This piece is a cover story from Creator Mag.3 — physical editions are available now.

Cleo Abram loves comic books.

Graphic novels, too. While she didn’t grow up reading either, the newfound fascination during her adult life stems from her day job.

“There’s a series called ‘Reinventing Comics’ by Scott McCloud on how comics are visually made…and why you can instinctively understand what’s going on [as a reader],” Cleo tells me. “If someone uses, say, three lines for running or all of these visual cues, I find that totally fascinating.”

It’s a hot and humid day in early June as I ring the doorbell at Cleo’s home in New York. Her dog, a Toy Australian Shepherd named Thor, can’t wait to make new friends as he sprints out into the hallway and says hello. I briefly wonder whether I should return the favor and ask for an autograph. Along with remaining by Cleo’s side for eight years, he doubles as co-host of the show I’m here to talk about, a new media venture dubbed Huge If True.

I’m tagging along for the day, as in a couple hours, she’s set to speak on a panel about where the creator economy is headed. For now, though, I realize the best way to get a sense of who Cleo is when the camera’s off sits right in front of me: her bookshelf.

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One section includes her favorite comics, such as Saga, Superman: Red Son, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Another section, nonfiction deep dives like Why We’re Polarized — from her former colleague at Vox, Ezra Klein — and How We Got To Now.

These different genres lend naturally to her work given their proclivity for activating both the left and right sides of the human brain. Visual, rich storytelling crashes with pragmatic, historical analysis to form the basis of Cleo’s explainer journalism.

Of course, there’s a third major influence missing from that formula. Cleo’s collection wouldn’t be complete without a healthy dose of science fiction, a genre she did in fact fall for as a kid. “If I’m not actively reading for my work, I’m probably reading sci-fi,” she laughs, pointing to several titles that live rent-free on her desk.

With respect to The Simpsons, out of all buckets of popular culture, science fiction has played arguably the most pivotal role in predicting our future. Think tanks like the RAND Corporation began employing “futurists” dating back to the 1950s; the occupation includes analyzing quantitative trends in society and predicting their long-term effects, helping inform the decisions of policymakers worldwide.

But as sci-fi emerged alongside an industrialized world, the futurists began to appreciate storytellers’ superpower, a unique ability to suspend disbelief in order to think outside the box. Therefore, it’s not uncommon nowadays for top institutions to employ the genre’s writers, as this blend of entertainment and social commentary can help lay a roadmap for the tomorrow we desire.

Cleo’s bookshelf plays not only a central role in her home, but also her professional life (Photo by Kendra Siebert)

I ask Cleo if she gravitates towards science fiction because of its penchant for real-world implications. “I used to feel kind of unproductive when I was reading sci-fi, like somehow, I wasn’t learning,” she responds. “Now, I think the opposite is true…it stretches the world and allows you to see things more clearly depending on where it has stretched.”

While Cleo might not write novels or file tax returns as a futurist , her show aims to fulfill a similar goal. The creator spends her days explaining innovations in science and technology to millions of viewers across social media, helping us imagine how they might just improve our lives.

As she uploads videos across channels and For You Pages alike, it’s clear that she’s inspiring a new generation to embrace their curiosity, stretching their own worlds in the process. Yet the optimistic outlook and distribution strategy at the crux of Cleo’s storytelling came from years of learning not only from her bookshelf, but also in discovering how exactly she slots into the splintering and ever-changing landscape of modern journalism.

After taking photos in Cleo’s home studio, we head back downstairs and settle into a conversation at the dining room table.

Growing up in Washington, D.C., she was surrounded by friends and family who worked either in or adjacent to the government. She enjoyed science classes throughout high school, and upon traveling up the northeast corridor for college in New York, she started on a pre-med track. At some point, though, she shifted course, eyeing law school in a belief that eventually, she too would wind up in politics.

And for a year, it looked like that’s exactly where Cleo’s career was headed. With an undergraduate degree in tow, she began working at Precision, a digital consulting firm that had been spun out of Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.

During this time, however, she found herself constantly reading stories from Vox, a then-upstart news and opinion website known for popularizing the concept of explainer journalism. “One of the things that drew me to Vox originally was that they were doing this kind of public explanatory work that I thought politicians did,” Cleo says. “And they [politicians] do…but it happens as your job much more often in journalism. You get to take on a big policy and explain it to the public in a way that people will understand.”

The only problem: she had no formal experience. “I didn’t write for my school paper,” she says. “I didn’t have any reason why they should hire me in the newsroom.”

Still, in talking to employees at Vox, Cleo made the case that the business side of their journalism had a lot in common with the digital consulting she had done. Her persistence resulted in a job as “the lowest level person in the development world,” working on a small team that pitched shows to streamers and collaborated with company partners to launch new podcasts.

By 2018, Vox’s reputation as a trustworthy, popular voice had grown to a level where they inked a deal with Netflix. With that show, Explained, came a much bigger budget and premium distribution.

“It was a huge victory,” Cleo says. “We were selling this big show. This was the goal of my job, right? And I remember feeling totally thrilled and so excited to have actually helped make this happen.”

Nevertheless, the elation was short-lived. “Like, five minutes later, I just felt so sad…[because] my job was done,” Cleo recalls. “I wasn’t gonna get to make the show. There was no reason why I should be allowed to do that.”

Realizing that she didn’t want to limit herself to developing projects behind the scenes, Cleo began to take night classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York. After a year of learning how to edit in Premiere and animate in After Effects, she showed a producer at Vox, Joss Fong, which the latter praised. As it turned out, Joss mentioned that there were several hands-on opportunities to get involved across the company’s various shows, too. So while she continued with her original position, on nights and weekends, she would edit videos that appeared on Vox’s YouTube channel.

Cleo pictured outside in New York (Photo by Kendra Siebert)

When the second season of Explained rolled around, an executive producer and co-founder at the company, Joe Posner, sent a message out to all video team members asking them to submit episode ideas. Cleo was now on that email list, so she put together several pitches for the show. To her surprise, one of them wound up on a short list that was shared with Netflix; the streamer, in turn, greenlit her episode.

Even though the Explained team quickly realized Cleo wasn’t technically employed on the production side of Vox, they made the call to bring her onboard. “Joe Posner, Lauren Williams, Melissa Bell, and Claire Gordon…I owe them everything I’ve learned since. Because they didn’t say ‘She’s not a producer, thank you for your idea,’” Cleo says. “Like, ‘We’re gonna go give it to someone who’s already, you know, been nominated for an Emmy or something.’”

She ended up writing the episode, and pretty soon, she was invited back for another. Later that year, Cleo came on as a host for Vox’s new show Glad You Asked, which was developed in conjunction with YouTube Originals. As she worked alongside three other producer-hosts, this became her first role in front of the camera, and the team wound up receiving a nomination for the Daytime Emmys in 2020.

By the end of 2021, Cleo knew where she wanted to plant her metaphorical career flag. From her original weekend edits to Glad You Asked, she was no longer on the outside looking in. “That’s what I really fell in love with, telling video stories,” Cleo says.

And as New Year’s Eve came and went, she bid adieu to her colleagues of five years and set out to launch her own channel.

“Cleo has this very earnest and genuine curiosity that is really alluring, and she’s been able to establish trust with a pretty broad demographic,” one fan tells me over Zoom. “I kind of pride myself on identifying things early—whether it’s companies I’m starting or investing in—and this just had all the components of something that could be huge.”

“If true,” I joke.

The fan in question is Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit and a general partner at venture capital firm Seven Seven Six. He’s followed Cleo’s work since her days at Vox, and the two have become friends over the years. When the creator was weighing her decision to go independent, she pitched the show to Alexis, asking for his advice.

The founder was all in. “Hopefully she recalls it the same way…but I remember thinking, ‘Absolutely, you should do this,’” Alexis says. “‘This is a no-brainer, and people are gonna love it.’”

Even so, on the surface, the move she made from a big company — one with tons of resources and a built-in audience— seems like an uphill climb. Therefore, I ask Cleo if she was anxious when plunging into the unknown.

She pauses before answering. “Every single thing that’s been important in my career…beforehand, I’m like, ‘Can I actually do this? I’ve never done anything like it before,’ with this feeling of just being totally out of your depth. [Experiences where] you can push yourself, you can rise to the things that you don’t expect.”

She continues. “I was kind of looking for that again, that feeling like, ‘Oh, shit! I can actually do that!’”

YouTube, her “home base” of sorts, seemed like the natural starting point given how much time she’d spent on the platform. In what felt like a twist of fate, on her last day at the company, Vox reached 10 million subs on its flagship channel. Even the Netflix show was — according to Cleo — “inspired by what Vox had already built on YouTube.”

Yet it was the audience she’d discovered on TikTok that offered a blueprint for what Huge If True would become. Vox had struck a deal with Quibi back in 2020 (“R.I.P. Quibi,” we both agree) and struggled to make much of a dent with any of this new original programming. So, in an effort to both ask for feedback and promote their content on Quibi, she clipped up 30-second visuals and posted them to her personal TikTok.

People couldn’t get enough of it, flooding the comments to say as much. Some of the questions Cleo received actually led to episodes she wrote. Pretty soon, she had an engaged, six-figure following.

“I just really wanted to build that kind of community again, for myself,” Cleo says. “And I felt like there was something that was really special about having that direct relationship with an audience. Obviously, you can have that if you work in a media company — many people do both — but for me, I got really obsessed with this show idea.”

This fiber optic cable is a cherished memento from an episode of 'Glad You Asked' titled "How Does the Internet Work?" (Photo by Kendra Siebert)

Community, therefore, wouldn’t just be a feature of Huge If True — it was a central component to the pitch itself. Cleo continued to engage her fans on TikTok and source ideas from the comment section. She also set up a Dropbox folder where viewers could submit vertical videos featuring queries they wanted her to answer in the new series.

Between these forms of distribution — quick-hitting clips on TikTok and longform episodes on YouTube — Cleo had a winning formula. Nonetheless, given the breadth of topics she’d explored in her previous job, how would she differentiate her new content while maintaining a high bar for quality?

“I think a lot of entrepreneurship happens when you’re trying to solve a problem for yourself,” Cleo says. “And I felt for me personally, I was so invested in tech journalism that I felt was doing a really excellent job of calling out abuses of existing technology…[as well as] who isn’t being served by technology that we have.”

She’s quick to mention that this work is “really important,” and she therefore supports and subscribes to many large media organizations. Still, she noticed that the way young people interpret the news was becoming increasingly negative.

“I made a Glad You Asked episode about whether or not I wanted to have kids, and one of the primary responses on TikTok was ‘Oh, I can’t have kids. The world is going to be so much worse,’” Cleo recalls. “And I wasn’t really shocked by that.”

“I have that feeling sometimes too,” she continues. “A lot of people do. I think it’s very normal, but in its magnitude, I was like, ‘Where does that come from?’ And I started to feel more and more like I could help alleviate that somehow in my small way.”

Thus, her new style was born. Journalistically rigorous videos, featuring data visualizations and animations that traded pure objectivity for a clear bias. Cleo would paint an optimistic picture of the future, yearning to shift perspectives through presenting big ideas in a digestible fashion.

With the format down, all that was left was to make the show.

As we pack up and head over to the panel, Thor gives us his best puppy dog eyes. He’s sad to see us go, though Cleo reassures him that we’ll be back soon enough to go for a walk.

On January 10, the creator announced Huge If True across her social media channels. Branching out from traditional companies and going independent can sometimes be a divisive decision among media veterans. So, once we’re in the Uber, I ask Cleo how her announcement was received by industry peers and former co-workers alike.

“I was really, really happy with the way that everybody responded,” she says. “There were definitely people that were excited about the sort of journalist-becoming-a-creator angle of it. It also seemed to really strike a nerve with people who were looking for something like what I was doing…if you’re building for yourself, there’s probably more people like you.”

Though a little biased, her parents agree. “I think the positive approach of Huge If True opens doors and encourages creative thinking — I’m excited to imagine that perhaps this can enable new agreement and approaches,” Cleo’s mom tells me over email.

Over the next three months, the show tackled questions surrounding relevant topics like clean energy, digital art, and satellite internet. The content matched the hype and then some, as she was able to parlay her audience from Vox as well as discover new fans altogether. In early April, the channel neared 100,000 subscribers while her TikTok account passed 1 million followers.

By now, Alexis has observed Huge If True from both up close and afar, as he appeared in Cleo’s February episode about Web3. He’s unsurprised by the channel’s quick growth and popularity. “This is a continuation of the trend we’ve been seeing, right?” he says. “Every industry is getting unbundled…and I think it's a testament to Cleo doing great work, understanding how to create content for a modern community and build it. A well-engaged community of a quarter-million is way more compelling to me than a doesnt-care community of 10 million.”

It was a video on April 14, however, that strengthened the bond between Cleo and her audience even further. Titled “Would you use an artificial womb? (I would),” the creator mixed an intricate examination of the hot-button childbirth conversation with a deeply personal narrative regarding her own recent experience with ovarian cysts. Somehow, someway, Cleo kept pushing forward with the project, showing us how her own laparoscopic surgery shifted her perspective in real time.

Quantitatively-speaking, this approach succeeded in a big way. According to analytics database Social Blade, during the next three weeks, Cleo’s YouTube channel gained over 50,000 new subscribers.

More notably, though, was how much the video resonated with new and old fans alike. When scrolling through the comment section, the sheer emotions are palpable, expressed by viewers from all different walks of life. People opened up about similar surgeries they or their loved ones had gone through, commended Cleo’s propensity for storytelling, and spoke to how her work influenced their opinion on the topic.

I reached out to several of those fans. One of them, Seemal Saif, is a Pakistani Canadian economist who works in infrastructure financing; she’s been watching Cleo since the Vox days. “I liked that video particularly because…she was going through a personal journey in terms of her reproductive organs,” Seemal tells me over Zoom. “Questioning all those things that I think women my age in their 30s are really curious about. You don’t find enough people who are willing to talk about their journey as they’re going through it.”

Another, Andrea Del Rio, is an artist and educator living in Detroit. “That video…she’s talking about how women never financially recover from having children,” Andrea says. “That really, really stuck in my head — I bring it up in any way possible at every conversation that I have. And I’m just like, ‘Oh my God, never ever do you financially recover from this amazing thing that helps the whole world.’”

Compared with the divisive Twitter discourse that had inspired the video in the first place, Cleo appreciated how her community reacted. “It was not like, ‘This is Black Mirror,’” she says, referring to the popular anthology series that explores techno-paranoia. “The response was really positive and really human in a way where even if people didn’t like the ideas still, they could at the very least say, ‘Yeah, I agree that pregnancy is physically hard.’”

If there were a mission statement for Huge If True — or, as Cleo tweeted, a “guiding light” — it might as well have emerged from a 1978 quote that the creator found during her research: “There is an obligation to relieve suffering when the means to do so are available, or in the absence of the means, to search for the means.”

Alexis says the video actually spurred conversation within Seven Seven Six about where they want to invest in the pregnancy technology space. “The hallmark of greatness…is that you can watch a 15, 20-minute video and it leaves you thinking, ‘Alright, I’ll bite,’” he continues. “‘There’s clearly some emerging technology here. How do we get involved?’”

When reflecting on his original stance to Cleo – that going independent would benefit her work and its impact – Alexis smiles. “I do feel kind of validated, which is nice,” he quips.

The smell of roasted peanuts and soft pretzels wafts through the air as Cleo and I step back outside after the panel’s conclusion. Along with the street vendors who greet us, the city erupts with the screeching sound of taxi drivers blaring their horns. It is mid-afternoon in Manhattan, after all.

Walking through Madison Square Park and past the Flatiron Building, Cleo flips the conversation around. “What is it that made you want to talk to me?” she asks, intrigued.

I stop and think for a second before responding. Why did I reach out?

For one, in an era of algorithm-aided doomscrolling, the creator’s brand of optimism sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s refreshing to receive a notification whenever a new Huge If True episode comes out because I know that if I click, I’ll feel pretty good about what I’ve learned in a tidy, 10-minute package. “As an educator myself…she [Cleo] makes it easy to understand in a way that you’re not being talked down to,” Andrea agrees. “But you still understand these larger, more complicated concepts.”

Nonetheless, just because Cleo shares her content through a half-glass-full lens doesn’t mean she herself stays upbeat about every news headline. Four days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the creator kicked off a TikTok noticeably dejected, sharing this message: “It’s been hard to find things to be optimistic about in this particular topic, so I’m going to try my best to explain something to you in this video.”

Still, on sunnier days, don’t mistake her positive demeanor for inauthenticity. No matter what topic we broach as we make our way through Manhattan — from Web3 applications for creators to the fiber optic Internet cable sitting on her desk — it almost feels like I’m in one of her explainer videos, actively watching the story unfold. As Cleo jumps into one thoughtful response after another, I can tell just how much the big ideas on her show genuinely excite her.

Whether out on the road or filming at her desk, the creator always has her camera handy (Photo by Kendra Siebert)

Another point I tell Cleo: the production quality of Huge If True is really, really good, a sentiment other viewers tend to agree with. “What sets her apart is her videos are short, but they’re very well-researched,” Seemal says. “While also…visually, they’re very appealing.”

Through six months, the creator has kept that consistency over 11 videos, and she does it with a small team of just two, sometimes three (including herself). While she’s exploring various revenue streams moving forward, right now, she supports the business with AdSense, as well as sponsors such as Storyblocks and Masterworks. Given her prior experience on the development side at Vox, though, she feels pretty confident running ops along with keeping her team members aligned.

One of those members is a mainstay, Whitney Theis, a former colleague from Vox who specializes in illustration and motion design. Cleo has worked closely with Whitney to develop the show’s lime green aesthetic — inspired by Nausicaa’s solarpunk elements — that combines with a muted brown for a futuristic-yet-earthy feel. “She’s unbelievably great,” Cleo says. “Please link to her.” (Editor’s Note: We obliged).

Which brings me to my third and final reason for reaching out: my belief that Cleo’s journey can be a case study for creators across mediums, Inspiring others to forge their own path. I recently graduated from journalism school, and at no point were we taught how to start something like Huge If True. In fact, working your way up at an established company or legacy newspaper over the course of a career was less an encouragement and more an expectation.

Even though I was pretty involved with the startup community on my campus, I often found myself surrounded by econ majors and engineers, not peers from my degree. Of course, not everyone wants (or needs) to run their own business. Yet I know I’m not alone in feeling that universities — and our education system as a whole — are simply lagging behind in properly representing what a modern entrepreneur looks like. Artists and storytellers are rapidly changing the way we interact with culture and communicate with each other in our day-to-day lives. We’re seeing a new class of scrappy builders evolve from the creator economy, and as one investor noted in our last cover story, creators might be better suited to understand product-market fit than “traditional” founders, anyway.

I never thought the takeaway from this story would be Cool, so every journalist needs to be on TikTok. But I do believe niche media businesses like Cleo’s will thrive in the modern world, and her ongoing strategy provides a blueprint worth studying. For those looking to sustain a rigorous process, prioritize empathy, and collaborate directly with a community, why can’t a YouTube channel or Substack newsletter check all the boxes?

From her experience so far, Cleo doesn’t see any friction between conventional journalists and independent contemporaries such as herself, as she says there’s more nuance to any perceived differences. “I think the aperture has opened in terms of what opportunities are [available] for people…not replacing the incredible journalism people do at media companies,” she says, reemphasizing that some work like investigative reporting often requires support from a large institution in order to progress. “There’s no reason all these things can’t co-exist.”

However, while social media policy debates abound across organizations, Cleo looks to creators like Casey Newton, Marques Brownlee, and Johnny and Iz Harris as inspirations for what she wants to build. Ownership of intellectual property— as well as the relationship she shares with her fans— is paramount, she thinks, pointing to the different nodes that make up Brownlee’s business. Along with his gadget reviews and #matteblack product sales, the tech personality also partners with who else but Vox to produce a weekly podcast, Waveform.

Additionally, when talking about the Harrises — whom Cleo describes as “really close” personal friends — her voice picks up. “To watch them create this incredible production company that makes such high quality journalism independently…that’s just really exciting,” she says. “That’s something that is theirs, and creatively, is also the foundation of how much they can continue to grow.”

“Like, there’s no ceiling for that,” Cleo concludes.

When we eventually return to her home, Thor greets us with a wagging tail and a big grin splayed across his face. Like promised, Cleo grabs his leash and suggests we do a lap around the block.

Even with her co-host providing company most days, as an early mover in the journalist-to-creator pipeline, Cleo was worried she might become lonely after leaving Vox. So far, the opposite has been true.

“There’s just this incredible community of independent people that support each other,” she says. “I’ve just been totally blown away…people that I’ve looked up to for years, they reach out and want to chat or collaborate or say congrats. And then the conversation becomes, like, ‘Can I actually pick your brain about, you know, managers or something?’”

Thor, Cleo’s Australian Toy Shepherd and co-host, is ready for his walk (Photo by Kendra Siebert)

It helps that there’s a lot of people rooting for her to win. “The best part is…she’s not just reading cue cards, right? She’s the editor, the creative director, the head of business,” Alexis says. “So as long as she’s always thinking about the long-term value for the community, the reputation of the brand, the flywheel, everything…she’ll continue to come up with dope stuff.”

“I’d describe myself as a technology optimist,” Seemal states. “I’m curious by nature…I want to experiment with new things. And it’s definitely nice listening to a young female voice explain it and not the same old, you know, tech bros explaining it to you.”

What winning looks like may be different for everyone, from the creator’s community to her collaborators to even her former colleagues. Cleo, though, has a pretty good sense of the moment when she’ll be able to classify Huge If True as a success.

“Really, at the end of the day, it’s to help people pinpoint things they could actually participate in, that they’re excited about,” she says. “My perfect email I hope to get one day is someone saying, ‘I was in school to be an engineer and I watched the video on, you know, new kinds of geothermal. And then I went to go work in geothermal and I came up with something that is really helpful and gonna marginally make the world better.”

If that vision does indeed come to pass, just like the science fiction novels she tore through as a kid, the creator’s work will have helped inspire innovative technologies in her own trademark fashion.

By explaining the future.

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Cleo Abram Explains The Future

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