JOSHUA LAVRA: I've been fortunate to get to know you and your work over the past two years, but our readers haven’t. Can you share a little bit about your film, Yoelle?

YOELLE GULKO: Sure. Our Subscription to Addiction is a documentary that shares my personal experience with social media addiction and my discovery of a youth-led digital wellbeing movement. Our mission is to share this story with the rest of our generation and to help them think about their own stories with social media. To teach them that they can join this movement of young people who are reclaiming their agency over their relationship with their phones.

JOSHUA: How did you land on a documentary being the format for this work?

YOELLE: It’s just who I am. I have always loved telling human stories and this project was an interesting convergence of realizing that I want to be a filmmaker and that I love this digital wellbeing space so much. I realized the way that I express my emotions best is through film. And because that was already my medium, I thought, what better way to tell this story?

JOSHUA: Totally. I think film—and particularly documentary filmmaking—is such a universally effective way to absorb vulnerable, human stories, and feels like a natural way to introduce this movement. There’s a brilliance in connecting those two things. Remind me how many years has it been that you've been making the documentary?

YOELLE: Three, since 2022.

JOSHUA: Such a journey. I know that you’ve also been building a team now around it over that time. I'm curious if there's one moment you're particularly proud of during the process of creation?

YOELLE: I'm proud that we were able to get the film to such a high production quality. When I started this work, I didn't even know that I could get money for the type of film work that I do. I was used to doing everything on zero budget—just making it happen. I did the best with what I could. But when we got support from the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund, The Social Dilemma, and Lookup.live, it completely transformed what we were able to accomplish. We went from me behind the camera to a whole production crew of people who know what they're doing and do it well. This also enabled me to grow into my role as Director of the film, and to feel confident about that. 

I am proud of the production quality mostly because it does justice to how I view this movement. It deserves to be captured beautifully, and I think we're finally at a place where I feel like we've done that.

JOSHUA: That's really powerful. And, I am totally an evangelist for the power of aesthetics. I wonder, how has the film—the story or the process—evolved over the years you’ve been working on it?

YOELLE: I think that's what's cool. With a documentary, the story grows with time. And unlike something that's scripted, you just can't plan it. I couldn't tell you three years ago what this documentary would be. My intention to capture the movement has stayed constant, but the movement has grown so much in the last three years—and we’ve been fortunate to be able to capture that growth.

The story has also evolved to include more of my own personal story. It’s become a through line. That was something that was difficult for me to reckon with, because I didn’t want to be on camera. That was never my plan, but I felt like it's what the film needed.

JOSHUA: Yeah, it's interesting to think about both your work and the movement you’re capturing evolving over time as technology shifts and culture shifts. I'm curious if you could just talk a little bit about how you got started with this work. How did this come about? 

YOELLE: It started when I was in junior year of high school and deleted my Instagram and Snapchat. I was one of few amongst my friends who did that. In college, I would hear students on campus say, “I need to leave Instagram, but I feel like I can't.” There was this resignation—I want to, but it's just the status quo, so there's nothing I can do. No matter how much I tried to walk away from this topic, it kept coming back. It felt like the universe was telling me, This is for you. Do it.

I started putting myself in new spaces and uncovered a whole world I didn’t even know existed. Meeting other young people already in the digital wellbeing space inspired me. I thought, If they’re doing it, why can’t I? That’s how it started—I realized this was something I was deeply passionate about. 

Around the same time, I watched The Social Dilemma and thought, Wow, one day I could intern for them. That would be cool. But when I told my career coach, she said, “Why don’t you just reach out now? What are you waiting for?” That idea scared me—but that’s what started this whole journey. I certainly never expected to be mentored by them through the creation of the film.

JOSHUA: I definitely subscribe to this idea that when ideas feel urgent and impossible to ignore that you have to do something with them. 

I know that you're now working on a toolkit to bring the film into classrooms, which seems like a natural companion to this film. Could you talk more about this toolkit and what you're hoping for it?

YOELLE: I'm happy to talk about it. The goal of the film is to inspire whoever watches it to feel like they can start to figure out what they want their relationship with their phone to be. And the toolkit is really driving that activation—giving them a roadmap and everything that they need to be empowered to build a better relationship with their phone. 

The toolkit will have three things: reflection questions co-created by young people, a bank of phone tips sourced from the community, and an interactive flow chart to guide people who want to join this movement—so they can see all these organizations already doing great work and decide how they want to engage.

JOSHUA: I love that it’s co-created with young people and designed to be facilitated by them. That’s so important. And it actually connects to the next thing I wanted to ask: as a RTYPF grantee and someone sitting on the Steering Committee for the fund, I'm curious if there are unique challenges or misconceptions that you see youth-led organizations like yours face?

YOELLE: I think there's a misconception about youth organizations that we have interesting stories but not expertise to share. That was part of the mission of this film—to reveal how young people have used their stories to create change, and to show that we have valuable perspectives and expertise to share that are just as important. 

JOSHUA: Yeah, I think youth-led work isn’t always recognized for how transformative it is. We see that through the fund. 

Back to you though—what’s ahead for you this year?

YOELLE: A little obvious, but finishing the film is definitely the main priority we're focused on. It's kind of like a fire that we've been kindling for the past three years—you don’t want to rush it, so we’ve been letting it breathe and grow over the past three years. Now that we're in post-production, it’s all about assembling the right team members that we need and the right resources we need to launch.

JOSHUA: Exciting! With that in mind, how can folks reading this support you and your film?

YOELLE: I would invite people to add their email to our newsletter on our website, that way they can follow along with our progress. We’re looking for middle schools and high schools—starting in New York—who are interested in screening the film and holding youth feedback circles. We also welcome any partners experienced in film distribution and impact campaigns to help guide our strategy. These are the last steps before we’re ready to launch.

JOSHUA: Amazing—I can’t wait to watch it.

If you enjoyed this conversation, check out our conversations with all five young leaders from the RTYPF Steering Committee.