Here's what Disney Channel made me say.
When you work for a network,
you are an employee of that network.
So whether you're a young person or old person, whatever,
you kind of have to learn
how to speak on behalf of the projects that you have to promote
when you promote things that's in your contract .
I'm actually super grateful that Disney media trained me
because I can go toe to toe with hard hitting people
and I can sort of hold my own in an interview.
Recently, I had somebody come from New York to interview me,
and they would just not stop asking me questions.
And it was like a really intense interview
and I was happy that the person cared so much.
But I also kind of felt by the end of it, like depleted
from using everything that I learned
from being a media trained actor, having to sort of deflect or defend.
Now that being said, I'm not covering for anything.
Who I am is genuinely who I am.
But you do have media training for a reason.
OK, so for example, we can't just have kids out there
just like speaking nonsensical things that have nothing to do with whatever
they're promoting when it comes to, you know, Disney or whatever .
If that's what they're promoting, they need to stay on target
with specific things.
But I'll tell you,
as a kid, it's kind of like daunting the kind of sit you down.
And they kind of have like a specific
I don't know if they do it now digitally,
but the way that they used to do it was, they kind of
had their head of press come with all the kids,
and they would have the kids kind of sit down
that were involved in a particular project
and they would have like a printout or something.
And they would kind of teach you how to speak about certain things,
and they would drill
the certain things that you needed to mention in the interview about.
Basically, you would be primed
as a young person to know what was acceptable to talk about
so that you didn't sort of violate the tone of, you know, the interview.
However, I will say this.
So Disney is very good
at priming the journalists before they come in to talk to you.
So they're not going to just like, ask you things that are super rude.
I can't really remember a time where a journalist asked me anything
all that scolding or weird or inappropriate for the most part.
Everything was sort of done very much to code.
If you want to call it that, you know, nowadays Disney has,
I believe, a program for the young people
that are new to the network and they go through the program
to kind of understand what it means to be sort of a now a public person.
And I gotta figure that the kids that they're hiring are already actors
and have already had Instagram accounts.
You know, some of them are just
actual influencers and already know the deal.
But for the ones that are kind of new to it,
it's got to be extremely daunting because we didn't even have social
media accounts to have.
There is what I started.
There was no Facebook,
so we're talking about the evolution in that many years.
And it's fascinating because it directly affects everything
that that little actor will go and do in their lives
So yeah, there's a lot of pressure for the young people
to immediately achieve an esthetic.
And I've seen online this kind of joke going around
where it's like, Well, this was me at 16 right people around my age
and in their thirties, millennials and whatnot.
And they're like, Well, this was me at 15, this was me at 14.
And look, this is Addison Rae or like, this is, you know, this influencer
and then how different they are looking and dancing and talking.
And there is sadly a loss of innocence there.
I do feel like in order to achieve the esthetic,
to make the money, it's such a streamlined way of selling out
and branding yourself that yes, it may seem authentic,
but it's completely authentically pulled together at an age
when you're supposed to sort of be experimenting with things.
And I mean, look, you're not supposed to be canceled
when you're like 14 because you are super duper vegan.
And then when you turn 20, you decide to like
be a spokesperson for some like cow brand or I don't know,
you know what I'm saying, like, you're not supposed to be canceled.
And that's the problem with cancel culture is that I think eventually
it's going to cancel itself out, at least in these superficial sense,
the sense of it that's kind of gotten away
from the reason for cancel culture and the movement
that helped victims of abuse sort of out their abusers.
There is definitely issues there.
And so like when they're trying.
To achieve the esthetic, they're also trying to stand for something,
and that's got to be extremely anxiety inducing for them to sort of
put themselves out there when they themselves are just learning
the vocabulary of what it means that they're passionate
about, like things that they actually take interest in.
And that's going to be changing every day.
And, you know, I had a hard time understanding
what I was passionate about, and I feel like I lacked a point of view
and because of lacking a point of view even throughout my 16, 17, 18 year
old self, because I lack the point of view,
I felt like it really hurt me in the business.
It's not because I lacked a work ethic or vision or talent.
It's mostly because I was young and I was learning about myself,
and I probably wasn't journaling as much as
I should have to get to know myself.
It's funny my 20 year old nephew, he's a real sweetheart.
He was staying with me a little bit ago.
I was curious.
I was like, So what is it like for you?
Like, what is social media like for you?
And he's like, My life goes by so fast.
And also, just like dating is online and like how you present
yourself to meet people is all online.
And I'm super blessed that I did not have to go that route,
and that would have been super awkward
for me to pop up on somebody's Tinder page.
This is how people are meeting each other, and it's kind of sad because
there's an entire generation of people that exclusively meet online.
That's a problem.
And then there's that absence of intimacy,
and there's that absence of actually getting to know one another.
There's been tests done
that are saying that,
you know, children and younger generations are less sexually active.
They're a little bit more immature into older age ranges
because they're so used to not seeing each other
and being on their phones and stuff like that .
And I think it does kind of speak to that is that it's a digital age
and people don't know how to connect unless it's online sometimes.
Specifically kids, think about a regular kid
who's watching like an actor kid on a big show and they hear them
promoting the show or they hear them promoting the product.
They will do whatever that kid says.
I can only imagine that fans are so much more manically loyal
to their people they idolize and people they they look up to you.
I'm super blessed, though I will say this much for the people
that I know who are fans of mine because when they meet me,
it's as if they revert back to when they were a kid.
And so even if we're in our thirties or whatever,
I can tell that they used to watch me, they when they were like eight,
ten years old and they just kind of go right back to that mentally
and they connect with me, like on that level, like,
that's how deep it goes.
But that being said,
I have the sweetest fans because they're so sweet.
They are children, essentially when they see me
and they're respectful and they're kind, and I have very few fans,
if you would call them fans who are kind of off colored
or kind of come at me in a sort of aggressive way or whatever.
In general, people are very kind, and I just love that,
and I feel like there's a bond there that I would never want to disappoint.
So generally, like if people are coming up to me,
they're basically my family.
I think that something that the Disney Channel really does try to harvest
is that feeling of look like, you know, your work
with Disney and kids are the people that are going to be your fans.
And if you come up to them, be nice.
I don't think they send the
message of like, Nah, you know, don't be nice to the kids.
I think it's something that is rewarded.
If you are an actor who is good to your fans,
that is observed by everybody on the executive side,
if you're sort of a negative, weird sort of unapproachable kid.
I do think that they take notice
of that because it's hard for them to want to back you and to promote you
if they know that you're not going to be playing the game, essentially.
But I, you know, it's different for everybody, right?
Like, I really have always been somebody
I know all the people that have been really great
to their fans that I work with.
Raven, Hillary, Shia loved their fans, absolutely love their fans
and they were so good to them.
And I feel like if you come up to them,
all of them will be super gracious. When there is a scandal.
That's when I believe the media training really comes in for you
because a lot of times people will come
and ask me about Shia, or they'll ask me about,
you know, whoever, and I'll be like, Yeah , you know what?
Like, I really do mean
the best I've had to verify for a very long time, kind of like,
keep my opinions to myself because of my relationship to Disney,
and I never really wanted to violate it.
But what I'm finding interesting and liberating about being able
to talk about my life is that I'm not really saying anything that bad.
Just because I have an opinion doesn't make it a hostile one.
I think you're allowed to kind of just chat about your experiences
so that you can get some perspective and then maybe you help people
have a little bit more perspective on their life too.
Media training is really cool.
I guess some people could be like, Oh, it's brainwashing,
it's not brainwashing.
I think what it's doing is that it's going to help these kids
understand what it means to be better public people,
because let's face it, once you become the face of a network.
You're never going to be private again.
Your life will always be monitored.
People will always know who you are and they always
will try to have an opinion about you.
So you should try to wield
the power as quickly as possible and understand
not only what your brand is, but what you have to say about it.
And that's that's hopefully going to help somebody.
I'm not sure who yet, but yeah, I hope that helps.
if they can prove to studios and agents
and if they can prove to brands, perfume companies,
makeup companies that they have this like sense of style and the esthetic.