by Avani Gregg
Place sponge cake cups on a serving plate. Top with strawberries, followed by a scoop of ice cream and a dollop of Cool Whip. Serve immediately and enjoy!
The Birthday Boy
I love surprising Anthony with one-of-a-kind, just-us-two experiences. For his birthday, I rented a house in Malibu and planned a little party with him and my family. On the actual date, I took him to Sugar Factory for dinner and then surprised him with a party at his house with all his friends, because he hadn’t been able to see them much together. He was loving it, and I had to pull him aside because I knew he had no idea about the long drive ahead to Malibu. “Okay, wrap it up, Beb. Gotta leave in ten.” I needed him to pack a bag for two days.
“Nah,” he said. “I think I want to stay, since all my friends are here.” Everyone knew what I had lined up, so they were also trying to get him out the door. I tugged at his arm: “Let’s go, trust me, we need to go!” When I finally got him on the road and he saw what I had planned for us, he was just blown away by it. All of it. He’d never really had a big birthday like that. It was his nineteenth, though, and I thought it was about time.
Do we ever get on each other’s nerves? Well, yeah. He says I suck at texting, which is so true. He hates when I don’t answer back right away… or ever. My pet peeve is when I order him food delivery and he falls asleep before he can eat it. It happens all the time, and I am left holding the tacos. But I’m not gonna hold it against him. There are way too many things we love about each other to sweat the small stuff. Neither of us plays games, and that’s a huge reason why we work so well as a couple. I’ll ask, “Do I annoy you? Even just a little?” and he’ll say, “Not even if you try.”
Aw, nuf said.
Run It Back: Love 101
Want your relationship to go smoothly? Here are a few pointers on what you two should do:
Praise you like I should. As Fatboy Slim sings, “I have to celebrate you, baby.” Instead of picking on the stuff you don’t like about your significant other, shout out what you do like: his goofy smile, the way he wears his baseball cap backwards, or how polite he is to your family. Thank him when he does something thoughtful without your nagging. Compliment her when she looks cute. A little love goes a long way.
Learn to listen. Seriously, it’s the key to a solid relationship. Sometimes Anthony will just hear me out for hours. He won’t judge. Instead, he’ll let me go off until I feel better or run out of steam. Awesome boyfriend: check!
Be honest about everything—you should have no secrets between you. Once you establish trust, it takes things to a whole new level. I think the best part of our relationship is how much Anthony and I trust each other, and that comes from a willingness to share our thoughts, our feelings, and our past. I’m so brutally honest that sometimes he’ll say, “Whoa! TMI!” Well, you asked!
There are lots of ways to love. All are equally important when it comes to keeping your relationship strong. There’s romantic love (candlelight, roses, chocolates), compassionate love (respect, care, empathy, understanding), playful love (flirting and fun), and unconditional love (no matter what). What I need depends on the day, but I would never say no to any of them. Gimme gimme!
Steer clear of socials. An occasional cute post is okay, but I think anyone who details their love life on the daily is just asking for trouble. If you’re in a fight, never broadcast it. The Twitterverse doesn’t need to be in on your dirty laundry, know what I’m sayin’?
Keep the friend group out of it. In our case, that’s tough because we’re literally friends with all the same people. But if you’re old enough to be in this relationship, you should know that asking others to weigh in and take a side is immature. Keep it separate from your social life.
Respect each other. That’s a biggie. No sliding into another girl’s DMs, no complaining to her friends or fam, and no flirting with some hottie you randomly meet. Your relationship should be sacred, and you need to treat it as such. Honor bae…
Give it some space. Yes, I wanna be around my beb 24/7, but I also know he needs to see his boys and have a life outside of our relationship. Resist the urge to smother, cling, or make unfair demands of his time. If you love him, set him free… occasionally!
On Avani
My beb, Anthony, says:
Everybody in LA, all the social media kids, they’re just jumping into love. They’re lonely, nobody has nobody, and they’re on the lookout for somebody to latch on to. Yeah, that’s not gonna last, especially if you rush into it. The difference with Avani and me is that we took our time. I got to know her deep and literally took ten months to ask her out. I wanted to be sure that she’s my person, the one I want to be with, and I thought she should be certain, too. Then we could go from there and everything would be good. Take it one step at a time and you get out of it what you put in. All the work pre-dating set us up to connect on a higher level.
The way we met might be up for debate, but I think it might have been at the Juice Krate tour. I walked over to her and the guy she was hanging with. I already knew her because we had texted on and off for two years. I was like, “Oh hey, Avani, what’s up? Nice to meet you,” and went in to give her a hug. She just looked at me and walked right past, didn’t say a word. I was like, “Dang, this is messed up!” I was actually mad. After that, I was talking to the boys about her, even obsessing a little. Then we connected at that party and it was smooth from that point on. We’re young, so a lot of people ask, “How can this possibly last?” Obviously, I hope it does, because, well, she’s Avani. It doesn’t get much better than that.
If you ask me what I love about her, I will say literally everything because there’s not a thing that I don’t love about her. She’s funny. She’s gorgeous, obviously. She’s outgoing and so smart. There’s really nothing that I don’t like. Avani will try her hardest to annoy me, but it doesn’t work. I think it’s cute. As for what I do that annoys her, well, I would say the way I eat—the crumbs get all over the bed and she gets mad and tells me to clean up. I’m a dude, what can I say?
It helps that we have a lot in common, including the same taste in food. Avani likes her McDonald’s a lot so that’s a basic. I’ve been trying to eat more spicy foods lately because her family’s Indian and everything they eat is on fire! When it comes to movies or TV shows, I never ever, ever watch anything unless I’m with Avani. We watched all of the Harry Potters together, and I’d never seen them before. We watched all of the Hunger Games together, too. We’ve watched a bunch of random little-kid movies. And then we’ve watched all of Family Guy and Rick and Morty. Our sense of humor matches up perfectly. I love hanging with my friends, but she knows I will always put her first. They don’t mind; they’re like, “It’s cool. I’m happy for you.” They’ve got their girlfriends, too, and I’m always getting them in trouble. The girls will complain, “Why don’t you treat me more like Anthony treats Avani?” I put them to shame!
Don’t tell, but Avani makes it easy for me. All I want is to see her smile, and that’s pretty good motivation right there.
On Avani & Anthony
My friend Riley Hubatka says:
Okay, my best friend has been dating this guy for so long, and I absolutely love him. I think they bring out the best in each other. They have one of the healthiest relationships I’ve seen out of couples our age living in LA. Avani always makes sure I feel included in whatever they’re doing because I’m single. Normally, it would be conflicting to hang out with her when she has a boyfriend. Most other couples would shut me out. A friend would tell me, “Well, I have plans with my boyfriend. Sorry.” But no matter what they are doing, I can be a third wheel with Anthony and Avani. They always welcome me and make me feel included. It’s not like I’m hanging out with Avani and her boyfriend; I’m hanging out with the two of them and we’re all friends. That says a lot about who they both are: confident, kind, no-drama people who want to make everyone in their lives feel special.
chapter nine The Hype
My Hype OG days feel like ancient history. We’ve all grown up so much since then, but the Hype House will always be a really happy memory for me, and the place that started it all! Basically, the Hype House was a content collective, with fifteen teens renting out a Spanish-style mansion at the top of a hill with a big gate outside. There was a huge pool, a hammock, and lots of stone terraces that we used as backgrounds for filming. We kind of announced it all with a hashtag and that built the buzz. Then we were interviewed for the New York Times, Entertainment Tonight, and the Today Show. Pretty surreal for a bunch of kids between fifteen and twenty-one years old, huh?
This is how it all started. I was friends with Chase Hudson, or Lil Huddy. We were just hanging out one day and he had Thomas Petrou, the guy who runs the Hype House, come over to take our pictures. Thomas used to do photography before he got into YouTube, and shooting influencers was his thing. I remember them talking about Hype and starting the whole thing up. Two weeks later, they signed the lease. The concept was to give a group of talented kids a great space as a backdrop for content—Thomas described it as living in a movie set—and the ability to be together without prying eyes interrupting the vibe. The original name for it was supposed to be House of Olympus, at Chase’s suggestion. But Alex Warren came up with Hype and everyone voted for that.
Ironically, I was one of the last people invited to join the Hype House because Thomas said he was scared I was going to say no! Besides me, there was Alex Warren, Kouvr Annon, Daisy Keech, Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, Addison Rae, Nick Austin, Patrick Huston, Ondreaz Lopez, Tony Lopez, Wyatt Xavier, Ryland Storms, Connor Yates, Hootie Hurley, and Calvin Goldby. At some point, I think I lost track of who was coming and going. People would visit from out of town, stay with a friend for a few days, and contribute to the content. The group just kept getting bigger and bigger, because if you were a popular creator, you wanted to be in the mix.
TBH, even though there were six bedrooms and huge common areas, we did most of our shoots in the bathroom, don’t ask me why. Good natural light and an overhead, I guess? Beyond that, we liked the living room because of the high ceilings and the balconies, and because they looked cool on camera. I remember the pool was always freezing and we mostly used it for shoots, not to enjoy or relax. I mean, think about it, we were each pumping out three to five videos a day; that’s like seventy-five to one hundred across all of our platforms daily. That’s an insane amount of work.
If I had lived at Hype, I would have never gotten any homework done. Still, it seemed like I was there every day from the moment Chase and Thomas put the deposit down. Alex, Thomas, Daisy, and Kouvr lived there full-time, and Thomas was kind of the house manager. We came together as friends in the beginning, but we were also putting together a business. It wasn’t just a party; it was a really creative environment designed to produce amazing content. There were rules to follow, and Chase was always on the lookout for someone who would fit in, scouting talent on social media. Basically, you had to be young, creative, energetic, and a little weird. That was the ideal!
The family bond between us was strong, and I made some friends for life in that group. We fought like family, too, but at the end of the day, everyone loved each other. Since I wasn’t living there, I kind of kept my nose out of all the drama. I would take off, go back home, and get a report on it. Most of the time, it was just silly stuff: “Who left their acai bowl on the kitchen counter and didn’t clean it up?” Speaking of the kitchen, no one ever cooked—it was Uber Eats and Postmates all day long, sometimes twenty times a day!
In the beginning, Charli was just fifteen and living back home with her family in Connecticut, so she would just come to LA to film with us. She was blowing up at the time, so for her, Hype was a safe place. I think we all felt that way, like we could just be ourselves there and not worry about being “spotted” or exposed. I was the only one who did makeup, so that made me a little unique. But I could also dance, be silly, and do comedy or pranks. No one there was gonna judge me. When I left, it started a lot of gossip: “Did Avani get kicked out? Did she walk away? What went down?” The answer is: nothing, I was just ready to stretch my wings a little. I found it exhausting to keep going back and forth because I was living at home, and I thought it was time to move on. Charli and Dixie had already exited, the pandemic was just starting, and I had to be quarantined somewhere. So it made sense.
As much as we tried to keep everything on the down-low, fans and paparazzi managed to find us. Our address got leaked because people reverse-googled pictures of the front of the house and found it on Zillow. That’s when crowds started showing up, pushing the gate open, and just walking up to the front door. One time, these two boys drove up and stole some of our packages. They would come literally every day, trying to get in. Finally, they made it right up to where the mail was dropped. A mutual friend saw them posting on their socials, “Avani’s shoes for sale,” and sent it to me. I was like, “Are you kidding me? That’s my property you got there! Give it back.” Eventually, my friend convinced them to do the right thing and return our packages, but that wasn’t the last time something freaky happened. On three separate occasions, someone followed my car when I was leaving for the night. I had a little Mini Cooper that I posted with one time, and they spotted it and trailed me until I got back to my apartment.
There was plenty of hate, too. People called us “cringeworthy” and tried to roast us. They also labeled us as spoiled, aimless kids with nothing better to do with our lives. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I took it all really seriously—we all did—and when I look back on it now, I see it as a time when I had a big growth spurt in my career. I know when the guys were coming up with the name for the house, they considered what the word “hype” stood for. It means intense promotion or publicity, something you put out there (like “hyping someone up”), or the buzz you get from being on everyone’s radar. If someone has the hype, they’re cool; if they lose it, they’re irrelevant. But I also saw it as a responsibility. If I’ve got your ear, I’m going to use my hype in a positive way to entertain, make you smile, or draw attention to subjects that matter. In the TikTok universe, hype means excited or exciting, which is definitely true of my time at the house. It’s funny to me how Hype was all I could think about when I was in the thick of it, but now, I struggle to recall all the little day-to-day deets, conversations, and even the content I made there. It’s all a blur, which must mean I have truly moved on. But I’ll always be a part of it, and it will always be a part of me.
Run It Back: Rules for Being on Social Media
Ever since I’ve been on social media, which is a long time now, I’ve been very aware of the responsibility that comes with it. Even if you don’t have millions of eyes on you, you’re entering a very public space where whatever you put out there is up for public view. I’m eighteen and I’ve made mistakes, but these are the rules I live by:
Watch what you say. Be sensitive to a lot of topics because you just don’t know who’s following you, what certain people have gone through, or the complexities of the situation at hand. Think before you post, period.
Apologize if you make a mistake. You’re learning and mistakes will happen (they’ve happened to me more than once over the years). People may still come at you, no matter how much you say, “I just didn’t know and I’m really, truly sorry.” Learn from it and do better next time.
Don’t overshare. Understand the consequences of putting everything—and I mean everything—out there in the cyberverse. Once that content is up, it’s very hard to get rid of. Even if you delete it, people can screenshot and share. Anything that would tarnish your rep or embarrass you has no place on your platform. Rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t want your grandma to see it, it has no biz being on your feed.
Play it safe. Keep your passwords to yourself and don’t post private info like your phone, address, personal email, or license plate. Make sure to check things like location services and advanced security if you’re paranoid
(um, me!).
Don’t overdo it. Check your screen time. If you are spending twenty-three hours of the day online, it’s time to cut back. You may love your device, but it won’t love you! Wouldn’t you rather be spending time connecting with real people instead of scrolling through the For You page? Consider taking a break and a breather, and maybe getting some blue light glasses. Time for a tech detox.
Avoid online drama. No need to jump on the comment wagon if someone is stirring the pot. If you can’t keep your cool or your head, put down your phone. I am always so tempted to respond, especially when someone takes a jab at me online. Shanti tells me to count to ten and think before I clap back. Is it really going to solve anything? Is it going to defuse the situation or just make things worse? In the heat of the moment you may be tempted to type, but it’s always better to be unproblematic.
It’s not all about the numbers. Don’t become so obsessed with how many people are following/liking you and your posts that nothing else matters. If you want to grow, stay true to your content and it will come naturally. I also don’t recommend buying likes, views, or follows. Stay the course, build good content, and collab with like-minded creators. All of the above will get you there.
On Avani
My friend Charli D’Amelio says:
Avani and I first met at Madi’s house. It was October 24th, 2019. I’m really good with dates of significant events that happen in my life, and that is one I’ll remember forever. I had always thought Avani was super cool and talented, but I was a little intimidated by her at first. She gives off that cool vibe that can be scary if you don’t actually know her! We started hanging out because we had a lot of mutual friends and we were all in similar situations at the time. Eventually, we realized that we would make really good friends, so we started to hang out with each other a lot more and we just clicked.