Here's how I became superficial.
So for as long as I can
remember, my image has been something I've had to talk about.
Having a brand, you can't take away the concept of image
when it comes to brand, it's like they go hand in hand.
But when you are the brand, your name is literally the same as,
you know, actually, there's this useful exercise that I did have
in acting class where the teacher was like,
the reason why people have stage names
is so that they can divorce themselves
from the idea of their lives being the product.
He's like, if I am a person that has like a coke can,
and he set it down on like a stool, he's like, That's what I'm selling.
But if it's you selling you, then how do you divorce yourself from that?
It's very difficult.
So that's why they say that people have these stage names.
I've had a name. I've had three names Christy Carlson Romano.
There were times in my life when I really tried to divorce myself
from having those names.
I actually went by Christy Romano.
Sometimes if you look on my IMDb, you can see there's like a good three
year period where everything says that I'm listed as Christy Romano.
I'm a lot better
at accepting the three names now, but for a while I hated it.
I hated what it represented.
I thought that it made me feel childish and stuck in the past,
and that there was no power in the name.
And I kind of took it back and thought to myself, Oh, you know, like
I remember Debbie Gibson went by Deborah Gibson,
and it was like, this big move for her to like,
change the name and to reclaim her power from her past.
And so I was like, Well, I'll just go Christy Romano
and then whatever I do, that's just who I am.
That's my name. So a little backstory.
Carlson is actually my mom's maiden name,
and she felt like we could use it and that it would be a better name.
And eventually, if I ever wanted to drop the Romano, I could.
And there's another actress, though ironically named Christy Carlson,
and she was on Nip Tuck, and she's a beautiful, svelte actress
that does lots of stuff and she's great.
But I was stuck with either being the CCR that people
kind of gave me this kind of little like acronym or Christy Romano.
I did not like the acronym for a very, very long time.
I was sort of stuck
with looking at myself and being like, I'm not happy with who I am.
I want to be so many other things I want,
and I've actually had to struggle with this my whole life.
I've never really been able to fully live in my body until I became a mom.
I'm not saying go out and have a kid, but I for me,
that was my access point of being in my body.
I think that the world kind of assumes that you're superficial.
So the definition of superficial is that it is not deep.
It is not truthful.
After looking at something more closely, that is so much of what
we do as actors, as public people,
as brands, as pretty much everybody with an Instagram account
or anybody with any kind of a social media following,
we all put our best foot forward and we love to show our happy
times are celebrations.
But then the celebrations become currency and people
start to see you as being better than because you have a better life,
a better spouse,
you have a better budget for your lifestyle and all that stuff.
And of course,
now we all know that so much of that is sponsored,
and that's something that even the actors
have been dealing with for a long time.
You know, they show up in places and have all these like fancy outfits
and bags and stuff like that, and it's all been given to them by
brands like The Big Stars and like you'll hear
about gifting suites during the awards seasons
and like Cadillac, will gift a car to like some A-list celebrity
and they'll be giving out cars to people.
It's like these people already have enough money.
They don't need free stuff, but they get it.
And then sometimes they make people endorse
maybe there's like some stipulations
with if you get the car you have to post.
But I feel like that's not how it's really done with A-listers.
They just want to say, Well, we just gave a Cadillac to Angelina
Jolie the other day. So that's who we are.
Where Cadillac, we're in the arms of everybody.
And so for them, it's just like the bragging rights and
that is most certainly a currency when it comes to image.
We are dealing with that on our phones, in our hands
now, and it's absolutely not governed and superficialness
is something that you almost cannot escape from.
It's almost like its own pandemic because, like I said, kids are
obsessed with it to the point where they're getting super depressed,
losing their lives really, really horrible.
And so like, I'm a parent of two girls.
Like, how do I explain to my kids, how do I tell my kids not to utilize
social media, how do we do that? I'm in a very uniquely effed up
situation to tell them, you can't do what I do.
I'm even on the phone as like I'm with them during the day.
Like it happens that you're on your phone.
And some of the time my husband and I try to keep each other accountable
or he'll like razz me and be like, Hey, you're on Tik Tok right now,
like too much.
And I'm like, But I'm actually doing something
for a sponsor deal or I'm doing something for work.
So it is a very strange gray area.
What I can tell you is superficiality can either
you can either use it as a tool or you can be eaten up by it.
I'm not sure that
there's a way of escaping it if you're going to have
any kind of an online footprint.
I think that you can use social media responsibly.
There's, you know, there's certain apps that you can use
that will turn it off for you for certain hours of the day,
but you'll still be served so many ads you'll still be served anything
even on like your safari or Chrome, your main web
browser like it will find you, it will find you.
I don't know how you're going to be able
to work your job unless it's in the service industry
or something that requires you to be on your feet out and about.
And if you're on the computer at all, somehow
you will be served ads even when you're checking your emails.
You'll be having notifications on your phone.
There's an amazing documentary if you haven't seen it yet
called The Social Dilemma.
And after I saw that, I literally privatized my daughter's accounts.
I started to try to take a step back from
becoming more of a social presence and started to try to just
clamp down on, Hey, like, if I'm going to be online,
I have to make it intentional, and I have to know that this isn't
like just my lifestyle that I'm totally selling.
It's a value.
There has to be a value to the content that you make in order to A) even
have anybody interested in seeing it and B) just in general
being an authentic person.
You do have a sense of responsibility when you start making content
that creeps in and like kind of eats at you, it's
like you got to do more than just, you know, take pretty pictures
and show your lifestyle and be superficial.
So I think for a long time, body image was a big concern for me
when I was younger, like when I was kind
of struggling with my brand and not really understanding
what it meant to kind of like, just be an authentic brand.
So like, I changed my hair color in one year, like three or four times.
I don't know something crazy.
So I was freaking out because I wasn't booking enough work in my mind.
And so I thought to myself, Well, I need to be redhead.
I need to try to maybe go red
because that'll make me kind of just be a little different.
And then I was like, Wait, I should just go blond.
If I go blond, that's going to be something
that's going to help me bookwork, because in my mind,
it was always down to me and a blond.
You know, when people are close to getting a job
in the entertainment industry,
they will have different looks that they want to bring to the director
and they'll be like, This is one choice,
and then this is another choice.
And nowadays it's a lot more inclusive.
So you almost have to just be like
the best person will get the job before.
It was a lot more like, this is the blond option
and this is the brunet option.
And I in my mind was always like, I can't stand being the brunet option.
And so for the longest time, I had this really strange psychosis,
this superficial psychosis of needing to be a blond thinking
to myself that I was not good enough just because of my hair color.
It got out of hand.
Let me just tell you it got out of hand.
And finally, I dyed my hair blond, probably the dumbest choice
that I could have made because it just wasn't me.
I did it out of like a desperate choice to, like, be seen
anything that you're doing.
Like, as sort of like almost like its own
publicity stunt, it has to have intention.
And I don't think that had much intention.
It was more just compulsive.
And then, of course,
my hair
was like super dry for a long time, and you have to rehab from the choices
that you make. That wasn't for me.
I ended up going super dark after that and then I was black.
And so then because my hair was super black, I wanted to act edgy
and I wanted to, like, be edgy and like stupid things
you do when you're valuing your image.
Way too much.
My image dictated how I
acted and people's perception of my image or what I thought.
Their perception of my image was held me in this
what I've always called a narcissistic purgatory where you're stuck
being obsessed with yourself because it's how you make your living.
Or so you think. Your best bet is to be authentically you.
And I know that a ton of people will tell you this, but it actually
is really the best investment and best advice you can possibly get.
first of all, work on your confidence.
OK, because like, I obviously had to work on my confidence.
If you have confidence in who you are, you won't fall victim
to having to, like, struggle as much with your brand
because you'll understand the principles of what you're about.
Who you are.
What you're ”why” is.
A lot of times people are like, well, what's your why?
For me, I have several whys. I'm a mom.
I love nostalgic stuff, and that's OK because I have a unique tie in to it.
I don't know.
There's just a lot for me to kind of boil down and say, this is who I am.
But when I was younger, I didn't really stand for much
and I didn't really know what was OK to talk about.
I was scared a lot of times.
The biggest gift you can give to yourself is authenticity.
So find it and then use it to your advantage.