Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Nerdificent Another week, another nerdy topic.
Speaker 1: I am Danny Fernandez and sitting across from me. As always,
Speaker 1: it's never missed an episode. Yeah, if you waddy way,
Speaker 1: how you doing, I'm gonna let you out know how
Speaker 1: much of a professional Danny is. She was watching me
Speaker 1: because I took a bite out of this chocolate bar
Speaker 1: right when we started, and she was like really engaging
Speaker 1: it to really set me up to win. That's that's
Speaker 1: that's the type of partner you need in your life.
Speaker 1: We use more than a friend. We're beyond friends at
Speaker 1: this point. We're partners. We we work so well together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, we just love it because we also do.
Speaker 1: People don't know. I mean people do know this if
Speaker 1: they follow us, but we butt heads sometimes, but in
Speaker 1: a respectful brother sister man. Oh yeah, always Um, And
Speaker 1: that's what it's all about, you know. It's really just
Speaker 1: having open dialogue in a sense of where you actually
Speaker 1: want to have a dialogue and you're not just trying
Speaker 1: to shout down the person, which I feel like it
Speaker 1: is going to be lots of points that's going to
Speaker 1: be made on this episode. Yes, Um, and Veginia is
Speaker 1: the best RYMZ care and if you're moving okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let that one pass because so yeah, and I
Speaker 1: want to, you know, set that preamble up if if
Speaker 1: if you don't after this episode, be like, if you
Speaker 1: why didn't you talk more? Because this is a topic
Speaker 1: where I'm going to be doing a lot of listening
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, we have two dope experts
Speaker 1: who are really gonna take the floor and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: lead by example. I'm gonna show y'all fellas how to do.
Speaker 1: I did want to say before we introduce our amazing guests,
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Speaker 1: and it's always so I feel like it's Christmas Morning
Speaker 1: scene that someone cared enough about our podcast to go
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Speaker 1: out here, you know it's it's it's February, we're getting
Speaker 1: to Valentine's Day. If you post a picture of a
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Speaker 1: the kids are using to say, well, write your bio.
Speaker 1: Just I would love to do that. Write your bio.
Speaker 1: And a shout out to Fluff, who I had to
Speaker 1: check because he was he was posting a pic of
Speaker 1: him writing a review for The Daily Zekes. I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I don't see one for Nerdificent and he went ahead
Speaker 1: and did it. So thanks for doing that, Flu, But
Speaker 1: you know I'll call you out. Help hell being us,
Speaker 1: call helping us, you know, find other people. And thanks
Speaker 1: to everyone that's tweeted at us. It really really does.
Speaker 1: If you and I read those in it it um
Speaker 1: and we try to retweet as many as possible, but
Speaker 1: it really and engage and check out our discord too.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of great conversations on there. I
Speaker 1: am popping in there to take down people that say
Speaker 1: that they don't like my Jimmy Stewart impression. Really really
Speaker 1: gotta call y'all out for turning y'all backs on your
Speaker 1: all on the stream, Like, yeah, Danny shows up in
Speaker 1: the discord. People were like, no, I like it. I
Speaker 1: think it's good. I'm everyone's little sister joining us today.
Speaker 1: We have one of the hosts at hyper RPG. She's
Speaker 1: also a youth gaming coach, Janelle Santa Cruz. Okay, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me, guys. Yes, Janelle, you've known IF and
Speaker 1: I for a long time. Yeah, it's been Yeah. I've
Speaker 1: actually known of you before I knew you because you
Speaker 1: were withdraw wrestlers and and my my buddy Coyle was like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's there's this person in the wrestling I think it
Speaker 1: was Tights and Fights you used to post it in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was like, it's it's her drawings are so good.
Speaker 1: And then I saw you were streaming and I was like,
Speaker 1: let me check this out. I think we met previously,
Speaker 1: uh previous to that through Danny through comedy. I think, um,
Speaker 1: because I think I met you. It used to be
Speaker 1: like a long time tournament words, tournament nerds. Yeah, tournament nerds.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh nerds again like comedy source stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's that's how you kind of brought me
Speaker 1: into hyper a Bug actually into the family there because
Speaker 1: they needed for the wrestling. H Yeah, and so that
Speaker 1: was so thank you for that. I'm still there. You're
Speaker 1: great and joining us our other guests. She is a
Speaker 1: senior writer at in Samni at Games. She's also been
Speaker 1: a game developer at BioWare, sam Max. You don't even
Speaker 1: include all your because you've also written several books. We
Speaker 1: here like shortening it. I know. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: you need to flex. We're trying to tell her before
Speaker 1: you need to flex your stuff. I'm not good at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're a host nerdice with me on our show
Speaker 1: fan Girl. That's how we know each other. Really has
Speaker 1: been super fun. It's been great kind of like this
Speaker 1: discussion as women to talk about things that affect us
Speaker 1: in the in the nerd world. Like it's just such
Speaker 1: a positive environment to have other women, people from other
Speaker 1: marginalized cultures getting together to talk about things that we
Speaker 1: love so much and we're so passionate about and I
Speaker 1: think that's really why I'm stoked to be here today,
Speaker 1: is because I think a lot of the time people
Speaker 1: when we talk about like women in games or stuff
Speaker 1: like that, they're like, oh, it's all about like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's because you hate games, or like you want
Speaker 1: to be so negative. But it's because I hate them.
Speaker 1: That's why I play them. It's like we we love games,
Speaker 1: we love comics, we love all the stuff. We want
Speaker 1: to make it better, you know, And that's why we're
Speaker 1: all here. And and I wanted to say this is
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit different than our traditional
Speaker 1: format and that we wanted to have an open conversation,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of going to be a roundtable discussion.
Speaker 1: I really wanted to just Janelle and I were having
Speaker 1: lunch the other day and she was telling me some
Speaker 1: of her experiences, um of being a woman in the
Speaker 1: in the gaming world, and I was like, you have
Speaker 1: to come on and talk about this, because even I,
Speaker 1: as a woman in the nerd world, was not aware
Speaker 1: of some of the stuff that she goes through. And
Speaker 1: so I was like, I just want this to be
Speaker 1: an open conversation about some of the great, amazing things
Speaker 1: that we've gotten to experience and you know, things that
Speaker 1: we want to work on, uh and problem solving. But
Speaker 1: for both of you, I guess where would you say
Speaker 1: probably more professionally or even like you Sam working on
Speaker 1: game developing, Like how did you? And I know both
Speaker 1: of you have different stories, but how did you get
Speaker 1: to where you are? Yeah? Uh guess. For me in
Speaker 1: terms of getting into game development, my my path was
Speaker 1: kind of weird. I think a lot of people have
Speaker 1: a really weird path into game to have. There's no
Speaker 1: one right answer. I'm a game writer, So for me,
Speaker 1: I wrote books first. I wrote a couple nonfiction books. Um,
Speaker 1: I wrote a lot about video games. I wrote video
Speaker 1: game reviews for national newspaper up in Canada, which is
Speaker 1: where I'm from originally, And that's kind of how I
Speaker 1: sort of connected with a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: video game dev community. They knew my work, they knew
Speaker 1: that I was passionate about games, and so I got
Speaker 1: in that way. But for people looking to get into
Speaker 1: games and game writing, I always recommend that they check
Speaker 1: out Twine. It's a free online client. Basically you don't
Speaker 1: have to download anything. You do it totally in your
Speaker 1: browser and it allows you to make your own interactive
Speaker 1: choose your own adventure novel. Basically, it's all writing. You
Speaker 1: don't have to have like any art skills or programming
Speaker 1: skills maybe like basic HTML or whatever, but you just
Speaker 1: go and you write your story and it it lets
Speaker 1: you write branching dialogue, dialogue choices, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and if you finish a full twine, like, it's a
Speaker 1: great piece that you can use when you're auditioning for
Speaker 1: game gigs. And even if you're not using it to
Speaker 1: audition for like Triple A game gigs, it's something that
Speaker 1: you can put out there and be like, look, I
Speaker 1: wrote something, I finished something like, here is what I
Speaker 1: can prove to you that I'm actually good at this.
Speaker 1: That's so cool. Yeah, I didn't know. We're going to
Speaker 1: drop that in the footnote so you'll have a link
Speaker 1: to That's awesome. It's literally what I used to audition
Speaker 1: for by Wear. So you can look at these BBC
Speaker 1: we're given last week it was v O stuff inside
Speaker 1: nuggets on how to get into this industry. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is so cool. Um yeah, Janelle, how did you get
Speaker 1: into youth gaming coach like becoming Yeah, well, my family
Speaker 1: were always big gamers, and you know, we grew up
Speaker 1: with games and UH used to like sit in my
Speaker 1: bunk bed and watch my dad play Silent Hill and
Speaker 1: just like you know, all these things. So it's just
Speaker 1: a big in two stories and everything. And um, because
Speaker 1: we were such a big gamers, my younger brother got
Speaker 1: into playing over what's professionally and I was big and Blizzard,
Speaker 1: you know, played Diablo. I met my husband actually because
Speaker 1: I when I was doing stand up, I did a
Speaker 1: joke about Diablo. They are so cute together, They're so cute.
Speaker 1: Our first was like playing Diablo online and he brought
Speaker 1: us friend because he was nervous. Um, but there is that.
Speaker 1: And so when Overwatch launched, um, you know, I had
Speaker 1: never really played in the first person shooter before. It
Speaker 1: took me two years of grinding to learn how to
Speaker 1: aim and so um, I met a lot of kids
Speaker 1: who had small voices and things like that, and so
Speaker 1: I just bonded with them. And I also worked as
Speaker 1: a day job, you know, um, with special needs kids,
Speaker 1: and I worked with at risk youth and so I
Speaker 1: knew how to work with with teenagers and people that
Speaker 1: didn't have the skill set and wanted to learn to
Speaker 1: get better and needed to reform because maybe they used things,
Speaker 1: you know, language that they shouldn't be using on the internet.
Speaker 1: And so that's how I got into it. And so
Speaker 1: now we have this this Date Night Discord, which initially
Speaker 1: started as a place for me and Andy to actually
Speaker 1: just play games online as a you know, a date night,
Speaker 1: and now there it's just like hundreds of kids and
Speaker 1: stuff and we do pick up games and we work
Speaker 1: on on tactics and strategies and run scrims and stuff.
Speaker 1: And so that's how I got there. What I love.
Speaker 1: I love that you said that you had to grind
Speaker 1: for two years to get good at Overwatch, because I
Speaker 1: feel like so often people look at streamers and like
Speaker 1: women streamers and are like, oh, they know, it's so easy,
Speaker 1: Like all they do is sit there and play video
Speaker 1: games all day. But it's like it's really hard work.
Speaker 1: Like streaming is really hard work. Playing games professionally, it's
Speaker 1: really hard work. It takes a lot of time and
Speaker 1: effort and super impressive. Because like again, like my brother, um,
Speaker 1: he's five years younger than me, but had been playing
Speaker 1: games for so much longer computer games, you know, because
Speaker 1: I was playing you know, console stuff, and and I
Speaker 1: just like I didn't have the proper equipment, and so
Speaker 1: he was ahead of me. So had that two years
Speaker 1: of aim experience and now you know, it transfers over
Speaker 1: to other games, like we were talking about Apex Legends earlier.
Speaker 1: My aim is decent enough, like I can keep up.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not not a god by any means,
Speaker 1: but you know the kids are because because culturally, like
Speaker 1: they've been playing since they were younger. A lot a
Speaker 1: lot of boys have played, you know, and so um
Speaker 1: that's something that yeah, that I feel was really important
Speaker 1: for me to do for myself was was to spend
Speaker 1: like I spend like five hours a day playing the game,
Speaker 1: um at least minimum. And that's nothing compared to people
Speaker 1: that spend you know, eight hours or twelve hours. Like
Speaker 1: it's it's ridiculous, like the using you know, the learning
Speaker 1: the hand eye coordination between the mouse and keyboard instead
Speaker 1: of a controller, because's not a controller. It's it's so
Speaker 1: much more um intricate like using yeah, you know all that,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, and I know a lot of my
Speaker 1: friends that have had to you have to be consistent
Speaker 1: with your streaming schedule, um. And so if I know
Speaker 1: that I've seen you posting about that too, like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be on here, I'm gonna be streaming. These are
Speaker 1: the hours that I'm streaming. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't realize, Like what you were saying Sam about
Speaker 1: like the fact that Janelle said that she was grinding
Speaker 1: is you also have to be entertaining. You have to
Speaker 1: be entertaining, like you can't just like silently, you know,
Speaker 1: like you have to be That's how people, uh, that's
Speaker 1: how people build their following and have loyal fans. So
Speaker 1: there's so many things that go on that I think
Speaker 1: people don't realize, right, And Yeah, and streaming did sort
Speaker 1: of take a hit for for a while for me
Speaker 1: because it was so hard to focus on the game
Speaker 1: and you know, learning how to make in game calls
Speaker 1: and stuff, but also like trying to manage your chat
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So I did have to take
Speaker 1: a little bit of time from my streaming to focus
Speaker 1: on actually you know doing that, And so that was
Speaker 1: that was a challenge within itself, like to do to
Speaker 1: take away that time. I talked about this at my
Speaker 1: like work a lot. But it's so funny that streaming
Speaker 1: and also working in game dev are both jobs that
Speaker 1: you really have to be on and you have to
Speaker 1: be talking to people all the time because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the time us nerds are like very
Speaker 1: introverted and shy, awkward, and streaming and hosting is so
Speaker 1: like being on putting yourself out there and working in
Speaker 1: game dev is so such a collaborative medium. You always
Speaker 1: have to be talking to people, talking to level designers,
Speaker 1: talking to environment are talking to like every person who
Speaker 1: has a finger in the pie, and so it's like,
Speaker 1: what what did we do? We're nerds? Are there other
Speaker 1: women that y'all enjoy watching, like other gamers and people
Speaker 1: that you have met? Um fran is Is she's an
Speaker 1: Overwatch player and she's an to player consistent. Her hero
Speaker 1: pool has a lot of aim based heroes because the
Speaker 1: game over Watch has low mechanical you know, like skill
Speaker 1: requirement characters like we're you know, there's a healer named
Speaker 1: Mercy who a lot of women tend to play because
Speaker 1: you don't have to aim. All you do is you
Speaker 1: point your staff out a teammate and you heal them
Speaker 1: and you follow them around the map and sort of
Speaker 1: when they die, you ruse them like that's your ability, um,
Speaker 1: but fran herself. She uses Anna, who is a sniper
Speaker 1: who snipes her team to heal them, which is very
Speaker 1: She's my favorite character. I mean, I'm terrible at her,
Speaker 1: but I like to play her. Yeah, if you do.
Speaker 1: You have some female streamers that you like watching? Oh man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Zombie Unicorn, she's great. I also Austin Marie, another good
Speaker 1: friend of mines, you know, pop over to what she's
Speaker 1: cooking up to. Vana is great Eric the time to time,
Speaker 1: and then like you know, uh, there there is where
Speaker 1: is this um? I forget her name, but she like
Speaker 1: she's a scientist, so like she'll just have pul on conversations.
Speaker 1: She's like, uh, I was going to say astrologist, astronomist
Speaker 1: who I guess I don't know. Anyway, she and she
Speaker 1: just like literally talks about space her whole stream. So
Speaker 1: so I have tons of I really want to watch
Speaker 1: that after this. Yeah, and Lady Danger as well, she's great.
Speaker 1: So those are those are all my shouts outs? Yeah, Janelle,
Speaker 1: I did want to say so when you and I
Speaker 1: were grabbing lunch, you were telling me about how difficult
Speaker 1: it is actually for women to advance because when people
Speaker 1: find when people here, and this was something that I listen, y'all,
Speaker 1: I take a lot of abuse as a woman in
Speaker 1: the nerd world, like in the common section and the
Speaker 1: names that were called. So I was very aware of
Speaker 1: that harassment happening to women in gay You mean, I
Speaker 1: wasn't aware though, that it's actually affecting your job because
Speaker 1: when people find when people hear your voice and they
Speaker 1: hear that you're a woman, they will hop off the game. Yep,
Speaker 1: they will, um, yeah, they'll jump off of the map. Um,
Speaker 1: and so they will not play with you because the
Speaker 1: team over watches the team based games six six verses
Speaker 1: six and um. So I would you know. At one
Speaker 1: point I I made a call because it's if you
Speaker 1: have to communicate, you have to say you know so
Speaker 1: some and so's left right, you know, main whatever, and
Speaker 1: um somebody yelled at me that this was one of
Speaker 1: the first times somebody's like, you know, what the hell
Speaker 1: are you doing in this game? Like get off and
Speaker 1: go um go make makeup tutorial on YouTube, and I
Speaker 1: was like the hell, like, okay, whatever, like And because
Speaker 1: specifically I I play DPS characters which are um, it's
Speaker 1: not traditional for women. They play support a lot of
Speaker 1: them play support characters like Mercy, the one that I
Speaker 1: described earlier, and so it offends them to see to
Speaker 1: see to hear a woman's voice coming out of you know,
Speaker 1: the McCree guy or a soldier male character. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they want to play those characters, and so it's their
Speaker 1: right they feel. Um. And uh, you know, I've lost
Speaker 1: so many games and it's been crazy because I will play,
Speaker 1: We'll stack with some friends, you know, I'll have a
Speaker 1: couple of of guys with me, and they're like always
Speaker 1: so surprised or like does this happen to you all
Speaker 1: the time? And I'm like yeah, like like all the time.
Speaker 1: People will just stop playing because they don't want to
Speaker 1: play with me or they don't they're not doing what
Speaker 1: they want me to do. They go go play Mercy.
Speaker 1: I bet your Mercy May and they tell me about
Speaker 1: your Mercy May, but I bet you played Diva, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't, like, I don't have a problem
Speaker 1: with those characters, but I don't play those characters. My
Speaker 1: hero pools completely different. And and so it just they
Speaker 1: love to harass you. They They've have been called like
Speaker 1: every possible word you know for a woman. Um, but
Speaker 1: I know that that in order to combat that, some
Speaker 1: people were using voice changers. Um, but you were saying that.
Speaker 1: When you did that, people thought that you were because
Speaker 1: you still sounded like uh yeah, so they thought that
Speaker 1: you were a gay man that was a man, but
Speaker 1: they were they would not hop off the game, but
Speaker 1: then you would get slurs, No, would get slurs. And
Speaker 1: you know what, Actually, my hero that I that I
Speaker 1: play the Soldier Sony six. So he's like a Captain
Speaker 1: America type guy right where he's like, um, he's the
Speaker 1: leader of the organization of Overwatch named Soldier because he's
Speaker 1: like the most generic looking soldier character. And I picked
Speaker 1: him because I was like, this guy has a kit
Speaker 1: where he can take care of himself. He can heal himself,
Speaker 1: so I don't have to ask for healing from a
Speaker 1: teammate because he can heal his damn self. He runs fast,
Speaker 1: so I can run around and get kills and I
Speaker 1: don't I can carry myself. I don't need anybody. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: this game has been out for two years and about
Speaker 1: three weeks ago they announced, um they lore wise they
Speaker 1: announced that he's gay. Yeah that so they were a
Speaker 1: huge win. I feel like it was fantastic and so
Speaker 1: so now people were really excited, and so I'm it's
Speaker 1: been a fast return to the when I did the
Speaker 1: experiment with the voice changer, where I don't even have
Speaker 1: to speak to be called the word or whatever you like,
Speaker 1: where they're just look at the hours. I have five
Speaker 1: hours on this guy, and so that they immediately like,
Speaker 1: I bet you gay, but you know like this, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I am so like and it's just
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous, Like it's have lots of women in my
Speaker 1: discord that say, oh, why to drive a voice change one,
Speaker 1: I mean, and I want to see what it's like.
Speaker 1: And I say, I've done it, and yes, like, if
Speaker 1: you you get more respect still even sounding like a
Speaker 1: gay man because they assume that you've played games more.
Speaker 1: They assumed that as a male, you've culturally you've played
Speaker 1: games more. Well. The thing about the voice changer is
Speaker 1: that it treats the symptom, but not it's not addressing
Speaker 1: the problem. Yeah, you find stuff like that because that's
Speaker 1: that's the insidious stuff that you know, when guys jump off,
Speaker 1: it affects your ranking and your to compete, and you
Speaker 1: find that in the professional world as well, it's that
Speaker 1: insidious stuff that people don't talk about a lot. That's
Speaker 1: actually the stuff that really affects people's ability to work
Speaker 1: in this world, like to advance, Yeah, like get noticed
Speaker 1: by leagues. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean girls at a young
Speaker 1: age aren't encouraged in the same way that boys are
Speaker 1: to explore programming or coding or you know, gaming in
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways. So it puts us behind.
Speaker 1: It puts us at a disadvantage even trying to get
Speaker 1: into these fields. Like you said about your brother, Like
Speaker 1: Eve been playing PC games a lot longer than you had,
Speaker 1: and that put you at a disadvantage age wise. It's
Speaker 1: the same in gaming. I think a lot of girls
Speaker 1: aren't brought up being told like we're making a real
Speaker 1: push for it now, which is awesome, trying to get
Speaker 1: more women into STEM, like it's great. Girls who Code
Speaker 1: is a great organization for that. But you know, girls
Speaker 1: I feel like don't feel encouraged or able to get
Speaker 1: into these fields that traditionally have been advertised. I would
Speaker 1: say as like for boys, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: real shame because games are for everyone, and they should
Speaker 1: be for everyone, and the more different types of people
Speaker 1: that we have making games, the more different kind of
Speaker 1: stories we're going to get in games, because I'm going
Speaker 1: to I come to games with a different life experience
Speaker 1: than Danny does as a Latina woman than if he
Speaker 1: does as a black man. Like we all come to
Speaker 1: the table with our own stories and our own experience,
Speaker 1: and getting more different kinds of people to tell those
Speaker 1: stories just makes her better and more exciting games. Like,
Speaker 1: I feel like we all win when we open up
Speaker 1: the table to everybody. So I am hopeful that the
Speaker 1: more we have discussions like this and the more we
Speaker 1: put out into the open, we can start to say
Speaker 1: stop treating the symptom, you know, with like a band aid,
Speaker 1: with the band aid, and start going back and drilling
Speaker 1: down to how can we fix this from the start? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and to like really speak on your issue as well.
Speaker 1: I've met someone at twitch Con. She's also another female
Speaker 1: streamer I forgot to shout out ferociously, Steph who also
Speaker 1: happens to be trans and she played Blizzard game but
Speaker 1: a different one, Heroes of the Storm, and she um
Speaker 1: she was very vocal about not adding a voice chat
Speaker 1: feature to the game, and and you know, they ended
Speaker 1: up adding it anyway, and it just totally affected her
Speaker 1: ability to rank up because now she ran into the
Speaker 1: same issues as you did. And Overwatch. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: brought up Apex Legends for that exact reason actually, because
Speaker 1: they have that communication system where you can just ping
Speaker 1: objects in the world without speaking. You don't necessarily need
Speaker 1: to use the voice chat to communicate with your teammates.
Speaker 1: And I think that's great not only for you know,
Speaker 1: women and trying to make things genderless or an even feel,
Speaker 1: but also for like accessibility issues. You know, if people
Speaker 1: are hearing impaired and they can't talk or speak over
Speaker 1: voice chat, now they're able to play this game, you know,
Speaker 1: and it again opens up the table for where people.
Speaker 1: So it's a very dynamic ping system too. Because when
Speaker 1: I was playing, you know, because my buddy Manny Manny
Speaker 1: Hugpian is the lead writer for it, so he wrote
Speaker 1: all the voice lands. He's like, you should try all
Speaker 1: those pings, you know, we wrote it's like I've been
Speaker 1: there every night and until nine pm forever, please listen
Speaker 1: to my life. But what's funny is like, yeah, because
Speaker 1: you know, normal pings are like like I'm coming, I'm here,
Speaker 1: but like this one's like I feel like someone's been here,
Speaker 1: I've been Like, they're very dynamic in the sense that
Speaker 1: it's like one of our friends did have a mic
Speaker 1: and it was totally fine, where normally in a BR game,
Speaker 1: a Battle Royale game, it's very hard to play with
Speaker 1: someone without a mic, and that was a huge accomplishment.
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, for accessibility, I think it you know,
Speaker 1: just to take a quick sidebar on accessibility, where you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's very easy to forget about things that other
Speaker 1: people need when you don't. For example, I made a
Speaker 1: joke recently because uh, you know, porn Hub had those
Speaker 1: like interactive videos where they you know, team with a
Speaker 1: fleshlight and I was like, we've gone too far, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, and somebody like one of my d ms
Speaker 1: is like, actually, I was hearing on a podcast that like,
Speaker 1: that's great for accessibility for disabled people to use those
Speaker 1: products because you know, they don't have access to their
Speaker 1: hands or you know, they don't have that level of mobility.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, you know that change, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't think about it, and it was like
Speaker 1: that actually now made it way cool, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely there's a big push I think in the industry
Speaker 1: right now, and certainly an insomniac where I am to
Speaker 1: make games more accessible and to really expand out those
Speaker 1: accessibility options. I was playing Shadow of the Tomb Rader
Speaker 1: and they have a really dynamic accessibility system where you
Speaker 1: can change individually the level of difficulty for different things
Speaker 1: in the games. You can make combat really hard, but
Speaker 1: you can make puzzle solving really easy, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Changings like that, a lot of push for
Speaker 1: like color blindness options, which yeah, it's it's great. I
Speaker 1: love I just you know, I feel like the more
Speaker 1: marginalized people we can get into games and into making
Speaker 1: games and into streaming games, the better the community is
Speaker 1: gonna be for it. And thinking about my guest today
Speaker 1: Andy Um, it was on My husband was on Twitch
Speaker 1: and a and he was like, look, you know this
Speaker 1: is the commercial that I saw and then maybe cryer earlier.
Speaker 1: It's it's like disabled kids with the and then and
Speaker 1: I just I watched it over in his screen without
Speaker 1: like it sounds and and he was like and I
Speaker 1: was like crying too, where I was like, like it
Speaker 1: it made me so happy because there's there's new controller
Speaker 1: that's out for them, and it's just been's fantastic. We
Speaker 1: have to take a quick break, but we are going
Speaker 1: to continue this conversation right when we get back, and
Speaker 1: we're back still joined with Janelle Santa Cruz and Sam
Speaker 1: Max and Sam. I wanted to say so, Insomniac Games,
Speaker 1: I remember you on our show interview just in int
Speaker 1: A chew Right. She's been there for like fifteen years
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, she's a really talented, wonderful art director
Speaker 1: who's out Insomniac. We have a lot of really wonderful
Speaker 1: women on the team and Insomniac and I think it's
Speaker 1: really cool to see the gaming industry going out of
Speaker 1: its way, like a lot of tech businesses to look
Speaker 1: at their you know, company makeup, and they're hiring procedures
Speaker 1: in HR to see like how we can level the
Speaker 1: playing field a little bit. Because there are all those
Speaker 1: studies you know about resumes or how you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like if the resume has a certain kind
Speaker 1: of name on it, maybe it doesn't get looked at necessarily.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of studies about how the way companies
Speaker 1: right job requisitions, Like when you go to a board
Speaker 1: and you look at like the job ask or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you before you apply. A lot of the ways
Speaker 1: that companies, right those appeal specifically to men and maybe
Speaker 1: don't appeal necessarily to the way women think about themselves.
Speaker 1: Like they'll say, like, we need an expert in and
Speaker 1: women often don't consider themselves experts in the same way.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot that companies can do in terms
Speaker 1: of being really careful about how you write those being
Speaker 1: really conscious about going out and trying to recruit in
Speaker 1: places where you know there are going to be a
Speaker 1: lot of people just to balance that, you know, interview pool,
Speaker 1: just to make sure that you have women, you have
Speaker 1: people of color, you queer people interviewing for these positions.
Speaker 1: You know, on that point. I know, Janelle, if you
Speaker 1: knew this. But at hyper RPG back when I was
Speaker 1: hosting there as well, Zach Ebank, who's the head of
Speaker 1: Hyper was saying they were looking for a social media manager.
Speaker 1: This was like two years ago, and so he put
Speaker 1: out a call for a social media manager and he
Speaker 1: said all of the women that applied were overqualified, were
Speaker 1: overqualified and all like he said, a ton of guys
Speaker 1: that applied were like, I've never done it. Before. But
Speaker 1: you know, I figured I would throw my hat in
Speaker 1: the ring, and that was like I couldn't. He was
Speaker 1: like the women that applied, I was like this, you're
Speaker 1: too good for this job, like you know, And it
Speaker 1: was at the time when the channel was new, so
Speaker 1: they were just starting out, and he was like, I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe some of the guys like the confidence of
Speaker 1: just like yeah, I figured I would, you know, I tweet,
Speaker 1: so I figured I could be you know, do you
Speaker 1: remember that if I've done on Twitter before? So and
Speaker 1: I agree Sam that I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: times we and I've seen that so much. I see
Speaker 1: that on Twitter with in film Twitter and women that
Speaker 1: are are our film reviewers and stuff just being like
Speaker 1: they think that they have to be I don't know,
Speaker 1: like it's it's exactly what you're saying. What we we
Speaker 1: hold ourselves back in some way and just because of
Speaker 1: because of I think what we've dealt with. I think
Speaker 1: we've been conditioned there how we've been conditioned to think
Speaker 1: that we're not good enough. And then and then you
Speaker 1: see the resumes of other people like oh yeah, no, totally, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's important, Like there there's you know twenties six plus
Speaker 1: heroes on the roster for for Overwatch and on. All
Speaker 1: of the women that I work with and play stress
Speaker 1: themselves out trying to learn all of them because they
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, they have to have we have
Speaker 1: to have this deep of a hero pool in order
Speaker 1: to qualify for for so and so's team and whatever.
Speaker 1: One there's guys like I blow one trick this one
Speaker 1: hero and whatever. I guess I'll play professionally. Like that's
Speaker 1: like prove yourself nerd stuff. Right. Where as soon as
Speaker 1: you say like I'm a game or like I'm a
Speaker 1: nerd or like writing books, you get quiz and you're
Speaker 1: expected to be this expert, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I mean, I have Goku in a geta from dragon
Speaker 1: ball Z tattooed on my body and I'm not and
Speaker 1: I had a podcast I've had to dragon ball I mean,
Speaker 1: that's too much, that's too too many. Both, OK, so
Speaker 1: I blame him, but like if I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember this, but I tweeted something I think about
Speaker 1: our dragon ball podcast. You know, we were having some
Speaker 1: guests or something on and someone was like, do you
Speaker 1: even watch dragon ball Z? Like something like that or
Speaker 1: like have you do you even know who a curatoryama is?
Speaker 1: And that's the creator and Funimation who like owns dB Z,
Speaker 1: you know, does all the dubbing and stuff. They somebody
Speaker 1: went on their account and replied to them and they
Speaker 1: have like hundreds of thousands of followers. Replied and said,
Speaker 1: yeah she does. I know. It's nice when you've worked
Speaker 1: for huge companies that have employed you because of your
Speaker 1: expertise to drop in and be like, yeah she does.
Speaker 1: That's like when I I'm from Canada, so I moved
Speaker 1: to Toronto ten years ago. Oh and that's where a
Speaker 1: lot of my like nerd community started. And I remember
Speaker 1: I was twenty one and I was going to my
Speaker 1: very first nerd party. It was thrown by the local
Speaker 1: comic book store, and I was super nervous and and
Speaker 1: know anybody you shy like showed up by myself. And
Speaker 1: I remember talking to like a cute dude who worked
Speaker 1: at the comic book shop and being like, this is
Speaker 1: my moment and talked to a cute nerd. Doesn't be great?
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, I love comics and he
Speaker 1: was like, oh yeah, names Spider Man's parents and I'm
Speaker 1: like gateke, like literally this. I feel like it's the
Speaker 1: thing that people say happens, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't believe this is happening to me. And now I
Speaker 1: write Spider Man. You yeah, for y'all that don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the biggest games is past year
Speaker 1: Spider Man at Insomniac Games, Sam worked on that. That
Speaker 1: is cool, so so cool. You know, vindication he's getting paid,
Speaker 1: But that's it. But that's what it is. And that's
Speaker 1: because you and I and the people in this room, like,
Speaker 1: despite having to deal with things like that, kept out
Speaker 1: of so much. And my hope is that we have
Speaker 1: had to deal with a lot of that stuff so
Speaker 1: that hopefully the next generation of gals try to deal
Speaker 1: with it less and then after that less and less,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's that's the goal. Every time I
Speaker 1: want to give up, I'm like, I can't. One. I've
Speaker 1: already made it this far, and it's farther than other
Speaker 1: women of color like I have to be. I'm a
Speaker 1: Latina that's made it this far in the industry, and
Speaker 1: other people are counting on me. My niece is counting
Speaker 1: on me, like people are. I'm I'm taking the brunt
Speaker 1: of it because the generation before me took even more
Speaker 1: than I did. Um. Yeah, I I totally agree, and
Speaker 1: and it is nice. I mean I have seen progress,
Speaker 1: and I know Janelle that you've built a really nice community.
Speaker 1: I mean, if if if there are women that are
Speaker 1: listening that are interested in in in getting into gaming
Speaker 1: or doing it competitively, like what do you recommend to
Speaker 1: kind of developed and foster a positive community. There's so
Speaker 1: many discords out there, um, you know, and and we've
Speaker 1: we've built one like our Date Night discords it and
Speaker 1: and that's what I always encourage people to do, is
Speaker 1: to look for communities for whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: want to work on. Because for us, we service the
Speaker 1: multitude games, like because we have UM experts like Andy's
Speaker 1: a fighting game expert. If somebody wants to come in
Speaker 1: and work on something for Smash Brothers, like, he's there
Speaker 1: and he will help you because he's he's played UM
Speaker 1: tournaments day for he's been a tournament level and so
Speaker 1: yeah and so and and UM, and we'd focus on
Speaker 1: on UM kids. And also you know women because a
Speaker 1: lot of women they come in and they just they're
Speaker 1: new to games because they just got a PC and
Speaker 1: you know, the games are, you know, and so that's
Speaker 1: where you know, I can come and be like, okay,
Speaker 1: like these are the coaching tips I can give you,
Speaker 1: like and I work one on one with you if
Speaker 1: I if you need on with these scrims and um,
Speaker 1: we stream them and UM. And that's always like whatever
Speaker 1: game it is, there is that there is a community
Speaker 1: out there, there's a discord for it. There's like you know,
Speaker 1: there's Reddit forums and and UM. It's just so important
Speaker 1: to to reach out to other people because like we
Speaker 1: provide a safe a safe area for for you to
Speaker 1: work on something like this is my goal that I
Speaker 1: want to do. Like there's a fourteen year old girl, um,
Speaker 1: who wants who's she's so good at Genji? Which is
Speaker 1: non traditional for for what for a girl to play
Speaker 1: let alone a fourteen year old girl? Um, and she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, she comes home from from wrestling practice and
Speaker 1: she comes you works on Genji and like that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's what we do. Um. And uh. So that's
Speaker 1: there's other places a character and can the character and
Speaker 1: watching he's a yeah, it's a ninja, um guy. And
Speaker 1: so I don't know the women tend to to to
Speaker 1: flock to certain types of characters and stuff, and so
Speaker 1: that one is that's all the guys love Genji because
Speaker 1: he's a little he's direct from an anime and so
Speaker 1: so yeah, yeah, it's so good. Um yeah, joining and
Speaker 1: joining a community because it's not just discorded as other
Speaker 1: places to where it's just mostly reaching out and just
Speaker 1: searching doing the research. Like it's it's not that hard
Speaker 1: to do once you once you you know, set the
Speaker 1: search for finding a group of supportive people. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's so such good advice. It's so important, Like
Speaker 1: for people who want to get into game development, it's
Speaker 1: important to you know, communicate to people who are goals
Speaker 1: to are people that you look up to, and to
Speaker 1: kind of make a genuine try to make a genuine
Speaker 1: like connection with people like that and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: find a mentor if that's something you're into. But also
Speaker 1: beyond that, I always really encourage people to find their
Speaker 1: community of their own level, like find the people that
Speaker 1: you're going to come up with, because it's one thing
Speaker 1: to like look up to people and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to be friend like someone who has
Speaker 1: already established but that's better thing to do. Is to
Speaker 1: find the people of your own cohort, of your own level,
Speaker 1: and to sort of support each other and come up
Speaker 1: together and help each other out. And I feel like
Speaker 1: I've talked about this. I wrote a book called Girl Squads,
Speaker 1: which is like about women supporting women. And I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of the time, as women were conditioned,
Speaker 1: like we're talking about before, to feel like we have
Speaker 1: to compete with these others instead of cooperating with each other,
Speaker 1: because we we all suffer from this like highland or
Speaker 1: syndrome of there can be only one you know what,
Speaker 1: because a lot of times there is only there's only
Speaker 1: space for one, like there can only be one Latino
Speaker 1: who podcasts, so that can be only one woman at
Speaker 1: this game studio, only one woman streamer. But it's like
Speaker 1: that's that's wrong, Like yeah, the patriarchy has told us
Speaker 1: that they made that up. So it's like there's more
Speaker 1: than enough room for all of us, and when we
Speaker 1: support each other and lift each other up, we all
Speaker 1: are stronger for it. So yeah, I don't really know
Speaker 1: where I was going with that, but anyway, cool with power,
Speaker 1: Like that's I mean, because I'm going back to uh
Speaker 1: to school for my master's in sports psychology, Um, so
Speaker 1: that I can play for easy works for sports psychology. Um,
Speaker 1: because my just insane that that is now a thing
Speaker 1: thing now, Yeah, like that's a new job that is
Speaker 1: so interesting. I just want you to do a podcast
Speaker 1: talking about that. My brother, the things that he tells me.
Speaker 1: You know, he's worked for multitude of organs and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he's seen bad orgs and good orgs, and
Speaker 1: the good Organs always have reliable staff. And um, that's
Speaker 1: something that a lot of the the over Watch League
Speaker 1: is now requiring them to have like a psychologist there
Speaker 1: for them because these kids are plucked out of their
Speaker 1: mother's homes and all of a sudden they're moving into
Speaker 1: a gaming house. And you know, somebody that probably had,
Speaker 1: you know, like a gor phobia and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden now has to live in the house, you know,
Speaker 1: with something I've never thought about before. You write, these
Speaker 1: are just kids and and so that's you know, and
Speaker 1: given that's what I do, because I also provide tutoring
Speaker 1: for these kids because I'm qualified for that too, So
Speaker 1: I'll help them with their their schoolwork so that they
Speaker 1: can work on this other stuff. Um. But that's that's
Speaker 1: the type of thing that you um, that you want
Speaker 1: in a for working for, you know, with these kids
Speaker 1: and um and speaking of going back to talking about girls. UM.
Speaker 1: The problem also with living in a gaming houses. You're
Speaker 1: living with five dudes. You're living with yeah, and you're
Speaker 1: sharing a bathroom with these That was my life when
Speaker 1: I moved to l anthing and I lived in a
Speaker 1: windowless room with four other dudes an apartment and there
Speaker 1: was yeah, and then I had to had to take Molly.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you were there. Oh my gosh, Janelle.
Speaker 1: I remember. God. We people don't know this, and I
Speaker 1: hope this is helpful for people listening, because I think
Speaker 1: you see us and you're like, they're so successful, and
Speaker 1: it's like we were in the trenches. We were in
Speaker 1: the trenches. Janelle used to make fun, like not make fun,
Speaker 1: but used to kind of get on because my I
Speaker 1: didn't have any windows in my room. I lived in
Speaker 1: like a closet. Essentially, I did my time. I remember
Speaker 1: she was grinding all days. Molly was yeah in the house.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm taking your dog. Yes, this is
Speaker 1: just the side note. When I was diagnosed with my
Speaker 1: autoimmune stuff, I was very sick I was, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to host. I was trying to write, I was
Speaker 1: trying to submit audition, like all this stuff, and Janelle,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I'm gonna go Janelle. Janelle took Molly
Speaker 1: for I don't know, like three months or something when
Speaker 1: I was really sick and you took care of it.
Speaker 1: Was a friend to my dad's dog. So that was great.
Speaker 1: So that it's just so funny too that we're like,
Speaker 1: we've come up together, and it is come up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've supported each other. You know what it's so funny
Speaker 1: is because when you and I both hopped on the scene,
Speaker 1: we're both in the comedy scene. We were nerdy Latina's
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of times people did pit
Speaker 1: us against each other and they tried to do that, yes,
Speaker 1: And what Janelle and I realized was like, oh, people
Speaker 1: are scared. I was like, oh, if we work together,
Speaker 1: we will be we will be two times as strong.
Speaker 1: And that's what we started to do, and we started
Speaker 1: to like work our way up real quick. Because I
Speaker 1: remember if I couldn't make something, you would I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: well I can't. You know, I have another hosting gig.
Speaker 1: But if you want a nerdy Latina, I know the
Speaker 1: perfect one and we would tag team out. So that
Speaker 1: love day in the family. I love that we have
Speaker 1: to take another break. This is such a good combo. Um.
Speaker 1: We're going to continue and talk about the future gaming
Speaker 1: as well, right when we come back. And we are back,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to talk about, yeah, the future
Speaker 1: that you see of of gaming, but also what we
Speaker 1: think studios can do as far as problem solving. One
Speaker 1: thing that I know, just in not being in the
Speaker 1: gaming world but being in the hosting world, is a
Speaker 1: lot of studios had a hands off approach when it
Speaker 1: came to the comments section, and I'm like, you cannot
Speaker 1: allow And I think Maud Garrett touched on this a
Speaker 1: little bit. Mod was on our Zelda episode. She's also
Speaker 1: a host at a bunch of channels, was like, you
Speaker 1: cannot allow people to treat your host this way. And
Speaker 1: I was so fed up with a lot of the
Speaker 1: channels that I was hosting that just being like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing we can do about it. And that's not
Speaker 1: true because Janelle, you and I have both hosted at
Speaker 1: hyper and they take their mods very seriously. They take
Speaker 1: their jobs very seriously. A lot of our mods are
Speaker 1: people who are fans who are very loyal to the
Speaker 1: channel and will not let you treat the host that
Speaker 1: way and and write these harassing comments for me. I
Speaker 1: mean when you're starting out. I think, like maybe two
Speaker 1: years ago, I was on a channel which is not
Speaker 1: going to be named, but um I was did a
Speaker 1: couple of episodes with them. The comments were so bad
Speaker 1: that I took a break from ifian I's podcast, Like
Speaker 1: it wasn't even our it wasn't our podcast, but I
Speaker 1: had to take a break just because I needed a
Speaker 1: break from everything I was doing, Like and it was
Speaker 1: a studios need to lay down a line of like,
Speaker 1: we're not going to accept racism, we're not going to
Speaker 1: accept sexism. We're not gonna allow you to speak to
Speaker 1: our talent like this. You are not welcome here. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of places we're putting the money
Speaker 1: over that of saying, oh, yeah, but they're subscribers. We
Speaker 1: don't want to lose subscribers. And and the nice thing
Speaker 1: about hyper was like, if you are a subscriber and
Speaker 1: you act like this, we don't want to yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's exactly how how everyone. Yeah, I assume
Speaker 1: that we treat your streams like that. That's the thing too.
Speaker 1: If people come in and say something, I don't care
Speaker 1: if you sub to me like, no, you're not going
Speaker 1: to say that to me, and we don't want that here,
Speaker 1: like it's ridiculous. Yeah, this is one place where I
Speaker 1: will pipe in because I feel like that is a
Speaker 1: very huge epidemic and a lot of communities and at
Speaker 1: this point in my career, I've been able to work
Speaker 1: for a lot of different YouTube channels, and what happens
Speaker 1: is people, you know, build a brand on a community
Speaker 1: of white males they like consider your host or generally
Speaker 1: white male, so you don't see it, so you see
Speaker 1: so it passes by and you grow a large community,
Speaker 1: and then when you're friends who are people of color
Speaker 1: and or women hop on and you see this, you're
Speaker 1: in a bad position because this is something you haven't
Speaker 1: seen before and you now we're in the position of wondering, oh, snap,
Speaker 1: these are my subscribers, but this is also my fan base,
Speaker 1: and you have to make the decision of what's more
Speaker 1: important to you play and it's safe and ignoring it
Speaker 1: and letting your video get those views, or like addressing
Speaker 1: it head on and you know, there's been a very
Speaker 1: popular media company that we all know of that when
Speaker 1: they had a recent shake up due to uh, you
Speaker 1: know people at top being outsted for doing gross things.
Speaker 1: They've took more control of their community and shifted and
Speaker 1: it's a lot better and a lot more positive and
Speaker 1: and it's all because they were gonna take that hit anyway,
Speaker 1: so it gave them allowance to you know, go ahead
Speaker 1: and make that change. But that's a thing that people
Speaker 1: are there. They'll turn the other cheek like they won't
Speaker 1: you know, goat it on, but they won't make a
Speaker 1: hard stance against it. And when you don't say anything
Speaker 1: as they're just gonna look at you and be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you're letting me get away with it. And that's what
Speaker 1: I do like about streaming is you can make a
Speaker 1: hard and fast stance. And that's why you know, I
Speaker 1: like to I pride myself on you know, they're being
Speaker 1: women within my stream community, within the Salt Squad, and
Speaker 1: that's why you know, we kind of switched from the
Speaker 1: Salt Squad because we used to be Shocked Boys, which
Speaker 1: was just you know, not it was just something I
Speaker 1: made up at Geek and Sundri not even thinking when
Speaker 1: I was mating Schulk. And then you know that there's
Speaker 1: just you know, women in my community who are like,
Speaker 1: oh man, what do we call ourselves? And you know,
Speaker 1: you go through that thing because it's it goes back
Speaker 1: to that agent conversation of using like hey guys, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's very easy for for me as
Speaker 1: a man to be like, well, boys, this for everyone,
Speaker 1: but I don't have I don't there's that is the
Speaker 1: thing that I don't feel the effects of. So and
Speaker 1: it kind of goes back to when people say like
Speaker 1: X is and racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic is if
Speaker 1: you're not you you literally have a blind side because
Speaker 1: you do not feel what it feels to be excluded
Speaker 1: in that way. So then I was like, okay, what's
Speaker 1: something that you know, uh, that can be accepted as
Speaker 1: Salt squad? You know, in that way anyone can be
Speaker 1: a member of Salt Squad and then if you join
Speaker 1: your the Salt fam and like it's very gender neutral. Actually,
Speaker 1: like I love that you brought that up, because in
Speaker 1: terms of Danny, you were asking what can companies do
Speaker 1: to kind of help this? I think that that's actually
Speaker 1: one of the really big things I've I've been blessed
Speaker 1: in my time and games to work at two incredibly
Speaker 1: progressive companies with like great community managers who value diversity
Speaker 1: and great storytelling and all that. But you know, something
Speaker 1: that companies can do is unconscious bias training, because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the time, you know, we don't realize,
Speaker 1: like you said, the things that we bring to the
Speaker 1: table in our own mind that we assume about people.
Speaker 1: And like everybody has those assumptions, like I'm a queer woman,
Speaker 1: but I'm not a person of color. So like we
Speaker 1: all were raised with different assumptions. The world bombards us
Speaker 1: with things that we're supposed to think all the time.
Speaker 1: So we all, whether we like it or not, come
Speaker 1: to the table with these biases that we feel about
Speaker 1: other people. And that's okay, Like we all have them,
Speaker 1: and we have to the point is that we have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that and be aware of them so that
Speaker 1: they don't interfere with our ability to hire the best person,
Speaker 1: to work with, good people, you know, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And so but I think that can be a hard
Speaker 1: thing for people to comprehend sometimes because if I'm like
Speaker 1: everyone's kind of racist sometimes like people are like, I'm
Speaker 1: not racist, and it's like, well, like every you know,
Speaker 1: in some way, we all have something that we assume
Speaker 1: about someone that's not correct, and we just need to
Speaker 1: be able to state ourselves that's okay. I recognize that
Speaker 1: now and I won't do that anymore. And that's like
Speaker 1: when HR and like when companies bring in like great
Speaker 1: speakers on diversity and stuff. I love that. I think
Speaker 1: that's so important. It just makes people think, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: just it is funny because you know, we're we're talking
Speaker 1: about racism here, but I think this can be used
Speaker 1: across the board for all is m it is, yeah,
Speaker 1: you do have that hard thing, because I think what's
Speaker 1: so hard is like, you know, everyone's more afraid of
Speaker 1: being called a racist than actually being racist, because they're
Speaker 1: like that's the worst thing in the world. And I
Speaker 1: think people miss the point that you can do something
Speaker 1: that is racist, you can do set something sexist and
Speaker 1: not be a racist and not be a sexist. It's
Speaker 1: it's what determines what you are is your actions when
Speaker 1: it is called out. Or women can do things that
Speaker 1: are sexist, like I've worked with women who do misogynist
Speaker 1: things and they don't even know it, but it's oftentimes
Speaker 1: because they were raised in this highland or culture where
Speaker 1: they feel they have to put other women down in
Speaker 1: order to maintain their position, which I totally understand and
Speaker 1: sympathize and don't blame them for. But it's like we
Speaker 1: have to have conversations like this so that then you
Speaker 1: can examine yourself and be like am I doing that?
Speaker 1: Am I competing instead of cooperating, like yeah, bigger streamers
Speaker 1: need to, you know, take a take a step forward
Speaker 1: that too, because one of the things that Ninja, who
Speaker 1: is like a popular Fortnite streamer which you know, kids love,
Speaker 1: he refuses to play with women because of the comments
Speaker 1: in the in the chat because he doesn't want to hear.
Speaker 1: And that's why I don't do it, and I don't
Speaker 1: because I'm married. He won't play with the woman because
Speaker 1: he's married. See Mike Pence, I mean essentially yes, because
Speaker 1: he just is afraid of that and instead of instead
Speaker 1: of like letting that actually be a teaching moment, he
Speaker 1: just and I think that's what we talk about again,
Speaker 1: whereas like you let your platform determine what you do
Speaker 1: instead of determine what your platform is a great example
Speaker 1: of treating the symptom and not the issue, right, which
Speaker 1: is again I understand like treating the issue is extremely
Speaker 1: hard and not easy and not an instant solution in
Speaker 1: any way. So it's like the thought of going about
Speaker 1: doing that seems daunting, and it's daunting to me to
Speaker 1: be like, how do we dismantle the paintreon key, Let's
Speaker 1: just figure it out. But it's like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: small things. Everyone can do small things. Something cool in
Speaker 1: Apex Legends is they have a character that uses they
Speaker 1: them pronouns that's like non binary, and that's that's cool.
Speaker 1: I had a conversation at work today with someone because
Speaker 1: of that who was like, can you explain what non
Speaker 1: binary is to me? And had a great conversation about
Speaker 1: it and they were like, that's really confusing. I was like,
Speaker 1: I really applaud that that. I really applauded. Like the roster,
Speaker 1: the hero roster, the character roster is like so inclusive.
Speaker 1: It's just and that's what more and more games need
Speaker 1: to be doing. And that's you know, taking a step forward.
Speaker 1: Would you know, um, which Overwatch has been doing. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's like I was so so impressed with
Speaker 1: with that launch just at the gate, like just like
Speaker 1: very inclusive just opens up that conversation, I feel, which
Speaker 1: is so because it makes it more the norm and
Speaker 1: our in our culture and the younger kids that are
Speaker 1: in there, they are growing up playing this game with
Speaker 1: that being the norm. Yeah, just the simple fact that
Speaker 1: there are like two separate black women playable characters is
Speaker 1: a big thing because, like you know, I was just
Speaker 1: having a conversation with Tonay, a friend of the pod
Speaker 1: who she was saying, you know, every time there's a
Speaker 1: black woman in the game, there's only one black woman
Speaker 1: and she's you know, it just has no and then
Speaker 1: the other black woman is like Caribbean, which is a
Speaker 1: total different, you know, type of black, you know, and
Speaker 1: you only see one shade. So that's that I thought
Speaker 1: was really it's great that you bring that up. I have,
Speaker 1: like I've been in that argument before where people are like, well,
Speaker 1: we can't have two like Asian women in a game.
Speaker 1: Players won't be able to tell them apart. And it's
Speaker 1: like we have like eighteen different white people. However, just
Speaker 1: stick a different haircut on or we did it like
Speaker 1: and it's but it is that moment of like, oh no,
Speaker 1: you're totally right, And it's just like you have to
Speaker 1: have that moment of like saying that to someone and
Speaker 1: have the like light bulb gone. That's not just happening
Speaker 1: in games. That's happening all over movies a lot of
Speaker 1: times one Asian person in an ensemble cast or one
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, Um, what are some of the great moments
Speaker 1: that you've had being in the fandom being at cons?
Speaker 1: Because I know you both have gone to cons, have
Speaker 1: to I think that honestly, conventions are my favorite thing
Speaker 1: about being in this world is because that's a way
Speaker 1: the screen. It takes away the and you know, the
Speaker 1: anonymous like comments and stuff, and like it's just fans
Speaker 1: being fans, and it's people that are passionate, and it's
Speaker 1: it's all the good things I feel like about about
Speaker 1: this world when I'm at CON's because people aren't going
Speaker 1: to say that stuff to my face. Yeah. But and
Speaker 1: also just seeing young people and and old people and
Speaker 1: all different kinds. So yes, I wanted to know some
Speaker 1: some good moments that you all have had at the
Speaker 1: places you've hosted at worked at and and at conventions. Um,
Speaker 1: when people you know, um have have thanked me for
Speaker 1: allowing them to to practice their stuff. And we did
Speaker 1: a tournament recently and um, one of the kids is
Speaker 1: twelve years old and uh and he was able to
Speaker 1: beat a team of masters and he was just like
Speaker 1: he was so grateful and he he was like, you know,
Speaker 1: they got beat by twelve year old on the laptop.
Speaker 1: And because you didn't have a little more older than that.
Speaker 1: I was like, because you're supposed to be thirteen to
Speaker 1: be in this tournament. We're just like, yeah, just like
Speaker 1: that at a and and honestly, like online I get
Speaker 1: a lot of comments from from um, you know on
Speaker 1: snapchet from the girls are like, you know, I put
Speaker 1: this much time, thank you for you know, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: You know, like you totally understand because I'm there, I'm
Speaker 1: a voice for for people. UM. And and that's something
Speaker 1: too like whenever I see anybody, you know, a fan
Speaker 1: of HYPERRPG that you know that that it is grateful
Speaker 1: for for the work that we do there, it's just
Speaker 1: it really just makes me so happy. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I met like one of my very best girlfriends through
Speaker 1: games on the internet. I found I was like scrolling
Speaker 1: through mass effect tattoos on Instagram when I was thinking
Speaker 1: about getting my mass effect tattoo and I found this
Speaker 1: like epic one on this girl, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, your tattoo is amazing. And we started
Speaker 1: talking on Instagram, and like five years later, we're best friends.
Speaker 1: And now we live in the state. We moved to
Speaker 1: the same city and I see here all the time.
Speaker 1: And you know, games are such a great social space,
Speaker 1: and not only online multiplayer games, which are like a
Speaker 1: very obvious social space, but also like games that people
Speaker 1: care about in game fandoms, because you're playing these characters
Speaker 1: and you're so much more connected actively to these stories
Speaker 1: and like passively consuming a movie or a comic or whatever.
Speaker 1: People are just so passionate about them. And when you
Speaker 1: connect with other people who have that same passion, and obviously,
Speaker 1: like fandom is amazing. Everyone listening to this, I'm not
Speaker 1: telling them anything new, but it's so cool and it's
Speaker 1: great to be able to meet these people online, um,
Speaker 1: to make these friends in Discord and on Twitter, and
Speaker 1: then to all congregate at the contents and then you
Speaker 1: get to meet them in real life. And I think
Speaker 1: about this all the time because when we were growing up,
Speaker 1: it was always the thing that was like, don't meet
Speaker 1: a stranger from me, You'll die. And it's like, all
Speaker 1: y'all in this room right now. First everyone I know.
Speaker 1: I have so many twitch creative friends that we all
Speaker 1: finally met, like at Pitchcon, and it was just so
Speaker 1: funny because everyone had pieces of art to give each
Speaker 1: other because I was like I worked on all these things,
Speaker 1: like and everyone was just trading art and it was
Speaker 1: just like, you know, you just know everybody right away,
Speaker 1: and like that's how the Internet we're becas now is
Speaker 1: like you can fall in love over the internet, you know, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: It's just it's um, it's just fantastic to have to
Speaker 1: have games as something to do together. It's like going
Speaker 1: to a thing part together online. You know, it's so fun.
Speaker 1: We spend so much time. I feel like, what I
Speaker 1: really love about this conversation is I feel like, oftentimes
Speaker 1: in the media at large, we spend so much time
Speaker 1: talking about how like gaming is like bad for women
Speaker 1: and scary and like all this stuff. But like the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter is that the amazing and positive
Speaker 1: experiences and friendships and interactions that I've made and had
Speaker 1: through gaming outweigh anything else that's ever happened to me
Speaker 1: by like a magnitude of millions, like best friends, jobs,
Speaker 1: amazing experiences like this, it's real life. And I just
Speaker 1: encourage girls who want to get into streaming, who want
Speaker 1: to try out gaming and art sure if they should
Speaker 1: because they've heard something bad or aren't sure if they'll
Speaker 1: ever be able to make it in programming, like you
Speaker 1: should do it. We need your voice and we're waiting
Speaker 1: for your voice and the amount of fulfillment you get
Speaker 1: from from putting that out there and the feeling of
Speaker 1: accomplishment that you do, like it's it always all the bad,
Speaker 1: Like honestly, it's just it's so worth it. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: I wanted to push that over to you too, like
Speaker 1: do you have good con experiences or experiences in the
Speaker 1: fandom that stick out for you? Oh? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: whenever I get to meet, uh, someone that you know
Speaker 1: that really enjoys the work I've done, and I do
Speaker 1: really enjoy like whenever, like you know, I've this past January,
Speaker 1: I've been lucky enough to be on the front page
Speaker 1: of Twitch, and you know, that's been good in the
Speaker 1: sense of just how many people come in and goes,
Speaker 1: oh great, it's a black streamer because when you do
Speaker 1: see you know, the front page, and you know, I
Speaker 1: feel comfortable saying this because I tell this to my
Speaker 1: friends that Twitch in their faces. It's predominantly white. You
Speaker 1: see a lot of white guys featured, and then you
Speaker 1: know it's it's and to see like, you know, the
Speaker 1: change in and them actively trying to switch that up
Speaker 1: by featuring more women on the front page, them doing
Speaker 1: the Black History Months proper artists. Yea, so the so
Speaker 1: it's that type of stuff that's really going to change
Speaker 1: the perspective because like you know, Twitch kind of got
Speaker 1: burned by leg having these grand stage events and people
Speaker 1: being able to read what Chat was saying during this
Speaker 1: event and seeing how horrible some of these people can be,
Speaker 1: and the fear is it's I think it's once again
Speaker 1: trying to put the band aid on the issue instead
Speaker 1: of fix it where it's like we're would you we
Speaker 1: just won't feature anything that triggers this instead of just
Speaker 1: like you know, actively being better about your bands and
Speaker 1: actively like responding to your reports. And I think it's
Speaker 1: also just like, you know, give me the opportunity to
Speaker 1: turn it down if it's too much for me because
Speaker 1: I have a certain way I like to handle it,
Speaker 1: and it's with like you know, great mods like Flickery
Speaker 1: and you know Largo, who who are very quick to
Speaker 1: just like zap these eyes and then me even like
Speaker 1: bringing them to the front stage, letting them sit there
Speaker 1: and try all their silly whack trolls and then let
Speaker 1: them run out of gas and disappear when they see
Speaker 1: that it doesn't like you don't make yeah, So so
Speaker 1: you know that's that's the thing is it is? It
Speaker 1: really is like to stop, you know, really kind of
Speaker 1: suppressing the people it's being affected instead of dealing with
Speaker 1: the people who's putting these people in all these situations.
Speaker 1: But I think in the end it is just also
Speaker 1: just to kind of bring it back to what this
Speaker 1: episode is about, is kind of stepping up. Like if
Speaker 1: you're in a game with someone and you see someone saying,
Speaker 1: you know, some sexist bs or seeing someone like trolling
Speaker 1: someone because they're a woman. You, I mean, what do
Speaker 1: you have to lose? Now you're on the internet. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's one thing when you don't even do it
Speaker 1: in person, but if you're on the internet and you
Speaker 1: can't even just step up and be like, yo, y'all
Speaker 1: are being some some butt holes, you know, like chill out.
Speaker 1: I do that all the time. It's like chill out
Speaker 1: and then you know, and then it gets a little
Speaker 1: spicier after. And that's what I'm proud of. Like the
Speaker 1: you know, the teenagers, the voice. They group up and
Speaker 1: and they totally like go out of for any woman
Speaker 1: that somebody was saying that, Like they're like, it's so
Speaker 1: it's that it makes me like I feel like a
Speaker 1: proud mama, and I'm like, oh, that's amazing. That's such
Speaker 1: a testament to the fact that when you sit down
Speaker 1: and you teach people like why you should be cool
Speaker 1: to people and like how to be cool, they then
Speaker 1: spread that message and I think that what you're doing
Speaker 1: is amazing. And then they add them and they bring
Speaker 1: them to me, and I'm like, cool, my girls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think and I think it is it is important
Speaker 1: to do that because the fact of the matter is,
Speaker 1: gamers get so butt hurt when like the media portrays
Speaker 1: them as these horrible people, you know, yet do nothing
Speaker 1: to to to stop that. Yeah, it's like, how about okay,
Speaker 1: you hate it when it happens. Then when you see
Speaker 1: trash people being trash, you need to step up in
Speaker 1: crushing because we as a community can ouse these people.
Speaker 1: You know, that's it. It shouldn't only be on women
Speaker 1: to make this change, and it can't only be on
Speaker 1: women to make this change, right like, guys have to
Speaker 1: step up and you know, yeah, here's what we want
Speaker 1: to do. Here's how we want to see the world change.
Speaker 1: Just like white people need to stand up for people
Speaker 1: of color, and you know, straight people need to stand
Speaker 1: up for queer people. It's important and I think if
Speaker 1: we all are cool together, we will form a voltron
Speaker 1: of awesomeness and then we'll get more diversity games. Yes,
Speaker 1: this has been such a great conversation. I will definitely
Speaker 1: have to have both of you back and uh wigne
Speaker 1: and you know, as as this world kind of constantly
Speaker 1: progresses and changes. Um, Sam, where can everyone catch you? Oh?
Speaker 1: I'm just at Sam Meg's s A M M A
Speaker 1: G G S on Twitter, Instagram, all over the place.
Speaker 1: You can check out my books. My latest books are
Speaker 1: Girl Squads, A History of twenty Awesome Female Friendships and
Speaker 1: Marvel Fear Listen that I'm so excited. It was so
Speaker 1: you brought it to our we got to see an
Speaker 1: early copy of it. It looked so cool. I was like,
Speaker 1: I have to order this. Thank you. Marvels like female superheroes,
Speaker 1: so it was like ones that I didn't even know about.
Speaker 1: I mean when I started writing it, I was half
Speaker 1: of them. I was like, I know everything about this,
Speaker 1: and the other half I was like, I'm so cool
Speaker 1: and so many great ones. So I picked those up
Speaker 1: and play Spider Man PS four Janelle, what about you?
Speaker 1: I am Janelle Santa Cruz on Everything dust J and
Speaker 1: e L Santa Cruz on all the social media's and
Speaker 1: nice dream whenever. I'll post about it on Twitter and
Speaker 1: then um we just started a date night underscore o
Speaker 1: w Twitch which has all of our preapproved people on
Speaker 1: their um LGBTQ friendly and um so we all support
Speaker 1: each other and that's a good place to follow and
Speaker 1: see who we're hosting. Anymore. And you have a show
Speaker 1: on hyper I do hyper Appug every Tuesday. We do
Speaker 1: blood Curdling Tales from the Loop UM which is awesome.
Speaker 1: It's a tabletop storytelling and and it's sending the eighties
Speaker 1: and it's hosted by Karen Rice and it's it's very
Speaker 1: spooky and I love it and I'm having a really
Speaker 1: good time. Yeah, yeah, Danny, thank you for having us,
Speaker 1: if we thank you for having us. I love talking
Speaker 1: with y'all and just working. So I've worked with you
Speaker 1: both separately. I'm like, you'll need to meet each other. Um,
Speaker 1: and hopefully we can get Janelle on on our show, UM,
Speaker 1: on Sam and I's show. I am at miss Danny
Speaker 1: Fernandez on all the things. So definitely check out our
Speaker 1: tea public site. It's t public dot com, slash nerdificent.
Speaker 1: We're going to be adding more merch but they've made
Speaker 1: really public. Has like made special designs for us for
Speaker 1: if he and I which are really cool. Um. I
Speaker 1: love them. There's like a Batman one up there, like
Speaker 1: old school Batman Robin Uh. They made a Vegeta and Goku,
Speaker 1: which like when we made a note for them because
Speaker 1: they're like, do you want us to make this, I'm like, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: if he has to be Goku, I have to be Vegeta.
Speaker 1: And it was so funny because they made it so
Speaker 1: on point that they made my widows peak Geta has
Speaker 1: a widow speaking, and I even was like, can we
Speaker 1: tone it? Down just a little because I was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: that's what I look like with his hair. But anyways,
Speaker 1: check it out and uh again, follow us on We're
Speaker 1: on Facebook, We're on Instagram, We're on Twitter. Please send us,
Speaker 1: you know, screenshots if you if you review us, or
Speaker 1: if you buy merch. We want to see that because
Speaker 1: we want to boost y'all. We love our fans, and
Speaker 1: y'all are just so positive and allow us to have
Speaker 1: these conversations like if you and I were saying, we've
Speaker 1: hosted at a lot of places, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them don't always let us have these type of open
Speaker 1: conversations and and talk about really important issues that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people might not know are happening
Speaker 1: behind the scenes to us. So we appreciate this platform. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know me, it's your boy. If you I
Speaker 1: F y n W A d I w E on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram, if d's on Twitch, come through. Dropping
Speaker 1: in twitch Prime subs like y'all been doing Anita remind
Speaker 1: y'all does not renew. If you dropped them like five
Speaker 1: dollar stubs, they renew. But if you're doing twitch frn,
Speaker 1: you gotta come back every month. Don't forget me. I
Speaker 1: won't forget you. Uh As For shows, On the sixteenth
Speaker 1: of February, if you're in the l A area, I
Speaker 1: will be doing stand up at the Long Beach Comic
Speaker 1: Con at from five to six at the Live on
Speaker 1: Mint show. You got some other shows coming later this month,
Speaker 1: but they're far enough to where I'll just promote them
Speaker 1: on the next one. Thank you so much stopping by
Speaker 1: and listening, and as always, stay near