Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Me your Girl. Daniel Moody recording from the home bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I am very excited about today's episode. For five or
Speaker 1: six years, I can't even think about how much time
Speaker 1: has passed. And let me be one hundred percent sure,
Speaker 1: because you know, time is I don't even know what
Speaker 1: do they say? Time is a construct? But for a
Speaker 1: really long time, let's see, for six years, for six years,
Speaker 1: I just I had to do the math. For six years,
Speaker 1: Andrew Marcello has been the producer extraordinaire behind WOKF, behind
Speaker 1: WOKF when WOKF was that serious, then when it moved
Speaker 1: to DNR and d CP, and now with me still
Speaker 1: at iHeart and I can't tell you how much of
Speaker 1: a pleasure and just an extraordinary opportunity to work with
Speaker 1: someone who is just as passionate about the topics that
Speaker 1: you cover, about the work that you do as you
Speaker 1: do right. And it isn't often to have a colleague
Speaker 1: who just gets it and gets you. And that's how
Speaker 1: I have felt about Andrew for the last six years.
Speaker 1: In the work that we've done to build woke F
Speaker 1: into a brand, into a show into something that has,
Speaker 1: you know, a footprint and robust commentary on the world
Speaker 1: that we are living in. And so today I'm very
Speaker 1: happy to welcome Andrew back on Mike to have a
Speaker 1: conversation about what pride means to him this year. And
Speaker 1: you know what, how do we we at WOKF have
Speaker 1: made it our theme this month to say you can't
Speaker 1: ban queer joy, But we also recognize that being joyful
Speaker 1: holding joy in this moment of great despair and stress
Speaker 1: a job in and of itself. And so we get
Speaker 1: into a very real conversation about how we hold these things,
Speaker 1: how we hold the complications of this moment, and give
Speaker 1: some advice and some thoughts on how we can all
Speaker 1: do our part to help things feel a little bit
Speaker 1: better and look a little bit better. So coming up
Speaker 1: next my conversation with my producer extraordinaire Andrew Marshella. Folks,
Speaker 1: I am so excited to welcome to the show. This
Speaker 1: is not and it's weird to welcome in front of
Speaker 1: the camera, I guess on the actual microphone, not to
Speaker 1: the show, which is my producer extraordinaire of WOKF for
Speaker 1: the last Oh my God, five six years one does
Speaker 1: not even know Andrew Marcello, who is the person that
Speaker 1: makes wok F tick and happen, and it's here and
Speaker 1: queer with us as we wrap up Pride. You can't
Speaker 1: ban queer joy on WOKF. Andrew, Welcome in front of
Speaker 1: the mic.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's good to see you.
Speaker 1: It is good to see you. So all month long,
Speaker 1: we've had amazing people come on and talk about Pride
Speaker 1: and they're feeling about Pride in this season, and we've
Speaker 1: made it our you know, theme to talk about joy
Speaker 1: and how difficult it is right how difficult it is
Speaker 1: to find joy during this time. So I want to
Speaker 1: ask you, how has Pride landed with you this season?
Speaker 1: How do you have you felt about Pride this season?
Speaker 2: I think to start, I would say that when we
Speaker 2: were just to pull the curtain back a little bit
Speaker 2: for the audience, when we were discussing the theme for
Speaker 2: this month. You know, last year, if you were not
Speaker 2: a okay if listener back then, or you know, if
Speaker 2: you recall last year, our theme was Pride as a
Speaker 2: Riot because at the time there was a lot of
Speaker 2: what we referred to as rainbow capitalism and just you know,
Speaker 2: literally like banks and all these institutions putting up rainbows
Speaker 2: for you know, on June first, and then on June
Speaker 2: thirtieth they go away and everything goes back to the
Speaker 2: status quo. So, you know, at the time, it was like,
Speaker 2: let's remember that pride started as like a fight for
Speaker 2: our rights, and now here we are a year later
Speaker 2: and we don't have to be reminded. And so I
Speaker 2: think the idea of emphasizing queer joy was great and
Speaker 2: admirable in its intent, but the not But at the
Speaker 2: same time, the unfortunate reality is that we are fighting
Speaker 2: a lot, and so if anything, it should be a
Speaker 2: reminder that, like queer joy is a necessity. And like
Speaker 2: you know, some people have said this month that queer
Speaker 2: joy can also be a tool for fighting, and I
Speaker 2: believe in that as well. But it's also this year
Speaker 2: strikingly difficult two be joyous in the face of everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just feel I feel you, and I feel similarly,
Speaker 1: I feel like you know, I long for the days
Speaker 1: where the conversation was about the critique of the corporatization
Speaker 1: of pride and not the erasure of pride. And I
Speaker 1: feel like we have now moved back into a space
Speaker 1: where we are being forced back into the closet in
Speaker 1: so many ways, and or just targets, actual literal targets
Speaker 1: being placed on the backs of trans people in this
Speaker 1: country and trans youth in particular. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: get a sense from you. You know, you have been
Speaker 1: a part of a time where you've both witnessed marriage
Speaker 1: equality happened, were old enough to like be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, look at this marriage equality it has happened,
Speaker 1: and then also watched the fierce backlash that has happened
Speaker 1: in less than a decade after that momentous day. And
Speaker 1: I want to know, like, for somebody who you know
Speaker 1: has witnessed this at a younger age than myself, like
Speaker 1: how that happened? Like what are all those emotions of like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's possible. I guess it's not like, oh, we're making
Speaker 1: feel like it's not possible.
Speaker 2: So I definitely wouldn't say, like, I to be clear
Speaker 2: for the audience, I'm thirty. I turned thirty within the
Speaker 2: last year. I and a lot of people who are
Speaker 2: around like my mindset and my age, we still believe
Speaker 2: that a better world is possible. But we've been slinging
Speaker 2: the phrase a better world as possible since twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: and I'll be honest, compared to how we felt in
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, it's a lot harder to feel that a
Speaker 2: better world is possible. I still want to feel that.
Speaker 2: It's not just a desire to feel that way. I
Speaker 2: can't possibly not believe that a better world than this
Speaker 2: is not only possible theoretically, because like, how can a
Speaker 2: better world than this not be possible, but also that
Speaker 2: a better world than this is possible, a better society,
Speaker 2: a better America, whatever. But I really think a better
Speaker 2: world than this is possib in reality, but it takes
Speaker 2: so much, And that's that conversation is like so beyond
Speaker 2: I think the scope of what we're talking about today
Speaker 2: and the scope of my own knowledge and expertise. But
Speaker 2: absolutely I believe a better world is possible. But it's
Speaker 2: I think if we had started on the path to
Speaker 2: a better world eight years ago compared to now, the
Speaker 2: fight would have been a lot less difficult. And I
Speaker 2: feel that a lot of ways. I feel that in
Speaker 2: regard to climate change and all this other stuff. But yes, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: you know, you said a decade. I even feel like,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe five years, because I don't even feel
Speaker 2: it was, because everything was, but I don't even feel
Speaker 2: like it was a big focus of the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: It's right, you, Yeah, that's true, that's true. No goad.
Speaker 2: But but you've called this out, and I'm glad you
Speaker 2: you mentioned trans people specifically, because I don't in this
Speaker 2: conversation when a center just myself, I am a pan sexual,
Speaker 2: CIS white man right now in a hetero relationship, even
Speaker 2: though I can be in relationships with people of any gender,
Speaker 2: but I'm I'm sis and the whatever I'm experiencing, whatever
Speaker 2: emotions I'm experiencing, is nothing compared to the oppression and
Speaker 2: the repression that and the depression to be frank that
Speaker 2: trans people are facing around the country. And I do
Speaker 2: think that that sort of started to be a focus
Speaker 2: of maybe not like the Trump administration, but certainly the
Speaker 2: right wing movement. And this is something where I think
Speaker 2: the US is often a leader around the world and hate,
Speaker 2: but I feel like this is something where like maybe
Speaker 2: there was trans not maybe there was transphobia in the US, absolutely,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of it. It diminished from if you
Speaker 2: think about like the nineties and the two thousands, comedy
Speaker 2: movies and the things that were like to punchlines. We
Speaker 2: still have progress from that time, but we had definitely
Speaker 2: like progressed. We weren't in that society anymore. And that's
Speaker 2: a good thing, and for some people that was not
Speaker 2: a good thing. But what I'm trying to get at is,
Speaker 2: like I think, when this stuff that we saw coming
Speaker 2: out of Great Britain and the UK, and like I'll
Speaker 2: call them by their name because they're proud of it now,
Speaker 2: TERFs the trans exclusionary radical feminists who shouldn't like that
Speaker 2: term came from Tumblr because at the time that was
Speaker 2: people who like were in the radical feminist movement, which
Speaker 2: is a fringe of a fringe. And then also those
Speaker 2: people were radical feminists who excluded trans women. That is
Speaker 2: all that turf, And now like turf is almost like
Speaker 2: euphemistic to refer to anyone who's transphobic. You don't have
Speaker 2: to be a feminist, you don't have to be a
Speaker 2: radical feminist. If you hate trans women, you're a So
Speaker 2: that's trans misogyny, that's not terfism, yep. And you should
Speaker 2: call things by their name. And I'm not like calling
Speaker 2: you out. I'm just saying, like I'm on a big
Speaker 2: stream of consciousness. Now, there was so much I wanted
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 1: No, but I mean, I but I think that it's Look, one,
Speaker 1: you brought up a couple of really important things. I
Speaker 1: think it's really interesting that during the four years of
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, for as horrendous as it was right
Speaker 1: for people of color, for undocumented people, for you know,
Speaker 1: for a whole for you know, our national security, all
Speaker 1: of these things, the crowning, you know, jewel of the
Speaker 1: Trump administration was not to go after the LGBTQ community
Speaker 1: Like that was not what Donald Trump spent the last
Speaker 1: the four years of his administration doing and so for me.
Speaker 1: But he's doing it. He's doing it now in order
Speaker 1: to keep pace with the other Republicans, namely Ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: out of Florida, who has made it right, who has
Speaker 1: made it his like his entree into politics in a
Speaker 1: real way. Look how big and bad I am. Look
Speaker 1: how tough I am to take on this marginalized community
Speaker 1: and be as cruel as possible. Look, I can be
Speaker 1: cruel too, Right, He needed a target because when Donald
Speaker 1: Trump came down the escalator, he said, my target is
Speaker 1: Mexicans and Muslims, and you know, and these people of color.
Speaker 1: Rond Desant is like, oh, that was taken, so I
Speaker 1: got to find another group that I can target and right,
Speaker 1: So I think that that is really interesting, but also
Speaker 1: a throwback to the nineteen eighties, to the Save Our
Speaker 1: Children campaign, to all of the things that this set
Speaker 1: of people white Evangelical Christians were doing in the eighties.
Speaker 1: They've just remixed it for the twenty first century. And
Speaker 1: when I think about that, I think about everything that
Speaker 1: is old is always new again if you refuse to
Speaker 1: teach history and you refuse to create guardrails to make
Speaker 1: sure that those things can't come back and don't come back.
Speaker 1: And I just you know, you said that you like
Speaker 1: remain hopeful in terms of wanting to believe that we
Speaker 1: can do better than what we are doing right now.
Speaker 1: And I swear to God if I didn't believe that,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't get out of bed. However, do you what
Speaker 1: are your feelings about the generations that preceded you and
Speaker 1: the mistakes that were made to not guard and ensure
Speaker 1: that we weren't going to continue to backslide every time
Speaker 1: we made a bit of progress.
Speaker 2: That's a big question, because as you were talking and
Speaker 2: I actually wanted to address this before too, because you
Speaker 2: asked me a question previously, and I thought about so
Speaker 2: many things when you were asking me that. So I
Speaker 2: kind of want to go back to like my own
Speaker 2: story just really quickly, because I was born in the
Speaker 2: early nineties and I grew up in this sort of
Speaker 2: like post Reagan slash hw Bush. Like Clinton was a
Speaker 2: very post Reagan president. I feel that, you know, having
Speaker 2: learned American history, the Clinton years were sort of a
Speaker 2: post Reagan society and through pros and cons of that,
Speaker 2: but socially, you know, my uncle is gay, and that
Speaker 2: was the era of don't ask, don't tell, and I
Speaker 2: think the don't ask, don't tell policy in the military
Speaker 2: kind of set a tone socially at least for what
Speaker 2: was going on in my white suburban world. Because my
Speaker 2: uncle had a domestic partner. They lived in a house
Speaker 2: together and had two dogs, and it like so I
Speaker 2: would ask, you know, is uncle Tom married? Are they
Speaker 2: are the two of them married? And I would get
Speaker 2: told no. They would tell me, as a child to
Speaker 2: my face, that that my uncle's domestic partner was not
Speaker 2: his husband, which it was true, but like you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, and they at a certain point when
Speaker 2: I learned more, it became he's not gay, which was
Speaker 2: a lie. They were lying to me as a child.
Speaker 2: And so I think about like when people say things
Speaker 2: like how am I going to talk teachers? How am
Speaker 2: I going to tell my children? How am I going
Speaker 2: to explain this to my children? It's the explanation, isn't
Speaker 2: the problem? You just don't want your kids to know?
Speaker 2: And we're going back to that. And I see so
Speaker 2: much of that, and then we went through the Bush
Speaker 2: years and all this other stuff. But ultimately a society
Speaker 2: I alluded to, like you know, transphobia in movies, and
Speaker 2: I think just in general as a society, you know,
Speaker 2: we stopped using the f slur. There were things that
Speaker 2: were progress, and now I feel that progress is being
Speaker 2: clawed back, and maybe even to an era that I
Speaker 2: didn't exist, which is scary, like to think about the
Speaker 2: desire to go back to like the Reagan era, or
Speaker 2: even on like abortion rights, you know, back further like they.
Speaker 2: But but to address your direct question, which is how
Speaker 2: do I feel about the previous generations, it's complicated because
Speaker 2: I tend to think that like people on a on
Speaker 2: a on a micro scale, on an individual scale don't
Speaker 2: have a lot of power. And I think there was
Speaker 2: a lot of institutional uh erosion of the power of
Speaker 2: the people in the decades before I was born. And
Speaker 2: I don't entirely think of that as society's fault. I'm
Speaker 2: sure you know, people were voted into power, there were
Speaker 2: desires that voted in people into power. I blame really
Speaker 2: those people, the people whose desire it was to take
Speaker 2: society backwards. It's hard for me to fault people in general,
Speaker 2: because you know, some people were beaten down. Some they
Speaker 2: they you know, the move in Philadelphia. It's not like
Speaker 2: some people weren't trying the Black Panthers. There's stuff that
Speaker 2: people were doing and they really got beaten down by society,
Speaker 2: even like in my lifetime the free speech zones during
Speaker 2: the Iraq War protests, And it's easy to it's easy
Speaker 2: to be a younger person, either who was alive and
Speaker 2: young at the time, or who maybe even wasn't alive
Speaker 2: at the time during the Iraq War and look back
Speaker 2: at that and be like, well, how did people let
Speaker 2: that happen? How did people let their First Amendment rights
Speaker 2: get taken away? How did it get reduced to a
Speaker 2: punchline on the rest of development, and it's like that
Speaker 2: wasn't you know, there was a combination of factors that
Speaker 2: led to that. It's hard for me to blame the
Speaker 2: populace for getting whipped up in Iraq War hysteria after
Speaker 2: a national traumatizing event. People took advantage of nine to
Speaker 2: eleven and used that to sell the populace on this
Speaker 2: horrible ideology that was already in green from the Reagan
Speaker 2: years and not He Man, G I Joe and all
Speaker 2: that bowl crap, and you know that carried through to
Speaker 2: the nineties, and this whole idea that the military are
Speaker 2: heroes and the police are heroes and everybody's good guys,
Speaker 2: Like we're just as a society coming like a mainstream
Speaker 2: society coming around to the idea that, like, maybe the
Speaker 2: police aren't the good guys, Like that is a mainstream
Speaker 2: idea in maybe like the last four years. So it
Speaker 2: is really hard for me to fault people in the
Speaker 2: past for not breaking out of their mental bubbles. You know,
Speaker 2: I once went off on my grandma, bless her when
Speaker 2: when she was still around and I was full of
Speaker 2: piss and vinegar in my college punk rock years, and
Speaker 2: I really went off on her and I was like,
Speaker 2: what did.
Speaker 1: You all do?
Speaker 2: What have you done?
Speaker 1: What have you done?
Speaker 2: And she was like, you know, she was mortified at me.
Speaker 2: She was really upset, and she was like, I voted
Speaker 2: for John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy.
Speaker 2: I was doing all these things. I really tried, and
Speaker 2: it's hard for me to fault individuals. It's really the systematic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but I think but I think that that's right, right,
Speaker 1: because you have a lot of and I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: gen Z and I'm thinking about the alpha generation coming
Speaker 1: behind them that are looking at their parents and their
Speaker 1: grandparents generations and they're like, you were giving us a
Speaker 1: planet that will be out of natural resources, air that
Speaker 1: we won't be able to breathe, water that we won't
Speaker 1: be able to drink, that will then be sold to us, right,
Speaker 1: that we won't be able to afford because we don't
Speaker 1: have jobs because of you know, the climate of capitalism
Speaker 1: and greed that you all have bought into. Right, So
Speaker 1: like there is yeah, and it's natural to have and
Speaker 1: it's right. I think that it's righteous. Right, it is
Speaker 1: it is righteous anger to be like when you had
Speaker 1: the opportunity, not again, individuals, right, but when the collective
Speaker 1: has the opportunity to make change. It's like, it's how
Speaker 1: I feel right now as I look back on the
Speaker 1: Obama years, and I think, wow, I really was a
Speaker 1: part of this collective that thought that we made it.
Speaker 1: I really like got super complacent and thought that the
Speaker 1: sky's the limit from here. It did not occur to me.
Speaker 1: And I'm a fucking student of history and politics that like,
Speaker 1: oh no, the white lash, the backlash, all of it
Speaker 1: was coming right and it was actually happened happening concurrently.
Speaker 1: I don't know for you, Andrew, I will ask, like
Speaker 1: I talk about this on the show all the time,
Speaker 1: about how I try and hold on to joy, about
Speaker 1: how I try and center self care and emotional wellbeing
Speaker 1: in a time where anxiety and depression are so high.
Speaker 1: I mean, the amount of people that young people and
Speaker 1: older people that became medicated during the pandemic and beyond,
Speaker 1: I think went up like I don't want to say,
Speaker 1: but it was like over half of the population. It
Speaker 1: went up in percentage in terms of In terms of that,
Speaker 1: I talk about the fact that I'm in therapy and
Speaker 1: have been for many years, and thank God, because I
Speaker 1: don't know how I get through this time. So how
Speaker 1: do you center your self care? What does that look
Speaker 1: like for you? And how do you try and remain
Speaker 1: I don't know, somewhat balanced at a time that wants
Speaker 1: to like every headline, every tweet, every moment can literally
Speaker 1: throw you off.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna address something real quick and then I will
Speaker 2: definitely answer your question and just what I want to.
Speaker 2: You've you've talked about young people, and like I've you know,
Speaker 2: I've aged out of the young adult generation. But when
Speaker 2: I think, like you mentioned the righteous anger, and I
Speaker 2: think that righteous anger is it's righteous and it comes
Speaker 2: from a just place. When I think about that righteous anger, though,
Speaker 2: it's like we have to remember and not just young people,
Speaker 2: we have to remember that that anger, you know, does
Speaker 2: need to be directed systematically, Like I think about like
Speaker 2: just as an example of the story of Kitty Genevieve's
Speaker 2: and for years it was presented as a psychological study
Speaker 2: in this this concept of the bystander effect. It turns
Speaker 2: out the cops made that shit up. They just like
Speaker 2: that story was totally doctored and the cops were incompetent,
Speaker 2: but they went, well, you know, thirty eight people or
Speaker 2: however many washinged and did nothing, so it's not our fault.
Speaker 2: And so all this time we were mad at the innocent,
Speaker 2: not innocent like I'm sure some people. Some people tried
Speaker 2: to call the cops and the cops didn't answer. But
Speaker 2: you get told a story and then it becomes well,
Speaker 2: thirty eight people washed and did nothing, So it's the
Speaker 2: thirty eight people's fault and not the NYPD whose actual
Speaker 2: job it was to help that person. And that also
Speaker 2: now to spring off that I am not a mental
Speaker 2: health professional. If you are a younger person listening to this,
Speaker 2: first of all, thank you tell your friends. Second of all,
Speaker 2: i've seen the age demographics. Please tell your young friends.
Speaker 1: Tell you.
Speaker 2: But second of all, you know if you're talking to
Speaker 2: your kids about if you have young people in your
Speaker 2: life and they're struggling with mental health, because Danielle, you're right.
Speaker 2: I saw this scene the other day and it was like,
Speaker 2: like it's it's leaped horribly. I think it is like
Speaker 2: half of high school males, and I can only assume
Speaker 2: it's worse for girls. Yeah, knowing what I know about
Speaker 2: high school, I think they made a movie about that
Speaker 2: twenty years ago. I can only imagine it's worse for
Speaker 2: high school girls. But yeah, it's like half so one
Speaker 2: two One in two high school students is dealing with
Speaker 2: anxiety or depression. I'm not an expert, but what I do,
Speaker 2: I'm in therapy. Having miners in therapy is tricky with
Speaker 2: the parents stuff and disclosure. But if you are a
Speaker 2: good parent and you have a trusting relationship with your
Speaker 2: child and they're having issues, you know, try looking into
Speaker 2: psychiatry and psychology if you haven't already. I'm very much
Speaker 2: in that as well. I've been in therapy for years.
Speaker 2: It's never ending. Some of it comes from my own stuff,
Speaker 2: but sometimes it is the horrors of the world. When
Speaker 2: I started therapy, I would go to my therapist and
Speaker 2: I'd be like, what am I supposed to do? I'm
Speaker 2: just one person and the world is falling apart, and
Speaker 2: one person of the population has all the money, like
Speaker 2: one percent of one percent of the population has all
Speaker 2: the money and all this and you can't So here's
Speaker 2: what I do. You can't do anything about it. That
Speaker 2: does not mean that a better give up on the
Speaker 2: idea that a better world is possible. That does not
Speaker 2: mean stop doing stuff. That does not mean stop caring
Speaker 2: That does not mean stop being active in community. That
Speaker 2: actually means be more active in your community, because all
Speaker 2: you can do is the change that you can create
Speaker 2: as an individual person is the change in your community.
Speaker 2: If you get collectively organized with a group of people
Speaker 2: in your community, and you are a type of person
Speaker 2: who is a leader, even if you are a young person,
Speaker 2: you have a community, get your community organized, or if
Speaker 2: you have a friend who is a leader type and
Speaker 2: is like minded, link up with them and organize with them.
Speaker 2: The more we get organized, the more we can do
Speaker 2: things on mass and then we can start to affect things.
Speaker 2: But all we can do is individual Like you know,
Speaker 2: I know that you're into plants, Danielle, I'm not so
Speaker 2: much into plants. The community garden is important, you know,
Speaker 2: community kitchens or food pantries, like being involved with the
Speaker 2: people around you. If you're a person I think who
Speaker 2: thinks like Danielle and I do, and you care about
Speaker 2: the world and you're compassionate and you're sensitive to negativity
Speaker 2: going on in the world on a massive macro scale,
Speaker 2: try making the little world around you better. Where you are,
Speaker 2: plant things, feed people, take care of those around you,
Speaker 2: get to know the people in your community if you
Speaker 2: don't already, and I'm not talking about it's a good
Speaker 2: first step, but I'm not talking about getting on nextdoor,
Speaker 2: like actually know your neighbors, know what they're If you
Speaker 2: live in an apartment building, know the people around you.
Speaker 2: If you have leftover food, don't just throw it out,
Speaker 2: ask your neighbors if they want some. You know, just
Speaker 2: the little things that I wasn't alive in this society
Speaker 2: for that. I grew up in the era of lock
Speaker 2: your doors, no one is trustworthy, but my grandparents came
Speaker 2: from it. Can I borrow a cup of sugar? I
Speaker 2: bake the pie and I have way too much? Would
Speaker 2: you like a slice of pie? There's nothing you're not
Speaker 2: gonna hurt anyone with that. You're not going to hurt anyone.
Speaker 1: Bye.
Speaker 2: This is a real thing that happened, and there's a
Speaker 2: real article in the Washington Fils about it. You're really
Speaker 2: not going to hurt anyone by baking a big pot
Speaker 2: of chili in your apartment for the three hungry college
Speaker 2: students that live next door and going over and going, hey,
Speaker 2: I've got a big bowl of chili. You guys want
Speaker 2: any It's no one else's business.
Speaker 1: It's you know, and I think a lot of that, honestly,
Speaker 1: he started to come back during the pandemic where people
Speaker 1: were at home, who had the privilege to be at home.
Speaker 2: And like to be human beings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I needed to rely and connect with the people
Speaker 1: around them. And I think that that is because we
Speaker 1: all had the you know, some of us had the
Speaker 1: ability to slow down. And I think that everything that
Speaker 1: you're saying is absolutely right. It becomes a daunting place
Speaker 1: to think that you, as one individual, is going to
Speaker 1: stop the greedy one percent.
Speaker 2: We're not Superman. You're not You're not Bruce Wayne whatever.
Speaker 2: You're not that person. You are a big thing in
Speaker 2: our society right now. So that's important. No one person
Speaker 2: is going to save us. It's not going to be you.
Speaker 2: It's it's not gonna be Elon Musk or any of
Speaker 2: these other people that are no media. But no one,
Speaker 2: it's not Joe Biden. No one person will save us ever.
Speaker 1: No, But like what you can do, like Andrew just said,
Speaker 1: around your own community, around your own life, to make
Speaker 1: things a bit more beautiful, a bit more joyful, a
Speaker 1: bit more connected. Just that little bit, if we all
Speaker 1: just did that little bit around us, we would begin
Speaker 1: to feel better right about how we are perceiving and
Speaker 1: looking at what is being fed to us on the
Speaker 1: largest scale. Final question for you, Andrew, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: we did this big Pride month, you know, special every
Speaker 1: single day, but Pride is three hundred and sixty five
Speaker 1: days of the year. So for those people who you know,
Speaker 1: like the corporations that will take down their rainbow flags
Speaker 1: or just put it away, what do you want people
Speaker 1: to sit with in terms of like how we look
Speaker 1: at Pride for the other eleven months of the year. Uh.
Speaker 2: Weirdly enough, I actually want to start on Pride this year,
Speaker 2: just because I meant to say this before and it
Speaker 2: slipped and we talked about this during our sort of
Speaker 2: pre show conversation. One thing I do want to note
Speaker 2: is that something I noticed in twenty twenty one and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two was, you know, more companies were actually
Speaker 2: listening to criticism of like don't take your Pride flag
Speaker 2: down on June thirtieth, keep it up. You know. In
Speaker 2: some places like the these are fringe examples, but like
Speaker 2: the gaming subreddit has had a Pride banner for like
Speaker 2: over a year because Pride ended and enough people were like,
Speaker 2: don't you fucking change that? That they just never changed it,
Speaker 2: and why not? And that's I think that was a
Speaker 2: good focus to like, because queer people don't stop existing
Speaker 2: on June and the Yeah, and like you mentioned before,
Speaker 2: now we're seeing this backlash where companies like bud Light
Speaker 2: and Target and not even the ones that are facing backlash.
Speaker 2: But in the face of that, you know, Starbucks is
Speaker 2: telling stores not to put up pride displays. They're being
Speaker 2: preemptive about it. That's horrifying. They do want to put
Speaker 2: us back into the closet. And so an important thing
Speaker 2: I would say, even if it's not joyous, if your
Speaker 2: queerness doesn't manifest, enjoy it this time, that's okay. It's
Speaker 2: just be out and loud and proud if you can.
Speaker 2: You should be three hundred and sixty five or three
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty six days a year. I stream on
Speaker 2: on Twitch. I play video games and give commentary, and
Speaker 2: I'm on camera and I have some people I very
Speaker 2: much emphasize I'm in the lgbt Q tag, I'm in
Speaker 2: the queer tag, I'm in the pan sexual tag. And
Speaker 2: you know, when I talk on stream, I will openly
Speaker 2: you know, like thirst over characters of any gender that
Speaker 2: are in games. I'll make jokes about it. I'll make
Speaker 2: references to it. And some people who know me, like
Speaker 2: in real life, who I've known for years initially, like
Speaker 2: would message me and be like, you know, why are
Speaker 2: you playing up your queerness on stream? Like why are you?
Speaker 2: Like are you making that part of your image? I
Speaker 2: would get these different questions. It's like, no, this is
Speaker 2: who I am. You just didn't see it so much.
Speaker 2: And this is a place for me to be me
Speaker 2: and for me to show myself to the world. And
Speaker 2: so if you want to know me better, this is
Speaker 2: like authentic. This isn't a performance, and this is me
Speaker 2: using my platform, unfettered by anyone else, to be myself.
Speaker 2: And so that's what I would say for anyone else
Speaker 2: out there in whatever way, that you have the power
Speaker 2: and the ability to self express and be yourself and
Speaker 2: be loud. And hey, if you're pushing back against something,
Speaker 2: push back as far as you can whatever is safe
Speaker 2: for you. You should try to push back because it's the
Speaker 2: only way that you know, we all get out of
Speaker 2: the closet. We thought the closet, I mean I thought
Speaker 2: I thought the closet was like done for I didn't
Speaker 2: even think about it anymore. It was like, well, when
Speaker 2: you're you know, when you're ready, you come out. It's
Speaker 2: I didn't like they're they're trying to bring back the
Speaker 2: closet and then shove it us all back in it,
Speaker 2: and we can't let them. That's what we say.
Speaker 1: One hundred Andrew Marshall, thank you so much for coming on,
Speaker 1: Mike Uh for this episode of wok Philly. Always appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thank thank you so much for having me. I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you later today.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today. Dear friends on Woke
Speaker 1: app as always, Power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.