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

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

Archivist Sydette Harry wants to build a more accessible internet future, one where everyone can see themselves reflected.Read Sydette’s Wired piece Listening to Black Women: The Innovation Tech Can't Figure Out: https://www.wired.com/story/listening-to-black-women-the-innovation-tech-cant-figure-out/Follow Sydette here: Twitter.com/BlackAmazonQuestions? Comments? Just want to say hi? [e-mail] Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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844-844-I-Hart. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear.

Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. You're listening to This Informed, a mini-season. from there are no girls on the internet. I'm Bridget Todd. So I talk a lot about tech's failure to center and listen to people who are underrepresented, even though those same people's voices are critical to understanding the internet, technology, and how it shapes our world.

But the internet is also about possibility. So it's also important to carve out space to dream about what the future of the internet could look like. And one of the most prolific people doing this work today is Siddette, Harry. I kind of think of Siddette as the ombudsman for underrepresented voices in tech, interrogating how we're included or not included and its impact. In a recent piece for Wired called Listening to Black Women, the innovation tech can't figure out, Siddette argues that tech creators and journalists have ignored the experiences of underrepresented

voices like Black women, and in turn, ignore the harm that, quote, innovation can unleash in our communities. She writes, harmful behavior toward Black women isn't enough to inspire change until others are harmed. But the original harms are often lost by journalists, task with covering tech. The power and rhetoric that rent uncheck becomes common. And tactics used against black women for lulls become weapons used in conspiracies, destabilizing the very nature of truth, from the swarming of victims to posing as black women to destabilizing communities or countries, defying systemic abuse becomes a frustrating exercise of describing an empty space that no one believes is there. Siddette pushes back on the idea of who is considered to be the assumed

standard user online. Her journey with tech and the internet started with a truly hellish commute to a retail job at the Apple store. I had one of the longest commutes in New York, point blank. And I think that it's very important because when we talk about the birth of the internet, we often focus on Twitter. I would, I would say, I'm not a user of the internet in the way that people are excited about. I'm a user of Twitter, social media, and certain platforms and some of my work diffuses out. But I have one of the longest commutes in New York. I'm from Far Rock, New York.

It's the last stop on the A train. I had been blogging for a bit, but I was a graduate of University of Pennsylvania. My father was deported. I had been blogging for a little bit, and there was

I got a job as a specialist for Apple Fifth Avenue. So I came in through retail. I guess I had other training, but I was working retail. So not making even $20 an hour. And I came in right after they started selling the first iPhone. So we got a small discount or actions, but I had the power. And as they got that and people were developing, we had internet. We were able to get things. And I was in a performance or interested in

performance. So this was like, oh, I was getting to sell all my music. And I was getting to look at libraries. And as those things developed, how do we, how do we? used that, but I'm also on the Apple store, the big cube, the iconic, is on 59th and 5th. I live in Far Rockaway. I've got to take the A train from Columbus Circle to the last stop. If you know New York, that is a journey. I was using it back when you weren't sure that you would have reception at everything. So I would have a book in one hand, my notebook in another hand, and I would have the brand new shiny iPhone.

And when you get above ground on the A train, you're getting above ground at 88. And then you're going to Rock Boulevard. And then for Rockaway Boulevard, you're crossing two bodies of water past the JFK stop. So I'm seeing a lot of humanity because I'm seeing every person who has to go to JFK Airport. That's what I grew up in. That's part of my life in the city. that's part of my life as a human, and I'm above ground. So now I have Wi-Fi slash cellular.

I have the new device, and I've been writing and blogger, so I'm taking to, I'm taking to this literary form. And I'm also bringing in some of the issues and things that we've had from blogging. And for me, it's always been about conversation and building community. And my job at the time involves my gift of gab. So, hey, I am built. I am specifically in spaces. And I think that's the thing we don't talk about is this, like,

You have certain talents or certain inclinations to these things. Like when people talk about, oh, Twitter is the voice of the world. I'm like, Twitter's getting better, but for a long time, Twitter was not accessible to people who can see. That's a literary form. That's already not accessible. People are talking about clubhouses, oh, this. And I'm just like, Clubhouse doesn't work on Android, doesn't have really good translations, mostly in English, is ephemeral and it has no close captioning. No captions.

So if you can't hear, it's sight. it's very hard for you use. You are saying because people we are used to thinking as cultural creators are excited. But for me, that is, I fit that demographic, that kind of user, that early adopter, that wasn't what they thought of was mixed. Yes, that's how I started using it. And early adoption gets you a base, gets you people, you're with, but there was a time when the actual joke of it for me is, if I was to tell my story as a person with, like, user

research and my community background is, is that I happen to be connected to more of the privileged aspects of accessing that base of tech while having an identity that would make me a novelty, because that wasn't who they intended for. So that is all about how we build community and reach people online, which can sometimes be a bit fraught. When Facebook announced that video, not comments or written articles, was the wave of the future. Newsrooms, my own included, laid off thousands of media workers in an effort to pivot to video. But it turned out, Facebook was actually inflating the metrics of video reach. Rather than getting distracted by the shiny new thing,

whether it's pivots to video or fleets, Siddette worked to make sure that systems that are already in use actually serve the people who use them. She worked with the Coral Project, a project to increase public trust in media and journalism, and make online dialogue and comment sections better through open source software. I moved into user community research lead

for a choral project which developed common systems, which are now used in multiple newspapers, back when everybody was going to go, oh, get rid of comments. And we were just like, no, it's bad. Don't do that. People need to talk. We need to accept. What are you doing? Everybody got rid of comments. Everybody went to Facebook comments. Everybody pivoted to video. And then, hey, they're lying about all the measures.

All your stuff is on Facebook. Oh, that was, but, but it was the newest, shiniest thing. And it was like, that's a bad idea. It's not about the newest, shiniest thing. It's about who you serve, what you want to do. Have you made sure that those are the people? Can we access you? And I think that right now we're living in the fallout of that.

We're living in that idea of we've created this myth of esoteric. When people ask me to tell my involvement with tech, I always saw with a, it's because it was poor, it was just black. And it's because I was working in retail, but I had that specific entry in this specific examination. And I have education and all those experiences. But the only way I can describe it is having those melt. You have to be all those things.

And every user, not just the ones with a high profile, not just the verified ones, every single user will have this kind of story. Think of a universe that exists on screen or on stage. How is that universe fleshed out? Who's the main character? And who are the side characters whose inner worlds aren't really fleshed out? Who is given a point of view? Siddette's background and performance has shaped her perspective on the internet,

namely asked her to interrogate who is the assumed main character of online experiences. the problem is that we have an internet platforms of lots of casts of characters but who we make point of view characters and that's a very big thing for me and often like people watch me and they're like what are you talking about? We have to start thinking about

who we make a point of view character because we have everybody on this wealth of gorgeous humanity but you still think that the point of view character is a white man between the ages of 25 to 60 of a certain socioeconomic background and everybody else can only be a point of view character for a very short period

of time or one viral moment, that is going to affect what we think the internet is. It affects what our art is because we are watching real time in the world about how we can't abandon each other and how we cannot pretend we are the only people that make our realities and things like that because we are doing really badly because we thought that was the way we needed to work. Yeah, I mean, that's a good question I have. Something that I read in one of your pieces was that, We've designed an internet that does not look like the real world, right?

There are not sex workers there. There are not people who, they're not working class people there. There are not people who have disabilities there. We've designed this internet as if these people do not exist, but we know those people exist in the real world. So I guess one of my questions for you is, you know, what are some ways that you see different experiences and identities just to be completely marginalized or suppressed on the internet

that, you know, exist in the real world? I am loathe to answer that for because I think we don't see them in the kind of focus point of view way. They are always the underpinning. They are the foundation of content. Their aesthetics have informed so much. Anybody who tells you how Instagram's developed does not involve sex workers is a liar and a fraud.

Like that person says that and I'm just like, ooh, you're lying on the internet. But the other thing about that is that, I am not a sex worker. And the first thing is like, and the first thing that I firmly believe if the thing I'm saying is that we need to see those people, I'm not supposed to be asking.

The thing we need to work on the thing that I want to work on is like how do we have better spaces for those people who are often already doing the work and developing the things to cover themselves and speak for themselves, as well as how can we be ethical about it? How can we protect their security? And what does it mean for that to happen?

And this is a thing where we often go, like when people talk about content, it's like, we have all the content. Whose gets forward? Our relationship with it, our desire to protect it is different. And we do not honor how people want to speak about it, from its creation to its access, to its sustainability, to its permanent. And these are the kind of, and people often go, oh, that's so meta, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes it's just as granular as does it have close captions?

Right. Does it have, can you delete it? Can you be forgotten? And they're made meta when they need to be singular. And that's the thing that I like to poke. And that's the representation because subcultures change, trends change, morality changes, people live. How do we give people the ability to access and melancholy? and create for where they are now.

And how does our media that we've created work for that? I think that because of all the things that you've said, the sort of, I guess, ephemeral nature of a lot of the things that are online, I feel that I feel strongly that our work, our contributions, in terms of how people have seen them as worthy of protection, it pains me to think that so many of the things that we have, that marginalized people have created online, will not be preserved unless we preserve it, right?

And so I wonder, you know, how has that shaped our understanding of the experience of being online that we are the only, like, we cannot trust anyone but ourselves to lovingly preserve our impact when our impact has been so great. I think that, number one,

this is an experience that we've had in history, and I think that's why the power of, like, My power of librarians and powers of archives are most important because we're picking and choosing what to preserve. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter.

There's that worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right?

That's the name. The Harvard Yard. But they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app.

podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Human be. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.

Think podcasting can help. your business, think IHeart, streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room,

their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo SlicLife 12 and the TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. talk. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with

Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going from the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't I never feel like you don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladecki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile,

that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. And we're back. For Black folks, there's an urgency in preservation. We die earlier, and our entire country was built on washing away our voices and legacies. We have to be intentional to make sure our stories are told, let alone remember preserved. As Black people specifically coming from the Atlantic slave trade, And those things. Like we've had an experience of having to create cultural lines and cultural lineage when they did not exist and when they do not, when they, way they have been designed

to be failed because that was the project of building the world with helping, with getting us to build it without like honoring our contributions. I think for right now is there has to be, I think very material in some things. The other thing is that, like, even as I do other work, I kind of like, I start to get the itch of, like, wanting to go back and do library sciences and just, like, the basic, like, so how do you curate and how do you teach people to do things? And how do you hold things and not necessarily interpret everything, but leave people the space to be able to make their own interpretations because we have to confront our mortality and we have to confront death. And you really have to start asking, like, people get exactly, the face is made. Yes. It's scary. It's heavy. We're in it, but it's like, what would you want to hand someone when you're done? And can you do it in this current thing? Like, we have, I still have a Bible. I have earrings, or there are earrings for me. I can't touch them. From people I'd love there, we go through and we see the books and the architecture and all of that. These are things for

what we want to be left behind. But we also hear that in music and blues and how. How are they compatible and not compatible with the ways that are accepted to leave things behind? And for us, and that is a heavy question, but it's a question we have to ask more and more now. And especially when we are also being confronted with the reality of we die early. We lost two years as black people on our life expectancy during this. What I often get upset with when we're talking about data and tech, that everybody's like, we'll get to it, we'll get to what we've got to it. I'm like, we're dying early. We have less money.

Things are more stresses, more likely to kill us. How much time do you assume that black people have for you to be wasting and playing in my face? But also, we have created bridges across time, despite that. We exist in those multiplicities. It's part of my family history where time is thought of to be in generations, not just me and you right now. We're all playing with those ideas of time, but we're trying to fix what are the things we want to hand. what are the relationship, again, the relationships you want to have. And those are not just momentary in terms of the tweet I just sent.

But they are so across time. What are these things and these interventions are playing with? And I think for marginalized people, but specifically black women, because that's how I walk to serve. I have to, I am literally a living embodiment of a moment in time from a line that I'm going to try and transport through the people who I will touch, who will live different realities in different spaces. and that's simultaneous asynchronous and synchronous. But right now we are very concerned with us. Do we have, are we going to do enough in the time? We have to make sure there is a place to give and send because the world's on fire.

And everybody's like, oh, we'll have time, we'll have time, because they're used to telling certain people, people who look a lot like me and you, and who are the people that helped me and we can always wait. And now that the fact that no, it can't wait when they said that. That is now circling up towards them. How do we light a fire under people's asses to say we don't have, like, where do you think we're getting all this time? How do we create more urgency?

We don't. Me and you specifically? Are we living this world? No. And it's, I think that that was glib. But I think for most importantly, it's like we have mutual aid. We have pressurings. But we are literally trying to stay alive.

But everything we do that tries to ensure our own. survival tangentially helps everyone else because we have yet to figure out how to truly save ourselves without saving everybody else, specifically as black women. I promise you, if we ever, as a collective, black women and friends, black people larger in general, if we all got together and ever figured out how we could do this without everybody else, I promise you, we would have chucked our deuses and left a long time ago. Everything we do that is designed to keep us alive tendentially help everyone else. Because in a lot of ways, getting a black woman to be valued in the way, just humanely,

that other people are, involves a complete destruction or reassessment of the system. It does. It just does. And I am, and I walk and I changed back and forth because we're dealing with on extraordinary times. But everything turns into what more can we do, what more can be done? And I'm just like, make what I'm doing right now sustainable enough that I can actually have the space to think forward. Until I have that space, I've stopped responding to the what can we do. This is something I struggle with so much in my own work and my own life.

What does it mean to truly have space and to have time? I feel that so often, even if I'm having a good experience, I am filtering that through, you know, I should be putting this on Instagram so that people know that I'm doing it. this or I should be, you know, marketing this. Like, what does it look like to actually have time? And I think that particularly for black women and femmes, that looks, we have like, it's just a struggle, I guess I'll put it that way. It feels like a struggle to actually feel like I have the space and time, like to even just rest, yeah, to even just rest on my laurels to be like, oh, I'm doing this, I'm having this conversation, I'm doing this work because I want to.

not because it feels like it's so urgent, I need to, I need to be moving to the next thing. Does that make sense? Yes, there's the nap ministry, who I believe is doing golf work. Oh, yes. And it's a hard thing. And it's just like, this is, again,

it was like, I very much loathe the idea of being the lone expert in anything except what I'm actually an expert in. And that's the thing that we're often not allowed. There are times when, because I think that we also have to confront the idea of, like, the hustle, struggle, grind, culture, is bad for us in terms of how it focuses on us in production of capitalistic values, but it's also bad enough because it doesn't allow us to get a real extent of expertise

because there's a lot of like when people talk about imposter syndrome, there's imposter syndrome, but there's also a system that has told you over and over again that you are not valuable, you will not be compensated for your value. And then there is also just healthy self-assessment and avoidance of done it crudence with the syndrome? Like, not the best person for this does not necessarily mean that I am holding myself back or whatever. That just sometimes mean that I have a good idea about the skills required for this and the humility to know I don't have them. That's a gift. You want, oh, this is going to involve a lot of math? I joined the

High IQ Society because I couldn't pass math. I am wonderful and great and smart and intelligent, but if people's lives develop on me getting the math right, know what I can do in the best sense of my humanity is tell you immediately to hire someone else who will get the math right, that's not me. And yes, there's like, and I think there's, and I think often for me that's focusing on imposter syndromes

and often like a lot of literature becomes like, like this is how we are in comparison to mediocre white men and blah, I'm just like, I have no desire to pair myself to the mediocre. I have a better, a stronger desire to create the fantastic. I love that. It's mediocre. These people are so mediocre, but they get so far ahead. And they're going to continue being mediocre.

How do I make what's great? That could be from like a really good apple pie. That could be a really amazing piece of software. That can be a stunning visual. That is where I think often. And I'm like, okay. And I think it's bad because for our society, like, black women, for a lot of us, it's like we're constantly trying to create. And the stress we feel is because we don't have that space where it's this thing of like, I don't, have I done everything I can to get on?

Have I done everything I can to make what needs to be happening? And you feel that because you don't feel secure of what you have because you're not even, you're making a, you're making this space. Well, I feel like it'll go away. I feel, I don't know if I'm making enough income this week. And it's like, if you had those other things taken care of, you would have a better assessment of that. And there's also the reality that I don't know what any, I wouldn't ask anyone to make deep assessments of what we're doing right now.

We're all, we're all in stress and traumatized. After the capital insurrection, I feel like we had an afternoon where people like seemed to be reflecting and then the next day it was back to the normal shittiness, you know? I'm so, I'm so sick of moments where, yeah, for that day, people seemed to be really reflecting, and then the next day they all woke up and were the same, if not worse. Well, I looked at every single person they trotted out as an expert and things like that, and I was just like, everybody's white. Yes. Everybody's from the same force school. And people are like, do you want to be there? And I'm like, I don't know. In some cases, yes, because I have feelings

and thoughts that I want to get out because I've been talking about this for years. And I have moments. But then they're also, I said, it goes back to the other things. Like, well, if you want to talk about it in, like, online community, the things that I actually have expertise in, yeah, if you want to talk about it in the mechanics of AI, if you want to talk it about heavy duty legal, there's no reason to have me there. My problem is that you have a, a, wealth of people who should be there, who are not there. Like there are times, we're just like, I am not the person you need to be talking to, but you're not going to lie in my face and tell me you can't find a single black woman to talk to.

More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk, to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group. The worst?

Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard.

They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. since you guys are middle-aged. One erection. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny.

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice. as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart.

Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the big.

people who live them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife-Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WMBA standout, Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't.

Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel on. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs, Gabby Thomas, and Katie Ladecki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile,

that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the, entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can, like, I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Let's get right back into it. Black women are rarely

cited or centered in conversations about the internet, even about their own experiences, things like online harassment or the kinds of racialized disinformation campaigns that kick-hearted the capital insurrection. These things overwhelmingly target black women, yet we're rarely given the space to talk about its impacts. Siddette says that tech media let themselves off the hook by writing black women like her office problems or not likable or professional enough, thus giving themselves license to exclude our voices from the narrative, essentially blaming us for our own erasure. Or you complain about my tone and I'm just like, my tone is very specific. specific. I chose a screen name that is kind of confrontational. I've got a collection of tattoos and aesthetics that may be looking back now, I might have turned down the dial on,

or maybe I might have turned the dial up. Who knows? But they say something. And I'm aware of that in the visual era and aware of that in the packaging brand era. You are not going to lie in my very librarian inclined face and tell me you can't find a black woman who does not have these signals, who does not have this attitude, who does not have this tone, but who is more than qualified. and considered and thoughtful to tell you similar things. You don't like me. There are days. I don't like me.

But if you actually liked the work, you'd find somebody. You keep asking and pointing at me because it prevents you from actually doing the work of finding somebody else. That's so interesting. And I think that's the experience a lot of black women have.

It's like, oh, well, she's a problem. She's a problem. I'm like, yes, I probably am. Or she is. Or maybe even I don't like her. But. If you care about what the work is, you have a two-prom thing. If you care about the work and that is the expert, that is the person you should be talking to,

stop trying to get around talking to the person. It's not about your liking because you never seem to have that problem when it's a white man. Some of these dudes are running around being demons on earth and actual fascist and racist, but we can't go around them. Weird, because you always manage to go around the black woman or the Asian woman or the I see an ex-man, non-binary person that you all admit as an expert, but you can find a way around them because they're difficult. But you never find, you never feel the same disposition to that when it's a terrible white man. Right.

The flip side of that being, oh, you don't like that person. They're awful. They're problematic. Yes, they are. They, you know what, there are some people, ooh, I don't like them working with other people. They're not nice. They're not kind. but do you keep involving them because it allows you to discredit the work?

Or you are completely right. There are seven other people of all orientation, shape, sizes, and flavors who are wonderful and competent. Go ask one of them. Go ask them because they're ready to work. You create a roadblock where there isn't and you create a roadblock because it serves you. And you created because it serves you. we're asking you to do right now is serve everyone else. Well, I think you, I mean, something that you said that really sticks with me is this idea of just who we hear from and who we don't hear

from, particularly as it pertains to talking about online communities, you know, in the aftermath of the interruption, like, how many different experts from the same four schools that we need to hear from, how many different, you know, like, how many different outlets rush to interview a crowd boys member or a Q non-believer and just how little they center the people who are directly impacted. So we didn't hear about the black women who have been talking about online harassment since forever who, you know, if someone had listened to them, someone with power, this whole thing might have gone differently. We just didn't even have that conversation. I and this is where Maru steps in. But people love when I challenge them on that to be like, well, it's just been starting

since 2016. I was like, I had my first run in with some of these people in 2012 and 2014. Tell me you don't care and keep it moving, but do not waste my time. Well, we know you were going to reach out. It's like, you told me in a tweet. I know for the other thing about it is because the work I tend to be designed, sprints, and user research and archival. And this is a little quirk that I've had for a while, is that there sometimes there's awful things about people who are hiding from ghetto names

and things like that in HR and how hiring works is that I have a very kind of my name is distinct and it's hard to find and because SEO black woman they shove me down visually for now if you google me and you don't see a picture of my name a lot of people think I'm white a lot of because of my name if you don't see a photo and it doesn't surface a photo people think of Why? And because of my family was West Indian and my mother had a very, slightly odd, obsession with speaking properly. And to the point that went up until I was like a certain age, I actually had a vaguely British accent and it's something I will default to. And like, we all code switch in like your professional voice. Right. And you sometimes will hear me doing it

in this, but it's like when I'm like my professional voice is good afternoon. My name is, that Harry, I will be your proxswain for the day. And if you're not looking directly at my gorgeous black face, people think, why? So, I've often experienced this where folks will

say and talk to me face to face when they're looking at me or about things or when they see my AVEC and they will they will different, like they're just like, well, you don't understand or you don't comprehend and maybe you, and all of And I'm just like, mm-hmm.

And who are you citing? And they'll cite an article I wrote for Model View Culture or sometimes. That's happening once or twice for Wired now. And I was just like, you just cited, oh, what's that? It's the debt, Harry. And it happens to other women, too, but there is a specific racial tin for it sometimes. Or, like, someone who call me on the phone and then meet me in person after I've done some loser research.

And they're like, yeah, I spoke to this woman on the phone's debt. And she was, and like, that happened to me more than once or twice. And I'm not to say when to protect people. But they were just like, yeah, she had these really great thoughts. So she was really connecting it to manuscripts and other things. And I was just like, uh-huh. I was like, I know you're, and this person who actually started going into it. I know you're more social because they read social media in some ways, especially for black women.

They read social media adeptness as a fad and not a skin. Like, there are a lot of white male journalists who are doing exactly what I was doing in 2016 now. And they're paid for it. Like they barely write articles. just tweet. For me, it was a problem. For them, it's a job. And they'll be like, yeah, and she talks about these things and did do, do you know? And I was like, very interesting. I'm just like

Sidette, Harry? Yeah, and I'm just like, and they're just like, oh, so I'd like to follow you on Twitter. And I was like, okay, this is my screen name, Black Amazon. And they're like, wait, you're Sidette, Harry? Yes, I am, darling. What is that like? Um, what is my book?

But it's a mind-fucked Black women experience. Like, it's interesting. Like, that's my version of it, but I believe there are black women all over the space that has been like, like, there is a very, like, for me, the experiences that I talk about

I got my tattoos later in life. All of them stopped under 30. And if you haven't gotten it yet, be careful because, like, I got mine after 30 and it's an addiction. I'm just, okay. Like, I haven't had a tattooed nearly a year and a half. Y'all, somebody's going to be with a needle.

I need it. But, like, I was like, I was talking to someone who was probably a very well-minded theorist, and they were like, but at the origins of the internet, and I was like, ah, ah, ah, ah, let's talk about print culture and mass communications, and that's my thing. And they're like, well, it's strange. And it's like, the person was very much hedging. And I was like, because I have tattoos on my right forearm. And one of my right forearm is specifically designed to be the type script for the first mass produced slave sheet. which is also convincingly, oddly enough,

type script for the first, really, serifants that were printed the first folio, Shakespeare. Really? We know it hard on these streets. But it's also like, it's a telling part of our culture that, like, the mass production of the identity of Western literature was also the same mass production that was used to retain black and slave people to create nations and create identities.

And it's like, this is a, and these are people who were just like, well, it's not professional and it's unprofessional. And I was like, wait, it's not professional. Well, that doesn't mean that I don't understand the historical significance. Right. But that is a thing that, like, for me,

I experience sometimes visually tattoos. But I think sometimes black women experience it with your speaking choices, your names. Are you really an engineer? I think all black female engineers, I've heard experiences that, like, you have to put out more. You might do some performances or your perform and the fuse are read differently. But you have to do more work.

And the mind of that is just like, I don't know what it's like to not have to do that. You, in sections of your life, don't know what it's like to not do that. That there is a world, like there is a world or there is an identity and experience that at some point, people just believed what was true about you without you having to do more than that. That's the screw up. It's like, I'm at this point where I'm like, okay, we're going to go, we're going to go around, you're going to get it, and then I'm going to have to braid you up a bit. And whatever that is, and that I can or whatever can or cannot do it, that's the thing.

But I think the mind screw is that there is someone whose entire life they've never had to do that. That's the thing. because I'm just like, oh, this happens. Like, I've had men like just try and upbraid me about, and especially within tech, tech media and tech journalism, as everybody has suddenly moved into missing disinformation and online harassment. I'm just like, you are so new.

They're like, who you knew? And I was like, so what's the number one? Like, there are two books that were New York Times bestsellers. And it is also for me. I've talked about this before. I feel like somewhat of jackass when I do that. Do you sign it two books about New York Times best. seller, please go to the acknowledgement or the dedication.

That's got to feel good. That's got to feel good. Like, that's got to feel good in a kind of way. That feels good because I'm an eager to. And it feels good because at, no matter what, I'm always, I'm a New York genre. I'm a New York shorty. Always have been. And sometimes you've got to let these people know.

That feels good on that level because you, you better ask somebody. But it also feels terrible because these are experiences that were difficult and these are relationships and moments. And rather than just believe towards the goal of, no, we're trying to stop the abuse. We're trying to stop these experiences. We get, I've got to spend 20, 30 minutes or 10 minutes or a really uncomfortable situation of me looking at you like this. Like, tell me more. Rather than us actually doing the work of improving.

the thing? What would have happened if I didn't have to go through that? If I didn't have to pull out all the, what happens? Like we talk about receipts, but like the stress of receipt, what would happen if instead of a day, a week, a month, a couple years of us having to pull receipts trying to prove what happened. You just did the work. We just got to do the work. Like that's the thing that is very like, oh, you want that moment. Like that to me is the the actual mindset. In those moments, you realize how much,

and with time, you realize how much energy you have wasted necessary and unnecessary, because sometimes you need to do it to get it done, and sometimes you do it out of reflex. But how much of that time is taken from the thing you want to do?

Because, and it goes also to the thing, for some people, and there are some people who are, oh, like, there are some people who, like, when they dress them down, you're just like, ooh, that was beautiful. I was a piece of odds. Go girl.

Like you get that. Like there's some people who are skewed at that. And it's a beautiful to watch them work and they enjoy it. And I love that they enjoy it because they are good at it. I might have some facility. I'm not as good as they are. But for me, I'm usually just tired. I'm like, okay, so we did that.

Now we're done? Like, we don't know? You good? You good. You're good. Let's get to work. I have to ask, this is kind of a random question, not related to, I guess it's this sort of related. You are so yourself, you know, even looking at you right now, you've got the print shirt, these bold glasses.

How did you find the freedom and space to show up like this as yourself in this way? How did you walk in this confidence as who you are in some of these spaces that you walk in? There's a performance training. I am frigging why. I've done theater. I studied opera for nine years. I am very good at the, say, or do you make it, or ask for confidence and confidence should be given to you. When you're good at performance, and it's one of the things I talk about, it's just like, I'm often nervous. My last, one of the last big speech I gave, I spent a lot of time on the tables and I was like,

literally with the person I was talking to like, oh my God, why there's so many people. It is a performance. You get up, you get ready. I was. was trained in that. Get up, get ready, get sell it out, and then like the minute you step off stage, you kind of curl in a ball and rock back and forth. Also, I've talked about it before, but like my, I like theory. I like walking stuff. I like the combination of like looking at the things

and just making them happen. That allows me to have a lot of interior time for time and stack and time in the books to just be myself. Some of it is just like the way I was born concluded to be having another option. I am, we are not seeing people in full body and like the pandemic. Discomfort. We're all discomfort. We're all discomfort. It's usually.

But at my general right now, I'm about 511, 250 pounds. So there's like not a lot of I can hide in my person. And that is a, like, I'm a tall human. And that, and it seems like a strange thing. to be so formative, but for me, personally, there's not a lot of option of camouflage. There's not a lot of, like, hey, I'm going to walk into certain rooms unnoticed, and especially as a black woman, and I was part of, I'm from Farrak. And this is a under-resourced neighborhood. We have certain access that we don't. So I was in a lot of things like one of the lonely-onlys.

I couldn't hide in a room. I would be purposely ignored. But I'm going to have to be this person. and the way I am built both physically and emotionally was like, I want to leave this challenge or I want to at least get good at faking it. Like people are like, I have such anxiety sometimes about large groups of people. I know how to make that anxiety look like, I'm working the room, but it's like, here's quick tip, if you really don't like talking a large group of people and you're in a large group of people, if you are very instantly and personally find every single person and talk to them for two to three minutes,

It looks like you're working through the room. You're actually working the runaway. People are like, she's the life of the party. That is a specific thing for me. It was important for me to develop a skill. I felt it necessary to develop a skill that I was going to be very solidly myself. I was going to be strong about it. I was going to be clear about it because I didn't have the option for other things.

One of the things that are a lot of some of my online things, people are like, oh, you're being mean and this person is so real. nervous and anxious and I'm like, what makes you think I'm not? Why have you decided that I'm not anxious? Why have you decided that I'm not scared? Or have you decided that it's okay for me to be scared based on what you think I am allowed to be? Because there have been a lot of times, I'm like, oh, you're the big, mean monster,

and I'm like, okay. No, I'm not because while I'm talking to you, I'm on the phone with somebody else, and I'm crying. I am heaving sob. Like, oh, there are times, and a lot of times with black women, it's like, anybody who defend you, like, oh, you're just seeking your people or your followers on them and I'm like, what would happen if you thought of them as my friends? What would happen if you thought of some of the people who are saying backup or leave me

alone are saying that because they know me as a human and they know that this affects me? What, like, like, what happens if my distress wasn't funny to you or a topic to you? And I think that goes back to like what we were talking about for the subject. And a lot of this is that people say black women, but they don't name them. And it's the back to the citations of black women. It's like, we become a concept. we become a they'd say

black women the way you would say pineapple or like fruit like oh fruits you have this composition like not but it's not a sentient being and with the engagement what's happening to us is along the same line like it's very much we are

a thing to be discussed but we are not people with which these things have effects on they mean things and often being like no this hurts no this this scary. Like people, I was like, people often say, like, oh, like, sometimes I told you so is not an admonition. It's not a dunk. It's a cry for help. Sometimes I told you so is a question. Like, there are a lot of people, like, but we told you or I told you so. It's like, I am not trying to be the smartest person in the room. I really want to understand what was it about

what I said, what I said, that didn't register for you, that didn't make you act. And what would it take for it to be something you acted upon. So that brings me to my big question, you know, what could the internet look like if we listen to black women and recognize our humanity and centered us? What could the internet be like? The internet would look like the world. The internet would look like a world we actually live in. I would love to know what an internet could honestly describe the feeling of having

a really good piece of pineapple with loved ones at the edge of the beach when you weren't... Exactly. That moment was just like... I had a moment. Because we had hot! We're like, oh, you bite it to a pineapple. And it is exactly what you want in a space you want.

Or like when you have ever read or heard something, and it sparks something in you in that moment of just, oh, wow, that, what would happen? Or what would happen if the places where you bought your clothes showed people who looked like you? Or what would happen if when you looked at descriptions of your neighborhood, it wasn't just the same things. Or like, those spaces of that time, or what would happen if when you looked at, you, when something said all access, it was actually all access. That you could sign into something, and it wasn't about worrying whether or not you had anything. Like, when movies and cinema are a big thing, and like those are, it's rough because those

are some of the largest pieces of mass communication and the largest places we get culture, and the most resistance to talking about it in any way that does not involve gatekeeping. But it's just like, what would happen is when you walked in a movie theater, you knew you could watch the movie. for people who are visually and auditory able and mobility abled, we never have to think about that. There are so many people who do not, who have to think about that.

Does it have hearing capabilities? Does it have visual descriptions? Or is that an only one showing? That is a huge part of like, if you're from the world and like you're actually from the world, you're from, you went into something that pretend, that talked about the city you lived in and the story actually looked like those people you

encountered in your life or that if you went to a and I like movie theater because they're both visual and media concerts but if you were looking at the showings and we're looking at the showings in a big city that had multiple languages and had people of multiple language when you looked at the cinema you knew that someone could come in and hear what they needed to hear or that at least one of those stories reflected them and that wasn't they didn't have to worry about that. Those kind of tease out some changes. And I think for me, the way I would close it is that what would the world look like if they listen to us is another question is what would listening look like? It's like there would be a constant conversation of making everything to do that,

to do something new and to do something fun, not just profit off of it. And that space, which is still in video with it isn't an answer. would be magical, and I think that would lead to multiple more conversations. But, like, I think of pineapple by the ocean, surrounded by people, and a way to actually convey that in all of these mediums. And that's what happens. People will tell you how to sell that. Right now we talk about how to sell it, how to influence, et cetera,

but to actually convey to a person point to point heart to heart, this is what it feels like for me and for you. and that is both like for me you pineapple by the ocean sounds great but what if we had somebody who liked apples and apples and the hills that is a completely different thing and they would be like and it's here the thing i want to know what that feeling is like i want to know what they think of that i don't necessarily make them feel the same thing i do but that's that to me is the crux of it like we what would we get if we actually move towards having those discussions and not about these who influences what and does what? Like, that's the question for me. It answers that excellent answer. It answers it beautifully. Now I want pineapple on the beach.

It answers it beautifully. Siddette, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to speak. I wish I have chills. I don't know. Something about the way you show up in the world is such a gift. And I, yeah, I am so grateful that you are a human who exists. Thank you. I'm grateful for you.

Oh, please. No, but I am. No, no, don't you dare. Don't you dare. This is a real thing. Every day we look at black women and we are often feeling alone. We feel unseen. We feel misunderstood.

And every day I get to look at you and I get to look at others and we're here and we're building. So I am grateful for you and please understand that is honest and true and met from the heart. You are amazing both for being Bridget but also for being human. And no one else likes to exist in this moment. I am thankful for that. You cannot cry. You cannot cry or I'll cry. No.

No. Stop. I appreciate you so much. If you enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi. We'd love to hear from you at hello at tangoity.com. Disinformed was brought to you by there are no girls on the internet.

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