After cleaning headstones in cemeteries for fun for a few years, Katie DeRaddo started A Grave Attraction to share the stories of the dead through social media, honoring their lives and ensuring they are not forgotten. In this conversation with host Emily Hessney Lynch, we discuss proper techniques and ethics for cleaning headstones, some of Katie's favorite cemeteries in Rochester, Buffalo, and beyond, and how she pieces together people's stories using printed records from centuries ago.

In the second half of the show, we dive into Katie's experiences as a content creator, from the highs of getting started on YouTube with a video that reached 13 million views to lows like dealing with conflict in the comments section, people taking things out of context, fighting with the algorithm, and the painful trap of comparing ourselves to others on social media—something we can all relate to!

Links:

• For more of Katie's work, check out her website or follow her on: Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook.
• Follow Emily on Instagram and check out her business, Serve Me the Sky Digital, if you need a digital content strategist or writer!

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Social media is a little bit of a song and dance. You are a trick pony. If you are not doing what the algorithm wants, you're no longer relevant. And sometimes that hurts.

Hello and welcome to It's A Lot, a podcast about things that are a lot.

On this show, we have honest conversations about the highs and lows of social media, parenthood, and more.

When it comes to complex topics, online discourse can lack nuance and empathy.

That's why we're leaning into deep conversations, making space for conflicting, messy feelings, and keeping it real about how we feel.

We could all use a little more of that sometimes.

I'm your host, Emily Hessney Lynch, and today I'm excited to talk to Katie DeRaddo.

Katie is the creator of A Grave Attraction, a cemetery preservation and storytelling social media account based in Rochester, New York.

What started as a personal interest has grown into a self funded volunteer project dedicated to preserving cemetery history and reminding people that every stone, not just the famous ones, represents a life worth remembering.

Through a grave attraction, Katie combines headstone cleaning, genealogy, and storytelling to keep those stories alive for future generations.

I'm so looking forward to our conversation today.

Welcome to the show, Katie.

Hey, thank you for having me.

I'd love to first hear about what drew you to cleaning headstones and what it was like to do that for the first time.

Yeah.

So it all started with my own family genealogy, researching that, then going and finding the headstones of my family when I saw them.

Some of them were in good shape, some of them were not in good shape.

And then going off and saying, how can I better these headstones so they stay upright and stable and readable for years to come.

And so then I went off and started learning how to properly clean stones.

So that's amazing. How did you start learning how to clean them? Was there like a class or anything you took?

So Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester used to have a volunteer group. Once a month they would go out and clean stones. that no longer exists.

But I learned that way.

I started learning there.

And then also just the internet.

I know, the internet is conflicting data, right?

What's real, what's correct, what's not just learning.

And then at the height of COVID and lockdown, when everybody was posting all different sorts of things on TikTok, then it really blew up and I watched other creators to just it solidified that I was doing things correctly.

So you learn along the way there's not really there's classes that you can take or workshops but at the time when I had started that wasn't really available.

Nobody was doing it other than if you found a local cemetery that had a group.

And now these cleaning workshops or these cleaning days are all over happening all over.

That's so cool. You love to see it.

I know. it is interesting. I think there was definitely at the height of COVID an influx of people in starting into cemetery preservation.

It definitely dulled a little and I feel like there's another burst of it happening again.

I mean everything on social media we'll talk about a little bit later is so ebbs and flows and there's peaks and valleys of everything.

So it is interesting to see what trends that way.

And then we can get people interested and if they stick around, great.

If not then in another five years when it explodes again, we can get them reinterested.

I'm guessing there might be some misconceptions if someone was like oh I want to try this, I'll go out and clean right now.

Like what do people, what's like the wrong way to do it that you sometimes see?

it's really important to use the proper cleaners and the proper tools. So we are using industry approved biocides. They're quaternary ammonia products and we call them quats.

These are designed to be safe for a stone but hard on biological growth like lichen and moss.

So there are some a handful of products out there that are all made up.

They're quartz, they might have different formulations but there are safe and effective on stones.

D2 biological solution is one of the most well brand names out there in the industry.

I know that everyday people will be like oh, I've never heard of that.

But in the industry that's what you hear hear of a lot.

So a product like that is important to use rather than something that's corrosive like a bleach or an acid.

We don't want anything corrosive.

PH neutral is really the way to go because we're also trying to preserve the stone.

We don't want anything to eat away at it.

And then it's also important to use the right tooling.

So soft plastic bristle brushes or even a horse hair brush to do any scrubbing, any plastic putty knives for scraping, we don't wanna use anything metal on the.

So gentle is the way to go.

Also, power washing is not recommended on a stronger stone like a granite.

People argue that it's still safe, but at the end of the day, you can easily etch into a stone with a blast of water.

And so we try to stay away from power washing.

Gentle's the way to go.

And there's something to say about just good old elbow grace and patience.

To complete a task like this, I think it's important.

And then the next layer of this is also getting adequate permissions to do so.

So you can't walk into any cemetery and start cleaning headstones unless it is direct family that is allowed.

But if it's an interest of yours, you do need to seek adequate.

I always prefer written permission from cemeteries.

And cemeteries can be owned by towns or cities, or it can be private and run by a board of directors.

And so searching that out, finding who to chat with, those are really the top three pieces I would give to anybody interested in this type of work.

That sounds tricky. I would think some people wouldn't even consider asking for permission.

Just like, oh, I'm doing this nice thing, I'm going to go out and do it. But it makes sense you would have to check with some authorities

I mean, if you really think about it. So although cemeteries might be public property, the stones technically in a cemetery are private property.

And so they're technically owned by families.

And that ownership goes down generations.

Even if the cemetery technically is abandoned or technically the family doesn't know about it, they're still again, technically owned by the family.

So there. There is some rules and regulations around this type of work.

And so I actually, I only am approved to work at a handful of cemeteries in the area and then a couple cemeteries up in the Buffalo area.

So seeking that permission is extremely important.

Do you have favorite cemeteries to clean in locally?

I mean, I do love Mount Hope. My first cemeteries that I started working in in the area are two in Fairport, so Greenvale and Mount Pleasant.

I do love those. Just because I've been chipping away at those for many years.

And then of course, I love my relationship with my cemetery group up in Cheektowaga.

They've been wonderful.

But if we're looking at outside of Rochester, I have done one amazing project down in New Orleans, and that is still by far my favorite trip I've done for this.

But also my favorite project was being able to work on a. It was almost a fraternity is not the right Word it is. It was a huge, beautiful weeping angel monument over a.

Over a plot where firefighters and their families could have bought into being buried in this plot.

I don't know if benevolent society is even the right word for that.

And so I was able to get on a very tall ladder and clean the very top all the way to the.

All the way to the bottom. And that was.

That sounds like such an amazing experience. Wow. I love New Orleans.

It's one of my favorite cities, and I've only been twice, but I somehow never made it to the cemeteries either time.

Like, I was always with, like, a group or for a conference or something and didn't have my own car to go over there, but I wish I had.

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the cemeteries in New Orleans proper are only open for guided tours because a lot of the ones in the city proper are closed.

There's no more burials happening, and so it's really historic.

I was able to also take a tour through one. It was special.

For someone like me, who is so deeply in love with cemeteries and death culture in that way, it was profound.

I don't even know if that's the right word. It will always stay with me.

So what drew you to cemeteries and death culture in the first place?

I mean, again, it really just goes back to the genealogy.

I didn't expect myself to be so into cemeteries as I am, because this all just started with interest in my family and tracking people down and building out that family tree.

And so it just grew from there. And it is unexpected. But now I want to talk about it all the time, and all the books in my house pertain to it, and it really has turned into a passion project for me.

I'm sure there are some people who think it's really, like, macabre or morbid to go to cemeteries all the time and do this kind of work. Like, what do you say to those people?

I totally understand where they're coming from.

But we have to think, historically speaking, cemeteries were built to be parks.

They were built to be places where people could go, walk around, spend time with family, both deceased or alive.

It is macabre to think people are buried here.

This is a place for grief.

But if we're looking at it, historically speaking, these places were built for grief, but also as the only green space in the cities that were developing at the time.

And, and so people use them as green space, as walking space.

They would picnic there.

So I think macabre is okay to think. But also historically speaking, they were built to enjoy.

and they're beautiful places. And grief doesn't have to be so separate from life either.

Like, right. It's weird to distinguish them so fully.

And people grieve in different ways.

I mean, when I'm cleaning a headstone and I go back and do the research and then I start really realizing the life of that person.

Sure I do feel sadness or grief, especially if I'm cleaning a child's headstone.

But to me also grief is expressing and celebrating their life.

And that is part of why I take to social media and share their story as well.

So for the research component of it, how did you learn to do this kind of research? Was that all self taught as well?

Yeah, you know, that's again internet, goods and bads.

But I'll tell you, things are very easily accessible these days. Ancestry, yes, it's a subscription based, but it has pretty much everything I need.

I also have a subscription to Newspapers.com so I can look up old newspaper clippings as well.

And it is, it was just self taught. Poking around, reading census records line by line to see what I can learn in each census has maybe a different question than the last.

And what can I gain from this?

Learning every little aspect I can, gleaning from where I can.

If it's a death certificate, if it's not, it's a military record or an obituary or a 50th anniversary wedding notice in the paper.

And just learning everything you can.

So genealogy is also easily self taught.

Just getting out there, poking around, seeing what you can find.

I would suggest starting with your own family, make it easy, start with dates and names that you know and then try to build your family tree from there. You might find something interesting.

Are you ever researching a headstone and you're like, oh man, this person was not interesting at all, onto the next one?

There's definitely some, there's definitely a lot of around here.

They were a farmer. They were a farmer, you know, so it's almost turns into similar storylines for a lot of people.

But I don't think that it's.

They're any less important because farmers did Build our towns, our cities, and our.

Our spaces here.

So there's definitely a lot of similarities between many people and many stones that I clean.

But I always try to.

What can I pull out that is a little interesting nugget, Even if it's their name is a little interesting, or maybe it's digging deeper.

Not just them going up their family tree, their parents, grandparents, maybe they are first gen American and trying to build a story around there.

I think there's always maybe a little nugget of interest you can find for anybody.

It's hard with just census records and documented pieces, right.

I'm not listening to stories of family members.

I'm gaining what I can with printed federal documents mostly.

So it can be difficult, but trying to. Trying to be more personal about things and bringing the humanity side of it, not just, okay, this is what the census record said.

Gosh, they were just a farmer and their father was a farmer, too. There's got to be something interesting there.

So do you research every single headstone you clean, or do you sometimes, like, you pick out five or six and you clean them all, but you only research one or two of them?

I haven't even started researching yet because I do so many in a season.

Sometimes one or two gets lost and in the archives there. And so pulling that back out.

But I do try to research every single one. For me, that's part of the fun. The fun is learning about these people.

And it just, it closes the loop for me, right?

I go to a cemetery, I clean their stone not knowing anything about them. And that's when I get home. I'm like, well, now I need to find out who they were, hoping that the story is easy to find.

I definitely have run into a few where I'm like, I can't find anything about this person.

And then it just closes that loop for me.

So it is important that I try to at least poke around and see what I can for every single headstone I clean.

That's so interesting.

I'd been curious if you, like, did all the research before and got to know them and then cleaned the stones or if it was the other way around.

Yeah, no, it's. I go in, I choose stones to clean based on visually what I feel needs to be done.

Perhaps you could say I'm drawn to a certain stone, but I don't know anything about these people until I go and start researching them.

But mostly I try to keep the research rolling as well, pretty consistently.

It's a fun little surprise, too. It's like a stone might be so simple, but these people were so extraordinary.

And so it's always a little like, oh, you know, for being so impactful in their own lives, they chose something simple to represent the rest of their life.

Have you ever researched someone afterwards and been "like, wow, they were a terrible person. I wish I hadn't cleaned their stone."?

You know, I haven't really run into that.

I have cleaned a Confederate soldier's headstone. Were they a terrible person? Perhaps that is subjective of the time.

From historically speaking, we can say that that was a tough time in the United States history, the civil War.

But I feel like their story still needs to be shared. So I wouldn't say I've ever cleaned a stone, learned about someone, and regretted cleaning their stone.

I still think history is not always about people you admire. It's about sharing stories for all aspects, all corners of history, so we can all learn a lesson from it.

I would say I've never regretted cleaning a headstone, regardless of what the story may have come to be.

That makes sense. We want to treat people with dignity and not a race history or anything like that.

So how long would you say the process takes? Start to finish, including picking out the headstones, actually doing the cleaning, and then the research phase?

It definitely depends. I would just say it depends on the size of the stone and the level of cleaning needed to be done.

Let's say I go to a stone or I go walk around a cemetery and I see a stone that is covered.

It's black, it's covered in black mold.

I can clean that stone in 15 minutes.

Doing my process of spraying with the cleaner, a light scrub, scraping if there's needed, if there's any moss buildup or anything, and then rinsing away and then spraying with more cleaner.

But I know that that type of clean black mold, you can't really scrub that away.

So if we're looking at the actual length of a clean, that black mold stone can take weeks to months to start to brighten up.

Wow.

If I'm cleaning a stone that is just covered in lichen, I would same situation, spray it with cleaner, scrape things away, give it a light brush.

That could take 30 minutes, depending on how deeply embedded that Biological growth is.

But those type of cleans, you can see almost instant gratification from that clean.

And so it really depends.

I feel like I average with everything I just said, probably 20 minutes per stone.

Definitely have taken hours to clean a stone.

I cleaned a stone in June in Cheektowaga.

It took me six hours to do.

But it was also a massive family monument and there was a lot of detail on one of the sculptures.

And so I took my time to do it properly.

And then also just letting the cleaner take the reins and weeks and months after it continues to brighten up and clean the stone as well.

I was going to ask if the lichen and mold will just grow back in a matter of years or if the cleaner does something to kind of prevent it from growing back quickly.

So, yeah, what the cleaners really do, essentially, they.

They're soaking into the stone and killing the roots from the inside.

So.

So I would say after one solid clean, you can be good for three to five years before you'll start to see more biological growth come back.

And I think that's a pretty good amount of time to be able to say, I cleaned the stone in three years, I'll check back on it.

In five years, I'll check back on it and see if it needs a touch up.

But even after five years, it will just be a touch up.

It won't be usually it will not be a full clean.

Once again, I'm curious, like, it seems kind of like a thankless job in some ways because like, obviously the deceased are not going to be like, thanks so much for cleaning my stone.

But are there unexpected perks or do you hear from families or things like that?

Sometimes I do. I have some followers that I have done.

I've helped them out and I've definitely had some people say, I believe this is family to me.

But it's also given me opportunities to work on very cool stones.

I think the huge monument that I just mentioned that I did in June was a very special project for the Shea's Buffalo Theater in Buffalo.

I cleaned Michael Shea, the owner, proprietor, I guess you could say of that, for its 100 year anniversary.

Just something that the cemetery was like, it's the 100 year anniversary of Shays Buffalo.

Let's do something.

He's buried here.

It could use some help.

And so they brought me in to do that.

So I wouldn't say it's actually thankless because it's really opened a lot of opportunities, like being able to be on podcasts and just share the Information and share the stories.

So yeah, partially thinkless in the moment, right?

I feel like if someone was starting to talk to me, I'd be like, oh, ghost, are you real?

But thinkless in the moment.

But if we're really looking at the whole system happening, I would say I've been thanked many times over with that.

Situation with like Shays in the cemetery in Buffalo.

Was that something where they like pay you to come in because they're like doing this intentionally with purpose or is that expected to be volunteer as well?

No, I'm 100% volunteer. if someone comes to me and really wants a handful of stones cleaned and is expecting to pay for it, perhaps we will work out a deal.

But I am usually 100% volunteer.

I am totally self funded with all my equipment.

I have an Amazon wish list that people have graciously donated to purchase some supplies for me.

But this is volunteer for me and I'm okay with that.

This is a hobby turned passion project.

This is my five to nine after my nine to five.

And so I don't mind spending six hours on a Saturday in Buffalo doing a clean just because then I can say that I did that and that's to me, that's payment as well.

It sounds very satisfying overall each project.

It is definitely.

It is nice to transform something, make it readable again or brighten it back up to the white marble it was when it was installed.

It's very satisfying.

Earlier we mentioned death culture a little bit and we're talking about some of the history with cemeteries.

Do you consider yourself now part of the death positive movement?

Like that's something I've been interested in and passionate about for a long time.

I was curious how you feel about that.

I go back and forth. For me, when I'm in a cemetery and I'm doing a clean, death is not the forefront of my mind, which you might not expect.

I'm not thinking, oh gosh, this is going to be me someday or my parents or my friends.

That's not where my mind ever is.

I do let my mind wander though. It might also not just be on the task at hand, it could be,.

what are we going to have for dinner tonight?

Exactly! Literally what, you know, what happened that day?

If it's I'm popping over a cemetery in the evening.

But I would say I am in the mindset that I am no longer afraid of death.

And I think the whole death culture and funeral culture can be beautiful.

And mostly I prefer to think of it all As a celebration rather than true heartbreak, grief.

Personally speaking for listeners who might not be familiar with death positive stuff, really.

The idea is not that, like, yay, death, I want to die.

It's more about, we should talk about death openly and have conversations about it and bring it back into the culture and make it less 10 to talk about.

Yes. And I think I have not spent any time in the funeral world, but definitely growing up, it was like, oh, that's creepy.

That's spooky. But as I've aged, too, I've definitely felt more like this is a part of life.

How can we speak about it? How can we share knowledge about it to make it less scary for people?

And I'm hoping that also being someone who maintains graves helps people not fear the well, this is where I'm going to be forever, I'm gonna be forgotten aspect as well.

Because that is one thing that always bothers me is really the thought process of, well, once you die, you die twice.

Right?

You die when you are then buried, but then you die a second time when your name is not repeated or you're forgotten.

And so part of this is also just making sure that we can keep talking about people or keep memories alive or families being able to track down people.

That's partially why I do the work I do.

I love that. That's such a beautiful thing to be able to do for people.

Well, we'll take a quick break, and then I want to talk more about social media afterwards.

So, Katie, you spent about three years cleaning the headstones before you actually made any content about it.

What was it that made you want to make a video for the first time and upload it online?

So I had started with just photography on my Instagram page.

I just started an Instagram page and was, like, taking pictures.

And it wasn't until another creator said, you should start doing videos.

You should start see what happens.

Didn't necessarily take him seriously at the time, but I was like, you know what?

What's the worst thing that could happen?

So it really was just another creator in the space being like, oh, you know, you love this work.

You are doing headstone cleaning.

Why not just share it in multiple ways?

Not just photography?

Or I was like, let me give it a shot.

Wow. Have you ever regretted starting to make content about it?

Does it feel different now with, like, a camera set up and everything?

Sitting in front of a camera, using a microphone, none of that has ever bothered me.

I am very comfortable in front of a camera.

The whole idea of do I regret starting social media though I don't want to say I regret it because it has given me so much joy, it has given me so much purpose and it also has given me opportunity.

There are definitely times I wish I could walk away from it.

You get with any social media, you get the conflicts in the comments or for me, sometimes it's also the comparison of other creators.

I am by far not the only creator online that does the work that I do.

I am not special.

And it's that constant fighting with the algorithm to keep views coming, to keep people engaged.

Social media is a little bit of a song and dance.

You are a trick pony.

It can very much feel that way.

If you are not doing what the algorithm wants, you're no longer relevant.

And sometimes that hurts.

I have been better about working through those emotions and trying to not compare myself to other creators.

It's interesting because I feel that I've never compared myself to other people in real life.

But when it comes to this, I have definitely started to feel the oh gosh, when is this going to end?

When is the all of it?

When is it going to end for me?

When am I going to feel like, oh, I'm a washed up creator or I'm an old creator as we say, kind of in the industry.

Meaning that you've been around for a while so you've hit your peak and perhaps you're now down in that valley with things have stagnated.

I've trying to be better about it, but we can talk more about that if you're interested because there's a lot going on with it.

And is it like you're looking at other people's follower accounts and being like, oh, they've got so many more followers than me, is that the main thing or?

it's views. So followers. Followers don't hold as much weight as they used to be.

Right. So if you had a lot of followers, you were guaranteed a lot of views because the algorithms would push your content to your followers.

That's not the case anymore.

What is most impactful now is engagement. Getting people to like share and comment.

That's what gets your videos pushed in front of people.

And so you can have a million followers, but if you look at analytics, you can see a video is still getting 80% non follower views.

Followers are nice to have, but for me and for other Creators.

I'm sure it's watching that view count, seeing if people are interested, seeing the engagement rates on a post, making sure that what you are pushing out is interesting enough to get people to stop the scroll.

It's so hard and it's hard and the whole thing seems so nonsensical sometimes.

Like my husband is an artist and he had a video he made.

He makes like Zoetrope animated records and he had a video animated Radiohead record he did just for fun. It got 5 million views.

Yeah.

And he got some more followers from it. But like it didn't translate into anything else, even with good engagement and stuff like that.

And then he's been messing around with trial reels and another animated record like really popped off with 13 to 17 year old boys, which is not the target demographic of like record label executives he's trying to reach.

So it's like, it's great if you can get it in front of non followers, but sometimes it's not even helpful in the grand scheme of things. Like, what are we doing?

Yeah.

And you know, I work in marketing outside of this and so I learn a lot from being a creator, but also being a corporate marketer and working in unique niche spaces.

I am able to kind of take learnings from both, but definitely I have translated a lot of what I've learned as a creator to my professional career as well, of keeping up with what's going on in every little platform.

How can this translate to work and then learning from work and moving it forward.

So like you said, nonsensical. But I also, I'm surrounded by it all day, every day.

Because this is both career for me and it's fun time for me.

And so both, sometimes it feels just a lot.

Are there some types of content that you're like, I enjoy making this.

I know it's good content even if the algorithm doesn't like it.

Is there stuff like that that you still like to do?

Because that's how I feel with my content sometimes. Like I know I could be pivoting and doing it more like to please the algorithm, but like I don't want to.

Right. But also it's for me, it's like, is it even appropriate to make that change to be the hey guys, you know I'm out here.

The very Mr. Beast esque personas.

That's not necessarily appropriate in what I'm doing.

I have definitely come to the conclusion, even though I still struggle with the comparison, I have gotten back to a place where I'm going To make the content I want to make.

And if it pops off, great.

If it doesn't, that's okay, too.

Because I'm more than what the numbers of views are.

I'm more than.

Definitely. It's important to remember that. Yes.

And it's hard to remember that.

My first video ever on YouTube had 13 million views.

Wow.

And I hit that high so early.

And then to have things start to peter out, be more realistic.

And now some videos get a couple thousand, some hit 100,000, but it's not what it used to be.

It has been so hard to turn that part of my brain off with the comparison with the.

You are making content nobody likes.

You are washed up.

You are not relevant, and be like, why did you start this to begin with?

You started this because you wanted to share stories of people.

You wanted to share the work you're doing.

This isn't about you.

This isn't about hitting a million views every time.

That is not gonna happen.

And it's getting past that.

And I feel like I'm better.

Some days are not great, but mostly I'm kind of stepped away and given that perspective to myself.

Being like, girl sounds necessary, even though it's hard to do that.

Yeah.

Even like a couple thousand views, too.

Like, so much in the grand scheme of things, like, 20 years ago, if you said, oh, I put something on the Internet and I got thousands of views, that would be amazing.

And now the standards have just shifted so much that we know 100,000 or 13 million is possible.

Right, Right. And, I mean, you also asked different creators, what does viral mean to you?

And some people are still like, oh, for me, a viral video is 100,000.

And for others, that's like, that's not good enough.

You need to be hitting 2 million at least to be considered viral.

But like you said, the expectations and the idea of what is success has shifted so much that you have to try to put things into perspective.

And I also have to realize that my content is not going to satisfy everybody.

It's not made for everybody.

Some people are not going to find joy out of what I'm posting versus someone who is posting a makeup tutorial.

People aren't going to like it.

People are going to love it.

And so I also have to rein in my expectations of being like, I'm in a very specific area, very niche.

Very niche.

And there are definitely creators who are doing fantastic right now.

They're hitting amazing views every time.

But we are in a specific niche.

And so you have to just hit the right people.

And if they stick around, fantastic.

If they're coming and going based on maybe they're grieving right now, maybe they have been searching very specific things right now.

They might not stay around and realizing that's okay, too.

I can hit people where they're at, and if it's a moment of grief, if it's a moment of curiosity, that's okay.

That's okay to me.

I was just having a funny tangent in my head picturing you doing like a get ready with me video. Get ready with me to go clean the cemetery.

And I. I was like, I can't picture it.

And then I was like, wait, I can.

Can be kind of funny.

You know, I've done a couple of those, and they've done okay.

At the end of the day, I'm a woman with other interests as well.

And so when I'm not doing headstones during the summer, since it's a very seasonal thing during the winter, I'm volunteering or I'm doing crafts.

Like, I'm really into crafts.

And you also might think, oh, she's really into black and darkness.

My office in my house is painting pink.

It is Barbie pink.

Every single wall.

And so there's different parts of me, too, that I've.

I've definitely explored sharing that on my social media just to connect with an audience in that way, too.

You know, connecting as a personality is important as well, and having people know who you are.

But I've definitely tried that.

I've.

I've done a little bit.

I'm not going to make that my prime focus content, though.

Fair enough. Do you have a favorite platform these days or one that you find the most frustrating to deal with?

My likes and dislikes change every single day.

I like the ones that push my video.

I would say I can't say that I have a favorite platform.

And I'm not saying that because it's like picking a favorite child.

It's because it's so finicky that I'm like, there's no way you can pick a favorite platform.

I think when I started, because I started on Instagram and had immediate success there, I would say Instagram and then YouTube was doing really well for a while.

And then lately TikTok has been popping off for me, and I'm TikTok verified now.

So I'm like, could I still say I have a favorite?

I don't know.

I don't know.

If I want to commit.

But I will say more times than not, the platforms are stressing me out than bringing me joy.

Understandable. Tell me about the YouTube, like longer form stuff you've been making.

I saw you do some that's not just the short form.

Yes.

Yeah.

So long form is. I have a lot to say about this.

No, it's long form for me is still a learning curve.

Right.

The algorithm is very different than their shorts piece.

The algorithms are completely different.

Breaking into long form and having a video be successful takes a lot more time.

I enjoy the concept of long form, but the execution, I don't love the thinking so much bigger in terms of not just plopping my phone in front of a headstone and doing a 15 minute clean editing it down to a minute.

I now have to think camera angles, I have to think storyline.

I have to think moving the camera, keeping it interesting and dynamic and changes throughout the video.

It's a lot more to think about.

And in theory, in my mind I'm like, oh, I have the ideas and the mindset of a producer, but I'm not good at executing that.

And so I have a friend who is also a creator in the space and he is very helpful when it comes to producing long form with me.

But if I didn't have another person, I'd find it very difficult to keep up with that and keep going with that because it is 10 times more exhausting than just producing quick short form videos.

For me at least.

It sounds so challenging. I haven't really experimented with it myself because just the camera angles and everything you're talking about like, yeah, having a cool idea for it is great, but actually doing it is a lot.

Yeah.

And there's. There are some great creators who have made content that is just talking head one camera and they do great with it.

I don't feel like one.

I have the storytelling skills to just do that.

But also I don't think I have the personality to make just one talking head.

The only thing I feel like there needs to be more to my videos.

I'm very mindset of a TV show production, but I am one person with one very old GoPro and hopes and dreams and so actually executing it can be very challenging.

So.

And then I get down on myself and I'm like, I had this idea and I want this to happen and then I end up recording and then I send it off to an editor and I'm like, oh, that wasn't a great shot. Or none of these are good.

And then the editor does what he can, and he can work magic, but can he work that much magic?

So it's a challenge.

I love the idea of long form, but it's almost too much of a stressor for me to make it something that I can continue to produce on a consistent basis.

Especially on top of your day job and everything, how are you balancing all these things?

It's gotta be really tiring.

Well, it's a lot. It is a lot. Mostly because, like I had mentioned earlier, I'm working in marketing and in a space very similar to this.

You know, my day job right now is digital marketing.

I am doing paid advertisements, and part of it is also leaning toward the creative side and making the graphics, making the videos when I need to do that sometimes.

So then to do that 9 to 5, and then to log off, open a different laptop and take videos of myself researching, voicing, over editing, it's a lot, and it is hard to balance.

And then also on top of this, the organization that I am a volunteer for, I run their marketing as well.

So I'm doing three very different types of marketing all day, every day.

And there are days where I just.

I'm like, I can't do anything.

Like, I can, I'll do my job, but no creator stuff, nothing for my nonprofit.

I just need to do one thing, get through the day and take a break.

And I think that's kind of like people with careers, but I have to, like, force myself to step away for a bit.

And it's kind of funny that, like, your hobby of cleaning the headstones is kind of like touching grass and logging off.

But now it's also in the digital space for you too.

right?

Right.

I mean, if I had cut this offline, I feel like my hobby would be very peaceful.

And it is very peaceful in the moment.

But the second part of it, that has also brought me joy, but also social media, it brings you less than joy sometimes.

Some struggles, perhaps.

You mentioned, like, people having conflict in the comments.

What kinds of things do people, like, argue about in your comments section?

I would think it's not that, like, inflammatory cleaning headstones, you know, it depends.

So I had a video on TikTok talking about a woman named Eliza, who I really struggled to find her story.

And I mentioned that when women, especially back then, when they change their name, their maiden name to their married name, it's almost like that part of their life was erased.

And I said that in terms of documentation, it is almost like that part of them was erased because she had been Born and lived part of her life before censuses were even a thing.

And so that makes researching very difficult.

The only thing I could find about her was a little bit about her life.

When she was married on TikTok, people were talking about, well, because I had mentioned when she marries a man and takes his name and people took that as, oh, well, her maiden name is also from a man.

And going back and forth with, well, I'm like, yes, that is true, true.

But maiden names, it could have allowed me to find out about her parents, find out about them and their parents and where they're from.

So I think people take some things out of context a little bit or maybe grab onto one thing and run with it.

Definitely has happened a handful of times, but that was like the most recent situation.

And I wouldn't say, I'll be honest.

Some of these.

Sometimes when comments get to this way, I am like, I'm not actually going to be part of this.

You guys can talk about this in the comments.

I have said my piece in my script and maybe I've commented here and there, but I'm going to let you guys talk this one out and have at it.

People can argue and conflict about anything.

That seems almost like the people are purposely misunderstanding the point just for the sake of being mad about something that wasn't even really what you were saying.

What are we doing here?

Right?

And I mean, is that not just the story of social media at the end of the day?

I'm curious about Facebook specifically because I know you have like a pretty good following on there too.

And a lot of people think Facebook is just dead and not worth doing.

So what has your experience been like as a creator on Facebook?

Facebook is interesting. Facebook, like any other platform, has a very different audience.

So I'm attracting different people on Facebook.

The stories that pop off there are different than the stories that will pop off on Instagram or TikTok.

So I think it all comes down to the age range that I'm attracting on Facebook is very different than the age range on Instagram and then on TikTok.

And so I wouldn't say Facebook is dead.

I would say it is a different audience that still resides there.

And finding what they find interesting to post there is the success is going to vary.

I'm posting the same things on every platform.

Knowing that one, that's not the most strategic thing.

But I don't have unlimited amounts of hours to be strategic.

I leave the strategy to my day job where I get paid, but I Know that.

Okay, I can tell that this video is going to do really well on Facebook, but that video is going to do really well on Instagram, just based on the context, what it's about.

Sometimes you get a surprise here and there too, of like, oh, wow, I didn't expect that one to pop off.

I'm curious if you've been able to monetize on any of the platforms.

I know some are better than others for that. So how has that been going?

I was able to monetize very quickly because once again, I had really early success, really blew up very quickly.

And then Instagram took away any sort of payment.

Facebook still has payment.

It is okay.

And then YouTube I had good luck with and then now they've changed their payment structures.

So, yes, I've been able to monetize, but it is so not consistent.

And because monetization, making money comes with how many views you have.

But also on TikTok, there's different tiers.

It's views plus how long the video is, plus your, you know, follower count.

It's.

There's an algorithm just for how much money you're going to make off of a video.

It is not consistent enough for me to make.

I can't pay my mortgage with it, essentially so.

And I probably never will be able to.

I think there are so many misconceptions about how much money content creators are making that it's like such a lucrative field when in reality some people are just making like a couple hundred bucks here and there.

Right?

And that's exactly it.

You know, one month, maybe I'll make a hundred dollars, the next month I'll make 90.

I've definitely had actually friends of mine think, oh my gosh, you have, you're verified on TikTok.

You must be making money.

I'm like, that's not how this works.

It is all algorithmic, view based. And then there's often caveats with if you have a million views, but if your video is only 30 seconds long, your cost per view or what they're going to pay you is different than if it's a minute and a half long video that hits a million.

So there's a lot of games to play with these platforms.

I'm curious also if there's any kind of content you see on social media about cemeteries or headstone cleaning or anything like that that just drives you crazy, like people are getting something wrong or have terrible opinions, anything like that.

You see, there are definitely some people.

There is really one in particular who anybody else in the cemetery industry or in this world will know who I'm talking and referring to who uses a cleaner that is bright pink and is not industry approved.

Who knows what's in this cleaner.

And she is a very large creator who does cleaning videos and mostly her to start her cleaning videos were houses and everything and it's very much how she edits is very attractive because it's quick. It is very TikTok.

It's that's not the problem. The problem is her using not approved techniques to clean a stone and it drives me and other creators crazy because there's a lot of unknowns of the products she is using.

I'm sure the product is safe for your bathtub but that does not mean it is safe for a headstone.

Yikes. Wonder how she even ended up doing the headstones then.

Not sure.

Not sure if and questions arise.

Does she have permission to do this?

Is she just going in and doing it?

There's a lot of questions we'll never have answers to necessarily.

But there's definitely some videos like that of people using not proper standard industry approved type of cleaning methods that stresses us out.

Yeah.

Well if people want to support you and your work using all the approved cleaning methods and ethical approaches, how can people support support your work?

I am on all major platforms as a grave attraction.

You can also visit my [email protected] that can also get you there.

Those are really the main spots you can hit up social medias where you can find me playing around usually.

Awesome.

Well thank you so much for joining me today. This was really fun, Katie.

this is great. Thank you Emily.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchador podcast network.

Hanging in the graveyard cleaning up a stone quats and stubborn algae.

Katie DeRaddo.