Ep.35 TikTok Uncovered: What It Really Takes to Go Viral With GK Barry

0:28So I was like, cool. And I was just like, ugh. Do you ever fear being cancelled? Everyone has been cancelled or is going to be cancelled. People love to pull that card. Do you know what actually really pisses me off?

0:53What is up guys and welcome back to Working Hard, Only Working. I hope you've had a lovely week. actually wait no you haven't even had your week yet it's Monday morning so I hope you've had a lovely few minutes of the week so far today I have GK Barry Grace Keeling whichever one you want to call her I just want to get to know a little behind the scenes of GK Barry she's completely blown up on TikTok through these hilarious story times kind of reminds me very much of like back in the day story time YouTubers but a lot quicker and she's really really funny like she has been on my For You page a lot and I have pissed at myself laughing multiple times so I wanted to be able to kind of delve into a little bit behind the scenes get to know what it's been like to blow up on social media her relationship starting a relationship whilst kind of on social media first few influencer events what she expected what she didn't expect what her hopes dreams wishes are for the future because I feel like a lot of the content that she puts out is like hilarious story time stuff and I want to know like behind the scenes like what she's really like so I hope you really enjoyed this episode it's a little bit more of a deep dive a little bit of insight into her life enjoy it as always have a lovely day please rate and subscribe the podcast if you enjoy it if you don't just leave a hate comment on apple podcasts or can't even leave one on spotify so I'm afraid you'll have to go maybe to my instagram to leave one there but as always have a lovely week and if in doubt watch some funny tiktoks

2:20grace keeling better known online as gk barry is one of the wildest tiktok stars out there creating content that is both relatable and hilarious she rose to fame during the pandemic with her tiktok account and since 2020 has gained a staggering 2.9 million followers on the social channel alone with content around her day-to-day life reaching millions of views per month grace Grace is now arguably the most well-known TikToker in the UK with an ever-growing platform. In 2022, Grace entered the world of podcasting and has remained in the top 10 podcast charts since launching back in April 2022, receiving over 900 ,000 listeners every month.

3:00She also recently announced her first podcast tour coming up in February of 2023, which sold out all seven dates in a record time of three minutes. Grace recently became more of a household name joining Ant and Dec in their I'm a Celebrity show in 2022. And I've got her here today to find a little bit more about the behind the scenes of who she really is behind GK Barry. Thank you so much for joining me. Anytime. Very excited to have you today. When you're on things, do you prefer to be referred to as your showbiz name? Yeah. Do you know what's weird? Because if I'm doing something and people just call me Grace, they don't know who I am.

3:35so like I'm just by default I'm like yeah just go with GK Barry right you've done it now so you can call me Grace after yeah I also feel like it's slightly weird even having two Graces it's like if you see if you were interviewing like Michael Jackson it'd be weird calling it not that I'm Michael Jackson but like you know if you called Michael Jackson Michael it'd be weird do you know what I mean yeah yeah no 100 % there are some people where I was going with that no no no I'm with you and I see I see the um similarities yeah yeah same nice so I want to go all the way back to give people a little bit of background where did all of the comedy being funny entertaining where did it begin did you realize one day I'm actually quite funny no so what happened here was it's a sad tale actually when I was younger I was collapsed I was so ugly like buck teeth gaps everywhere short hair proper lanky I just looked like something like a science experiment that went wrong so I was like cool so I'm not going to be like one of the girls it's gonna be like for being pretty I've got to be funny so I remember one day I got my mum to get me the whole box set of Miranda and I like just sat and just watched it oh I could recite all the series and I was like right I'm just gonna be like that so I'd like trained myself to be a little bit funny um and then I was like no I could just do this on my own and then I just went from there yeah and then I got a little bit better looking and thought fucking yeah now I've got both now yeah now I can do yeah exactly but I feel like being funny is always a little bit more of a flex the more things you have to build up your personality when you're a child I think that is actually like such a valuable thing character building because I feel like if you've always had it too easy in terms of people liking you you then end up not being because you're not able to develop those things that like make you interesting and everyone that I've met that's like so incredible looking has the personality of like a rye eater like they've got nothing to them no offense if you're really good looking but they just haven't had to like because they've just got because they're like fit they just you know yeah i mean fit in all the time it's very understandable buck teeth you can't you've got to set yourself apart somehow i do i do completely understand that and so at what type of age was this when you started to watch miranda you started to come into your own you started to make some friends through telling some jokes i'd say like secondary school time but i was proper weird in secondary school like i was you know when you're trying to find your like who you are like am i like i don't know like i used to try and really fit in so I think that's when I was trying to become funny yeah but I think it only really worked at sixth form really that's how long that took seriously a lot of years of perfecting years in the mirror and so when did that then turn into your social media like when did you get on social media start putting things out there and what were kind of your first few videos like so obviously lockdown everyone was on tiktok and I remember being like I will never go on that that is for weird dancers and like children and then I got on it I was like cool I'll be on this forever then and I remember releasing videos that didn't get anywhere like miming to Gemma Collins like the basic stuff and then I did a few videos where they went viral like random ones where I was like the cheek of me to post this picture while I look this ugly or just self-deprecating really and people loved it so I was like let me keep going and I did and I was like right fine so that was in 2020?

7:09That was in like March 2020 yeah. And you're noticing that the ones where you're like telling a story are the ones that are doing. Well it found like took me ages actually to find what people enjoyed watching like even when I joined my management I was like I don't really know what maybe I'll do a bit of makeup maybe I'll do like random stuff like this and then I found like my story times or like when something embarrassing happens to me which is every day if I talk about it that will easily go viral every time. And so you just started to do kind of more and more of those videos like more and more situations did you start to think in certain situations like am I going to be talking about this on TikTok am I going to be kind of putting it out in this way yeah do you know what's funny like before when embarrassing things would happen I'm like oh my god I'm mortified like I can never leave the house again but now I'm like this is my bang on TikTok when I tell people what has just happened to me it is so cathartic like speaking to someone about it saying what happened just laughing about just being able to laugh about it I understand that it's obviously like what happens to you like in that moment but I also think it's a huge talent to be able to like tell a funny story yeah yeah do you ever feel now that it's kind of what you're known for you kind of have this pressure to like always be funny yeah GK Barry is a very over the top version of me it still is me but it's very over the top so like I was saying like when people come up to you you feel like you've got to be like right okay we just switch that on even if you're having like the worst day ever I've still got to be like I've got to prove to them that I am actually funny in person yeah otherwise they're gonna go back to their friends and be like she was so boring yeah or like wasn't nice or whatever and then when I get cancelled it will all come out yeah when people like yeah well I met her once and she was the boring bitch and I'll be like yep do you know what just add it on while you're adding it fine yeah I want to go back to like you as Grace starting out on TikTok.

9:04At that time, what did you think that your career was going to be? Where were you at in your life in terms of your uni? Right. So I was three years down at Costa where I used to work. I was three years into my bachelor's degree. And then I was just like, and no one had a career off TikTok apart from Alison. What's her name? I like to call her Addison Lee, Addison Rae. So I was like, yes, obviously this isn't like a thing unless you're like dancing and American. So when we were all at the time, like all the people that are now in like my group on TikTok or whatever, we all didn't expect to have a career.

9:41So I was just doing this and I was like, right, well, at some point I had to pull something out my ass and get like a job, like a proper job. Didn't know what I wanted to do. And you were at uni at this time. Yeah. But luckily this was during COVID. So I got to work from home. I was loving it. I was at home and also I feel like in Covid I was like oh god working that's a lot isn't it that's a thing that's not really I don't have a clue what I'm even like if I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing it don't but when I was younger I was like I'm going to be a famous singer really yeah I can't sing actually at all but I was set I was like people are gonna know me I swear to god not for singing now just for talking about my arsehole whatever online but similar vibes so I feel like I knew I was like I can't have a normal job here yeah can't even though I worked at Costa for ages you knew you were meant to be on the virtual stage yeah there was no way I couldn't well I could if I had to but like I was just like I can't that's not where I want to be and so you say that kind of like group when you were starting on TikTok did you start to kind of meet other people that were also blowing up at the same time yeah so we were all around the set obviously some were higher than others like follower wise but there was a group of us that kind of all like you know max beleg day and all that that started to come up at the same time so by default we were all like introduced to each other because we were like oh wait i've just been invited to this event are you going because it was unheard of for tiktokers to be invited to stuff it was only like instagram or youtubers so we were all just kind of in this weird outcast group because when we go to events people would be like why are tiktokers here that's really embarrassing so we just kind of merged together and stuck with each other when tiktok was musically for one god forbid yeah that was like way back like no one's going on there yeah then when it was originally tiktok it was very much like there was definitely a inferiority type thing i'm not saying in terms of like the influence of what i would just i would say at the time that tiktok blew up i was actually completely like retreated from like social media in general so like i didn't join tiktok until like less than a year ago or like I you know I just like wasn't so much in that world but I remember there was definitely like there was a view of like oh I'd never be on TikTok like I'd never go on there.

11:57People were fuming like we just come out out of nowhere just on this app chatting absolute rubbish taking their brand deals and people were fuming about it and you could tell when you go to the events you'd be like yeah I'm on TikTok and they'd be like I've been on YouTube for seven years and I know I watch you like I'm a really big fan yeah yeah so did you find there was a lot of hostility hostility yeah I remember when I went to one event I went with someone and the girl that I went with she was like I just don't get it like I don't get why people on TikTok have been invited here I just don't like blah blah and I was just like why we've gone together here so I don't know why you're but yeah but I didn't even realize it was a thing yeah I was just happy to be where free drinks are because I think there have been like a few different iterations of like well I know that this is not me saying social media has existed in many different ways but like there have been you know there was like YouTube blew up Instagram blew up like all of these there have been different types of things that different type of content has done well like even the introduction of like real since Instagram has like literally turned it on its head in terms of like what makes a good creator so you can see that like some people who for example back in like the blogger days I remember when I started on social media and I started blowing up I remember there was like a period of like load of indirect tweets from people who created really amazing content and I objectively was not creating nice content like mine would be like these terrible like mirror selfies at uni like it wouldn't look nice it would just be me being like today I went to the gym and I had three strawberries and a fryer like whatever it would be it wasn't perceived to be like the type of content that would do well yeah and that's what had been blowing up for years before so you can understand like whenever like a new industry kind of blows up there is this like hostility towards like how do you adapt because what was happening I remember when the first algorithm change happened on Instagram and like people went wild because they were like you know engagements obviously always incredibly important and then it had just like it's been completely flipped on its head and so it just wasn't very like it wasn't easy to know how to kind of keep appearing to your followers it wasn't chronological anymore like people didn't know how to do that and so there was definitely a lot of cattiness in the industry I remember being like whoa like what's going on you've got to be self-aware I feel like I know TikTok is not going to be like the app that it is now forever in a year it's probably going to be irrelevant and you've just got to find another way to be relevant like you have to be creative to be you can't just sit there and be like yeah so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to do this same thing forever because it's not yeah and I also feel like if you're an influencer or creator in some way if you are good at what you do you're always going to have people's interest as long as it serves a certain market so for example there are some fashion bloggers now who still blog in the way that they did 10 years ago but their content is so good that people don't care they're not posting reels they're still going to look at their high-end photos and be like wow that's beautiful I guess it must be a kind of like insecurity thing in terms of like how do I adapt how do I evolve like I know for example like back in my YouTube days I'm sure I would have like hopped on TikTok and be like you know being able to evolve all my content do like all of this now because it's not a main part of my job it's like ultimately I don't like I don't have the time to be able to give to it because it's not my main job but I also I won't be as good at short form content as I am that's the thing so different if you're a youtuber going on to tiktok it's yeah there are some people who can do both i couldn't do youtube i wouldn't have a clue wouldn't have a clue and i also would forget couldn't be asked i think you'd be a great blogger i will say that now thank you but it's exactly that it's about like knowing where your content sits like what it serves best and how you can like evolve within that time like i'm never going to be a good tiktoker my strengths will be elsewhere yeah that doesn't mean that there's not like an incredible market for people who will be good tiktokers now and like who who are able to like completely blow up I remember first seeing it and being like oh my god yeah like what the fuck is going on here and I was like you know thank god that's not my main like source of income otherwise she would be fucked yeah yeah but but yeah like as in I can imagine that's like definitely terrifying for like existing people within the industry so you start going to these events you start kind of meeting these people what was the first type of brand deal that you got like when did the first cash dollar come in when did you get that first email I didn't do any ads until I got signed by my management that was when I was at 200k which is actually quite early but my manager just messaged me like come on then and I was like all right so I joined um and then I think it was the leggings these leggings I had to sell them because it makes your ass look big I'm gonna ask but like for some reason I was like yeah like my ass is flat it kind of looks a tiny bit peachy and they sold them out and then I was like right let's go and then I just carried on doing just to be honest with you I'm not gonna lie when I first started I was just doing shitty ads yeah what did you get paid for that first ad absolute pistol I really like because no one worked with tiktokers the money was so bad like because I just quit my job as well I was like I'm gonna focus on it full time then I was like oh maybe I should go back it was so bad like it was what like 200 pounds which obviously for some people were like well the leggings is a lot but you've got to think what other people were being paid to do the same thing they were getting paid like a couple grand so I was like yeah this isn't looking good for me also 200 pounds if you're selling out the leggings girl needs a commission yeah I was like how much did you get and how much did I get I can't buy a penny for yeah no honestly I was like what the hell so yeah it was definitely hard for money wise because people wouldn't take you seriously they'll be like why would we choose a tiktoker when we could choose someone really big which no valid but no tiktok can get the views which is why i think people then start like you know what let's work with them so you're coming into the industry you're now getting paid yeah 200 pounds yeah your bum's looking big in the leggings but not as big if they were wearing tala leggings yeah obviously i look like i had a bbl well exactly thank you very much are you turning up on events or is it virtual yeah no i was an event rat honestly i used to love events you've never seen me at one now but always any invite I'd be like yes and did you feel like that was quite essential in like building your career as like an influencer or tiktoker do you know what I was just like couldn't believe I'd been invited to these things so I have to go otherwise I'll never get invited again I don't know how this is like I used to take time off work yeah no I thought I was five take annual leave for an event this is what I mean I thought I was going to be a one-hit wonder right so I was like I am gonna lap this up so I go to all of them and then I'd have good story times from it because I'd be like, I just fell over in front of Molly May and I knew it would bang.

19:01So the events at that time I think were crucial and you'd network with people so I'd always see TikTokers. Who was the first influencer or celebrity you met that you were like, oh my God, I've made it? No, Molly May. That was my first ever event. She came up to me and was like, I watch your videos and I was like, I will die now. That is completely fine with me. I remember literally being shocked. um so I'd say that was the first person where I was like oh I am on the 4U page here I reckon but I don't know it's weird because as you go on and you meet more people you're like oh no they are just normal people I remember meeting YouTubers that I'd watched or like people that I'd seen on the telly and I'm just like oh no they're really normal yeah it gets to a point where you're like oh my god then you talk to them and you're like you know that's just them isn't it like it's a weird thing where you don't have the same sort of shock yeah I don't know how to describe it yeah but yeah and so how far into this kind of new TikTok career of yours did you start first of all to make the same amount that you were originally making at your job so for it to kind of be worth having quit your job right well okay so this is a bit of a tricky one because so I had 200k in December and by like April I'd hit a million so like I grew really fast yeah so as soon as I hit a mill I was matching it and then making more so it was a whip but then I wouldn't know if I was like a 500k or whatever how much I'd really be earning because it was such a fast right right right growth but yeah I'd say when I hit a mill I was like right let's go and at what point did you start to think like oh this is actually going to be my career and I might not just be like a when i hit a meal situation easy when i hit a meal because i remember always thinking when i hit a meal i can like relax a bit because i think people take you more seriously when you can when they're like how many followers you got you're like but um and then i remember i hit a meal and i was like it was so anticlimactic i remember sitting there like just hit a meal and then just being like nothing's changed here really yeah so but i'd say for the career wise that was when i was like okay I can probably do this full time okay so at this stage now what is your like dream career to kind of come out of this do you still feel like you're very much at kind of like the early stages of like what this can turn into or do you feel like there's still like a resistance in terms of you being like oh my god now I still need to grow and I'm feeling a bit like it's weird because I'm very I think I'm very self-deprecant I remember saying to my manager I was like I've fallen off I've fallen off now and she was like great you're literally just at the start like I don't know what you're talking about that you've fallen off so I think it's quite easy to get in your own head but I'd love to go on to like presenting my own type series type thing like doing presenting for me is the end goal and but it's funny talking to people in TV they're like everyone's moving over to social media but you talk to people on social media and they're like I just want to be on TV so it's like a weird thing where you don't even know where to go but I'd definitely say TV is where I want to end up and I do feel like I'm at the start yeah I think sometimes it can be difficult when you know when you don't have another job and you're just focusing on what you're doing all you have to think about is right well that didn't get very much views yeah because it's such an up and down job and also because you're self-employed you're like freelancing but like you're going from like there's nothing really to other than views and stuff which also goes up and down and like algorithms change and like trends change and you're other people you know that are getting more followers or let like you know you're constantly comparing yourself to people doing the exact same thing it's stressful have you have you ever found that's like properly affected your mental health I don't know I say sometimes where I'm like I'm quite lucky when my boyfriend now is so good at being like who cares like why do you care blah blah like because I'll sometimes get in these like weird frenzies where I'm like oh my god like I don't have as many followers as then we started off at the same time like they're gonna to get what I want to get before me like just getting in your head about it but then it doesn't actually matter yeah like if we were to all lose our social media accounts right now no one dies does it actually like you yeah but it's also like something I think what we're we have this view because it's like kind of the views talked to us of like social media being a bit stupid and like all of these things like we it's kind of like yeah but if it all blew up like yeah but if your job blew up like would that yeah you know like I'm sure that would be quite like as in that would be quite traumatic on that side too but it's also like something you've worked hugely hard towards in terms of like the direction you're going kind of in terms of like the career you want to build it's been incredibly impressive in the way you've made it like you know I'm sure people your your stories are obviously hilarious and like people will really enjoy watching them and like people will be like oh she's just effortlessly funny it's not effortless to be like really funny to be able to make something out of a situation yeah to be able to like tell it in the perfect way that doesn't have an like doesn't have like an awkward pause or like if there is an awkward pause it's the right amount of length so it doesn't feel like it was an effort and all of these things and I can imagine that like there's been a huge amount of kind of like strategy as well that's had to go into like building that up like you can't just do 10 of the same story times back to back otherwise people are gonna get bored unfollow quickly unfollow yeah yeah I agree it's just I think it's difficult because it's not there's no job like social media really when you're in it because obviously everyone's got all their like issues but it's all different issues I don't know it's just it's so stressful but then again it's also like why are you moaning because you're in such like a privileged position yeah compared to a lot of other people so it's like you feel like you can't really complain yeah what's been your most stressful moment on social media this is so pathetic I'm gonna say it though I remember I just built my Instagram account up to like 230k and you know how hard it is to build an Instagram and I was just about to release my podcast so I was like I need to get a big reach here right I need Instagram account got taken down like a week before my pod launch and I was like no one's gonna see this and it was so stressful because I remember being like oh we've worked really hard to get this podcast out and I just remember being like you know what and I know that's a really pathetic thing to be like that was the worst thing ever but it actually was so stressful because I was like I've worked so hard but yeah that's my pathetic worst moment do you ever fear being cancelled all the time I live in fear day and night but I obviously I know most people everyone has pretty much been cancelled or is going to be cancelled it's just a thing because even when you go through life I feel like you can't not upset someone like sometimes you'll say something and not realise maybe what you've said and it will upset people but it's just a way that you deal with it I feel like yeah because also like obviously there are the things that have absolutely no exception like racism homophobia like all of the like obviously it's going to upset people because it's incredibly upsetting and completely wrong but like with the removing that from like the cancellation conversation because obviously that has to be able to happen and people have to be held to account I think that it's so true that on social media there's like so there's this thing called that I've talked about on this podcast before called context collapse and basically you know when you're telling a story to like your boyfriend versus telling it to your dad versus telling it to your friends you're going to change tiny little things in there so that it's correct for the audience and when you're talking to a million people at once you can't you can't do that and so you're always going to be somewhat upsetting someone or something like it's just not going to land or whatever but the response on social media rather than being like I'm going to scroll past it's often or just be like oh I don't know if you can say that yeah this is this means this it's exactly that and it's kind of this oh you know if your friend said something wrong and you were kind of just saying oh actually do you know you can't say that anymore you don't say it in a way where you don't walk off and slap them around the face exactly and you don't kind of assume the worst and I can understand why people assume the worst of someone on social media because they don't know them well all of this but I do also think a lot of the time there's a jump to that And the thing is, though, on social media, people do actually feel like they know you.

27:11So I think they do get more hurt when you've done something wrong because they're like, oh, we felt like we knew you. Now we don't feel like we know you. And do you ever feel like people are more sensitive to what you say in your comedy versus what maybe a male equivalent might say? yeah there's some videos I've done where I've been like and it's on a female issue as well like so I can point for I have a set of ovaries like I can take a joke out of it but people are like well if this was the other way around like I did a video once being like um there was a guy jogging past my house and I went oh my god there's a hunk in the neighborhood like I've got to get my gym gear on I'm going on a run and I posted it fucking great video banged but people were like if a man did this like people would and I was like men what are you talking about men do do that but I can't take a joke also I would say that the reason that would be an issue if a man did that is because women are literally getting snatched from runs and kills so slightly different than just saying that someone attractive he'd be out as fan being like look at that fat juicy I was just behind a window being like oh he's fit like I haven't acted upon anything and it was a joke but people love to pull that card or people love to be like you can't say or do you know what actually really pisses me off when people message me going the only funny female I've ever met the the only funny the only girl I ever find funny and I'm just thinking first of all what kind of girls you hang around with all the girls I know are hilarious like girls are funny but it's like that backhanded compliment I'm like you haven't got up to a man and gone you're really funny for a bloke do you know what I mean yeah yeah no 100 % and there is definitely like I mean there have been many like past issues in like comedy in general I'd say about like women being found funny and like all of these things it's like haha maybe it's just not for you that's fine like you can sit out but of course like using that in a very kind of backhanded way I can imagine it's kind of like oh fuck off it's just like everyone's you know I just think it doesn't matter if you are a female or male obviously I think there is different types of humours like sometimes men can be like tips yeah like and that's what they find funny and that's fine but like there's different levels to humour I don't think it matters if you're a boy or a girl first of all so we can get some context how long have you and your boyfriend been together solid eight months and he hasn't dumped me yet so really that yeah I don't mean I didn't say really as in like he should really I said really because it's quite fresh yeah no it is really well i've sat here with you for at least half an hour and i'm ready to go it happens yeah no it does yeah i get that reaction a lot so how did you guys meet um at friend's birthday party only straight man there launched myself at him history since a gorgeous thank you story yeah and at this point i assume you'd be on been on social media for a few years yeah but the best thing is he actually didn't really have a clue amazing what like I really was like he'd heard my name and he'd heard his friend to come on my podcast but he was like he'd never watched me and to be honest probably best otherwise we probably wouldn't be together if he'd watched my content beforehand so I'm not sure I'm not sure that's true I am extremely sure and so I want to talk about before that point then because you blew up on social media I can imagine that you were probably trying to date maybe yeah and being a like putting videos out taking the piss out of yourself self-deprecation did you ever felt feel that that kind of like came in the way of your dating life yeah so I'd been single for before my boyfriend now four years so and originally I wanted to be single because I'm at uni I want to have a good time um and I don't want to sit there be like hey babe I'm gonna be home at 10 do you know what I mean jarring so we're single then then I started making my videos whatever and do you know what it is right so if I've I walk into a room and I'm like yeah I've got a flat ass and uh yeah I'm really pound I'm really ugly blah blah so then people have that card to be like yeah you do have a flat ass and look how flat your ass is um so I think boys then would be like yeah you've got a flat ass I'd be like right well I don't want to date you yeah or then when I start yeah that's actually I'm really hurt actually booking Turkey now but then I'd get bigger and I remember once I was speaking to this guy and it was all really fun and then I heard him go to his mate yeah I'm gonna go back there she's got loads of followers if you see how many followers she's got and I was just like like I was like I'm not dating in this while I'm at uni or whatever because you don't know these people's intentions or I don't know I found it really hard to date and then obviously when I my boyfriend now he just didn't get it he was like what so you talk for an hour in a chair like and people listen to it and I was like yes yes yes and you you lucky soul yeah you get it all the time for free I'll send you the invoice after you get the worst part of me yeah I have not a single joke no honestly I feel like my boyfriend's probably thinking I'm not funny at all but it's just because I just give it when I'm out yeah which is so fair enough and so how have you found building a relationship while you're like in the public eye I think it takes I'm very lucky with Bill because he's he's very understanding with it and his friends that we met with were like on TikTok and on Gogglebox so he saw people coming up to them so he didn't find it weird so when people would come up to me he'd be like oh yeah do you want me to take the photo for you and then we just wouldn't address it like it was very easy and he also just gets like when I'm really overwhelmed he just helps me with it but I think it would be difficult if I was dating say if I had this happen when I was with an ex I think they'd be really bitter about it and really jealous about it I don't think it would have gone down well I definitely think it could be tough as like a huge change in a relationship and I also think they think like who do you think you are what people taking pictures of you yeah I mean I definitely don't think that anyone should be with someone that is like cannot believe that other people would love you yeah yeah I think that's probably like a red flag like I do think generally like your partner should think you are like nice enough that other people might also think you're great um but then like also beyond that like if you're in a relationship and something suddenly blows up out of nowhere and then people are kind of like you're suddenly getting all this attention like all of that I can imagine for some people that could be quite like anyone could think that if that happened to their partner they might find that like a little bit intimidating they might find it well I think I'd even struggle with that a little bit yeah and like I think that's kind of fair enough it's the way you're able to like build your relationship around it and build like if you come into a relationship where that's already an existing thing for example like I've been on social media for what like eight years I don't know what it is yeah like eight years now and so actually being you know being able to be like oh I actually do need to be with someone who's like quite comfortable with that and like I'm not gonna put them on there but most people won't date outside of the industry now they're like I'll only date someone in the industry blah blah that's my worst nightmare are you joking god forbid god forbid did you ever have like some in industry romances no and I god forbid um no I'm very even if I did I feel like I'd be like how is this gonna work and also everyone knows your business because everyone in the industry knows quite a lot about everyone so that's not something like I'm quite like Bill will be on my TikToks but he's not always on it we're not a couple TikTok and I'll put what I want of him on there whereas if you're both on it and you split up you probably have to be like guys I just want to say we have split up um no bad blood even though you want to kick each other's head in you have to then tell people about it which I don't really like yeah and so you do talk about your relationship on social media and you show him on social media.

35:03I do, I do. A little bit here and there. Forced him into a few ads as well. A little bit of a teaser when you need a boost of engagement. Yeah, hello, yeah. Anyway, by this. But he's known, but he's not like, I'm not now turning it into where he's in all of my stuff because I really like to keep it private. And old things, so you know when people are like, oh my God, is that GK Barry's boyfriend? Well, I dated GK Barry's boyfriend. Oh, actually, I met GK, and it all comes out and they put it on Twitter and I'm just like, I hate that. do you want to know something wild so you know how like so any time I've been in like a new relationship or like dating someone seriously and I've had to be like just FYI like the reason I don't I don't blast you on my social media first of all because it's not your decision to be on like this but also I don't blast you on there because like people are insane but I will tell you an insane story someone went to none other than like I think it was it was either Cirque or tape the clubs first red flag here yeah we're at the first red flag pretended they were me oh went home with someone no way and slept with them as me i hope they did a good job and then robbed them no way robbed them in the morning this person has a mutual friend with me and obviously messages them and goes you're fucking mate i slept with her last night and robbed me and i I've never told the story before, so I don't know why it suddenly comes out.

36:27This is wild. But I had to tell this in context to my boyfriend being like, this is why we don't. Because someone could come out and be like, I slept with him last night. And I would have, or same with me, and we just have to have the trust to each other. And so robbed him, took his Rolex, took like a number of other things. Brilliant. I then wake up in the morning to a load of calls from this guy I haven't spoken to for years that's like a friend of a friend who's like, I said I'd call you. you slept with my mate last night I think you took his Rolex and this and this and I was like no such chance at home thankfully I was with my boyfriend the night before otherwise god forbid I could have been both accused yeah yeah and and arrested thought I've been cheating as well yeah which you know worse than arrested yeah yeah um and anyway thankfully she accidentally left her ID that is insane and also i'd be really pissed off if she like didn't look anything like you i'd just be like what was the point how did you fall for that you fall anyway i'm blaming him yeah yeah exactly um but exactly like as in exactly that people are wild and i remember telling that story to my boyfriend being like just fyi like as in unless we are married you will not be like all over my so like as yeah i don't show you that much on my social media it's hard though because I'm like I don't want you to feel like I don't want to show you off or anything but it's also like people are insane like they'll go up to his brother on nights out like your brother's dating GK Barrier and his brother's like I just wanted to get a corona at the bar and you're harassing me it is so important to have boundaries and especially like with something like that it's I see a lot of people who are newer to the industry where it's like of course you're going to have a boost in your content if you are showing that and so you get the reward of that but it's so easy for it to end up coming back to bite you.

38:15And you're also, a lot of the times, maybe you'll end up breaking up over it, the stress of it. Or sometimes they'll be like, well, I think I'm going to start now. And I'm like, no, this isn't like what I, we're not being a couple's, like this isn't going to happen. Has he ever said that? No, thankfully he's like, I would rather die than end up on TikTok. Than do your career. Yeah, and I'm like, fair play. And actually, that's hot. Thank you for saying that. But yeah, no, he's never, he would just, He doesn't mind being in the videos, but he'd never want more than that. And how did your friends find it when you started blowing up?

38:47My friend, the one closest to me, my friend Tapp, we lived together when it was happening. And she was like, not to be rude, but I genuinely just thought it would just fizzle out. She was like, I really didn't think this would be a career. I thought, you know, we'd go back. And now she's just like, everyone's just like, what? They are confused. but like when I first started getting recognised at uni I'd already been at uni with these people for three years and people were like oh my god and they'd literally be like what are you talking about like I've lived with her for three years what are you screaming about like they were so baffled by the entire thing you did that show with Foot Asylum oh Jesus I did yeah we lived in a house for two weeks no phone no dignity you were allowed a vape that's off topic and just you just had to live with each other basically big brother but on youtube we're foot asylums you get to wear their clothes which actually is a bit more of a bargain to be honest so you go into this house it's kind of like love island without the love in the middle of nowhere as well in the middle of nowhere oh yeah if there was love in that house i don't know who it would have been with but it was not me it was not she um and how was that experience it was honestly well so I actually I remember before I was having nightmares and crying every night before it because I'd never done anything like this before and I was also like oh we're literally filmed 24 hours a day so like I don't know how I want to deal with that and I didn't know anyone that was going apart from Chip so I was really oh okay but I was really overwhelmed but I went in it was really fun but I have to say my anxiety levels have never been that high in my entire life like you'd have to do challenges and it was just so intense and it doesn't look intense but it's intense and and yeah and you had to those people in there that you wouldn't want to live with or even really deal with on the outside you know like realistically we're not gonna be friends on the outside but you had to live with them were you glad you did the experience in the end yeah I feel like it's something that I could tickle because I always wanted to do big brother but big brother's like six weeks um so I was like this will ease me in and it was fun like I made lots of friends in there but it was like just so I didn't realize how much of a recluse I am until I went in that house like I love being by myself and did you feel a lot of pressure to like be able to be obviously you're you're funny you're welcome thank you but as part of like what you're putting on social media it has to be like part of an act like you're putting it on for that minute that you're talking and it's go and you're able to kind of like think about your story and all of that like it's harder to be like if you have a sad moment no one wants to see gk barry oh my god yes no one wants to see your feelings yeah keep it yourself you're a girl's don't cry and nothing else but like when i went in you'll see there's clips of it when i first went in i was cracking jokes i was like yeah if i can do anything i'm gonna use that now i'm not like i was whatever and then i was surrounded any jokes in advance no but i remember thinking right like if there's like if there's this maybe I'll say this blah blah but like I went in and then all the other people came in and they're such big personalities I remember on the third day being like I've got to go home because I've actually got to go because I'm not actually funny because the people around me were so funny I was like I'm not funny like I was having this whole crisis being like oh my god like I am not going to be perceived well had a cry had multiple cries actually but the team were really good it was very intense but once you settled in i was fine but it took a while to settle in and the lights are so bright no one tells you this when you go to sleep it's just lights and you're just like when you go to sleep yeah there's like the living room is like lit up and i'm just like why can't they use nightcap no budget they do actually but they also need a bit of light apparently you don't have to turn it off so yeah i wonder if they do that in love island too yeah they do there's still like a little bit of light it's not pitch black apparently were you not in this relationship would you consider going on love island uh funnily enough when I first joined my management they were like what do you want and I was like my end goal is like the cheek of me my end goal is love island really I only want to do love island got a call for it I was like thank you god not even religious but I was ready to turn into a jehovah's there I was like I'm ready to give my life had the interview told them I spoke about chlamydia online never got back to me but it was a blessing because now I think what what was the goal there Grace like because also I think no shade or anything whatever but you're always stained with the love island stain and I want to go on to do like other stuff and sometimes you don't have that opportunity because they're like that's just a love islander yeah I mean like I can't describe not sounding horrible but you do have the stain yeah and I mean I think to some extent like as in that's still like very much like worth it for you know some careers but I also think like you've worked for years to build up the platform that you have now yeah people absolutely work hard for years after Love Island to build up that platform into something that's like you know huge yeah go on but like in terms of like that you've that would never be recognized as a platform you built again this is what i'm saying i don't know whether that's just me being like very like fyi yeah yeah i built this myself but this is what i mean like you could do so much like molly may has done so much of her life she achieved so much but people are still like yeah well she only got that because she went on a island right despite the discrepancy yeah and i was like well you know probably did help her yeah but like also I feel like I don't know I just want to be taken seriously so I'm glad that I didn't do that but also holiday for six weeks whatever and do you feel ever like because you're I guess because the subject is very much like comedic do you feel like you're ever not taken seriously like when you go into the rooms to start like discussing the deals or looking at like where your career might be going I would say I just am intimidated in like professional settings because I've never really been in situations like that before so I don't really know how to react which is obviously where my manager comes in and she's like right so yeah I know people don't take me seriously but they will after they've worked with me is the situation there and do you ever get like imposter syndrome in the types of situations that you're in yeah I don't even know why I'm here today do you know what I mean like I'm like okay well I don't know either um yeah I always get that I'm just like this is so weird but then again I'm also like no because I knew I wanted to do this but it's also like sometimes I'm doing things I'm like how on earth has this why has this happened I don't have a clue obviously very grateful but sometimes it's just like I can't believe this happened yeah and is there anything that you do to kind of like help yourself get over that or like realize being like you're here because you made it here no actually it's just my boyfriend that has to and my manager like sometimes I don't and they're like yeah because you are funny like they have to remind me like you are here for a reason but if I'm on my own yeah I wouldn't have a clue I just don't know we have a mental break yeah and I'm sure there is part of the like what people say about like influencers or people who create content being like oh you know all of the kind of like talent type stuff yeah it's like well of course sure the talent might not be something you recognize as like me being able to paint for example because i can't yeah but like actually because i can't like cut open a brain and name all of it doesn't mean i don't have a talent thank you thank you and i think that should be your subtitle like your little tagline i'd like to know what your biggest surprise about like the influencer industry and your now career as an influencer has been all of the people like if watching this like the people that you watch on YouTube the people on telly everyone is just normal and if I would meet Johnny Depp tomorrow I would ask to go over his knee but I also he probably would just be a really normal person so that's what I've learned don't get starstruck by people don't unless it's Johnny Depp yeah thank you so much for coming thanks for having me we've absolutely loved having you loved hearing about your career and loved having your funnies thank you