Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Anna-Kate Alexis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Anna-Kate, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.

I really would love to say I came up with something revolutionary that kicked started my YouTube channel. That would be a lie. At the time Tana Mongeau was popular, and she was creating videos expose people that wronged her. I thought that dare I say iconic. The amount of friends I had were small so I really had nothing to lose. The premise was I would sit down and tell the tale of men who lied about being romantically involved with me. Screenshots of texts. Photos of us together. Them in my bed. All the evidence of said person who claimed that they would never date me/hook up with me to my peers. At the time of the videos I was 16-18 and would just plop down in front of the camera (place strategically in front of my window during golden hour) and just talked story start to finish. My friends thought I was insane, the guys clearly thought I was insane. The thing I tell people today about that time period that makes me laugh is they would still try to hook up with me even after the video was posted. Men, correction boys, do not care. When I got to college I decided I no longer wanted to be the girl known for the expose videos and I had just about 30,000 subscribers when I moved to Tuscaloosa so wiped my channel, and started posting (horrible) makeup videos, and day-in-life college type vlogs. I was able to start securing brand deals that paid, I remember the first brand to every work with me was Sand Cloud. Thank you. It was free, but it was still cool to have an affiliate link that I’m positive nobody used. I felt really discouraged because the views and traction weren’t the same, and truthfully at the time that was my driving force was the adrenaline and excitement I got out of other people enjoying my content.
During my time at Alabama I began to understand what posting for yourself and not others meant and how freeing it can be. I was able to amass an additional 17,000 subscribers during the next following years, Covid hit and I stopped posting. I hunkered down with my friends and we had wine and karaoke nights practically everyday. I was working as a waitress at Texas Roadhouse at the time, my channel was monetized at this point but again no major big companies to sweep me off my feet. I started posting on TikTok GRWMs (get ready with me) as an “essential worker” did anyone really need a 60z sirloin and a loaded bake potato? no, but I think that was the allure for people I couldn’t afford not to work and people thought it was crazy I didn’t go home and just be with my family. Eventually I got on unemployment and that was lovely, and I was glad to be with my friends during that time and not holed up in Michigan. Memories I made during that time don’t even sound real, and they’re all documented on TikTok.
My platform on there really started to gain traction once I moved to San Francisco in fall of 2021. My makeup skills were better, and I had more free-time to a lot to regularly posting content, and I was able to build a tiny but loyal community on there. TikTok is another world the reach is insane, and (reputable) brands will want to work with you even with 1000 followers. I was able to cross 50,000 on YouTube within my first four videos posted after regularly posting on TikTok. I was able to work with larger scale companies that I admire, Good-American, Princess Polly, Dossier, Shein, etc. The highlight of that year was flying out to LA for Good American for their open-casting. That was an experience I will never forget.
Everything did come to a head in December 2021 my little sister passed away and I just wanted to give up on everything. I regretted my move, and my will to even live at one point. I scrubbed my YouTube channel. Poof deleted. And just faded away from TikTok. About a month later I went on TikTok and was floored with even my time community of 4000 people were asking where I was and said they missed me posting….? me? I thought that was insane, it was such a different side of social media because I knew in high-school people weren’t watching for me, they were watching for the story. They say it takes a village, and it does, but I’ve never felt more supported when I came back and filled everyone in on the vision and the direction of my content.
Now I post for me, and some videos do well, and some videos don’t. And that’s okay, I’m sure to see the same 10-15 people in my comment section and that’s what makes me happy. I value transparency with authenticity over transparency with marketability now. Of course, as a content creator there’s sometimes where I have to bite the bullet and hop on a trend to push my engagement back up, or post about something I might not necessarily want to talk about (my natural hair) to spike conversation and garner a new audience.
I don’t really solely on social media as an income so it’s obviously more lax, but I am happy where I am at with it. If it takes of and booms into something more, that’s fine, but I am also fine being the small creator. I am friends or mutuals with practically all my favorite creators and that makes me happy that the people I love, also see my authenticity even though the numbers would tell you I have a lot less to offer, but they don’t see or think that.
Next is conquering my goal of having a Podcast, I don’t think people will believe the influencers I have gotten to agreed to come on my Podcast due to my size platform, but I am so excited for that when I finally focus on it. So, be on the look out.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

You find out your true friends when you start taking social media seriously. Ahh, not really a backstory, but I posted a video on this and the feedback was insane that I was able to reassure people in this. The moment you start taking social media seriously you will find out who your true friends are, and the people that make fun of it to your face those also aren’t your friends. I want to clarify that doesn’t mean they’re commenting and sharing every post, no. I normally do that with fellow content creators, or if I genuinely think the post was iconic. I’m saying if you bring it up or want to vent to your friend about it and it’s become uncomfortable, or they were the top commenter on your posts and now they aren’t. Keep your circle supportive. It really changes the motivation, if you don’t think the people who are supposed to love you the most support you it’s a lot easier to take strangers comments personally.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I’m putting this out there so now I can truly hold myself accountable beyond 300 followers on an over-marketed unused Podcast account. I want to start my Podcast! I need to figure it out. I am so proud of the people who said they’d come on and support me, but I need to jump on it before they think it’s a waste of time. HA. @NotVerySubtlePod hopefully coming to you sometime soon in 2024. I love to talk, and feel like I’ve exhausted the visual/audio side of me. Would love to just be able to like prop up on a couch and just banter with my friends.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.instagram.com/notverysubtlepod/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annakatealexis/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/annakatealexis