[Bonus] More Pop Up Shenanigans | Neurospicy Black Girl

In this special bonus episode, Alani tells more dysfunctional stories about her experiences at popups in NYC. Let's all thank Beyoncé for the opportunity to hear this.

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Tags:
#neurodivergent #neurodiversity #neurospicy #podcast #adhdpodcast #adhdproblems #neurospicyblackgirl #blackneurodivergent

Transcript

0:00

[MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I'm Alani. I'm Black, female, and neurodivergent, AKA I lost the genetic lottery. The only thing I could do is pull myself up by my bootstraps and live whatever life takes me. If anyone deserves to profit from my trauma, it's me. That's the life of a Neurospicy Black Girl. Welcome to Neurospicy Black Girl. I'm Alani and today. I got two announcements to make. Don't worry, they're good news. First of all, I'm excited to announce that I'm doing my first neurospicy collaboration. [*applause*] So I'll be collaborating with Liz of the podcast, Professional Pimpology. We're going to discuss our experiences of being neurospicy Black girls in the workplace, with Liz being the seasoned professional and me being the entry level professional. The double episode will premiere in January. So stay tuned. Be sure to follow the Instagram @nerospicyblackgirlpodcast to stay up to date. Meanwhile, the second announcement relates to the following two episodes, so including this one. As I prepare to work on my collaboration, I want to make sure you all still get my neurospicy content. So the following episodes will be bonus episodes. These episodes are going to be me discussing more in depth about my interests or go deeper in a topic that I previously discussed about. If you're an anime fan, this episode and the following are essentially the beach episodes of the season. Anyway, thank you for listening to the housekeeping stuff. And now, let's jump right in. So today as a holiday gift for y'all, I want to share more of my pop-up experiences. I have been to so many, I can't even count. Although I majorly had a good time during the pop-ups, I have many, many stories of chaos and dysfunction. Now, where to begin? Let's start with Cécred. Before we begin, let's take a moment to thank Beyoncé for letting me speak about this pop-up. Okay, now onto the criticism.(laughs) Love Beyoncé. In case you don't know, Cécred is a haircare company by Beyoncé. They have the classic stuff like shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, et cetera. Beyoncé releases so many products. I wish she releases the Renaissance movie to streaming services, but I digress. Anyway, so Cécred announced that they were gonna do a one day pop-up in Soho. The pop-up is set to start at 11 a.m. and the first 500 people were gonna get a full-size product. The pop-up is set to start at 11 a.m. and the first 500 people were gonna get a full-size product, samples of shampoo, treatment mask, and a deep conditioner with Cécred newspapers. Put a pin in that for now. It was on a Saturday in Soho where the main demographic is the Beyhive or Beyoncé fans, so I knew the line is gonna be wild. I made sure to arrive to the pop-up about three hours early. I got my little portable chair, my portable charger, and water bottle. I think I was around like 20th in line when I arrived. It was gonna be a while. As more people fill in the line, I got to talk to the people in line behind me. Again, one of the great things about going to pop-ups is making acquaintances there. We chat about Beyoncé and our lives. More people fill in the line, and apparently there were two lineholders from a company that specializes in holding spots in lines, especially for events like this. One of the employed lineholders brought out a little tent where he can rest from the sun. The same dude even got a Bluetooth speaker and he played Beyoncé songs in shuffle. So the vibes in the front of the line were good. Even when a bee kept flying in me and my acquaintances' area, I still think it was one of Beyoncé's spies curious about what we were saying about her. However, while the vibes were good in the area I was standing, the people preparing the pop-up were not ready. They were still constructing the newspaper booth and it was getting close to when the pop-up was gonna start. And the people from the freebie Discord server who were further down the line were getting antsy. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, listen to my hoarder episode. But a quick recap, I'm in a Discord server of a freebie influencer in which we discuss free pop-up events. Those people tend to be very impatient, let's say. The Discord users were complaining about wait time and the heat. Luckily, the Cécred pop-up staff were walking by handing out water bottles of maybe Beyoncé water. But many people were complaining because they wanted to attend other pop-ups that were going on. As expected, some of the users got into debates about how the pop-ups are voluntary and that people have a choice to stay or leave. I didn't pay too much attention as I was waiting for the products. Now, after a two hour delay, the pop-up finally starts. After I got my photo taken with the store, I went to pick up my freebies. As I said earlier, we are supposed to get one full-size product and samples of shampoo, conditioner, and hair mask. And what we got were...(drums beating) A full-size product of their new at-the-time edge treatment, a sticker, newspaper, and cotton candy. Now, I'm still happy to get a free product as Cécred is pricey. But to say I wasn't a little disappointed would be a lie. I will say though, if I didn't have the acquaintances that I was talking to, I would have been more disappointed. Maybe the real Beyoncé was the friends we made along the way. The Discord users disagree though. There's this one user, let's call him Axl, who does reviews of pop-ups on Instagram. Axl was going off in the comments of the Cécred Instagram posts of the event. So like with Cécred, they made this post talking about how the event was a success. Even though they didn't put that, it was delayed for a couple of hours. But yeah, Axl made this long paragraph about how the staff should be ashamed of themselves of how they handled the pop-up. However, a lot of the Beyhive came to Cécred's defense and cussed out Axl. There was a whole comment thread of calling him names and oh. One thing about the Beyhive is that they are defensive of their queen Bey. I was enjoying how ape (beep) the comment thread was.(upbeat music) All right, let's see what other pop-ups that I tended to have some mess. Hmm. Hmm. Oh, I know one. Valentino Beauty had a pop-up in Flatiron Plaza in which if you RSVP'd for a time slot, you get extra lipstick samples. It sounds simple enough. I bet you're wondering how in the hell mess happened in this pop-up.(sighs) Well, I RSVP'd for noon, when the pop-up starts. When I arrived to Flatiron Plaza and see only one major line, I was confused. Which line is the RSVP line and where is the line for walk-ins? The ambassadors told everyone that the RSVPs don't matter when it comes to the line. Okay, y'all. There were about 100 people in the Plaza and you purposely set up an RSVP system so people can get extra samples. How the hell are you gonna keep track of that? Well, when it was time to check people in, it was a whole disorganized mess. Just because I'm a disorganized mess does not mean everything else gotta be a disorganized mess. Essentially, one security guard with an iPad was checking in both RSVP and walking people. Since there was no line control, people were essentially circling around the dude like ants to a crumb. It took like a few minutes to get extra security in order to get some crowd control. Speaking of security, one security dude got fired for being too rough with people. Yeah, I made sure to get my tote bag, donut, and extra lipstick samples and got the hell out of there. It turns out the first few hours were the worst with the pop-up as later on and the remainder of the pop-up, things went smoother. I guess my group was the guinea pigs for the pop-up. At least the mess wasn't for nothing.(laughs) Sign up, I have so many tote bags from all the pop-ups I've attended. If something were to happen to one bag, I got another bag ready to go. There is truly a science to going to free pop-up events and I think I got it down to a pact. Now, I just need to get the clutter issue taken care of. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this bonus episode and let me know what other stuff you want me to talk about. Links to support me are in the description. Remember, it's okay to be human. Do it next time where something new happens and it won't be boring. Bye.(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music)