Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Scott Pickett and Chase Pickett.
Jennifer and Chase, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Recently, one of our video clips was featured on Jimmy Kimmel and on the social media accounts of a few different celebrities, including Will Smith. As a result, we’ve been spending a lot of time reminiscing about just how far we’ve come – so this interview is hitting at the perfect time!
When we first crossed paths, we were both already involved with our own creative ambitions. Jenn was busy writing a novel and growing a YouTube channel, while Chase, who has a degree in broadcasting and communications, was known for creating short comedy videos. We became good friends while working with a team to feed the homeless in Nashville a couple of times a month, and soon we were collaborating on creative endeavors. Our first video that saw any form of success (and by “success” we mean only a few thousand views lol) was a comedy sketch about a boyfriend who tries to sabotage his girlfriend’s Halloween costumes for fear of her being too sexy. Even though we were not dating in real life, people kept commenting on our chemistry and pushing us to be in a romantic relationship. It took about another six months before we admitted that our audience might be right about that whole chemistry thing.
Fast forward a few years and now we have a family together in addition to our brand, Salty Mermaid Entertainment. We have two boys from Jenn’s first marriage (Gavin, age 11 and Rhett, who is about to turn seven) and we also have a one-year-old son named Bastian. We’ve been lucky to have a very generous, amazing fan base from the beginning, but what really established our platform and solidified out a relationship with our audience (shout out to all the Salties out there!) is when we started sharing more of our personal journey. When we were pregnant with Bastian, we learned he had a dangerous condition called gastroschisis (it basically means there was a hole in his abdomen and his intestines had fallen out). We spent a lot of time debating whether to talk about what we were experiencing and doing so ended up being one of the best decisions we ever made. It was then we realized our Salties didn’t just enjoy the funny videos and content we created, they valued us as people.
SME primarily creates comedy sketch videos, memes, blog posts, and funny pictures – for one express purpose, to make other people laugh and to distract them from the stresses of everyday life. We started at zero and are nearly at a hundred thousand followers on TikTok in addition to the followers we have on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’ve seen numerous posts go viral at this point and we’ve been published on large platforms such as Buzzfeed and HuffPost. We’re not quite where we want to be yet, and we have so many other huge aspirations to pursue, but we’re pretty amazed and incredibly thankful for just how far we have made it.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s been about as smooth as a road filled with potholes and blown out tires. And roadkill. Actually, at times it felt like we were the roadkill. While we are privileged to have enjoyed a lot of small wins along the way, we’ve also endured a lot of disappointments and discouragement. Sometimes it’s been in the form of a golden opportunity that fell through at the last minute and other times, it’s come to us as rude comments from strangers on the internet. We’ve definitely had to learn how to develop a thick skin, as they say.
Probably though, the biggest challenge for us is trying to pursue our dreams while taking care of and providing for a family. Literally, just while typing this, we’ve been interrupted by our kids approximately 36.8 billion times. Chase works full time outside of the home and Jenn spends each day keeping tiny humans alive. Finding time to write, film, and edit comedy videos in addition to creating memes and writing blog posts, while sharing our content on multiple platforms and responding to every single comment and message on every single one of those platforms is difficult even on a good day, and even when split between two people. We love it, but it certainly isn’t easy.
Salty Mermaid Entertainment – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are in the business of entertainment, and we are most known for our comedy videos that focus on relationships and parenting humor. What we’re most of proud of is our originality (it’s really hard coming up with fresh content in such a saturated world!) and our authentic relationship with our audience. While we’d love to be financially secure enough to focus on our creative endeavors for a living, we’re not doing this for money or fame. We genuinely enjoy it and hope to make other people happy along the way.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Oh, wow, where do we even start? There have been SO many people who have supported, helped, and encouraged us along the way. We’re thankful for our family and our close friends who cheer us on and occasionally appear in our videos (special shoutout to Adam on this one) and for the online parenting humor community who has promoted our content and exposed us to a bigger audience. We owe a lot to Alexander “Pepper” Kaufman, who is Chase’s boss as well as a close family friend. He has been incredibly supportive and generous along the way. And obviously, we wouldn’t have made it this far at all if not for the people who appreciate and share our content (you Salties are just so… sweet).
Contact Info:
- Website: www.saltymermaidentertainment.com
- Email: saltymermaidentertainment@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/saltymermaident
- Facebook: facebook.com/saltymermaidentertainment
- Twitter: twitter.com/saltymermaident
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@saltymermaident
Image Credit:
Adam Harrell, Jacki Harrell
Suggest a story: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
