NZXT PODCAST - #127 - Pridecast #3 (Ft. Shawn)

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

This week on the podcast, we were joined by NZXT Partner and #Pride Ambassador: Shawn! We talked about Kingdom Hearts, horror games, and traveling...and also learned that Shawn is 6'7" tall AND can walk on stilts. Follow Shawn at twitter.com/Shawn_TTv! Tune in live every Thursday at 10AM PT on twitch.tv/NZXT and send your questions to: [e-mail]

and welcome to episode 127 of the NZXT podcast, the official podcast of the NXT community. This podcast is recorded live every Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on the official NZXT Twitch and is available to stream on demand on Alpa Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. My name is Mike, and with me as always is Ivan. Ivan, how are you doing? I'm doing good, Mike. I woke up with a tiny little earache for some reason, but excited to do our third.

Pridecast this month. Today we have a very special guest. He's an NZXT partner, Pride ambassador. You might recognize him from being on the front page of Twitch and TikTok yesterday on his birthday. The world famous Sean. How are you doing, Sean? I'm doing fantastic.

Hi, everyone. Sean, before we get into asking you a million questions, do you just mind letting our viewers know or and listeners know who you are, what your pronouns are, what you do, et cetera? Sure. So hi, everyone. My name is Sean.

You can find me on socials either at shon or shon. com. My pronouns are he, him. I stream here on Twitch and create content that surrounds anything, games in their hardest difficulties. We're currently playing through the Kingdom Heart series there.

I'm playing a lot of Minecraft. I've recently, recently fell in love with Minecraft. I haven't started, haven't played before. this year, so I'm excited to talk about that today. Trying to think, what else? You might note me from some of, like, I had a really

famous ad that just went out with Nino Cooney and Studio Ghibli on TikTok. I had 4 million or so views. So you might have seen that. Dang. You might know me from my time working with Genshin Impact, no longer doing that. So it's been nice to kind of switch and move around.

But I'm excited. Things are good. You may have seen me in the front page here on Twitch. may have seen me on the front page on TikTok yesterday. We were playing a little bit of Minecraft, so I'm excited. Yeah, you were everywhere yesterday. I was enjoying watching you. I was like, wow, this can be like a big celebrity we have on the podcast tomorrow.

Yeah, it was a busy, busy day yesterday for my birthday. I may or may not have planned this entire week to kind of like have all the things that I'm planning on doing all the same, all the same week as kind of just like a way to, I don't know. I like my birthday. and I like Pride and I like June. So definitely. You definitely had a more fun birthday than Mike did a couple of weeks ago. He actually forgot it was his birthday. And he worked extra hours that day because he didn't, he didn't remember it was his birthday.

So I just literally did not remember. I was just like, just like average day and they were like, hey, happy birthday. I go, oh shoot. I forgot about that. It's kind of one of those things that I just kind of after like 21. It's just kind of kind of. kind of blends together for me. Yeah, and then you hit 30 and then you're considered an elder.

And it's like, oh, back pain begins. Oh, no. That is true. Well, those are all very cool and impressive things that you listed there on your resume. What did you do before you got into streaming and all this stuff? Yeah, so I started, I guess, like, in undergrad, I did my degree in psychology research in neuroscience and social psychology with a minor in math and geography.

I've always had a goal of helping people and working towards education. So I've always worked in kind of the queer realm, either with the gay lesbian straight education network here in Connecticut. That's G-L-S-C-N. I've done some work with the Trevor Project for donations, and I've been doing that every time now that I'm streaming, and we're doing that this month with you all. And then I got my master's in higher ed. and then I worked in higher ed for a bit, lost my job due to the panoramic, and now we're here. Yeah, you mentioned you lost your job. How was that?

Like, did you? It was stressful. It was kind of like, so I worked, I worked as a hall director. So if anyone is in college, you either have like a hall director or you have like a residential director. And I was working there. Everything was good and fine. The pandemic came around. they weren't doing housing the next semester for students.

So they didn't need hall directors because they weren't doing housing. So I use the term like panoramic instead of saying pan or instead of saying COVID or COVID-19. Just things of that nature. I will use, I see a lot of times that a lot of the communities that I'm in, they'll say like the Ponda replay, the panoramic, the panorama. It just ways to get around it on TikTok. So I just get used to saying it all the time now. I've heard of the Panera and the Panini. The Panini, yeah.

You're definitely doing a lot of, I think, cooler stuff than being a hall director nowadays. What sort of games do you really enjoy playing on stream and for fun, off stream? Yeah, I would say, like moving away from higher ed, I feel like I really do help a lot more students now. So it's nice to be able to bring that kind of like to gaming and two gaming and two. two things. I like a lot of like adventure games and puzzle games. It's like anything with like a big puzzle and anything where you have to like have difficult combat I really like.

But I didn't really find that until I started streaming. So like I used to play a lot of Kingdom Hearts, used to play a lot of puzzle games. I started streaming playing matches of gathering. I've been playing magic since I was 10 years old. I'm 28 now. So we're going on two decades pretty soon. and I've just kind of moved into playing more adventure games,

playing God of War, things of that nature. And I just love all those puzzles. And I played a lot of horror games because my community loves to see my reactions to things. And I fell in love with horror, fell in love with Dead by Daylight. My community was like, you like difficult games. Why not play Dark Souls? And then I went, sure, I'll try Dark Souls. Played Dark Souls 3, got up to Abyss Watchers,

hated it, died 100 and something, 178 times or something like that. And then quit playing Dark Souls and said, F, Dark Souls, hate Dark Souls. And then came back to it with a different mindset and really, like, worked at it and, like, took my time to, like, really understand, like, why I was not doing as well. And then I beat it, loved it. Played through Eldon Ring. We just beat all 216 bosses in Eldon Ring. So, like, now, now it's, like, full circle. like went from like playing games pretty casually um i love adventure games like subnotica

because all of like the games that i really enjoy so i want to kind of delve into like that horror aspect because a lot of people tend to shy away from like horror in general are you like a big horror game person are you big horror like person in general from like movies tv shows etc i would i would say i'm a big horror person in general um so growing up um i worked um if anyone's from New England. They might know the Trail of Terror. It's the number one horror attraction in the New England area. And I worked there as a scare actor from age 15 to age 21. I'm 6'7 or 2 meters tall for any of our non-U.S. listeners. And I'm also a stilt walker. So, yeah. So I've done... You're a really tall heathen. That's for sure. Yeah, I'm really,

really tall. Wow. Yeah. How tall would you be with the stilts and around 10 feet? What got you to still walking? We needed an actor to do stilt walking one night and I was just like, screw it. I'll do it. I'll try it out.

And then I just like fell in love with doing it. It's just like the amount of jump scares that I was able to get as an actor doubled because at 15, 16 years old, I was super, super, super skinny and I could bend and like move my body in weird ways that people like weren't expecting. So if you have someone who's 10 feet tall crouched into a four foot tall area and you just see arms because I'm six foot seven. So you literally just see arms. And then the scary face right there, it's a perfect easy jump scare. And I would just love to do it. Have you measure your wingspan?

Yeah, my wing span is 6'7. Your wingspin is normally the same as your height. Oh, I did not know that. Yeah. Wow. May I ask, how does stilt walk you, how were you to first date? Like, did you just literally strap up? You're like, okay, I got it.

Imagine, imagine like, walking on, if you've ever walked in heels. Yeah. It's like that. So if you've ever walked in like a heel that's like three or four inches off the ground, it's the same, like, muscle, like movement as a stilt. So it's not as hard as it seems. I thought it was like very difficult.

It seems really difficult. But like, so there's a couple different kinds you can use. There's like sheet rocking stilts, which are just like a peg at the bottom. There's like long lasting long term stilts that are more like a foot. So like let's say like you lose your leg and you need a new foot. Like they're kind of, they look just like that where they're like that curved. that curved foot and you're just like that's on you're strapped in like that yeah wow

that I wish I would have known your height before we drafted all these podcast questions because I would have probably asked like a million things about being tall being tall is a busing and a curse I'll definitely say yeah you know the reason I'm curious about what it's like being six foot seven is because I'm six foot two and I don't really like I don't I personally don't feel tall, but people always say, like, oh, you're tall. And I only really notice being tall when, um, like I go on a plane or I go like in Mike's car, like Mike's tiny little clown car. Like I noticed it like in certain scenarios, but I can't imagine like being six foot seven. I mean, I feel like everything would be uncomfortable, you know, like. Yeah, I would go in through door,

doorways and stuff like that. Uh, depending on doorways, yeah. Um, there's occasionally where I've bumped my head a whole lot. I would say my biggest issue is kind of the general things you don't really think about. So like my desk is custom. My chair is custom for like streaming. So like that's difficult. Clothing is all for the most part custom.

Just because it's like I'm at that weird kind of middle ground between just skinny enough for a large, but just tall enough and needing an X-L. Yeah. And like an X-L and like a two-X-L. So like I'm in that weird range of like an X-L is what they're called, extra large long is like the perfect shirt for me. So like there's always that like weird kind of like I've paid a little bit more for things

or I've like had to not get something that I really wanted because like of just access and not it not being available. Yeah. The world's definitely not meant for tall people, for sure. I kind of want to go into a little bit about the travel thing because you do travel a lot, right? How do you, how does that work? Like, how does that work with like standard seating and stuff?

Pre pre-panorama, I definitely did a lot of traveling. I always try and do a trip at least once a year. So what I normally do is I'll use June as I'll use a weekend in June. to go to a different pride parade or a different pride event somewhere in the world. And that's kind of like my way to get away from things. And travel is, I try to make myself as comfortable as possible, but sometimes it's not always possible. And I just will get to places early and be as kind as possible to anyone who works in the like the aviation industry and like being like, hey, just like as a heads up like I'm six foot seven I understand that I have like an economy seat

if there's anyone who's like looking to if there's any like movement that I can move into like being upgraded either for like I'll pay for it or like for free like at the gate I always ask that because like worse comes to worse like they just upgrade you when I was flying back from I went to a conference right before I started streaming which was like one of the reasons I got into streaming we can talk about that and when I flew back I asked for it and I got moved up to first class just for asking. Like it was free. Yeah, they were like, we have a seat, sure. You just for free? It paid to be kind and I think people really forget that a lot of times. It pays to be kind and it pays to be

patient and it pays to just like ask the question. What's the worst I can say is now? Exactly. So like what made you get into traveling in general? Like did you just want to do it or is it like there is like some reason behind it? I think just like my my like love to like learn about the world. I think so I grew up in Walling for Connecticut. Walling for Connecticut is kind of the more like more of like Republican kind of like tipping city in the New Haven County. So if you know Yale and kind of that area, so I'm 20 minutes from Yale growing up. And that area was really kind of on that teetering side of like are they Republican?

Are they Democratic? is this like bad or good and everything found out really sheltered growing up. So a lot of my interests, I'm finding out things online and I'm learning about things online. At a really young age, I fell in love with Egypt. And that's like on my list of places to visit. But like, unfortunately, due to how the world is, I don't think I'll ever get there for a while. And so like that's on my list. And like learning about Egypt, learning about like Greek and Roman culture was like when I first came out, like really where I discovered

kind of my queerness in a lot of that. And it was kind of like that. I was like, oh, I want to see those things. I want to learn about those things. And then in college, I had the opportunity to travel to Iceland. And then I just fell in love from there. You mentioned a list. So Egypt being on your list.

Like, what else is on your list? So, yeah. So like the other day we were talking and you folks made this tweet of like, we're excited to hear about where Sean wants to travel to. I was like, I have to come up with a top. 10 because people are going to ask and people are going to ask why. And I like talking about travel and I like talking about locations. People maybe like don't think about a lot of times.

So Iceland, for example, is like my big number one. I think everyone should go visit Iceland. But I think everyone should visit non-Recivic, which is the capital, Iceland. So most people will do what's called the Golden Circle in Iceland, which is the first like 20 minutes outside of Recovic. It's all the big tourist spots. And my big suggestion is to do the entire ring road. It takes you like 17 days to do it. It's a lot of backpacking.

It's a lot of camping. It's a lot of outdoors. If you're really looking to get away, there's no phone service the entire time for the most part. And I just love the East Fjords. They're on the east side of Iceland. Very quiet. It's a fishing village.

And they have some of the best food, have some of the best people. That's like my number, my big, big number one. I loved visiting South Africa. I went to Cape Town. Absolutely beautiful country. The people and just like how warm and welcoming they were to food and cooking and teaching me how to cook and being in that environment of just like feeling like I was a family member.

But like I've never met them before was like that feeling that I have visiting South Africa. I love Canada. I have a bunch of friends who live there. So I always try and go to Canada at least one. a year either to Montreal or to Toronto. I'd like to go into the west side, but it's hard. I have family who live in Ireland, so I try and go to Ireland. I like the UK.

Japan and China are on my list because I'd love to visit Japan and China. It's just kind of expensive. The Philippines is like something that wasn't on my list for a while. And then like quickly as I started creating content and started to get on TikTok, really like fell in love wanting to see the Philippines and going over there. I like a lot of Filipino food, so I think it would be a fun time to go. I have some friends who live in Brazil, so I'd love to see them, like, in Brazil and not see them in the States.

And then I think the 50 states is something everyone should try and do. Have you done all 50 States? No, no, not yet. I think I'm like 28 or 29 in. Gotcha. What was your, so is, like, the Iceland was like, it was that your favorite place that you've gone to, basically? Yeah, I would say Iceland's definitely my number one.

Oh, interesting. What's number two? I would say probably I have to say Canada just because I love the money conversion. And I love being able to go into H&M with $10 US

and have it become a dollar $13 and then going to the sale rack and having it be like all this money like All these clothes coming in. I always shop at H&M whenever I go to Canada because the sale rack is, it says 70% off, but it feels like 90. When I do like all the money conversions and having clothes, they're all the same company.

I thought you were going to say Canada because of the Montreal bagels. You ever had one of those? No, I've never had a Montreal bagel. They're like regular. They're like regular bagels, except they don't have a whole. So it's just bread? It's just bread. It's just a sandwich, basically.

Sounds good. They're not like that. They're like, yeah. You ever get a chance, definitely try Montreal Babel. I'll definitely have to. It sounds good. One of the things you mentioned in your travel adventures there is learning how to cook.

What is your favorite thing to cook? So I'm Sicilian. So anything in that kind of like heavy meat, pasta dishes I love. My family, when you make a marinera sauce, so that's like a red sauce, a lot of people will say. My family will say red gravy.

So we call it gravy, not sauce. It's a Sicilian thing. Many people get confused about it. I forget sometimes when we're talking on stream, I'll be like, oh, like, yeah, I made a red gravy last night for Kevin and I. And everyone's like, red gravy. What the heck are you eating? And I'm like, oh, yeah.

I forgot that I'm in front of people who don't know what this is. Yeah. Is it because it's like gravy? Yeah. So it's like it's a bolognese essentially. And it's like that's like the just like how my family has always said it. So that's how I've always said it. Italian food is my favorite food in the entire planet.

And I remember when I was watching the Sopranos, I didn't realize like how they would they would call things. And it drives my wife nuts because like I'll do that all the time. Like I'll tell her, uh, know, to pass me the mozadell, some cabagoo. Yeah, like, say, like, my, my boyfriend, Kevin hates me for saying this because, like, we'll go to the store, I'll be like, oh, oh, can I have, can I have, like, I'll say muzadel, I won't say it, like, mozzarella.

It's like, and he's just like, say mozzarella. I was like, no, like, I've never said that in my life. So it's just like, I feel you 100% there. Yeah. That's awesome. That's a good. Like I said, I love Italian food, so I would have to try your gravy one day. Yeah, I'm very interesting.

Love love to cook, so. Why do you like cooking so much? It was the way that my mom and I found, like, kind of our relationship growing up. So when I came out, I, like, really had a lot of struggles. And my parents and I had a really rocky relationship for a lot of my life. And the kitchen was kind of the only place where we didn't really argue. So it was kind of just somewhere where I was able to learn a whole lot. and my grandmother loves to cook.

Learning a lot from her and spending time just with my family. That's like always where we spent time. That was like the really only kind of like commonality we had. My parents were big into sports. I'm big into video gaming. So it's kind of like the two opposites attract and the only place where it worked was the stomach or the kitchen. Literally met in the middle. The stomach.

Is there anything in particular that you would want to learn how to cook that you've never tried? I would love to be able to cook, I would say, more fried and like food from Louisiana, like gumbo and boil bags and things of that nature. I think it's something to where I don't have a lot of people in my life who are kind of from that area. At the moment, I used to. I love the food. I think the food is so tasty. I love the spice palette.

And I would love to be able to go down there and maybe even go to Essence Fest someday. Because I just like, I forget what movie I watched. I just like loved it was such a fun, it looks like a such a fun event. I'd love to be able to just like be an outsider being able to look into it and just eat the absolutely delicious food that's there. I'm Googling Essence Festival now. I've never heard of it. Oh, wow. Girl's Trip, yes, girls' trip, that's the movie.

I loved Girls Trip, and Girls Trip introduced me to Essence Fest, and I was just like, I want to go. It seems like so, so, so, so much fun. I was also going to ask the same question from Wanderlusted. What is a boil bag? So a boil bag is when they take crawfish and other, like, bottom dwellers, and they put all the spices and all of it into a bag, and then the bag goes into the water to boil, and then the bag goes into, your plate. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay.

And you eat it out of the bag. Oh, I've seen this before. Yeah, yeah. God, there's a very famous. Boil and crap does the same exact thing. Right or right. Oh, this looks amazing. Yeah, you got to get that with like garlic fries on the side.

Oh, yeah. Get some good potatoes there too. Yeah. And then they like they put your paper on your table and they just dump everything. I, I, whenever I go to those, those restaurants, though, um, I I always order my shrimp peeled because I'm too lazy to peel. Yeah, I order my shrimp peeled too. But like if I remember going to go there, I feel like I have to peel it myself.

Because I probably don't sell it. You use a fork. Put it into the spine. Just pop it off. Yeah, two hands. Easy. Easy. Easy.

Easy. I did kind of want to go into, so you talked about how you're into gaming and you're a streamer and everything like that. So I think you're, what is your favorite game of like all time? Oh, that's really hard. I like my first answer is always I want to say like kingdom hearts it's always been the game I played it was the thing that I grew up on and I'm finding out that I like my community has been finding out that I don't remember as much as I like knew so it's kind of one of those things are like growing up I had that like really really deep love for kingdom hearts and then as I grew up I kind of just like fell out of video games a lot so when I was in college and undergrad I was in a fraternity and I was in a fraternity and I'm still in the fraternity technically. But like during that time period, I like didn't have time to to game and didn't have time to do anything.

So like I missed out on a bunch of the story updates of Kingdom Hearts when like first and foremost. But like it's what got me into gaming and like what connected me. So I say that if I'm saying like nowadays, I think it's hard. There's like I would say like matches the gathering, but it's not really a video game. It's a card game. So like. I'm like one of those at the moment. So speaking of King of Hearts, the biggest question, what is the best

Kingdom Hearts game? At least you've played. The best game, people always are going to debate between like Kingdom Hearts 1 versus Kingdom Hearts 2 a lot of times. I really enjoyed three personally because I liked the fighting mechanics, but people also hate three for the fighting mechanics. So like, I have to say two just because it's like, The way that the story progresses is kind of there. I would say chain of memories and then every single Kingdom Hearts fan would hate me for saying that

because chain of heart's memories was done dirty, like absolutely dirty on the PlayStation and I hated it. But I loved chain of memories in the Game Boy. So like that side of things where people are like, depends on when you played the game or where you played it. I love card games. So like chain of memories to me is something that like fits my love for cards. games and lover kingdom hearts into one game so when i say that people are like who is this kingdom hearts fan liking chain of memories this is weird so like i should probably just say chain of memories but to not sign a big argument i was taking no hearts too it's a good game yeah it's not everyone's cup of tea

but it's still good game it's definitely not it's definitely not anyone's got a tea i'm probably the i'm the target market and that's where the game went bad because i don't spend enough money like that It was still great. But now the other big question, your favorite character? Favorite character, Axel. Like, easy, PC. Really?

An Axel fan. Most people always say like Sora. It's literally like the name. Sorry, Sora. Really? What do you like about Axle? I grew up in love. I grew up in love, like, absolutely in love with Riku.

Like, I would follow Riku to the end of the darkness if I could. And then Kingdom Hearts, Chain of memories came out and we got introduced to Axel and then Kingdom Hearts 2 came out and we really got introduced to Axel and I went, hmm, men. I like those. And then it just continued from there. Interesting. Wow. Okay.

So I was going to, we can go into a little bit about that stuff later, but to kind of finish off like Kingdom Hearts favorite keyblade and then favorite world. I would say pumpkin keyblade, easy. Pumpkin, okay. Yeah, definitely the nightmare before Christmas. I would say worldwide, I want to say, nightmare before Christmas. I actually like Agrippa a whole lot. I really like the bonus boss in Agrippa for Kingdom Hearts 1.

Well, all the people don't fight it because it's a difficult boss, but it's really cool. And I like, I liked the way that Agribe set up. So like either Agribe or I would say, night before Christmas. Interesting. Okay. So I did want to go into a little bit about,

since this is called the Pride cast, we kind of want to go into a little bit more of like the educational side of that. Was Kingdom Hearts like when you started to understand like your feelings towards like other men or anything like that? Or was it more like, yeah, I would say definitely like around like 10, 11 years old.

I like had an infatuation with a camp counselor of mine. And I was like, don't really know what that was. And it was kind of just like, he had spiky hair. I wanted spiky hair. He played matches the gathering. I wanted to play match with the gathering. So like it was very much like growing up. I was like, I don't know why I'm like so infatuated with this guy, but I am. And then I played magic of the gathering because I got introduced to it that way. And then I got introduced kingdom hearts. Kingdom Hearts kind of became that. And then slowly but surely, I started to learn more and more about myself.

Around age 13 to 14, I like started understanding like language behind what it's like to be queer at the time. People, a lot of times use the term gay. And that I was kind of understanding myself, understanding kind of like what gender identity was and what gender is. And that was like a lot of like really big educational moment was 13, 14. when I was 14, unfortunately my cousin passed there with leukemia. I'm at a very young age.

And that was kind of the tipping point for me where it was like, I don't know how long my life is going to last from here. My cousin passed away. So like I need to live my truth. Otherwise, I don't know if I ever will. I came out like really out of the blue. And kind of like from there, I was like, I don't know what to do and how to help people.

And education was kind of like the big thing that helped my family out. out just because like I needed to teach them as being super religious of like what being queer is and like what this community is all about and logo really helped growing up to and it was just like a lot of a lot of that and a lot of like shows um bad television teala tequila a shot at love um like she's not great she's not great now But I would say like when she was first on TV, she really was a big turning point for many people who are millennials who were able to see a bisexual person on television for the first time. Is the language and the style and the dialogue support the bisexual community nowadays? I would say no.

I would say definitely not. And so it's kind of like one of those things were like growing up, there was very very. different television that like a lot of people saw and became educated about but that same thought process nowadays is definitely not television and movies and shows that I would suggest the people to watch if they're looking for queer representation yeah you kind of glossed over it but you you said the word education and how yeah you know that was the way that you uh you know taught your family and others about about being queer and what that means and all But you are also a published author on the- I am, yeah.

I published in 2017. Yeah, and you wrote about the acceptance and tolerance for bisexual individuals, right? Yeah, so the paper that I wrote really talked about just what you can do to kind of start from going from no education to becoming educated and being more educated about a population. So I used very like general kind of like how people learned more about different subgroups. And then I took that and then applied that previous research to the bisexual male community. And then was able to show that you can look at education as a way for people to become more tolerant and accepted overall. How long did that like the research and everything? How was the process of that?

So it took me a year and a half to, um, to, do all the research to do all of the writing, to run the study, to get the study peer reviewed, and to have it be published. Wow. Can you tell us a little bit about, like, what you found specifically during that? Yeah. So any interaction with education showed a positive trend for acceptance and tolerance in a short time. So I showed a five-minute video.

and that five-minute video described being bisexual as a fruit basket and saying that some people will like a fruit basket with apples and bananas. Some will like a fruit basket that's mostly bananas but it has some apples. And it was just talking about how bisexuality really is a range and as we know like queerness is a range of people's attraction levels

both sexual and affectionate and having that as kind of like that dialogue and really trying to symbolize like having it be as simple as just a fruit basket versus having it be as complicated as we can talk about it in detail detail detail detail detail but I don't think that's I love that kind of meeting people where they're at yeah that's like the simplest explanation I've ever heard of that and like it totally makes sense like yeah it is like a fruit basket yeah and it's like there's a lot of things like that where people like don't where if If you, I feel a lot of times with education, if you can meet someone where they're at, you'll have more success educating than going forward than anything else.

Interesting. I also kind of want to go into, um, there's some people equate queer with gay, but we know that's not necessarily the, like, they're not exactly the same thing. Are you comfortable with like telling people like the difference from your perspective of what queer and gay is? Yeah. So I think it's a I think it's interesting. So like it's I think it's a generational thing a lot of times too. So different generations are going to look at language and terms differently. So if you were to talk to I would say elder elder queer people or elder gays,

you could talk to 50, 60, 70 year old people and they may say, well, don't use the word queer around me because that was a slur when I grew up. and that's the term that hurts me. Like you saying that language to me hurts me. It makes me feel uncomfortable. But nowadays, people use that as an umbrella term. And people use the term queer. Myself, I use the term queer to define the LGBTIQIA two-spirited plus community. So it really is one of those things where generationally, people are going to use language differently, as well as just.

simplicity-wise. So, like, I use the term queer to talk about the overarching community. Some people don't like the term queer because it feels hurtful to them or people may have used that to harass and make them other, quote-unquote, other to them. But some people might like the term gay. And that's, like, a simple, a simple term and makes the understanding. So I think it's like who you're in the room with, who you're talking to, who you're educating is kind of like using language that makes the most sense to them and using language that has somewhat understand what you're trying to say. I think is like kind of the difference. But I'm probably more detailed.

But if I was like look at research and look at trends and things that nature, but I say from my experience and what I've used and what I've learned, I would say that. language thing is super interesting and especially when you break it down like by generations like you said because i remember when i was a kid and i first learned what the word gay meant the first thought in my mind was wait that's the that they say that in the flintstone song you know and like i never thought the word gay like anything like sexuality for me it was like a fun time like a gay old time. A gay old time, yeah. I was a little kid and I guess, you know, that's an old cartoon.

So I'm sure like they never, when they wrote that song, they weren't thinking, you know, this is like a sexuality thing either. But it's really interesting how people take one word and interpret it like one way and others hear it and they think of some totally different. But it's cool. It's cool that you have your definition. Yeah. I think it's really important to talk to like think about like your audience and that's like a lot what I'm definitely learned like through education and through higher ed and now especially with streaming of like who your audiences and like making sure that you're meeting them where they're at.

So like on TikTok I would use more direct language and I would probably use like LGBTQIA two spirited. Or like on Twitch because it's a longer form content I could use the term queer and go into more detail and being able to talk about what's. that means to me. So like making sure your audience and the language you're using is one that supports them the best. There's a method to your madness. Yeah, I hope so. Apart from education, you know, which I love, by the way, I love that you're so passionate about educating others. Do you have any tips for people who like yourself, you know, might be considering coming out? You know, Like you brought up your cousin passing away at the age of 14, which is super sad. And at the same time, it's also, I think, like a good experience for you, right?

Because it kind of opened your eyes to realize, wow, like my time here is limited. I got to live my authentic self because there really has nothing sadder than living a life where you can't be yourself, right? So what sort of tips do you, would you give someone who's struggling with coming out? I would say first and foremost, I think, like, having a good support group, both for your mental health, your physical health, your emotional health. And that's like the big thing I think first. So people, finding a therapist who understands you, finding doctors who understands you, the gay lesbian straight education network has a chapter in every state and has information. on local organizations, local doctors,

and just local things to help you out and to make sure that you can find the resources that you need. The Trevor Project does a fantastic job at making sure that you can find mental health resources both in a pinch and in an emergency by giving them a call or giving them a text, which I think is a fantastic thing they're doing nowadays is having the text service.

In addition to like after that call of immediate help, getting you in contact with someone long term. And I think coming out when you're when safest and making sure that like you're in the safest space you can be and you have the resources you need just in case it does go the opposite because unfortunately you don't know that people are going to react. You can come out and your parents could disown you. And like that's unfortunately a hard truth about a lot of things is that you don't know others are going to react when you say or do something.

So making sure that you have a backup plan and have a backup plan for your backup plan when coming out and to put yourself in that safest environment and then going from there. Yeah, I kind of wanted. Yeah, I wanted to also, there is a lot of help out there as well. But do you specifically have any like companies or creators that you look out to for like this is someone that I am very comfortable with? And I'm kind of glad that I've kind of learned, oops, I kind of learned from them themselves. Yeah, I would say there's a big, big creator. She's fantastic, who I've learned a lot from recently. Dylan Mulvaney.

She's a TikToker. And she's currently just finished her 100 days of girlhood. And it's so nice to just see queer joy on my screen once a day whenever I load TikTok up. She talks about her transness and her identity so fluidly and talks about just the good, the bad, and the ugly about everything. Dylan talks about why she didn't want to change her name and talks about why she chooses the clothes that she wears. She makes jokes about her gender and makes jokes about her chicken cutlets because she doesn't have boobs yet, but wants boobs someday. and makes those jokes. And it's fun and lighthearted,

but at the same time, you're seeing someone live their authentic life and go into very detail about just like how she's feeling and why she's feeling that way and day where she feels euphoric and days where she doesn't feel that way. So it's just great to kind of see and learn from and just like have that as like a beacon that other people can watch.

She's five million followers now, which is amazing. She's a huge, huge, huge platform and is making major moves in queer education because people love to just listen to the ways that she talks. Dylan Mulvaney. Yeah. I also posted a link in chat if anyone wants to take a look at her content. Awesome stuff. I actually follow her as well on TikTok and fantastic.

Yeah, like people already probably know who she is. And that's how big she is, which is great. All of her videos have over a million views. Yeah. I guess we can go on to kind of the next topic about Pride Month and what it actually means for those that actually celebrate it. There's a lot of, there's some, a very, very loud minority of people that always ask, like, why do we even have a Pride Month?

Why is it so important? Do you want to give some insight onto that, from your side specifically, on like why do we have this month? I want to say like a lot of different groups have different months first and foremost. So like there's a bunch of people who are celebrated all year long different months. And the big question of like, when's my month? When's straight pride month? When's military month?

I'm like it's May. It's the month before. It's the month before. You all just don't celebrate anything. Y'all don't do anything. y'all are not going and out and donating money to do these causes and you're complaining on social media instead where like i'm going to spend my time and energy donating to causes to help queer youth to not live the same life that i had to live and to break that cycle of queer trauma going forward so like yeah i want to celebrate that i want to celebrate the first that pride is a riot like it began because because people rioted because people were tired of being treated poorly again and again. So if people don't want to be treated poorly and have a month where they can finally celebrate

not being treated poorly, the other 11 months out of the year, they're going to celebrate it. And they're going to continue to riot and they're going to continue to march on the streets and they're going to continue to march into the Capitol and have bills get signed to support them. And just make sure that they can continue to live the life that they want to live, that everyone else gets to, quote unquote, live without issues and live without problems. And everyone has issues and everyone does have problems. But it's the problems of living your life as authentically you versus problems that everyone has. Exactly.

And I think one big thing to make notice that same-sex marriage was only just legalized. And it's not, it's June 26 of 2015. It is not even seven- years yet it's not even it's in three days it will be seven years it's not even you can't it's not even past two hands yet I think there's a lot of reasoning behind having a fiscal month to be like hey we are now actually being recognized as individuals now rather than shamed and ridiculed as it was before well it's a lot of it's a lot of hiding and it was that was the word it was for so long it's that people hid and there's so there's so many videos and footage of

of queer people popping up more and more and more and more nowadays where you're like, oh, so-and-so is queer, I would have never guessed. And it's like, do you see it? I can clock them across the room, but not say that. But it's like being able to just be like, yeah, like they are. And then like they worked behind the scenes to make a life better that they for the next person. And that's really all you can do is work better. to make the next life for the next person

better than the money you had. Yeah. I wish everyone had that mindset, you know, because as much as I love my job, one of the few things I hate about it is when we do things like celebrate pride or Black History Month or Hispanic Heritage Month

and just like these celebrations for like minority groups that are, you know, that we're trying to, like, like uplift, right? And then we get like the people commenting like, well, like you said, once my month. And I, we do often, you know, clap back a little bit to put them in their place, you know, tell them, well, go ahead and unfollow. If you should like what we're doing. But do you have any sort of advice or maybe like first steps for these types of people that they can take to kind of shift their mindset a little bit? So they're not so negative towards these celebrations? it's hard and it's hard because you don't know where people are and you don't know where people are at and you don't know the trauma and issues that happened to them growing up and why they have such hard and negative feelings. I think as a company, I think next, sorry, NZXT is doing more than others first and foremost. Like NCST is on the forefront of gaming companies who are using you as an example of what they should be doing, which is something huge to commend.

And I think as people, I think that they should be looking at ways to integrate small education, integrate moments of why you're doing the thing and why it's important. And where you can go from there is just having that conversation of like, hey, like I understand like, might be going through a lot and you might have your own issues. But like, so do these people. And we're highlighting them this month because they don't get highlighted. And I think trying to, I think like my biggest thing is meeting other people where they're at. So you have someone negatively commenting like, why don't I have a month? Well, you do have a month.

Like you have May, if you want to talk about like military, that's a lot of the people will always have that. Like you have that month. You have that time period. And you have federal holidays where people are. celebrated from quote unquote your community. So if that's what you would like to do, I'd love to say the work that you're doing to uplift those voices because our veterans need their voices uplifted. Veteran care is awful in America.

People who are veterans do not have the same health care that other people have and are not getting the same services. Is that something that like I'm really passionate about? Not really because I'm not a veteran and I don't really have any family members who are. But it's something to bring up and it's something to talk about. And if they're going to say, well, it's like, yeah, here's your opportunity. Go help that community. Go out, donate your time.

Your time is worth more than your money. Take your energy and go help them and go to your local areas. Go and assign bills and talk about saying, like, yeah, our military people need better things. They need better medical care, especially for mental health. That is the leading reason why most of these people are passing away. and most of these people are having, like, unfortunately, committing suicide. It's mental health. So it's like if they really want to support their group and them,

then they should be working towards that, but they're not. They're arguing on Twitter. They're arguing on Facebook. And they're commenting on your posts and saying awful things. And good for on you for putting them in their place and being able to. That's the best thing I think in all I can do is making it so other people from marginalized communities don't have to put their energy into that. Yeah.

And that's ultimately what it comes down to is we're trying to be allies, you know, not only because we feel like this group should be uplifted, but, you know, we have people in the LGBTQIA plus community who work at NZT, who are customers of NZXT, who are just community members of NZXT. And for us to not be allies, it's almost like we're like, like, like, you know, like, It's like slap in the face, you know? So we have to clap back at times. And I wish we could do more.

So like what other besides what we're doing now, I guess, like, are there any other tips you have for us to be better allies in this space? I think one of the big things I think is education, first and foremost. I'm going to keep saying it because like that's like who I am as a person. I think education is one. I think like something that you can do is continuing use of pronouns. I think is a really easy way to educate. Like I think I'll put you on the spot here.

Like, where's my name underneath me here with my pronouns? Like, that's a really easy win for you that you can now improve and move forward and go further. And like, you don't need to change it now. But I'm saying like in the future, like, that's an easy way that you can go forward and say like, yeah, we're going to normalize pronouns and normalize changing pronouns and normalize using pronouns. And having that in email signatures. A lot of the people who have been to. act with NZXT already do.

But like having it from the CEO side, the head side of saying like, hey, this is a corporate policy. Everyone is doing this versus and like reasoning why and why it's important. And if someone needs education to say like we're willing to sit down and talk to you about it and we're willing to meet you where you're at and I explain why and explain the importance of it. And any moment where you can pause and take that time to. educate someone doing it.

And I think you folks already are doing it. And I think just continuing to partner with different organizations and continuing to talk to other businesses about why it's important and why they should be changing and doing more for these communities, I think is a good thing you can do. I think you have a very large following. You have a very big space here. Many people use your products on a daily basis for their lives. so making sure that you can say like, hey, this is why we're doing this.

And this is how you can assist and be a part of it. Love that. I actually, I literally wrote a note down. I'm like, you know what? That is a brilliant idea. One for the adding pronouns and stuff like that, names underneath our physical boxes. I literally like, next stream. I'm going to do that.

I already made a Trello card for that, Mike, so we don't forget. Awesome. Perfect. Thank you. Love Trello. Love Trello. Why didn't we think of that? Yeah, I was just like that's a thing.

It's like it's always things that you may not think of. And it's I think as a person who comes from the education background, I don't see a misstep as a way to be like, oh, shame on this company. They are not doing everything that they should be doing. It's like, no, no one's going to ever do anything, everything they're doing. You can start where there are and go from there. And it's like, give someone easy wins. Easy wins are pronouns and emails. And then that's going to start a conversation.

It's also going to have anyone who interacts with y'all be already noticing that's like, oh, this. Using the term y'all, everyone instead of the term guys. That's another easy win. It's very difficult to change your language around it. But it's like my community is 90, I would say 90, 95% like queer allied in some manner. But at the same time, it's like, I would say, I would say 90, 95% like queer allied in some manner. But in the same time, it's like, I would say. say most of my community does not identify as male.

So, like, me using the term guys would be like, everyone's like, okay, that's not me. I guess I'm not here then. And it's like, oh, goodbye everyone. So it's just like using the term folks, using the term everyone is another easy win. And it's just like slowly integrating things versus like, can't do everything at once. The whole hey guys thing, that's my personal, like, Like my biggest challenge in life is not saying that because I grew up with all girls, right? I have nothing but sisters.

And I would always say like, hey guys, like you guys want to get some ice cream or whatever. And now that I'm older, I only have daughters. And I always catch myself saying the same thing. Like, do you guys want to go to the park? And I'm like, no, don't say guys. But it's so hard to change language. But I think you hit the nail on the head when you said, It's about not being perfect or anything, just trying to be a little bit better.

Starting where you're at, you know, little, like little easy wins. And I think eventually if people do those things, you know, good things will happen, right? Yeah, enough pennies stacked up equals a dollar. So it's like enough of those small wins equals a big one. And I think it's when you have enough people who are continuing to do those and continue to do that. Like I have an auto command that goes off in my chat that. If you say the word guys in my chat, I have a stream elements that sets up and it sets a message back and says, hey, insert username here. We don't use the term guys in our chat because a large proportion of our community is non-binary or female.

And we want to make sure that we group them up. So sometimes it'll be awkward where it's like, Sean, are you fighting those guys? And it's like, okay, well, in that sense, that word was fine. So I'll have to be like, oh, sorry, like the bot's just yelling at you because you said the word, not because you use it incorrectly. But other times, it's like people respond and go, oh, I didn't realize what I was saying. Awesome. Easy wins. I'm like sure to add that too.

That sounds awesome. I'll definitely think about that as well. Who are your pride role models? Pride road models. That's hard. Like people will ask me who my role model is. And like growing up, I always will like say like the mirror because like I always looked at myself. and was always something to where like I wanted to be a better version of myself.

I didn't really have anyone to look up to growing up. There weren't a whole lot of queer people locally who I saw myself in and saw, like, wanted to be someone like that. So I think just trying to be my better self is one of those big things. And I would say now with social media and there's a ton of people that I think I looked to a different up to different people for different reasons. Interesting. And not kind of like a holistic thing. And speaking of, since you already talked about Dund and like her awesome stuff,

do you want to go into any like other sources like podcast books, any sort of that stuff to kind of help our viewers kind of learn more about the community? Yeah. I think, I think it's hard a lot of times to suggest different, I guess different media. mediums to find education. So I think maybe like looking more at like self-reflection for a lot of people might be something where it's more helpful than potentially being like quote unquote like bombarded with information education wise.

So I would say like a lot of like finding solace in oneself. So like I use tracks to relax a lot. Like that's a podcast I listen to pretty regularly. And I use that to just like sleep better. and that's on Spotify 100% for free or you can spend a dollar on their website to get all of them with ads. I just watch it. I just listen to it on Spotify. I don't have any issues.

They can take their ad sense from there. But like things like that, I think it's something big for me is just like own personal growth. And I think just following queer creators regardless of their size, I think is the best way to get queer education in a really easy sense. because you'll just be able to learn from their lived experience. Awesome. I love it. Awesome resources. We are almost at the end of the show,

but before we wrap it up, we do have Mike's favorite segment here, which is where he asks you a bunch of random questions and you have to answer them as fast as possible. Okay, here we go. Ready? Are you ready for this? All right, so number one, first game.

and console did you own? Frogger on the Game Boy. Oh, okay, interesting. I was not expecting that. I didn't know if Frogger was on Game Boy. Yeah. Second one, if you could remake one game, what game would that be? I could remake one game.

It could be anything from like just updating graphics to like fully changing it. Why is it? World of Warcraft. Warcraft. I would love to see Blizzard, like, update their company, culture, and game. I think it's the only MMO that's ever continuously drumming in back to back to back, but the graphics got a got to go up. Yeah.

Yeah. That one I definitely agree with as well. Do you have a favorite anime or do you watch it at all? Ooh, a favorite anime, I would say I was a big Naruto fan growing up, but I stopped watching it. after a long time. I would say I like Parasite a whole lot. That's on Netflix, if you haven't seen that.

It's a horror one. I loved, loved, loved reading that. I like a lot of Jojo. Bizarre adventure. I like that. Okay. Love that.

Parasite, fantastic. Everyone should watch that. That's so good. Mike exclusively watches anime on Netflix, by the way. I watch a lot of anime on Netflix. I wish I had Crunchyroll,

but I just watch it. It's just so easy. It's just right there. Yeah. Right, exactly. Funniest or favorite memory you ever had. Funniest or favorite memory I've ever had. I would say late night partying growing up at anime conventions.

Anime conventions. How many of you did too? Oh, God. Too many. I used to work with them for a company. So I used to go to like 50 a summer. Fuck. Wow.

Yeah. Busy, busy, busy, busy. Yeah, I was like every single weekend. we went to one to work we're selling stuff i used to work for a card game store wow okay wow okay um okay okay so i got some would you rather questions okay right would you rather be chronically under or over dressed over dressed over dressed i'm if you can put if i can wear a suit somewhere i will there it works out perfectly would you rather have a pause oh yeah there you go would you rather have a pause or rewind button?

Probably rewind. Rewind. Okay. Yeah. Try things again. Try things a different way. See what happens. I like that.

It would alter the future. So maybe pause is the better answer. Would you rather never be able to go out during the day or night? I'm a night owl, but like I force myself to become a day owl for like life purposes. So if I would never have to go out during the day, be fine. I would just stay indoors. Interesting. Okay. Would you rather be 10 minutes late or always be 20 minutes early?

I'd always early. On time is late. That's not time. Yeah. His favorite quote. One of his favorite quotes. If you're on time, you're late. Yeah. I'm early to absolutely everything.

Every single call that I ever have with a client or any company, I'm always early. I'm always like sitting there waiting. and it's always like oh sorry we're late it's like you're on time but that's fine even with this podcast like at 930 in the dot you messages us you're like I'm ready when you guys are yeah it's like I like this guy I said hit my mic uh Ivan do you want to ask the very deep question real quick yes the last question is the deepest of all okay are are you happy am I happy um if you ask me this last month, I would say no.

If you ask me this today, I would say yes. I think happiness is definitely something that changes over time. As someone who struggles with mental health, I would say it depends on the day. And I think making sure that I have the resources to be the happiest that I can be is all I can do. Love that answer. It makes me happy. Exactly. And then as the podcast comes to a podcast comes to a,

close and your week as our pride ambassador also comes to close is there any words anything at all that you want to say to anyone watching and to any future viewers or anything like that this is your floor you can say whatever you want sure um i would say if a queer person um is listening or watching um regardless if you're out or not um you're queer enough and we see you I love that. Just simple. Simple, short. And please do not feel ashamed of yourself.

Be proud of yourself, especially during this month. We love everyone. And we hope that you guys have an amazing time. We're going to do a quick announcement just real, real quick before the podcast comes to the close. We are continuing our Trevor Project fundraiser. All proceeds go to Trevor Project. There are a lot of people saying that we take the money and then we use tax, we get tax cuts or anything like that.

Based on Tiltify's terms and conditions, we physically do not see any money. So we indeed actually lose a lot of money. We do not make anything off this. So please, if you guys can, donate, do any. There's a couple caps and hoodies, I think, still available and sticker packs. Go ahead and donate. All proceeds go to them. So please please donate.

We already hit our 50K mark, which is awesome. But we're going to see if we can donate more. Why stop there? We also just expanded the NZT store to two new countries, Spain and New Zealand, and we almost have the UK ready. They're almost there, we've just got to get them done. So if you guys want to check out some BLD stuff or NZXT store stuff, we now expanded to those three regions. We also just released some thermal paste. We did a whole trailer of it and everything like that.

It's delicious, Nod GMO, grass fed, everything, anything and everything you can think of. Sean just a little worried about there But please go ahead and check out Thermal Pace as well We also have a we have been releasing Every product known a man We have new H7, 87 Flow 87 Elite, new motherboards

A ton more stuff Go ahead check it out at our website, tons of stuff Also if you guys please Follow Sean on all his social media platforms Amazing he actually got his TikTok account back So we're good on that so please follow him on TikTok as well say hi for us

amazing, amazing content also check out of the stream I was watching it the other day I was watching all his videos and everything like that from like the past brocket fantastic love to Minecraft stuff by the way the warden scary scary scary scary scary it's terrifying

um and I think Sean's website shon dog games that's me oops I accidentally click the wrong if your content creator listening to this got a Google website for 10 bucks a year I'm going to ask about that URL actually after the podcast. It's really smart of you to do that. Ball bucks and I'm never connected to a link tree domain.

I can add it and add pages and I have an about me section. When I do sponsored content, all that information is there. So people want to see like previous sponsored stuff. So like I'll put this link up there. If you want to like see what I'm up to and see what I'm doing. I'm saying, I like that. We're going to definitely ask you. about that.

And I think that is it. Do you have any last words, Sean? Do you want to throw out there? Sure. I would say if you folks are looking for more of me, we're live every day. The rest of this week, we're on the front page every day here on Twitch. We'll be on the front page of TikTok next Wednesday, playing some among us, which I'm super excited about.

And this Saturday, we're fundraising money for it gets better. And the first $500 is being doubled. from Gunner Optics So the first $500 Every dollar is $2 Which I'm super super super excited about Awesome

Yeah guys definitely We'll definitely make sure to retweet your stuff And send everyone there Saturday I think it's Saturday at 3 I forgot what time is 6 a.m. PST 6 a.m. for me Yes there I'm a morning

I'm a morning person But 6 am for all We have some people that are up by then on Saturdays and we have some people that are on different. So hopefully if you guys are up. It's 6 to 11 so it ends at 11 so you can catch

the tail end. You got you guys got plenty of time plenty of time. Perfect, perfect. And I think that is it. I've been anything else out from your end? I just want to thank Sean for joining us on the podcast and if you want to see

us this weekend we will be on the back page of TikTok, not the front page. for the very last page with our dumb memes so thank you Sean we really appreciate you anytime

yeah thanks for dropping dropping so much knowledge because you you're definitely a lot smarter than us I think it was great just hearing you educate us on everything

but thank you hey I know nothing about computers I have a computer guy so I have things that I need to learn myself and many many other aspects trust us we'll call it even then

yeah so thank you guys for joining us. Remember, tune in live every Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on the official NZXT Twitch and don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. Please leave us a pause review if you like what you hear

and if you didn't. Got any questions for us send an email to podcast at nzxte.com or tag at NZXT on social media. See you guys.