Allison Raskin is a writer, director, comedian, YouTuber, podcaster, and mental health advocate — she’s perhaps best known for her collaborations with Gabe Dunn, which began with their YouTube channel, “Just Between Us,” and has included co-writing a New York Times best-selling novel, “I Hate Everyone But You,” and developing TV series with MTV, FX, YouTube Red and Netflix. Raskin sat down with me to talk about her early career with BuzzFeed Video, her work alongside Dunn, going back to school to get a master’s degree in psychology, her new book, “Overthinking About You: Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Have Anxiety, OCD, and/or Depression,” and how she navigates her own mental health as a content creator of videos, podcasts, books and essays.
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This transcript has been edited and condensed only slightly for your convenience.
Last Things First: How do you feel about the end of BuzzFeed News?
I think it's devastating. You know, I think that there is a lack of good news organizations. And I think that they did a lot of amazing work over the years. And it's unfortunate that I feel like mismanagement at the top led to fall out at the bottom and for the readers and for everyone, so it's a big bummer.
Without BuzzFeed and Buzzfeed News, we wouldn't have you as you are now, right?
I know, and people are like, how do you make a career in writing and content? I'm like, I don't know. Get hired at BuzzFeed video in 2014? It was definitely a big, big moment for me where it propelled me into an audience base and allowed me to get my foot in the door in a way that I don't know how I would have, you know, without that opportunity.
If we can go back to 2014 or even before then I guess? I know in your book, “Overthinking About You,” you talk about how when you were 18 and went to Hollywood, you're like, I'm going to be a screenwriter.
I very much wanted to become a TV writer. But I took a class my senior year, called like Web Series, and my professor was like, everything. is heading to the internet, make stuff for the internet. And I was like, OK. Basically, from that moment on, which was probably 2010, I've been making stuff for the internet. It was really through that kind of content where I was talking more about myself and my own experiences and sharing Allison instead of just sharing, you know, scripts or sketches that I saw that there was this real kind of thirst for information about mental health and for people to kind of openly and vulnerably talk about their own experiences because I've had OCD since I was four years old. So you know, having that life experience of being mentally ill pretty much my whole cognizant life, always informed my writing, but it was not like my main focus, like when I thought of myself as a writer. And then, as I was making more and more content around this and realizing the good that it was doing and getting such amazing feedback from people and also seeing sort of mental health be talked about more openly, you know, across the Internet and across communities, I leaned into it more and more and so then in 2020, through a mixture of fear that supporting myself creatively might not be the most realistic situation and also just a genuine interest, I went and got a master's degree, or I'm attempting to — I'm almost done with my master's degree and I originally went into the program at Pepperdine planning to become a licensed therapist as sort of a resource and backup plan and then through the program realized that I actually I don't think getting licensed was the right move for me. But I am getting a master's in psychology to sort of help with everything I do to sort of give me credibility in the space, to inform me in the space, to be able to talk about mental health outside of my own experiences and more widely. And so it's been a really enriching experience and then also, moving into the nonfiction space with “Overthinking About You” and getting to interview so many different mental health professionals and dating experts to sort of write about that intersection of romantic relationships and our mental health. And now working on another book about marriage through the lens of mental health. And the uncertainty of it all. And so it wasn't like my original plan, but I kind of just kept leaning into what seemed to be working and what people seemed to want from me and it's been a wonderful process and journey.
So the original plan was screenwriting. And that was Southern Cal.
Yeah, USC.
OK. And based on the dates, USC is a great film school great, you know, legendary film program. So getting a screenwriting degree there, should like catapults you right? But also if I'm doing the math, right. That was also just after the last Writers Guild strike.
I was a freshman when the last strike happened. So yeah, that happened in 2007-2008. And I was a freshman and so
How did that influence you? like I'm getting a writing degree and here they are on strike, baby. I'm doing them like is this the right thing?
Oh, no, it was much more exciting. It was like power to them. My improv team at the time, sort of did a month long like writer's strike program were like, we had a weekly improv show. But for a month, we had like a writer or actor who was supporting the strike comes to a monologue for us to do our improv off of. We were all very pro writers. We were, you know, it was this sense of like, oh, this is our community or future community and wanting to support them.
Then you said when you graduated, like the advice you had was to lean into the internet. What was your understanding of content creation at the beginning? Did you have an understanding of it or no?
I had an understanding of it in terms of comedy, so I was making sketches and it took a long time for me to sort of be comfortable in the quote unquote “influencer YouTuber space” instead of just like these are scripted sketches to showcase my writing and acting abilities. And then I want to get hired for something more mainstream, like this is my, you know, seeing it as like a resume for other opportunities instead of seeing the value in the creation of that type of content in and of itself. And I think that that shift was, you know, helped by then working at BuzzFeed video making this content that you know, had more eyes on it than maybe some cable shows ever did. And, you know, like having access to people all over the world, even though the contents you know, two to three minutes, like I've probably written stuff that more people have seen than people who have maybe only worked on certain shows that like have a huge budget, but maybe don't get that same reach.
Right, like the CW.
Maybe. You know, and it is an interesting thing because it's still I've always had this imposter syndrome of well, I've never been in a writers room. I've sold like four different shows and been in development with like MTV, FX, YouTube Red, Netflix, like I've had that wonderful part of of my career. But because I was always sort of working on my own thing, I'm not in the infrastructure of, you know, Hollywood writers, the way someone is when they start off as an assistant and rise up through the ranks and have had so many different bosses and people that think of them in their staffing. I sort of been doing a lot of my work in like a silo. And so it's, you know, I still love TV. Right before the strike happened. I have been shopping around a half-hour dark comedy with a production company attached, like that's still a real big dream and goal of mine, but also allowing for the fact that you have to go where the opportunities are. And for the last couple of years, it's been hard for me to sell a show. I don't have the relationships that make it easy. I mean, it's not easy to get staffed in general, which is a big part of why we're all striking. But like allowing myself to shift from I want to be a TV comedy writer to I'm a storyteller. And I can tell stories in a lot of different ways. I can tell them through fiction, I can tell them through nonfiction, I can tell them on screen, I can tell them on a podcast and just like allowing myself to expand the view of what I'm doing without losing the heart of why I got into this.
Right, I mean, you and Gabe just recently put out a video titled What does success really mean? What was your initial idea of what success looked like or meant? You mentioned having impostor syndrome so when you first got out of USC, and you're making sketch comedy videos, what was your idea of what success looked like?
Success was having my own show or working on someone else's show like steady work? Financial stability was a big part of it for me. Kind of getting to a place in the industry where I could always feel safe that I would get another job because I was high enough up in the ranks and thought of enough, my name’s being thrown around enough that you know, I'd have that level of of stability. And obviously, as you've seen through people sharing their stories with this strike, that's very rare. And there are tons of people who've done amazing work on a show or two shows and now are struggling to get their next gig. And I think one of the things that's really been kind of an unintentional saving grace for me is not necessarily just relying on the infrastructure of Hollywood, but instead developing a direct relationship with my fans and audience. So I'm doing that on YouTube. I'm doing that on my podcast, and then I'm doing it through my Substack which I think has been a really great new avenue because that's like my writing, right? Like my Substack is writing. And so it's exciting to sort of have this direct to fan base venue that is that is writing focussed instead of video or personality focussed, and so that's been a huge goal of mine recently is to really grow that community.
I totally agree. I mean, I eventually, I started The Comic’s Comic back in 2007. But a couple of years ago, I fully made the pivot to something because that's just where you have to go to adapt. There was no longer any advertising money to have a website. So you to figure out what to do and Substack has a platform and makes it easy to use. So when you initially got hired by BuzzFeed, then, did that feel like oh, this is what success means is I'm getting hired at BuzzFeed because BuzzFeed at the time was huge?
Absolutely. I have a terrible memory but I remember vividly like being in the main space and thinking I wish I could work here forever. Like already having this sense of like, oh, it's gonna be a bummer that this will be my life always. But then what was so wild about that job was within eight months, I only worked at BuzzFeed Video for eight months. And within that time I went from this is the best job of all time to oh my god get me out of here!
Had you met Gabe before BuzzFeed or was that only after you got there?
No, I make Gabe before and we had our channel just between us before we started working at BuzzFeed. And then we we kept going that whole time we were working there. We kept posting weekly and by the time by the time we left BuzzFeed I think we had around 100,000 subscribers on our own channel
Was JBU, was your channel was that the reason you got hired for BuzzFeed? Or is it your other portfolio of work?
I think it was that Gabe had gotten a residency through a connection that that he had with someone he'd met like years and years earlier, like truly kind of out of nowhere, got this residency. And then they came up with a video idea about like best friends and so they brought me in to film it and I think BuzzFeed liked my performance that I kind of had to like interview for a residency job, but they took a chance on me and from the residency, which was only supposed to be six weeks, they were starting a writers division that was meant to make longer-form content. And so you can be hired there without knowing how to edit or shoot or produce. It was just, it was a writing job. And so it was kind of perfect timing. So I went from that six weeks residency to being hired in the writers division.
So what was the moment that made you say, I've got to get out of here?
There became a point where I was sitting in the attic because that's where we were sitting with no windows, and I was no longer allowed to like be in short-form videos, because I had to only be in the writing division’s videos. The writing division wasn't making any videos. So I was just sort of sitting there being like, what am I doing? There was just like days on end where I like wasn't really doing anything. And I was you know, I was like in my mid 20s. I was raring to go. I wanted to do stuff. And so that was like a really frustrating kind of corporate bizarre moment where it was like, but then why am I here if I can't be anything or do anything?
I hope you don't mind but as you described it, it immediately made me think of the movie Office Space.
You know, I have never watched off at all of Office Space, which I know is sacrilege, but yes, it is that very same feeling of like
But you didn't burn the place down. You just left. You and Gabe started to like find more success with Just Between Us back on your own?
Yeah, we started releasing twice a week and once a week was an original sketch. And then we were also in development with MTV to have a half-hour show based kind of based on the channel with like an additional hook. But then through a very unfortunate situation that show didn’t end up going
Right when when Gabe was on a podcast in 2018 he was talking about I think it was a pre MeToo situation?
Yeah, our third lead was accused of rape and obviously we did not want to work with him anymore, but the network just killed the show instead of just recasting him.
That was James Deen, right?
Yeah.
I promise not all of my questions are about Just Between Us.
Oh, that's OK.
But I do want to ask — when Gabe was on my podcast, he described it as like Married at First Sight because he said you two didn't really know each other that well before starting the channel. Now you've been doing it for the better part of a decade. And it's gone through all of these iterations, including the development of several shows. But then you started a separate audio podcast in 2019. There's now a separate TikTok with a different couch. And then in 2023, you brought the weekly YouTube videos back. So tell me how has it kept going and all of these different forms?
Tenacity. I think there's been plenty of times where Gabe and I or one of us has wanted to quit. We've had a lot of interpersonal conflict. And I think a lot of that was due to us being young, not having a great handle on our mental health, pettiness, jealousy, all those fun things that like you have to actively work through or else will destroy your life. And I also think it's also been us figuring out what what are we able to do without burning out. What do we still have capacity for? What still interests us? How can our platform grow in a way that is true to how we've grown? And so a lot of it is also like, throwing spaghetti at the wall like we don't have the same I'd say currency or power that we had at our heyday. You know, like there was a time when like, we were kind of a big deal. Our channel was like growing rapidly. We were getting meetings wherever we wanted. We sold a book off of like a four page document like we were living, how
A book that made the New York Times bestseller list
It did! Yes.
And I think that at the time because we were so young, we didn't understand that this was not normal. That like sort of the level of success we reached and how quickly we reached it was this wonderful blessing instead of something that we were like entitled to have forever. I think the industry has changed a lot in the last few years. And you know, our reach is maybe not the same that it was and so for us, it's figuring out OK, like, how do we still make a career off of this? How do we hold on to the fan base that has stayed with us while also trying to expand our fan base, people that maybe don't even know that we were ever on BuzzFeed because they're just finding our podcast on Spotify and are like, Oh, this is interesting. And so it's an ongoing challenge. And it's also us having separate projects. At this point, we really only do JBU together, we don't develop books or movies or TV together anymore, because that just didn't work well for us. But it's kind of piecing together a career with what we think will work and then, sort of from feedback and from, you know, reactions being like OK, so you guys do want the couch video, which is us sitting on the couch talking about something for 10 minutes, but you don't like when we just put the video of the podcast on YouTube. Like, that doesn't make any sense but OK. It's sort of just like listening and adapting to the feedback instead of just being like, but you should like this!
Especially since I just read things in the industry media, just in the last month talking about how podcasts, pivoting to video was where it's supposed to be in 2023, that people actually want to watch the video of the podcast rather than listen to it.
And we were told that
Your actual fans are like, NO.
They were like, no thank you, like it would get a couple thousand views but it wouldn't do as well as our videos that we do that are just like the traditional couch show. Now what we do is we do the podcast for the podcast people and the couch show for the YouTube people and then you know I have my Substack
I have my Emotional Support Lady Instagram account for people who are following me for more mental health focus stuff and if that sounds like a lot of content, it's because it is and I am afraid every single day I'm gonna run out of things to say.
That's where I wanted to go with this. Because your book “Overthinking About You” is about navigating romantic relationships. I also can't help but wonder, as a content creator myself even, because that's what journalism is in the 21st century, but having all of these friends — it boggles my mind and I have to wonder like, how do you not develop a mental illness once you decide you're going to be a content creator? Because you're just feeding this beast, this machine of the internet that demands more and more and more and more, and even if you're doing one a week you feel like you're never doing enough?
I think that the issue for me is more like: Does anyone even want this anymore? You know, I think that my mental health struggles with my career have been having so much things be on the decline, like to see my Instagram following go down, to see my engagement go down, to like no longer get the views that we had, to not have the cache that we used to have and, and so my brain likes to go: Oh, well that means you failed, and it's over. To see it in extremes. To see, OK, well, this is a decline. So you’re garbage and it's just going to keep going down until zero and nobody cares about you at all anymore. And I'm having to actively work on the fact that it's OK that these things change, that my engagement does not reflect my self-worth, that there is still so much value in being meaningful to a smaller audience, and that if I am impacting, in a positive way, any amount of people with my work then that's enough. And I think with our mental health aspect of it all the fact that there's such metrics tied to the work that I do has been really challenging because it's like, oh, I can distinctly look and see that here I had this many followers and now I have this many or this used to get this and now it gets that and it's a lot of work. And I'd say that that's my main final hurdle in my acceptance of self and self-compassion is my relationship with my career and finding a way to feel both satisfied and fulfilled by it but not also so deeply tied to it. That a career disappointment can rock my world in a way that it's pretty dangerous.
Yeah, I mean, even if you're not diagnosed with OCD, it's so so easy to get wrapped up in checking the numbers every hour to see, oh, how many likes is this getting? How many shares is this getting? How many views how many listens? At least for me, I find it's been helping at least a little past year to playing the engagement numbers on Elon Musk. Because Twitter is useless. For me as a journalist, Twitter has become useless. And not just because it no longer works with Substack, there's just no there's just no kick like nobody leaves Twitter to go to my podcast or to go to anything I write. So in a certain way, being able to blame that on an individual billionaire from South Africa allows me to just go well, the whole thing is messed up.
I also think that's why having community is important because when I could talk to somebody who's like, oh, yeah, my numbers are down too, it's like an algorithm saying or like we're all dealing with this and obviously not everyone because you go on TikTok, and you see these people who have millions of followers, you're like, who are you? But, you know, just like, really taking a step back and trying not to play the compare game. Because that's where I really beat myself up. I mean, I worked at BuzzFeed at a time where people who have gone on to be household names and hugely successful and so it's really difficult to not be like, Oh, but you know, why am I not so and so? Or why did I turn this into this huge company in the way like the Try Guys did and so it's like, it is every day is struggle to like remain motivated to not beat myself up and then also to actually see and receive the positive feedback because like as humans we have a negativity bias and so there's a tendency to sort of like need like five nice things said for every one mean thing said but I think that really trying to be like oh like this person says that like I'm the reason they went to therapy or I've like helped their relationship in a significant way and reminding myself like, that's why you do this. This is why I'm showing up every day and we don't need to hit the upper echelons of success to have a successful life.
Do you really want to be a Try Guy? You might be the wrong Try Guy.
There was a short-lived like Try Girl thing we tried to do at BuzzFeed, but it never really took off.
If I were to pick anyone at BuzzFeed, I mean, Quinta Brunson, wasn't she there when you were?
Yeah, I think that's the thing. It's so amazing to see what Quinta has done. And I'm so unbelievably proud of her and an awe of her and I mean, within one second of meeting her at BuzzFeed, it was like, Oh, this person's got it. But like you also then can't say to yourself, oh, well, like you just never had the opportunity because it's like I worked at the same place at the same time. You know, and so, it's interesting, but it's also like, the industry is confusing. It's not fair. She had so many projects that didn't go before Abbott (Elementary), you know, and there's an element of of catching the wave. And I think for me, it felt like we caught the wave and then fell off of it. And that has been really difficult for me. But then people that take a step back and look at my canon of work are like what are you talking about? You're doing so many things.
You’ve been on The New York Times bestseller list! I haven't been on the New York Times bestseller list.
But then, the reality is like, I have a novel out for submission right now and I'm it's getting rejected and I'm getting these passes that are like, I love Alison, I've been falling Alison for years. I really wanted to like this book, but I didn’t. So it's like maintaining that tough skin while also appreciating what you have and what you've done.
Not to try to give you a pep talk, but as someone working on a book proposal myself. I also have to like rationalize that these people aren't actually thinking of me as a qualified legitimate journalist or or a prolific writer or even someone who writes well. They're just looking at me as dollar signs. Can they sell my idea? Not like whether it's any good or not. They're not evaluating it based on quality.
And I also just think quality is very subjective, right? If you go and you look at the reviews of my book, there'll be a comment that's like, I love the conversational style that this book was written in, followed by I hated how conversational this book was. I wanted it to be more formal. Like you can't please everyone. And while it feels like, oh, Penguin Random House as an entire organization is rejecting my book. In reality, it's probably one or two people that read it, that it just didn't vibe with them.
And they might have read it on a bad day.
Totally. Or something had just happened where another book that was somewhat similar had had disappointing numbers and so they're worried about their job. Remembering that there's always so much context that is happening, that you will never be you know, privy to, has been really helpful. Like when I leave a pitch when I used to audition when I would leave an audition when I leave a pitch you know, now like, it would be like, Well, how did it go? It's like, I have no idea. I have no idea what they thought. I have no idea what other information they're getting. I have no idea what other projects are happening, who is similar to me who's not. All I can do is show up and give my best and then the rest is literally like who knows? It's been helpful to like, walk out and be like, well, I’m not going to try to think about that again.
A lot of people say the pandemic prompted them to reconsider what they were doing with their lives. Was that the reason you went back to school or had you already decided to go to graduate school before the pandemic?
I actually had already started. I started in January 2020. And I will be done this August so my graduation is quickly approaching. I took the program very slowly because I was working the whole time, I switched degrees, it was a whole thing. But I will be done very soon and I'm very excited. Master’s in psychology.
So when the pandemic started, did you go Oh, I'm so glad that I decided to do this now. Like, this was the right decision for me.
Not really, because I actually kind of ended up realizing that I didn't want to become a traditional therapist. So in a way it answered a question I've always had. And the answer ended up kind of being No, but you know, I think for me, my challenge has never been I don't know what I want to do with my life. It's I know exactly what I want to do, but people won't let me do it. And so there's a different you know, there's a different agony in that in that like, I would love to run a TV show, but I'm not allowed to. And so it's been a journey of OK, if I can't do my number one passion, if I can't achieve my my main goals, what can I do and what can I pivot to that will still bring me joy and still make me money and still feel like I'm living the life I want to be living?
So is that in a sense, what success means to you now?
Yeah, I think success for me now is feeling content with what I'm doing. And that's a struggle. And it's something I'm working towards, but I think to feel, to get to a place where I feel like this is good enough. Is what success would feel like to me.
There's so many podcasts that are falling by the wayside. You still are doing Just Between us with Gabe and you've put out a scripted podcast, you're about to get your Masters and started a Substack . You have been on the best-seller list, like you have all these things that nobody can take from you.
And I tell myself that I go to sleep at night. That one week on the bestseller list, they'll never take it from me
You can put that on everything.
Believe me, I put it on everything.
Allison, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate your time.
Thank you. This was so fun.