and community organising. If you can organise a dinnerparty, you can change the world.
Katya 43:24
Thissounds like an excellent sentence to finish on. You can organise a dinnerparty, you can change the world.
Ellen 43:30
Thatand pancakes will fuel the revolution. As a queer pancake group, we will go forpancakes. That's great.
Katya 43:35
That'sbrilliant. Thank you so much for sharing. It's been brilliant talking to you.Is there something else you would like to share? Anything that you're doing atthe moment? How can people find you?
Ellen 43:46
Youcan find me online at Ellen underscore Jones. I'm not the other Ellen Jones.She's a journalist for the metro and other cool newspapers. We keep beingconfused and it's hilarious. She's Eleni drove, I'm just Alan Jones. I'm theone with bright purple hair. If you hadn't, if you didn't already know that youhear that? You didn't hear that for the podcast. I have bright purple hair. Andyou can also find me at Ellen dash Jones coat at UK
Katya 44:11
Thankyou so much. If you can organise a dinner party, you can change the world.Well, Ellen already is. This is pure ageism on my behalf. But I cannot helpbeing completely blown away by how young she is and how much she's only beenable to do. And also how brilliantly she thinks she's passionate about it whilesomebody she said that I really loved was about the multi hyphenated Gen zere.And the idea of how when you're doing a lot of things, you're not that afraidthat some of them may not work, and hence you're being braver with the thingsthat you do. That's not what we usually see perpetuated in society though. It'skind of like saying jack of all trades, but my Master of None, and how we keepforgetting that this is not actually the whole thing. It actually goes, jack ofall trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. It'ssomething to think about. Another insight for me was that subtle butsignificant clarification about the meaning of the following. I'm not that mucholder. But I can't help myself raisingmy eyebrows when these days go on and on about likes and follows it seemssuperficial. But that's on the surface un very much intended, the morefollowers Ellen has, the more likely is that she can have more opportunities tospread her message in traditional forms, such as a book. So what are youwaiting for, go follow her!
Thank you for listening, until next time,
Keep changing the atmosphere!
ThisPodcast is a production of Bosch cloud, presented by Cathy relevant, edited bySophie Monahan. Coombs music by Jeff II
