NONFICTION BRAND podcast | E221 “Going viral is terrifying.”
Guest: Annelise Baer | full transcript
In this episode of the NONFICTION BRAND podcast, I brought on one of my favorite TikTok-ers, archaeologist and producer Annelise Baer as my special guest. Annelise has gained popularity on TikTok for sharing educational content about archaeology and ancient history. I love following her TikTok’s ’cause she’s packs a powerful (yet friendly) punch and presence on TikTok, and her artful ability to curate all the coolest new stuff that’s happening in her fields of expertise. We delve into her background and approach to engaging with her audience, and go deep into the challenges she faces as a woman on the internet. I encourage every listener to follow her on TikTok to find out just how powerful that channel is for building and boosting your personal brand. And don’t worry as always, she’ll be back for more in the next episode of the NONFICTION BRAND podcast. -dp
DP Knudten (00:00:04) – But I also do something on the regular, which is have a guest that I’m recording for my podcast, the NONFICTION BRAND podcast. And I’m doing that tonight with someone that I discovered through the Tickety Tock. And she’s doing something that I preach on the regular about getting yourself out there and sharing who you are, what you do and how you do it, and using your voice and in her case, also her face to really hammer home that just because you aren’t working on drama TV, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a real significant presence out there in the universe. And that’s where it’s time to introduce that special guest. And her name is Annelise Baer, and there she is. If you follow TikTok at all and you have any interest in the hard sciences, maybe a little bit of interest in foreign cultures, even a little bit of dabbling into Egyptology and you name it, you’re probably going to have seen her face because Annelise, the archaeologist, is all over TikTok all the time, at least if you’ve got a feed like mine.
(00:01:13) – Welcome to the NONFICTION BRAND podcast. Annelise, before I let you talk, I just want to give people a little bit of detail about who she is based on what her website is telling me.
“Annelise is an archaeologist and producer, born and raised in Los Angeles. She holds a BA in classical civilizations with a minor in archaeology from Loyola Marymount University and an MA in archaeology for screen media from the University of Bristol. She combines her unique skills and experience from over a decade in both the entertainment industry and the archaeological academic world to help create interesting, engaging and exciting factual programming that brings stories from the past to a 21st century audience. “
Well, that’s true about what you do there, but it’s also true about what you do on TikTok, Because I think one of the first times I saw you on my feed, you were talking about pre-pottery civilizations in Turkey and waxing on about the various ‘-tepis’, if you know what I mean. The Gobekli Tepe and I think the Karahan Tepe, I may be mispronouncing that, but for people who are listening, you might be going, huh? What are you talking about? And I’ll say, I’m talking about fascinating archaeological discoveries that have been curated by Annelise Baer and delivered by Annelise Baer to me via the free, always-on universally available channel of TikTok.
(00:02:44) – That’s pretty damn cool. And I knew I had to have her on the podcast, and now it’s time for me to shut up and let her talk. Annelise, I got to tee up this question for you. Why is a archaeologically oriented media producer on TikTok sharing everything you know or have found or seen or new discoveries or whatever? What, why are you on TikTok, which is supposed to be about 20-year-olds in crop tops, dancing memetic dances?
Annelise Baer (00:03:14) – That is a fantastic question. And every day I ask myself, why? Why am I here? Because, yeah, on paper, I am absolutely not the target demographic for TikTok. I am not a teen doing fun dances with their friends, nor am I a sort of perpetual content creator. I’m not, you know, I’m not a YouTuber by any means. I’m not out here just making content for the sake of making content. It is absolutely not my livelihood. I have a full-time job. I work in TV production. That’s the thing that actually pays the bills.
(00:03:47) – And that’s because my overall sort of career journey has taken a lot of twists and turns. It’s a very interesting journey that I’ve had, and it’s a very non-traditional one. And somehow I’ve found myself in this lovely little liminal zone between the world of archaeology. So professors and universities and academic papers and stuff like that and the world of entertainment and I am right smack in the middle. And every now and then I get to work on a television show that is focusing on history and archaeology and stuff like that. And then I get to use all of my knowledge and my degrees and usually call a couple of friends too, and put everything together in and make lovely programs that sometimes people watch. And then as for the TikTok of it all, this is 100% a product of trying to figure out what to do with myself and my time and just my life in general during Covid lockdowns because I was stuck at home and I had no idea what was going to happen. I had no idea what the future of the entertainment industry or even television production was going to be like because, you know, for all of us, almost overnight or over the course of a week, everything changed.
(00:05:01) – And I was not able to do the work that I had always done in the way that I had always done it. And after slowly losing my mind for a couple of days as things kept going on and a couple of weeks, I started making little videos in my apartment and putting them on Instagram, mostly just to entertain my friends and friends and relatives who were on Instagram just talking about historical things. I called it the No Budget Archaeology Show because I had no budget and I was literally just using things that were within reach in my home, mostly just books I already own and things I just know off the top of my head. And that’s how it started. And then, Summer 2021, I begrudgingly acknowledged that TikTok was the number one source of information for young people and people in general, but primarily young people. And the unfortunate reality with that was the information being put out and given to them specifically in my realm of expertise, which is archaeology and ancient history was garbage. And all of these accounts and these people were just pumping out pseudo information.
(00:06:16) – Pseudo archaeology, as we call it, is basically ancient aliens and similar similar programming. That just is absolute nonsense and 100% wrong in every way, shape, and form. But people believe it because it’s on television, which means it must have some sort of credentials to it. And then same thing with the Internet. But even worse, anyone can speak authoritatively on any topic and people will just believe them as a sort of a response to that. Because again, like back then, you know, a lot of kids were still at home and, you know, doing Zoom School and stuff like that. I wanted there to be something for them and something for people who were at home and wanting to know more about these topics, because people are endlessly fascinated by ancient history and ancient cultures and mythology and stuff like that. And, you know, I was one of those kids, and I know I’m not alone. And so I waited. I waited to see if someone might step up and do that, because there are a lot of famous faces when it comes to archaeologists, you know, people who are on TV pretty often as experts or hosts and stuff like that.
(00:07:24) – But the fact of the matter is, they’re busy. They’re incredibly busy because all of those people are also full-time professors. All of our lives were chaos at that point. And so finally enough time had passed and I just thought, screw it, I’ll do it myself. And here we are.
DP Knudten (00:07:39) – You mentioned, I think, the summer of 2021. I always want to go back to see if I can find someone’s very first TikTok. The earliest one I could find on your feed, I think was June, perhaps of 2021. Is that when you actually started? So you kind of you worked out the kinks on Instagram and then ported. You’re doing both porting stuff to Instagram and TikTok, which is a very sound strategy if you ask me. But is that about when you started hitting TikTok hard?
Annelise Baer (00:08:10) – That sounds about right. And by hitting it hard, I begrudgingly made an account and uploaded, I think, 2 or 3 videos that I had already made for Instagram because they already had captions on them and everything and just hit post, and yeah, here we are.
DP Knudten (00:08:26) – Can I ask you just a little behind the curtain stuff and say what’s engagement like for you on Instagram versus TikTok?
Annelise Baer (00:08:35) – Engagement on Instagram? Is Instagram is is my personal space. That’s what I’ve had the longest and has been pretty strictly just friends and family members. So if you go to my Instagram account, which is just my name, same as it is on Twitter, it’s mostly just photos you would see on Instagram. It’s not the full, to quote Bo Burnham, a white woman’s Instagram. There is some latte art on there because sometimes it’s really nice. I mean, it’s me, it’s my friends. It’s, you know, animals. It’s pretty flowers that I see. And so I really don’t use it for building engagement. So the engagement on Instagram is much lower because the people seeing it are literally just my friends and family. And it’s mostly so those friends and family members don’t have to feel like they need to make a TikTok account to see the things that I’m making on TikTok because, you know, I don’t need my aunts and uncles making TikTok accounts.
DP Knudten (00:09:29) – No, I totally get that. And it makes great sense. One of the things that longtime listeners of the NONFICTION BRAND podcast will remember me saying ad nauseum is that everyone’s got a style, and every social media channel or venue is a stage. But not all styles match every stage. So strategically, you’re saying I’m a little more personal on Instagram, I’m a little more presentational on TikTok.
Annelise Baer (00:09:58) – That’s exactly it. You adapt for the platform and for the medium.
DP Knudten (00:10:01) – Yeah, exactly. And you also react to how that channel is. Who are they delivering to you? And you mentioned the fact that there’s a lot of disinformation out there and sometimes marquee production channels put their name on something that is embarrassing. Like I can’t remember the British guy who is convinced there was a pre Ice Age mega civilization that got me. Graham Hancock Yeah, I mean, it’s like, just show one artifact. Just one. Just that. Just one that could.
Annelise Baer (00:10:35) – Hence show your proof.
DP Knudten (00:10:36) – But no, it’s. Well, it could. Well, there’s this void under this, this rocky outcrop in India.
Annelise Baer (00:10:44) – ‘Some say….’ Yeah.
DP Knudten (00:10:46) – Yes. ‘Some say,’ yeah. Well, some drunks on the corner say that doesn’t mean it’s going to be true. But it’s interesting because when I saw you on TikTok, you’re not the only archeology-minded person that is in my feed, but you’re probably the most, I guess, most aligned with how I choose to engage with social media. Meaning there are some guys who are there just to bat down the garbage in a kind.
Annelise Baer (00:11:12) – Of Yeah, and they are truly doing the Lord’s work. I, I commend them for that.
DP Knudten (00:11:17) – Yeah. But at the same time, that doesn’t seem to me like a style that would feel comfortable to you.
Annelise Baer (00:11:24) – No, and that has a lot to do with the fact that that specific ground that, you know, just straight debunking ground is so well trod by all of those guys. Like they’ve got it covered there. Good. And I don’t need to be voice number 4921 saying exactly the same thing. Like, they’ve got it, they’ve got it handled. And at the end of the day, I don’t need to be getting in fights with people on the Internet. That’s not my idea of a good time. For some people it is. And you know what? That’s great. Do your thing. But for me, I don’t come to the Internet or social media to pick fights with people. I’m not about to get in fights in the comments. I’m not about to go back and forth and back and forth endlessly doing a video and then a response and then a rebuttal. It’s like, that’s to me, that is a waste of time and it’s specifically a waste of my time, which is very precious. And again, there are plenty of guys, guys specifically out there handling that. They’ve got it covered. And you know what? If the reply guys want to get into it in their comment section with them and they’ve got the time, go for it, That’s fantastic. I’m going to be over here in my little corner focusing on what I think is even more interesting than any of those same 5 to 10 topics that are always recycled.
Annelise Baer (00:12:47) – It’s always the same topics and talk about something that’s infinitely more interesting and infinitely more exciting and worth paying attention to.
DP Knudten (00:12:55) – And I truly appreciate that because I like a good takedown when someone like, Yeah, when someone like @archaeowolf [Morgan Kinney] brings out Thor’s Hammer to crush someone’s skull. Oh, yeah. You know, he’s, he’s really good at it. Plus, he’s got that kind of almost like Norse berserker [look.]
Annelise Baer (00:13:13) – About it’s very tough. And yeah, when he, when he pulls out the state like statutes and stuff, it’s like, yes it’s always a good time or @miniminuteman [Milo Rossi]. He does a fantastic job and you know it honestly debunking is it’s a young man’s game. So I’m going to leave it to the young dudes who have the time and the energy to get in, you know, get in fights on the Internet. Great. Do your thing.
DP Knudten (00:13:36) – Well. And also, I think listeners can probably hear just even from your voice and your presence that I hope this is not insulting. It’s not meant to be insulting. You’ve got a certain Miss Frizzle energy about you. You take everybody on the magic school bus when it comes to archaeology and anthropology and civilizations and history and just story. And you bring it to life because half the time I’ll look at your feed and in the background you’ll have a screenshot from a website or like The Guardian might cover some new discovery.
Annelise Baer (00:14:11) – I love the green screen feature. I love it.
DP Knudten (00:14:14) – Well, yeah, and it works great because guess what? I read that article at The Guardian and I went, Oh, that sounds kind of cool. Then I’ll see your take on it. Where you 1. you bring The Guardian in, you’re saying, Hey, this is being presented by a legit organization, but here’s how you can. Yeah, well, cite your sources, but also here’s the context around that story that can add layers of richness to it that you may not know or I might need to remind you of. And I’m like, I love that because my regular feeds, no matter where I am, I’m interested in hard science.
DP Knudten (00:14:50) – For someone who couldn’t do the math, literally, if I could do the math, I’d be a scientist. I can’t do the math…
Annelise Baer (00:14:57) – Be an astronaut.
DP Knudten (00:14:58) – So yeah, exactly. So so consequently, you being my kind of docent or tour guide into these realms is really fun, especially when you are the curator of this is worth your attention. That is very, very valuable in our time-starved, too many channels, too much noise. The fact that you can amplify signal instead of just amplifying noise is truly, really valuable to me. And consequently, I’m all over your content and learning so much from you. But I want to go back to say one thing about our discussion about the archaeology-oriented people who are taking down people who are just spouting crap, and you kind of implied that, Well, that’s not really my style. I don’t like it. It’s not why I go to the Internet or why I choose to engage on social media. Well, guess what? A lot of us feel the same way.
DP Knudten (00:15:55) – And while we love a good takedown, if it was nothing but takedown TV, I don’t want to watch that. It’s just a mosh pit.
Annelise Baer (00:16:02) – It gets, it gets very boring after a while. And to me, it’s very one note, it’s the only note. And then, of course, the other, the other issue that really sort of drives the way I approach things for me is that I’m a woman. I’m a woman existing on the Internet, and I also have the dual fortune and misfortune of being a woman who knows things on the Internet and am daring to exist, which for a lot of people is a problem. And that often creates a very unpleasant environment to be in. And I don’t want to be around that because I don’t need to. And that’s something that’s it’s an unfortunate byproduct of this whole thing. And it’s not just the Internet. I mean, it’s any of my, any of my friends who have been on television programs or who have written books, they get it, too. They mean they get it again simply for being a woman who knows something existing in the world.
(00:16:59) – That’s, that’s enough to set some people off. And then when it comes to this specific community and specifically the type of people who are very strong supporters of these pseudoscience and pseudo-archaeology topics, because there are some like ardent defenders, this is the hill that they have chosen to die on and they are going to die on that hill. They will not hesitate to come into your space and start yelling at you. And again, just for saying what is the actual truth about the matter? And it’s all, it’s all the reply guys. There’s a lot of ‘whataboutism.’ There’s a lot of sea lions [trolls], which is another fun Internet thing to encounter, but it’s all just another day of existing on the Internet and existing on social media.
DP Knudten (00:17:46) – I’m glad you brought that up because you produced this content that I would call generally up with people. Sunny, exciting, fun. Take a look at this. Super cool. And then because it’s cool. Well, it is. It is absolutely cool. But then and I don’t go into comments much at all because it’s just a cesspool but don’t do it.
Annelise Baer (00:18:08) – I read the comments.
DP Knudten (00:18:10) – Oh yeah. But I mean, all you have to do is if you are a person with an X and a Y chromosome is go to any woman who knows anything about anything and watch your content, agree with what you agree with, but then read the comments. It doesn’t matter if, if you said one plus one equals two, you would have someone coming at you who is ill-informed and rude and mansplaining up, down right and left. And it reeks of misogyny.
Annelise Baer (00:18:40) – And it’s misogyny and boredom and a lack of communication skills. And, you know, sometimes, I mean, and that’s the other thing that I think people don’t realize about TikTok, which is that I have to moderate everything myself. I don’t have a team. I. I don’t have people I don’t have a social media manager, like it’s me, it’s all me. I’m doing everything. And so I have to moderate my own content. And so because of that, I will do a cursory glance at all of the comments that come in over the course of a day just to make sure that everybody’s behaving, everybody’s passing the vibe check, as they say, and I will delete anything, you know, delete and block liberally, you know, as the situation calls for.
Annelise Baer (00:19:22) – Because at the end of the day, I’m trying to create a little space on TikTok for people to come and find the fun information that they’re looking for or maybe find new information that they didn’t even know they were looking for about a history and archaeology and cultures and have a good time. And I don’t want trolls essentially coming in and ruining someone else’s good time because then that defeats the purpose of this whole thing.
DP Knudten (00:19:51) – Exactly. And I just want to applaud you for doing what you’re doing the way you’re doing it, because for all the people who watch your stuff and never say anything, that’s me. Literally, I’ve followed you for at least a year and not in a creepy way, but in a, Oh my God, I had no idea that Oh, that’s cool. That, that new discovery in the Valley of the Queens.
Annelise Baer (00:20:13) – Queen seemed to comment on everything. Like, no one’s forcing you to comment. It’s okay to just, like, look at something and enjoy and be like, ‘That was nice.’ Well, and I.
DP Knudten (00:20:21) – Guess that’s for the people in this audience who are listening from the point of view of desiring to to build up their personal brand. One of the real truisms of of doing that is you have to understand you are not going to get plaudits and kudos overnight. No, you may not. After 100, after 200, after 300 of these things, and you probably will run into more negatives than you will positives because the people who like to go negative like to go negative.
Annelise Baer (00:20:52) – That’s the easiest thing to do, is to go for a negative as opposed to a positive.
DP Knudten (00:20:57) – I always like to say it’s really easy to be a sniper. You’re up there with a scoped rifle hiding on a hilltop a mile away and you just ping away at someone who’s out there and the, the Teddy Roosevelt, the, the person in the arena who’s actually getting out there and doing the stuff and pinging off them. So I guess the thing I’d like to underline for anybody who’s interested in building their personal brand is you got to have a little bit of a thick skin. And not all comments are equal.
Annelise Baer (00:21:29) – No. And it’s it’s such a it’s a roller coaster of emotions every single day. And for all the good comments I get that are really, you know, encouraging and make you feel really good about what you’re doing, there’s going to be the one and of course, the one that you remember is something really hurtful or hateful from a random troll with no user profile picture. Or sometimes they have one, but they haven’t uploaded any videos. They’re just there to lurk and be a troll. And those are the ones that stick with you. And it really sucks because there are infinitely more people who are out there having a lovely time with whatever you’re making and, you know, genuinely enjoying it and getting something from it. And they took the time to leave a nice comment to let you know how much they enjoyed it. Every day is a roller coaster of emotions and some days are better than others. And honestly, the, the hardest days for me are the ones when something actually goes viral.
(00:22:27) – To me it is terrifying. It is a terrifying experience. I do not recommend it for anybody, even though I know that’s the goal for all of these things. Going viral is terrifying.
DP Knudten (00:22:38) – I want to go more into that in next week’s episode because listeners analyze what a great person to meet and follow on TikTok, Instagram, etcetera. Although I would probably say TikTok, because if you’re her friend or family, Instagram definitely hook up with her. But otherwise the rest of us, you can get a ton of analysts on TikTok, especially if you like content revolving around archeology, ancient languages, cultures, and civilizations. There’s a little bit of something. I mean, it’s a Whitman’s sampler of great stuff for anybody who’s got an interest. Well, put it this way anyone who grew up with National Geographic in the family magazine rack, you’re going to love her content because it covers everything Nat Geo would, but she brings also her expertise, as I’m going to say, a media educator too.
Annelise Baer (00:23:32) – It, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I just have the dual specialties of being an actual archaeologist because that’s what my degree is in training are in, and someone who works in the TV industry making television for people to watch.
DP Knudten (00:23:45) – We’re going to talk about in next week’s episode the reason why she’s going so big on TikTok and stuff like that. I think there’s a lot of strategy. Going on in there that may not meet the eye. And I personally would love to know more. So first of all, homework one, if you’re watching the live stream, check out on Elise on TikTok. Her at handle is at on Elise the archaeologist you might be best just doing a search for on Elise bear BAIER on Elise spelled a n e l i s e and you can also check her out at on Elise Bear com where you can get links to all her socials and stuff like that. One of the things I want to talk about next week is your resume because it fascinates me. Anybody who likes Pawn Stars or Time team or Adam eats the 80s.
(00:24:38) – I mean that that kills me. The toys that built America. A lot of these shows. I mean, if you’ve watched anything on just about any channel, history, discovery, etcetera, etcetera, she’s had her fingers on it in one form or another. Her fingerprints are on it, put it that way. So that’s going to be a fascinating conversation. I hope you’ll tune in next week for that. Until then, I want to remind everybody that this podcast is brought to you by my book, NONFICTION BRAND Discover, Crafting, Communicate the completely true, completely new brand you already are. You can get it over at the house of Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com, simply by searching NONFICTION BRAND and Knudten, which is spelled K, N, U, D as in David, T is and Tom, is in Edward, and N as in Nothing. And next week Annelise will be back and we’ll dive into more of those subjects. But for now, I’m your host DP Knudten, and she is.
Annelise Baer (00:25:35) – Annelise Baer.
DP Knudten (00:25:35) – And we’ll be talking at you again next week. Bye bye.
