On creativity and curiosity – a conversation with Rachel Nguyen

Rachel Nguyen has been a woman on the internet since she was just a girl on the internet. She helped make fashion blogging a thing – creating “That’s Chic” back in 2007 when she was still just in high school. Since then she’s captured hearts on YouTube, started a Slack community called Warde, and more recently began teaching a video creator course for ilovecreatives. The first part of her course focuses on the creative process and helps students to understand what they uniquely have to offer. “It’s fun for me to see what’s hiding beneath all the societal grime – the shame, or the policing of our creativity before it comes out.” 

When talking with Rachel, you get the sense that wiping away “societal grime” is a way of life for her. She gives herself space to step back and see the bigger picture. Time to process. Permission to follow her curiosities, make mistakes, and take unexpected career turns. She wants to know who she is – but doesn’t get too attached to that image. Things haven’t always gone perfectly, but whatever happens, Rachel’s very good at following her own lead. 

Her path is not to be taken as a blueprint, but her experience does hold clues for anyone hoping to sustain a long career online – one that explores all the internet has to offer without losing oneself in the process. 

Read on or listen to my conversation with Rachel (with a brief but poignant appearance from Jordan : )

Ford Blitzer: I want to talk to you today about creativity and curiosity and how to be a human being on the internet. 

Rachel Nguyen: I love it.

Ford: I was thinking about this theory from a philosopher named Marshall McLuhan, and basically the theory is: technology numbs the thing that it amplifies. For example, a Google map is going to help us go places we would have never been able to go, but it's also going to numb our sense of spatial awareness, in a way. Or a car can take us places really fast – but we lose the walker's connection to their surroundings.

Rachel: Right, there’s such a duality. 

Ford: Yeah. So when you look at creativity through that lens, I think it's similar - we're living in a world where it's easier than ever to create and to share what you've created, but also, we're a bit alienated from our connection to the personal source of creativity that lives deep within us. Maybe it's because we're focusing on what other people are creating, or numbers, or whatever. 

All that is to say, it made me think of you because you teach creativity and you have a course on creative process, and I think that learning creativity — for us as a culture right now — is probably one of the most important things for us to learn and connect to. So I just wanted to start by having you talk about what it means to protect creativity on the internet and why that's important for you personally.

Rachel: I feel like creativity is one of the things that makes humans actually human, so it's almost like reframing it — how do we protect our humanity, when everything's become digitized? And even our decision-making has almost this algorithmic quality to it. It's so easy to judge and complain and point fingers at the system and the environment we are all kind of forced to operate in. But it's so hard to escape the digitizing of everything. There's such beauty and progress in what technology has offered but yes, with that, too, there's that underbelly… the darker side, where you gain one thing, but you lose the other. But the humanity of it is being able to hold both truths and knowing that they can both exist at once.

Ford: Yeah, there are all these issues, but it's also not going away, so, how do you have a productive relationship with all this stuff?

Rachel: I hang out with a lot of Internet people and I'm very plugged in and online. But actually, last year was one of my most offline years. It was the first year I permissed myself that I didn't owe anyone anything digitally. Because I've created such a long extension of my life, where I was sharing myself and I loved doing it — I had to basically un-fuck my brain and just tell myself — I don’t owe anyone anything anymore. I'm just going to see what it's like to live.

Ford: Do you feel like that helped protect your personal sense of creativity?

Rachel: When we have experiences — real, tangible life experiences — that we're able to chase because of curiosity, it then lends a story that's actually worth telling online because it's a lived experience, versus like, oh, these are all inspirations that I have of like, the idea of something. Like gorpcore being an aesthetic now — I have the idea of what it's like to be hiking. I know the cool stuff to wear. I know the cool kids who do it. I know the cool Instagram places to do it. But yet, it's still deviated from connection. For example, this whole outdoors idea, I think a lot of people are really interested in that right now. Like, oh, I wanna go offline. But the problem is they're pulling nuggets from what they do find online and are curating this offline experience based on the brands that they're finding. And it actually loses its power because it didn't come from a true curiosity that stemmed from like okay, without anyone telling me anything, I have an idea of this place that I want to go to and I’m going to figure out what that place looks like, I'm gonna figure out if it exists, how to get there, what I need to wear to get there, [and] come to all these decisions on my own based on all the curiosities that I have.

I mean, this can be applied in so many different ways. It’s the same as someone asking, what camera do you use? I love your photos. I want to take photos like that. It cheapens it — sharing all this information online. Because chasing the curiosity is like, oh, I found this camera in a bookstore and figured out how to use it in a certain way. And then through a series of trial and error, this photographer has made a craft and an aesthetic that now someone looks at it and is like, oh, what camera is that? I'm gonna use it. But they didn't actually go through the journey of finding it. And that's what's lacking right now.

Ford: Yeah, I think that's such a good point. What's so satisfying about really exerting true creative energy is that journey — when you feel like you stumbled upon this thing, and then you stumbled upon that thing, and you made a connection — a unique connection — between those two disparate things, and on and on and on. I think the thing that you influence is for people to go out and get that for themselves, versus, go get your camera, or make a video like you.

Rachel: I think for a part of my creative journey, I was kind of gatekeeping my shit. But then I realized, if your craft and what you put out is really that good and unique and there's a point of view, there's no replicating anything that anyone does that's unique. 

Ford: That brings me to another feeling I get when I interact with your stuff on the internet, which is that I don't get a performative vibe. I don't know if it's maybe because you've been online — a woman online — for so long, or maybe it's a personality thing, you tell me. But we’re all unique human beings. So if you exist online as you, that's inherently unique — like if you can figure out how to just show yourself. Do you feel like you've always had that? Or is it because you're used to it? 

Rachel: No, and I love this question because I'm gonna love answering this. I've been thinking a lot about the journey to oneself — it’s the root of our own humanity. It's the root of our creativity… How do we return back to the things that we like, without the influence of literally anything else? And I think when I talk about being authentic and having the best version of yourself come forth because you're so authentic — that's so much work. And I want to be careful with it. Because I don't want it to sound like this toxic… authentic thing…

Ford: “Toxic authenticity” is really funny, but it’s so true — it’s not possible!

Rachel: It's not possible… It's literally in our human nature to be influenced and inspired by things and each other, and that's amazing and wonderful and that's what we should all be mindful of. But it just gets to a point where, when we intake so much, have we paused to have comprehension of what we've understood and taken in? It's like reading a book — after you read it, if you just jump onto the next one, without sitting down and thinking about, how did that touch me? How did that feel? How does that sit with me? How do I talk about it with someone else? Most of the time when you read — like in a book club, everyone reads the same book and everyone has a different takeaway and different things that inspired them. And it's so important to sit with that. Otherwise, we're just constantly intaking and we become this empty vessel. It's nice to close it off and just take inventory of like, what am I taking in? What do I like? What do I not like? And I think that's the part of how to, kind of, come back to being authentic. I've had to learn this practice because it's so easy to lose yourself. I lose myself quite often, actually. And I guess those are the times that I know I'm not in the headspace to be posting anything. Even the question of like — it's an absolute necessity to be posting online. I just don't think that's true. Take away the idea that we have to share anything because now, we're just all trying to share for sharing sake. And I think if we eliminate that fact, kind of like what I did last year… Like, I'm gonna eliminate the fact that anything is expected of me online. I can consume but maybe I don't want to contribute, and that's okay. I think knowing that has helped me personally be like, alright, the things I want to share are moments that I've already documented for myself. I don't approach taking photos or taking videos with the idea of shooting so it can look good on my feed. I've done a pretty good job at un-fucking that part of my brain even though that used to be there.

Ford: So, if you put content out there it's because you naturally wanted to capture that stuff, and then you make it into something?

Rachel: Yeah.

Ford: You're just like, I'm doing it for myself. 

Rachel: Literally.

Ford: But you clearly care about — I mean, you teach, you have a YouTube, people are following you – so you must care. 

Rachel: I do care. If people care, I care. Do I care if someone's complaining? I can't match that. But if someone wants to understand how to get back in touch with themselves because they have something to say, that's really fun for me to try to get that out of them and understand what's hiding beneath all the societal grime of shame, or of policing our creativity before it comes out. We can be our own enemies. Society can be our own enemy. The future idea of perception is our own enemy. There's so many things that can hold us back. And with a lot of problems — acknowledging that that exists first, and really being okay and letting that pass and being like, okay – if I put something out there it's going to be judged. If I just tell myself that and know that, then suddenly, it makes it okay because I've prepared myself for that. Versus trying to convince myself, if I put this out there, if it's good enough, maybe it won't be judged. You know, but then I'm just telling myself a lie. 

Ford: Totally.

Jordan: How did you un-fuck yourself — as someone who I feel like is fucked, trying not to get so fucked, but is still fucked?

Rachel: I definitely know during the pandemic, that's when I really was like, fuck this place… Fuck the internet. That's when I really felt it and really got to move forward with it. I've had a few moments when I got to un-fuck my brain. One of the first times was starting my YouTube channel in 2013. Wow, that's like 10 years ago… Oh, god, that's crazy. Yeah, I started in 2013 but before then I had the blog. So I had this whole practice already, where I had a following and I was taking money from brands. And gosh, this sounds so lame — but I was 23 navigating a new world — if someone came up to me and was like, oh my God I read your blog, I would immediately dismiss this comment and not even see this person consuming me, as like, human. I'm just like, oh, it's a follower, I am me and you are you and we are not gonna… I had this thing up. And then I was like, you know what, I don't like that. So then I started my YouTube channel, and I was like, I am here to be raw. Because at the time the internet and influencer zeitgeist was to take photos on a nice backdrop with a DSLR.

Ford: When you say you wanted to be raw, did that make you feel like you took down a layer between you and that follower that you were just talking about? 

Rachel: Yeah.

Ford: Or – you wanted to break down the barriers? 

Rachel: I wanted to break down the barrier, and I feel like I did. After that I came in with a different energy. Then I started really having conversations with people in the comment section. It wasn't like I was just allowing and receiving without giving back. I was like, Oh, this is a communal thing. 

Then fast forward a couple years, I got sick of YouTube. And then I was like, I want to start a community - a place where people can actually talk because I can see everyone talking in the comment section and everyone has such great things to say. So I started Warde and that was another moment I un-fucked my brain about that.

Ford: Just so people know — Warde is a Slack community, and that's a messaging platform for people who don't know… So not to cut you off, but this was one of the questions I had for you. Because actually, in looking at your ilovecreatives course page, I was looking at the testimonials of people who had taken the course, and the thread was that they felt a lot of support and community and connection in that space. And I was thinking — between starting Warde, and now you're teaching — it just feels like you're progressively inching closer and closer to that person who follows you. 

Rachel: Aw, that’s really sweet. I never thought of that.

Ford: I mean, it doesn't seem like a coincidence — you must be consciously or unconsciously wanting more of a connection there.

Rachel: For sure. That's a really acute observation… Once [I] get too deep into a set of ways, I'm like, wait a second, am I happy? Once again, that moment to check in with myself. Am I doing the things that make me happy? And if not, I need to eliminate that, and I'm sure I'll figure something else out. But I gotta eliminate what I'm doing first because it's taking up so much space and energy that is not — literally — doing anything for me.

Ford: We were kind of talking about this yesterday — this idea of investing in a platform versus investing in yourself. You might have a lot of success on a platform, but after a certain amount of time it might not be helping you invest in yourself anymore… TikTok is really big, but maybe TikTok doesn't make you feel like you're growing or learning or developing your unique skills. And so why would we want people to invest all their energy trying to figure out how TikTok works when we'd rather them focus their energy on the thing they actually care about?

Rachel: Totally.

Ford: I think it's a little bit hard to un-fuck your brain on that stuff these days because we're so focused on these platforms and how they can benefit us.

Rachel: Totally. This is the whole conversation of balance, right? Or being authentic to myself… It’s like, I am so grateful that I've been able to be this untethered, ethereal human, just wandering the world and getting to teach a little bit. And having all these new downloads of like, oh, this is how I want to feel. But then, I also need to work. I need to make money. I need to keep making because otherwise I'm on the other spectrum, even though it's offline — just intaking everything without actually activating the inspiration. And this is something I tell the students — there's no scarcity of ideas, there's no scarcity of inspiration. The hardest thing is that we actually are way too inspired now, and we don't give ourselves the time to digest or metabolize our inspiration enough to know what to do with it, that actually ends up becoming our own thing. And the practice of making something for ourselves is also the practice of trusting ourselves again and trusting our creative decisions — which is the momentum needed to have work that feels authentic to a person. 

Ford: Before we go too long without talking about it — your course on ilovecreatives – which is, I think, such a fun, human, cool platform. So people should check it out. But what would you want people to know about what you do there and what they could expect if they wanted to take it?

Rachel: My video creator course is its own really unique thing. And I think a lot of students get confused when they take the course, too. People are like, Oh, I'm gonna learn how to make a video. But then I'm like, anyone can make a video — a video can look literally any which way because it's so dynamic. You can splash things into a timeline and export it, and it's a video. But why does it matter? Why are you making the thing? What's the thing you're trying to say? 

So the first part of the course is super introspective. It's like, who are you? What do you like? What is missing in this world? Because I think that's always a good prompt for anyone who's trying to make anything — to make the thing that they want to see. It's so easy for people to point fingers, like, there's not enough inclusivity, there's not enough this and that, but are you doing the thing? Or are you waiting for your environment to provide it for you? We are responsible for our own creation and feelings and environment and that also includes what we're putting out in the world because that is our service to the community. So I think storytelling — self-storytelling — is so important because it's what keeps our world feeling diverse and dynamic and understood. It makes us feel a little bit less alone when we can see our stories play out in front of us — and little similar stories from a bunch of different people. 

I think that's what's so cool about the course — especially in digital retreat where we are taking a course for eight weeks together — so this is where I'm teaching in live-time with the students and I’m workshopping with them every week — it's really cool to see students go through this process of like, oh, shit, well, fuck, I haven't actually thought about what I want to make, I just want to make something cool. I'm like, well, making something cool is not gonna – to be honest – do anything for you. Like, you can watch something that's cool, but why it's cool is because that person who made it — they did it from their heart. And that's why you like it. But like, you can never recreate that. So what can you create that is cool? Because you are cool. You are your own unique person with your own unique experience. And no matter how boring you think you are, in actuality, there's something so unique about everyone. 

Ford: Yeah.

Rachel: So long as people are interested. I think interested people are interesting. If you have hobbies, I want to hear about the hobbies. And we have this exercise about blending perspectives — what if that hobby mixes in with this aesthetic that you like? And suddenly, wham, you have a completely new, unique perspective. It's like, seeing students progress and shifting their mindset from trying to make a cool video to just enjoying the process and enjoying making something no matter who sees it or what it ends up looking like. It's all play. It's all fair game. It's starting to look at life with more play. And it helps students un-fuck their own brain. Students are like, oh, I've just kind of been approaching life a bit with a closed heart.

Ford: Okay, so this is a really good segue into my next question, which is that if you were to zoom out on your career so far, I would say that is a really good example of a healthy creative process. I don't know how consciously you look at it that way, but just to name a few quick examples — you were an early adopter of the blog, you started the Slack community, and now you're teaching… None of these are obvious, menu-set choices for you. Do you feel like you naturally have a creative process for your life or do you have a conscious approach?

Rachel: I think a little bit of both. But, I will say... life is creative. At every moment of life, you can be expressing yourself… This kind of doesn't make sense as my answer to your question, but I think maybe somehow it does — about creative process and living — but I literally made the decision that I will not depreciate as a person. I will not depreciate as a woman. 

Ford: What does that mean to you?

Rachel: I think depreciating is losing the zest of life. I don't want to lose my zest on life because I'm getting older. I want to be even healthier. I want to be even more active. I want to dress more chic. And I think the pandemic had a lot to do with this. We've gotten so comfortable, not even playing anymore. In the sense of like, you know what, today, I'm literally going to wear like a haunted house outfit. The way I get dressed is already a decision of playing. Even the activities I like to do on the weekend, I like to go to estate sales, not because I'm trying to have this great find but because I'm like, how do people live? I can literally buy a memory of somebody else and take it home with me? How cool is that? 

And connections to nature… I've always loved nature, but I've really learned to love nature in a different way because I've learned to survive in nature — like pack up and be out on my own with nothing for three days. And there's something about that connection that's so unmatched and it's having a conversation with this entity around us. Where am I supposed to go right now? How am I supposed to get water? Where is shade? Where can I put up a tent that's not around mosquitoes? Where's running water? 

You know what it is? The internet has taken away our ability to engage deeply with our environment. And that includes going to an estate sale, it includes going to nature, or whatever it is. It's so much so that we've been ingrained to think the things that we do even when we're offline has some sort of optic element to it, an optic benefit. Like, oh, I went to an estate sale, and therefore I have this cute thing to put in my house and I'm gonna stage a photo and make it look cute. And it's sort of like, wow, that just took the breath out of the whole experience because it's no longer for you. It's for the fucking internet.

Ford: Yeah, it's like a piece of data you're just inserting into the machine… It's really flattening.

Rachel: Yeah, so I think that's where creativity comes in. Because when you just do things for yourself and everything that comes in is for yourself, that's when the world around you is authentic. Everything that hugs you is real. And it's personal.

Ford: I love that saying - the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. Creativity is a way of life. It's an approach to everything. And it is kind of cool that if you can connect to that, once you do it, the entire world opens up to you. Everything.

Rachel: Yes – it’s not impossible. Completely. I love that.

Ford: So you have this video “I want to own my own content.” And, okay my impression of you — after meeting you in real life, too — was that you're very positive and can-do and you're like, I'm just going to fix my issue and move on and keep going — that's my impression. And you basically share that sentiment in that video. You're like, I have all these feelings about the internet. Some of these things aren't so great, but I'm not going to let that scare me away. But then in the caption you're like, in previous edits of this video, it was more depressing. And I didn't want to air my laundry… You just kind of made a note of it. And I found it so interesting, because I just don't see that part of you at all. So I guess I wonder, in your personal life, how do you approach the lower frequency emotions as they arrive? And then, what place do those feelings have in your work and your existence online? Is there a place for them?

Rachel: You're so observant, my goodness. I really appreciate that… To go back to the first part of our conversation — you said technology has given us so much, but it's also numbed. I think there's duality in literally everything, and to be positive also means to accept the negatives and to know that those exist because it gives me a place to go away from… I don't know, it's quite spiritual, actually. It's sort of like the conversation of just understanding feelings and like, how to have conflict resolution with your partner. It's a relationship — there's a good and bad to it. And my relationship with any philosophy, any idea, my relationship with the internet — I know has a dark side, but instead of telling myself like, actually, no, the internet's not that bad. I'm going to just keep making light of it. That's when it becomes toxic positivity versus like, oh, no, I am a little cynical because I'm going to question everything around me because I do not want to default to groupthink. I will understand, as much as I can, the whole picture and accept the bad parts of it. Because I know that if that exists, like if I get there, maybe I can get myself out of it because I recognize it. Or if I'm feeling pretty shitty, I'm like, fuck it, I'm gonna go on TikTok for three hours today and just deep dive. And I know that to be okay. 

I do want to put out things that are relatively positive and I do want people to feel good. It's like hosting somebody. I'm hosting people on my channel. I want people to leave my orbit feeling good, feeling inspired, feeling like they have something to feel and think about. But that also requires me to metabolize my feelings so I'm not just dumping… Yeah, it's just accepting that there's the negative parts and that I am cynical in a lot of ways, but I have so much hope because I think I do prioritize protecting my peace so much, that that's the thing that I end up leading with.

Ford: What do you think women would benefit from seeing less of on the internet?

Rachel: This is gonna sound so weird. Honestly, each other. I just don't need to see women— I don't need to see people all the time. I just want a vibe. Like, show me what you're interested in, show me hobbies, show me how to do something. I don't know. I'm just tired of seeing people. It's so unnatural.

Ford: Completely agree. What do you think women would benefit from seeing more of on the internet?

Rachel: Each other in person…

I guess that doesn't make sense because it's not on the internet [laughs].

Ford: You were thinking outside the box, Rachel! It's okay. I accept that answer.

Is there anything else that you want to get off your chest?

Rachel: Whoever's listening — the internet's a weird place. We're at a weird place in society, but don't give up. Enjoy your life as much as you can. Take a break from this. Sit with your thoughts. Sit with what comes up. And if you can't even give yourself a full day to do it, go on a walk. Go listen to live music. Do as much analog stuff as you possibly can. Chase the analog. And I think with that, comes a breath of fresh air.