Hi! My name’s Phoebe and…I’m just happy to be here. ( ദ്ദി ˙ᗜ˙ )

Before I start talking about myself, let me address what you’ve been probably wondering since you got on this site: What the heck is going on with the design? If you made it this far on the site map to be reading this about me section, thank you, but I bet a portion of you are only here because of your rabid curiosity about why someone would make a portfolio site that looks like cotton candy throw-up. Well, to tell you the truth, it’s just me. I’m giving being purely myself a shot in this techno-corpo world. I know it’s probably off-putting to some people, but maybe others will find it endearing. Hopefully, if you’re reading this, you find it at least a little endearing. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right.

I’m Phoebe and I’m a storyteller. Since you’re here, why don’t I tell you my story?

(Pretty good hook, right? That’s why they pay me the medium-sized bucks.)

I’m a San Francisco-based writer who’s been making art my whole life. I started—forcibly, like most kids—on a piano bench at age six, where I learned that I could make beautiful and meaningful things with just my hands. Basically, I’ve been chasing that feeling my whole life.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time writing. If my mom is to be believed, I’ve always had a natural talent for prose (although, my mom loves me a lot, so take that with a grain of salt). One of my earliest aspirations in life was to become the youngest published author ever. I really wanted to do this for a while, but it’s hard when you’re 12. Anyway, I didn’t accomplish this dream, but I still wrote a lot. Fiction, essays, poetry, all of it. I wrote so much during my AP Lit exam in high school that they had to fill out special forms so I could get extra paper to finish it. I don’t even remember what I wrote about, but I’m apparently the only person in the history of my high school who’s ever needed extra pages for an AP exam. The point of that anecdote is that I’ve always been a writer, and I’ve always aspired to be a professional one.

I graduated from UCLA (Woo! Go Bruins!) in 2020 (Awww, pandemic) with a degree in Sociology and a minor in film. College was where I first figured out I really liked creating things, and I especially liked telling stories. Film became the chosen medium for both of these passions—I hopped onto a few student-produced short films, and the rest is history. I was pretty serious about this. All of my work experience before graduation was in film and entertainment, doing stuff like interning for Seth Meyers, reading scripts at SK Global, marketing on-campus for HBO, and Photoshopping funny memes while working for Funhaus. There were a lot of things I liked about working in film and entertainment (getting to tell interesting stories in an artistic medium and collaborating with other passionate, creative people on them). There were also a lot of things I didn’t like (getting yelled at and not making any money, mainly). So when Covid happened and job opportunities in film became scarce(r than they already were), I decided to explore other outlets for my creativity (and for making money). Close to graduation, I joined the Finding Founders podcast as their first ever design lead, where I figured out that I’m actually pretty good at this digital marketing stuff.

Although I still didn’t know completely what I wanted to do for my career if it wasn’t film, I decided to give marketing a try. I pursued a digital marketing fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, and I got to work for a boutique influencer marketing agency called Proudamore. I spent a lot of time designing Instagram posts and writing captions, and eventually figured out I didn’t like working in influencer marketing. So. after completing my fellowship, I went freelance for a while. I still hadn’t figured out completely what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I was pretty good at marketing and could at least build a real resume from that kind of work. During this time, I did social, content strategy, and SEO management e-learning company TestingMom, and got a crash course in leading marketing campaigns while freelancing for Experience Lab. Quick sidebar: The coolest thing about working at Experience Lab was that I really got to run things for their marketing. I was able to learn very quickly what it meant to be successful at digital and content marketing. The coolest thing about working at TestingMom is that I hosted a webinar with the Irwin family.

My freelance job at Experience Lab eventually turned into a full time job at Ei. I was there for a whole four years which is a long time to be at a job for Gen Z standards. I really loved working at Ei; I got to work closely with the CEO as a two-person marketing team. Social media, video production, branding, graphic design, PR, comms, newsletters, website design, operations, you name it, I did it for marketing. Besides that, I was part of pretty much every other part of the business and learned a lot about a lot of things, especially in BD and Sales. I did a lot of work on sales decks, funnel management, lead tracking, client calls, and I even sent out some cold emails in my time. You could say I was a real jack-of-all-trades, which was a huge benefit to the many-hat-wearing nature of working at Ei, especially early in my career. I am truly experienced in a lot of sectors of business because of it. The downside was that I was setting myself up to be a master-of-none. But the good news is that, by the time I was ready to leave Ei, I knew what was missing from my career. I knew I wanted to write in my next job.

Another quick sidebar. Last time I wrote this about me section I dropped this absolute corporate copywriting gem about my work at Ei, which I am keeping here for posterity. “I’m the pilot of our brand, managing our org-wide design and copy to reflect the innovative spirit and human touch we bring to our clients.“

I spent a couple of months post-Ei just enjoying life. Just kidding, I was actually really stressed out about finding another job because the job market was so bad. In between being stressed out, though, life actually was enjoyable. Here’s the Cliff’s Notes about my three months of funemployment. Went to Utah for a while and learned how to ski. I’m actually pretty good at it now! I nearly became a flight attendant. I even got a job offer from American Airlines and was supposed to start safety training, but then I found out I’d have to move to Miami full time for the job so I withdrew my interest. I had a really awful contracting job for a few weeks that had me more stressed out than when I was laid off. The upside is that I now know how to say no to an overbearing, underpaying employer. I submitted my short screenplay to a film festival and made it into the finals. I didn’t win but it’s still pretty cool to be recognized. And at the end of all this life enjoying, I got a job offer from Stack Overflow.

I continue to pursue my passion for filmmaking through my amateur production companyCoverage Gang Productions where I recently produced and co-created a seven-part audio drama called The Morning After Potion. At boutique studioOwl and Fish, I serve as a consulting producer and creative director, working both with clients for industrials and fellow filmmakers on short films. (