Looking for something more specific?
Enter a search term here:
Enter a search term here:
 WE LOVE YOU Two Voices & One Message for the World Exclusive Interview with Andy Min & Thomas Sullivan Featured in 'Innerviews' Hosted by Allié McGuire In a digital world often shaped by cynicism, comparison, and the quiet pressure to perform, Andy Min and Thomas Sullivan chose something radical: love, spoken out loud. Through nature, narrative, and a gentler language of connection, their work reminds us that softness is not weakness, and vulnerability is not a liability. In this conversation, we explore their creative journey, their hopeful blueprint for a more emotionally intelligent generation, and why they believe three simple words still carry the power to steady us, heal us, and bring us back to ourselves: We Love You. ALLIÉ: Let's go back to the beginning. Before ‘We Love You’ became what it is today, what was going on in your lives that made you feel like the internet needed something different? THOMAS: We were at the age where we were in our freshman year of college right when COVID hit. So we went off and had this big moment where we were starting our lives, and then it was completely put on hold. For a couple years we both went back to where we grew up together in the Bay Area. ANDY: We've known each other since 6th grade and have been friends ever since. THOMAS: And our lives were put on hold, and we were back home in the Bay Area. And there wasn't much to do in the world and we could barely even see each other. So we just were out in nature all the time. Hiking and climbing and mountain biking and just sitting in fields thinking thoughts and dealing with our lives being put on hold completely. ANDY: And the thing is we grew up on the internet so we knew and were shaped by the early internet and how content is designed to grab your attention and make you feel very anxious and stressed. It made us feel very anxious and stressed. THOMAS: Our whole lives leading up to starting 'We Love You' and continuing with it, we've always had our own struggles with anxiety, depression and mental health. Around that time we, like everyone I think during COVID, really felt it and really needed to find a way to deal with it, especially because there were no distractions. You were just alone in your home or, for us, off and out in a field somewhere. And through nature and through all our big conversations, we just found a way to deal with it and a way to think about things. We think about things slightly differently. I think it's always changing. We grew up in this place on the internet where so much of it is making us more anxious and feeding into that anxiety and depression and this feeling of us not being good enough. We're not doing the right things or not having the perfect life that we so often see online. At the same time, especially during COVID, you could see the world being shaped in that same way. You could see the general discourse getting angrier and more afraid and more depressed. There's this feeling in the world where it seems like you're going the wrong way, and we think a lot of that comes from the informational space we live in. We're like, okay let's try to do our best. We're both artists and want to make something that could push back against that or be an alternative to that.  ALLIÉ: Well, you've done a beautiful job at creating what you have. And I mean, we are what we eat. So if we're going to consume all of this dark anxiety-ridden stuff, of course, we're going to become that. The question now is at what point did you realize that you didn't want to play into the loud performative energy online and instead you wanted to build something rooted in kindness and emotional honesty? Because it's one thing for you two to go into the woods, to go into the fields to find a safe space and something that feels good and comfortable for you. But what is it that made you want to provide that for others? ANDY: You know, it's interesting. We didn't exactly start out going directly the 'hope' route, or the soft route. We tried to go the direction of trying to deconstruct the 'manosphere'. THOMAS: Like the classic bro podcast, we kind of did a satirical take at first on that. ANDY: Exactly. And that did somewhat well, but we realized it wasn't exactly what we wanted to be doing and the people were, you know, we got some traction, but... THOMAS: It was a little traction... We were really enjoying making these videos. They were very silly and they would be like we're talking about UFC or something and then like a little puppet would emerge... ANDY: And quote Gandhi or something. THOMAS: And we try to give a mindful twist to those sorts of things. We took time off for a little while after that just because, Andy, you were in the UK. Then we came back together. And we just with no hope of making anything, we went on this long hike in the Bay Area in the Santa Cruz Mountains where we grew up. We were hiking for like 12 miles, and you were wearing those ridiculous... ANDY: Barefoot shoes, yeah.  THOMAS: Yeah, the ones with toes. We were down in this little river valley, and there was this perfect light coming through and we just saw two little banana slugs on a rock. We had this organic conversation where I think I pointed out, "Huh. Look at those banana slugs. Maybe they're friends." ANDY: Yeah, maybe. Like us. THOMAS: "Maybe that's us in our next life." And we had this conversation and at that moment we just went, "Oh, that could totally be a video." And we shot it in like five minutes and edited it in 30 minutes a few weeks later. ANDY: Yeah. And it was serendipitous. It just happened to be the perfect lighting, the perfect moment. THOMAS: And we just made that video and that was the video people connected with. It was our first video with over 100,000 views, our first video over a million views. It was our first real video. ANDY: And so a lot of times we've based our videos off of conversations we normally have... THOMAS: Or things that we want to hear or wish we could have heard when we were going through something. And after that video went really well, that first banana slug video, we were on a Zoom call and realized we could make an infinite number of these because it came so naturally. Rather than having to come beat around the bush at these ideas or try to trick people into watching it, just being that alternative and being whatever that is because we're supposed to be.  ALLIÉ: Well, and I think, again, you guys do it so well just to show up, just to be raw, just to be real, and not to try to be something else, but simply just showing up as yourselves. I think that really empowers people and gives them permission to maybe try to do the same thing. Be yourself. So, nature plays such a big role in what you create. What does being outside and slowing down give you that the digital world couldn't? I know the absence of anxiety, but what else? What else has it given to you that you hope to give to other people? THOMAS: It's real, you know? ANDY: Nature is very grounding for the both of us and has no expectations of what you should or shouldn't be. THOMAS: So often when you're stuck in a doom scroll hole or just even a day-to-day life like living and breathing with the daily human stresses plus the constant omnipresence of online discourse, there's this feeling of being talked at and talked to. It's constantly shaping who you're supposed to be and what you need to be doing. It kind of feels like a virtual existence, even if you're not looking on your phone. It's like you're still kind of in that box. I think there's no better antidote to that than just getting outside and really taking some time for just disconnecting completely and just feeling, "Oh there's just a tree here, and this tree has nothing to tell me... exactly what I should be doing with my life, or why I'm not making enough money by 25-years-old, or whatever it is. It's just there, and it just 'is' in this very grounding way. It's hard to find in other places. ALLIÉ: I never thought about it that way, that it doesn't have any expectation of you. There's expectation everywhere else from our family, from our friends, from social media, how many likes and how many this or that. But yeah, trees don't care, slugs don't care. ANDY: Exactly. THOMAS: We love slugs.  ALLIÉ: I actually was hiking with my friend around that area. What's the place that has the eucalyptus trees and it's not far from the bridge there? Is it Muir Woods? ANDY: Oh, Muir Woods. Sure, yeah. ALLIÉ: I went on a hike there. I saw a banana slug. My friend dared me to kiss it. I did. It was gross. But you know. ANDY: In sixth grade we all go on this trip called Outdoor Ed where we have to kiss banana slugs. So I think everybody in Northern California has kissed a banana slug. THOMAS: And it's the best part. It was formative for sure. ALLIÉ: Well, good, I can join the slug-kissing club. So when people tell you that your work helped them feel less alone or more comfortable being themselves, what does that kind of connection mean to you personally? I mean, do you feel like this is something you're just doing for now, or do you feel like this is maybe something that you were called to do, this kind of work? THOMAS: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, whenever anyone comes up to us and recognizes us in the real world, it's such a surreal and amazing feeling. Even though we have many followers, it's hard to make that feel real and that we're actually reaching people sometimes. And so when we're out at the climbing gym or coffee shop and someone comes up and says, "Hi, we love you. We love your videos." It's such an amazing thing because it makes it real and it makes you feel like there's actually some impact we're having. And it's the impact we were hoping to have. We're just giving people an alternative, a positive force in their life.  ANDY: One of the most interesting things is there's not like one kind of person who is a follower of us. It's so surprising to see everybody from all sorts of backgrounds, all different ages, come up to us and that it's really surprising and really validates our message, I think. THOMAS: When we set out to make these videos, they were more geared towards people who are young men on the internet who need something better to watch and to shape how they think. ANDY: And it's great to see that because it reminds us of ourselves when we were younger. THOMAS: And we get that, but then we realize these videos are pretty universal, or at least we hope they are. And they seem to be speaking to people who are of all ages and all types. ALLIÉ: Well, I think that tells you that you're doing it right. Love is supposed to be this universal thing. And the fact that it's connecting with people on this universal level, I think that's the universe saying, "Keep going, guys. You're doing the right things here." THOMAS: We often say our videos are kind of like... We're making them for our younger selves, basically, like we're talking to what we wish we could have heard. And when we see people that remind us of ourselves when we were younger, it's like, okay, we hit something right, like we're doing the right thing. Because we want to make it cool to be hopeful. ANDY: Yeah, that's very important. THOMAS: It's cool to be optimistic, cool to be kind, cool to see the world with those eyes. ALLIÉ: Well, again, you're just doing it so well. What I have learned from your videos is to never wear any eyeliner or mascara when I'm watching them, because I'm either laughing or I'm crying hysterically. So when I watch you guys, I gotta make sure there's no makeup on. Lots of things to learn though. Keep on doing what you're doing. And speaking of what you're doing, let's close this way. As you move into this next chapter, which has literal chapters, your book, what's ahead? And what do you hope people feel when they hear the words, "We love you"?  THOMAS: I think with the book, we're just really proud of it. We've been basically working on it for as long as we've been making our videos. It's been as much part of our lives as our videos have because we've been working on it forever. And we started out trying to like okay. Let's make the case for hope. Let's make the case for kindness and not just in a short video, but in something that we can really dig into what we're actually thinking here. What's the foundation of the hopeful worldview we try to cultivate? And I think we did a pretty good job of that in the book of just telling that story. Because we start with the very smallest things with atoms, 3D space and time. ANDY: The title is 'We Love You: an optimistic guide to life on a rock floating through space'. So, we try to make it a guide from the smallest thing to the very biggest... the universe. It's all the stuff that gives us hope and the foundations of our beliefs. THOMAS: It's silly, and there's fun stuff anyone can take from it. We're so proud of that book, but it's also been a huge time constraint on the other projects we've always wanted to be doing. We wanted to make longer videos and podcasts. The shorts we make, they're Tiktoks, Reels, and YouTube Shorts, but they really are little short films. At least, we think of them that way. ANDY: And from the day we met in sixth grade, I walked up to Thomas on the tan bark at the literal play structure. I said to him, "I want to make short films when I'm older." No, I said specifically, "I want to be in a film festival." THOMAS: And since then we have been in a film festival, but I think the goal is like we always talk about 'We Love You' the motion picture, or our version of the Mr. Rogers Show, or whatever we can make that just can be a reach to the widest audience we can with a hopeful message that we have and be viewed however we can for people. I studied film and Andy studied music, and we we love making things together. We would love to make the 'We Love You' motion picture one day. ANDY: Yeah, that's the idea. THOMAS: But that's what we want people to hear with 'We Love You'. The name was a huge moment for us when we first came up with it. We came up with the idea for the whole project, and we knew the name needed to be right. ANDY: Yeah, we were on a Zoom call, actually. We weren't even together. THOMAS: It was like a five-hour Zoom call. ANDY: We settled on the name. We both teared up a little bit. We're like, that's perfect. THOMAS: We're like, "Dude, it's ‘We Love You’..." Truly, we were both teary-eyed on a Zoom call, which is so bizarre because it was nothing then. But it said what we wanted to say. Hopefully, we want people to feel that you're loved, but it's not just loved by us, and not just by one person. It's that the world loves you, that we all love you, and that we can all love each other in a way that just really points it out. ANDY: And I think that's what we want people to think of when they hear our name. THOMAS: Yeah, we love you. ALLIÉ: Well, I love you guys. I think you're amazing. I hope that you do not ever change. You just continue to be authentically, amazingly who you are.  ALLIÉ: You mentioned Mr. Rogers a moment ago. One of my favorite Mr. Rogers things is when he just says, "Look for the helpers." And just as you said, you just hope that you can help people. You're helping a lot of people right now. So, Jack and I, we have six kids... ANDY: Wow! ALLIÉ: Get ready, buckle up, ages seven to 26. So it's a lot, a lot of kiddos. THOMAS: That's kind of amazing. ALLIÉ: They are kind of amazing! And what is also amazing is the fact that you guys are making the content that you are, this is what they need. This is what so many need. This is what I need. So thank you on behalf of me and AwareNow, and the millions and millions of people who love you both. Thank you for sharing what you do. And thank you for helping all of us become a bit more aware now. ∎
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
