Kylee De Thier shares bullying story as Pink Shirt Day ambassador
The role of ambassador involves sharing the Pink Shirt Day story, telling his own story.
'I think these anti-bullying programmes are effective when they get the right spokespeople and when it's more personal,' he says.
His podcast is honest and unfiltered, and talks about his experiences at Gisborne Boys' High School.
He criticises a programme he went through called Tu Tane aimed at developing 'good men', which he found 'misogynistic and stereotypical'.
He talks about a Year 10 camp being particularly difficult, a low point of his bullying journey.
De Thier said instead of 'teaching boys to become men', they could have taught them about things such as 'emotional intelligence', 'how to treat and respect women', 'sexuality and its many forms'.
Gisborne Boys' High School principal Tom Cairns told the Gisborne Herald the Tu Tane programme was a framework designed for boys to be comfortable being who they wanted to be, and he was sorry to hear of De Thier's experience.
Cairns said the school took bullying seriously and started every year with anti-bullying lessons in the junior school.
They were marking Pink Shirt Day on Friday and had discussed the issue of respect at Monday's assembly this week.
'Respect means making space for people to be who they are – without fear, without judgment," assistant principal Maria Jefferson told the school's assembly.
' He waka eke noa" – we are all in this canoe together.
'That means we all belong here. We move forward together. No one gets left behind.
'We all want to be respected. So let's start by giving it. Be the kind of men who look after each other, not tear each other down.'
De Thier said that when he was filming Self Titled and fleshing out his memories, he realised how bad the bullying had been.
'I had faced it since I was 5 years old. It's been my whole life – I haven't ever known anything else.'
He said his bullying took various forms, from being physically punched by a fellow student at primary school to verbal abuse, which continued into his high school years.
It was commonplace for him to be mocked and made fun of and excluded, so much so that he dreaded going to school, he said.
As a child experiencing bullying daily, he felt isolated and alone. He started making content from a young age and found a community online.
'Because when I had no upstanders – no one to defend me – I had become my own upstander.
'Now I stand in pride and confidence. The reason I'm so hyper-independent is because the only other option was to crumble and fail. I still have trust issues,' he says.
With 450,000 followers on TikTok and 220,000 on Instagram, De Thier is now living his best life.
He got his Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Auckland and now works as a creative producer and marketing director for social media agency No Sad Cowboys.
'We manage social media personalities – TikTokers, Instagrammers and Twitch live-streamers,' he explains.
The role of a social media agency is to protect and promote the talent, do their admin and connect them with brands.
Things took off for De Thier in 2021 when his TikTok following grew substantially in just one week.
In 2023, he landed a brand deal with L'Oreal and went to Paris to work with La Roche-Posay (a L'Oreal skincare brand).
With his profile rising, social media agency Born Bred Talent approached him and went on to represent him before he moved to his current role.
'The main goal is to help kids like me in Gisborne and smaller towns because I was the only one like me growing up, but I knew there were other kids like me who didn't have the parents I had or the confidence I had to put themselves out there.
'As long as I'm helping one person, I'm happy. I don't really lean into the numbers or care about the money too much.'
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