There Are No Girls on the Internet - DISINFORMED： The Future of the Internet with Sydette Harry

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00:00:10.940 Will the pesto survive the first bite?

00:00:12.980 Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all?

00:00:17.020 And will you finish Episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers?

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00:00:49.980 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:00:55.400 Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:01:04.060 Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:01:12.300 Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:01:14.080 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:19.460 I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive

00:01:26.780 what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:01:32.380 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled,

00:01:38.200 and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:01:43.380 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:54.760 You're listening to Disinformed, a miniseries from There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:01:59.680 I'm Bridget Todd.

00:02:05.000 So I talk a lot about tech's failure to center and listen to people who are underrepresented.

00:02:09.880 even though those same people's voices are critical to understanding the internet, technology, and how it shapes our world.

00:02:15.900 But the internet is also about possibility.

00:02:18.900 So it's also important to carve out space to dream about what the future of the internet could look like.

00:02:24.100 And one of the most prolific people doing this work today is Sedet Harry.

00:02:28.540 I kind of think of Sedet as the ombudsman for underrepresented voices in tech,

00:02:33.060 interrogating how we're included or not included and its impact.

00:02:37.120 In a recent piece for WIRED called Listening to Black Women, the innovation tech can't figure out, 0.99

00:02:42.060 Sedet argues that tech creators and journalists have ignored the experiences of underrepresented voices like black women 0.96

00:02:47.540 and in turn, ignored the harm that, quote, innovation can unleash in our communities. 0.98

00:02:53.160 She writes, harmful behavior toward black women isn't enough to inspire change until others are harmed.

00:02:58.460 But the original harms are often lost by journalists tasked with covering tech.

00:03:03.580 The power and rhetoric that went unchecked becomes common.

00:03:07.280 And tactics used against Black women for lulls become weapons used in conspiracies,

00:03:12.300 destabilizing the very nature of truth, from the swarming of victims to posing as Black women to destabilizing communities or countries.

00:03:19.360 Defining systemic abuse becomes a frustrating exercise of describing an empty space that no one believes is there.

00:03:26.000 Sedet pushes back on the idea of who is considered to be the assumed standard user online.

00:03:31.740 Her journey with tech and the Internet started with a truly hellish commute to a retail job at the Apple store.

00:03:38.760 I had one of the longest commutes in New York.

00:03:41.820 Point blank.

00:03:43.280 And I think that is very important because when we talk about the birth of the Internet, we often focus on Twitter.

00:03:47.760 I would say, like, I'm not a user of the Internet in the way that people are excited about.

00:03:51.800 I'm a user of Twitter, social media, and certain platforms, and some of my work diffuses out.

00:03:56.660 But I had one of the longest commutes in New York.

00:04:00.860 i'm from far rock new york it's the last stop on the a train i had been blogging for a bit

00:04:09.780 but i was a graduate of university of pennsylvania my father was deported i had been blogging for a

00:04:18.960 little bit and there was i got a job as a specialist for apple fifth avenue so i came

00:04:27.500 in through retail i guess i have other training but i was working retail so not making even 20

00:04:34.080 an hour and i came in right after they started selling the first iphone so we got a small

00:04:42.740 discount or actions but i had the power and as they got that and people were developing

00:04:47.900 we had internet we were able to get things and i was in a performance or interested in performance

00:04:52.800 so this was like oh I was getting to sell all my

00:04:54.820 music and I was getting to look

00:04:56.820 at libraries and as those things developed

00:04:58.960 how do we use

00:05:00.900 them but I'm also on the Apple

00:05:02.840 store the big cube the

00:05:04.680 iconic is on

00:05:06.960 59th

00:05:09.140 and 5th

00:05:09.700 I live in Far Rockaway

00:05:13.160 I've got to take

00:05:14.480 the A train from

00:05:16.320 Columbus Circle

00:05:17.540 to the last stop

00:05:19.780 if you know New York that is a

00:05:22.800 that is a journey.

00:05:27.460 And I was using it back when you weren't sure

00:05:30.080 that you would have reception at everything.

00:05:32.860 So I would have a book in one hand,

00:05:34.800 my notebook in the other hand,

00:05:35.700 and I would have the brand new shiny iPhone.

00:05:38.140 And when you get above ground in,

00:05:41.460 on the A train,

00:05:42.200 you're getting above ground at 88.

00:05:46.460 And then you're going to Rock Boulevard

00:05:48.260 and then for Rockaway Boulevard,

00:05:49.840 you're crossing two bodies of water

00:05:51.200 past the JFK stop.

00:05:54.540 So I'm seeing a lot of humanity

00:05:55.660 because I'm seeing every person

00:05:56.920 who has to go to JFK airport.

00:05:59.360 That's what I grew up in.

00:06:00.360 That's part of my life in the city.

00:06:02.400 That's part of my life as a human.

00:06:03.820 And I'm above ground.

00:06:04.820 So now I have Wi-Fi slash cellular.

00:06:08.020 I have the new device

00:06:09.080 and I've been writing and blogging.

00:06:10.720 So I'm used to,

00:06:11.300 I'm taking to this literary form

00:06:12.480 and I'm also bringing in some of the issues

00:06:16.080 and things that we've had from blogging.

00:06:18.560 And for me,

00:06:19.320 it's always been about conversation

00:06:20.720 and building community and my job at my job at the time involves my gift of gab so hey i am built

00:06:27.980 i am specifically in spaces and i think that's the thing we don't talk about is this like you

00:06:31.920 have certain talents or certain um inclinations to these things like when people talk about oh

00:06:38.300 twitter's the voice of the world i'm like twitter's getting better but for a long time twitter was not

00:06:41.980 accessible to people who can see that's a literary form that's already not accessible people are

00:06:47.020 talking about Clubhouse's, oh, this, and I'm just like, Clubhouse doesn't work on Android,

00:06:51.720 doesn't have really good translations, mostly in English, is ephemeral, and it has no closed

00:06:56.560 captioning. No captions. So if you can't hear, it's very hard for you to use. You are saying

00:07:03.080 because people we are used to thinking as cultural creators are excited. But for me, that is, I fit

00:07:08.680 that demographic, that kind of user, that early adopter that wasn't what they thought of was mixed.

00:07:17.840 Yes, that's how I started using it.

00:07:19.640 And early adoption gets you a base, gets you people, you're a with.

00:07:22.820 But there was a time when the actual joke of it for me is,

00:07:26.040 if I was to tell my story as a person with user research and my community background is,

00:07:29.700 is that I happen to be connected to more of the privileged aspects of accessing that base of tech

00:07:35.620 while having an identity that would make me a novelty, because that wasn't who they intended to force.

00:07:41.600 So that is all about how we build community and reach people online, which can sometimes be a bit fraught.

00:07:46.380 When Facebook announced that video, not comments or written articles, was the wave of the future,

00:07:51.460 newsrooms, my own included, laid off thousands of media workers in an effort to pivot to video.

00:07:56.380 But it turned out Facebook was actually inflating the metrics of video reach.

00:08:00.660 Rather than getting distracted by the shiny new thing, whether it's pivots to video or fleets,

00:08:05.440 Sedet worked to make sure that systems that are already in use actually serve the people who use them.

00:08:09.780 She worked with the Coral Project, a project to increase public trust in media and journalism,

00:08:14.640 and make online dialogue and comment sections better

00:08:17.700 through open source software.

00:08:19.800 I moved into user community research lead

00:08:23.860 for a choral project which developed comment systems

00:08:25.840 which are now used in multiple newspapers

00:08:29.740 back when everybody was like,

00:08:31.240 oh, get rid of comments.

00:08:32.180 And we were just like, no, don't do that.

00:08:34.540 People need to talk.

00:08:35.360 We need to access.

00:08:36.120 What are you doing?

00:08:37.360 Everybody got rid of comments.

00:08:38.460 Everybody went to Facebook comments.

00:08:39.700 Everybody pivoted to video.

00:08:40.920 And then, hey, they're lying about all of that.

00:08:44.640 all your stuff is on Facebook

00:08:46.120 but it was the

00:08:49.200 newest shiniest thing and I was like that's

00:08:51.080 a bad idea it's not about the newest

00:08:53.100 shiniest thing it's about who you serve

00:08:54.740 what you want to do have you made sure that those

00:08:57.040 are the people

00:08:57.680 can access you

00:08:59.960 and I think that right now we're living

00:09:03.040 in the fallout of that we're living in that

00:09:04.960 idea of we've created this myth of

00:09:07.020 esoteric and when people ask me to tell

00:09:08.660 my involvement with tech I always start with a

00:09:10.420 it's because I was poor it was 1.00

00:09:12.640 as Black. And it's because I was working in retail that I had that specific entry in this

00:09:16.700 specific examination. And I have education and all those experiences. But the only way I can

00:09:24.740 describe it is having those melt. You have to be all those things. And every user, not just the

00:09:30.820 ones with a high profile, not just the verified ones, every single user will have this kind of

00:09:35.540 story. Think of a universe that exists on screen or on stage. How is that universe fleshed out?

00:09:42.060 Who's the main character?

00:09:43.280 And who are the side characters whose inner worlds aren't really fleshed out?

00:09:47.020 Who is given a point of view?

00:09:49.540 Sedette's background and performance has shaped her perspective on the internet.

00:09:53.280 Namely, asked her to interrogate who is the assumed main character of online experiences.

00:09:58.880 The problem is that we have an internet on platforms of lots of cast of characters,

00:10:03.420 but who we make point of view characters.

00:10:05.780 And that's a very big thing for me.

00:10:07.020 And often people watch me and they're like, Sedette, what are you talking about?

00:10:09.300 I'm like, we have to start thinking about who we make a point of view character, because we have everybody on the internet, this wealth of gorgeous humanity, but you still think that the point of view character is a white man between the ages of 25 to 60 of a certain socioeconomic background, and everybody else can only be a point of view character for a very short period of time or one viral moment.

00:10:29.820 that is going to affect what we think the internet is it affects what our art is because we are

00:10:35.860 watching real time in the world about how we can't abandon each other and how we cannot pretend we

00:10:43.140 are the only people that make our realities and things like that because we are doing really badly

00:10:47.680 because we thought that was the way we needed to work yeah i mean that's a that's a good question

00:10:53.400 i have something that i something that i um read in one of your pieces was that we've designed an

00:10:58.900 internet that does not look like the real world, right? There are not sex workers there. There are

00:11:03.140 not people who, there are not working class people there. There are not people who have 1.00

00:11:07.100 disabilities there. We've designed this internet as if these people do not exist, but we know those 1.00

00:11:11.940 people exist in the real world. So I guess one of my questions for you is, you know, what are some

00:11:17.140 ways that you see different experiences and identities just be completely marginalized or

00:11:21.220 suppressed on the internet that that you know exist in the real world i i i am low to answer

00:11:31.880 that for a single because i think the justice was like we don't see them in the kind of focus

00:11:37.200 point of view way they are always the underpinning they are the foundation of content their

00:11:42.400 aesthetics have informed so much anybody who tells you how instagram developed does not involve 0.57

00:11:47.140 sex workers is a liar and a fraud like that person says that and i'm just like oh you're lying on the

00:11:53.420 internet but the other thing about that is that i am not a sex worker and the first thing is like 0.99

00:12:03.020 one and the first thing is that i firmly believe that if the thing i'm saying is that we need to

00:12:06.860 see those people i'm not supposed to be supposed to be asking the thing we need to work on the

00:12:11.780 thing that I want to work on is like, how do we have better spaces for those people who are often

00:12:17.240 already doing the work and developing the thing to cover themselves and speak for themselves,

00:12:22.740 as well as how can we be ethical about it? How can we protect their security? And what does it mean

00:12:30.200 for that to happen? And this is a thing where we often go, like when people talk about content,

00:12:36.940 We have all the content. Whose gets it forward? Our relationship with it, our desire to protect it is different. And we do not honor how people want to speak about it, from its creation, to its access, to its sustainability, to its permanence.

00:12:55.480 and these are the kind of and people often go oh that's so meta sometimes it's just as

00:13:01.500 it's just as granular as does it have closed captions right does it have can you delete it

00:13:08.140 can you be forgotten and they're made meta when they need to be singular and that's the thing

00:13:14.140 that i like to poke and that's the representation because subcultures change trends change morality

00:13:21.860 changes. People live. How do we give people the ability to access and meld and create for where

00:13:27.880 they are now? And how does our media that we've created work for that? I think that because of

00:13:34.540 all the things that you've said, the sort of, I guess, ephemeral nature of a lot of the things

00:13:40.480 that are online, I feel strongly that our work, our contributions, in terms of how people have

00:13:47.780 seen them as worthy of protection, it pains me to think that so many of the things that

00:13:53.520 marginalized people have created online will not be preserved unless we preserve it, right?

00:13:59.200 And so I wonder, you know, how has that shaped our understanding of the experience of being 0.99

00:14:06.720 online that we are the only, like, we cannot trust anyone but ourselves to lovingly preserve

00:14:13.540 our impact when our impact has been so great?

00:14:15.680 i think that number one this is a experience that we've had in history and i think that's

00:14:22.900 why the power of like my power of librarians and powers of archives are most important because

00:14:28.260 we're picking and choosing what to preserve let's take a quick break

00:14:32.260 behind every night spent making the kids lunches there's a lot of suspense will they finally eat

00:14:44.780 the veggies will the pesto survive the first bite will the lunchbox come home empty half full or

00:14:50.440 come home at all and will you finish episode eight before you're done slicing the cucumbers

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00:15:39.520 If your bookshelf and your For You page

00:15:41.520 are equally important to your personality,

00:15:43.940 welcome home.

00:15:45.460 This is Prose Society,

00:15:47.700 the weekly podcast that's part book club,

00:15:50.100 part group chat for thought daughters,

00:15:51.880 pop culture obsessives,

00:15:53.080 and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice

00:15:54.880 and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:15:57.860 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week,

00:15:59.620 we're connecting the dots between books,

00:16:01.620 the internet, and the conversations

00:16:03.040 everyone can't stop having.

00:16:04.840 I'm going to have to look up this story.

00:16:06.740 Yeah, I'm obsessed, so obsessed.

00:16:08.640 From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators

00:16:11.240 to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

00:16:14.960 It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters,

00:16:20.540 then that is a Trojan horse.

00:16:22.420 Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations,

00:16:26.440 or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,

00:16:29.940 you're in the right place.

00:16:31.300 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app,

00:16:34.220 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:16:37.560 See you between the pages.

00:16:39.600 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:16:45.460 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:16:51.900 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:16:55.600 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.99

00:17:00.740 Shut up. Don't say anything. 0.99

00:17:03.680 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:17:08.220 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:17:12.800 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:17:20.220 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:17:24.200 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:17:27.620 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:17:30.760 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:17:44.780 And we're back.

00:17:46.480 For Black folks, there's an urgency in preservation. 0.77

00:17:49.700 We die earlier, and our entire country was built on washing away our voices and legacies.

00:17:55.080 We have to be intentional to make sure our stories are told, let alone remember or preserved.

00:17:59.740 As Black people specifically coming from the Atlantic slave trade, we've had an experience of having to create cultural lines and cultural limits when they did not exist and when they have been designed to be failed because that was the project of building the world was getting us to build it without honoring our contributions.

00:18:23.580 i think for right now is there has to be i think very material in some things and the other the

00:18:34.480 other thing is that like even as i do other work i kind of like i start to get the itch of like

00:18:39.520 wanting to go back and do library sciences and just like the basic like so how do you curate

00:18:44.560 and how do you teach people to do things and how do you hold things and not necessarily interpret

00:18:48.820 everything but leave people the space to be able to make their own interpretations because we have

00:18:55.180 to confront our mortality and we have to confront death and you really have to start asking like

00:19:00.380 people get exactly the face made it's scary it's heavy and like we're in it but it's like what

00:19:06.940 would you want to hand someone after when you're done and can you do it in this current things like

00:19:14.240 I still have a Bible. I have earrings or there are earrings for me. I can't touch them. From people I've loved there, we go through and we see the books and the architecture and all of that. And these are things for what we want to be left behind. But we also hear that in music and blues and how are they compatible and not compatible with the ways that are accepted to leave things behind.

00:19:38.760 and for us and that is a heavy question but it's a question we have to ask more and more now and

00:19:46.200 especially when we are also being confronted with the reality of we die early we lost two years as

00:19:53.360 black people on our life expectancy during this what i often get upset with when we're talking

00:19:59.080 about data and tech that everybody's like we'll get to it we'll get to what we'll get to it i'm

00:20:03.220 like we're dying early we have less money things are more stress is more likely to kill us how much 0.87

00:20:08.240 time do you assume that Black people 1.00

00:20:10.200 have for you to be wasting and playing 1.00

00:20:12.160 in my face? But also

00:20:14.320 we have created bridges

00:20:16.220 across time, despite that.

00:20:18.780 We exist in those

00:20:20.020 multiplicities.

00:20:21.840 It's part of my family history where time is thought of

00:20:24.160 to be in generations, not just

00:20:26.120 me, you right now. We're all playing

00:20:28.240 with those ideas of time, but we're trying to fix

00:20:29.980 what are the things we want to hand?

00:20:32.080 Again, the relationships we want to have.

00:20:34.360 And those are not just momentary in terms of

00:20:36.100 the tweet I just sent, but they are stolen from

00:20:38.240 across time what are these things and these interventions are playing with and i think for

00:20:43.080 marginalized people but specifically black women because that's how i walk this earth

00:20:47.520 i have to i am literally a living embodiment of a moment in time from a line that i'm going to

00:20:54.460 try and transport through the people who i will touch who will live different realities in

00:20:59.120 different spaces and that's simultaneous asynchronous and synchronous and but right

00:21:05.360 now we are very concerned with the do we have are we going to do enough in the time we have to make

00:21:11.800 sure there is a place to give and send because um the world's on fire and everybody's like oh we'll

00:21:19.280 have time we'll have time because they're used to telling certain people people who look a lot

00:21:23.500 like me and you and who are the people that helped made us that we can always wait and now that the

00:21:28.800 fact that no it can't wait when they said that that is now circling up towards them how do we 0.96

00:21:33.640 light a fire under people's asses to say 0.83

00:21:35.740 we don't have, like, where do you think we're 0.99

00:21:37.660 getting all this time? How do we create more urgency?

00:21:40.580 We don't.

00:21:42.700 Me and you specifically?

00:21:44.640 Are we living in this world?

00:21:48.260 No.

00:21:49.260 I think that

00:21:50.780 that was

00:21:53.640 glib, but I think for most

00:21:55.740 importantly, it's like we have mutual aid, we

00:21:57.640 have pressurings, but

00:21:59.620 we are literally trying to stay

00:22:01.700 alive in everything we do.

00:22:03.640 that tries to ensure our own survival tangentially helps everyone else

00:22:08.700 because we have yet to figure out how to truly save ourselves 0.92

00:22:11.300 without saving everybody else, specifically as Black women.

00:22:14.800 I promise you, if we ever, as a collective, Black women and femmes,

00:22:18.980 Black people larger in general, if we all got together 0.96

00:22:21.700 and ever figured out how the fuck we could do this without everybody else, 1.00

00:22:26.440 I promise you we would have chucked our deuces and left a long time ago. 0.74

00:22:30.340 Everything we do that is designed to keep us alive

00:22:33.640 potentially help everyone else. Because in a lot of ways, getting a Black woman to be valued in the 0.98

00:22:39.340 way, just humanely, that other people are, involves a complete destruction or reassessment of the

00:22:45.700 system. It does. It just does. And I am, and I walk, and I change back and forth because

00:22:55.740 we're dealing with extraordinary times. But everything turns into what more can we do?

00:23:02.660 what more can be done. And I'm just like, make what I'm doing right now sustainable enough that

00:23:06.860 I can actually have the space to think forward. Until I have that space, I've stopped responding

00:23:12.000 to the what can we do. This is something I struggle with so much in my own work, in my own life.

00:23:17.700 What does it mean to truly have space and to have time? I feel that so often, even if I'm having a

00:23:25.840 good experience, I am filtering that through, you know, I should be putting this on Instagram so

00:23:31.960 that people know that I'm doing this, or I should be, you know, marketing this, like,

00:23:37.480 what does it look like to actually have time? And I think that particularly for Black women and

00:23:41.440 femmes, that looks, we have like, it's just a struggle, I guess I'll put it that way. It feels 0.85

00:23:48.640 like a struggle to actually feel like I have the space and time, like, to even just rest,

00:23:56.080 yeah, to even just rest on my laurels to be like, oh, I'm, I'm doing this, I'm having this

00:24:01.660 conversation i'm doing this work because i want to not because it feels like it's so urgent i need

00:24:05.760 to i need to be moving to the next thing does that make sense yes if you there's the nap ministry who

00:24:10.780 i believe is doing golf work oh yes and and it's a hard thing and it's just like this is again it

00:24:16.940 was like i i very much loathe the idea of being the lone expert in anything except what i'm actually

00:24:22.900 an expert in and that's the thing that we're often not allowed there are times when because i think

00:24:27.900 that we also have to confront the idea of like the hustle struggle grind culture is bad for us

00:24:34.760 in terms of how it focuses on us in production of capitalistic values but it's also bad enough

00:24:40.040 because it doesn't allow us to get a real um extent of expertise because there's a lot of

00:24:44.500 like when people talk about imposter syndrome there's imposter syndrome but there's also

00:24:47.780 a system that has told you over and over again that you are not valuable you will not be

00:24:52.760 compensated for your value

00:24:54.540 and then there is also just healthy

00:24:56.640 self-assessment and avoidance

00:24:58.840 of done it crudely syndrome

00:25:00.000 like

00:25:01.720 I'm not the best

00:25:04.920 person for this does not necessarily

00:25:06.940 mean that I am

00:25:08.060 holding myself back or

00:25:12.840 whatever that's just sometimes mean that I have

00:25:14.820 a good idea about

00:25:16.760 the skills required for this

00:25:18.340 and the humility to know I don't

00:25:20.600 have them

00:25:21.320 that's a gift

00:25:24.000 you want

00:25:26.840 oh this is going to involve a lot of math

00:25:29.660 I joined the

00:25:31.620 high IQ society because

00:25:33.540 I couldn't pass math

00:25:34.980 I am wonderful

00:25:37.420 and great and smart and intelligent but if

00:25:39.320 people's lives develop on me getting

00:25:41.480 the math right know what I can do

00:25:43.560 in the best

00:25:44.680 sense of my humanity is tell you

00:25:47.220 immediately to hire someone else who will get

00:25:49.400 the math right that's not me

00:25:50.920 and yes there's like and i think there's and i think often for me like that's focusing like on

00:25:59.580 imposter syndromes and often like a lot of literature becomes like like this is how we

00:26:03.600 are in comparison to mediocre white men and blah blah i'm just like i have no desire to come up

00:26:08.040 pair myself to the mediocre i have a better a stronger desire to create the fantastic 0.96

00:26:13.300 i love that he's mediocre these people are so mediocre but they get so far ahead

00:26:19.820 okay and they're going to continue being mediocre how do i make what's great

00:26:24.620 but that could be from like a really good apple pie that could be a really amazing piece of

00:26:29.400 software that can be a stunning visual that is all that is where i think often i'm like okay

00:26:35.320 and i think it's bad because for our society like black women for a lot of us it's like we're

00:26:40.200 constantly trying to create and the stress we feel is because we don't we don't have that space where

00:26:46.780 is it's this thing of like I don't have I done everything I can to get on have I done everything

00:26:51.940 I can to make what needs to be happening and you feel that because you don't feel secure what you

00:26:58.200 have because you're not even you're making it you're making the system well I feel like it'll

00:27:03.020 go away I feel I don't know if I'm making enough income this week and it's like if you had those

00:27:07.240 other things taken care of you would have a better assessment of that right and there's also the

00:27:12.260 reality that I don't know what any we I I wouldn't ask anyone to make deep assessments of what we're

00:27:18.340 doing right now we're all we're all stressed and traumatized after the capital insurrection

00:27:23.520 I feel like we had an afternoon where people like seem to be reflecting and then the next day it was

00:27:32.580 back to the normal shittiness you know I'm so I'm so sick of moments where yeah for that day people

00:27:38.720 seemed to be really reflecting and then the next day they all woke up and were the same with not

00:27:45.520 worse well it's also like i looked at every single person they tried it out as an expert

00:27:52.140 and things like that and i was just like everybody's white yes

00:27:58.100 everybody's from the same force and people are like do you want to be there and i'm like

00:28:05.700 I don't know. In some cases, yes, because I have feelings and thoughts that I want to get out

00:28:10.740 because I've been talking about this for years and I have moments. But then there are also

00:28:15.700 skills that it goes back to the other things like, well, if you want to talk about it in

00:28:18.800 online community, the things that I actually have expertise in, yeah. If you want to talk

00:28:23.700 about it in the mechanics of AI, if you want to talk about heavy duty legal, there's no reason

00:28:29.620 to have me there my problem is is that you have a wealth of people who should be there

00:28:39.040 who are not there like there are times where it's like i am not the person you need to be talking to

00:28:45.220 but you're not gonna lie in my face and tell me you can't find a single black woman to talk to 0.82

00:28:50.600 more after a quick break 0.99

00:28:59.620 Transcription by CastingWords

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00:30:00.920 If your bookshelf and your For You page

00:30:02.900 are equally important to your personality,

00:30:05.320 welcome home.

00:30:06.860 This is Prose Society,

00:30:09.080 the weekly podcast that's part book club,

00:30:11.500 part group chat for thought daughters,

00:30:13.260 pop culture obsessives,

00:30:14.460 and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice

00:30:16.280 and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:30:19.320 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week,

00:30:21.020 we're connecting the dots between books,

00:30:23.000 the internet, and the conversations

00:30:24.420 everyone can't stop having.

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00:30:55.620 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:30:58.960 See you between the pages.

00:31:01.000 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:31:06.920 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:31:13.300 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:31:17.000 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.96

00:31:22.420 shut up, don't say anything.

00:31:25.080 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. 0.98

00:31:29.620 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:31:34.180 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:31:41.620 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:31:45.580 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:31:49.020 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:31:52.160 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:32:06.000 Let's get right back into it.

00:32:08.080 Black women are rarely cited or centered in conversations about the internet, even about their own experiences. 1.00

00:32:14.000 Things like online harassment or the kinds of racialized disinformation campaigns that kickstarted the Capitol insurrection.

00:32:19.580 These things overwhelmingly target Black women, yet we're rarely given the space to talk about its impacts. 0.83

00:32:26.100 Sedet says that tech media let themselves off the hook by writing Black women like her off as problems or not likable or professional enough, 0.88

00:32:33.780 thus giving themselves license to exclude our voices from the narrative, essentially blaming us for our own erasure.

00:32:39.480 You complain about my tone, and I'm just like, my tone is very specific.

00:32:44.260 I chose a screen name that is kind of confrontational.

00:32:47.060 I've got a collection of cat tattoos and aesthetics that maybe looking back now, I might have turned down the dial on or maybe I might have turned the dial up.

00:32:55.560 Who knows? But they say something. And I'm aware of that in the visual era and we're aware of that in the packaging brand era.

00:33:02.140 You are not going to lie in my very librarian inclined face and tell me you can't find a black woman who does not have these signals, who does not have this attitude, who does not have this tone,

00:33:10.960 but who is more than qualified

00:33:13.500 and considered and thoughtful

00:33:17.200 to tell you similar things.

00:33:19.820 You don't like me?

00:33:21.020 Yeah, there are days I don't like me.

00:33:22.680 But if you actually liked the work,

00:33:24.260 you'd find somebody.

00:33:25.920 You keep asking and pointing at me

00:33:27.720 because it prevents you

00:33:28.780 from actually doing the work

00:33:29.960 of finding somebody else.

00:33:31.260 That's so interesting.

00:33:32.960 And I think that's the experience 1.00

00:33:33.880 a lot of Black women have. 1.00

00:33:35.220 It's like, oh, well, she's a problem. 1.00

00:33:36.700 She's a problem.

00:33:37.180 I'm like, yes, I probably am.

00:33:40.320 or she is or maybe even i don't like her but if you care about what the work is you have a two

00:33:47.820 prom thing if you care about the work and that is the expert that is the person you should be

00:33:51.520 talking to stop trying to get around talking to the person it's not about sure like me because

00:33:55.860 you never seem to have that problem when it's a white man some of these dudes are running around 0.96

00:34:00.580 being demons demons on earth and actual fascists and racists and but we can't go around them 0.97

00:34:07.300 weird because you always manage 1.00

00:34:09.600 to go around the black woman 1.00

00:34:10.900 or the Asian woman or the 0.96

00:34:13.360 Latinx

00:34:13.960 non-binary person 1.00

00:34:16.640 that you all admit is an expert but 0.92

00:34:19.380 you can find a way around them because they're

00:34:21.300 difficult but you never

00:34:23.440 find you never feel the same

00:34:25.120 disposition to that 0.98

00:34:27.160 when it's a terrible white man 0.99

00:34:29.440 the flip side of that being 0.99

00:34:31.480 oh you don't like that

00:34:33.520 person they're awful they're problematic

00:34:35.160 Yes, they are.

00:34:36.960 They, you know what, there are some people,

00:34:38.940 ooh, I don't like them working with other people.

00:34:40.860 They're not nice.

00:34:41.520 They're not kind.

00:34:43.020 But you keep, do you keep involving them

00:34:44.840 because it allows you to discredit the work?

00:34:47.260 Or you are completely right.

00:34:50.080 There are seven other people

00:34:51.700 of all orientation, shape, sizes, and flavors

00:34:56.360 who are wonderful and competent.

00:34:59.840 Go ask one of them.

00:35:01.260 go ask them because they're ready to work you just you create a roadblock where there isn't

00:35:08.760 and you create a roadblock because it serves you and you create it because it serves you

00:35:13.320 but what we're asking you to do right now is serve everyone else

00:35:16.400 well i think you i mean something that you said that really sticks with me is this idea of

00:35:23.480 just who we hear from and who we don't hear from particularly as it pertains to talking about

00:35:28.660 online communities, you know, in the aftermath of the, of the insurrection, like how many different

00:35:35.000 experts from the same four schools did we need to hear from? How many different, you know,

00:35:40.460 like how many different outlets rushed to interview a Proud Boys member or a QAnon believer

00:35:45.660 and just how little they center the people who are directly impacted. So we didn't hear about

00:35:51.120 the black women who have been talking about online harassment since forever, who, you know, 0.96

00:35:56.640 if someone had listened to them someone with power this whole thing might have gone differently we

00:36:00.880 just didn't even have that conversation i and and this is where my room steps in but people love

00:36:06.280 when i challenge them on that to be like well i've just been starting since 2016 i was like i had my

00:36:10.100 first run-in with some of these people in 2012 and 2014 tell me you don't care and keep it moving

00:36:15.640 but do not waste my time well we know you were gonna reach out it's like you told me in a tweet

00:36:21.700 i know for the other thing about it is because the work i tend to do tends to be design sprints

00:36:26.060 user research and archival and this is a this is a little quirk that i've had um for a while is that

00:36:33.520 there sometimes there's awful things about people who are hiding from ghetto names and things like

00:36:39.860 that in hr and how hiring works is that i have a very kind of my name is distinct and it's hard to

00:36:47.700 find and because seo black woman they shove me down visually for now if you google me and you

00:36:58.460 don't see a picture of my name a lot of people think i'm white a lot of because of my name if 0.65

00:37:05.120 you don't see a photo and it doesn't surface a photo people think i'm white and because of um

00:37:11.100 my family is west indian and my mother had a very slightly odd um obsession with speaking

00:37:19.020 properly and up to the point that went up until i was like a certain age i actually had a vaguely

00:37:23.320 british accent and it's something i will default to and like we all code switch in like your

00:37:27.360 professional voice right and you you sometimes will hear me doing it in this but it's like when

00:37:32.440 i'm like my professional voice is good afternoon uh my name is sedet harry i will be your

00:37:37.460 talks for the day and if you're not looking directly at my gorgeous black face people think

00:37:42.860 why so i've often experienced this where folks will say and talk to me face to face when they're

00:37:53.560 looking at me or about things or when they see my avic and they will they will um the different

00:38:00.540 like they're just like well you don't understand or you don't comprehend and maybe you and i think

00:38:05.300 and all of this and i'm just like and who are you citing we and they'll cite an article i wrote for

00:38:12.500 model view culture or sometimes that's happened to me once or twice for wired now and i was just

00:38:17.720 like you just cited oh what's that it's the debt harry

00:38:21.840 it happens to other women too but there is a specific racial tint for it sometimes or like 0.98

00:38:29.140 someone will call me on the phone and then meet me in person after i've done some research and 0.98

00:38:33.180 They're like, yeah, I spoke to this woman on the phone's debt.

00:38:35.780 And that happened to me more than once or twice.

00:38:38.020 And I'm not going to say when to protect people.

00:38:40.480 But they were just like, yeah, she had these really great thoughts.

00:38:42.740 She was really connecting it to manuscripts and other things.

00:38:47.200 And I was just like, uh-huh.

00:38:48.440 I was like, I know you're...

00:38:49.220 And this is a person who actually started going into it.

00:38:50.860 I know you're more social because they read social media in some ways,

00:38:54.180 especially for Black women. 0.70

00:38:54.960 They read social media adeptness as a fad and not a skim. 1.00

00:39:00.080 I hate that.

00:39:00.680 There are a lot of white male journalists who are doing exactly what I was doing in 2016 now, and they're paid for it.

00:39:06.600 Like, they barely write articles.

00:39:07.880 They just tweet.

00:39:08.880 For me, it was a problem.

00:39:10.000 For them, it's a job.

00:39:11.120 And they'll be like, yeah, she talks about these things and da-da-da-da.

00:39:14.440 And I was like, very interesting.

00:39:15.720 And I'm just like, Sidette Harry?

00:39:19.000 Yeah.

00:39:19.880 And I'm just like, and they're just like, oh, so I'd like to follow you on Twitter.

00:39:22.980 And I was like, okay, this is my screen name, Black Amazon.

00:39:25.240 And they're like, wait, you're Sidette Harry?

00:39:28.040 Yes, I am, darling.

00:39:29.000 what is that like um 1.00

00:39:32.540 it's a mind fuck we black women experience like it's an interesting like that's my version of it 0.98

00:39:42.560 but i believe there are black women all over the space that has people like like there is a very 0.99

00:39:47.200 like there's for me the experiences that i talk about the tattoos i got my tattoos later in life

00:39:51.680 all of them started under 30 and if you haven't gotten it yet be careful because like i got mine

00:39:57.160 after 30 and it's an addiction i'm just like i haven't had a tattoo in nearly a year and a half

00:40:03.640 y'all somebody gonna need it but like they're talking i was like i was talking to someone who

00:40:11.460 was probably a very well-minded theorist and they were like what if the origins of the internet i

00:40:15.240 was like let's talk about print culture and mass communications and that's my thing and they're

00:40:20.640 they're like well it's strange and like the person's very much hedging and i was like

00:40:23.760 because i have tattoos on my right forearm and one of my my right forearm is specifically designed

00:40:28.960 to be the type script for the first mass produced slave sheep which is also convincingly and oddly

00:40:38.680 enough type script for um the first uh really serif fonts that were printed the first folio

00:40:46.520 was shakespeare really we know it hard in these streets um we but but it's also like it's it's a

00:40:54.140 it's a telling part of our culture that like the mass production of the identity of western

00:41:00.580 literature was also the same mass production that was used to retain black enslaved peoples

00:41:05.740 to create nations and create identities and i was and it's like this is the and these were people

00:41:11.520 who were just like well it's not professional and it's unprofessional and i was and i was like wait

00:41:15.840 it's not professional that doesn't mean that i don't understand the historical significance

00:41:19.120 right but that is the thing that like for me i experience sometimes visually tattoos but i think

00:41:24.680 sometimes black women experience it with your speaking choices your names are you really an 1.00

00:41:31.400 engineer i think all black female engineers i've heard experiences that like you you have to put 0.99

00:41:38.680 out more you might do some performances or your performance cues are read differently but you have 0.95

00:41:44.760 to do more work and the mind fuck of that is just like i don't know what it's like to not have to do 0.52

00:41:50.480 that you in sections of your life don't know what it's like to not do that that there is a like there 0.55

00:41:57.160 is a world or there is an identity and experience that at some point people just believed what was

00:42:05.680 true about you without you having to do more than that that's the screw-up it's like i'm at this

00:42:11.480 where I'm like okay we're gonna go we're gonna go around you're gonna get it and then I'm gonna

00:42:15.880 have to braid you up a bit and whatever that is and that I can or whatever can or cannot do it

00:42:22.240 that's the thing but I think the the the the mind screw is that there is someone whose entire life

00:42:27.620 they've never had to do that that's the thing because I'm just like oh this happens like I've

00:42:34.900 had men like just try and upbraid me about and especially within tech tech media tech journalism

00:42:40.440 as everybody has suddenly moved into missing

00:42:42.220 disinformation and online harassment.

00:42:44.260 I'm just like, you are so new.

00:42:45.940 They're like, well, if you knew, and I was like,

00:42:48.260 so what's the number one?

00:42:50.140 Like, there are two books that were New York Times

00:42:52.100 bestsellers, and it is also for me.

00:42:54.360 I've talked about this before, and I feel like somewhat 0.74

00:42:55.880 of a jackass when I do that. You cited two books

00:42:58.260 about New York Times bestsellers.

00:43:00.760 Please go to the acknowledgments

00:43:02.500 or the dedication.

00:43:08.740 That's got to feel good.

00:43:09.740 that's gotta feel good like that's gotta feel good in a kind of way that feels good because

00:43:15.220 i've been eager and it feels good because no matter what i'm always i'm a new york genre

00:43:22.120 i'm a new york shorty always have been and sometimes you gotta let these people know

00:43:29.280 that feels good on that level because you if you you better ask somebody but it also feels terrible

00:43:37.900 because like these are experiences that were difficult and these are relationships and moments

00:43:42.240 and rather than just believe towards the goal of no we're trying to stop to stop the abuse we're

00:43:48.180 trying to stop these experiences we get i've got to spend 20 30 minutes or 10 minutes or really

00:43:55.040 uncomfortable situation of me looking at you like this like tell me more rather than us actually

00:44:01.980 doing the work of improving the thing what would have happened if i didn't have to go through that

00:44:06.820 If I didn't have to pull out all the, what happens, like we talk about receipts, but like the stress of receipts, what would happen if instead of a day, a week, a month, a couple of years of us having to pull receipts, trying to prove what happened, you just did the work.

00:44:19.740 We just got to do the work.

00:44:21.300 Like, that's the thing that is very like, oh, you want that moment.

00:44:26.540 Like, that to me is the actual mindset.

00:44:31.100 like in those moments you realize how much and with time you realize how much energy you have

00:44:37.460 wasted necessary and unnecessary because like sometimes you need to do it to get it done and

00:44:41.920 sometimes you do it out of reflex so but how much of that time is taken from the thing you want to

00:44:47.480 do because and it goes also because there for some people up and there are some people who are

00:44:53.840 oh they're like there are some people who like when they dress them down you're just like oh

00:44:57.400 that was beautiful

00:44:59.300 that was a piece of art

00:45:00.220 go girl

00:45:01.780 you get that

00:45:03.840 there's some people who are skewed at that

00:45:06.300 and it's beautiful to watch them work

00:45:07.780 and they enjoy it

00:45:09.100 and I love that they enjoy it

00:45:10.160 because they are good at it

00:45:11.320 I might have some facility

00:45:15.560 I'm not as good as they are

00:45:16.480 but for me I'm usually just tired

00:45:17.780 I'm like okay so we did that

00:45:19.540 now we're done

00:45:20.220 you good

00:45:23.640 you good

00:45:24.700 let's get to it

00:45:27.400 I have to ask, this is kind of a random question, not related to, I guess it's sort of related.

00:45:34.240 You are so yourself.

00:45:36.800 You know, even looking at you right now, you've got the Prince shirt, these bold glasses.

00:45:41.460 How did you find the freedom and space to show up like this as yourself in this way?

00:45:47.840 How did you walk in this confidence as who you are in some of these spaces that you walk in? 0.82

00:45:54.160 As a performance trainer, I am frigging lying.

00:45:57.400 I've done theater. I studied opera for nine years. I am very good at the fake it or till you make it 0.95

00:46:05.340 or ask for confidence and confidence should be given to you. When you're good at performance,

00:46:10.080 and it's one of the things I talk about, it's just like, I'm often nervous.

00:46:14.300 My last, one of the last big speech I gave, I spent a lot of time on the tables and I was like,

00:46:20.560 literally with the person I was talking to, like, oh my God, why are there so many people?

00:46:23.620 it is a performance you get up you get ready i was trained in that you get up get ready

00:46:29.220 give sell it out and then like the minute you step off stage you kind of curl in a ball and

00:46:33.440 rock back and forth um also i've talked about it before but like my my i like theory i i like

00:46:42.120 walking stuff i like the combination of like looking at the things and just making them

00:46:46.200 happen that allows me to have a lot of interior time or time in fact and time in the book to just

00:46:51.480 be myself some of it is just like the way I was born concluded me having another option I am we

00:46:56.840 are not seeing people in full body and like the pandemic discomfort we're all discomfort

00:47:04.160 but at my genitals right now I'm about 5'11 to 150 pounds

00:47:12.100 so there's like not a lot of I can

00:47:16.020 hide in my

00:47:17.820 person

00:47:19.420 and that is a

00:47:22.160 like I'm a tall human

00:47:23.860 and that and it

00:47:26.020 seems like a strange thing to be so formative

00:47:28.120 but for me personally there's

00:47:30.140 not a lot of option of

00:47:32.020 camouflage there's not a lot of

00:47:34.120 like hey I'm going to walk into certain rooms

00:47:35.840 unnoticed and especially

00:47:37.920 as a black woman and I was

00:47:39.300 part of I'm from Far Rock

00:47:42.100 And this is a under-resourced neighborhood.

00:47:44.920 We have certain access that we don't.

00:47:46.820 So I was in a lot of things like one of the lonely onlys.

00:47:49.300 I couldn't hide in a room.

00:47:51.140 I would be purposely ignored.

00:47:53.860 But I'm going to have to be this person.

00:47:56.320 And the way I am built both physically and emotionally was like, I want to leave this challenge or I want to at least get good at faking it.

00:48:07.100 Like people are like, I have such anxiety sometimes about large groups of people.

00:48:11.380 I know how to make that anxiety look like I'm working the room but it's like here's quick tip

00:48:18.540 if you really don't like talking to large groups of people and you're in a large group of people

00:48:21.720 if you are very instantly and personally find every single person and talk to them for two to

00:48:25.700 three minutes it looks like you're working through the room you're actually working the runaway

00:48:30.440 people are like she's the life of the party that is a specific thing for me it was important for me

00:48:36.620 to develop a skill. I felt it necessary to develop a skill that I was going to be very solidly

00:48:43.100 myself. I was going to be strong about it. I was going to be clear about it because I didn't have

00:48:49.920 the option for other things. One of the things that a lot of some of my online things, people

00:48:53.760 are like, oh, you're being mean and this person is so nervous and anxious. And I'm like, what

00:48:57.800 makes you think I'm not? Why have you decided that I'm not anxious? Why have you decided that I'm not

00:49:04.020 scared or have you decided that it's okay for me to be scared based on what you think i am allowed

00:49:08.520 to be because there have been a lot of times oh you're the big mean monster and i'm like okay

00:49:13.840 no i'm not because while i'm talking to you i'm on the phone with somebody else and i'm crying i am 0.98

00:49:18.720 heaving sob like oh you like there are times and a lot of times with black women it's like anybody

00:49:23.920 who defend you like oh you're just sticking your people or your followers on them and i'm like 0.98

00:49:27.320 what would happen if you thought of them as my friends what would happen if you thought of some

00:49:32.560 of the people who are saying back up or leave me alone are saying that because they know

00:49:36.040 me as a human and they know that this affects me.

00:49:41.540 What, like, like what happens if my distress wasn't funny to you or a topic to you? And

00:49:46.060 I think that goes back to like what we were talking about for the subject. And a lot of

00:49:49.600 this is that people say black women, but they don't name them. And it's the back to the

00:49:54.820 citations of black women. It's like, we become a concept. We become a, they say black women

00:50:01.620 the way you would say pineapple or like fruit like oh fruits you have this composition like

00:50:07.940 not but it's not sentient beings and with the engagement what's happening to us it's along

00:50:13.660 the same line like it's very much we are a thing to be discussed but we are not people with which

00:50:21.940 these things have effects on we they mean things and often being like no this hurts no this is

00:50:27.600 scary like people i was like people often say like oh you do like oh like sometimes i told you so

00:50:32.960 is not an admonition it's not a dunk it's a cry for help sometimes i told you so is a question

00:50:39.220 like there are a lot of people we told you or i told you so it's like i am not trying to be the

00:50:44.960 smartest person in the room i really want to understand what was it about what i said what i

00:50:49.460 said that didn't register for you that didn't make you act and what would it take for it to

00:50:57.160 be something you acted upon. So that brings me to my big question. What could the internet look

00:51:05.060 like if we listened to Black women and recognized our humanity and centered us? What could the 0.99

00:51:12.260 internet be like? The internet would look like the world. The internet would look like a world

00:51:18.380 we actually live in. I would love to know what an internet that could honestly describe the

00:51:25.940 feeling of having

00:51:27.620 a really good piece of pineapple

00:51:31.560 with loved ones

00:51:33.360 at the edge of the beach

00:51:34.940 when you weren't

00:51:36.760 exactly that moment

00:51:38.620 I had a moment

00:51:39.740 we're like oh

00:51:43.180 you bite into a pineapple

00:51:44.340 and it is exactly what you want

00:51:46.980 in a space you want

00:51:48.140 or like when you

00:51:50.660 have

00:51:52.160 ever

00:51:53.880 read or heard something and it sparks something in you in that moment of just oh wow that what

00:52:04.020 would happen or what would happen if the the places where you bought your clothes showed

00:52:10.460 people who looked like you or what would happen if when you looked at descriptions of your

00:52:16.880 neighborhood it wasn't just the same things or like those spaces at that time or what would

00:52:25.400 happen if when you when something said all access it was actually all access

00:52:30.180 that you could sign into something and it wasn't about worrying whether or not

00:52:35.680 you had anything like you when movies and cinema are a big thing and like those are

00:52:39.420 it's rough because those are some of the largest pieces of mass communication and the largest

00:52:43.360 places we get culture and the most resistant to talking about it in any way that does not involve

00:52:48.000 gatekeeping but it's just like what would happen is when you walked in a movie theater

00:52:51.140 you knew you could watch the movie for people who are visually and

00:52:58.280 auditorily abled and mobility abled we never have to think about that there are so many people who

00:53:04.980 do not who have to think about that it doesn't have hearing capabilities does it have

00:53:12.100 visual description or is that an only one showing that is a that is a huge part of like if you're

00:53:17.380 from the world and like like you're actually from the world you're from you you went into something

00:53:24.020 that pretend that talked about the city you lived in and the story actually looked like those people

00:53:29.300 you encountered in your life or that if you went to a and i like movie theaters because they're

00:53:33.860 both visual and media consumers but if you were looking at the showings and you're looking at the

00:53:38.660 showings in a big city that had multiple languages and had people of multiple languages. When you

00:53:44.580 looked at the cinema, you knew that someone could come in and hear what they needed to hear,

00:53:48.540 or that at least one of those stories reflected them. And that wasn't, they didn't have to worry

00:53:53.660 about that. Those kind of tease outs and changes. And I think for me, the way I would close it is

00:54:02.980 that what would the world look like if they listen to us is another question is what would

00:54:09.840 listening look like it's like there would be a constant conversation of making everything

00:54:14.660 to do that to do something new and to do something fun not just profit off of it

00:54:20.420 and that space which is still ambiguous and isn't an answer would be magical and i think that would

00:54:27.040 lead to multiple more conversations but like i think of pineapple by the ocean surrounded by

00:54:33.280 people and a way to actually convey that in all of these mediums and that's that's that's what

00:54:40.960 happens like people will tell you how to sell that right now we talk about how to sell it how

00:54:44.100 to influence etc but to actually convey to a person point to point heart to heart this is what

00:54:49.020 it feels like for me and for you and that is both like for me you pineapple by the ocean sounds great

00:54:55.460 But one of us, we had somebody who liked apples and the hills.

00:54:59.240 That is a completely different thing.

00:55:01.600 And they would be like, and it's here's the thing.

00:55:04.460 I want to know what that feeling is like.

00:55:06.940 I want to know what they think of that.

00:55:09.100 I don't necessarily make them feel the same thing I do.

00:55:12.700 But that, to me, is the crux of it.

00:55:15.020 What would we get if we actually moved towards having those discussions

00:55:19.480 and not about these who influences what and does what?

00:55:23.320 That's the question for me.

00:55:25.460 is that actually it answers it beautifully now i want pineapple on the beach

00:55:31.180 so that i cannot thank you enough for taking the time to speak i've i wish i've chills your

00:55:39.080 i said i don't know i something about the way you show up in the world is such a gift and i

00:55:45.400 yeah i i am so grateful that you are a human with this thank you i'm grateful for you oh please 0.94

00:55:52.960 no but I am no no don't you dare don't you dare I this is a real thing every day we look at black

00:55:59.800 women and we are we are often feeling it alone we feel we unseen we feel misunderstood and every

00:56:05.800 day I get to look at you and I get to look at others and we're here and we're building so I am

00:56:10.160 grateful for you and please understand that is honest and true and met from the heart you are

00:56:15.960 amazing both for being Bridget but also for being human no one else likes you exist in this moment

00:56:21.680 I am thankful for that.

00:56:26.420 You cannot cry.

00:56:27.840 You cannot cry or I'll cry and then no.

00:56:30.220 No.

00:56:31.300 Stop. 0.82

00:56:33.380 Stop it.

00:56:34.140 I appreciate you so much.

00:56:52.160 We'd love to hear from you at hello at tangody.com. 0.95

00:56:55.300 Disinformed is brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:56:58.040 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:57:00.900 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

00:57:03.060 Tari Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer.

00:57:06.020 Michael Amato is our contributing producer.

00:57:08.300 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

00:57:09.840 For more great podcasts, check out the iHeartRadio app,

00:57:12.440 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:57:21.680 if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality

00:57:28.360 welcome home pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat for anyone

00:57:34.580 who thinks pride and prejudice and love island to serve the same level of discourse each week

00:57:39.120 we're connecting the dots between books the internet and pop culture with your favorite

00:57:43.140 writers book talk creators and plenty of overthought opinions yeah i'm obsessed so

00:57:48.040 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:58:18.040 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:58:26.340 I'm Nick Turturro. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, The Longest Yard, or Spike Lee's Black Klansman.

00:58:32.320 And on my new podcast, Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro, I deliver pizza to a new guest.

00:58:37.400 I've shared a slice with everyone, from Seth Rollins, to Bill Burr, to Bill Burr.

00:58:42.180 I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am.

00:58:47.100 And now we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Turturro.

00:58:51.960 It's called happiness, delivering happiness, and many, many more.

00:58:55.740 Open your free high heart radio app, search delivering happiness with Nick Turturro and

00:59:00.040 listen now.

00:59:01.240 I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb.

00:59:05.580 You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy.

00:59:10.900 Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody

00:59:16.480 hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space

00:59:22.640 with you. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

00:59:29.280 or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

There Are No Girls on the Internet - March 16, 2021

DISINFORMED： The Future of the Internet with Sydette Harry

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