00:02:57.280It's been really cool to tell the stories of people that I think deserve more attention and just to center marginalized folks, you know, women, people of color in conversations about what it means to be on the Internet.
00:03:10.240Why was that important to you to tell these stories?
00:03:12.440Well, you know, when I first got the idea for Tangodi, there was a lot of different things going on.
00:03:18.900I remember seeing these awful instances of public acts of violence, you know, like mass shootings and things like that.
00:03:25.900And the thing that so many of them had in common was that the perpetrator, in most cases, you know, men, they had a history of violent rhetoric online, rhetoric about women.
00:03:38.420And it seemed to me that anybody who was paying attention would think like, oh, this is, you know, a warning sign we should take seriously.
00:03:47.480And I thought, gee, if only somebody had taken that seriously, if only somebody had thought about what this person was writing online about women and looked into it, maybe this wouldn't have happened.
00:03:58.400Then I remember hearing about this woman, Shafika Hudson, who had been making noise about the fact that somebody on social media was impersonating Black women in her online spaces.
00:04:12.760And then I remember hearing that story and thinking, oh, OK.
00:04:15.480And then flash forward a couple of years to the election, seeing a Senate inquiry that confirmed that those same tactics had happened and that they were an attempt to shift our election.
00:04:26.400And I thought, gee, if only anybody had taken her seriously when she talked about her experiences online, maybe the election could have been different.
00:04:34.680Maybe things could have been different.
00:04:35.500I saw those two big things happening. But in my own life, even though I was someone who had worked in tech spaces, spends a lot of her time online, I still was sort of compartmentalizing my own space, my own experiences in tech.
00:04:50.260I thought of myself as someone who, you know, wasn't really involved in the Internet, wasn't really involved in tech, despite the fact that I was, you know, worked at tech companies.
00:04:58.740And I really saw those things as related.
00:05:01.700The fact that these experiences that marginalized people have online were so overlooked and so ignored and that the consequences for ignoring them were so huge.
00:05:10.460But then in my own life, I still was having trouble sort of centering my experiences online.
00:05:16.060I still thought like, oh, well, what, what right do I have to, you know, say anything to a tech leader or what right do I have to make a, make an argument about the online experience? And so one of the reasons why I wanted to make Tangody is that I want people to stop doing that. You know, I think that as marginalized people, we, it's so easy to believe, it's so easy to internalize that our stories don't really matter and that our experiences don't really matter.
00:05:44.660And I just want to be part of a cultural paradigm shift that says, no, we are the experts of our own experiences.
00:05:50.400If you use the Internet every day, if you're listening to this podcast, you have a right to demand accountability from tech leaders, from tech platforms.
00:05:57.860You have a right to expect that the experiences that we have, and by we, I mean other marginalized people, are going to be told, thoughtfully, and centered because that's what makes being on the Internet great.
00:06:08.380The Internet is so much richer because there are so many different identities that make the experience that much more rich.
00:06:15.320I love that. So these stories need to be told. They make us all richer by hearing them.
00:06:20.460Why are you the person to tell these stories?
00:06:22.920That's a great question. I've spent most of my life amplifying the stories of marginalized people, specifically black women, but also other marginalized identities.
00:06:31.360um I think that I'm the right person to tell these stories because for so long I yearned for them
00:06:40.300Toni Morrison has this quote that she became the writer that she needed when she was younger
00:06:44.620and for all the experiences I've had online I just wish that there was someone who was
00:06:50.120compiling them and archiving them and amplifying them and so why not me you've been making podcasts
00:06:57.080for a while now right oh yes i my first job so i've been a long time podcast appreciator
00:07:03.980um but my first job in podcasting was like back in 2011 uh this and so if you know anything about
00:07:13.120podcasts you know that like the big sort of shift in podcasting that we thought about podcasting is
00:07:18.100like a a real medium was when serial came out but my time in podcasting predates that so i like to
00:07:24.240think of myself as like the old guard, you know, the OG. Um, yeah, my first job in podcasting was
00:07:29.660working as a producer on a show called the flaming sword of justice. Um, it was a podcast about
00:07:35.480activism and organizing and yeah, I've just been, it's, it's, I loved it. I've loved it ever since
00:07:41.440then. I've, I've been a long time podcast appreciator. What are some of the foundational
00:07:47.760podcasts that you listen to? If you had to name two, maybe three. Okay. Well, number one will
00:07:53.120always be Starly Kine's mystery show. Unfortunately, it was short-lived. There's only a handful of
00:08:00.080episodes, but if you're looking for an episode to start with, the episode about Britney Spears,
00:08:04.560I think is the pinnacle of what the medium can be. When I first heard it, I thought this podcasting
00:08:15.560is going to change everything. I had never heard storytelling like it. And so the idea is that
00:08:21.920Starley Kine, the host and producer, she gets a new mystery every episode, a mystery that can't
00:08:27.680be solved by just like Googling it. And so she has to go through these deep dives of solving
00:08:32.360these mysteries. And it really is just something really special. And unfortunately, they're no
00:08:36.820longer making new episodes. But Starley Kine is like, in my mind, she's like the Beyonce of0.87
00:08:42.360podcasting. She's just so good. You said you'd never heard stories told like that. What is it
00:08:49.080about podcasts that you think is different from other medium? That's a great question.
00:08:55.200When I first got really into podcasts, so this is going to sound kind of depressing, but
00:08:58.640and depressing and also like extreme, but I mean it the way I say it. When I first got really into
00:09:07.220podcasts, I had moved from the East Coast to San Francisco and I moved there for work and I moved
00:09:12.360there sight unseen. I never visited. I never been before. And I moved there for a job, a kind of
00:09:17.500tech adjacent job at a mobile phone company called Credo Mobile. And shout out to Credo Mobile.
00:09:23.920And, you know, it was a hard, it was a tough time in my life. I had a really hard time
00:09:30.820meeting people. I had a really hard time making friends. I, you know, spent every day thinking,
00:09:36.740like, did I make a mistake moving out here? Also, this was, you know, San Francisco, this was like
00:09:42.460the heart, like the beginning of San Francisco's tech boom, really changing the landscape of what
00:09:49.240San Francisco was. And so, you know, I grew up thinking San Francisco was this like hippie
00:09:53.700wonderland and I was excited for that. But when I got there, it was something very different.
00:09:57.820And truly this sounds like, like very over the top and maybe it is, but it was podcasts that
00:10:05.680really kind of saved my life. Like if it wasn't for podcasts, I don't know how I would have,
00:10:11.960how i would have gotten through that time what podcast are you listening to then so at that
00:10:16.620point in my life the podcast i was listening to the most was one called uh yeah dude um full
00:10:21.580disclosure it is not it is a it is like purely a comedy podcast it's it's i mean it's more than
00:10:27.920that it's you know they're they're documenting their own american american experience exactly
00:10:35.580exactly so i don't i don't want to make it seem like this is like when you ask somebody like oh
00:10:39.660what's your favorite movie and you they feel pressure to be like citizen kane but really
00:10:43.340but really it's like clueless you know so it was just it's not it's not like it was not like a um
00:10:50.720very like highbrow show but but like something about it made me feel like i was talking to
00:10:56.500friends and i would i would like go to sleep listening to this podcast in headphones you know
00:11:01.180when i was after work i would like rush home to my empty apartment to listen to this podcast right
00:11:05.800Like it was the thing that made me feel connected to the world and made me feel like I wasn't
00:11:35.100not everybody likes it i try to i try to edit luckily we have as you know we have you know a
00:11:41.600superstar like we have tari we have tari shout out to tari who's named you here in the credits
00:11:46.460luckily we have a genius editor who makes everybody on the show sound like they're just
00:11:51.460brilliant and they just like rolled out of bed brilliant and everything they say comes out
00:11:55.160brilliant and perfect but and and i i appreciate why people like that for me it's the exact opposite
00:12:01.640I love the awkward pauses and the throat clearing because I feel like those are the signals that you're hearing someone really have a real conversation.
00:12:18.640I also think I like podcasts a lot because I've been a fan of them for a very long time.
00:12:23.840And I feel like when I first fell in love with the medium, it was so new and so different.0.71
00:12:28.620And even when I was working as a podcaster, you know, we didn't know what the fuck we were doing.0.64
00:12:32.400It was like we were like a ragtag group of people who really just were making it up as we went along.0.97
00:12:38.940I'll never forget sort of like fibbing on my resume about knowing how to edit audio and then being like, oh, fuck, they're going to expect me to know how to do this and having to like learn to do it.
00:12:48.740There was something about the podcast landscape when I first got involved in it back in like, you know, the 2000s or early 2000s.
00:12:58.620Um, that was just, it just felt like the wild west.
00:13:03.160And it just felt like you were hearing conversations that you would never hear anyplace else.
00:13:07.780Um, and even though that's changed, you know, as the medium has gotten more slick and more
00:13:12.540professionalized, um, I still, I still feel like, I still feel that, you know, I think
00:13:17.740at the end of the day, it'll always be a medium for weirdos.
00:13:20.120And I think of myself as a weirdo, so it feels like home.
00:13:23.140yeah your interviews uh you do a good job connecting with people and uh getting them
00:13:31.280to not just open up but uh express themselves and say things that they uh want to say about
00:13:38.440their own experience but maybe don't always get the chance to just like sit down and talk about it
00:13:42.580how how do you approach that you know the episodes the interviews that you've done
00:13:49.440for this season what's your strategy well first and foremost as women as people of color as people
00:14:00.040who are marginalized we don't often it's not a given that someone's going to thoughtfully deal
00:14:06.240with our stories right and so if someone is down to sit down with me for the podcast or for an
00:14:10.300interview the first thing that's most important to me is making sure that I treat their story
00:14:13.720with care and intention because unfortunately we can't always, that's not always a given that
00:14:19.740someone that we're talking to is going to treat our story with that kind of care. And I take it
00:14:27.340very seriously. I take it very seriously. You know, it is someone listening to someone tell
00:14:35.520their story for me is a real privilege. And the fact that people trust me to put their stories
00:14:40.960into the world to new audiences to like package the ideas that they're that they're that they're
00:14:46.360spitting and that you know the the things that they're saying to package them for folks to
00:14:50.080consume that's a lot of trust it's it's i don't i don't take it i take it very seriously it's a lot
00:14:55.340of trust so really it's about um it's about that i think i've also been very lucky that all the
00:15:03.360people on the show so far all the guests we've had this season are brilliant and so interesting and
00:15:08.940just have such an interesting perspective and they introduced me to new concepts that I didn't know
00:15:13.040they helped me understand myself better and so I'm very lucky that everybody is so smart it's
00:15:18.320hard to not make people sound interesting and smart when they are legitimately interesting and
00:15:22.140smart. Treating people's stories with respect and care and listening to them it reminds me of
00:15:26.860something Claire Evans talked about in the first episode of the season about a culture of care and
00:15:32.500if you want to look for a place on the internet where there is care look where women are or1.00
00:15:37.440something like that. Yeah, she says you should look for the women. And I think that's true,1.00
00:15:41.220right? I think, no offense to the men out there listening, but the stories that I love the most
00:15:47.860are the ones that are told by marginalized people because I can just tell that they're told from a
00:15:52.200perspective where you aren't sure if you're going to get that care, the kind of care that Claire
00:15:56.540Evans talks about in our first episode. And so people who share their stories, even when they're
00:16:03.060not so sure how the reception is going to be. I see such a bravery in that.
00:16:08.080Yeah. And that's kind of a common theme across a bunch of the episodes this season.
00:16:12.420Oh, definitely. The people that we've talked to this season, you know, people like Ottawa
00:16:16.400Mboya, who in our second episode spoke up when she was just a grad student at MIT against
00:16:22.700the director of MIT's Media Lab. You know, that takes bravery. And that kind of takes
00:16:27.700knowing that people are going to you know hate you for speaking up speaking your truth people
00:16:34.220are going to malign you you know you don't even know if you like are physically safe you know
00:16:39.240let alone people are going to be mean to you on the internet or whatever your her physical safety
00:16:43.820she was taking great risks and yet you know as grateful as we all are for Ronan to Ronan Farrow
00:16:49.440for bringing that story to light I don't like the fact that he wasn't risking anything to do that
00:16:56.720any kind of comfort and that he is the one that's remembered as sort of like breaking that story as
00:17:01.240opposed to ottawa who was making was taking great risks great personal risks um and did it first
00:17:06.920so i just want to i think it really is for me about about culture shift about just remembering
00:17:12.440that there for every big story you hear there's probably someone who whose part in that is going
00:17:21.100overlooked or unheard and we should hear them what's something that you think we're not talking
00:17:25.060about enough today? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. I have a very clear answer. We are recording this
00:17:32.320right after Biden named his running mate Harris. And I would say, especially in light of that,
00:17:40.400but also just in general, even before that, we need to be talking about disinformation on online
00:17:45.460and how it impacts marginalized communities. We did a whole episode about Shafika Hudson,
00:17:51.260how she tried to blow the whistle on bad actors, you know, using classic disinformation tactics to sow chaos online.
00:18:00.520A Senate inquiry now confirms that those kinds of bad actors from, you know, Russia were trying to do the same thing to influence the 2016 election.
00:19:54.980And like, you know, I'm sure they had a stockpile1.00
00:20:01.520of heckles to release against whoever the nominee was
00:20:06.180But the fact that she was, you know, not just black and not just a woman, but a black woman, there's so many more opportunity for them to use those sort of stereotype based attacks.
00:20:21.880Absolutely. She's a black woman. She is the child of immigrants.0.99
00:20:25.860You know, there are so many aspects to her identity that people are going that we already know, you know, people study this.
00:20:31.640We already know we're going to be used disproportionately to attack her online.
00:20:34.980Yeah. And so Biden isn't getting the same level of attacks. Trump isn't getting the same level of attacks. And so we need to be talking about what that means. In one of my day jobs, aside from hosting this podcast, I work for a women's group called Ultraviolet, where I lead up our work in the disinformation space.
00:20:52.360And, you know, I think in the absence of the leadership of tech companies and tech platforms to take this seriously, it's really up to just everyday folks like me to create resources and create tools to make sure that we're talking about this kind of misinformation and disinformation and that we can curb it.
00:21:12.800Because we can't wait for these tech leaders to do the right thing.
00:21:16.500We're going to have to step up and do it ourselves.