Subliminal: Elyse Fox Is Taking Sad Girls Club Into Its '2.0 Version'
"We're past the point of awareness. We all know we're down bad a lot of the time, but what are we doing to actually make the sustainable change?"
In the Subliminal interview series, artists, creatives and makers of every discipline share thoughts that have drilled a hole in their drafts folder or been tumbling around in their brains, sometimes without them even knowing. The messy pivots, unspoken rules and quiet revolutions. The triumphs and the trip-ups. The no-easy-answers-type questions that are still worth asking. No throwing subs here. The place to say it with your chest.
Elyse Fox never really planned to start a movement. But really, how many honest revolutionaries do? The Brooklyn multi-hyphenate started the non-profit Sad Girls Club after her documentary, Conversations With Friends, ignited an international conversation about how neglected Black girls are in the mental health conversation. Nine years later, the 501(c)(3) non-profit has consistently been a soft landing spot for women of color to not feel so alone in their struggles.
SGC’s online platform, therapy resources and IRL community activities ranging from painting, scavenger hunts, pole dancing and yoga to workshops on platonic love and self-care have helped thousands of millennial and Gen Z women tap into their deepest selves and find healing. Since May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I had to make a point to shine a light on Fox for her purpose work, especially on terms that make sense as a millennial mom who also has to show up online. From fundraising in the era of DEI dismantling to moving past being the face of the org, Fox is already plotting on how to take SGC into it’s next season a.k.a being the definition of action over words and purpose over politics.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Madden: What has Sad Girls Club been cooking up for May, for Mental Health Awareness Month?
Fox: For Mental Health Awareness Month, we’ve been very focused on, like, movement. Our theme this year is “Find your Flow,” so we’ve been activating a lot of activities that kind of encourage movement. Last weekend we had our first pole dancing class in Harlem, and we have another breath work stretch workshop next week in partnership with Envsn Festival, and then we’re ending off the month, with another pole dancing class on the 30th for our Brooklyn Sad Girls. We just want to just activate and get girls out of their maybe typical comfort zone when it comes to movement activities and workshop and introduce something that’s maybe a little bit more new or fresh, or something they maybe always have wanted to try, but never knew when and where so we just wanted to make it as accessible as possible.
Madden: I love the theme. Getting people out of their heads and into their bodies and feeling more free.
Fox: Absolutely.
Madden: Since the beginning of 2025 – the whole year – 350,000 Black women have been forced out of the US job market, and a lot of it was linked to federal downsizing under the Trump administration, DEI program rollbacks, and it became especially jarring in education, healthcare, nonprofit, and administrative spaces. How has growth and fundraising for Sad Girls Club changed over the past year? And what are some things you’re learning from that pivot or this season?
Fox: I’ve kind of had this mindset for a long time that you have to literally build your own table if you want a seat. Not just bring your own seat to a table. You have to build your own table entirely, which is why SGC exists.
So, it’s very disheartening to have such a big number that’s a reminder. I saw the number is actually 600,000 as of April this year. 600,000 women of color, and it’s obviously very targeted. It’s obviously a lot of people who don’t want us to win. So, what I like to do and what I say is figure out how you can be proactive within your own community, within your own network. And I’m speaking, I know from a CEO which is like such a big standpoint, but I think when you think very micro and macro, that’s how you can think about the worst case scenario and kind of pivoting from the CEO standpoint. But for me, I feel like I have to ground myself before I can make any moves. So, I always think about ‘What can I do?’ Actions I can take. If you’re not old enough to vote yet, but you want to be active in your community, what can you do to participate? Can you volunteer somewhere if you are of age and you can be, you know, a part of like, a community board, or just have your voice or your opinions heard on a more local level and encourage people to vote, I think that’s like the biggest thing we can do is encourage our youth and to be representatives of people who do vote and who are proud and happy to vote for what we want to see and the changes we want to see.
