VidCon

July 11th, 2019
Anaheim, CA

Read the Comments

There’s an old internet maxim: don’t read the comments. According to popular logic, the comments are a dumping ground for trolls, copypasta, virulent forms of bigotry, and spam—but do they need to be? In an algorithmic age that has structured the circulation of fake news, hate speech, and conspiracy theories, we need to restore public commentary in the public sphere. What if we radically rethought our relationship to the comments section, and took commenters and commenting seriously? What if we considered commenting a public responsibility, and asked our audiences to collaborate in the co-production of our content? What if the comments are really the content?

UCSD Spaces: Queer Pinxy Conference

Mar 2nd, 2018
University of California, San Diego

Viewing Selves in Colonial Archives

In addition to my keynote talk, I also facilitated a breakout workshop: Making Media Ourselves (Social media continues to multiply the possibilities for self-expression, political organizing, community networking, and creative endeavors in new media and new genres altogether. Yet, these technologies’ promise of a more just, democratized world has far from materialized. How do we create ourselves and alongside the algorithms and archives that also bring us surveillance, fake news, and the corporatization of daily life? What does it mean to make our own content in the screen time economy? And how is social media the site of production, complication, or antagonism with Pinxy identities?)