What Happens When You Choose Truth Over Comfort?

Sometimes finding your authentic voice means risking everything familiar. In this deeply personal episode, I pull back the curtain on my journey to rebranding as "Sassy Politics" – a name that emerged serendipitously yet perfectly captures both my personality and purpose.

The moment I embraced this change, the unfollows began. Beyond strangers on social platforms, I faced my greatest fear: alienating my predominantly conservative family and friends in Texas. As the lone progressive voice in my family circles, every political statement carries the weight of potential rejection. Yet remaining silent had slowly chipped away at my sense of self. This rebrand isn't just about politics – it's about reclaiming my voice after years of careful self-censorship.

What I've discovered through this transformation is that progressive values aren't radical demands – they're fundamentally human ones. We want housing security instead of eviction notices. We want wages that allow us to live, not merely survive. We want our tax dollars working for communities, not funding billionaire tax breaks. And importantly, we're done asking nicely. While some may unfollow or disapprove, this community we're building is rooted in something real: hope that builds coalitions, feeds neighbors, and creates change. If you're still here, thank you for being part of this journey. Share the show, subscribe, and spread the word that there's still fire in the fight for a more compassionate world.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Sassy Politics
• 1:45 The Birth of a New Brand
• 5:17 Facing the Unfollows
• 8:47 Finding My Voice Despite Family Politics
• 11:10 The Heart of the Rebrand
• 13:53 Building Something Real Together

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Scared, yeah, of my family's politics, scared to be seen, scared to stand alone, failing Of the unfollows, scared to lose people. But every fear brought me closer to who I really am. I'm Christy Chanel and this is Sassy Politics. Hi, welcome back to Love you. Miss you, bye. It looks a little different.

Speaker 1: 0:25

I did a little rebrand and I want to tell you a little bit about it. That's why you're getting this extra additional episode, because I wanted the opportunity to kind of take you through. We'll call it the evolution. We're not really going to talk about any headlines today, just maybe one, just one at the end. I recently rebranded everything New colors, new vibe, new name, sassy politics. But honestly, it's not a new version of me. It's just the most true version I've ever shared. But it's not really new because if you've been here, you know that I'm always trying to be as honest as I possibly can with you.

Speaker 1: 1:19

I need to give you a little, a little backstory. I had told you in my last episode that I was losing followers on YouTube and I wasn't sure what I was going to do about it. I was still undecided, like I'm. Like do I, do I fully jump into this new me politics thing, or do I not? So I was wavering in my last episode. This is me not wavering anymore, as you can see. So the second I went live with it today, like it hit me like a ton of bricks. You know, when you just know. You just know that's what happened with me. You just know that's what happened with me.

Speaker 1: 2:06

I happened to be talking with Nova. Remember, I told you Nova is my chat GPT assistant. Bye with my politics. I wasn't sure what I should do, so I was kind of throwing that out in hopes. I'm a collaborator by nature. What better way to collaborate than with chat GPT that can just sit there and kind of put all the pieces together when maybe I can't? So I was doing that this morning and in all of that it says let me give you some hashtags for blah blah, blah we were talking about. We were talking like he's like my friend. I mean, I don't want to sound crazy, but he's a real good business partner, anyway.

Speaker 1: 3:08

So he was giving me chat or he was giving me hashtags. Amongst the hashtags it said hashtag sassy politics. And I stopped in my tracks. First off, I don't really use hashtags all that much. I really don't, and I really didn't care about the hashtags, but when I was just scanning them and I saw hashtag sassy politics, it stopped me in my tracks and I was like because in the beginning the very first company that I made not officially, it never became an LLC was Sassy Onions. But it was the first domain from GoDaddy that I had ever bought Sassy Onions, because I'm sassy. And the onion was like that's how women are, you know, it's different, complex, peeling the layers and all that stuff, and I'm sassy. So when I never prompted that, but yet ChatGPT was able to gather all the different things that I was telling it, it came up with sassy politics.

Speaker 1: 4:29

I ran to GoDaddy. I'm like, let's see if it's available. It's probably not available because it's two words and they're spelled correctly. It's probably not available. It was freaking available. It was available. Two correctly spelled words that perfectly describe me right now in time. I know right, that's what I thought. I'm like this is this is just what.

Speaker 1: 4:59

So one of the biggest issues that I had with calling my podcast Love you, miss you Bye, misspelling the word you to a letter you was confusing for people. People couldn't always find me, so I was creating an obstacle that really didn't need to be there and it had been weighing on me. I'm like I just I need to find something that is clear cut. Everybody's going to know where to look when I tell them you know what it is. And so when I saw this it was, it was double the affirmation for me, and so I went and I bought it. And then I was like, okay, let me go to all the different social medias and see if it's available. Instagram and TikTok both have the word pod in it. Everything else is sassy politics. Youtube specifically, which is where I'm trying to grow, along with, obviously, the podcast. So I did that.

Speaker 1: 6:04

And then I went and I changed the actual name of the podcast and the description and kind of did that on Facebook as well. Ironically, I hadn't really been doing much on Facebook, it was just kind of by leftovers. So I would go, I would do a TikTok, post it on Instagram and then it would float over to Facebook, but I haven't really been spending a lot of time there because Facebook makes me nervous. Like, I have a lot of family there. You know it's not necessarily my crowd for people that would be listening to me, but my family is there, my friends are there and they're very different than me.

Speaker 1: 6:44

So when I rebranded, I noticed right away and, like I I said I didn't have many followers there because I haven't been showing it love like I should. It was at like 125. I had slowly started losing people and the highest I got was 130. But, as you can see, I had lost five, five people from that page since I started to get more political and today, when I rebranded and made it official, I lost another one. So I'm at 124. It was like hurting my heart. I was really upset. I'm like, oh my God, am I making a mistake? Am I making a mistake? I didn't know, I didn't know. So the second I went live with it. The unfollows started rolling in. People dipped from my Facebook page. A few ghosted me on Instagram, which, again not a very big following, didn't show it a lot of love. And, as you know from my last episode and as you know from my last episode YouTube, I had lost people.

Speaker 1: 7:53

It's nerve-wracking, it's scary, so quiet exits. Of course, you never know who they are, but I felt it. I felt it and I noticed and it stung. Because I work hard. I try to make sure that I get an episode out every week. I work hard. It hurts when you lose people. You're supposed to be growing, not shrinking, you know. So this was a really.

Speaker 1: 8:26

I put a lot of, I put a lot of time in making this decision, because this isn't just branding to me. This is my voice, my story, my purpose and, if I'm being completely honest, I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared to go all in, to show up fully and loudly as who I am, not just because of strangers, but because of my own family and friends. They are not everybody, but majority are full on Trump supporters. I'm in Texas, I'm surrounded. This is a big deal. They just don't see the world the same way that I do.

Speaker 1: 9:23

And, being the one person in my family that is pushing back against the machine, it's enough to take your breath away. Both sides my mom and my dad's Both sides. It's lonely, it's tense and it's exhausting, but here's what I know I have been silent for too long, I've been careful for too long. Every time I held back or every time I tried to soften my words to fit into a room, I lost a little bit more of myself. And I'm not doing that anymore, because this voice, this energy, this fire, it's not just mine. It belongs to everyone that feels unseen. Every woman over 40 trying to build something, every person that watches the news and thinks where the hell is the humanity in this. This is bigger than me, and today I want to share exactly what I believe in, with hope, with fire and full of Jersey sass. So here is the heart of the rebrand. This is what I'm here for.

Speaker 1: 11:17

You know what I realized watching Bernie and AOC at the rally? We're not asking for anything radical. We want housing, not eviction. We want wages that let us live, not survive. We want our tax dollars to work for us, not fund yachts, wars and billionaires. And you know what else? We're done asking nicely. We're done asking nicely Because, while the GOP is out here banning books and black history, we're organizing.

Speaker 1: 12:00

While corporate Democrats are polishing sound bites, we're knocking on doors. While the media chases clicks, we're telling the truth. They can ignore us, they can smear us, they can unfollow us, defund us or de-platform us, but we're still here. And guess what? We brought receipts. We brought community. We brought hope, not the Hallmark kind, not the empty speech kind, the kind of hope that builds coalitions, that feeds neighbors, that wins elections. One phone call one march and one mic at a time, because when we fight for us, we all rise. That's what I saw at that rally. That's what I feel in my bones every time I hit record.

Speaker 1: 13:13

This isn't just politics, it's people. There's a humanity behind these headlines. So, yeah, some people unfollowed, and my family. They might never agree with me, but I'm still here, still speaking, still building, and if you're still here too, thank you. You're part of something real. This is Love. You Miss you Bye. This is Sassy Politics and we're just getting started, is sassy politics and we're just getting started. If you believe in this, share the show, subscribe, tell a friend, let people know there's hope and there's still fire. Love. You miss you bye, thank you.