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What You’ll Learn
As a writer on shows like Paw Patrol, Spirit Rangers and Cocomelon Lane, Joey Clift shares some of the keys to reaching the youngest audiences. Joey will be a speaker at StoryConnect 2026.
Guest Speaker
Joey CliftShow Notes
Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Intro: A production of Pioneer Utility Resources. StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers.
Andy Johns: What are some ways to tell important stories to young audiences? That’s what we’ll be talking about on this episode of The StoryConnect Podcast. My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer, and I’m joined on this episode by Joey Clift, who is a speaker at the upcoming StoryConnect 2026 conference in Tacoma, Washington. Joey, thanks so much for joining us.
Joey Clift: Thanks so much for having me, Andy. I’m so excited to be on this podcast, and I’m so excited to see everybody in Tacoma, Washington
Andy Johns: So your website says that you are a comedian, filmmaker, a member of the Cowlitz Tribe, a TV writer, and a “way too frequent podcast guest.” So I’m sorry to contribute to that, that frequency, but here we are. I thought folks might appreciate getting to know you and talking a little bit about your story up ahead of the conference, and we’re going to get to hear you lead a session at StoryConnect in Tacoma. So thanks for taking the time to do it, despite being a way too frequent podcast guest.
Joey Clift: Oh, yeah. I mean, I say that with love. I think that when you’re in the comedy space and when you’re like, you know, a public figure on some level, you get asked to guest on a lot of podcasts. And I just say yes to everything. So, like so I think that I’ve probably been on like hundreds of podcasts at this point, not on purpose, just because, like, I like talking to people, which is why I’m so excited to talk to you.
Andy Johns: The joke I heard the other day is three podcasters walk into a bar and the bartender says, “Hey, you guys should listen to my podcast!” Because everybody’s got one, a lot of podcasts going on so. That will be my last attempt at a joke on this one. I know I’ve got a professional comedian.
Joey Clift: Yeah, no, we’re serious from now on, yes.
Andy Johns: Right. You guys may be listeners, may be either listeners on our podcast feed or viewers on our YouTube channel, maybe familiar with some of Joey’s works from Spirit Rangers on Netflix. He’s been involved in Molly of Denali and Alma’s Way on PBS. The new Looney Tunes and Lego Ninjago Decoded on Cartoon Network, and of course, a show that was very popular about five years ago here in the John’s household, the Paw Patrol on Nickelodeon, so some great body of work there. At StoryConnect, we’ll be focusing on young audiences with your session, and many of the projects that you’ve worked on aren’t afraid to to tell complicated stories to kids. I mean, maybe, maybe not Looney Tunes, but the rest of them, you know, not afraid to put some depth in there. Mr. Rogers was famous for, you know, built his whole career around looking at how stories can help children process complex feelings and new ideas. How is telling stories to children different from telling stories to adults?
Joey Clift: Thanks so much for asking that question. And, I have to say, listing off my bio, I feel like I’m in this really weird area where if you were to tell a grown person in their 30s and 40s and 50s that doesn’t have kids, they’d be like, I don’t understand what any of those words mean. But if you tell somebody that, like, has a kid who’s like, you know, age like 0 to 5 that I write on like Paw Patrol or Cocomelon or whatever, it’s like I’m Elvis. It’s like a very specific a very specific fandom. So, I came up, I came into the writing for the kids space by way of writing comedy for adults at places like the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater and stuff like that. You know, a lot of black box comedy shows at, you know, two in the morning in front of three random drunk people on a Tuesday or whatever
Andy Johns: Very different than Paw Patrol, yes.
Joey Clift: Oh, yeah. For sure. Oh, no. Look, I mean, I don’t know, some some of those rubble jokes get real raw. Just kidding, just kidding. But, so, I didn’t necessarily come into this with an educator’s mindset. I came into it with a mindset of really just like wanting to tell the sorts of stories that I wish existed when I was a kid, and then trying to speak to sort of like, what were my emotions as I remembered them, you know, as a young kid. So, you know, one example of that would be I wrote on a show called Cocomelon Lane for Netflix, and I really love cats. I am a big time cat guy. And when I was really young, when I would see a cat, I would just scream out of excitement. And the cat would, of course, run away because I’m, you know, like a human yelling at it.
Andy Johns: Right.
Joey Clift: And, you know, that really made me sad as a kid. So when I was writing on Cocomelon Lane, I pitched the idea of I knew that one of the characters is a really big fan of cats. I pitched the idea of like, oh, we should do an episode about that where a kid learns that, like the way that animals show love and excitement is different than how humans show love and excitement. So it was really just about this like little three year old girl learning how to pet cats, you know, or how to get a cat to want to be pet by you. And, you know, that’s the sort of thing that as a kid, I really could have used seeing that, because then I maybe wouldn’t have just screamed at animals out of joy, you know? And that extends to, you know, a little bit more complicated topics like Spirit Rangers, a show I was a writer consulting producer on.
Joey Clift: It was the first kids show in the history of U.S. animation created by a native person, the genius Chumash TV writer Karissa Valencia, with an all native writers room that I was a part of. And, you know, native characters played by native actors. And we had the blessing of my Cowlitz tribe to use, like Cowlitz characters and the Cowlitz language in the show. And there is such a lack of knowledge for non-natives about native issues that it felt like there was there was a really great opportunity to tackle stuff that had just never really been tackled in kids media before. Like we had an episode about like, why native sports mascots aren’t great for native kids. We had an episode about why the US government should honor its treaties with tribes, which I still can’t believe Netflix approved that, but I’m so happy they did. And my trick to that kind of thing was, and I think this is like, really good for just thinking about it universally, regardless of age group, is taking complex topics and then sort of coding them in something universal. So that treaty episode I mentioned, the message of that episode is it’s important to keep your promises, which I think is something that anybody can relate to regardless of, you know, regardless of your age or, you know, community status or, you know, or anything like that
Andy Johns: Should be anyway, should be something they can relate to.
Joey Clift: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah, yeah. If you’re listening to this and you’re like, wait, you’re supposed to keep your promises, then –
Andy Johns: Breaking news, yeah.
Joey Clift: Yeah. Breaking news. And then I think it’s also useful to sort of cover any sort of message that you want in a joke. If you just lecture at somebody, they’re probably not going to like listen to you. But if you can like make it funny, there’s like actually like there’s research studies that show like just people’s ability to like retain and accept that information is a lot greater. So, you know, a lot of it is like thinking of what is the universal core of what this thing is. And then also how do I make it funny?
Andy Johns: Perfect. I’m not the professional you are, but I’m not going to ask if you’ve gotten over the whole screaming animals things. People will have to come to Tacoma StoryConnect to find out because there are seals and other animals there. So if you want to find out whether Joey still squeals with excitement when he sees an animal, you’ll just have to come to Tacoma and find out.
Joey Clift: Oh, I still do. But the thing is, sometimes I still do. Now I just know that I’m not supposed to do that.
Andy Johns: Understood. Understood. So some of the the work, obviously, you talked about the comedy, in between the children and then the adults, there’s that kind of tricky youth age. We’ve got an eighth grader here at the John’s house, that’s a little bit different of an age when you’re talking about the teenagers and kind of the early 20s. And I think if I understand right, like the Pow! film, which we’ll talk about a little bit, that’s geared towards maybe a little bit older group than some of the Cocomelon and Molly of Denali. But what about that next stage up once you get beyond kind of the elementary school age? What are some of – is it the same, some of the same tips and tricks to reach them, or is it the things really get different then?
Joey Clift: Yeah. I mean, I think that like first off, my condolences for having an eighth grader. Oh, that’s such a rough time.
Andy Johns: It’s tough.
Joey Clift: Yeah, yeah. I think that, like, I mean, once again, it’s different because it’s different age groups, but it’s similar in that I just try to tap into how I think I felt about things at that age. And, you know, I think that when I was, you know, like, you know, middle school, junior high, or early high school, I really just felt like people didn’t really listen to me. And I just kind of, I think that I try to think about it in those terms of like, not wearing kids gloves when talking to people that are that age. Being honest and then also like understanding that their POV and perspective is, you know, authentic to their current emotional experiences and all that. So like, you know, I try to think about like, okay, what is something that I, you know, if the age group is Cocomelon age 1 to 3 or Spirit Rangers age like 5 to 7, I try to think about like, okay, what is a 1 to 3 year old, would I understand? Or what is a 5 to 7 year old? Would I like, you know, respond to or how the age range for Pow! is probably like, you know, eight to, you know, like 14 or something like that.
Joey Clift: And, you know, I try to think about like, oh, yeah, when I was a kid. So Pow! was about a young native kid trying to find a place to charge their video game console at a powwow, and it’s based on my experiences going to powwows on the Cowlitz reservation in Washington state. And, you know, it’s just trying to really tap into, like, okay, like, how did I feel at a powwow? Like when I was that age when I just wanted to play video games and just stay in my room. And then trying to kind of like speak to that version of myself. I mean, really what I’m doing is like therapy for different stages of my life that everybody else just kind of gets to experience through the things that I watch or things that I work on.
Andy Johns: Makes sense and folks will have an opportunity to, we are proud to be able to show Pow!, a screening of Pow! at StoryConnect in Tacoma, so folks will be looking forward to getting to see that. It’s a short film. It’s kind of the 10-12 minute range, if I remember right?
Joey Clift: Yeah. It’s about, it’s like 8.5 minutes. And the best way to describe it is it’s like a Looney Tunes short meets Reservation Dogs. And it’s based on my experiences going to powwows as a kid, but also growing up, I loved shows like Looney Tunes and Pixar shorts and things like that. But I never really saw, like, contemporary native characters kind of being allowed to be funny in those spaces. So my goal with it was to create something that could kind of like, you know, show that a young native kid could be as funny as Bart Simpson
Andy Johns: There you go. I like it. And that leads perfectly to the next topic I wanted to move to. You know, we’re talking about audiences with with children. You have dedicated a lot of your time and effort into telling modern Native American stories and promoting native comedians. I know you have the whole web series about that. Talk me through some of the challenges there in getting those native stories told and why it’s been such a cause for you. Why does it matter? Why put in the effort that you have to to amplify those voices and get out there?
Joey Clift: My native identity has been like an important part of my life, you know, for my whole life. And, for a long time, that kind of existed on a different track from me being a big fan of comedy. Like, my first, you know, comedy pieces that I wrote were, you know, like sketch comedy videos about like, Spider-Man or whatever, you know, where I’m not necessarily bringing my native stuff to that. And part of the reason for that is that I just didn’t see Native Comedy on TV. Like, I didn’t see native comedians on TV growing up. I mean, it was to the point that, like, I loved comedy, but I didn’t think I was allowed to work in comedy. So instead I went to school to be a small market TV weather guy because that felt like, you know, an attainable way to get paid to make people laugh. I went to Washington State University, Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, shout out to Cable 8 Productions. And once I, a bunch of my professors kind of explained to me that I could just work in the entertainment industry, I moved to Los Angeles and got really involved in sort of native Hollywood, the section of Hollywood that, you know, where most native folks congregate. It’s sort of a loose collection of like 500 or so folks, while also getting really involved in sort of the mainstream alt comedy Los Angeles scene, places like the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, Second City and stuff like that. And I knew all these super funny native comedians doing a lot of great stuff in native spaces who weren’t getting opportunities at places like UCB, which shows like Saturday Night Live and the late night shows use as kind of farm teams for their stuff.
Joey Clift: So, once I progressed in that scene and saw that there weren’t really other native folks getting the opportunities I was getting, I really made it a goal of mine to try to, like, be very vocal about my identity, while also trying to kind of pry the door open for as many other native folks as possible to kind of get in the door as I could. In doing it, I didn’t really know that I was doing something that was like historic or a big deal at the time. It was just me trying to kind of give space to a lot of really talented people that I knew. But, you know, I like I put together an all native comedy show at UCB in 2018, and it like made international news. There’s a chapter about me in a book about the history of Native Comedy that came out through Simon and Schuster a couple of years ago, just because I produced and hosted this show, which to me was like, you know, just something for friends to perform. And, you know, as I was doing this, it really struck a chord with me realizing that, like, you know, native folks, up until recently, we weren’t really seen in the media outside of, like, native sports mascots or people getting shot in the back by John Wayne, which I would not call authentic native representation.
Andy Johns: Not think so, no.
Joey Clift: And, you know, I think that when I was coming up, I was sort of coming up at the time where people were kind of becoming more aware that native stories (1) you know, native people still exist and (2) our stories deserve to be in the media and have validity. So, you know, it was kind of a combination of like what I wanted to do comedically at the time. And then also just like, what sort of where we were in kind of the native storytelling movement. But, you know, it’s been so cool. And I really, you know, I’m so blessed that I get to be a part of this movement and, you know, if I’m able to help other folks get in the door, that’s something that I’m like, you know, deeply proud of that I get to do while also just, you know, introducing non-Native audiences to all these super funny native folks. You know, like, whenever I’m working on anything, even if it’s not – like when I was writing on, Rubble and Crew, which is a Paw Patrol spin off. And, I was not hired on that as like a native writer. I was just hired as like a comedy writer. But like, one of the first things I said in the writers room was like, can we have a native character? And they were like, of course. So then I helped create a native character for the show. You know, it’s kind of like a quiet activism for me to try to up native representation whenever I can.
Andy Johns: Yeah. You spoke a little bit about the mainstream reaction to that. Sounds like it was overwhelmingly positive. Can you speak a little bit to the reaction to any of that among, you know, the native communities? Obviously, you know, no group is a monolith, and everybody’s different. Every tribe is different. But what are some of the reaction or response been from folks in the community
Joey Clift: Yeah for sure. To answer the second part of your question about sort of difficulties about telling native stories is, one thing that’s been difficult with it is that most of the decision makers in the entertainment industry, or all the decision makers, are not native. And because, like, there’s a research study that came out showing that like 87% of US schools don’t teach native history after 1900. So there’s just this, like big knowledge gap between what non-natives know about contemporary native people and what natives know about contemporary native people. So, you know, if I’m pitching a joke about, like, frybread or Indian tacos in the room, it’s hard if I’m pitching that to somebody who does not know what frybread or a powwow or anything like that is. So sometimes there’s a little bit of a knowledge gap. But I feel like recently, over the past couple of years, decision makers in Hollywood have become aware that they don’t know that stuff, and they’ve really, like, acquiesced to me and a lot of other native creatives and sort of like, leaned on us to make sure that they’re telling their stories the right way, which has been really great. Like, I feel like it used to be people saying, like, I want a native character, and he should have magic powers, I guess. Now go write it. And I’m like, but I don’t want to. Whereas now it’s more of a conversation of like, okay, we kind of want to have a native character that does stuff like this. Can you help us figure out how to do that the right way? And bringing in consultants and making sure that native actors are playing native characters and all that stuff. And the response within native communities, yeah, for sure, like, native folks aren’t a monolith, but I feel like, I don’t know, truly nothing but love for my people from the stuff that I’m doing. I pitch and sell TV shows, and I do a lot of high pressure stuff in the entertainment industry. But like, I have never been more nervous in my life than like, screening my work in front of elders for my tribe, because it’s just like if a Netflix exec or whatever doesn’t like my thing, it’s fine. But if an elder from my tribe doesn’t like a Spirit Rangers episode, I’m going to hear about that for the next 30 years at powwows, you know.
Joey Clift: And, you know, I feel really fortunate and lucky that,you know, my community generally is very, very positive and proud of the work that I’m doing. And, you know, I have been lucky to screen my work for a lot of different tribal communities, and I’ve felt nothing but love from native folks. And, you know, of course we have, like, more nuanced conversations about sort of like, okay, this joke is about this. Is this a thing that we should tackle as a community? That’s something that’s been really nice about, like, working on a show like Spirit Rangers or something like my Gone Native series or my short film Pow! is I try to put as many native people on the team as possible because they are incredibly talented artists, but also because it allows us to kind of have those nuanced conversations of like, okay, what are we trying to say with this? And, you know, fortunately, you know, nobody’s dragged me on Facebook yet, but, yeah, but it has been really cool to screen it for native communities and just seeing native folks respond to this stuff.
Andy Johns: Yeah. And what a great, even the story that you’ve unfolded right here where, you know, you coming up didn’t realize what all the opportunities were. Now when somebody in one of those communities sees what you’re doing, all of a sudden the horizons are a little bit broader. So I think that’s an amazing spot to be in. Shifting gears a little bit. So you’re on so many different avenues. We talked before comedian, TV writer, filmmaker now, all of the different platforms that you’re on. When you’ve got a good story or when you have an idea for a good story, how do you go about deciding which platform or which media you know, does this go in more of a comedy act? Does this go into a script somewhere? How do you go about making those decisions once you’ve got the story on which media and which platform to use?
Joey Clift: Well, wow, nobody’s ever asked me that question. I’m excited to talk about this. So I think I start with, is this an idea that excites me? And then like, and then I kind of figure out the platform after that, if that makes sense. So, you know, I always try to start with, like, you know, if it’s like a narrative, like a story. I try to start with the story and then like, oh, does this feel like a story that I’m excited by? And then you kind of have the conversation with yourself is like, okay, is this more of a series? Is this just like a tweet? You know, is this feature, you know, is this a short film? I also try to think about something as, like, everything I do, I kind of view as, like, a potential idea seed. So, like, my first Gone Native short is called “Telling People You’re Native American When You’re Not Native is a Lot Like Telling a Bear You’re a Bear When You’re Not a Bear.” The title is 24 words long, basically a Fiona Apple album title. And, I originally made that just to screen at that UCB Comedy showcase I did back in 2018, and then I figured I’d just like, you know, put it on YouTube or whatever afterwards. But it got such a positive reaction that I decided to submit it through film festivals. And then it ended up winning a bunch of awards in the festival circuit, and then it got distribution from this really great native nonprofit. And then that got it on Comedy Central’s radar, and they produced the second short. And that got us really great support from an organization called Pop Culture Collab, which helped fund the next three shorts.
Joey Clift: And then we’re like, okay, this is a series. And then we had Comedy Central distribute it. And then once I had the series done, all of those did really well. So I’m like, maybe this is a book. So like then I just recently sold a book to a publisher that I’m writing that’s kind of like that web series, but in book form, you know? And, it’s like I kind of started with, oh, this two minute short is really funny. And now I have, like, you know, a Webby Award winning five episode digital series. Plus, like, I guess a book out of it, you know? So I also like, let stuff kind of evolve and play out as they, as they play out. And then, you know, that also Pow! is also kind of an extension of that of me getting, a lot of really great accolades as an animation director and then saying like, oh, what if I directed like, you know, more of a narrative story and then that is spinning off into other things. And, I try to just like be fluid and like, you know, it’s like, I think Bruce Lee had a term that’s like moving like water a little bit. And, yeah, so it’s sort of like starting with, oh, this is a very funny idea. Okay, what format is that in? And then maybe you release it, and then maybe you’re like, oh, this is even though this is out as a podcast or whatever, maybe this is also a book, or maybe this is a movie, or maybe this is a documentary and kind of like letting things evolve as they excite you and are interesting for you.
Andy Johns: You go, Bruce Lee, I’ll go, O Brother, Where Art Thou? You’re mass communicating, so you’re all over the place, man of many media. So you know, I like what you said there about the idea seed. So let’s you know somebody who, the answer to that last question could have been, well, the story goes wherever the next deadline is. Because I know, like you said, a lot of it is high pressure.
Joey Clift: A little bit, a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Johns: Where do you go when you go back and you look at the bucket, and the idea seed bucket is fairly empty. Where do you go to find these next stories to keep that creative inspiration going?
Joey Clift: I mean, part of it is exactly what you’re saying is like, oh, the deadline is the motivator. You know, the deadline.
Andy Johns: Turns out, it’s a good motivator.
Joey Clift: Yeah, sometimes the deadline is like, oh, rent’s coming up. Better get some good ideas flowing, you know? But, yeah. So, I don’t do it as often as I would like, but there’s this book called The Artist’s Way that my mom, she paints murals for a living, and, she’s an artist for her career trade, and she actually gifted me a copy of this. And, one of the things that The Artist’s Way talks about is this thing called morning pages, which is when you wake up in the morning, one of the first things that you should do is like, set an alarm for five minutes, and then just pull out a notebook and then just kind of free write. And sometimes that freewriting is – sometimes I’ll go into it with an agenda of like, okay, I’m going to come up with like comedy video ideas. And then I’ll just sort of, you know, spend five minutes in the morning, you know, on a Monday churning out a bunch of like, half ideas. And it’s also like giving myself permission at that point for those ideas to not be great. You know, just like writing kind of whatever comes to mind.
Andy Johns: Just get it on paper.
Joey Clift: And then I’ll do that for like a few days in a row. And then at a certain point, maybe for my next morning pages or whatever on Thursday, I’ll, like, look through all of my ideas and I’ll say like, okay, I wrote 20 ideas that were like kind of just word vomit out of my mind. And then I’ll go through and say like, okay, these four have potential. And then I’ll kind of go through and sort of beat them out and write a little bit more about what like, okay, is this a web series? Is this a, you know, a short? Is this a feature? And then I just kind of like follow that until it feels like, okay, I have one idea that like is really coming to the forefront. I understand what it is. You know, if it’s a comedy, it makes me laugh. If it’s not a comedy, it makes me feel emotions other than laughter. And then, I’ll kind of go more into like the production of like, okay, write in the outline. Okay. Let’s go. I’m pitching, I’m telling my manager about this or whatever.
Andy Johns: And then it starts getting real.
Joey Clift: Yeah, for sure. But I think it’s like letting yourself kind of exist in sort of the free creative space. Like that bear short that came about through one of those kinds of things. I mean, back in like 2018 where I was just like, I want to do like a, you know, a short animated video. Here’s like 50 ideas. Okay, this one, just based on a title, makes me laugh. And then I just, like freehand, basically wrote the whole script out in five minutes, and then like the version that I actually made, you know, a couple months later was like 90% the same as the one that I free wrote out. Because also, sometimes an idea just comes out fully formed in a way that’s very convenient, you know?
Andy Johns: Yeah, if only they were all that easy.
Joey Clift: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think it’s just like that to me whenever I need to, like, go to the well, you know, that to me is a useful thing. It’s just like morning pages and using that to kind of, like, vomit out a bunch of half ideas, and then eventually you’ll be like, okay, some of these don’t suck. And then you’ll, you know, progress down the path with those. And part of it too, is like resources. And it’s just like, if my idea is a $500 million Michael Bay movie that I’m like, maybe I should not go down that path unless I know how to get that made. Whereas, oh, this is –
Andy Johns: Hang onto that one. Don’t lose it. But yeah.
Joey Clift: Don’t lose it. But maybe like oh this one feels like, you know, this is a show that I could pitch to Netflix, and I know people at Netflix. So that feels like a realistic thing to get made. You know, it’s also looking at your resources and looking at what you could like. If your goal is to get something finished and done and exported and on the internet, then it’s like also having that in mind of like, okay, what could you realistically like do?
Andy Johns: Right? Last question I have for you here, and this is something that a lot of our clients, our members struggle with. You are fairly omnipresent online when it comes to to having conversations, promoting your work. You know, I saw all the different social icons on there, including Threads, which not everybody is into. But, how do you decide where to be when you are, you know, with the persona that you have curated online that the, you know, promoting your work, that sort of thing? You can’t be everywhere. So how do you decide where to be and what messages go where when you’re talking about either your own career or, you know, promoting your work?
Joey Clift: You know, as a comedian, TV writer, one of the most important things for me is to be, like, easily Google-able. Like, I need to be somebody where, you know, if somebody hears me on a podcast or sees one of my videos or something like that, and they want to hire me for work, like it’s important to me that they can like, Google me and see, like, oh, this person, they’re on Instagram. I’ll send them DM or here’s their email or here’s their Bluesky or Threads or Twitter or TikTok or whatever. So, or, you know, like LinkedIn is popular for a lot of folks too. So, yeah, it’s just sort of being easily findable because you kind of never know, especially if you’re somebody that’s like a little bit in the public light. If somebody’s going to want to contact you for like different jobs and opportunities. And a lot of my writing jobs have come from somebody listening to me on a podcast or, you know, or something like that, and then finding me on LinkedIn and sending me a DM. So it’s just being Google-able is, I think, the way that I like to think about it. And as far as like where I kind of split my time, I mean, like I would say that I’m not an influencer. I’m like a writer with a social media account, if that makes sense. So pretty much most of what I’m posting online is like, I got a screening coming up this weekend, or like I’m on the StoryConnect podcast this week. Check it out. It’s more like promoting things that I’ve done, like, so I’m not on like Threads posting every random thought or something like that.
Joey Clift: Sometimes I am if I’m not working and bored, then yes. And then, you know, like, I think that all the different social media profiles, all the different social media accounts, have sort of different purposes. Like for me, Facebook is where sort of my friends from high school and like my, you know, like and my extended family are, so that’s where I look for kind of that content. Instagram has become kind of weirdly a professional profile. Like I think that that to me is the new business card. If I’m at, you know, a party or something like that. And I meet somebody and we hit it off, I’m not saying, do you have a business card? I’m saying like, oh, what’s your Insta? We should connect. You know, Twitter is probably the profile that I just kind of doomscroll on the most. You know, and then, you know, LinkedIn is good for professional networking purposes. It’s sort of like you get to define what each of those kind of mean in your life. But that said, I think it’s important for everybody to have a LinkedIn. And then I think it’s important to just be somebody that you can be findable online just in case somebody wants to reach out to you for an opportunity, especially if you want to do stuff in the public space. It’s like, you know, a speaker or comedian, writer, whatever.
Andy Johns: Makes perfect sense. Joey, thank you so much for sharing those insights and look forward to hearing more from what you have to say at StoryConnect coming up, April 13th to 16th, 2026 in Tacoma, Washington. Storyconnect.com for all the details there. Joey, thanks again.
Joey Clift: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. See everybody in April.
Andy Johns: He is Joey Cliff, speaker from StoryConnect. He’s also a comedian, filmmaker, member of the Cowlitz tribe, TV writer, and, one more podcast to add to his list of podcasts he’s been on.
Joey Clift: I should shout out. Wait, if you’re coming to StoryConnect in April, my tribe’s casino is just south of Tacoma in Ridgefield, Washington. So, like, look, if you want to like, you know, take a little vacation at night or if you want to stay an extra day, my tribe’s casino is really fun.
Andy Johns: Bingo. Good to know.
Joey Clift: We do have bingo.
Andy Johns: That’s good inside information.
Joey Clift: We do have bingo.
Andy Johns: That folks get on The StoryConnect Podcast. So I’m your host, Andy Johns. Until we talk again, keep telling your story.
Outro: StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a communications cooperative that is built to share your story.