Inside the Life of an E-Girl with Lauren Burch | Digital Social Hour #74

I feel like it's definitely about consistency because there is no algorithm for growth on Twitch.

And I think it's important to follow the people in your niche that are successful because then you can take inspiration and learn from them too.

So, a lot of it is connections, just knowing the right people.

I hear a lot of successful actors and actresses saying that it's about being at the right place at the right time.

So, if you look the part, then oftentimes you could just get the role.

So, Little pump was in my damn

welcome back to the digital social hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I'm here with my guest today, Lauren Birch.

Hello.

How's it going?

I'm good.

How are you?

I'm good.

So you're the first e-girl we've had on.

Yeah, yeah.

I was looking on your socials and I saw that there weren't many of the e-girls, so I was really intimidated to go on the podcast.

No, it's all good.

I like having new people from different industries on all the time.

Yeah, that's funny.

But could you describe what exactly an e-girl is?

People that don't know?

Um, I feel like an e-girl is definitely a sort of aesthetic.

It's definitely a combination of multiple aesthetics, and I feel like it was really popularized when TikTok really

rose to popularity just from like the little dance trends.

I feel like that popularized the aesthetic, so I feel like it's a lot of dyed hair, um, eyeliner, usually interests in like video games and anime.

That's kind of how I would describe it.

Nice.

So, were you big into anime and video games growing up?

Yeah, um, I had an older brother, so I was always into video games because of him.

I would play Halo with him all the time and some Call of Duty zombies, and I also loved Nintendo games and Pokemon.

Nice.

And

yeah, I recently got into anime.

I had watched Ghibli films growing up and like Naruto a bit, but I got really into it when COVID hit.

Right.

And when I got into TikTok too, I feel like TikTok really influenced my aesthetic a lot.

Nice.

I had a weird anime phase where, oh my gosh, I was watching like 10 hours a day in college.

Really?

It was bad.

No, that's good.

I feel like a lot of people go through that too.

Because it's always that one show where you're just hooked.

And with anime, it's like hundreds of episodes, especially One Piece.

Oh, my God.

People are always telling me to start One Piece.

It's too late now.

I know.

And then they're like, it gets good at like episode 400.

Yeah, it's like, why do you want to wait that long?

I tried it for like five episodes.

It was too slow for me.

Yeah, because it came out so long ago, so things have definitely advanced a lot since then.

100%.

But I like a lot of the newer animes that are only 12 episodes.

Those ones are fun to get to.

Yeah, those I could deal with.

Like Samurai Shampoo is a classic.

Yeah, there's some good ones.

Did you see they just did the One Piece real life

show?

Yeah, I saw the trailer for it.

It looks interesting.

I feel like I've seen a lot of mixed feelings about it for sure.

A lot of anime adaptations kind of flop, so I'd say almost all of them.

I can't think of any because Avatar flopped.

Yeah.

Did they try Naruto?

I don't even know.

They did Death Note.

I think they did Death Note twice.

I tried to watch it and I bailed like five minutes.

It was really weird.

Yeah, anime is too hard to act in real life, I think, because all the superpowers and stuff.

And I feel like people don't want adaptations.

People aren't wanting more from the animation.

I feel like the animation does it well.

Yeah, 100%.

So you grew up in Canada, right?

Yes.

And now you're in Cali?

Yes.

What do you like more?

I really love Canada.

I love the different seasons in Canada.

I think winter lasts a little too long for my liking, but winter activities are really fun and it's a beautiful place.

And my family's there and my friends, but I do like California because I love summer weather.

So I like that a lot about it and the opportunities.

It's just really, it's the place to be when you're in a career in social media, I feel.

100%.

You can't really beat it in terms of social media influence out there.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So what was your family support like when you said you were going to start doing this?

Because it's sort of hard to explain, right?

Yeah.

I mean, my mom is the most supportive person ever.

She...

Doesn't care what I do, you know, as long as I'm happy.

She was always telling me to just follow my dreams, and she doesn't care that I'm like an e-girl online or whatever.

She's super supportive, and I'm not super duper close with my dad, so we haven't really talked about what I do,

but he's like supportive, I guess.

I think

they got separated when I was like a baby.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, they've always been separated.

Yeah, my parents got divorced.

I was like eight, so I had a similar situation.

One of them really supported, one of them didn't.

Yeah.

Interesting dynamic.

So did you go to college at all?

No I didn't.

Okay.

That wasn't like part of your plan at all?

I initially wanted to go to Ryerson University for acting

but

then I kind of got I had some mental health struggles after high school so I didn't end up going which is good because it probably wouldn't have gone well with where my mental state was and then I kind of just followed my sister's footsteps in becoming an influencer and then it just kind of took off from there.

Yeah, I had some weird mental health stuff in college too.

Was that due to the pressure of school you think?

Like trying to do well?

Yeah, I mean and also just the transition from being a high school student to becoming an adult.

You're kind of just thrown in and I feel like school doesn't really prepare you in all the ways for becoming an adult and figuring out what you're gonna do for the rest of your life and

what a mortgage even is.

Not at all.

It's actually terrible at doing that.

It doesn't do literally anything, to be honest.

It's really a shame when you think about how much time you spent in school and what you actually got out of it.

Yeah, I feel like a lot more of the mandatory courses should definitely be geared towards making you an adult rather than like learning science.

A lot of the classes are fun and cool and interesting, but I feel like they should definitely be switched around a little bit.

Yeah, like taxes, real estate, like something actually useful.

Yeah, even how to change attire, how to cook.

Yeah.

You know, not everyone has parents that can teach them like basic cooking skills, cleaning skills.

I feel like even just one mandatory cooking class could be good.

We actually had those in Jersey where I grew up.

Really?

And I was so bad.

Yeah, I remember burning the banana nut bread.

Yeah, I was the only kid in the whole school that did that.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I wasn't the best cook.

At least that's something you could hire, you know?

Exactly.

You don't really have to be good.

It is useful, but...

Yeah, I just.

And like ramen noodles, you just put hot water.

Ramen I could do.

I lived off that in college.

I love ramen.

It's hard not to.

Ramen's just really good.

It's a comfort food.

It really is.

And there's so many different ways you could make it.

Yeah.

So talk to me about your business, Gloomy Girl.

What is that and how did it start?

Yeah, so it started off as just the name for mine and my sister's merch.

We just wanted a cute name for our merchandise, and then our team recommended that we kind of get girls to rep the merch.

And then we realized that the girls we were reaching out to like all had Twitch and stuff like that so we kind of just all agreed amongst ourselves that we wanted to start a Twitch team and kind of become a content group so that's what Gloomy Girl is now we are a team of e-girls and gamers and content creators and our goal is to just kind of

represent females in the gaming space especially

and just spread positivity and entertain people nice there's some big female gamers man it's it's crazy yeah how many views they get and growing on twitch isn't easy so talk to me about how you both of you guys were able to do that.

I feel like it's definitely about consistency because there is no algorithm for growth on Twitch.

Well, not really good at

like there's no like for you page.

Yeah, exactly.

So I feel like the best way to do it is to focus on your other social medias and then drive that traffic towards your Twitch.

Got it.

So grow the IG, grow the TikTok, then funnel it to Twitch.

Yeah, yeah.

Twitch I think is still my smallest platform, but it's definitely grown a lot because of my other platforms.

Right.

And the streaming platforms I heard pay the most.

Yeah.

Like, Kik, you saw that deal with XQC the other day.

Yeah, I'm waiting for

approaching with one of those deals.

Yeah.

I mean, it's coming.

They're signing a lot of streamers.

I know.

Exciting.

It's crazy.

Super exciting.

I think live streaming and podcasting are going to blow up.

Yeah, I agree.

Because the content.

It's all about content these days.

Like, how often are you releasing content?

I release content daily on multiple social platforms.

So, I usually post a TikTok a day, an Instagram post a day,

a YouTube video once a week.

I try to stream once to twice a week, and

interacting.

It's all just about posting as much as you can everywhere.

Posting on Twitter, posting on YouTube shorts every day.

Right.

And where do you come up with content ideas?

Because I've seen you wear some crazy outfits that I've never seen before.

It's actually really impressive.

So I feel like a lot of my inspiration comes from anime and video games.

I do cosplaying quite a bit, which is really good.

And I think it's important to follow the people in your niche that are successful because then you can take inspiration and learn from them too.

So, you know, if I see like someone wearing a cool aesthetic outfit, I'll be like, okay, that's cool.

How can I recreate that in my own way?

And so I feel like just taking inspiration and learning from people

is really good.

And then also just from like fun games.

Nice.

Which social media platform are you most excited about moving forward?

I

started off really loving TikTok at first.

But I think now my favorite platform is definitely YouTube.

I feel like you can do a lot on YouTube.

And because you can do both short form and long form content, you can really you can play around a lot with that.

So I have my main channel, which is like fashion and try-on hauls, and then I have a channel with my sister where where we do gaming and lifestyle content so I like the

the like the duality you know you can kind of do whatever you want to there agreed yeah I'm all in on YouTube this year it used to be IG but IG is kind of dead honestly yeah I feel like both Instagram and TikTok are kind of kind of yeah they're kind of going down right youtube's taking over and OF yeah I can't do that I mean

you could I could but I feel like all the top of accounts are girls right yeah I think so yeah why do girls like you have an OF, right?

Yes, I do.

And what type of content is on there?

Is it similar to IG and stuff?

Yeah, so I usually stick to

bikini, lingerie, and cosplay content on there.

Mm-hmm.

So a little bit of an upgrade from IG.

Yeah.

Got it.

So where do you see this going?

Like, what are your future goals?

Is there a plan, or are you just kind of just going day by day?

Yeah, I definitely want to grow and

branch out in as many ways as possible.

I would love to get into acting.

I did a little bit of acting on one show and it was really fun, so I think it'd be awesome to branch out into that.

I'd love to do commercials and music videos.

Nice.

So that is my goal right now, I think.

Yeah, those are some big goals.

So can you sing or you just want to be like a dancer in the?

I did dance growing up, so I can kind of dance and I can't really sing, but I am willing to learn.

There's AI that could probably enhance your voice somehow.

Exactly.

Make you look good.

Exactly.

And now there's AI even copying your voice and your image and stuff, too.

It's pretty scary, actually.

It's freaking me out.

Like, deep fakes are going to be of us, like, on the internet.

I know.

I've already seen fake Joe Rogan clips.

Really?

Like, people run paid ads to them to promote their products.

Oh, my God.

It's like, that looks so real.

It's crazy what people could do.

Yeah.

With the acting stuff, I heard it's super competitive.

So, like, how are you going to go about that?

I feel like a lot of it is connections, just knowing the the right people.

I hear a lot of successful actors and actresses saying that it's about being at the right place at the right time.

So if you look the part, then oftentimes you could just get the role.

So I'm just going to take any audition I can, meet as many people as I can, and hope for the best.

Feel that.

Have any celebrities DM'd you?

Little Pump was in my DM.

Ooh.

Called out Lil Pump.

Like three weeks ago, he messaged me.

Were you in Miami?

No, I wasn't.

Oh, he just randomly

messaged my sister too.

Oh, same message, or yeah, it was literally like the same amount of like

he said, like, hey, with like three wives or something.

I thought I was like a copy paste.

Yeah, you gotta switch it up, it looks right.

Yeah, I was like, oh, he messaged me, and she's like, wait, he messaged me the same thing, bruh.

So, you guys probably get the same guys hitting you up, though, right?

Yeah,

yeah, that must be annoying.

Like, what's that like when you see that happen?

You just know he's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What about like just growing up with a twin sister?

What was that like your whole life?

It's been awesome.

I feel really lucky to have a twin sister.

It's like having a built-in best friend and she's my biggest supporter and also my biggest inspiration.

I feel like we

really work off of each other.

Nice.

So if one of us is slacking off,

we'll like kind of work off of that and be like, well, no, you can't be slacking off because I'm not slacking off.

And it really helps us to work towards our goals because we know each other.

Do you guys have the same interests or is there different personalities?

Same interests.

Oh gosh, you're very much like identical

in everything.

Like you can't think of any difference?

Not really.

That's crazy because

there was a pair of twins where I grew up and they were different.

Like they liked different things, but yeah, I know some twins that just don't get along.

That's weird to me.

That's sad.

That makes no sense, actually.

Because if you're twins, you should be pretty similar, right?

Right.

Yeah, I don't know.

I feel like some people don't like

having someone so similar to them.

Like, often people will just, like, instead of being like, oh, hey, Lauren, hey, Julia, they'll be like, hey, the twins, and we'll kind of be grouped as like one.

I love that, but I feel like some people want to, like, have their own kind of

set.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I feel like that could definitely cause some conflict.

For sure.

Do people ever mistake you guys?

Not much anymore, though surprisingly, it still does happen, even though, like, we have different hair and different hairstyles.

It still happens, and we just go along with it.

But when we were in high school and all before, we looked really similar, so it was like a daily occurrence where people would step up.

I would have to go like face to face, and one of them had like a freckle, and then I would know.

Yeah, it was tough.

That's how people used to tell me apart.

I have a freckle right here, it's like a little bumpy freckle, and that's how people would tell me apart.

Do you have any other siblings or just twin sister?

Older brother.

And what was that like?

Did he look after you guys?

Yeah, he was always really protective and super kind, yeah.

nice is he still in canada yeah okay but he wants to move to the u.s he's trying to escape the cold weather i remember during covet you weren't allowed to leave there right yeah that must have been scary

i remember i was trying to go there i think and i couldn't even go there because you needed the vaccine or whatever yeah covet was a really scary time but it definitely allowed me to focus all of my time and energy on social media that was kind of when i started growing a lot was 2020 and it's definitely because i had no other distractions right your numbers probably skyrocketed because everyone's home.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

On TikTok, especially, my numbers were going crazy because everyone was on TikTok because there was nothing else to do.

How many followers do you have on TikTok?

Uh, 8.8 right now.

Yeah, it's gotta be like top thousand in the world.

It's crazy because I just hit 10 on IG and I'm ranked 1600.

Yeah, congrats, that's insane, especially for Instagram.

I feel like it's hard to grow.

Yeah, it's all timing because I was in it early.

Like, I feel like now it's so hard to grow.

It's like It is.

I find when I first started on Instagram in 2019,

I could grow a lot easier just from one picture.

Whereas now

you can't gain as many followers from a picture, I feel.

For sure.

So were you buying shout-outs on other pages to grow?

At the very beginning, I think I paid like $10 for one shout-out once.

But what I would do, because I didn't have a lot of money, so I would message like aesthetic crunch pages or like, you know, like hot chicks pages.

and I DM them like hours on end, just DMing pages and sending them my photos.

And I'd be like, please repost this.

And eventually it just, people would repost it, and then other people would see that page posting it, and then they'd repost it.

And it really helped me grow in the very beginning when I only had like 5k followers.

Yeah.

Yeah, I remember those days.

I would be in my DMs.

Yo, can you repost me?

Yeah, the desperate days.

But it works.

Yeah, we all got to start somewhere.

Exactly.

And then eventually once you have like 10k, I started doing S for S.

You remember that?

Yeah.

Shout out for shout out.

Man, those were the days.

But that stuff doesn't work that well anymore.

It doesn't.

Yeah.

On OF, though, like that must have been life-changing money for you, right?

Yeah, yeah, it definitely was.

It was.

So what was that shift like in your life?

Like, wow, I just made that much this month.

Yeah, it was definitely really crazy.

And it really inspired me to work harder towards my goals as well.

And

I don't know.

I just, I grew up, my mom was like a single mother of three, so we didn't have lots of money.

So it was weird

seeing money for the first time.

Right, right.

Yeah, for a lot of people, that's a life-changing moment.

Like, what are some of your goals now that you've seen this type of money come into your life?

I

like goals regarding money.

Just goals in general, like life could be money, could be.

I definitely want to make my money work for me now.

Right.

So I hired a financial advisor recently to just help me figure out what to do with my money because I'm.

Nice.

You're stacking?

Dang, okay.

Yeah, well, you don't want money sitting in the bank.

Right.

You actually lose money if you have it in the bank because of interest.

Exactly, exactly.

So I feel like anyone who stumbles upon a good amount of money, definitely hire a financial advisor because they'll be able to tell you where to put it, what will make you money, open a retirement savings plan,

all that technical stuff.

So where did you find your advisor?

Just online?

Yeah, I just Googled a few, I interviewed a few, and then I just went with the one that seemed the most genuine and valuable to me.

And what were some of the investments he or she recommended?

Definitely the retirement saving plan.

I don't remember like all the specific words.

Like a IRA.

I think if there was a Roth IRA.

Yeah, Roth IRA.

Because that's tax-free money.

Yeah.

I think 12K year or something.

You put it there.

Yeah, and when I was in Canada, there was the TSFA.

Okay.

So I have money in there too.

And

yeah.

Oh, so you have Canadian banks and US?

Yeah, I'm trying to convert everything to just US now, but I do still have stuff in Canada.

Okay.

So you're going full-time U.S.

now.

Are you a citizen?

I am not a citizen.

I'm here on a visa, but my goal is to work towards citizenship.

Right.

What's that process like?

I'm curious.

So the process to get the 01 visa wasn't that complicated.

You just need to have a good immigration lawyer.

We had one, and he wasn't used to dealing with influencers.

He dealt with like actors.

So he was like, you don't have enough evidence to like submit to your case.

Really?

Yeah.

So he wanted us to like star in a movie or something.

And we did that for like about a year just trying to build up evidence and he didn't want to submit anything.

So then we found a different lawyer that actually works with like esports people and influencers.

And he was like, you have way more than enough evidence.

Yeah, I got 8 million followers.

Yeah, so within a month he just gathered all of this stuff and submitted it and then we got approved.

And then from there we can convert, we can get a green card and then we can get full citizenship.

That process will probably take a few years.

But hopefully we can do it.

Interesting.

Yeah, I hear people in other, not Canada, but other countries have to wait years or something.

So I was just curious.

Yeah, it all depends on like the specific visa you go for.

Right.

I feel like if you have a good team and a good social media presence, then the O1 visa isn't too hard to obtain.

Yeah.

People always ask me to write like a letter of recommendation.

I'm like, I don't even know you.

Like, what if you get arrested?

Like, I might get screwed.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Did you have to get a letter written?

Yeah.

Our management team messaged all of their

team and was like, write letters for them.

Yeah, I know.

So they kind of took care of that.

Man, that was good.

I think I asked everything I needed to.

What are you working on now?

We're working on stuff for Gloomy Girl, specifically merchandise.

We do have merchandise already, but we want to expand the kind of products that we're releasing and maybe get into like wine or something fun, gamer girl wine.

So, we're working on that behind the scenes right now.

I feel like that's our biggest project.

Nice.

What are the top-selling products right now?

Right now, it is our devil t-shirt.

Our devil girl t-shirt.

There's a devil on it?

Yeah, she's like a devil e-girl.

Okay.

Wow, people have some interesting

people go crazy for her.

Really?

Devil?

Okay.

Where can people find out more about you?

So, all of my socials are Laurenxberch.

And yeah.

So, yeah, you can find my socials there.

You can check out Gloomy Girl, which is just Gloom, and then e-girl.

It's kind of like a play on words.

Okay.

Well, thanks so much for coming on.

That was a blast.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah.

Thanks for watching, guys.

Digital Social Hour.

I'll see you next time.