I didn’t quit my 9-5 job for this but I was there when Instagram go from “photo app with sepia filters” to a full-time job, YouTube go from “why do you post your videos” to its own paycheck and TikTok go from “that app for dancers” to the thing that pays my rents. I’ve watched almost every wave of “this is the next big thing” happen in real time, from the front row — always, somehow, quite on time.

So when I tell you I'm starting a Substack in 2026 — a year where everyone has a newsletter — the honest and unfiltered part of me has to ask: am I here because I genuinely want to start a new relationship with you , or am I just not wanting to miss out?

Here’s the truly honest answer: it’s both. It is a little bit of not wanting to miss something. And it is also — mostly — because I am tired of a relationship with you that runs through an algorithm’s mood that day. Fifteen years of captions and 7-second hooks and “how to’s, 5 things, grwm’s” and somewhere in there I stopped being able to tell you the actual thing I was thinking. Just the version of it that performs. I don’t think wanting both of those things at once makes the second one less true. I think most honest things are a little bit both.

But here’s the thing — and I’m not slipping this in quietly: social media isn’t a hobby for me. I did started for fun — but now it’s how I pay for my life. And in fifteen years of doing this “job,” I’ve talked about wellness, travel, routines, skincare, relationships, everything — except the actual business of it. What it pays. How it grew. What it looked like before it looked like anything.

I’m not doing that here today. That’s a whole post on its own, and it deserves more than a paragraph tacked onto the end of this one. But I wanted you to know it’s coming — not instead of the wellness and the routines and the 2am googling, but alongside it. The wellness routines that didn’t actually work. The travel tricks I’ve never told anyone before. A real, ongoing “where I started vs. where I actually am” series, numbers and all, because if I’m going to ask you to trust me with the honest stuff, money can’t be the one thing that stays behind the curtain.

Nice to meet you, again.

Elvin

And I'm less certain now than when I started. I think that might be the most useful thing I have to offer you

When I was a kid, this was the dream: to fall asleep on a plane, wake up somewhere I'd never been, and find the words for it on the way back. Thirteen years ago — back when this wasn't a line of work anyone had a name for yet — my husband and I fell in love, got married in 3 months, started making videos and somehow the dream turned into the job. We travelled while we worked, right as the platforms were exploding, learning them while they were still being invented.

The years after that run together in my memory: countries, cameras, more content than I could count. Projects with global brands, and eventually a skincare brand of my own.

And I never stopped studying: yoga, face yoga, wellness coaching, hormones.. because I was tired of repeating things I'd only half understood. I ended up building something around it — a yoga community, a YouTube channel just for yoga, an online face yoga group.

Learning, unlearning, working out what I actually think. I still am, honestly.

Which is how I ended up here. Because the more I learned, the less certain I got. Everyone sounds like they've solved it — the routine, the protocol, the five things you're doing wrong. I don't know everything. I've never known everything.

What I do is try things — properly, for long enough to actually tell. I read what's behind the claims, including the parts that are thinner than anyone admits. I ask people who know more than me. And then I tell you what actually happened.

No gatekeeping. That's the whole promise.

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What You'll Find Here

Things I've actually tried. Not for a week, not for a video — for months, long enough that the novelty wore off and I could tell the difference between something working and something just being new. Face yoga, movement, skin, sleep, food, whatever I'm deep in at the time. And when something doesn't work, I'll say so. Those are usually the more useful posts anyway.

What I've learned in training, without the jargon. I've sat through a lot of hours most people don't have time to sit through. Hormones, nutrition, anatomy, how the face actually moves and why. I'll translate it — not by dumbing it down, but by taking the fog out of it.

The honest version of this job. What a brand deal actually involves. What I turn down, and why. What being visible online for this long takes from you, and what it gives back. Almost nobody writes about this part truthfully, and I think that's a waste of a good story.

The things I haven't figured out. The 2am google spirals. The things I've changed my mind about. The ones I'm probably still wrong about — you'll watch me work those out in real time, which is either the best or worst part of this, depending on your taste.

Who I'm Writing To

You, if you're a little tired of being sold certainty.

If you've ever bought something because the person selling it sounded so sure, and regretted it two months later — I've done that too, more than once. If you'd rather understand why something works than just be told to do it. If you want to take care of yourself without handing your judgment over to whoever was loudest that week.

I've spent years talking at people, and I've loved it, I really have. But I've missed this part — the part where it's a conversation, where you can tell me I'm wrong and I can change my mind out loud.

So tell me what you're trying. Argue with me. Send me the thing you googled at 2am and couldn't stop thinking about.

This is meant to be a group chat, not a broadcast.

New posts weekly, free.

I'm really glad you're here.

— Elvin