Sophia Smith Galer

“What makes a good presenter? It's pretty boring answer, I think, but it's that some that someone is themselves. I don't think people need to sort of act like someone else or try and do something they've seen on TV. It's about just being them.”

“journalism is something that you do. It's not really something that you are. And so, happily, lots of people can can do quality journalism. If someone choose to define themselves that way, it probably means that they're making a statement to the world that they are either, you know, holding power to account some description or investigating something or are published or are connected with legacy media.”

“They will either think that, oh, well, people who do this kind of thing are just like people trying to sell you stuff. Or they will say, oh, we can't make this because it's not polished enough. And, you know, the stuff that we make has to be really polished. And it's very worrying when I'm being told things like that by by people with with power in newsrooms because they're wrong. And if they'd spent any time on social media, they they wouldn't have they wouldn't have those views.”

“the most shocking thing that happened when I left the BBC was how the BBC disappeared. So I I went from just, you know, being totally surrounded by it. Because, obviously, when you're an employee there, you're getting all these newsletters. You'll you'll you'll you'll seeing your mates there. You're hearing about all these things. You're seeing all these things. And then I left, and all of a sudden, I stopped seeing the BBC anywhere.”

“sometimes people who are, you know, naturally multi talented, multifaceted, they think that they can make content about 10 things. And I try and say to them, how about three things that are all united by this one common theme?”

“I assume that some people had a sort of great fear of cringe. and, you know, yes, there were survey respondents who said that, but it was by no means near the top. Something else. Oh, yeah. That their that their, bosses wouldn't let them do it. And, you know, you can predict why I thought that would be a problem. But it turns out for most people, their bosses are very encouraging for them amplifying their work on social media.”

“if you're relying on the organization you work for to be responsible for your sort of entire video presence on the Internet. I worry about, in reality, what kind of connection and community, if any, you're gonna build with people that is, like, direct between you and them rather than this really tangential link like, oh, you're that person who works at this place. What happens if that newsroom makes you redundant? What happens if that newsroom has to stop operating? you you're what are you gonna have that's yours?”

“I do generally think that, like, content creators have a ton of opportunities in The US because you're at least five years ahead in The US compared to The UK. I would love someone to explain or even speculate why The UK we are actually like really quite backwards when it comes to video adoption as a market in terms of how we consume content. A lot of markets around the world are way ahead of us in video consumption.”

“I do loads of projects I don't get paid for at all. You know, I do pro bono stuff and God, I would never I would never be able to do pro bono stuff if I had stayed as a staff journalist. The highly paid thing I get to do here helps me do the less paid thing here.”

“I think of all of the things I've heard recently, the most fascinating is this word, skibidi. That was the first one that came up at my dinner table as well. Rizzler is connected to this word rizz. But skibidi seems to be able to be thrown in almost anywhere. And nobody, including my kids, can tell me what it really means. I think that's part of the whole sort of exclusivity of each generation's use of language.”

“It's evolving really quickly. And if you think about in the past how languages developed and changed, a language will always change because our needs as people change and different and new things happen. Today, if you're consuming mass media in social media, you're actually seeing a very diverse array of different voices from around the world.”

“And that's part of this homogenisation that social media brings, that the kids are using the same slang globally. When I was at school, the words that we would use to describe a really bright person or a less bright person might be different from the words used by someone who was brought up in a different part of the same country.”

“A lot of the words are being innovated within in-groups and then they get introduced to the mainstream. We're seeing a lot of vocabulary coming from black and Latino LGBT culture in the US. We're seeing loads of expressions coming from that, like 'it's giving', 'slay', all come from those spaces. We see the words leave these peripheries and leave these subgroups they become mainstream and it's these words that then become more widely adopted.”

“Another theory is that I'm keeping you listening. The rising intonation suggests there's more to come. Hooking people in. When it comes to social media video, if I can complete a video retaining someone's attention, it's more likely to perform better on the algorithm. So actually what's possibly happening is creators are furthering linguistic innovation based on algorithmic direction, which is fascinating.”