Andrew Licout Says The Internet Forgot How to Live.

I've been following Andrew Licout for years, long before Roe Magazine existed, long before this conversation, and long before I had any reason to believe that one day he'd become our July cover star. Which is funny, because if you'd asked me back then why I followed him, I don't think I could have given you a particularly smart answer. I wasn't analysing engagement metrics or trying to figure out why his content worked. I just remember laughing, like really laughing, you know? The kind where you immediately send the video to a friend because they have to see it.

Between his painfully accurate observations and the way he manages to turn ordinary moments into comedy, Andrew became one of those creators whose videos felt less like content and more like little reminders that we're all living through the same strange modern experience. Ironically, that's exactly why we wanted him on Roe.  Not because of his large audience, but because he still feels like a person. And after spending an hour talking with him, I realised that's becoming surprisingly rare.

We often say social media has changed, but I don't actually think that's the most interesting observation anymore. What's changed isn't social media, but our relationship with real life. Years ago, people lived interesting lives, and content simply followed. Now people build lives that can produce content. The order has completely reversed, and to be honest it's tiring. 

During our conversation, Andrew said something that immediately explained why his work has always felt different to me. Content, he explained, used to be the by-product of people's experiences. Now, increasingly, people are planning their experiences around content. Exactly. That's the inversion.

The first generation of creators weren't trying to become creators. They were photographers, comedians, designers, artists, travellers; people with interesting lives who happened to start sharing them online before anyone knew what an influencer even was. Content wasn't the destination. It was the cherry on the top. 

Today, people often begin with the destination. They don't necessarily want to become photographers; they want to become photography influencers. They don't necessarily love fashion; they love looking like someone who loves fashion. It sounds like a tiny difference, but it isn't, trust me. One begins with curiosity, and the other begins with performance. And truly, we've become so familiar with this way of living that we've even created a word for it: "performative." 

You know the feeling. Someone visits a café you've been going to for years, films fifteen seconds of aesthetic footage, posts "my new favourite spot," and leaves before the coffee has even gone cold.

That for me is plain and simply; not documenting life but performing it. The scary part is that we're becoming so used to this version of reality that we're starting to mistake performance for authenticity.

Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, we landed on something I haven't stopped thinking about since: why are we so busy becoming versions of other people when the original version of ourselves has always been the most interesting?

Such a simple sentence, but it quietly explains almost everything that's happening online. Where algorithms reward familiarity, people don't. The internet has become remarkably good at producing versions of the same person. The same outfits. The same cafés. The same apartments. The same "Sunday reset." The same books are strategically placed beside the same overpriced matcha. Truthfully we've become convinced we're expressing individuality while all beginning to look remarkably alike. 

One of the reasons Andrew's work has resonated with me for so long is because it never feels manufactured. He told me that almost every sketch starts the same way. Something genuinely happens. Someone says something ridiculous. He notices it. He writes it down. Later, maybe it becomes a video. Maybe it doesn't. But life always comes first and the content? Well that comes afterwards.

That order matters more than I think we realise because creativity has never come from planning.

It comes from living. Travelling somewhere unfamiliar. Having an awkward conversation on the train. Trying a job that turns out to be completely wrong for you. Falling in love. Getting your heart broken. Moving cities. Meeting people you'd never normally meet. Sitting in a café with a friend and accidentally stumbling into a conversation that changes how you think about something. Life has always been the source material. The internet just used to archive it.

During our conversation, we found ourselves talking about something that had nothing to do with content at all. We spoke about travel, about how the places we've lived, the people we've met, and the experiences we've collected have shaped our creativity far more than any algorithm ever could.

And that's when it truly hit me. The best creators aren't interesting because they're good at making content. On the contrary, they're interesting because they've built lives worth talking about. 

Perhaps that's why we as a society feel so exhausted. We're surrounded by people trying to reverse-engineer relatability instead of simply being relatable. Trying to manufacture originality instead of becoming original. Trying to create experiences that look interesting instead of allowing themselves to actually be surprised by life.

Andrew described something I've been thinking about ever since. He doesn't want to create experiences for content. He wants content to emerge from experiences. There's an enormous difference. One protects curiosity, while the other quietly replaces it.

Maybe that's why his work still feels alive after all these years. Because underneath the humour, the characters, and the perfectly observed social commentary is someone who's still paying attention to the world instead of constantly trying to plan it.

By the end of our conversation, I realised we'd spent surprisingly little time talking about social media itself. Instead, we'd spent an hour talking about creativity, travel, purpose, relationships, the pressure of getting older, the fear of wasting time, and how experiences shape taste far more than Pinterest ever could. And suddenly it all made sense, perhaps the internet isn't making us less creative. Rather we've simply forgotten where creativity comes from.

Not trends.

Not algorithms.

Not analytics.

But Life.

The internet was never supposed to replace it, rather It was supposed to document it, but we accidentally flipped the equation. Andrew Licout never stopped reminding himself which comes first. Maybe that's why, after following his work for so many years, sitting down with him felt less like interviewing a creator and more like talking to someone who still understands that the most valuable thing you can bring to the internet isn't another trend. It's a life that's actually being lived. And perhaps that's exactly why Andrew Licout is our July cover star.

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Photo © Andrew Licout (@licout)