Digital Social Hour
Lessons From Leading a Nonprofit at 16 | Cameron Kasky DSH #1391
Mon, 02 Jun 2025
🚨 Lessons From Leading a Nonprofit at 16 📈 | Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly 🚨 Ever wondered what it’s like to lead a multi-million dollar nonprofit as a teenager? 😲 In this jam-packed episode, Sean Kelly sits down with Cameron, the inspiring force behind March for Our Lives, to uncover what it takes to navigate the chaos of running a movement at just 16! From managing trauma and balancing egos to the life-changing impact of a bipolar diagnosis, Cameron shares it all—raw, unfiltered, and authentic. 💡 Plus, dive into candid conversations about navigating politics, social change, and the future of leadership. Cameron keeps it real with his hilarious takes, powerful insights, and unforgettable stories. You won’t want to miss this! 🎙️ 👉 Tune in now for valuable lessons and insider secrets. Don’t miss out—watch now and subscribe to Digital Social Hour for more inspiring stories and epic conversations! 📺✨ Hit that subscribe button and join the conversation today! 🚀 CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:29 - Cameron Hates Vegas 04:16 - Bipolar Disorder Diagnosis 07:28 - Kanye West Comeback Discussion 10:28 - Dave Rubin and Russia Allegations 11:39 - DNC Payment Accusations 14:22 - Strategies to Go Viral 18:15 - Piers Morgan's Debate Value 23:55 - Political Evolution Insights 26:13 - Trump's Influence on US Reputation 29:14 - Understanding Panic Attacks 33:47 - Overcoming Victim Mentality 42:30 - Benefits of Psychedelics 44:20 - Overview of the Democratic Party 50:47 - Republican Debate 51:18 - Episode Wrap-UpAPPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [email protected] GUEST: Cameron Kasky https://www.instagram.com/cameronkasky LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ The views and opinions expressed by guests on Digital Social Hour are solely those of the individuals appearing on the podcast and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the host, Sean Kelly, or the Digital Social Hour team. While we encourage open and honest conversations, Sean Kelly is not legally responsible for any statements, claims, or opinions made by guests during the show. Listeners are encouraged to form their own opinions and consult professionals for advice where appropriate. Content on this podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, financial, or professional advice. Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad #nonprofitleadershiptraining #mentalhealthawareness #nonprofitskills #nonprofitjobs #mentalhealthally
Chapter 1: What does Cameron think about Las Vegas?
Dave Rubin? Yeah. Yes. Okay, guys. Got him in Vegas, all the way from New York. Let's go. We got Cameron here. How's it going, man? I fucking hate Vegas. You just told me that. And East Coasters don't usually like it here, to be honest.
It's the dry heat. It's the debauchery. And I can't even enjoy like a lot of the more touristy stuff because flashing lights, loud noises, that shit really bothers me. So, and in New York City, like it's not all Times Square.
Like there are very chill parts of New York, but I've been to Vegas so many times and every time I see it, but I'm having fun this trip because all I've done so far is see you and that's been fun.
Thought I'd get in a fiery debate after this too. It's going to be a fun day for you. I love a fiery debate. It's my favorite type of debate. Did you watch the Charlie Kirk debate with Cambridge University? I've watched so many Charlie Kirk debates to this point.
Chapter 2: How did Cameron cope with his bipolar disorder diagnosis?
I think that certain debates, and I hope that this isn't the case with this one, are so team sport and they're never really done in the pursuit of some greater truth. Like when I'm watching a debate, I'm watching it to watch somebody get owned. I'm not watching it to get a better understanding of how different people feel about things. You know, like I was just watching videos this morning.
Did you see Jordan Peterson talking to the atheist? Yeah. And he was getting really angry at kids. And they asked him if he was a Christian. And he said, I refuse to identify as that. And it was like, dude, it's called Christian versus atheist. Why did you sign up for it if you refuse to identify as a Christian? Yeah.
And somebody asked him if he would have lied to save the lives of people in the Holocaust. And he was like, That is an absurd question and you're not going to bring me to answer it. That was Parker, right? I don't know. Is that the Parker kid who doesn't have a last name? He just goes by Parker? Yeah. I don't know, but I always thought that was funny.
I was like, dude, respectfully, you seem like a nice kid. Get a fucking last name.
No, that debate was tough to watch. I didn't watch the whole thing. I got like 30 minutes in. I was like, Jordan's lost his edge because he used to be Really good on the mic.
He's gotten Fetterman. He and Fetterman both had like a near-death experience that they came back from with their brains melted into a fucking pudding. Like, have you seen Fetterman talk? We saw that, actually. John Fetterman, senator from Pennsylvania, had a stroke or something. I don't even remember. And he came back doing two things.
Number one, like tweeting incessantly about how much he loves Israel. And number two, sounding like how I sound after I've taken my Xanax, 300 milligrams gabapentin and my zeprazidone, what's on my sleeping meds. After like an hour, if I'm still awake, I sound sort of like what John Fetterman sounds like.
And then John Fetterman was like, complained about how he was getting pressured into showing up to his job at the Senate. He was like, yeah, I'm showing up more at the Senate because I'm getting bullied into it. It's like, Dude, that's your fucking job. And you don't even dress for it. You look like shit. But, you know, it was him or Dr. Oz.
And now we've got this guy who just doesn't sound like he speaks any language.
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Chapter 3: What strategies did Cameron use to lead March for Our Lives?
It was, especially since I got diagnosed with bipolar when I was like 14 or 15. And it's something that's been passed along in my family. And when I heard it, I was sort of like, nah, that's girl shit. I'm not bipolar. I just get mad sometimes. You know, bipolar is for girls. And over the next couple of years, I had these mood swings in these episodes that were so destructive to my life that
and made me so bad at being a person. And it wasn't until I absolutely fucking crashed out that I realized I needed to start getting on medication. And unfortunately, I crashed out while I was running a movement which was surrounding a multi-million dollar non-profit
focused on gun control, where we were on the news every day, talking to people from communities affected by gun violence all over the country, going to a state or two every day or two. And this whole thing I found myself at the epicenter of because March for Our Lives, which is what the organization was called, started in my bedroom.
And the group of kids that came together for it was assembled by me and a couple of the classmates I invited over. And managing this group of hormonal teenagers who had just survived a school shooting and like hadn't processed the trauma at all. Managing the parents. Oh, my fucking God. The parents.
Well, the thing is, when something good happened in March for Our Lives, the parents were like, well, it's because my little angel is so amazing. And when something bad happened, it was because that asshole Cameron sucks. And mind you, I was a total prick who was deserving of hate plenty of times. I forgive myself for it because I was a little out of my depth.
And things were pretty crazy at the time. But balancing the kids, the parents, and then the adults who helped us run the organization and manage this. I can't manage a fucking 501c3. I don't even know how to spell 501c3. You're a teenager. So, I mean, I'm now well into my 20s and I can't manage $100. So, you know, if anything, I think I've gotten worse. But...
I was crashing out and having these rapid mood swings and everyone around me was paying the price. And I was being very destructive towards people who not only loved me, but people who cared for me and stuck it out for me when I made it really hard for them. And as soon as I started medicating for that, things really started to change.
I was so much more conscious of the way I was treating other people. I was conscious of the way that I was treating myself and I was so much less self-destructive. That's not to say I haven't done some absolutely fucktard brain shit in the past couple of years, but I got a lot less self-destructive. I got a lot less destructive to others.
And I'm very glad that I was able to accept that diagnosis that I had shrugged off
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Chapter 4: What are Cameron's views on political debates?
Do you think there's a coming back for... Well, he changed his name. I think it's Ye now, right? Do you think there's a coming back for Ye?
I think that Kanye West is sort of like Milo Yiannopoulos at this point. You know, he'll continue finding ways to piss people off that satiate his desire to be in the media. I think that the media enables him in a way that just ends up in this feedback loop where, you know, Kanye does something atrocious, the media covers it, and then the media is like, how does Kanye keep doing this?
Who's letting Kanye do this? And it's like, um... all of us by looking at them. Yeah. Like, and also not that this is important when you're talking about somebody who is spreading anti-Semitism, bigotry, hate, all these other things, but the music hasn't been good in forever. The music has, has been like, there were, there were maybe two tracks on Donda that I thought were really good.
There was one, I think it was on Donda called 24, but maybe that was on the Jesus album. Yeah. And that one I really liked. But other than that, it's like he sucks at the music now too. It's like, what the fuck is he doing? And that's one of the things about Kanye that pisses me off so much is that because he's open about being bipolar, he becomes a representative of people with bipolar disorder.
And therefore, when I tell people that I'm bipolar, which is not anything I'm ashamed of, nor is it something I'm particularly proud of. It's just part of who I am in my life and how people deal with me. He makes us look bad. He makes us look like fucking crazy people. And he's just not a good representative of the community.
He also calls himself a Christian.
Does he?
Yeah.
Oh, I'm like Jordan Peterson. No, I'm like Jordan. Maybe we should do Kanye West debates, Parker and the other twinks.
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Chapter 5: How does Cameron handle trauma and humor?
Because it's based off your downloads and it's based off your views and he's one of the top podcasts in the world. That is so... Well, Dave Rubin... You'll see in a year once you build your show up.
Ideally, yeah. Once you all subscribe, yeah. Dave Rubin, if you're watching this, I will call you an idiot all the time, but also you're making more money than I am, so... You gotta respect his business, son. Who's the real idiot here? You're going on much nicer vacations than I, so fuck me, I guess. Sorry, that was... I'm just looking at Dave. Yeah.
It makes you wonder, because when that broke out, that was a big story with the Russia stuff. Who else in the political space is getting paid indirectly or directly?
I have been accused of getting paid by the DNC, which is so funny because I shit on the DNC so much. I was one of the first people calling out Joe Biden's fucking senility at a time when a lot of people in the liberal world were defending Joe and saying, no, behind closed doors, he's super sharp. I was saying... This old man needs to get the fuck out.
That's what he said he was going to do when he was running. He was running as a transition president. He was going to pass the torch. We were going to have a healthy primary. Kamala Harris was going to be the nomination. It was going to be because she won the primary. And Biden then said, because he's so fucking obsessed himself... No, Jack, it's actually, it's got to be me.
And he sounded like shit. He was very unpopular. People didn't like him. And I was calling on the party because I wanted the Democratic Party to be successful, because I wanted Trump to lose the 2024 election. I said, Joe Biden needs to be pulled out of the office and I don't fucking care if it's kicking and screaming, which by the way, it was.
A lot of credible reports say that Joe wasn't doing some honorable thing passing of the torch, you know, stepping down like a hero. He was fucking pissed. He felt like everybody betrayed him. Obviously, this is hearsay, but it's fairly reputable hearsay.
But anyway, I was going to say, people act like I'm a paid DNC shill, especially when I was doing gun control, especially because people were saying that I was receiving George Soros money.
Yeah, AIPAC money.
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Chapter 6: What is Cameron's perspective on the media's portrayal of mental health?
okay can i have it like at this point i'd fucking take the money like if the dnc wants to pay me if if soros or some other you know uh you know behind the scenes operative wants to pay me off to espouse their it's like i live in new york city i'm 24 like it's expensive out there make me the paid shill that i'm getting accused of being you need that harry sisson money man
My fucking dog, Harry Sisson. I love that kid. And if I, I don't know how much Harry Sisson makes, but I guarantee you it's quite a bit more than I do. And I got to hand it to him. He's laid with that.
I mean, he put in the work. You got to admit, hate him or love him. He's on TikTok live eight hours a day. He's grinding.
He's on TikTok live eight hours a day?
Dude, every time I'm on there, he's on it. Like it's got to be some stupid amount of time.
Yeah, I ain't built like that, man. I don't have that fucking Harry Sisson dog in me. And I mean that in multiple ways, by the way.
Yeah, multiple ways. He's debating randoms all day. It's impressive.
I can't do it. We're going to find out because we're doing a debate today.
I'm excited to see you in action. Yeah, I'm not very good at it. This is my first debate moderating in the political space, actually. No shit. Yeah. So I'll be with you. I'll be a rookie in that regard.
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Chapter 7: What are the challenges of being a young leader in a nonprofit?
Yeah.
Because I don't like dunking on people. I like it when these conversations are in the pursuit of some greater understanding of some truth.
I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.
But, you know, unfortunately, the way to go viral is to slam dunk on people. So it's like, you know, I went on Tommy Lahren's show on Fox Nation and it was a couple months ago and we kind of just had like a fairly nice chat. You know, we didn't agree on virtually anything other than she was talking about the Democratic Party covering up Joe Biden losing his mind. And I was like,
I mean, Tommy, you're not going to get me to disagree with you there. Like, I don't know what you want me to say, girl. This is going to become a circle jerk. But other than that, like we weren't agreeing on any of the issues, but I was just like, I wasn't going on there to like throw jabs at her. Like I, that wasn't going to be productive.
I was going on there to represent the beliefs that I represent, um, and communicate to her audience, not go on there and try to communicate to or my audience that already agrees with me by making clips to post of me dunking on Tommy. I mean, she dunked on herself a couple times. She was talking about how trans athletes are stealing people's championships.
And I was like, well, Tommy, you know, the NCAA championships were last night, women's basketball. Were there any trans athletes? And she goes, Well, that doesn't matter because in a few years, and I was like, yeah, but that's the thing is like, that's what they were saying a few years ago. And that was a clip that you put up.
But generally speaking, it's like with debates, I always try to go in with them with the desire to understand the other person just a little bit better and with the hope that they understand me a little better. And that's not in line with the online debate world. The online debate world is like, you know, who can own each other harder.
And the other thing I'll say to that is like, if I am debating somebody and I say, okay, this thing that Trump is doing with immigration violates the law. It violates the constitution. Someone I'm debating can say, okay, which law? And if I don't know the specific name of the law, because A, I'm not an encyclopedia, B, adolescent drug use made my memory really bad.
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Chapter 8: How has Cameron's podcast changed his public perception?
you know some people can be fact lords like ben shapiro who are able to like rattle shit off quickly enough that it sounds like they have a better argument but a lot of these debates are a memorization game true that's not talked about enough to be honest it's like oh i i can reference and you sound so much smarter when you're referencing you know specific instances that service only your narrative that by the way those very instances whether it's a
Modern historical event, a bill, a Supreme Court case, you know, could also be used to supplement the other person's argument. You're just the one who's using it more effectively as a tool in the conversation. And that's why I think that, you know, moderated conversations are quite a bit more productive than debates where you go in and it's like a team sport.
Yeah, that's why I wonder if Piers Morgan is actually producing value with his debates.
No, Pierce Morgan is an entertainer and it's fucking entertaining. The shit that I do see from Pierce is, is really good clips. Like he is a good YouTuber. Uh, you know, I, I would love to see him in a content house, like, like a bunch of fucking like 18 to 22 year old twinks making like dancing videos. And then, you know, Pierce Morgan's just in the background.
Would love to see the Pierce Morgan, uh, hype house. But, you know, it's content and it's content farming. And for that, you got to hand it to him because he's really good at it.
He's crushing it. Him and Jubilee. Jubilee won on 20s.
I mean, I am just, I don't watch content. Like, I binged your show before I came on. But generally speaking, you know, for someone who makes content for Bulwark and for my show, The FY Pod, based on like Gen Z and this sort of sphere and everything, you'd think that I know content and the internet better. And yet, like, I'm only just now learning about shit that I probably ought to know about.
So I'm just figuring out what Jubilee is. Wow. I'm like, I watch Jubilee now like a sitcom. I don't watch it to learn more. I watch it because a lot of the people they have on are just so unqualified to be there. And by the way, I identify as one of those people. If they put me on a Jubilee where I was debating 20 people, I would come out of it looking like a twit.
My neurons don't fire fast enough. You know RAM on a computer? It's like the amount of gigabytes it can process at the same time. My wits are still about me. I haven't gotten less intelligent over the years, but because throughout my teens and early 20s, I was smoking so much weed, I did... hopefully not, but possibly permanently damage my RAM. Damn.
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