June 20, 2021

pride & pandemics

Hello friend, thanks for opening! This week’s letter is about dads, Pride, fandoms–all my favorite things! Hope you find them useful.

An interesting thing happened to me this week: I joined our company’s first internal Pride campaign and it involved sharing my experience as an LGTBQIA+ employee in the workplace via a company-wide emailer. I’ve been an out-and-proud lesbian for roughly a decade and a half or so, so it wasn’t really much of a big deal; besides, anybody who has sat with me in a meeting or an event in the handful of years I’ve spent here so far would no longer be surprised, so I figured, why not?

Anyway, as a comms person constantly looking for “faces” to feature in my write-ups, I know how difficult it is to find testimonials, so as much as I can help others out with their comm plans–it’s a way of paying it forward!

Anyhow, what came rather late to me was that… well, technically, I changed bosses over the quarantine. I realized how I took a lot of that for granted–prior to the pandemic and the entire work-from-home situation, I could bring my full self to work–haircut, polos and boots, and all. Not your most fashionable friend, but the way I dress is part of how I express myself. Now that we’re mostly home-bound and meeting with cameras off, this part has been mostly done away with.

Tl;dr–I had to come out to my new boss because I did not want her to find out via a company-wide emailer. :D And happy to share it went well–it’s been a while since I had to explicitly come out to anyone at work! :D After the first round of introductions on your first few months, it doesn’t really matter that much. It’s what you bring to the table–as it always should be.

But there’s always value in standing up and being counted, especially for campaigns like this. Not everyone can lend their voice, and in this case, I could.

It’s just that–so much is lost in screens, you know? I have a couple of officemates who were hired over the quarantine, and I’m sad about how little we know of each other because our online workflows do not intersect. Back in the office, even if we didn’t share projects, we shared common spaces–the round table where we usually ate lunch, the meeting rooms, the hallways between our cubicles, the pantry where the shared microwave, ref and water dispenser are, the cafeterias, the Starbucks at the ground floor of the Tower.

All of that is gone; I’m not even sure they’re ever really coming back, in a sense. The world we’re coming back to won’t be the world it was prior to all this.

In any case–still, all’s well that ends well. I appreciate the small steps that the company is beginning to take in this direction, and I hope it’s only the start of many initiatives, and not just for Pride Month.

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Note #1: Just a quick note to greet everyone Happy Father’s Day! It’s a complicated holiday, pretty much like Mother’s Day for my part, but I hope those who are marking it are able to do so safely and healthily. Fingers crossed our next family celebs will finally be in person ♥

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Note #2: Also a quick note to say: I LOVED THE BTS MEAL! I’ve always been a nuggets fan, and I really enjoy it whenever new sauces are introduced. I think these new ones are actually good!

I don’t understand the entire hate discourse that this has spawned; well, hate discourse on social media has always been tricky, whether we’re talking about food or people or corporations or religion or homophobia or racism. (Amazing actually how this particular issue manages to tick all those boxes!)

In any case, I have a couple of questions about the discourse:

• A social media question: Is the fact that it happens on social media net-positive or net-negative? Does it actually encourage thoughtful discussion or does it merely give hateful points of view a wider platform and the desired validation?
• A fandom question: How do we decide when to evaluate a group based on their best members or their worst ones?

By default, I am wary about discourse on social media. I guess we all should be? Always ask: Why is this on my feed? What part of my behavior on this platform has informed the algorithm that brought me this conversation? I find that it helps me parse information better.

I also think hard about participating in discourse, more than simply reading: What information am I giving the algorithm if I do so? How may it be used against me and my own contacts?

As for fandom, I know toxic fandoms too well (my fangirl life: moving from fandom to fandom, one fictional dead lesbian at a time lmao) but as has been proven time and again: It’s not the most enjoyable part of any fandom, and the Internet is big enough for all of us. Be kind.

From the internet

• This week, we finished Mare of Easttown on HBO, and oh wow. Kate Winslet is so good?!? Loved the whole smalltown whodunit premise. Everyone’s so awfully flawed, and Winslet spends 60% of her time on screen drinking bottles of beer, but jeez what a good time. Tight storytelling, stellar acting, and plot twist after plot twist until the very end. It’s great. I’m glad we’re able to binge it–I understand people actually used to wait for a new ep every week?? HOW??

• Speaking of food: I don’t talk about Food Wars on Netflix enough. What an enjoyable anime about food, and friendship, and competition, and devotion to craft. It’s a bit racy, so probably not for consumption with kids in the room, but otherwise: Please watch! We usually watch while having dinner HAHA.

• Taylor Swift is re-releasing RED. This is not a drill.

If that ten-minute song is All Too Well – well, it’s been nice knowing you, RIP.

• If you’ve ever watched Takeshi’s Castle as a kid, you probably are the most anxious about this portion of the map:

• Speaking of algorithm (haha) here’s what the Youtube algorithm brought me today, because sharing is caring: Donnalyn - O.M.O. (On my Own) (oha.)

I swear, I haven’t heard “Chick na may tsikot” in actual human conversation for a WHILE.

• Basilio and Crispin, but make them women: (YES)

• My favorite meme this week: This cat is a mood.

https://twitter.com/Catshealdeprsn/status/1404091404255514628

Did you get my email? That I sent from my puter??

Thank you for making it this far! Sorry to have gone on again for a bit; thank you for reading!

Have a great weekend :)

XO,

K