OverheardLA: Missed Connections with Emily Bernstein

3:57PM May 12, 2022

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Overheard LA and overheard New York have provided limitless entertainment for Instagram audiences for years. Not only have these accounts given us laughs and weirdly keen insights into our culture, they've also brought together many couples through reigniting misconnections. Carry curious what we're talking about. Well keep listening. I'm Alisha Rai. And I'm Sarah Wendell. Welcome to lovestruck daily, where we bring true love stories and myths, connections to your eardrums each and every weekday.

I'm in love with you I'm in love with you. Alicia, I have a short story for you. All right. Love Stories. Yeah, to introduce our guest. Okay, so excited about this interview. So overheard LA. And there's a overheard in New York. There's other overheads. Basically, people on Instagram, posting what they hear other people saying, already, this is my jam, because people think that no one's listening. They're very honest, is great. So I found this article on out.com. Right after Coachella, which you could not pay me to attend, and is by May Route on out.com. It was posted in the end of April, if you saw this, you know what I'm talking about. A Coachella missed connection on overheard LA where someone wrote in and said, I fell in love at Coachella. I know it's cliche. All I know is her name is Alex. And we were talking and dancing during the Phineas concert. And then my friends wanted to move closer, and we got split up. And she was wearing a striped shirt. And she had spaced bonds. And we talked about going to a drunk paint night and she has a dog, please, can you help me find her? Oh, and when I tell you that literally almost every lesbian in LA must have been involved. There were group chats, there were people reaching out to other group chats and the LA area lesbians found this person. It turns out that her name is Lexi. She did in fact have a striped shirt and space funds. And after a few hours, just a few hours, they found her and they got together and then overheard la sent them on their first date. Oh, that's so nice. So can you imagine you're dancing in a crowd in Coachella, which is my understanding very loud and full of humans, both of those things. And you're dancing with this girl. And then you drift apart and you use Instagram of all things to find out where she went. And then they find her. I love it so much. That's amazing. I love that. It's so cute. It's fantastic. So today, Emily Bernstein, who is the content producer and Head of Content have overheard LA is going to come and tell us about the account and missed connections and reunions and all of these happy stories. I cannot wait. welcome Emily. I am so excited to talk to you. I have so many questions. But I obviously have to start with the obvious one. Tell me about overheard LA and New York and how did those come to be

over in LA and New York. And then every account that came from it started out as most great things do a little bit accidentally. Our founder, Jesse was in LA he was sitting in Erawan. Which if you're familiar is like Whole Foods on steroids. Like it's, it's the most la place you can go. I think he was sitting there working and he just started hearing the most ridiculous being said ever and he just decided to post it on Instagram just on like a white background with text as you do as you would because some some of these things that you hear. I mean, the whole kind of spirit of our account is like, are you hearing this right now? Like you have to share that. So it just kind of blew up. And this was, you know, kind of that era of Instagram. When meme accounts were really taking off. Things that you wanted to share with people. Yeah, shortly after New York started because he's actually a New Yorker based in LA and then we started London and universities we actually were overhead London or university. Then I came into the fold with overheard San Francisco and then we just launched over her to Austin. It's been fun. So I started I actually started out with overheard as a freelancer just running one of the accounts and then now my job is I head up our internal content as well as our branded content strategy and creative and then I also do community management for several the accounts we kind of split that and then The creative behind a lot of what you're seeing on the accounts. So the community management aspect is, you know, we curate these hundreds of messages every day and getting these submissions. But then when it comes to running with things on stories like misconnections, that's like me managing that and actually going completely rogue, which is a lot of fun. Still to this day, I mean, it's been years, but there are days where we're like slacking back and forth about, you know, What's funnier, this person saying that, like, her boobs are doing this, or this person talking about doing cocaine, and a Barnes and Noble and it's like, I can't believe I'm having this conversation as part of my job and I'm approving these things, but I get paid to talk about raising Yeah, it's just this fun thing that is ever evolving.

So over the years, you've been working on this on these accounts, and you have discovered I'm sure that people are very strange

more than you know,

what are some of your favourite quotes that have been posted?

I actually we have like a running list of favourites. My some of my favourites are just like the angriest most surprising interaction as I actually love. I love overheard New York because overheard New York has has such a like New Yorker, east coaster with grit to it. Oh, yeah. Where people just aren't being nice to each other, but in the funniest way. So like, man yelling at a firetruck with sirens blasting. I'm on the phone.

Every time it's very New York. Yeah,

it's just it's so good. One of my favourites that really sums up so many that just sum up LA but this one I've got this ugly bump on my eye. My crystal healer thinks it's definitely a blocked tear duct. What is your doctor say? I don't have one.

That is extremely LA's and Alicia

me extremely LA.

Are you guys in LA or New York?

I'm in LA and I used to live outside New York and New York now I live outside DC and live in Maryland. But cool. Alicia actually used to be my neighbour. She used to live in DC and she moved out to LA what, six five years ago? Five years ago. Yeah. Cute.

I love a neighbour story. My My boyfriend and I started as neighbours. Oh, neighbours have a magic thing going on? Oh, that's really nice. Yeah. Oh, I've got one more for you from LA. Yeah, please. Can you take a pic of me? Are you sure you don't look? To be heard that?

I mean, that is something my sister would say to me. So.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I

mean, I could go all day with favourites. But all those are some that come to mind.

That's amazing.

So one of the things I love about the overheard accounts, or the missed connections for someone who's listening and isn't familiar, and doesn't know about misconnections, on, say, Craigslist, going back into the dark, dark ages of the internet. When everything was black text on a white background, what is the misconnection? How do they work? And how do we work specifically on your accounts?

So misconnection we are forever grateful to Craig and his list for getting this idea off the ground back in the day.

Thank you, Greg. Yeah,

thank you crack. A misconnection is essentially a moment that you have with a stranger where there is some type of interaction, some type of moment, and the moment passes you separate and then all of a sudden, you're like, I, I want to see that person. Again. That's somebody I want to talk to again. And the misconnection is then something you submit to us with a description of the person, you know, where you met, what happened, any type of descriptors that we could possibly have. And then the way it works on the account is people will submit these to us in the DMS and then we will post them and I will essentially go on a wild goose chase using help from you know, the millions of people in our audience to actually track this person down. And it is incredible. The overheard audience is more efficient than like the FBI, like with tracking these people down, like using details getting a hold of people, there have been somewhere. Even I am like, you know, this is a long shot. But the story is so cute. I'm gonna post it. And by like lunchtime, we have the person. So wow, it kind of started as an experiment that I was just thinking, I really want to try this because really, the spirit of our accounts has always been like it's not just posting something to entertain you. It's, it's for the community because all of our quotes come from people sending them in. So everything we do is a version of crowdsourcing. So it really just made natural sense that we would have this community help each other and be the facilitator of that while entertaining with funny snarky commentary that I go a little rogue on. And we want people to participate in this stuff. So it In a sappy way, it's definitely a way of using social media for good. It's just heartwarming. Yeah. And in a really fun way, it's live like anything can happen and it doesn't always work out. And sometimes it is chaos. And sometimes it is a mess. But I think it's really fun. So you never know what's gonna happen.

I'm curious, what is one of your favourite misconnection stories?

I think my favourites both from LA we had one that was a flight home from Cabo. I love a plane moment. It's the old rom com and me Yeah, for sure, you know, chasing you to the airport type of thing. And they were on a flight together, they chatted the whole flight, they got separated, going through customs. So it was a really cute story. And that day was so dramatic. We had his co workers writing in we had, then somebody saying, you know, he wasn't interested, he was freaked out by the whole thing. So then, all of a sudden, all of overheard, LA is rallying behind this woman to find her somebody else. And then like, in the moment that we started doing that, and trying to find her a new match as a constellation, we get a DM from the original guy was all of a sudden, like I panicked, I'm interested, like, I do really want to see her. And this is like, you know, we're getting late into the night. But I'm like, my phone dies every five minutes. Like it's just

and now we're gonna take a quick break, but don't go anywhere because the story will continue

and they ended up actually meeting up, like going on some dates, they sent us a video of the dates where he's like kissing on the cheek at dinner like it was he brought her flowers. It it was just, it was a roller coaster that had a happy ending. So I got to say like, you know, that was my absolute favourite. It was just so sweet. And I spent hours probably chatting with this girl on the phone like as it was happening kind of coaching her through it, because she was like, what's going on? And I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with you. And we, we sent them dinner. We sent them to Nobu. And they had a date. And it was just, it was the perfect la moment. And everything about it was so pure, it's very wholesome. It's wholesome. And we still, you know, make jokes throughout. But it really is probably the most wholesome thing that we do.

Why do you think the audience is so into helping with the missed connections? Like people are really, really into?

So involved? Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing that blew me away, too, is how helpful people are. Why do you think that is, I think we all really want something like this to happen. It's a really, again, this sounds cheesy, but it's a really bright spot, sometimes on the internet, which for the most part can be a very, very dark place, especially over the last few years. And you see so much like I know, being a woman online or in media, like you guys know, dark in the last few hours. Yeah, you guys know what it is, like, just the how aggressive it can be. And there's hate and there's trolls, and you know, there's a lot of that and to see something that is just like pure and kind hearted on the internet and to participate in that I think you are just vicariously just feeling good. Like I, I have so much serotonin at the end of a misconnection. Because it's just like, it's just pure joy. And I think people really want to be involved in that. And I think there is a thrill of a chase, you know, if somebody feels like they can help, everything we do is local to because the spirit of our accounts is it's local, it's in the city. So ever, you know, for the most part, everyone following me count lives in the city, they might know the place that we're talking about, they might know the person and you know, a lot of these people are people who have submitted quotes before. Yeah, for sure. It's a two way dialogue that we have with our audience, which is not just, we made a meme here, look at it and laugh at it. It's, we're having conversations with these people normally, and we want them to feel like they are a part of the content that that we make, because they are Yeah, and you know, sometimes with the misconnections they do want to be anonymous. Like you're definitely putting yourself out there. vulnerably occasionally, we have somebody who is like, oh, yeah, show my picture tag me like, you know, are you brave? Yeah, but it's amazing how much people enjoy it even if they're not like the star you know, even if you're not the bachelor in the situation is just so fun to participate. And, you know, we get really funny responses from people and post them stuff like that. So it just feels good.

It does feel good. And it also it's it's investing in someone else's happiness and reinforcing the idea that connections and love and attraction and momentary beginnings are out there for everybody. I can see it being a very optimistic practice

and we really are in a time where everyone is, for the most part dating online and we kind of live in this world of endless swiping and matching. And not that there's anything wrong with that. But it's rare now, I would say to meet somebody in real life. So to celebrate that, and ironically use an online platform to facilitate real life interactions is really, really fun. And I think the rarity of that also gets people really excited. We also have some, like messy Miss connections that are really fun to talk about too, because they don't always end in love.

We love miss. We also do like a little bit of fear.

I think we all love a mess. I mean, it's reality TV happening in real time. I think the messiest one was a girl had chatted with this guy outside of Erawan and LA, and they had a nice conversation. We found him. And then he, he dammed the account, and started sending me all these long messages about how he had a girlfriend, and he probably shouldn't have talked to her. And in my head, I'm just like, Okay, do you want us to delete this? So like, I don't know, blow up your spot. But instead, he was like, No, I'm gonna go on this personal PR thing. And he made like a front facing camera video that he posted immediately during while this was going on, saying, like, I shouldn't have done this. I just want everyone to know that I love my girlfriend. Oh, dude. And the original girl then was like, I want to see

Yeah, yeah. And what I love is this guy, this, this messy guy was not like a celebrity or anything. So for like his 100 followers, he may look up front.

I mean, everyone here thinks they're a celebrity. Like,

everyone here is a celebrity. So I am assuming that people can find you at overheard la overheard? And why is there any other location where people can find your work that you would like to mention,

my personal is at Amber and like em, V E R N. I'm also on Twitter. But yeah, our accounts are over to LA or New York, or San Francisco, over at Austin, overhead London and overheard University. So depending on what suits your fancy, you can follow one or you can follow all.

Thank you so much for coming on. And would you please come back and tell us more adorable misconnection stories because this has just given me so much joy.

Thank you, I would love that

you're part of the family. Now you have to come back. I could not have enjoyed that more. That was the intersection of many things that I love with one thing that I absolutely loathe, which would be I do love when people message me or tag me or interact with me on Instagram. I get excited to hear from people it is the platform of Instagram itself that I find obtuse. Yeah, it's a bit clunky. So as usual, it is the people making it better. But please tell me what is your love to go? I think it's to watch your mouth.

Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's to keep

an eye out when you're out and about and talking to people. And you know, sometimes these things can end well, sometimes they can't. Yeah, so yeah, just be conscious of what you're saying when you're out in public, I guess. Yep. You never know who's listening. It could be all of Instagram. It could be everybody. Well, if you have a missed connection, or you'd like to tell me I'm wrong about Instagram. I mean, it'll be a hard thing to convince me but I'm willing to listen. Email us at lovestruck daily at Frolik dot media or you can tag us on Instagram. We are at lovestruck daily, and the same address on Twitter. And you know, if you enjoyed this fabulous episode, or any of the episodes that you've heard, and you leave a review, that would make me so excited. It might cause auditory delight, you might experience me absolutely squeeing I love it when people leave reviews. So hey, leave a review. We'd love to share it with everyone on the show. Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. We are produced by Abigail steckler and little Scorpion studios with executive producer frolic media. This is an I Heart Radio Podcast, have an absolutely marvellously connected happily ever after. I'm in love with love with you. I'm in love with you