NZXT PODCAST - #092 - MermaidRoyal

Episode Date: June 13, 2021

This week on the podcast, the crew are joined by streamer MermaidRoyal! Mermaid and the crew discuss building an inclusive space, pride, and hot dogs! Follow Mermaid on twitter.com/MermaidRoyal and check out our Trevor Project fundraiser at nzxt.co/trevorproject! Listen live to the NZXT 💜 CLUB CAST on our Discord server at discord.gg/nzxt every Thursday at 10AM PT and submit your questions to [e-mail]!

Hello and welcome from Rwanda, episode 92 of the NZC Clubcast, the official podcast of the NZC community. This podcast is recorded live every Thursday at 10.m. Pacific Standard Time of the official NZC Discord server and is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. So strap in because we're going in for Wild Ride, folks. My name is Dennis. And with me, as always, is Ivan. How I do, baby, boo? We're chilling. Big, big chilling on a Thursday morning, 10.04 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. West Coast, best coast. You're doing great. Also joining me, or us actually, is our co-host for Pride. Amanda. Hi, Amanda. How's it going, Mom? How's your morning been so far? Are you excited? It's been pretty good other than the town hall nerves earlier, you know, getting by.

Town hall nerves. I don't know what nerves. So we were talking about having nerves, and I told her that for me, not having nerds. nerves is a combination of having zero shame and like a low IQ. You can't get nervous if you just don't understand what's happening, right? I feel that. That's valid. It makes it really easy. Good point. Yeah.

So today's special guests for our first, our second Pridecast is international superstar, a lotted writer, motivational speaker, content creator, mermaid, royal. aka Jude. How you doing? Hi. Hello. Hi. I'm so happy to be here. Hello. How excited on a scale of one to 50 are you? Like 50. I think I'm at like 50. Okay. Solidly. The reason why I'm only at 50 and not at 75 is because the copy on that going live tweet about cold hot dogs. I have a bone to pick with your social media person. Yeah, that's, that's me. Great. I have a bone to pick with you specifically.

Yeah. When we were doing the copy for the announcement post, I was like, Ivan, you got to put something in about cold hot dogs. You won't get it, but trust me. It's going to be a thing. I'm fighting you. We're in a fight now. I had no idea why I was tweeting that. I just followed instructions. It's like, just trust me, man. Just trust me. Just trust me. Cold glizzy gang, right? Where are you at? I hate it. You're so much.

Yeah, so the context, do you know, I don't even remember what the context was. I think we were talking about, like... It was just, we were playing that pizza game on my channel, and then I think my chat was just being cursed because that's what they do. And then you showed up at the right time. You were in the right place at the right time for a cold, glizzy gang conversation. Yeah, I just get these, like, thoughts in my brain, and, like, I have to, like, get them out, right? whether it's like a cold hot dog or like, you know, pineapples and pizza or something like that.

It's not that bad. I'm sorry. I'm going to do the polarizing opinion. It's not that bad. Depending on the pizza, it could slap. Sorry about that. I got the animals in the background fighting. You guys probably hear this on the recording, so it's going to be great. No, I don't hear of them. So just... I do have a gloomy question.

Go for it. Oh, God. Which do you prefer beef, pork, chicken, or other? I mean, I like. I like pork hot dogs, but like I don't necessarily have like a preference preference because I don't eat them all that often. Yeah, I guess any answer is correct except chicken. The chicken glizzies are disgusting. The chicken ones are weird.

Chickens are weird. I'm sorry about it. They're just weird. Yeah. And I have a, I have a toddler. And for whatever reason, she prefers the chicken ones. So my wife's always always buying like the chicken glizzies and I hate them. They're disgusting to me.

I wasn't aware they made chicken hot dogs. That sounds really weird. Yeah. I'm not down for that, like, at all. Why would you do that? Like, if it was a chicken sausage, I would make sense, right? But a chicken hot dog, hot dogs are different, right? They're like, not even the same vein of, like, food group.

I'm sorry, we're going over, like, on this weird topic about hot dogs. I'm sorry, that's my energy. I brought this energy into the studio, and I'm very sorry. I am oddly comfortable with it, but we have so much to talk about, particularly you Jude. So we're really excited to have you on. You know, this is something that, you know, we've been wanting to do for like a long time. Just, you know, it's a more diverse group of folks on our podcast. And now that we're kind of really, really delving into like just all these efforts over here at NZXT, you know, we were just like, you know, we got to get someone on, man.

We get someone amazing. And, you know, we're like looking at you. and then we start emailing you and we're looking at your Twitter and like just how lit you get and it's been like a crazy wild ride. It's not it's it's it goes hard. Your your social media goes super super hard.

Thank you. And we're working on some content with you that we're going to post over on the NZC website in a little bit. And when I asked you how would you describe your content you said it's fun, inclusive, and chaotically queer.

Am I correct? Yeah. Can you delve a little bit into what that means? Yeah, so our content is I pride myself on creating fun, inclusive spaces online, right? And I was actually talking about this yesterday, but inclusivity for me specifically is leading a space that is trauma-informed and queer-centric. So my space is inclusive for queer people. It is not inclusive or like created with the intention of like welcoming quote unquote everybody. It is for the people that need the spaces.

And so my space inherently is queer because I am so open about my queerness and my journey and what that means as a non-binary, bisexual person in the world. But it also is very chaotic because we play visual novels and thirst over the characters or I get called out for thirsting over areas and Hades because have you seen him? or any

Yes, we have. Yes, we all have. And the beauty, I think, of, like, the mermaid kingdom in general is that, like, we are so comfortable with each other that that chaos is allowed to happen where we all feel a sense of, like, camaraderie and home that we are allowed to, like,

be our full and authentic selves, because that's really the point. The point of the mermaid kingdom in general is giving you a space to be who you are, without any like prerequisites. There are no boxes you need to check. Right. And there have been people who in my community have changed their pronouns,

have tried out new names for the first time. And I think that that's like a really beautiful thing. I think that it's something that like I hold very near and dear to my heart, that I was able to help facilitate a community where people feel comfortable discovering who they are outside of the lens of what the world deems as quote unquote acceptable. oh there's a baby i'm totally listening i'm sorry just uh no you're fine or like on a sick one right now this dude is just whiling out um i i i love you said there because i feel like it is really important to kind of create these spaces online for for all kinds of people right but particularly

like the the folks that you're trying to reach right um i think that it comes from a place of like not having that space for the longest time right and now that we have the opportunity especially especially online, to create our own, you know, our own areas where we can speak to these things and just, like, really, like, highlight, like, you know, what makes, you know, this group so amazing is something that's just, like, is, is really great. Can you, can you kind of talk to me a little bit about how you go ahead and, like, curate content for your, for your space? Yeah, absolutely. So it's not a job that's done alone. It's done with my mods. My mods are incredible, and I love them very much. We run a very tight ship over in the room.

kingdom. And we do that on purpose because I am someone who has complex PTSD, which if you don't know, complex PTSD is different from PTSD in the sense that it comes from prolonged trauma. So something that happens over and over and over again rather than one simple traumatic event. And with complex PTSD, it's very easy for you to go into fight or flight, even if nothing is happening. And so because of that, we run a very trauma-informed space, which means if you are talking about triggering topics, if you're talking about things that need a trigger warning or content warning, we ask that it does not happen in chat. There are places in the Discord that you're able to do that with spoiler tags on the posts. And there are certain sections of the Discord that you are

allowed to have those conversations in that are private and just for those people having those conversations. As far as like the actual stream goes, Mons are really good about circumventing any like triggering topics, deleting any unwanted energy. But Also, we have a few things that help make the stream an inclusive space, which is number one. We have an ableism command, which, if you don't know, we have a lot of linguistic ableism that happens in general. I'm going to say these words as an example, but words like dumb or crazy or stupid are technically linguistically abelist and can hurt disabled people. And so those words are banned in my stream. You can't say them.

And we also have a document that gives you the resources of what these words, are and what are the alternatives to these words because what are you actually trying to convey rather than what you're actually saying right and so that command is triggered whenever someone's like hey why did my message get deleted normally people will contact a mod and a mod's like that's why your message got deleted uh but also we have these things called pronoun checks where you can redeem with your channel points and then everyone sounds off their pronouns if they want to you love that and if you are trying out new pronouns for the first time i always encourage people to let us know so that we can gash you up and hype you up because it's scary.

It's very scary to try out new pronouns for the first time, especially if it's something that's been eating at you. And then the other few things that we've added recently that I think are very important are three different content warning slash trigger warning commands. One of them is for when we're having conversations about alcohol, which will say, hey, we're having conversations about alcohol. If you deal with alcoholism or need help,

this is the site that you can go to. Same thing for drug use if you are having conversations about drugs. And then, which we don't have very often, but sometimes when I have guests on the, on the stream, they sometimes will talk about it. So it's just really nice to have that kind of command ready to go. And then the last one is really important, which I don't hear about very often on Twitch, is a food content warning command because while we do sometimes joke about food and we do sometimes talk about food, I and a lot of members of my community actually are recovering for,

from an eating disorder. So it's very, like, important to be able to, like, have those warnings ready and available to go. That is amazing. I particularly, like, the one thing I thought was really cool was the ableism command that you guys have. Because I think this is something that actually mean I haven't had to deal with a while back. we made a really dumb tweet, right? That was like completely not within that context,

but a lot of people took it that way. And when we looked at it, we're like, okay, you know, like, these people were 100% right. You know, it's like, if you didn't know what we were talking about, you would literally think they were just like being the meanest people in the world, right?

So we really started taking a, like, real hard look into like what words were using, what they can mean to people and just like, like, because you, you may like not ever think about this, right? There are so many words that just sound okay until you realize there are certain people who hear these every single day in such a negative context, right? And it's like, it's not nice to see, right?

Especially from, you know, from a company whose entire bio is, you know, we love gamers, right? And when you say that, that means we have to love everybody and be aware of everybody and be inclusive of everybody and be really aware of like what we're talking about and how we're talking about it. Right. Yeah, that was actually my favorite thing that she said too because my daughter, you know, I don't think I've ever even mentioned on the podcast, but. she actually has a disability. She has a language disorder and she's three and a half and you know now I take her to the playground every day you know after work and I'm actually starting to see other kids tease her a little bit you know because she can't really communicate and I have to explain to these kids no you know she's she's not like being mean or she's not ignoring you

she just literally like can't communicate with you and you know I never once before I my at my my my at my at my kid like I never once really thought about like all these different you know disabilities that are out there and a lot of times you don't know you know like you don't know what people are are are going through and I think that's why it's even more important to like just kind of treat everyone you know like equally no matter in if they have disability or gender or sexuality or whatever like it's it's it's you never know right and like you mentioned PTSD, things like that, like even something like that. I think, you know, the last thing I was thinking about when I, when I was talking to you,

is like, I wonder if she has PTSD, but I don't know that, you know, like, I don't know, I don't know anything. So it's cool that you have all those commands. I think it gave me a good idea. We should probably add some of those on the server, Dennis. That's a really good idea. I know I think that's something we should probably talk about. The part that I've been really interesting is, like, how much you, you guys put,

put an effort into like education, which I think is really, it's really interesting because I've been, I've been really looking into, like, just the amount of, like, effort and time it takes to educate people, especially if they're already, like, really resistant.

Mm-hmm. And, like, it's something that is, from what I've gathered and, like, from what I've read and just from what I've seen, incredibly exhausting. Like, how do you, how do you just deal with that level of just, like, stress from people just, like,

who don't know, and now we have to educate one other person about, you know, this or another thing. I think it depends, right? Like, I can give people the resources, but whether or not they actually read the resources is on them. But in MySpace, because my Twitch is MySpace, if you come to MySpace and are disrespectful and I give you the tools and opportunity to learning, you don't take them, I'm just banning you. We don't mess with that energy in the kingdom. Like, you don't come into MySpace and disrespect me. That's not how it works.

I hope we don't play that, right? There are plenty of other spaces on Twitch. There are plenty of other spaces on Twitch that you can go and hang out and be an edgeboard in. My space is not one of them. And you don't know what you don't know, and I'm always willing to educate and help people learn and help people grow, right?

It happens all the time in my stream because I am someone who's very informed in a lot of different topics. Because for those who don't know, I used to do body positivity and body liberation work on YouTube for years before I pivoted to Twitch. and so my approach to these things is very different from someone who does not have that lens so I'm always willing to have a conversation with someone but there is a vibe there's a vibe

check that some people don't pass because you can tell when someone is asking questions in good faith and when someone is asking questions just to like be a dick and it's like because you can tell like I'm sorry for my for my language but like you can tell when someone's just coming in just to like because they know that I have the LGBTQ plus tag on or because I present in a certain way. Like you can tell when they're just being aggressive to be aggressive rather than from a place of ignorance. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I also want to say to, for those of you in the chat, so by the way, we are streaming this live on Discord.g.g. Or on Twitch.t.f.t.m.

slash nzx t um if you guys catch us saying anything uh me and iven are boomers right we're we are two foos from southern california right so if we ever say something that is like not cool feel free to let us know you know we we are always open to learn especially for me and iven this is such a learning process for us and we're like we're we're super here for it so if you guys want to dm us if you don't feel comfortable feel free we're totally totally cool with that that are worried all so to make sure that everyone is like we're on the same page right we're all We're all here to learn and we're all here to. I think yesterday, Dennis is something really funny.

He said, you know, it's really hard for a 30-year-old man to be learning about this stuff now. And it made me laugh because I'm a 40-year-old man. It is hard because, you know, I grew up, like, literally in a different world where a lot of the things that are not cool were just totally accepted and normal, you know. Like, and not just in society, but in things like TV shows. and music books and things like that. And looking back, I'm just like, wow. You cringe, dude. You cringe so hard.

It really makes me cringe because it was just so widely accepted. It's like normal. Like a normal part of life was, you know, treating people differently, basically. And, you know, now that it's that, you know, thankfully, you know, people are wising up and realizing, like, no, it doesn't have to be this way. like we could actually all like treat each other with dignity and respect and help each other it's just you know it's it like i guess dennis had a bet it's cringy like they grew up in that world you know we're all here to learn and you know no one's perfect and i and i and everyone listening um not amanda because she's smarter than dennis and i 100% yes right yeah yeah yeah comment and i are going to eat our bagels in the corner while y'all learn

yeah just take a seat right oh my god i've never been to can't here we go it's like a regular bagel but without a hole she's thinking for those who can't watch i'm thinking i'm thinking but probably not yeah apparently they're they're they're uh they're really good never had them either I'm just sitting here thinking about these these these bagels. I feel like it used to be how often can we bring up Trello on the podcast? Now it's how often can we bring up these bagels on the podcast, right? If like every, every podcast is not complete.

You know what we should do, Ivan, to be honest, we should have someone who's like a baker on the show to talk to us about Montreal bagels because I'm actually pretty curious now. There's like so much hype built up around them that they can't be as good as people say. There's no way. Didn't tell me you talked about it? On, like, her podcast? She did, but she's really the, exactly, she really the expert of Montreal bagels.

I mean, let's just, it's just be real, right? Okay. You're going to call her out a little bit, right? You go to fire baker specifically from a Montreal bakery who makes Montreal bagels? Exactly. You need that Montreal blood right here, right here in those veins. That's what the people want to hear. Exactly.

So, Jude, you talked about being you on stream. how do you be you on stream? Because I feel like a lot of the impression people get from content creators, especially really big ones, right? It's that they're not being there authentic cells, right? They're kind of playing to an audience. How do you keep it real when you're streaming? How do you keep it 100?

I think the most important part is that like I've never created a like, quote unquote, facade of who I was. Right. I was very open about who I was. starting from jump. And I think that that's the most important part is that like your, this is my favorite topic. We're going to talk about personal branding.

Let's do it. Let's do it. I'm ready. One of my favorite things about personal branding is that your personal brand or what you show to people based in content creation is the best parts of you, right? It's the best parts of you amplified to like 5,000, right? And so I am me on stream. I just have more energy than me in day to day.

Although sometimes I have just the same amount of energy. But me on stream or me making content is the exact same person you get when you call me in a Discord call at 3 a.m. Like it's the same person, except that I'm a little bit more on, right? Because I am juggling playing a game, talking to my mods, talking to chat, watching Twitter to make sure that we're good. Like there's a lot of stuff happening. But I am at the core of it, I am still myself and it's because I bake that into it. me Jude as a person is very loud and chaotic and queer and tries their best to be as inclusive as possible like that's me and my day to day I'm a very compassionate person

and I baked that into my streams that I'm not trying to be someone who I'm not right and I think that the most important part about how to be like yourself on the stream is to be authentic about everything that's happening and so I have very real conversations with my community all the time. We had a conversation the other day about what was it? Me apologizing for so we used to have a channel point redemption which was you could time out a mod or time out each other and I removed it and I was apologizing for it being an option in the first place and we were having a very real conversation about if anyone has ever felt slighted by that or if I made anyone feel targeted with that,

or if I made anyone feel belittled or smaller than because of certain conversations that we were having in stream, then I was sorry about that. And I think that, like, being open and honest with their community and being able to, like, know that it's not toxic positivity all the time is really important. And in my community have very real conversations about what's going on in the world and things that are affecting me.

And we have very real conversations about, like, content creation and stuff. Like I don't shy away from what content creation life is like and how numbers affect me and how we're going for these things and doing this stuff and like how sometimes money is tight. And like we have all of those conversations because I want everyone to understand that like I'm a real person. There's a real person behind this stream. And I think that that's the most important part is that like content creators are not infallible. We're human. We're going to make mistakes. And I think the most important part is watching whether or not those content creators are apologizing.

owning up to those mistakes. And that will tell you the truth of their character, right? And behind every great content creator are probably five or six great moderators who keep them in check. My moderators are incredible and keep me in line on Twitter and off Twitter. I'm less spicy on Twitter because my mods

and I had a conversation about how I needed to be less spicy on Twitter because it made their jobs harder. And I never want to make their jobs harder, right? And so it's a teamwork thing, right? So like I am myself because I'm fortunate enough to have the space to be myself. So yeah, I hope that answers your question about that. No, no, it totally does. And it's and that's great.

Like if it wasn't for our mods in our server, I don't think we would, it will be able to function, you know. And then, you know, obviously we've got to give a shout out to B because you She's like the master of just setting up a Discord channel. Like I will break it every single time to the point where she'll like yell at me. Hey, don't set anything up. If you need to move a channel to open anything, just let me know. I'm like, okay, cool. Totally hands off.

I don't want to touch it anymore. That's me with Joyce. Joyce is my community. She's one of my mods. And they are the, they're the person that created our server. And so every time we need something, I go to Joyce because every time I try and do something, I break it. Without fail, I break it. And I'm just like, Joyce, I'm so sorry.

I broke it. And they're like, I got it, I'll fix it. I'm like, okay. It is so easy to break a Discord channel for literally no reason. Like, for why, right? For what? For what? Like, I know.

It's so frustrating. I mean, I did a thing. So we have a rewards and our rewards are tied to the roles in the server, right? So as you're chatting in the server, you'll like level up and your rank up and you'll get rewards shipped to you automatically for free, right? Oh, that's cool. The way that they were tied into our automatic ordering system was based on plain text and not the ID of the role. So for April Fool's, right, and everyone else is already, for April Fool's, I saw, you know, we, we swapped all the rolls, which triggered a ridiculous amount of orders, right? And we're like, oh.

The only thing I've ever told Dennis was like, whatever you do in the server, do not change these roles. Because it's going to screw up a lot of things on the back end. Yeah. Yeah. And I was on vacation during that time. Yeah. So I was on multiple meetings with multiple people. I got a DM on Slack from one of our shipping peeps.

And they were like, hey, so the folks in our warehouses are asking for overtime if they want to complete these orders. I'm like, what orders are you talking about? What overtime can just do it on Monday? It turns out there's like a million orders they either fulfill. I'm like, well, time to fix and stuff. Yeah, so I am no longer in charge of touching the rolls. I did fix a problem, right? I did fix the issue.

I did fix, well, I didn't fix it. I contacted folks who can fix it for us to repair the underlying issue. But, you know, I no longer touch the roles because now I'm scared. I am afraid. I never want to do it again. If I never have to touch another role in my life, I don't think I will be missing out of much. There you go.

Just a PSA for everybody. Don't mess with Discord because Discord will mess with you. Pretty much. Amanda, I have a question for you. For me? Yeah, specifically for you. I don't like this. I hate when you put me on the spot.

No. Please stop. What is your question? I'll tell you if I'm going to answer it or not. Okay. How excited are you for Pride? Oh. Well, that's easy.

I'm super excited. On the scale of 1 to a bajillion, how are you excited are you for pride? Vigilient. I mean, I feel like you know the answer to this. Yes, because I'm leading you to a specific discussion topic. Amazing segue, by the way. What does pride mean to you? Because I don't think we've actually talked about this.

Like, when you think of pride, what, like, feelings does that instill in you? Awareness, acceptance, visibility. lots of things support being proud of who I am for sure the reason why I ask is because I feel like pride means a lot of things

with so many different people right as someone who is a cisgendered man from Santa California right I for me I take it as an opportunity to let others speak and do their thing and just support in any way I can right because I feel like it's really important and there's something like that I want to like keep hammering on

when we talk about just any kind of stuff like this is that, you know, we, we allow those in that space to just do their thing and celebrate how they want and, and just support, right? Because I feel like that's so important, you know, to, you know, men have the floor, have had the floor for such a long time, right? It's time for us to shut up and just let other people do their thing, right? So, like, I just wanted to, you know, like, kind of get on this, this topic, because, you know, we have Jude here to talk about pride. And, you know, it's, it's, it's so exciting for, for me, you know, to, to just highlight these individuals because, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's not something that, that we've,

we've been doing, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, it's incredibly humbling, you know, to see all these folks in this, in this space, just, like, do their thing. There's, like, so much to the internet, so much to social media, like, you can spend your entire life on the internet and just never, like, delve into any of these spaces. And, like, I highly recommend anybody who just, you know, is even curious, you know, just start following some great creators. So, Jude, do you have any, any creators that you love? Any, any folks on? So many.

Twitch, Twitter, MySpace, Live Journal, Zenga, you know, anyone you want to highlight. Any names are you out there? Is Tom from Myspace? Okay, here's the thing. I am going to list two teams, and then I will go into individuals if I can think of individual off the head. Yeah, let's do it. I'm a lead on two different Twitch teams. I'm a lead on Emporium and I'm a lead on Rainbow Arcade.

They're phenomenal queer individuals that are on these two teams. And I like, I don't put my full support behind a lot of people, but I do put my full support behind these two teams because I've like firsthand looked at all of the applicants that applied to these teams and handpicked the people that got to be on these teams. So if you're, You need teams to go to. Emporium and Rainbow Arcade are two of the big ones.

But also, there are so many, like, Twitch adding the tags made my life so much easier and just has brought a lot of joy to my life because I can just go and search for individuals that share my experience. But anyway, if you are not following the following people, you are making a mistake. you are not following Kita Paloza who advertises herself as black by and ready to cry

you are making a mistake I love that if you are not following Blisbear Blisbear has the three in the bear part of the name if you're not following Blisbear he is an amazing human being

who I love with all of my heart if you are not following Pagy who is an amazing non-binary femme who I love also making a mistake if you're not following Chanslin making a mistake

there are so many individuals Like I could go on and on and on. There are so many queer individuals on Twitch. And I think that a lot of people get a little messed up because they think that Twitch is still like a cis-hit white male boys club. But it's not. There are so many like fruitful and incredibly diverse communities on Twitch. The problem is we don't get the spotlight or the time of day

that a lot of our white male counterparts do. But it doesn't mean that they're not there. Just because you can't see them does not mean that they're not there. Right. And I have found so many homes on Twitch in these spaces because there are people who are themselves on stream and allow their communities to also be themselves. So yeah, that's a handful of people that I love.

But there are so many more. I think it's important to really like diversify your following on like all social platforms, right? the one thing that I really dislike about TikTok in particular and I used to get these all the time so I love TikTok I'm in TikTok I'm literally addicted to it right and the algorithm is so strong like I love the algorithm because you can really tailor your feet to what you want and the thing that really like a noise of the most is when people say I don't see enough of X Y and Z on my on my 4U page and I'm sitting there thinking like then you're probably not following the right people you don't like you are not liking you are not like diversifying your content it's funny you you say that that algorithm is the reason why I'm like really bored with TikTok because for whatever reason every time I I open up my for you page it's it's it's literally guys doing burnouts and trucks like I don't know why I've never been on that side of TikTok it's like you guys doing donuts and trucks it's because you're watching it you're like staying and watching the video so it thinks you like it

so it's gonna feed you more of that I like I liked one cut video once and then the Just feed me. So food, right? But I bet you stay and watch it. Guaranteed. I mean, well, they're feeding it to me, so I have no choice. You do have a choice. So if you hold it and click not interested, they won't show it to you anymore.

Oh, I didn't know when you could do that. Yeah, yeah. So the cool thing about- Teaching how to use TikTok today. The cool thing about TikTok is that you're able to tell it that you're not interested in certain content. Right? And so you're also able to like go into tags and like, like a bunch of content from something that you do want to see and that will start

influencing your algorithm as well like if you don't want to spend the time like following a bunch of creators just go into the tag like all the videos in the tag and the algorithm will be like oh this person likes this so i'm going to push more of this content to this person uh so that they stay on the app longer yeah i was um i was i was reading this really interesting article about about just algorithms and social in general and it really got me thinking to like you know the the entire purpose of social media right is to keep you on there as long as possible right looking at content liking content interactive content so it's going to serve you the stuff that it thinks you want to see or it thinks other people want to see right and that's the kind

of like the beauty of TikTok is it it is able to like gather so much information on your viewing habits so quickly that you can like instantly change the the way that like you are getting content um like for for example for myself I noticed they were they were serving me a lot of really weird, like, cringy, like, modern warfare content. I don't even, like, ever interact with, like, anything regarding Call of Duty. Like, I'll play it, but, like, I don't, like, watch videos. I don't, you know, read guides or anything like that. So what I did is, like, I literally went to the search.

I searched Latinx. I found some people that thought were cool. I liked. I commented, right? I stayed there and viewed, you know, a couple videos. Next thing I know, the next, like, 20 videos are all just, like, really awesome content. Okay, great. Finally, I'm finally back on, you know, my.

My people's side of TikTok, I can like enjoy it. And I feel like, you know, if more people spent that time, like, really curating, like, what they want to see, they'll get some really awesome content and, like, be exposed to some really amazing creators. And, like, you know, once I started following you and some of the folks on my personal account, you know, I'm starting to see more and more of that stuff. And it's really great. Like, it's really diversifying my content because my background in gaming is like 100% in the fighting game community. Right. And for as small as that community is, it's actually incredibly diverse, right? There's a really interesting amount of people, and I'm sure someone could, like, write a paper on this,

unlike just the individuals in the fighting game community from all walks life, right? You know, whether they're Bipok or they're white, you know, or they're, you know, they're trans or whatever. You know, they're like just as a good example, like Sonic Fox, right? Arguably the greatest fighting player of all time is a furry, right? and he's trans and he's black, right? Like, come on, right? We love. Yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah, it's great. It's great. So, you know, like, this is a PSA, again, for you folks, right? Take a look at your content. If you don't like it, if you're not seeing what you want to see, start messing with it. Because I guarantee you the minute you start, like, really actively thinking about what you're following and what you're interacting with, it's going to change.

It's going to change really, really quickly because these platforms want you to stay on there are so, so bad. You mentioned you earlier the tags. How does that work on Twitch? Because I haven't really mess with that too much yet. So I want them to increase this. But basically on Twitch in general, you were able to add up to five tags to your stream. Right.

And these tags before the new tags were introduced were just about like gameplay, right? Minus the LGBTQ plus tag, which had been around for a while. And there had been a campaign on Twitter from different trans and individuals to add a trans tag for a variety of reasons, but the most important one being you can be LGBTQ plus and still be transphobic. And trans folks have a very specific experience that is very similar but different to being just queer, right? Gender variance and sexual orientation are separate. And people campaigned for like two years to get a trans tag and we finally got it. So when you go to create your stream, you'll see the tag section.

You can add the tags. They added up to 350 tags that are about queerness, gender, your heritage, ethnicity, ability. They added a bunch of ability tags. They added a bunch of stuff. And these tags, the way that they work is that if you go on Twitch and you hit browse, when you're browsing within a category, you can also hit, You can also search within tags. And so like if I want to watch dead by daylight,

but I only want to watch non-binary Latinx people play dead by daylight, I can add non-binary and I can add Latinx to tags. And it'll only show me streams that are happening with non-binary Latinx people. That's awesome. Which is really cool. About time. It's about time. And so it's really, really, really fun to be able to like find people in our communities.

And there have been so many tweets from people like, I know Miss Ashrock made a Twitter post about finding other black creators on the platform. It also finally stops the BS. Do you know any black creator Twitter posts that I see all the time? Yeah, yeah. So, because now I can just go, hey, why don't you just go filter the tags and the game categories that you want to look for? Rather than using it as engagement, you know, but it is what it is. Yeah.

So I'm really excited about the tags. I think the tags are really fun. Okay, it's super cool And I think that Sorry Dennis I think that their reasoning for not doing it Was kind of bogus to be honest Like there's gonna be trolls

There's always gonna be people that are there to like You know They want to spread hate and they want to be negative And they're gonna click on that tag Just to go in there and do that But that's why we have moderators right Like we don't need to not have tags We can just have great moderation teams

That can filter that stuff out I think the fact that it offers a window into that representation kind of trumps that, right? That's a more positive thing I think we need to be focusing on versus not doing things because we think that people are going to be trolls about it, right? That doesn't really help anyone. So I'm glad that they made that decision and I am like super sorry to, you know, all the streamers out there that had to wait so long to be able to have that feature. Yeah. And like campaigned for it and like had 10K votes on user voice before Twitch. did anything about it but and it got super ignored but like it's i mean it's here now and and

we can we can criticize twitch and ask them to do better and we can also recognize that like it's nice that we have it now yeah for sure for sure it's great i'm sorry give me like one second no go for go for go for it um i'm duck slipping out now i think has to go potty the the the the fun part of having animals right amanda yeah well toby's like full on pass out. I brought in a blanket for him. He's just laying on it chilling. Just totally like asleep right now.

So he's not bothering me and I love that. I'm trying to get there too. So Jude, you mentioned something that I wanted to ask. It's a super silly question, but something that I've been noticing is something that like I've always been curious. So the day by daylight community

is incredibly diverse and why is that? Like I've like, as soon as I started playing the game and like in like watching streams just like on my own because I think I bought the game like two three years ago like during like a during like a sale and it's like oh you know this game's really cool I suck at it let me watch you know some streamers

and there's like so many people on there what's up with dead by daylight like I think that like the community it's like okay so there's a difference so like the Twitch community and the community that like dead by daylight is about right

yeah that like the social people talk to are all incredibly queer and diverse, and we love them. Interesting. And then there's like the people who are really homophobic that are like in the shadows of the community and always like come out. But I think that like queer folk and diverse people feel really safe in Dead by Daylight because the social media people who run Dead By Daylight's Twitter account are incredible. And I know this because last year when Elex did a Jane Romero look for pride,

a lot of homophobes came out and was like, someone was like, oh, why did it? have to see this content and the person who was running dead by delay socials was like, I'll ensure that you never see it again and block them and it was incredible and they do it all the time and it's so great. And the people at Deby Daylight and at behavior are trying really hard

to diversify the game as much as possible and they still have a long way to go right. Only six out of the 24 killers I think are POC coded and only eight I think out of the 20 something survivors are people of color.

So like we still have a very long way to go. And we know that, but we also recognize that, like, there is a lot of diversity in this, in this game. And a lot of us enjoy it and we think it's fun and it's a cool game to play with our friends. And Dead by Daylight, including an automatic, like, fan feature or an automatic filter feature for endgame chat. Like, that's huge. That's such a big thing that a lot of games, a lot of AAA games don't even include in their games. Last Pride, DeBad Daylight, released the like 20-something BTTV emotes for Pride that we were able to use all around Twitch.

Like, there are initiatives that are happening at behavior and at Deepak Daylight that make us feel included and safe. And also, it's just really fun to, like, be able to go into queer streams on Twitch and watch people, like, mess some shit up as a killer. I enjoy it. It's really fun. And I don't know. I think that like having, knowing that we have the support of the developers and the people who work at behavior make us feel a lot safer to stream the game. And Dead by Daylight is very open and honest about the kind of culture that it wants to create. And it goes back to that curation that we were talking about in creating like an inclusive space.

Yeah. Dead by Daylight is trying its best to create an inclusive space for us. And we recognize that and we see that. Super noticeable. It's super inclusive and it's super fun. And we recognize that and see that. And so we want to play the game more. And this is something that you're going to be seeing more often

is that those of us who are in marginalized identities are going to want to engage with and invest in games and developers and places that make us feel safe. Because we don't have to choose the other option, which for a very long time was endure the hands. hate and the harassment and the abuse and don't say anything about it because otherwise you're being too difficult. Yeah. I, so I literally do this myself because, you know, I am, so my mom's from Mexico, my death from Nicaragua, right? There's like zero, there's zero Nicaragans anywhere. They just

don't exist for some reason. I guess I'll just stay home, right? But like, whenever I'll see like a cool skin, right, that's like, you know, representing the culture or something like that, I always buy it. I have to. It's, you have to have it. I have to do it. Yeah. It's like, oh, you know, cool. It's definitely, like, for me, I mean, this is like such a low-hanging fruit, but like, especially during like Day of the Dead Halloween, right? You always see those skins come out.

I buy every single one. I have to you because they're so cool looking and like, and like I want people to see it, right? It's like, I want you to see me wearing this, this, this, this skin, wearing this outfit as I'm shooting you in the face. You have to see this now. Enjoy that, right? Just have fun.

We love you. Have fun. Bye. Yeah, but you're just like super duper right because we were watching, this one streamer on on Twitch was it was day by daylight and I can't remember the name Amanda if you remember but they were so amazing and so funny and just so just like

so great to watch and I was like man like I wish that you know we could just like scoop up all these people and just like bring them into the family because there's there's so many amazing people particularly day by daylight like I you know it's there's definitely something in the water there you know and and and it's like you're saying it 100% comes from just like cultivating that culture, cultivating those relationships, like recognizing those people, uplifting, highlighting them, just like making them feel seen and known. And like, it definitely shows,

right? It definitely, definitely shows. So because we were talking about like dead by daylight in the way that they handle their, they're like, you know, inclusion, there's something that like we've been noticing on like the corporate side, you know, because we are in 60, right, we are a, you know, we are a company, we sell products, so and so forth. How do you, how do you feel about like organization celebrating pride because it's a very interesting topic i think for me at least like it doesn't bother me when certain companies celebrate pride yeah uh and the companies that it doesn't bother me when they celebrate pride are the people that are doing the work all year round yeah right the companies that are supporting queer issues all year round the people the companies that are

uplifting queer creators all year round right because for a lot of companies were only visible during Pride and then Pride's over and they don't give it single damn about us. Yeah. You know, and it's why actually I have an initiative that happens in December called Pride December where we raise money for a certain queer organization and I highlight a bunch of queer creators on Twitch and we all play games together and vibe and hang out and we all raise money for a cool cause. Last year was our first year doing it and we raised 35K for the LGBTQ plus freedom, LGBT freedom fund.

And that happened in December. And it's because pride does not only happen in June. We are queer in June and outside of June. And there are a lot of companies who do not recognize that. And there are also a lot of companies who support a lot of homophobic and transphobic things and then decide to change their profile pictures to rainbow for pride. And so I guess for me, it doesn't bother me if a company is celebrating pride if they are doing the work outside of pride to.

support and uplift these creators. Yeah. I think that's totally valid. And I think on the other hand, too, I think there's a lot of people in the LGBTQIA plus community who are organizing these pride events. Like for me personally, I was given pride. I'm part of the community and I was given this really great opportunity to create this fundraiser and this campaign and all of the content that we have going on and everything. Like, I organized all

of it and I felt super uplifted and supported and I think that like for me personally like if I know that someone a part of the community is behind that I try to support that and I'm like okay like I see this brand like they're lifting up their you know their employees that are in the community and that's awesome but yeah you miss me on the the brands that literally just changed to like the rainbow colors for that month and literally have nothing going on like they don't even do like they do the absolute well I guess what it's in their mind is the bare minimum and nothing else right yeah so then I'm like eh you know what whatever something that we were talking about just yesterday actually because because Dennis and I were having a discussion about what do you want to do for the rest of the year

on social media and Dennis brought up a good point and he said you know we should be supporting pride more throughout the year not just on pride month because if we're going to be doing this only once a month, it's just kind of like, it's not that it's pointless, but it's just that it's like, you know. It's not enough. It's not enough. Yeah, it's not enough. Like Amanda said, we have, we have employees here who are LGBTQIA plus. We have community members. We have friends. We have, you know, kids, et cetera. Like, and for us to not like uplift these people year round, it's almost it's almost just like we're not doing what we should be doing, right? But yeah, we're still new to this, to be honest.

Like, this is literally the second year where we've supported pride. And we want to do more, you know, and we hope that, you know, next year, like, we look back at this year and be like, wow, like, we only did that. Like, and this year, look at what we're doing all, like, this year, it's awesome, you know? So hopefully every year just getting more and more and bigger and bigger. Yeah, I mean, I definitely want to. to spread things out for the rest of this year and continue supporting. And I think we're really taking DEI seriously inside NCC, making a lot of changes and empowering people to do more and give back. And we're starting to, you know, collect our plans and the orgs we want to celebrate and all this

stuff. And I think that like, I mean, I'm really excited about it. I'm super excited. We're going to be doing so many things and I just like am super grateful also for the opportunity to do what I've done for this month and um you know I can't say that like in some of the past companies I've worked at that I've been giving that opportunity not trying to like patents I think we have a lot of a lot to do still but I think that this was a great start and I also appreciate your feedback on that because like yeah that just kind of solidifies like you know nudge nudge guys we got to do more um and yeah Cool. That's great. I was actually going to ask that question.

Oh, great. Awesome. Sorry. Yeah, like from the social side, it's honestly, like, I'm not going to say it's easy, but there's a lot of low-hanging effort, right? Like liking, commenting, retweeting, you know, like finding people that you like, you know, uploading their content, you know, just simply saying hi, you know, like just a like does so much because that stuff will show up on people's feeds, right? Like if they've never seen that person before and you're scrolling through your Twitter, it'll be like NCXT liked this person's, you know, a post.

And like that, even that does so much, right? Obviously, there's so much more to go, but just from like a base level, like, as any person who runs a corporate Twitter, you know, and it's trying to be the fun, edgy, whatever Twitter account. Yeah. Like just liking that stuff makes it so, makes such a difference, right? because it's, you know, sometimes you just want to be seen, right? You just want to be recognized. You just want people to know that they know that you're out there and that they're paying attention, right? That does a lot, especially for groups who haven't had that for the longest time.

Right. No, exactly. Another byproduct of a celebrating pride is we're able to filter out the people that we don't want to follow us as well. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Can we talk about that? Can we talk about that, please? Yeah, let's talk about that for sure.

people like the second we changed our logo we lost like a thousand Instagram followers and we've never we never lost like Instagram followers and and then on June 1st you know we lost like it's like two K or three thousand followers on June 1st because we started posting like pride content and yeah and then the comments of people are like oh I guess I'm gonna return my NZXT computer or oh you already got it. And it's like, so they already have your money. I don't understand. They already have your money.

Or they'll say stuff like, I'm on following you guys or like, you guys don't have to do this or whatever. And like, it makes me feel two ways. Like the first way, my immediate reaction is just sadness. Like sadness that people like this in the world who, who, you know, like would do something like that just because we want to, like, support someone, right? And then the second part of me is like, good riddance. Like, I don't want you. Yeah, like, bye.

Like, yeah, like, if you want to, if you don't want to do business with us, because we want to support gay people, then please don't follow and return everything you ever bought from us. Like, please, like, I. You can't play games ever again on install everything. Yeah, exactly. And return it the way you found it. Thank you very much.

Yes. The funniest part are the people who like, I have a, you know, NZXT, phantom, whatever. Like, like, back, we haven't sold that case in like 20 years. Like, you're not really. customer at this point. Like, I'm going to be honest, right? Like, is this my right? It's like, listen, I have a Chevy Nova from like 1980 and I'm never buying a Ford again.

Okay, well, like, you know. Were you anyway? Yeah. Are you going to buy one to begin with? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we're trying to cultivate the community that we want to see, right? So if we have people who don't want to support the things that we're supporting,

okay, I'm sure there's other like brands that we're talking about. on earlier that just, you know, ignore that pride exists and things like that. And I guess you can go support them. Sure, fine. But we're going to continue doing the work that we want to do here. And, you know, the people that stick around for that are the people that we want. That's the kind of community that we want here. So. Exactly. 100%. It's just, you know, it starts from just showing people what you stand for and what you're about, right? And this thing that I told Ivan, when we did our first, you know, post where we were supporting a group and not just being accompanied posting funny stuff. It's like, I told live and it's like, dude, like this is the, this is the, you know, we've opened the

door. There's no going back, right? Now we just got to go hard, right? Like, we can't turn back on it. There's no way because then you get nothing from it, right? So now that we're telling people what we're about, we have to really be about it and like really put in an effort and support as much as we can and work with all the teams and get them in that mindset as well, right?

Because especially when you spend so much time not doing it. anything, the minute you turn on that switch, it's like, okay, what do we go from here, right? How do we continue on? So it's been a really great journey here because I've been in Zixie for two years now and, you know, I'm really like proud to be, you know, a part of this like change and just like shift in like the company's focus, especially with like how we present ourselves who were supporting the people that we're partnering with, so on and so forth. It's just, it's, it's been great. It's been really, really great. Yeah, but we still have a lot to do for sure. So much. Yeah. So much. So much. Yeah. It's just, it's just. It's just, it's just. It's just, it's just. It's

beginning. Yeah. So, Jude, I know we only had you till 11. We have a couple of questions. If you have to bounce, totally cool. Yeah, let's do the questions. I'm down. Awesome.

Awesome. Awesome. If you guys have any folks, if you folks have any questions, I am like blanking. I did the same. So we had a company town hall this morning and I did the exact same thing in front of like the entire company just stumbling over my words. It's been great. And I do a podcast like every week.

So if you have questions. Please ask them. If you want to ask a question off the air, we'll be more than happy to answer. We'll send an email out to Jude, say, hey, someone has a question from three weeks ago. Yeah. Just apply his email and just bug them all the time. Clubcast at n-Z-C-T.com. That is C-L-U-C-A-S-T-C-A-S-T-C-C-E-T.com.

We're trying to get to a five-to-one ratio minimum of spam emails to actual questions. So let's get there, folks. Number one question from Akidna, what are your preferred hot dog condiments? Catchup. I'm very basic. Really? Just ketchup. Just ketchup.

I do male ketchup mustard. And sometimes gold onions. And if I'm... Who onions are also good. If I'm leaving like a concert, I got to go to the peeps with like the little hot dog setup and I got to get whatever they throw on there. How to do it for the culture. I don't like mustard all that much. I'm not really a mustard person.

Oh, no. No. All right, podcast. I feel like you and I disagree on food opinions a lot, Dennis. I feel like this is a war waiting to happen. It's not a war that I want, but I just feel like, you know. The correct answer was sourcrow, by the way. I don't like sourcrow.

I don't like sourcrow. Nope, I'm not down for that. I like sourcrow. I don't like it. You're a lot of like the things that you want to like, but I just don't like it. Sourcrow's delicious. That's fine. Seriously, sourcrow and mustard?

That's like my go-to. Fine too. Oh, God. Oh, no. Vow in the chat saying, just wait till they found out about pickled watermelons. Is that a thing? Pickled watermelons? No.

Furious. Really? I'm concerned. I'm Googling this. I don't believe you. The rind? Yeah, I guess the rind. It's a rind.

Okay. It's the rind of the watermelon. Who is the rind? Watermelon pickles. Russian-style pickled watermelon. That seems like a Russian thing. I'm like a Russian thing. I mean,

I would try it, but it's kind of... It just feels... Why wouldn't you just buy pickles? Yeah. Or just eat watermelon. I mean, I don't like pickles to begin with. So I Google, so someone, when you Google watermelon rind pickles, you also get the what did other people ask.

So it says, what is pickled watermelon used for? Use them in crunchy cabbage salads or add a little sass to your sandwiches and wraps by layering of the chopped pickles with a rice. of your ingredients. I've never once been making a sandwich. I was like, knew what this needs? Some sass.

Let me grab out that pickled watermelon. Watermelon rinds. Just bust out that sass. Okay, next question is from Amelia. What are your favorite games? So I think we've all pretty much answered these. I don't think we've heard from Amanda in a bit. So Amanda, what's your favorite game?

I, the reason why you haven't heard from me is because I don't know. Of all time. I don't have any favorite games. I mean, I love it takes two. It takes you. I'm going through it. It's been fun, though. Yeah, it's super awesome.

I've been going through it with my girlfriend and we've been having a really good time with it. And just like the different levels and like it's crazy to me how many different mechanics they fit into that game. Like every single time you go to a new level, the game is just constantly changing. It's so dynamic. One of the best games I've played in a really long time, to be honest with you. And I think, you know what? That's all I'm going to say. Everything is like, okay.

But like, I don't know. I'm not really enjoying anything right now. I think it's been kind of crappy for games for like the past couple years, honestly, in my opinion. But, you know, I'm also working on doing and taking care of my puppies. So I don't have a lot of time for games anymore. Yeah. I just school. I think you're muted, Dennis.

Dennis are muted. No, I'm not. Jude, what's your favorite game? I mean, Debra Daly is obviously something that's very heavy in my rotation. Right? I'm also playing a full out of Fortnite. So the new Fortnite season dropped, there's aliens and alien abductions, and it's fun. It's a game that I play with my friends. I like games that I can play with my friends and goof around and have fun with. As far as, like, single-player games go, I'm really enjoying Hades.

I'm trying really hard to get a speed run strat together to be able to actually like finish the story of this game but yeah those are like the three games that I'm pretty much playing right now I was just about to ask like are we are we enjoying Hades for the gameplay or for the characters

Listen Hades is the bisexual panic simulator that is what Hades is and if anyone's going to tell me that I'm wrong I'm not Absolutely right Can confirm It is the bisexual panic simulator

For a lot of Have you looked at Magara lately Have you looked at that nose Like the people that you can romance in the game Which are those two And then platonically Dusa Like hello My favorite game is super mega baseball

And Dennis has been giving me crap about this every day for like the last year because that's literally the only game I play it's really fun and then I always tell him you know you should buy it it's really fun you know even Amanda has it and he always says I'm not going to pay $50 for a baseball game it's expensive it's a pricey game it's so expensive he came in the other day and yeah and he's like you want to play I'm like sure let's play so we played at lunch and I basically mercy ruled him Like, I think I scored like 30 runs to one. And that's why I won't play with you.

It started so well, too, because I wasn't expecting to win at all. Because, I'm, first off, I don't know anything about baseball, right? I watched the game, but I don't understand the rules, right? But I got one run on Ivan. I think it was like in the first inning. And I'm like, oh, my God, like, I can actually do a thing. And then I just proceed to just downhill, just, you know, get wrecked. And it was a.

Because you were playing with your fight stick. Exactly, yeah. He's swinging the joystick like a bat. Yep. I bust out the old hoary. All right. Next question is from Amelia. For Jude, what is the best thing you love about the community you've created?

I think it's just how supportive they are of one another. Like, I think that I've really curated a space where everyone really loves and cares about each other. and there's a level of compassion that exists in our space. Like when people come into chat, there's at least five different people who say hello, like the mods and then also people in the community. And like, it's just so sweet to watch them all, like before I even go live, like when I'm on the starting student screen,

watch them all get excited about seeing each other and have that conversation with each other and it's just so nice. And like in the Discord, like my Discord is always popping off. Like we now made a curse content channel so that they can have all their cursed thoughts in one place and so people don't have to tune into it if they don't want to. So they now have their own cursed content channel and I'll wake up in the morning to like 300 messages of them all kicking in that channel and having fun in that channel for like hours. And I'm like, what did I come back to? Like what is happening? And I don't know, I think it's just

so nice to like be a facilitator of a community where everyone truly like feels comfortable enough to be themselves. And like it is the greatest gift that I could have ever received. for being a content creator is the community that I that I have because I always feel so supported and so loved by them and so like I never feel completely alone because I know that like I can lean on them if I need to and they never make me feel bad for like needing to take days off or time off or things like that because like as someone who has PTSD but also has fibromyalgia sometimes like the body ain't working and we got it we got to not do things

And they never make me feel bad about it. They're just like, please go take care of yourself. And please go. And it's very anti-capitalist in that way, where it's like, please don't feel like you owe us and that you have to be here. Please just go take care of yourself because we care about you as an individual and person and human. So yeah. That's something that I think Jamba said as well when we had them on.

They were telling us that they will take breaks all the time. and their community is so supportive of just like, hey, I can't do this right now. I'm not feeling well. And I'm like, great, awesome, cool. We'll see you when you come back. Which I think is super important because the streaming career for a lot of people is always so like grindy, grindy, grandy, right?

You know, I got to stay on my grind. You know, I woke up at 3 in the morning and, you know, I like ate 50 watermelons that were all pickled, right? And I, you know, did like 50 sets of the gym. And like, people are not designed to work like that, right? It's been instilled at us that we have to, but I think in reality, That's not really how it works out.

Right. Okay. Next question that we got here is, if you could create a TV show, what would it be about? It would be about a group of hot, hot fat babes, specifically hot fat queer babes doing hot babe shit and kicking ass. That's what it would be about, which actually, fun effect, I am making a TDRPG series about that, but where it's high fantasy and we're all. going to just be hot fat queer babes doing a bunch of shit. But that's what it would be about only because, like, it's very rare that you find a fat, femme character in media that does not feel bad about their body.

And it's not made to feel bad about your body. And I think that, like, if I have the power and money and time to create that, that's what I would want to create because I think that it's so important because if we are talking about, like, logistically, I think about things logistically all the time. I'm so sorry. I know this is a joke question. but this is what I'm thinking about. When we are talking about, like, logistically,

like the average-sized woman in the U.S. is a size U.S. 16 to 18, and you do not see that size of woman being allowed to play on genuine characters in media. And my background is in acting. For those who don't know, I have a bachelor's in acting. So that's what I think about. What I think about TV shows is how, like, not diverse TV is. Yes.

you're meated. I hit the button and it didn't do it because the animals are fine in the background. No, I think the TV in general is just so, it's so just like not

it's not where it needs to be. I think this is why old media is dying because they tried to cater way too much to such a broad audience that it becomes almost like not even interesting. It's just like, it's just content that just lives there.

It doesn't do anything, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Next question. This one's from Ramey. I'm pretty sure I'm pronouncing this right because I don't think I've ever said it out loud. When did you learn for yourself that you were non-binary and when did you first come out to someone?

So I learned I was non-binary when I was 19 or 20. I was actually talking about this yesterday too. So I had gone, I think it was after my sophomore year actually. I think it was in between my sophomore and junior year. I worked in the Diversity and Inclusion Center at school. and I started learning about like different gender identities and non-binary identity and having a lot of conversations with people in my office who are non-binary. And I was struggling for the longest time because I didn't necessarily feel like a woman.

I didn't like the term woman used for me and I never could really pinpoint why. I just thought that maybe I was just a very like hyper-feminine person who just didn't like that to be used to describe me. And as I had these conversations, I realized more and more that it was because I was non-binary. And the reason how I figured out I was non-binary was because I realized the parallels between the conversations that I had with myself when I figured out it was bisexual. So when I figured out I was bisexual, there was a conversation of like, am I really by? And someone close to me at the time had it made a very interesting point, which was straight people don't think about women in that way. And so I think for me, it was really important to like notice that parallel and know that like

cis people don't think about their gender in this way You know what I mean and like when I came out I came out to my friend Ashley first actually was the first person I came out to you And they were like They were so supportive and we together realized that when I was 15 I changed my name to Jude and I had changed it because I died my hair blue and I just didn't like my original birth name, so I changed it to Jude. And it took me five years to realize that the reason why I felt more comfortable with Jude as a name is because it is a more androgynous name. There's no gender perception that is created when you hear that name, right?

If anything, it is more masculine sounding than anything else. And so that's when I realized I was non-binary. And it was a very trying, it was lots of trials and tribulations because I have a lot of older people in my life who I love and respect. who don't necessarily understand non-binary identity and are trying their best to understand it, but when I first came out, we're like, okay, but I'm a woman and I don't feel like a woman all the time, et cetera, et cetera, not trying to invalidate me, just trying to like understand what I was trying to say, but something that I say all the time is that the English language is not expansive enough to describe gender and sexuality in the words that we need to use to describe it.

And so it is impossible for us to fully 100% describe how we feel about our gender without people being confused because we don't have the language to express it. I love that. Yeah. I was like I was saying, this is really, really great. That's awesome. Okay, next question. Sorry, I got a little frog in my throat. Very good.

All right. So we got two more. This one's from Lou. What should NSXT and other companies be doing better to support? the LGBTQIA plus employees or the community at large. I think that I can't speak on the employee thing because I haven't been in like a corporate system for a very long time.

But I think that uplifting queer creators all year round, uplifting their employees, giving them more opportunities that their cis-hete counterparts get, things like that, understanding, like educating yourself so that the queer people at your company don't have, have to educate you is really important. Google is free. There's lots of resources on Google about sexuality and gender now.

There's lots of articles that have been written on Wear Your Voice and Bitch Magazine and AutoShaddle. There's lots of information on the internet about these things. And I think that it's imperative that you do not put the onus on the queer people that you interact with in day-to-day to educate you fully on those topics. You can ask them about the nuances if they're open to talking about the nuances, but I think that like for the basic concepts,

doing research on your own is important. I think that companies just need to do better at uplifting queer creators outside of Pride Months. Yeah. That's that's really it. Like I really would love to see. Hint Hint, hint. Well, not just y'all, but like so many other companies.

Oh, no, for sure. Yeah. Just don't do it. And we're just kind of like, all right, well, prize over so I guess none of us get any cookies this year kind of kind of thing you know don't worry cookies are for everybody all year round hell yeah everyone gets cookies um sorry minna yeah i just i wanted to say too off of the education aspect like even companies offering that um for their own employees right like have some panels have some speakers coming in talking on these issues or just spreading that

information so you're right that that pressure isn't on um the queer people of that company to have to to have to educate others, right? So I think like almost hosting that themselves and having people come and talk is like great. I think on the benefit side, a lot of companies could do better with benefits. Yeah. Make those benefits inclusive.

You know what I mean? So I think that that's another area where companies could improve. And I also agree, yeah, definitely on the creator side too. And I don't see enough of that. I do see a lot of the, hey, if you're this type of creator response to this, But yeah, I don't see a lot of the highlighting and we're also kind of, you know, faulted there as well.

So that's something that I think we can take away from this and be like that's something that we absolutely should improve on for sure. Single-handedly changing the company in one podcast, right? I'm kidding. Hey, I'll make it happen. Let's do it. I lied. There's another question here. Why is it important for a workplace to be anti-capitalist, do you think?

I think it's a really interesting topic. I think it's important for a workplace to be anti-capitalist because you are not getting the best out of your employees if they are being burned out. And I think if we learned anything during this pandemic, it's that people being able to work on their own schedules from their own homes or do the things on their own time in their own way will create a more structured workplace in the long run,

but also a more productive workplace in the long run. Like having to sit in an office for eight hours when you can do the work in three hours from your home while playing with your dogs. It seems like a more productive thing for me, don't you think? And I think that like when we talk. Yeah, well, when we talk about like the capitalist system, right, we're talking about like a seven day or a six day work week with 40 hours a week or whatever. And humans were not designed to work like that. And it's something that I think about in regards to creators all the time because a lot of freelancers and a lot of creators who are just starting out think to themselves, well, I have all this time. I should create all the time, right?

And that's not how it works. It's very unhealthy. Please don't do that. You don't have to stream six days a week, six to eight hours or eight to 12 hours a day. Because if we're talking about analytics, it's really bad for your analytics to do that. And I'll tell you why. So for Twitch streamers, you get your peak viewership at one and a half to two hours into your stream, meaning that if you are a smaller creator and you get your peak viewership at one and a half hours in

and you're streaming for eight hours, your average is going to be lower because your peak viewership happened in the first quarter of your stream. Right. And so it is about quality and not quantity, right? Because all the time that you're spending streaming, you could be spending diversifying your content, posting onto other platforms. things like that, but you also need to rest because if you want to be, if you, because streaming is a performance, right? Content creation is a performance. If you are not resting in between performances, you are going to burn yourself out and you're going to hate this job. It is not going to be fun for you. And the same can be said for like company stuff, right? If you're burnt out, you're not going to

put your best foot forward. You're not going to be able to have the most innovative and bright ideas, which is why the company hired you in the first place. They hired you because they saw something in you, right? Because you had something to. offer the company but if you're burned out you cannot offer that thing to the company uh it's actually uh it's actually the antithesis of what you should be doing uh but yeah something some a uh not brand a the board left my brand an account that talks about this a lot actually is the nap ministry uh the nap ministry on both twitter and instagram they talk about the um the how essential rest is uh to leave

of full and fulfilling life. So yeah. I'm linking it right now for people who want to... Don't look it up, then escape back to work. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. You're kidding. I've heard so many accounts of like people having

these like workplaces that are really like heavy on breaks and personal time. And like they they find that like that the productivity just like skyrocket. Because people are rested. They want to be there. They're more passionate. right. You know, they're not up at, you know, 12 a.m. throwing up tweets, Ivan. I'm kidding. Wow.

Throne them out right here in the podcast. Let's go, Ivan. You and me, one v. one. See me in super mega baseball. No, but it's true, right? Like, you know, above all else, you know, before you can take care of people, you have to take care of yourself, right? You have to be in the right space and right mindset to do anything. And if not, it's, you know, the, the qualities is not going to be there. For sure. Right. 100%. So we have one question.

This is from our, this is from our, our Pucci Point Redemption process, which I'm glad I was able to alliterate that. It's a very simple question. This is for everybody. How are you today? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. It's been a very spicy few days, but we are on the up and up.

I'm excited to be here. I have some meetings later about some D&D stuff, which is really fun and always really fun and cool. So I'm doing really good. cats are good. They're not really causing too much chaos today. So like we're good. We're vibin. Amanda, how you doing today? Great. Ivan, how you do today? My back is killing me. Oh, no. You should take a nap then. You should probably take a nap. No, these chairs in the podcast studio, I forgot how uncomfortable they are. Like they're they're not meant for sitting eight hours a day

speaking of capitalist societies it's like the most uncomfortable chair it's like this little tiny metal chair that you know unfortunately is the only chair that fits in here this room is tiny yeah we need some more space this room was actually uh i believe a janitor's closet i'm not exaggerating i just it was like when we moved into his office uh i noticed that it was being used to store like mobs and brooms and things like that and uh i just asked human resources would it be cool if I converted that into a little studio. A podcast studio. Yeah, I said, sure, go for it.

Hell yeah. It's super tiny and it's cool, but man, I need a better chair in here. My back isn't really killing me. All right. I'm doing great, by the way, in case somebody wants to know. Yeah. How are you doing? Are you good?

I can use a little extra sleep and I'm actually excited to take the doggy out so you can use the restroom and get some air. So it's actually been great for that. like having a dog is annoying. I'm not going to lie. They're very annoying creatures. But the amount of fresh air I'm getting now has like skyrocketed. I am outside all the time now. It's great.

Heck yeah. I'm actually getting a tan. I am finally brown. So, you know. We love that for you. Ripped to my mom who's like super, super light skin. You know,

she's going to not recognize it when I see her again. Yeah, it's great. All right. I think, so that's it for the questions. Let me see here. I want to ask Amanda for this one. Amanda, can you let us know about all the awesome stuff for doing for pride?

Because we have a big old list here. Sure. I talked a little bit about this earlier, but I'm just going to link really quick, the fundraiser that we have going on. This supports the Trevor Project. If you do want to donate, we do have incentives for your donations. Everything is going towards the Trevor Project. We're not making any money off of this.

But if you do decide to donate, we have a hoodie bundle, we have a t-shirt bundle, we have a pin and sticker bundle, and we're also doing a raffle for a really awesome Pride PC, which as you can see in the picture I posted, that's the case that we have designed. The inside is also rainbow. I'm just going to share this really quick. There's that. So it's super cool. So if you want raffle tickets for that, you can donate 25 and then the bundles are. you know, higher on there. And then also, uh, we're going to be doing, you know, plenty of content. So more podcasts, more, uh, blog posts, like, you know, pride themed. And then we're going to be doing

festivities in the server. So we've already kicked off our, um, game nights that we're doing for people who have donated or just simply shared the campaign. If you want more information on that, check our announcements channel. But we're doing game nights at multiple time zones, like, every single week to thank you guys for your support. And yeah, I think that's everything. We also have like a pin giveaway, a T-shirt giveaway, check out our social media. But yeah, I think that's it. I have one dumb question if you're willing to humor me, Amanda.

Can we ensure that the Pride computer comes pre-install with Dead by Daylight? Sure. Why not? I love that. I imagine. It's just like one thing on the desktop and it's just dead by daylight and we just drag it to the center of the desktop. And we turn on the computer. That's what they see. Play this game right now.

Play this game. Support these devs. All right. I'm waiting for that for that Resident Evil pack to drop in the game. I'm so excited. I'm going to do nothing but grind and it's going to be great. So my goal for my birthday is in August. So my goal before my birthday is to hit Red Rink on Survivor and Killer.

and then I never have to worry about it again. So I'm excited for Resident Evil to drop, and then all I get to do is played up by daylight and grind out during the anniversary, and it's going to be really fun. Here's something. How scummy am I for playing only Doctor? He's the only killer that I identify with. I do not like Doctor,

but the reasons why I don't like Doctor are not because he's a bad killer. The reasons why I don't like Doctor is for the Abelism. Oh, really? Really? Yeah. So Doctor. Never mind. I don't like him anymore. The lore of the doctor is very ablest. It has to do with a lot of shock therapy, which a lot of people have to go through.

And also, the mori is just very graphic in a way that I don't enjoy. But also on top of all of that, the shocks themselves, like the graphics of the shocks can cause like epilepsy. Oh, really? I didn't know that. People who like have epilepsy. So on stream, like if we're playing against a doctor, I'll probably dodge it. Or I won't play doctor if I'm doing killer on stream for those reasons. Do the devs know about that? Because that's really interesting.

I don't know if they, I know that people who are fog whispers have talked about it. But I don't know if they're at the moment like looking to change his kit. I would love if they changed his kit. Please change his kit. It's so great though. Keep him just as powerful. Yeah. Keep him just as powerful.

Like there are other ways to illustrate, there are other ways to illustrate like a medical professional, right? Killer without it being. Well, here's a thing with like horror in general, right? Horror itself, like, Doctor's not the only one that has this issue, right? Horror as a genre, it has a lot of ableism. It has a lot of tropes that are, like, messed up, right? Doctor is the one that, for me, it sticks out with the most. But, like, horror as a genre is messed up because that's what makes it horror, right?

But, like, we are in a space now, like, in terms of, like, progression. that like we are able to like have these conversations about like what is harmful in this day and age and what age as well and what doesn't age well. Anyway, you're not scummy for playing doctor. I like his like mechanically, he has a good kit. Ethically, he can go choke. I was going to say mechanically is kind of an asshole because the way he plays is so annoying. It's very annoying.

But it's fun. It's fun to like for me to like learn how to like loop a doctor. Yeah, yeah. Like, I just feel very good about myself as a survivor if I can successfully loop a doctor and slam him with a palate, even though he tried to shock me. Yeah. But, yeah. That's great. Yeah, I, um, so I am deleting Doctor for my game files now.

I'm an exclusive to play. Oh, like, cool. Love that for you. Who's the most annoying character or, uh, the most annoying killer in the game right now? I'm going to play that one. Bubba. Okay, there you go. I'm going to play Bubba and just, and just smack on people because I don't like losing that game.

When, when you find- You won't lose with Bubba. I will tell you, you will not lose. He has a chainsaw. And he swings it like this. So if you're even remotely close to a survivor, you will one hit down them. When you do, when you find a group of survivors who know that you are not good at your killer, they will troll you so incredibly hard. It will bully you.

It's why I tell people who are playing dumb and daily for the first time to not play killer first. Yeah. Because if you're a baby at this game and you don't understand the game at all, survivors know that. will bully you. Like, it happens. As someone who plays both killer and survivor, I bully people. It happens.

It's just, like, the nature of the game. And, like, I think it's funny. Now that I, like, play both, I think it's really funny. But, like, when I used to, like, mainly play killer, I'll get, I get really tilted. And sometimes I still sometimes get a little frustrated with people who are just, like, really annoying, like, or BM, basically in game. Like, if you're teabagging me over a palette, I am going to tunnel you out of the game. Like, that's just how that's going to work.

Like if you teabag here's here my pet pieces of my daylight as a killer If you camp at the gate Screw you if you t-bag me at all during the game. I am tunneling you out of the game Right, and if you click your flashlight at me there is nothing that grinds my gears more There is nothing that grinds my gears more than someone clicking their flashlight at me Like multiple times like just straight out. Oh my god. Yeah, it really just burns the canoli like I can't I will tunnel you I don't even care if I lose a pip like you're going to die and i'm going to watch you die like you know it's literally the worst thing in the world um yeah it is it is it's so it's so rough because it's like i'm the killer

i have the killing tools why are you messing with me this is not going to end well for you it is it is what it is but anyway yeah clicking the flashlight really does get me it's what it's it's the one thing that i don't do as a survivor because i know how irritating it is uh as a killer yeah All right, folks, so we're nearing the end here. I have one more thing to say, one more thing to announce. So this is for you, Jude. For me. Yeah, so I was in your stream the day.

It was me. Gigi's, it was me, talking about the cold, glissy gang, right? Oh, my God. I'm scared. I don't like where this is going. I'm scared. We're sending you a bunch of cold hot dogs. I hate it.

And you mentioned how much you were eyeing the Crack and Z. So talk to the team here and we're going to send you a crack-in with the cool little LED on it so that you can put whatever you want on it, put some funny gifts, put some hot dogs on there, put your logo, whatever you want. Put some hot dogs on it, yes. Put some cold hot dogs onto your records on it. Sour crowd in there. So after the show, I'm going to bug you for your computer case so we know which one to send you.

Hopefully it fits if it doesn't just let us know. And then we'll make Andy send it to you. Okay, I'm going to have to find someone who wants to open my computer case because I'm too scared to do it. But yes, I'm so excited. Thank you so much. No worries. Thank you for joining us. Really, really appreciate it.

I mean, not just for just being here and talking, but also just like helping us to just be a little bit more educated and helping to educate our audience. Because I know it's not easy, right, to be the person who has to be teaching everyone, all this stuff, right? It's incredibly exhausting. I, you know, I've heard it time and time again. So thank you so much. You really, really, really, really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for having me. And I've been, Amanda, any parting words before we go ahead and kick it off with our dope ending theme?

Nothing really. This was awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I'm like super happy we got you on the podcast. I was just browsing through our email and I came across stuff and I was like, wow, this person seems super cool. Like I want to contact them, like get them on the podcast and all this stuff. and I'm like really happy that I reached out because this was awesome and I hope we can do more stuff in the future. It was really cool.

Oh, I would love to. Thank you. I just want to thank Jude for being here and everyone for listening. And I encourage you all to be nice to each other, Pride Month and always. All right. And with that, folks, thank you again for joining us, Jude. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

And thank you to everybody who tuned in. Remember to tune in next week at 10 a year and Pacific Center time. the official NZC Discord server and follow at NZC on all relevant and irrelevant social media. And if you want to ask a question off the air, send an email to Clubcast.NZC.com. That is C-L-U-B-C-A-S-T-T-com. Don't forget to listen to

previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. And also, if you can do us a huge favor on, I think the only platform that allows you to do this, which is iTunes, leave us a positive review for like what you hear, but especially if you don't because you know you love the haters. And with that, thank you very much, guys. We'll see you next week.

Happy Pride.