Drew Afualo is never at a loss for words. On the topic of idiot men who get a rise out of shaming women online—nitpicking them over their weight, their dress, or their body count (when it comes to sexual partners)—she, in fact, won’t shut up.
It is why her fans, and detractors, keep coming back. In the years since Afualo first started blasting men for their shitty, anti-feminist behavior on TikTok in 2020, she has become a household name among Gen Z thanks to her high-caliber, laser-focused, near Shakespearean tongue-lashings.
As host of The Comment Section podcast on Spotify, Afualo is adamant about where and with whom she stands. Her platform, she says, is one men do not have a seat on. “As someone who makes a living by fumigating the internet of these human roaches, I always say, I have the most aggressive form of job security there is,” she writes in her new memoir-manifesto Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve, out July 30, “because men will never stop being terrible, and I will never stop calling them out for it. I sleep soundly at night on a mattress that those bitches paid for.”
The formula is working. Afualo is everywhere now—8 million followers on TikTok, 1 million on Instagram—and perhaps most proudly, living rent-free in the minds of Logan Paul-loving podcast bros who feel threatened by female empowerment. Over the phone from Los Angeles, we talked about the influence of family, how humor works, and why she’s not overly concerned about TikTok getting banned.
JASON PARHAM: If it’s OK, let’s begin with the biggest news of the week. Vice President Kamala Harris announced her presidential run, and will be the likely Democratic nominee. How are you feeling about that?
DREW AFUALO: Hopeful. I feel like any woman in a position of power is a win for women everywhere. It’s very exciting.
I’ve heard a lot of Kamala can’t do it. She’s not ready. Why do you think it’s so hard for certain people to believe a woman can be president?
Probably the same reason that, you know, the patriarchy has convinced most people that women can’t do anything without the help of a man. But if we were to trace all the world’s problems back to a source, it always comes from a man. I don’t know, you tell me, why do people think women are incapable when men have created all of the world’s problems?
You engage similar topics in Loud. In one chapter, titled “It’s Okay to Be Mean,” you write, “Since the advent of social media, the internet has been a minefield for anyone who is not a cisgendered heterosexual white man.” I recently joked with a friend how I sometimes wonder if the first lie of social media was that everyone deserves a voice online. So many platforms have become a breeding ground for hate.
The people that I stitch [on TikTok] are pretty indicative of “Well, maybe not.” For me, there is a beauty and a curse to the internet. It’s wonderful that so many people have found community and connections through the internet and been able to reach so many people, myself included.
Unfortunately, though, that kind of access is not exclusive to people who are not vitriolic and people who are not bigoted in their very nature. But that’s also why it’s really important that those of us who feel really passionate about amplifying voices that deserve to be heard, especially from marginalized groups. I think that’s why it’s so important that we continue to be loud and be bold and be brave online and hopefully drown out the vitriolic voices, you know?
Calling out misogynist men is how you became a sensation on TikTok. Early in the book you confess, “And when being mad no longer felt like enough … I decided to start laughing instead. Humor, I realized, was the gift I could share with every woman and femme out there who was over it just as much as I was.” When did you realize you could use humor as a superpower?
I grew up around Samoans. I’m Samoan. I’m from a Polynesian family. And one of our love languages is making fun of each other. It’s roasting each other. It’s making jokes. Quite frankly, that’s how I got good at it. But when I was younger, I used to be very sensitive. I’m still pretty sensitive, contrary to popular belief. But because I was so sensitive, I would take everything so personal. Even the most lighthearted, silly joke that my family would make, I would get so angry, frustrated and so emotional. And I remember my mom telling me, “If you want to tell jokes, you’ve got to learn to take a joke.” No one wants to joke around with someone who can’t take a joke. Especially if I’m going to dish it, I have to be able to take it.
That’s roasting 101.
That was kind of the moment for me. I also learned that laughing when people poke fun at you, it takes the sting and hurt out of it. And when you are talking to someone who is on the opposite end of a belief system with you, the only thing they care about is talking over me, talking down to me, and talking at me. A misogynist is never going to see me as an equal, let alone listen to me, right? The only time they do listen is by force. Learning how to laugh at them—and by proxy, myself—has taken all of the power away from them and given it back to myself.
You have to laugh at it.
Learning to laugh at it means that you no longer draw validation from the opinions of men who are far beneath you anymore. And so if you don’t draw validation from them, their words can’t hurt you. That’s why my humor has been so paramount in me unpacking my own internalized misogyny, but also handling misogyny in real life, on my platform now, and as a public person.
Talk to me about your insult technique. The variety you’ve demonstrated over the years is very impressive.
The reps I’ve put in over time have made me an expert. But I think also, as someone who makes jokes for a living now, I love a roast that’s so specific and something that is so pointed. Sometimes when I make fun of men who are awful on the internet, people are like, “Oh, you completely skipped over this.” Things that are obvious. And I’m like, “See, you guys are thinking too superficially.” You want to live in their head forever? You gotta cut deep. You gotta look for something that they will never forget no matter how long a life they live, they will always think about that one time I said something really mean to them.
My particular preference of insult, I love to make fun of—obviously, height and hairlines are easy. The only reason I haven’t retired those jokes is because it always hurts their feelings. Once they stop getting hurt, I won’t use them anymore. But my favorite ones are when I tell people they look like they sell solar panels door-to-door, or they look like they would work in a Sam’s Club selling turf. That’s funny to me, personally. I kind of just like to tell ones that make me laugh. And thankfully it worked out.
Are there any comedians you follow online that you draw inspiration from?
Totally. My friend Caleb Herron. He is like, truly, one of the funniest people alive, and is so good at roasting people too. Like too good at making fun of people. Also, I’ve loved Wanda Sykes forever.
She’s a legend.
The way Wanda makes fun of—oh, man! I’m trying to be like her. She really cuts deep.
What’s the best advice a guest has shared with you since starting the show?
Probably when I had JVN [Jonathan Van Ness] on my podcast, who has written several books. When you publish a book there’s something called a legal reading of a book. Your publisher’s lawyer will read it and make sure there’s nothing in the book that could implicate you to the point where you get sued. And so I remember JVN telling me to make sure I have my own lawyer read it too, because the publisher only looks for things that would get the publisher sued. But your lawyer will look for things that make sure you don’t get sued.
Right. Cover your own ass.
Exactly. A CYA, if you will. I was like, OK, tea.
As someone with a popular podcast, do you think the market is too crowded now? It seems like everyone has one.
I don’t know about crowded. It is extremely saturated at this point. I mean, it’s like when YouTube was the thing, everybody started a YouTube channel. TikTok was no exception to that too. Same thing. Even people who have been YouTubers for years felt compelled to download TikTok because it was the new thing. The podcast market is just the next thing.
From the very beginning, I’ve always made sure that intersectionality is at the forefront of my show. My priority has always been to platform people from all different walks of life and all different marginalized groups, all different identities, all different sexualities, so that people, if they do tune into my show, can find someone that represents them in whatever capacity that looks like. Obviously I’ve had really huge guests. But I’ve also had guests from so many different backgrounds that have really spoken to the spirit of my audience in many different ways. But I think it’s cool that everybody wants to have a podcast. Sick! Let’s all do it together. Sure.
Except for the misogynists, of course.
Except them. And that doesn’t stop them, does it?
You recently had Chappell Roan on and you were both fanning out over House of the Dragon. Give me your House of the Dragon hot takes.
Ooooh. OK, tea. I’m getting excited. I’m obsessed with that show. I truly am. I’m on Team Black till I die. It’s funny, I’m always like incest, ew. And then I watch House of the Dragon. I’m like—period. I’m on Team Black all the way. I also think that the queens need to queen out. They should link up and be like, “Let’s stop the fighting. Let’s all be friends.” But if need be, you can just kill all of Team Green. I’ll go with that.
Alicent is starting to regret not listening to Rhaenyra.
Right. And also, when you cater to the whims of man it doesn’t work, does it?
Pulling back some. What’s your first memory of being online?
Probably Myspace. I remember my sister and I both had one. We actually had to present a really strong case to my mom about why we thought we could handle it, like if we could be online. We gave her a little presentation, and my mom was like, OK, that’s fine. But she had our passwords. She would always check on us and make sure we were being safe and everything.
What’s your social media diet like during the week? What are you consuming?
Thankfully, my For You Page on TikTok is free of awfulness. It’s stayed pure and funny. My mentions, that’s another story. I just love watching funny shit on TikTok. YouTube and Instagram, I like looking at what all my family and friends are up to. But when I’m not really working, I’m very minimally on there unless I have to be. I’m trying to be better about that. I am an iPad baby, in many ways. My diet is pretty chill, though.
Do you have a finsta?
I don’t. Honestly, genuinely—I don’t. Sometimes I consider getting one. But then I see when people get blown out, like their spot gets blown up when [other people] find out that that was theirs. Y’all are not going to get me. I’m telling you that much.
There have been calls for a TikTok ban by US lawmakers. You’ve built a following of 8 million on the platform. Do you ever worry that it could all be gone soon?
As an influencer, as a person online, it’s natural to be worried about that because social media is so fickle in general. It’s fleeting. It’s very impermanent. When I actually did garner the platform and I thought to myself like, I can really do this for a living, I almost immediately started rolling balls in different directions and started to solidify myself in other traditional forms of media. The book is one of them. The show is another one of them. I also have a podcast with my sister called Two Idiot Girls. I’m working on TV and movie stuff right now.
I would genuinely be sad. Obviously, I’d be worried naturally. I’m a Virgo. So I worry for a living, too. But I feel pretty confident that I could continue to work in entertainment in some capacity. I would just have to pivot.
