Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Jason Flam on my new series Righteous Convictions.
Speaker 1: I speak with some of today's most prominent and active
Speaker 1: agents of change, people who see the wrong in the
Speaker 1: world and are driven to make it right. Inspired by
Speaker 1: the era of misinformation. Our guest today has been anonymously
Speaker 1: running an Instagram account called so you want to talk About,
Speaker 1: where she tackles complex social issues with easily digestible and
Speaker 1: well designed info graphics. If you're going to even attempt
Speaker 1: to engage in conversation with somebody who is of the
Speaker 1: fake news realm or the Q and on sphere, you
Speaker 1: need to know what you're talking about. And it's challenging
Speaker 1: to talk to people that you know are smarter than this,
Speaker 1: But approaching things with a level head is obviously the
Speaker 1: best advice, and going in with facts. Spreading the news
Speaker 1: on nuanced issues has proven difficult for many, but she
Speaker 1: seems to have cracked the code with nearly two and
Speaker 1: a half million followers, and she will reveal her entity
Speaker 1: here for the first time right now on Righteous Convictions.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Righteous Convictions. Today's episode is unlike any
Speaker 1: episode we've done before, and it features somebody who has
Speaker 1: in a year done a hell of a lot to
Speaker 1: really crystallize the conversation around social justice and justice reform.
Speaker 1: And she's done it in a way that is really
Speaker 1: unique because she's hit it anonymously. This is actually a reveal.
Speaker 1: This this podcast Today's Reveals, an identity reveal and well,
Speaker 1: as it says on her amazing Instagram, which is called
Speaker 1: at so you want to talk about she's dissecting progressive
Speaker 1: politics and social issues in graphics slide show form, and
Speaker 1: so we're year to reveal her identity, which has been
Speaker 1: a subject of much speculation, and also to talk to
Speaker 1: her about how she has done what she's done in
Speaker 1: this extremely short period of time. So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you say who you are. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: not the CIA, not Conde Nast, I'm just natally, just me.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing, So just natally. Since working on
Speaker 1: the Bernie Sanders campaign, I guess, well, I don't want
Speaker 1: to put words in your mouth that experience really shape
Speaker 1: your worldview? Is that fair to say? Uh? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it definitely my current world view. I had actually
Speaker 1: worked on Obama's re election campaign, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what got me interested in politics. On like more than
Speaker 1: just the baseline, like knowing what's going on, like really
Speaker 1: diving into it. But Bernie's campaign is what fired me up,
Speaker 1: I think, and then you started in it. About a
Speaker 1: period of about a year. You created an Instagram page
Speaker 1: that has reached its two point four million very engaged
Speaker 1: followers now. And that is remarkable because there's no pictures, right,
Speaker 1: there's no sensational videos, there's no cute animals. What there
Speaker 1: is is just graphics and information. And so to give
Speaker 1: you an idea, and I encourage everyone listening to go
Speaker 1: now to so you want to talk about, but even
Speaker 1: the most recent ones, the myth busting, the fifteen dollar
Speaker 1: minimum wage, women who are getting ship done, wrongful convictions,
Speaker 1: and a subject that's near and dear to my heart,
Speaker 1: the Equality Act. But I mean, you really cracked the code. Jests.
Speaker 1: You've created a format that makes processing complex issues not
Speaker 1: only sort of seamless, but also kind of enjoyable. So, so,
Speaker 1: what what gave you the inspiration to do this and
Speaker 1: what's your secret? Well, the inspiration came from phone banking
Speaker 1: with Bernie's campaign during the primaries, and I was speaking
Speaker 1: to a lot of people predominantly in Florida. That was
Speaker 1: kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, people
Speaker 1: in Florida conflating him with communism and saying he's a communist.
Speaker 1: And I have older family members in Florida who were
Speaker 1: buying into that, and I kind of felt like, how
Speaker 1: can I reach these people? Well they read this, I
Speaker 1: don't know, so I just the first graphic I made
Speaker 1: was so you want to talk about Bernie Sanders, and
Speaker 1: it went from that. I think my second one was
Speaker 1: so you want to talk about Medicare for all? And
Speaker 1: it evolved now into these over five posts on the
Speaker 1: page almost now. That is what started it, and I'm
Speaker 1: not really sure what the interests people had. I think
Speaker 1: just presenting something that's simplified so that you're not having
Speaker 1: a strain yourself to understand. Sometimes it's a little heavier,
Speaker 1: like when I'm talking about the death penalty maybe, but
Speaker 1: in general I do try to present it so that
Speaker 1: anybody could understand. So, now that I know your name,
Speaker 1: which I'm excited to know your name and and to
Speaker 1: know you, what about your background do you think led
Speaker 1: you to become this person that you are? M hm, Well,
Speaker 1: I like, you know, probably what of the world. I
Speaker 1: have divorced parents who could not be more opposite of
Speaker 1: each other, and I spent a significant amount of time
Speaker 1: living with my father, who is maybe one of the
Speaker 1: most hateful, racist, ignorant people I've ever met in my life,
Speaker 1: and my mom, who is arguably maybe even more liberal
Speaker 1: than I am, And seeing the contrast between those two
Speaker 1: things was almost kind of like, which, which way am
Speaker 1: I going to go with this? And I I obviously
Speaker 1: resonate way more with my mom and just my heart
Speaker 1: and my soul, I think, And so my whole life
Speaker 1: has been based around really rejecting everything that I grew
Speaker 1: up hearing and everything that my father stood for, and
Speaker 1: wanting to take action so that less people are like that,
Speaker 1: and so that people are not impacted by other people
Speaker 1: who are like that. That drives me on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: It's the polarization that we're living in now. I've been
Speaker 1: living that my whole life, So I think maybe that
Speaker 1: gives me, I don't know, the tools to be running
Speaker 1: this page by myself, it's so wonderful to see that
Speaker 1: not only that you're doing this, but that people are
Speaker 1: responding the way they are. It feels to me from
Speaker 1: reading the comments and things that you're moving the needle
Speaker 1: on some of these issues. I didn't make this page
Speaker 1: expecting more than maybe the people that I knew from
Speaker 1: Bernie's campaign and that kind of sphere. I didn't think
Speaker 1: it was going to break past that at all. Obviously
Speaker 1: it has, and it's I do this page myself. I
Speaker 1: have some great collaborators that I work with. One of
Speaker 1: my collaborators who does art for my post frequently, Alex.
Speaker 1: He kind of challenged me to add action items to
Speaker 1: all of the post and I think that that has
Speaker 1: proven to be effective. And I think that they're reading
Speaker 1: something that's upsetting and horrifying, like Julius Jones's case, They're
Speaker 1: reading that and they want to do something, and then
Speaker 1: at the end M giving them the tools to do
Speaker 1: something like make these phone calls, sign this petition, spread
Speaker 1: the word, and so I think when they're more informed,
Speaker 1: they're more willing to do something. That's why I made
Speaker 1: the pages, because I was becoming more informed and I
Speaker 1: felt like doing something about it, and I made the page.
Speaker 1: So the ripple effect of that has been rewarding, nerve wracking,
Speaker 1: but it's interesting. It's interesting to see this happen on
Speaker 1: social media. Are there certain things that we act more
Speaker 1: strongly than others? Are there certain topics and are there
Speaker 1: certain posts that have just gone way beyond any of
Speaker 1: the other ones. The post that has the most engagement
Speaker 1: ever is the post that I have about abolishing the
Speaker 1: death penalty. And I had been in contact with Brandon
Speaker 1: Bernard's people because that was a case that was coming up.
Speaker 1: Um he was on death row, and so I made
Speaker 1: a post about Brandon Bernard and a lot of people
Speaker 1: got really really invested in that case because it was
Speaker 1: just so terrible. We crashed the DJ phone lines two times.
Speaker 1: The White House knew about the post, and they were
Speaker 1: very upset that I was pushing people to call. But
Speaker 1: people were very upset and that obviously played out in
Speaker 1: such a horrific way. And I posted about abolishing the
Speaker 1: death penalty and really kind of went into the death
Speaker 1: penalty and the history of it and how it's not humane,
Speaker 1: it's so error prone. That's my most popular post on
Speaker 1: the page. I posted that after they executed Brandon Bernard
Speaker 1: because I feel like people started to give a ship
Speaker 1: because there was a person that they could put to
Speaker 1: this now and now all of the cases that I've
Speaker 1: covered and tried to amplify on the page. Since have
Speaker 1: people have been very engaged with those posts. There's been
Speaker 1: some positive developments recently in some of the cases that
Speaker 1: we are both involved in. You want to talk about
Speaker 1: Julius Jones and what's happening there, Jess. I mean, Julius
Speaker 1: Jones is sitting on death row, and there's plenty of
Speaker 1: people sitting on death row in Oklahoma that should not be.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody should be. But Julius Jones is definitely
Speaker 1: innocent and there's a lot of compelling evidence to back
Speaker 1: that up. He has been fighting for two decades almost
Speaker 1: His team has been fighting for petitions. They have millions
Speaker 1: of signatures on their changed out work petition. People say
Speaker 1: signing petitions is useless, and it's really not, and Julius
Speaker 1: Jones his team kind of proved that when they presented
Speaker 1: this what are they called legal boxes of signatures showing
Speaker 1: that there's this massive outcry from the public backing his
Speaker 1: innocence and wanting them to relok at this case, wanting
Speaker 1: them to exonerate him. So the update with that case
Speaker 1: specifically is that they voted three to one. Just now
Speaker 1: to take up his case in the parole board, and
Speaker 1: I believe that's going to be later this year that
Speaker 1: they will take that on. So what's next, Jazz, Like,
Speaker 1: how does it work inside of your brain and soul?
Speaker 1: In terms of they're all these issues right? You could
Speaker 1: open up the newspaper any day of the week. How
Speaker 1: does the next subject land in your feed? I have
Speaker 1: a form in my bio on the page where people
Speaker 1: can submit for collaboration posts. I love doing collaboration posts,
Speaker 1: especially if it's collaborating with like the legal team or
Speaker 1: the families of these people that need this attention. I
Speaker 1: don't see a point in having this platform if I
Speaker 1: can't do something good with it, but not have a
Speaker 1: list of probably four things I've jotted down on a
Speaker 1: note in phone of topics that I want to cover.
Speaker 1: Research and design takes like eight hours a post, so
Speaker 1: I generally get one post on the day because I'm
Speaker 1: doing this and I have a full time job. What
Speaker 1: is your full time job? I'm curious. I mean this
Speaker 1: might be shocking to you, but I do social media marketing.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so, Jess, why did you do this page anonymously?
Speaker 1: I mean, are you banksy or something? Maybe that's it.
Speaker 1: Maybe your alter ego is banksy. I don't know. Like
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, it just started that way
Speaker 1: when I was initially posting, and I was one of
Speaker 1: very few people for quite a bit of time engage
Speaker 1: it with the posts. This wasn't two and a half
Speaker 1: million followers the whole time. It grew very slowly, and
Speaker 1: then it really popped off when I was live streaming
Speaker 1: from protest Us during the summer. I didn't see a
Speaker 1: point of making it about me, or it felt irrelevant
Speaker 1: to have anything about me on here, because that's not
Speaker 1: I don't want to be an influencer. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to sell hand lotion. So it went from
Speaker 1: being where I didn't feel like it was relevant to
Speaker 1: talk about myself to where I actively didn't want to
Speaker 1: be talking about me or revealing who I was because
Speaker 1: I was getting threats from people, especially during the election,
Speaker 1: a lot of very graphic, very angry messages from people
Speaker 1: who were very upset that I was not holding back
Speaker 1: about how I felt about Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it makes me sad, but it doesn't surprise me. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, families we know are being torn apart by
Speaker 1: these very important issues of our day, and you know,
Speaker 1: in so many cases this conversation evolves into conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: on one side and there's news on the other side.
Speaker 1: Do you have any advice for people who want to
Speaker 1: try to bridge that gap. If you're going to even
Speaker 1: attempt to engage in conversation with somebody who is of
Speaker 1: the fake news realm or the Q and on sphere,
Speaker 1: you need to know what you're talking about. And I
Speaker 1: have found the equipping myself with facts that cannot be disputed,
Speaker 1: perhaps having those readily available on my phone. It's just
Speaker 1: the initial knee jerk reaction is to just you know,
Speaker 1: what is wrong with you? Kind of almost like you're
Speaker 1: lashing out. But I think everybody, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day believes what they want to believe and if
Speaker 1: it makes them feel better about their lives to buy
Speaker 1: into this bullshit that's been peddled, you know, these alternative
Speaker 1: facts that were made into reality for so many people.
Speaker 1: Is it's frustrating to deal with that, and I have
Speaker 1: dealt with that obviously on the page, but I've also
Speaker 1: dealt with that in my personal life, and it's challenging
Speaker 1: to talk to people that you know are smarter than this.
Speaker 1: So my advice, I guess, would just be to take
Speaker 1: a step back and realize, like these people have been
Speaker 1: conned into believing what they bel You've given it's of
Speaker 1: the fake news roman, not the hateful racism role. But
Speaker 1: approaching things with a level head is obviously the best advice,
Speaker 1: and going in with facts and you can find those
Speaker 1: facts at so you want to talk about on Instagram.
Speaker 1: So I have a question. I ask almost all our
Speaker 1: guests if you had a magic wand and could fix
Speaker 1: one thing, what would it be. I would fix this
Speaker 1: desire that people have to be willfully ignorant. I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the biggest problems around the world. But
Speaker 1: I think it's definitely an American problem that people actively
Speaker 1: choose to be ignorant about things. And I think if
Speaker 1: people were choosing rather to be more informed and to
Speaker 1: learn and be open minded and to be more accepting
Speaker 1: with all of what they've learned, I think we would
Speaker 1: be in a much better place. So, just rumor has
Speaker 1: it that you have a book coming out, I have
Speaker 1: put together a book that is tackling all of these
Speaker 1: subjects that people struggle to talk about. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have the war on drugs, prison, labor, abortions, all of
Speaker 1: these controversial topics that people don't really know how to
Speaker 1: have conversations with family or friends or strangers about. And
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about it that's coming out in October
Speaker 1: of this year. Did we get the name of it? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's called so let's talk about it. Like the page,
Speaker 1: it's a toolkit for un learning and it will be
Speaker 1: available wherever books are sold. On that note, you know,
Speaker 1: we usually like to wrap up the show by first
Speaker 1: of all, thanking you, and with that, I would like
Speaker 1: to just turn my microphone off and leave yours on
Speaker 1: for any closing thoughts that you want to share about anything. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess to address my audience, I am deeply thankful
Speaker 1: that everybody is so inspired to learn that you followed
Speaker 1: the page, that you have maybe gain something from something
Speaker 1: you've learned on the page. Maybe you've taken an action
Speaker 1: from the page. Maybe you felt for the first time
Speaker 1: ever like you can make a phone call and yell
Speaker 1: at a legislator, or you know, I had so many
Speaker 1: people who registered to vote for the first time because
Speaker 1: they felt empowered and they felt like they wanted to
Speaker 1: make a difference during the election, and I think that
Speaker 1: keeps me wanting to post, and I really hope that
Speaker 1: what I'm posting keeps everybody wanting to make a change
Speaker 1: or feeling inspired to convince others to make a change.
Speaker 1: And I think the ripple effect of whatever you read
Speaker 1: on the page, it can make a difference. And anybody
Speaker 1: who tries to say it can't be activism if it's
Speaker 1: on social media, don't listen to that, because what we
Speaker 1: have done on this page, and I say we because
Speaker 1: everybody who has followed the page has played a part
Speaker 1: in getting it to where it is, and we have
Speaker 1: made a difference in the lives of so many people.
Speaker 1: And I thank everybody for participating in that with me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Righteous Convictions. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team, Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Wardis.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Twitter at Wrong Conviction, and on Facebook
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Righteous Convictions is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
Speaker 1: one