Unexpected Career Journeys, Things We're Loving & LGBTQ+ Advice We’d Give Our Younger Selves | SLMan Out & About

0:00The best dancers from across the globe are about to join me for the audition of a lifetime. ABC Mondays. Do they have what it takes to compete and be the next Dancing with the Stars pro? I'm here to win.

0:12Tunde Ogunsina:Nothing is going to stop me. Our star judges will decide. This is what hunger looks like. It was 100 % the wrong choice. Robert Irwin hosts. The next era of Ballroom starts right here on Dancing with the Stars, the next pro. All new Mondays, 8, 7 central on ABC. Next day on Hulu. Welcome back to the S-Man podcast. This week is a special one as it is an extension of our out and about takeover happening across all S-Man platforms. This edition is for gay men by gay men and I've got a really exciting panel to kick things off. We're going to be talking about our unexpected career journeys and how we got to where we are today.

0:46I feel that my career has grown a lot in the last six months because I've been more myself. Fine. Oh honey, you got the Calvin Klein pride campaign. Yeah, I know that was insane by the way.

0:57Tunde Ogunsina:You just trumped everything. I was like, that is genuinely like my dream come true. I've always said it. What we really think about Taylor Swift's wedding. The guests were told to like, keep these dates free. But like, weren't told anything else. So they were like booking hotels and having to book like stylists and makeup artists without any idea what the theme was. Can you just trust us a little bit more if we're coming to a wedding? So I just thought that whole thing was a bit weird. And the honest advice we'd give our younger selves. Go sober, bitch. Same. And of course, our usual recommendations and things we're loving.

1:34Tunde Ogunsina:So make sure you are subscribed. Let's get into it.

1:44Tunde Ogunsina:I am so excited for today's podcast. I am your host, Tunde, and I'm joined by two very beautiful men. Sam Salter, dance and content creator, and Conan Mini, founder and content creator. Welcome, guys. So before we start, we do our outfit details. So guys, tell us what you're wearing and where's it from? So I've got a centler on top. I've got a centler on belt. I've got these pants from a brand called Wyhone. Oh, nice. I think they're from South Korea. Some Zara loafers. And then I've got a watch from La Font. And then two jewellery pieces I just got in Paris by the Eurostar. I've heard about these loafers.

2:18Tunde Ogunsina:A lot of people talk about them. I got them from a chute. And I was like, can I please keep these? Because they are so comfortable. So comfortable. Yeah, I love them. I wear them almost every day. And they're not that expensive, are they? I don't know. Oh, yeah, got them for free. But yeah, no, I would purchase them. Yeah, I see them in store. So I definitely feel like I want to get them now. Perfect. You, Connor? I am wearing, honestly, I've had this shirt for about 10 years. It's from COS. These shorts, like basketball shorts, are a male on door. And then I'm wearing also loafers, but these are Grenson.

2:49So weren't cheap. Didn't get them free on a shoot. Where are my sunglasses? I got these from Goodhood in Shoreditch. Very cute. A little concept store. Like a blue lens. And then a little off-the-shoulder Jackamoo's bag. Also had that for donkey's years. And then just my jewellery I wear every single day, which I have made at Hatton Garden, so that nobody else can have it.

3:12Tunde Ogunsina:Love. Even your earrings? Oh, no, no. That's from End in Carnaby Street. I like them. They're like a screw sort of like style shape. Interesting shape, huh? Yeah. And for me, the shoes are Maisa Margiela. the shorts are from M &S my top is from COS hat is from Duke and Dexter and my glasses are Ray-Ban and Meadows and I actually do need to see with these they're my prescription inside them before you ask are you filming right now? I'm not but that's what I get asked every single time when they are filming a light will pop up so you'll see so like I think they've charged light yeah so that means I'm filming you right now so you'd know what do you use them for?

3:47Tunde Ogunsina:for example I went to a morning yesterday I put them on to watch the final so I don't have to have my phone up watching the final do you see what I mean? so I could watch the final and record it without having my phone up recording it so I can record it still.

4:02Tunde Ogunsina:Our first section is new and noteworthy where we talk about all things that we're loving right now, whether that is a new product, a book we've bought, a trip we've been on. So tell me what you're loving right now. Sam, should we start off with you? Okay. I'm a big YouTube Shorts fan. That's my favourite app to scroll on, YouTube Shorts. And my current algorithm is like surfing. Surfing. It's surfing. There's this guy talking, like, sharing surfing stories. Like, I don't surf. I don't have nothing to do with it. I just find it really therapeutic. Explain what you're seeing, what he's doing. He's just talking about these, like, crazy waves that he rode.

4:36And, like, you know. Is he hot? He's so hot. He's also a very good storyteller. So it's just my therapeutic thing on YouTube shorts is surfing videos.

4:49Tunde Ogunsina:So is he on the water when he's talking? No, he's talking like this on a microphone. and then he's overlaying all these insane shots of him on a wave. But I'm into that. I tell you what I've been into. I've been getting lymphatic drainage massages before shoots. I'll get one tomorrow. Which really does wonders if you're taking your top off. It's good. Oh, right. It's really good. I've been into those. Okay. I'm into, product-wise, Sam McKnight does an amazing texture mist. Okay. It's pink. It's called Cool Girl. Nice. I use it all the time. just gives like a little bit of like beachy waves you've got very good hair i've got hair and be i mean i wish i could have hair like that yeah i tried to grow mine a little bit longer recently and i looked like hermione granger it was like so it comes out like i don't have those like i've got curly hair but it doesn't go into these nice ringlets it just kind of it's just so thick and frizzy and i was like i'm just gonna have to commit to uh fade for the rest of my life i feel you'd suit a Mohican.

5:47A Mohican?

5:48Tunde Ogunsina:Yeah, I can see Mohican. Isn't that the one where it's like that? Yeah. It goes the whole way back. But like, you know like the cooler Mohican now where it's like just the sides are shaved and it's just hair down. Right. Like a mullet, do you mean? Is that what a mullet is? Yeah. Mohican is like where it's like down the centre of the head. Maybe it's a cool Mohican. Like a biker. Mullet, I'm kind of giving a soft mullet now. I love Conor Story's hair. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. His hair always looks so good. And Jacob Elordi's hair. these are like my hair like you know fantasies but I just mine just doesn't do it I wish I could have hair like that I never could I wish I had hair that I could just like wake up and just like you know just run my fingers through it put a bit like an easy mist in it and I'm just like good to go no I had to do like a performance to do my hair every single day yeah yeah yeah and it still looks shit like 15 minutes yeah it's not the one I am obsessed with this creator called Zeewe on YouTube.

6:48Do you love? Yes. I've seen little clips. Please explain that. I've not seen. Okay, Zeewe, she has her own show where she basically interviews iconic guests. And she'll bring in a lot of, she had Tiffany Pollard. She had George Santos, Anna Delvey, comedians, like anyone, drag queens. The one with Renee Rapp is genius. So funny. But she makes her guests really uncomfortable. like she would like ask like Renee Rapp like so how many black friends do you have? I've seen that, it's so funny. That is mental. She asks a lot of like racially charged questions but it's satire. It's really clever, she's so smart, she's so funny, the guests squirm and it's just like like 20 minutes to half an hour but it's like gonna be your new chat show obsession.

7:40Tunde Ogunsina:Really? Okay and how long has it been going for? Is it recent? I don't know because she's quite big anyway. she's a comedian she does stand up but she's also done TV and hosting and stuff in the past like this is her latest kind of project but what's really cool is it's not a podcast it's just a video format okay and I just think it's so clever really smart yeah 10 out of 10 no notes what else are you loving so I went to Wimbledon for the first time on Tuesday ever and I'm ever I'm utterly obsessed it is the chicest place on the planet yeah it is like the fashionist the environment the strawberries and the cream and like the thing i love about tennis is that the women and the men are both like equally championed yeah yeah and like in the audience it's not like football fans where they both hate you know one side or the other like everyone's just like in it for the good of the game so if there's a great rally there's like a whole eruption of applause and whoever wins the point there would be an equal eruption of applause it's like everybody's just loving the game rather than like arguing over like who they want to win and i saw coco goth win her match um and i am now like obsessed with wimbledon and we'll go yeah not obsessed with like tenet like i'm not gonna like check the scores like who are i'm like no i'm like obsessed with like what am i gonna wear to wimbledon next year who am i going with you know what i mean like it's the environment of wimbledon that is so cool i love it because It's for everyone.

9:09Tunde Ogunsina:I think you can see all types of life there. People dress really casually, all really smart. When I went on Monday, I just wore shorts, a t-shirt, but yesterday I wore a full suit. So it's a real plethora. Is that the word? Plethora. Plethora. No. Plethora. A real plethora. A real plethora of people and vibes go there. I love it. I was a ball boy when I was younger. Were you? I love them as well. They're like this. and then they'll like run across the court and then they'll sound like that. Like the choreography is cute. It's eight months of training. So yeah, you'd be a great ball boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

9:46Tunde Ogunsina:You'd give it a little bit of panache. Yeah, you'd be a good center. So the centers are won by the net. I think they're the engine of the team. Okay, and the product? I'm obsessed. I don't have it with me today, but I've got Horace sent me this little sun stick. It's like this big, which I can't remember, a couple of inches for those that are just listening. And you like screw it up and it's like, it looks like amber, like see-through and you sort of rub it on your face. It's factor 50 and it feels like gua sha on your face. And then it gives you this like really gorgeous little orangey glow to you, but it's factor 50 and you just keep applying it throughout the day.

10:22And something about it just makes you look more bronzed. You don't burn obviously because it's factor 50. It looks chic in this little dark blue sort of like slightly glittery container. And I just carry it around with me everywhere and I just apply it and yeah, been using that all summer. Fairs. Influenced. Yeah, influenced.

10:38Tunde Ogunsina:Yeah, I love a nice sun stick. Easy to apply, rather than you don't have to like squirt and get all of your fingers. I can see you using that. I watched one of your videos recently and it was like a 10-step holiday skincare routine and you were putting on all of these. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the products. I was like, I need that. So Sam, given that, can you please talk us through your 10-step holiday? My 10-step? Okay, let me think about it. Right, so, we're going to do a Le Mare face cleanse okay maybe even a scrub okay nice depending on the day after that what do I go in with ah I've been liking the Lancome serum oh nice I'll do a Lancome serum I'll go to the really the really great moisturising cream by Le Maire it's quite thick it's good for night after that I'll put on an oil Barbara Sturm has a really great orange oil I forgot the name of it I'll do the Le Maire eye cream a little bit of luxury skincare yeah and then I will sometimes also mix multiple products in one.

11:34Does that count? So I do like, SkinCeuticals have an amazing moisturizer. So I would like add that on. Insane. I just want to go to bed like a glazed donut. I want to be shiny as fuck. Love, love, love.

11:45Tunde Ogunsina:Have you tried their PTOX SkinCeuticals? Yeah, SkinCeuticals, honestly, is such, is amazing. I love it. I used to, man. I used to get into it. They know this amazing, like kind of like maroony gel, which honestly the next day, like tightens you up. It's fantastic. No, you'd love it. Love it. Love it. it it's more on the expensive side but it's great great great is it okay i need to get into that i've been going to um uh pure soul in carnaby street oh yes korean skincare store and i just go in there and it is i'm like a kid at christmas i'm just like like grabbing things off the shelves and just throwing them in my basket and i'm just getting it just because the packaging's cute but like actually the products are amazing korean skincare is amazing okay for me i obviously a big love of music i um recently was in a hotel in italy and there's a festival which i've never heard of called the monterey festival it's in geneva i like festivals when i'm able to like be free and like still see the amazing music but not like be around so many people so obviously glass and where they have that bit in the middle where um it's like a vvip ticket but you can still be in the mix of it but you still can go away and do stuff um and i feel like more festivals starting to do that so they have partnered with this hotel which allows you to like sit and chill with all the other artists but still enjoying the festival as well and you can yes you've got to pay for your ticket but I just think it's so interesting plus it's a little Karnat, Zara Larsson who else is there Fresh Moolah and it's a jazz festival I've never been in a jazz festival before so I'm just really intrigued by the concept of it because I think it's just so special and different oh this one cool yeah it's very cool I love Zara Larsson yeah same I'm so glad she's finally getting her flowers no she is insane insane so good then product I've been loving I actually bought a projector recently the other day all the lads wanted to watch football so we went to Batsy Park bought a projector and a screen and we just watched football in the park what do you mean you bought a screen to the park you can like buy like screens from Amazon 200 inches that's so cool and I've got a projector I can show you a picture later and we just watched football we just watched the Columbia I'm so obsessed with that that is going to be I can see that now that's going to be like the new third space like people are going to to start buying these projectors.

13:56You're just going to go to London Fields and you can see six projectors and big groups of friends are watching their own films. Yeah.

14:04Tunde Ogunsina:I love that. Stealing. It's literally so small. I think that it's from Soundcore, I want to say. And it's so light and you just take it, it's got speakers and it literally sounded as if you were in the cinema. It was so good. I'm going to do a guerrilla event where I just get one of them and I say, guys, watching this camp film, putting it on in Victoria Park, get your asses down there and there's just gonna be like 200 gays just like turn up. What film are we watching? Showgirls. Okay, fine. I've never seen that before. Okay. It's like a bit of a cult classic. Okay. Very just like gay coded and camp.

14:38Okay, nice. It's like a showgirl from Vegas. Fine.

14:41Tunde Ogunsina:How old is it? Like an old film? Probably like early 2000s. Fair. Get into it. Nice. I definitely will. Turn it up. Storm has zero sugar and 200 milligrams of caffeine, so you can turn that workout up a notch. Good energy in, good energy out. Energy for life.

15:07Tunde Ogunsina:So now on to Mustn't Miss. I'm going to dedicate this section to our Out and About special. And we're going to use this to really dive deeper into our panelists and their journeys and who and what is inspiring them today. So, Sam, we'll start with you. For those who don't know you, what do you do and how did you get to where you are today? Currently, I'm a content creator. I dance also. I'm studying acting. It's a new kind of venture I'm doing. But I grew up dancing. I went to a theatre school in London. I went to a college in Epsom and then started working as a dancer. kind of tours did West End and you know went all over the country and world with shows did things like Swan Lake, Wicked, Mary Poppins and then I kind of went a little bit more freelance and while the freelance happened I started pushing my social media a little bit more and after COVID I joined an agency and then things kind of took off in that in that world for me and yeah I mean Currently, I'm just kind of making lots of content and I'm trying to be a lot more myself.

16:18I'll say that. I'm trying to be a lot more authentic to me and do things I want to do. And I know that in the fashion space, it feels slightly, maybe it's like a little bit too much for some brands. Men should be men, but I'm kind of trying to go against that a little bit and just be myself. Nice, yeah. And if brands like that, then they like it. And if they don't, then... Oh, honey, you got the Calvin Klein Pride campaign. Yeah, I know.

16:39Tunde Ogunsina:That was insane, by the way. Thank you. You just trumped everything. I was like, that is genuinely like my dream come true. I've always said it. Yeah, it's insane. It was so good. Oh, by the way, the lymphatic drainage, I did that before that shoot. Oh, it was for that. It was that. So when did you film that? When did you film that? We filmed it in Paris, like, I don't know, in like February, March. Oh, wow. So I knew for ages. So I was like waiting and waiting and waiting. To drop it, yeah. So yeah, that's basically me. Perfect. And how about you, Connor? I am a founder and creator so I've worked in the fitness industry for like the last 10 years but the last six of that has been um in more entrepreneurship side of things so I had a business prior to the one that I've got now which is a fitness tech company and then now I have a social wellness brand for gay and queer people called Gains G-A-Y-N-S um and that's basically like an events company but I also built a piece of tech to go with that as well that's like a bit event infrastructure.

17:38And yeah, and I know I create content as well. I'm a Lululemon ambassador. So I do a lot of like races, like half marathons, high rocks, document that journey, document me sort of building gains and just being a bit of a silly goose.

17:53Tunde Ogunsina:Sick. I actually have known you for quite some time. I actually still do your six, your ab workout on the Gymshark app. Oh my God. It's a 12 minute one. I still do it to this day. do it every day so that was filmed in my old film studio oh fine that was attached to that business Jim and Shark hired us to like create loads of content for their app in our studio it's still there and yeah people still tag me in the videos I love it it's such an not an easy but it's like a good workout which you can do in 10 minutes and it's like you do feel like worked out afterwards yeah yeah yeah well that's the thing with me honey if you come to my class you're going to be worked out okay I'm going to be an answer to this but do you think being gay has shaped your careers in ways you can only really pinpoint now looking back i don't know whether i'm answering this answering this correctly but i feel that my career has grown a lot in the last six months because i've been more myself fine so kind of like in the opposite way where like i felt like i was a bit stagnant when i was trying to be something i definitely wasn't yes uh maybe more masculine or maybe more straight yeah it comes like straight appealing or whatever so i feel like actually being myself completely online has really helped with my with my growth and career i would say yeah nice what are you kind of um i would say for the early career i was like really trying to be more masculine because when i was training to be a trainer at barry's yeah i'm talking 12 years ago now i was told i needed to tone down the campness in order to be taken more seriously in the room in order to hold more authority so in my very early days of being a coach i did sort of like ham up the the military style sort of like coaching um until i then decided to be a bit more faggy and that's actually when like i became super super popular there and all my classes were packed out when i had that sort of like authority of the room but like could also um be myself yeah in that sort of same space um but how has it like influenced my career i think me being gay in a very masculine dominated industry has always you know i've always not fitted the mold of the fitness industry yes and so that's been both a blessing and a curse you know i've seen people that were straight who were like way less experienced and talented as i was in that sort of space get the sponsorships you know from nike from jim shark from all this kind of stuff yeah yeah but now that i have you know career capital and authority in the industry changed now it's my time but it just did take me a lot longer to get there than than than others yeah yeah um but obviously now my brand is literally for gay and queer people, right?

20:52So I think that my sexuality is a huge part in now where I will move into in my career, yeah.

20:58Tunde Ogunsina:Yeah, you were the king of Barry's. All I knew was you and Barry's. Yeah, you did a great class. Yeah, I think I went to two. I think I went to two of your classes. You were literally the king of Barry's. You thought Barry's, you thought you as a trainer. No one else. Thank you. Yeah, I loved those days. And all the hot gays would go there. Yeah. In your class. If you wanted to go hot guy shopping, you go to Connor's class and you'll find them. Did you ever go to them? yeah yeah yeah i used to work at barry's i used to like make connor shakes for him me and some go way back oh fine okay yeah i trained as a professional dancer before really where did you train well the cv is so long to both of you yeah a lot of different lives okay over the past like decade like fashion music tv beauty um and the arts have become more celebratory of like lgbtq plus culture um are there any future shifts you've seen any further shifts or that you've seen and particularly in the past few years there is more more and more is coming up whether it's online or it's um tv movies stories yeah there's definitely it's definitely like a lot more common apparently bridge bridgerton yeah has it yeah has now a lesbian you know things like that this is great there's still way more to do to do yeah but it's great to continue to continually see these kind of stories and and things be put out mainstream i think that um these sort of like big wigs in the media industries or the fashion industries are starting to understand that um gay or queer stories um aren't just for gay and queer audiences like we've seen it with heated rivalry like the biggest the biggest chunk of that audience was straight women yeah yeah yeah um and then you're you know seeing it with um as what was the example you just said like bridgerton and shows like that like these big sort of like you know heavyweights are starting to um normalize it a bit more because they realize that actually this is uh what straight people want to see as well you know it's a shame that like I Kissed a Girl didn't get like recommissioned and stuff I think you know there's still that fine line of like it has to be palatable for a straight audience but you know you know because ultimately the numbers are never always going to come just from like our community because we're like 10 % of the population you know what I mean so it has to appeal to like this mainstream audience if it's going to make the mainstream um but I do think that yeah these sort of like big wigs are starting to cotton on that actually like um whether for better or for worse whether we're being like appropriated for it or not like people want to see us somebody said to me once um gay people are like celebrities to straight people like do you know what i mean like it's like i can hear that when a gay walks into a room with loads of straight people you're the you know the star of that room like so i think that there is like a an obsession or like an interest maybe especially from women with gay guys.

24:04Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think that...

24:06Tunde Ogunsina:Yeah. What do you think about people? I had an interesting conversation. I went to a wedding recently and one of the bride's friends, she's a lesbian, and she was telling me, like, obviously it's being so accepted now, but people are now doing it to now be cool and look cool and dress cool because they know that is what is selling and people are buying into you. What are your thoughts on that? And have you seen it yourselves, personally, and, like, I guess in your careers and as things have changed more recently? Queer baiting. queerbaiting. See it a lot on social media. So you'll have like straight fitness influencers who know that gay guys fancy them.

24:43And so they will be like, if you're a gay guy, and they will do content and coaching specifically for gay men, even though they're not, because they know. I've seen that. Gay guys fancy me because I'm really hot. And I don't follow him actually, but he pops up all the time and I refuse to follow him because I know that he's got a girlfriend and he's queerbaiting. but there's this guy from america i don't even know what his name is steven something but he will post like him like lip syncing to competitors and like makes jokes about like you know dicks and all this kind of stuff like really just like you would think that he was gay from his content but he's not he has this um girlfriend and it's just like this weird thing where it's like they know they can sort of like benefit or profit off like our audience but they're not and it gives me the ick like if i see somebody queerbaiting like a straight guy i'm just like unfollow okay what is

25:40Tunde Ogunsina:a misconception about dating as a gay man that you wish people knew i think a misconception is that um i think people think that it is something that you could very sort of like passively do and I don't look at dating that way I look at dating as work yeah I think if you are out there in the field and you genuinely want a boyfriend or you want to date bitch get your notifications on on the dating apps appear available like if you are like matching with guys you know and you've got your notifications off and then you know you're not texting them back for 24 hours and then you're moaning that dating in London's horrendous you're the problem so i think a lot of people um sort of don't realize the way that they are approaching dating as a gay man in london um is part of the problem like you need to be available and you need to commit you need to get on the apps every day and you need to swipe and you need to be like very forward with meeting up with people you need to accept that it's going to be very disappointing and you know it is very disappointing very yeah yeah i think that we like are obsessed with this notion of like we will meet our partners outside in real life in a space and then we'll we're obsessed with the fairy tale the biggest percentage of couples these days have met online through date maps right you just open yourself up to so many more people than the same sort of circuit of spaces that you go on on a weekly basis and so i think that we if we're truly interested in dating if we definitely want a relationship or even if we just want to date to um just like find connection and find friends and stuff like that you need to make yourself available and that is work and it needs to be a daily practice and you need to have your notifications on on guys we're all single yeah yeah all right are you got notifications on I've deleted all the apps I don't have the apps I'm currently I'm just really like currently not in the space I'm over it I'm I find it when I'm busy with work it's like you said like you're exactly right it's work I don't want to have the same conversations and I've kind of just given up for now and that's so fine I actually really love being on my own I love the fact that I could like piss off tomorrow and not have to tell anyone and it's so fine so I feel like the same with like dating and dogs like I'm not going to get either because I just want to like piss off to Thailand next week if I want to you know what I mean?

28:11Tunde Ogunsina:I think as well all three of us I think we are all trying to grow something right now right and I feel like that is just so important and having someone come in unless they're going to bring peace to that wouldn't want any interruption or disruption to that. You need the capacity for making time for something I don't even have enough time for myself at the end so I'm not about to like go and start dating and like promising you know time to people that I just can't even give to myself so I'm actually not actively dating at the minute but I will happily preach about it so will I if you go back to your 18 year old self what is one piece of advice you would give go sober bitch

28:56same