Sabrina Chevannes:
What was your journey? How did you end up here?
Flobo Boyce:
Well, this could be a long story, so please correct me if it is.
When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a financial analyst. That was the teenage coming because I read this career book, and the way you make money was like, cool.
Remember, growing up in Brooklyn with immigrant parents, they’re like, “Yeah, money.”
Did it for a year. Hated it.
But my internship was at a place called Citibank, Citigroup at the time, and they put me in the media department.
They did what they call industrials, basically video packages that are just made for the bank.
Like, “Here are 10 reasons why our company is great,” one of the videos that play in the lobby when you walk in there.
And I saw the editing team, and these guys weren’t wearing suits and ties. They wore polo shirts and khakis, and they cut movies on the Avid.
I go, “Oh, I want to be a movie star, movie maker, or whatever.”
So I got to California with college first, with graduate school in California, because I wanted to be a filmmaker.
I wanted to be a video editor or film editor.
I did that for three years, got out, couldn’t find work for about two and a half years.
A friend that worked at Fox Broadcasting got me on the show. I think it’s actually bigger over there, The X Factor with Simon Cowell.
I was on that show doing the digital stuff, so I was just cutting the clips for Hulu.
Like, “Here’s what you missed last week,” that for a while.
One day, my boss was Googling me on the interwebs and found out that I wrote short stories and I published them in books on Amazon.
He goes, “Hey, look, can you write some of the copy and content for these clips?”
So now, we went to Hulu and it’s like, “Here are the top seven things you missed.”
I did that for Fox Broadcasting for about two years.
American Idol seasons 12 and 13, X Factor USA seasons two and three.
Basically, it was the place where Fifth Harmony got their start. Hey, they kicked me out there.
I was trying to make that happen.
I put my job, two college degrees, couldn’t find work, or was overqualified.
I did a lot of odd jobs.
I did groceries here. I was a living person there. I went door to door and sold hand sanitizer.
Until one day, I was DJ Messiah. I was doing it on the side.
So when my day job let me go on Thanksgiving Day.
Sabrina Chevannes:
Thanksgiving?
Flobo Boyce:
Well, they didn’t quite let me go.
I got a phone call from accounts payable saying, “Hey, how’s it going, Flobo? We want to know where to send your 401k disbursement.”
I’m like, “What?”
Like, “Oh, sorry.”
And so I called my boss, and then I got let go that way.
Sabrina Chevannes:
Oh my God, what a Thanksgiving person. That is Jesus.
Flobo Boyce:
Yeah, it happens.
Bad USA.
So I went to my closet, dusted off my old DJ deck, and I started a DJ business that day because it was November, engagement season.
I said, “Let me get some weddings here to get myself something to eat, basically.”
And so I was a DJ. I still am.
I was a DJ from 2017 November on, and that was my main day job, and it still is.
But during the week, I work as much as not many Tuesday weddings are happening.
I was always free time. It was like, “Whoa. Okay, I’ll learn my comedy here. We’ll do more stuff there.”
Got into esports. I played the game in my downtime, so I’ve been kind of based off that.
I didn’t want to be a business owner. I had no plans to be.
I grew up in a household where it was like, “Get a good job, work in a good office, wear a good tie.”
But I was basically pushed out there by corporate America, and so I was out the plane without a parachute trying to make things work.
And so why I got here today is because everything that I love, I had the time to do it.
Because I’m sitting here right now, it’s Presidents’ Day, it’s a holiday, right?
But I’m sitting here at 11:00 in the morning talking with you. If I was in an office, I couldn’t even do that.
So I am grateful.
And on days I’ve got to pay rent, those things are scary, but every other day, I’m grateful to be here, you know?
Sabrina Chevannes:
But that story is so intriguing because people always say that, you know, what kind of stories are quite interesting of how it happened.
But you took a job in a financial institution, but actually found your media career because of that job.
So it shows you that stuff happens.
But also, what I thought was enlightening was that you had what was a good ideal role as well, like, you know, writing that content and creating content for the likes of Hulu and obviously X Factor and stuff like that.
So you lost that job, but surely those contacts would have set you up for another job.
Like, how did they not set you up for another job?
That’s what I would have thought.
Like, that’s such a big position, surely, like saying, “I did this, guys. My contacts are here.”
You probably wrote it, watched it, all that stuff.
How did you not land another job with that background?
Flobo Boyce:
So this is interesting. There’s two things.
One, we’re in Los Angeles, so everyone says things to your face that doesn’t happen. Not saying people are fake. That is very cynical.
But it’s like, “Oh yeah man, I’ll keep my ear out for you.”
You have to realize, do they mean that or not?
But Fox, even back then, was going through reorganization.
So it’s going to get into the weeds of it, but Fox basically started off as a print company, The Wall Street Journal, and they had print.
It had everything else, and after everything else got cut off, this is different sections and kind of different silos.
Digital writing are like this.
The structure didn’t make any sense. No company runs like that.
So when I was working with them in 2011-12, they were trying to reorganize that because there was obviously way more money in digital than in print.
So jobs got eliminated. People were all out of work.
So my contacts were out of work themselves.
So it was kind of like the ones that really wanted to be helpful had no means to, and the ones that had their job were pretty much holding on to a life raft and being like, “Yeah man, I’ll look for a job for you. No problem.”
So that’s kind of what happened.
Sabrina Chevannes:
That makes sense, because obviously we see LA on TV all the time, right?
I’m sure that you have perceptions of London, right?
Everyone thinks that we sit around just drinking tea. I mean, I am literally drinking tea right now, so I can’t say anything.
But I guess, per se, it looks cutthroat, like Hollywood.
Like in all the movies, people save their last dollar to try and get a Greyhound to LA to start their media career.
And they just, like you said, sleep on the streets or couch-surf anywhere they can.
They do anything they can to make their way in Hollywood.
How realistic is that to what we see on TV?
Flobo Boyce:
I think that there are people that come out to LA with their last thousand or two thousand dollars and make it happen.
And I would say people from Los Angeles are really good people. They’re wholesome people.
It’s really transplants that want to come with a new persona. That’s where the fakeness of LA comes from.
But there isn’t like a soap opera main villain guy with salt-and-pepper hair in a suit looking down at you doing this.
It’s unfortunately people you meet who go, “Oh man, I love what you’re doing. We should have you on our show,” and never follow up.
So if anything, I’ve found so many people where I think this might be the opportunity, this will be the break, and it fizzles out more than anyone else ever telling me, “You’re not good enough.”
Plus, the housing market isn’t that great here.
Thankfully, I have rent control.
The average one-bedroom now is about $2,100 US for a bedroom, maybe $1,200 US.
So you have to be in a certain position to even afford to put yourself in the lottery to get yourself successful.
This is why, compared to most other cities, it’s okay to have flatmates.
I’m going, I’m trying here.
Flatmates until you’re in your 30s, 40s, until you’re married, basically.
So it gets kind of a high difficulty, but it’s not ruthless in terms of personalities that much.
It’s more like, “Oh, this is set up for me to fail financially almost every day.”
Because how do you go to an audition at 10:00 in the morning on Tuesday if you are working 9 to 6 in an office to afford the apartment you can’t afford?
Sabrina Chevannes:
I guess in some ways, then, that lifestyle forces you to kind of get into a creative entrepreneur mind.
Because if you want to make it big in Hollywood and, like I said, you want to do all these auditions, you need a flexible schedule.
You can’t just butt out and say, “I’m just going to go do that.”
I mean, I’m a big Friends fan, and everybody has watched Friends, the TV show.
I’m like a massive Friends fan. I can relate everything to Friends.
There’s an episode where Joey is obviously trying to be an actor and it’s newer, but still.
And he gets a job in Central Perk cafe.
He wants to go to this audition. He’s been left in charge, so he just closes the cafe.
He’s like, “What, guys? Okay.”
And goes to the audition, and then goes back and gets fired.
That’s how I imagined it would be.
So you’re kind of forced into entrepreneurship, surely, if you want to make a career in Hollywood.
Flobo Boyce:
And this is why it will roll into influencer stuff or content creation because they can schedule that content to release whenever they want.
So they’ll say, “Hey look, Sunday is my content day. I have a lot of kids do that Sunday.”
They go out to all these photo shoots, all these videos to cut, that and today it was like meal prep, and they roll out for the week so they can have that illusion they’re doing something while they’re at their jobs.
And that’s what makes it difficult.
Plus, you’ve got your friends and family. They throw it in your face.
“How’s it going, Hollywood? I don’t see you on TV,” right?
But I don’t mean that. It becomes an extra psychological pressure to go out there and achieve this, to be successful.
Sabrina Chevannes:
But yeah, I think that’s also the problem that you’ll find the same, I get it, probably, is your family doesn’t get it.
Like you said, you’re from an immigrant family.
Parents who came to the US probably trained you to be like, “Right, I want you to have a good education. I want you to go and be whatever kind of profession that’s got trusted money.”
What did they want you to do?
And how did they react when you decided to be a rebel and go and say, “I want to do this?”
Flobo Boyce:
The first thing was, “I want to be a filmmaker.”
And it’s funny, that was the first one because my mom, she’s from a time and place where there weren’t many opportunities for women on the islands.
It was like you be a nurse or teacher or a banker.
So Mom picked to be a nurse because it allowed her to go to Scotland to do her midwifery, as she did.
So I was like, “Oh wait, that was her way out.”
So she was like that parent, like, “I don’t know what filmmaking is, but if it gets you out and you want to do it, then go do it.”
Just to give her a bit of background, I am left-handed.
My mom is too.
When she was a kid, they tied her left hand down and forced her to write with the right hand.
So when I came out left-handed too, she was like, “Why not just be left-handed?”
Because, I don’t know if you know this.
Sabrina Chevannes:
No, I don’t know this.
Flobo Boyce:
So in some cultures, in Latin, right, the word for right, like right-handed, is Dexter.
The word for left in Latin is sinister.
Sabrina Chevannes:
A lot of people are sinister.
Flobo Boyce:
For a lot of people who are devout Catholics or devout Anglicans or Protestants, it was seen that if you write with your left hand, that is the devil’s hand in my mom’s time.
So when she was a kid, they tied her arms behind her back and they forced her to write with the right hand.
So when I came out writing left-handed, she was like, “Whatever, just do what makes you happy.”
Because I’ve been in situations where I was forced to get something in a certain way.
“I can’t understand what you want to do, but go ahead.”
My dad was not nearly as accommodating because he came up here as an engineer in the United States.
Being an engineer, he got a job with the New York City Transit Authority.
He got a good job and worked his way up through racism, through everything else.
He’s like, “I can do it, you can too.”
So as a compromise of all the ways to make a film, I had to say, “Dad, I want to be a film editor,” because they are actually using the computer to make this happen.
He could understand the computer science aspect of it, rather than me being like, “I want to be a writer,” which I really wanted to be.
I want to be a writer. I want to be a director.
But I said, “I want to be an editor,” so they could understand it.
This is because I wouldn’t have got the blessing, even though now looking back, I go, “Who needs these blessings? Am I right?”
But back then, you wanted it because I was going from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, Orange County, California.
I wanted my parents to be like, “At least, hey look, you have faith.”
You’re going to be stressful.
Sabrina Chevannes:
How do they feel now?
Do they look at you and be like, “Okay, I’m really proud. I get what you do,” or do they still not get what you do?
How does it help them feel?
Flobo Boyce:
My dad is kind of like, as long as you’re alive.
“I lived my life. I’m old and sick in my 70s now. I lived my life. As long as you can feed yourself, fine.”
He’s given up in that way.
Sabrina Chevannes:
Great, I’ll take it. I’ll take it.
Flobo Boyce:
I’ll give you a perfect example about how my mom feels.
So as I record this last week, Rocket League, which is the game I commentate on, had its first ever Black History Month special on the main Twitch channel, and I was asked to be a commentator for that.
I didn’t know it was going to be on the main channel. I thought it was going to be some side thing because, you know, Black History Month, and I say it’s kind of like it’s there, but more like, “Is it over yet?”
So anyway, I’m commentating this game, and it blew my mind.
How many people do you think tuned in to watch me commentate this video game? Just I’m curious.
Sabrina Chevannes:
I have no idea what the numbers are. I mean, it’s obviously going to be loads, otherwise you wouldn’t be telling the story.
Flobo Boyce:
On average, I’ll get like 20,000.
But yes, 30,000 people at the time came out for a specific Black History Month special.
Sabrina Chevannes:
Wow, that’s huge.
Flobo Boyce:
That’s huge because that’s way bigger than any comedy show I’ve ever done.
So I clicked it out, showed it to my mom, and she’s like, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you sound so happy.”
I was like, “Yeah, you got me.”
Sabrina Chevannes:
Because my parents are the same.
My mom’s quite traditional. She’s like very much like, “What do people do for a living? They must be doctors.”
And this occurs as Chinese culture.
And my brothers are both doctors.
I went to medical school originally, and then dropped out because it was not for me and I went into entrepreneurship.
My parents don’t really understand what I do.
They don’t really get it.
I think for several years when I struggled, they were just like, “What is she doing?”
But then over the last couple of years, they were like, “Okay, she’s bought a flat in London. She actually seems to be doing well.”
And I went out to visit them for the weekend, and they are in Portugal at the moment.
I had some of the best weekend seeing them and spending time with them, and I was catching them up on all the stuff I’m doing.
And when I was leaving, my dad said the same thing.
He was just like, “It’s been so great spending time with you and seeing you. It’s just even better to see you so happy.”
That’s what he said to me as well.
It’s the same thing.
I don’t think they still quite understand what I do, but that was the first weekend they sat and listened about everything about what I do and listened to me explain how different it is in my industry compared to what they went through and how the times have changed and the difficulties I’m facing.
I think they sort of understood it, and they were like, “We’re just so happy to see you happy.”
And it was just so nice.
Flobo Boyce:
Yeah, it’s a weird feeling because you’re at the age now where, honestly, validation wasn’t given to me anyway.
Sabrina Chevannes:
So she’s from Malaysia, but she’s trying to hide it.
But Asian Chinese, yeah.
Flobo Boyce:
You get the same pressure to get a job? Like, the job?
Sabrina Chevannes:
Yeah, 100%.
I love the mix of cultures. I love traveling. I love understanding all that stuff, right?
Maybe it’s because I am so mixed, but I’ve got Chinese and Jamaican, but I live in England and am very British brought up as well.
So obviously, I had such a range of cultures in me.
I love finding out about people’s cultures for that reason.
But yeah, definitely did have the pressures of that.
Like, I played the piano and I played the violin and played chess. I mean, come on, baby.
But you know, the thing is, when my parents say they are very, very good parents, they’ll be there for you no matter what.
So I bet they were definitely disappointed when I decided not to get a traditional path, but they always supported me and they were always there for me.
And I feel that did quite sadden them, but they’re still always there for me, which is really nice.
But it definitely did feel weird.
It was a very strange kind of thing.
Flobo Boyce:
It’s a question that a lot of my creative friends and I, please roll with me here.
Assuming you have children or theoretical children, is there a job that they would do that would give you the same kind of like, “Are you sure you want to do that?”
Because I kind of feel like I’ve been to so many different odd jobs, unless they wanted to be a career Uber driver.
But even then, I’m like, “Well, I was like…” Yeah, I can’t even think of a job.
Sabrina Chevannes:
I mean legal jobs, because I’m gonna start the London Mafia.
Like, I don’t know, something like that.
I was like, let me watch The Sopranos with you and educate you as logo.
Yeah, but I don’t know. That’s so funny.
