Subscriber Q&A: the life of a former paparazza, current RFK Jr supporter Jennifer Buhl

The celeb - media nexus, why Bobby Jr. is the figure head for a growing independence movement, and why you should subscribe to Do What You're Told

One of the best things about this Substack for me is how interesting my subscribers are. You guys send me emails describing the most fascinating life stories. I love reading them — even if I don’t always write back in a timely manner. So here’s the first of what I hope will be a regular feature: a Q & A with a reader. Meet Jennifer Buhl, the ‘independent thinker-in-chief’ who runs the informative and very entertaining Do What You’re Told Substack.

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1. So, Jen. You did what I think are maybe the two most quintessentially LA jobs: waitress and paparazzo. In which of those jobs were celebs ruder?

Surprisingly, I didn’t find most celebrities rude! Okay okay, the things they whisper under their breath might be unkind, but in general, they were polite. Also, the first thing any decent PR company does is teach a celebrity this most basic rule: Never do anything negative on camera.

It’s pretty logical but also a necessary skill. A star who is yelling or being nasty or just making an ugly face, well, we know what’s gonna happen. They are the ones who come out looking bad.

If you want to know who was really rude, it was my fellow paparazzi. Paps, by far, were the most difficult part of the job, something as a woman I was naive about at the start. Every dude I’ve ever spoken to, however, understands this piece right away: I bet it was so competitive, is the first thing they say.

Here I was, a young, entitled (sigh) woman; friendly, happy and not taking any of it too seriously. Oof. This was a serious job, their serious job, and I was an annoying American woman (interestingly, most paps are not Americans and almost none are women) who was actually pretty good at papping and stealing their shots. They hated me. It wasn’t until I had my first big “get” about 7 months in (Jennifer Aniston on the beach) when paps finally stopped hazing me. After that, I was accepted in their big league and more or less left alone.

La paparazza’s first big shot

2. I'm not ashamed (ok, I'm a little ashamed) to admit that I loved the "Celebs! They're Just Like Us!" photos that used to run in celebrity magazines. Am I to understand that those photos were not, actually, candid, but staged by the celebrities in order to look human?

While some celebrity photos are definitely set ups — and if you train yourself to notice, those are pretty easy to spot — most are not staged. Oftentimes, however, shots are allowed, meaning the celeb knows you’re there and allows the shot, i.e. doesn’t “cover” (put their hand over their face — see David Arquette above). Sometimes — and ideally — if you’re a clever pap, the celebrity won’t know you’re there at all. Regardless, the Just Like Us shot is the quintessential pap shot, the one we’re always after.

Let me explain. My first day on the job, Andy, a Scottish pap who would become a close friend, gave me this No. 1 piece of advice: get them looking good, looking up, and bonus if you can make ‘em laugh. Paps, as a rule, are not antagonistic with the celebrity. Why would we be when it’s the smiling shot we need. Pretty, happy celebrities wearing cool clothes doing something normal — grocery shopping, drinking coffee, going to work — is our bread and butter. These shots are what we all — the public — want to see. I mean, if I were wearing that outfit and coming out of that grocery store, well I could… maybe… be her. Right? She is very much like… me. And that’s what sells.

Jennifer Buhl, 2009, pregnant, at the end of her pap career!

3. You have worked both as a booker at CNN and as a celeb photographer: given your experience with the inner workings of the media machine, do you have any faith in/respect for the mainstream media in 2023?

I saw censorship and cancel culture to a degree when I worked at CNN in the early 2000s and as a paparazzi in tabloids after that, but the media landscape has definitely changed. At CNN, for example, I booked guests to talk on air about the news of the day. Back then, even though CNN was left of center, we made a concerted effort to get strong voices on the right so we could legitimately have balanced debates. Of course, that was a time when debates were still allowed on air. Tucker Carlson, who worked for CNN at the time (so many forget!), was the Right voice on “Crossfire,” a debate show. I often booked for CNN’s “Talk Back Live,” another debate show.

In tabloid news, it was similar. While I frequently noted either an adoring or vilifying of certain celebrities (for editor kicks, perhaps; or because some celebrities made themselves such easy targets), it wasn’t until around 2010 when I saw my first real cancel, though we didn’t use that word then. Duck Dynasty was the No. 1 show at the time, and the rag powers that be didn’t like those gun-toting, redneck Christians, and they were gonna do something about it. Collectively, magazines decided to stop printing any news or pictures about the cast. No matter how gorgeous our Just Like Us Duck Dynasty shot was, no one would buy it. A short time later, Duck Dynasty quietly disappeared.

Do I have faith in MSM now? No. Full stop. They are off the rails. Once Trump hit the scene, things started changing. The mainstream media began censoring for what they saw as “morality’s sake,” for the sake of humanity; so when Covid hit, the cancel all dissenting voices machine was ready to go. They quickly booted out all nonconforming journalists from within, so the mainstream media is now left with no one inside to check them.

That said, what I do have faith in is the rise of truthful, independent media. I’m an optimist and believe that mainstream media will eventually change their ways to stay in business, or die. Truth and Goodness have forever and will always win… eventually. Otherwise, humans wouldn’t still be around.

4. You are a RFK, Jr. supporter, and I get why. But I have concerns that for all his claims to being an outsider, he's still too blue to be true and I refuse to support anyone who's ever been affiliated with the Democratic Party because I'm a bitter former liberal. Are you prepared to have your heart broken if and when he gets eaten up and spit out by the hideous beast that is the political media campaign cartel and ends up campaigning for a Harris-Newsome ticket? 

I am so excited about the upcoming shake up in the American 2024 election! Frankly, a lot of people still don’t know who Kennedy is, but once they realize they have a reasonable, rational choice other than two 80-year olds with a lot of baggage, we are going to see a massive jumping ship from both parties. Kennedy is saying a lot of what regular folks are thinking. If you listen to him — follow him on Instagram or listen to his interviews — he’s really hard to dislike.

Is Kennedy who he says he is? Well, the gauge I teach my boys is the one I use… don’t worry about what a man says, just look at what he does. I’ve followed Kennedy closely for over four years, listening to countless interviews (which until the last few months were always pulled off the internet, censored) and from everything I’ve seen, he is a man true to his word. He’s clearly brilliant, and I also believe he’s honorable and truthful. He even changes his opinion and admits when he’s wrong — wow, sold!

And to your question, no, I don’t believe for a second that RKF Jr would ever support the current deranged party the Dems have become. I get goosebumps when I think about the spiritual and mental turnaround our country would make with him in office; but even if he doesn’t make it that far, a turn around or at least a pause in politics is coming. We have a behemoth of a media and government to shift back to health.

What Kennedy is doing on the political side is happening in media. Independent press is rising. People are waking up. Journalists on fire with truth have followings that are blowing mainstream media outlets out of the water. I’m actually extremely hopeful right now.

Jennifer Buhl with her 2 boys at RFK Jr.’s independent candidacy announcement in Philadelphia, Oct ‘23.

5. You describe your Do What You're Told as a 'lovingly curated' newsletter 'by free thinkers, for free thinkers.' And you live in the heart of blue America. How many disillusioned Democrats are there, really? And do you see that number growing as the world gets crazier by the day?

I live in a woke progressive pocket of Philadelphia, and frankly used to consider myself one. When 2020 hit and everyone — left and right — was on the vax bandwagon, I hopped off quick! I didn’t know where I fit, but I knew I wasn’t a part of either tribe. I’d been deep diving into vaccine research and natural medicine for two decades and knew something bad was about to happen. It did, but as it did, something cool happened too. I started to make a lot of new friends, and truthfully, kept most of my old ones. The awakening started slowly, but it’s on a steady course now. A lot of people are fed up with the new world order nonsense of the deep state, corporate controlled governments and institutions, and a media full of lies and censorship. In their gut, people know something is off. I love watching journalists leave mainstream media and wake up. The same thing is happening on the street.

We all know this: If you tell people a big enough lie enough times, they will start to believe it. Well, just think how much easier it is to get people to believe the truth. Do What You’re Told is about elevating beautiful, independent thought above a landscape controlled by mainstream media lies. It is built on the premise that if only people are exposed to resources of reason, most will wake up! The rabbit hole is shallow. It’s only a matter of shining the light off of mainstream media and onto truthful ideas. Our tribe, one of rational, reasonable thought, will become the largest of them all.

At Do What You’re Told, over the last year we have created an aggregate newsletter of independent voices — voices like your own, Jenny Holland; like Kennedy’s, like Brand’s, like Corbett’s, and now the newer waking voices of Rogan, Malone, Weiss, Shellenberger, Taibbi, and more. DWYT is a non-mainstream media version of Yahoo News, one of the largest aggregators and distributors of mainstream news. Shortly, we will begin our “guerilla-style” billboard campaign in Philly, advertising our newsletter to everyone via print media, specifically billboards.

So check us out, subscribe here, spread the word, and if you’re like minded, please consider a paid subscription or sponsoring a billboard in your own neighborhood.