If there’s one thing you should take away after reading this it’s that I have no idea what’s going on. Not a clue. I have been in a state of confusion if not outright panic since I got a DM from Gaz on June 10th telling me that he works for Barstool Sports and was wondering, in his words, what my “deal” was.

Look, this is not me trying to be humble. I would never do that. It’s also not to say I haven’t earned the position I’ve got; I’ve worked hard, grown an account from 500 followers to 245K in a year by taking my life and making it relatable to people other than myself. I’m good at what I do, I love social media and I understand it. An opportunity to do video, podcast, blogging, whatever else as a career sounds amazing to me. But so we’re clear, this is an absolutely batshit thing to do as your very first job straight out of college.

I’m not really someone who jumps head-first into things if I don’t know the details, and I don’t think I was ever prepared for a situation where there just aren’t any details to know. This job is what you make it. I’ve been told countless times that I can really do whatever the fuck I want to. Again, this is my first job straight out of school—I’ve been told what to do for sixteen years. What do you mean I can do whatever I want? It’s like walking up to a buffet and it’s just food that you love. I mean yeah, you can have whatever you want, but how are you supposed to choose what you want when everything looks fucking unbelievable?

But back to June 10th. At this time, I knew exactly one thing about Barstool Sports, which was that Saturdays were for the boys. That this company was in any way interested in me and wanted me to come to New York City to meet them made absolutely zero sense in my mind. But someone had recently told me not to “graduate and just go get a normal job and have a lame life”, so I decided to just jump in, and I researched.

I say researched because you’re not supposed to say stalked, but that’s closer to what I did. I spent every minute of the week before I went to new york reading blog posts, listening to podcasts, watching interviews, and generally learning everything I could. And a weird thing happened: I fuckin liked it. I liked it a lot. I liked the idea that no one was filtered, the unlimited amount of content created every day, the fact that genuinely there was something for everyone to enjoy, and I understood why Barstool has rabid superfans—when you really look at it, what’s not to love?

I was pretty much all-in before I stepped foot in HQ, but I tried to play it cool at my interview and definitely did not succeed. I’ve never been great at playing hard to get, and when Dave asked me what I was currently doing in life, I answered “oh, literally nothing” (super cool El, nice job!) to which he said “Very good hardball negotiation tactic” and I almost shit myself.

About a month later, I signed my contract, and the rest I guess is history! I am incredibly happy about this and excited to see what happens next. So even though my life is definitely a work in progress right now, I’m pretty cool with it. Moving to NYC? Living on my own for the first time? Figuring out a job where I spent my first day sort of wondering if I still worked there? It’s going to be an adventure for sure. Yesterday I signed up for a 401k plan and I’m only like 80% sure I understand what that is, and I overheard a girl I went to high school with call me an “E list celebrity” at Baskin Robbins (yeah Colette, I heard that), so things are going great already.

Long story short: I’m Ellie, I’m 22, I love Barstool, and I’m just as excited as you are to figure out wtf my job is.