Episode 44: A Conversation with Women in Gaming

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hello, and welcome to Nerdificent Another week, another nerdy topic.
I am Danny Fernandez and sitting across from me. As always,
it's never missed an episode. Yeah, if you waddy way,
how you doing, I'm gonna let you out know how
much of a professional Danny is. She was watching me
because I took a bite out of this chocolate bar

(00:30):
right when we started, and she was like really engaging
it to really set me up to win. That's that's
that's the type of partner you need in your life.
We use more than a friend. We're beyond friends at
this point. We're partners. We we work so well together. Yeah,
oh yeah, we just love it because we also do.
People don't know. I mean people do know this if
they follow us, but we butt heads sometimes, but in

(00:51):
a respectful brother sister man. Oh yeah, always Um, And
that's what it's all about, you know. It's really just
having open dialogue in a sense of where you actually
want to have a dialogue and you're not just trying
to shout down the person, which I feel like it
is going to be lots of points that's going to
be made on this episode. Yes, Um, and Veginia is
the best RYMZ care and if you're moving okay, I'm

(01:14):
gonna let that one pass because so yeah, and I
want to, you know, set that preamble up if if
if you don't after this episode, be like, if you
why didn't you talk more? Because this is a topic
where I'm going to be doing a lot of listening
and you know, you know, we have two dope experts
who are really gonna take the floor and I'm gonna

(01:34):
lead by example. I'm gonna show y'all fellas how to do.
I did want to say before we introduce our amazing guests,
just to housekeeping things. One is please go and rate
and review us on iTunes. Thank you to everyone that
has done it so far. It really affects, you know,
getting our name out there and helping people find this
and boost our numbers. Um if you take a screenshot

(01:56):
of your review, we might share it, so definitely tweet
us that and also check out our tea public sites,
to public dot com, slash nerdificent. If you send us
a picture with some merch, we will post it on
our Instagram or we will tweet it. Put it inside
my locker, or we'll post it. If you and I
have both shared we love seeing people in merchant but

(02:17):
like um, we've both shared it on our Insta stories
and it's always so I feel like it's Christmas Morning
scene that someone cared enough about our podcast to go
And if y a T shirt, all our single folks
out here, you know it's it's it's February, we're getting
to Valentine's Day. If you post a picture of a
merch and it's on a tinder or bumble or whatever
the kids are using to say, well, write your bio.

(02:38):
Just I would love to do that. Write your bio.
And a shout out to Fluff, who I had to
check because he was he was posting a pic of
him writing a review for The Daily Zekes. I was like, wow,
I don't see one for Nerdificent and he went ahead
and did it. So thanks for doing that, Flu, But
you know I'll call you out. Help hell being us,

(03:00):
call helping us, you know, find other people. And thanks
to everyone that's tweeted at us. It really really does.
If you and I read those in it it um
and we try to retweet as many as possible, but
it really and engage and check out our discord too.
We have a lot of great conversations on there. I
am popping in there to take down people that say
that they don't like my Jimmy Stewart impression. Really really

(03:25):
gotta call y'all out for turning y'all backs on your
all on the stream, Like, yeah, Danny shows up in
the discord. People were like, no, I like it. I
think it's good. I'm everyone's little sister joining us today.
We have one of the hosts at hyper RPG. She's
also a youth gaming coach, Janelle Santa Cruz. Okay, thanks

(03:49):
for having me, guys. Yes, Janelle, you've known IF and
I for a long time. Yeah, it's been Yeah. I've
actually known of you before I knew you because you
were withdraw wrestlers and and my my buddy Coyle was like, oh,
there's there's this person in the wrestling I think it
was Tights and Fights you used to post it in. Yeah.

(04:11):
It was like, it's it's her drawings are so good.
And then I saw you were streaming and I was like,
let me check this out. I think we met previously,
uh previous to that through Danny through comedy. I think, um,
because I think I met you. It used to be
like a long time tournament words, tournament nerds. Yeah, tournament nerds.
Uh and uh nerds again like comedy source stuff. Um,

(04:33):
but yeah, that's that's how you kind of brought me
into hyper a Bug actually into the family there because
they needed for the wrestling. H Yeah, and so that
was so thank you for that. I'm still there. You're
great and joining us our other guests. She is a
senior writer at in Samni at Games. She's also been
a game developer at BioWare, sam Max. You don't even

(04:53):
include all your because you've also written several books. We
here like shortening it. I know. I was like, no,
you need to flex. We're trying to tell her before
you need to flex your stuff. I'm not good at it. Yeah,
and you're a host nerdice with me on our show
fan Girl. That's how we know each other. Really has
been super fun. It's been great kind of like this

(05:14):
discussion as women to talk about things that affect us
in the in the nerd world. Like it's just such
a positive environment to have other women, people from other
marginalized cultures getting together to talk about things that we
love so much and we're so passionate about and I
think that's really why I'm stoked to be here today,
is because I think a lot of the time people

(05:36):
when we talk about like women in games or stuff
like that, they're like, oh, it's all about like, oh,
it's it's because you hate games, or like you want
to be so negative. But it's because I hate them.
That's why I play them. It's like we we love games,
we love comics, we love all the stuff. We want
to make it better, you know, And that's why we're
all here. And and I wanted to say this is

(05:56):
going to be a little bit different than our traditional
format and that we wanted to have an open conversation,
so it's kind of going to be a roundtable discussion.
I really wanted to just Janelle and I were having
lunch the other day and she was telling me some
of her experiences, um of being a woman in the
in the gaming world, and I was like, you have
to come on and talk about this, because even I,
as a woman in the nerd world, was not aware

(06:17):
of some of the stuff that she goes through. And
so I was like, I just want this to be
an open conversation about some of the great, amazing things
that we've gotten to experience and you know, things that
we want to work on, uh and problem solving. But
for both of you, I guess where would you say
probably more professionally or even like you Sam working on
game developing, Like how did you? And I know both

(06:38):
of you have different stories, but how did you get
to where you are? Yeah? Uh guess. For me in
terms of getting into game development, my my path was
kind of weird. I think a lot of people have
a really weird path into game to have. There's no
one right answer. I'm a game writer, So for me,
I wrote books first. I wrote a couple nonfiction books. Um,
I wrote a lot about video games. I wrote video

(06:59):
game reviews for national newspaper up in Canada, which is
where I'm from originally, And that's kind of how I
sort of connected with a lot of people in the
video game dev community. They knew my work, they knew
that I was passionate about games, and so I got
in that way. But for people looking to get into
games and game writing, I always recommend that they check
out Twine. It's a free online client. Basically you don't

(07:24):
have to download anything. You do it totally in your
browser and it allows you to make your own interactive
choose your own adventure novel. Basically, it's all writing. You
don't have to have like any art skills or programming
skills maybe like basic HTML or whatever, but you just
go and you write your story and it it lets
you write branching dialogue, dialogue choices, that kind of stuff,

(07:45):
and if you finish a full twine, like, it's a
great piece that you can use when you're auditioning for
game gigs. And even if you're not using it to
audition for like Triple A game gigs, it's something that
you can put out there and be like, look, I
wrote something, I finished something like, here is what I
can prove to you that I'm actually good at this.
That's so cool. Yeah, I didn't know. We're going to

(08:05):
drop that in the footnote so you'll have a link
to That's awesome. It's literally what I used to audition
for by Wear. So you can look at these BBC
we're given last week it was v O stuff inside
nuggets on how to get into this industry. Yeah, that
is so cool. Um yeah, Janelle, how did you get

(08:26):
into youth gaming coach like becoming Yeah, well, my family
were always big gamers, and you know, we grew up
with games and UH used to like sit in my
bunk bed and watch my dad play Silent Hill and
just like you know, all these things. So it's just
a big in two stories and everything. And um, because
we were such a big gamers, my younger brother got
into playing over what's professionally and I was big and Blizzard,

(08:47):
you know, played Diablo. I met my husband actually because
I when I was doing stand up, I did a
joke about Diablo. They are so cute together, They're so cute.
Our first was like playing Diablo online and he brought
us friend because he was nervous. Um, but there is that.
And so when Overwatch launched, um, you know, I had

(09:08):
never really played in the first person shooter before. It
took me two years of grinding to learn how to
aim and so um, I met a lot of kids
who had small voices and things like that, and so
I just bonded with them. And I also worked as
a day job, you know, um, with special needs kids,
and I worked with at risk youth and so I
knew how to work with with teenagers and people that

(09:30):
didn't have the skill set and wanted to learn to
get better and needed to reform because maybe they used things,
you know, language that they shouldn't be using on the internet.
And so that's how I got into it. And so
now we have this this Date Night Discord, which initially
started as a place for me and Andy to actually
just play games online as a you know, a date night,
and now there it's just like hundreds of kids and

(09:50):
stuff and we do pick up games and we work
on on tactics and strategies and run scrims and stuff.
And so that's how I got there. What I love.
I love that you said that you had to grind
for two years to get good at Overwatch, because I
feel like so often people look at streamers and like
women streamers and are like, oh, they know, it's so easy,
Like all they do is sit there and play video
games all day. But it's like it's really hard work.

(10:11):
Like streaming is really hard work. Playing games professionally, it's
really hard work. It takes a lot of time and
effort and super impressive. Because like again, like my brother, um,
he's five years younger than me, but had been playing
games for so much longer computer games, you know, because
I was playing you know, console stuff, and and I
just like I didn't have the proper equipment, and so

(10:32):
he was ahead of me. So had that two years
of aim experience and now you know, it transfers over
to other games, like we were talking about Apex Legends earlier.
My aim is decent enough, like I can keep up.
You know, I'm not not a god by any means,
but you know the kids are because because culturally, like
they've been playing since they were younger. A lot a
lot of boys have played, you know, and so um
that's something that yeah, that I feel was really important

(10:54):
for me to do for myself was was to spend
like I spend like five hours a day playing the game,
um at least minimum. And that's nothing compared to people
that spend you know, eight hours or twelve hours. Like
it's it's ridiculous, like the using you know, the learning
the hand eye coordination between the mouse and keyboard instead
of a controller, because's not a controller. It's it's so
much more um intricate like using yeah, you know all that,

(11:16):
and so yeah, and I know a lot of my
friends that have had to you have to be consistent
with your streaming schedule, um. And so if I know
that I've seen you posting about that too, like I'm
gonna be on here, I'm gonna be streaming. These are
the hours that I'm streaming. I think a lot of
people don't realize, Like what you were saying Sam about
like the fact that Janelle said that she was grinding

(11:37):
is you also have to be entertaining. You have to
be entertaining, like you can't just like silently, you know,
like you have to be That's how people, uh, that's
how people build their following and have loyal fans. So
there's so many things that go on that I think
people don't realize, right, And Yeah, and streaming did sort
of take a hit for for a while for me
because it was so hard to focus on the game

(12:00):
and you know, learning how to make in game calls
and stuff, but also like trying to manage your chat
and all that stuff. So I did have to take
a little bit of time from my streaming to focus
on actually you know doing that, And so that was
that was a challenge within itself, like to do to
take away that time. I talked about this at my
like work a lot. But it's so funny that streaming

(12:21):
and also working in game dev are both jobs that
you really have to be on and you have to
be talking to people all the time because I think
a lot of the time us nerds are like very
introverted and shy, awkward, and streaming and hosting is so
like being on putting yourself out there and working in
game dev is so such a collaborative medium. You always

(12:41):
have to be talking to people, talking to level designers,
talking to environment are talking to like every person who
has a finger in the pie, and so it's like,
what what did we do? We're nerds? Are there other
women that y'all enjoy watching, like other gamers and people
that you have met? Um fran is Is she's an

(13:04):
Overwatch player and she's an to player consistent. Her hero
pool has a lot of aim based heroes because the
game over Watch has low mechanical you know, like skill
requirement characters like we're you know, there's a healer named
Mercy who a lot of women tend to play because
you don't have to aim. All you do is you
point your staff out a teammate and you heal them
and you follow them around the map and sort of

(13:26):
when they die, you ruse them like that's your ability, um,
but fran herself. She uses Anna, who is a sniper
who snipes her team to heal them, which is very
She's my favorite character. I mean, I'm terrible at her,
but I like to play her. Yeah, if you do.
You have some female streamers that you like watching? Oh man, Yeah,

(13:48):
Zombie Unicorn, she's great. I also Austin Marie, another good
friend of mines, you know, pop over to what she's
cooking up to. Vana is great Eric the time to time,
and then like you know, uh, there there is where
is this um? I forget her name, but she like

(14:10):
she's a scientist, so like she'll just have pul on conversations.
She's like, uh, I was going to say astrologist, astronomist
who I guess I don't know. Anyway, she and she
just like literally talks about space her whole stream. So
so I have tons of I really want to watch
that after this. Yeah, and Lady Danger as well, she's great.

(14:33):
So those are those are all my shouts outs? Yeah, Janelle,
I did want to say so when you and I
were grabbing lunch, you were telling me about how difficult
it is actually for women to advance because when people
find when people here, and this was something that I listen, y'all,
I take a lot of abuse as a woman in
the nerd world, like in the common section and the

(14:54):
names that were called. So I was very aware of
that harassment happening to women in gay You mean, I
wasn't aware though, that it's actually affecting your job because
when people find when people hear your voice and they
hear that you're a woman, they will hop off the game. Yep,
they will, um, yeah, they'll jump off of the map. Um,
and so they will not play with you because the

(15:14):
team over watches the team based games six six verses
six and um. So I would you know. At one
point I I made a call because it's if you
have to communicate, you have to say you know so
some and so's left right, you know, main whatever, and
um somebody yelled at me that this was one of
the first times somebody's like, you know, what the hell
are you doing in this game? Like get off and

(15:35):
go um go make makeup tutorial on YouTube, and I
was like the hell, like, okay, whatever, like And because
specifically I I play DPS characters which are um, it's
not traditional for women. They play support a lot of
them play support characters like Mercy, the one that I
described earlier, and so it offends them to see to
see to hear a woman's voice coming out of you know,

(15:57):
the McCree guy or a soldier male character. Yeah, because
they want to play those characters, and so it's their
right they feel. Um. And uh, you know, I've lost
so many games and it's been crazy because I will play,
We'll stack with some friends, you know, I'll have a
couple of of guys with me, and they're like always
so surprised or like does this happen to you all
the time? And I'm like yeah, like like all the time.

(16:18):
People will just stop playing because they don't want to
play with me or they don't they're not doing what
they want me to do. They go go play Mercy.
I bet your Mercy May and they tell me about
your Mercy May, but I bet you played Diva, and
I'm like, I don't, like, I don't have a problem
with those characters, but I don't play those characters. My
hero pools completely different. And and so it just they
love to harass you. They They've have been called like

(16:39):
every possible word you know for a woman. Um, but
I know that that in order to combat that, some
people were using voice changers. Um, but you were saying that.
When you did that, people thought that you were because
you still sounded like uh yeah, so they thought that
you were a gay man that was a man, but
they were they would not hop off the game, but
then you would get slurs, No, would get slurs. And

(17:02):
you know what, Actually, my hero that I that I
play the Soldier Sony six. So he's like a Captain
America type guy right where he's like, um, he's the
leader of the organization of Overwatch named Soldier because he's
like the most generic looking soldier character. And I picked
him because I was like, this guy has a kit

(17:25):
where he can take care of himself. He can heal himself,
so I don't have to ask for healing from a
teammate because he can heal his damn self. He runs fast,
so I can run around and get kills and I
don't I can carry myself. I don't need anybody. Well, Um,
this game has been out for two years and about
three weeks ago they announced, um they lore wise they
announced that he's gay. Yeah that so they were a
huge win. I feel like it was fantastic and so

(17:47):
so now people were really excited, and so I'm it's
been a fast return to the when I did the
experiment with the voice changer, where I don't even have
to speak to be called the word or whatever you like,
where they're just look at the hours. I have five
hours on this guy, and so that they immediately like,
I bet you gay, but you know like this, and
I'm like, yeah, I am so like and it's just

(18:09):
it's ridiculous, Like it's have lots of women in my
discord that say, oh, why to drive a voice change one,
I mean, and I want to see what it's like.
And I say, I've done it, and yes, like, if
you you get more respect still even sounding like a
gay man because they assume that you've played games more.
They assumed that as a male, you've culturally you've played
games more. Well. The thing about the voice changer is

(18:29):
that it treats the symptom, but not it's not addressing
the problem. Yeah, you find stuff like that because that's
that's the insidious stuff that you know, when guys jump off,
it affects your ranking and your to compete, and you
find that in the professional world as well, it's that
insidious stuff that people don't talk about a lot. That's
actually the stuff that really affects people's ability to work

(18:51):
in this world, like to advance, Yeah, like get noticed
by leagues. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean girls at a young
age aren't encouraged in the same way that boys are
to explore programming or coding or you know, gaming in
a lot of different ways. So it puts us behind.
It puts us at a disadvantage even trying to get

(19:12):
into these fields. Like you said about your brother, Like
Eve been playing PC games a lot longer than you had,
and that put you at a disadvantage age wise. It's
the same in gaming. I think a lot of girls
aren't brought up being told like we're making a real
push for it now, which is awesome, trying to get
more women into STEM, like it's great. Girls who Code
is a great organization for that. But you know, girls
I feel like don't feel encouraged or able to get

(19:35):
into these fields that traditionally have been advertised. I would
say as like for boys, and I think that's a
real shame because games are for everyone, and they should
be for everyone, and the more different types of people
that we have making games, the more different kind of
stories we're going to get in games, because I'm going
to I come to games with a different life experience

(19:56):
than Danny does as a Latina woman than if he
does as a black man. Like we all come to
the table with our own stories and our own experience,
and getting more different kinds of people to tell those
stories just makes her better and more exciting games. Like,
I feel like we all win when we open up
the table to everybody. So I am hopeful that the

(20:17):
more we have discussions like this and the more we
put out into the open, we can start to say
stop treating the symptom, you know, with like a band aid,
with the band aid, and start going back and drilling
down to how can we fix this from the start? Yeah,
and and to like really speak on your issue as well.
I've met someone at twitch Con. She's also another female

(20:38):
streamer I forgot to shout out ferociously, Steph who also
happens to be trans and she played Blizzard game but
a different one, Heroes of the Storm, and she um
she was very vocal about not adding a voice chat
feature to the game, and and you know, they ended
up adding it anyway, and it just totally affected her

(21:00):
ability to rank up because now she ran into the
same issues as you did. And Overwatch. I'm glad you
brought up Apex Legends for that exact reason actually, because
they have that communication system where you can just ping
objects in the world without speaking. You don't necessarily need
to use the voice chat to communicate with your teammates.
And I think that's great not only for you know,
women and trying to make things genderless or an even feel,

(21:22):
but also for like accessibility issues. You know, if people
are hearing impaired and they can't talk or speak over
voice chat, now they're able to play this game, you know,
and it again opens up the table for where people.
So it's a very dynamic ping system too. Because when
I was playing, you know, because my buddy Manny Manny
Hugpian is the lead writer for it, so he wrote
all the voice lands. He's like, you should try all

(21:44):
those pings, you know, we wrote it's like I've been
there every night and until nine pm forever, please listen
to my life. But what's funny is like, yeah, because
you know, normal pings are like like I'm coming, I'm here,
but like this one's like I feel like someone's been here,

(22:05):
I've been Like, they're very dynamic in the sense that
it's like one of our friends did have a mic
and it was totally fine, where normally in a BR game,
a Battle Royale game, it's very hard to play with
someone without a mic, and that was a huge accomplishment.
I think, Yeah, for accessibility, I think it you know,
just to take a quick sidebar on accessibility, where you know,

(22:28):
it's it's very easy to forget about things that other
people need when you don't. For example, I made a
joke recently because uh, you know, porn Hub had those
like interactive videos where they you know, team with a
fleshlight and I was like, we've gone too far, blah
blah blah, and somebody like one of my d ms
is like, actually, I was hearing on a podcast that like,

(22:50):
that's great for accessibility for disabled people to use those
products because you know, they don't have access to their
hands or you know, they don't have that level of mobility.
And I was like, well, you know that change, yeah,
and I don't think about it, and it was like
that actually now made it way cool, and it's like, yeah,
definitely there's a big push I think in the industry

(23:11):
right now, and certainly an insomniac where I am to
make games more accessible and to really expand out those
accessibility options. I was playing Shadow of the Tomb Rader
and they have a really dynamic accessibility system where you
can change individually the level of difficulty for different things
in the games. You can make combat really hard, but
you can make puzzle solving really easy, you know what

(23:32):
I mean. Changings like that, a lot of push for
like color blindness options, which yeah, it's it's great. I
love I just you know, I feel like the more
marginalized people we can get into games and into making
games and into streaming games, the better the community is
gonna be for it. And thinking about my guest today
Andy Um, it was on My husband was on Twitch

(23:53):
and a and he was like, look, you know this
is the commercial that I saw and then maybe cryer earlier.
It's it's like disabled kids with the and then and
I just I watched it over in his screen without
like it sounds and and he was like and I
was like crying too, where I was like, like it
it made me so happy because there's there's new controller
that's out for them, and it's just been's fantastic. We

(24:15):
have to take a quick break, but we are going
to continue this conversation right when we get back, and
we're back still joined with Janelle Santa Cruz and Sam
Max and Sam. I wanted to say so, Insomniac Games,
I remember you on our show interview just in int
A chew Right. She's been there for like fifteen years

(24:38):
or something. Yeah, she's a really talented, wonderful art director
who's out Insomniac. We have a lot of really wonderful
women on the team and Insomniac and I think it's
really cool to see the gaming industry going out of
its way, like a lot of tech businesses to look
at their you know, company makeup, and they're hiring procedures
in HR to see like how we can level the

(25:00):
playing field a little bit. Because there are all those
studies you know about resumes or how you know what
I mean, Like if the resume has a certain kind
of name on it, maybe it doesn't get looked at necessarily.
There's a lot of studies about how the way companies
right job requisitions, Like when you go to a board
and you look at like the job ask or whatever,

(25:22):
and you before you apply. A lot of the ways
that companies, right those appeal specifically to men and maybe
don't appeal necessarily to the way women think about themselves.
Like they'll say, like, we need an expert in and
women often don't consider themselves experts in the same way.
So there's a lot that companies can do in terms
of being really careful about how you write those being

(25:43):
really conscious about going out and trying to recruit in
places where you know there are going to be a
lot of people just to balance that, you know, interview pool,
just to make sure that you have women, you have
people of color, you queer people interviewing for these positions.
You know, on that point. I know, Janelle, if you
knew this. But at hyper RPG back when I was

(26:05):
hosting there as well, Zach Ebank, who's the head of
Hyper was saying they were looking for a social media manager.
This was like two years ago, and so he put
out a call for a social media manager and he
said all of the women that applied were overqualified, were
overqualified and all like he said, a ton of guys
that applied were like, I've never done it. Before. But

(26:25):
you know, I figured I would throw my hat in
the ring, and that was like I couldn't. He was
like the women that applied, I was like this, you're
too good for this job, like you know, And it
was at the time when the channel was new, so
they were just starting out, and he was like, I
couldn't believe some of the guys like the confidence of
just like yeah, I figured I would, you know, I tweet,
so I figured I could be you know, do you
remember that if I've done on Twitter before? So and

(26:49):
I agree Sam that I feel like a lot of
times we and I've seen that so much. I see
that on Twitter with in film Twitter and women that
are are our film reviewers and stuff just being like
they think that they have to be I don't know,
like it's it's exactly what you're saying. What we we
hold ourselves back in some way and just because of

(27:09):
because of I think what we've dealt with. I think
we've been conditioned there how we've been conditioned to think
that we're not good enough. And then and then you
see the resumes of other people like oh yeah, no, totally, yeah,
it's important, Like there there's you know twenties six plus
heroes on the roster for for Overwatch and on. All
of the women that I work with and play stress

(27:31):
themselves out trying to learn all of them because they
feel like, you know, they have to have we have
to have this deep of a hero pool in order
to qualify for for so and so's team and whatever.
One there's guys like I blow one trick this one
hero and whatever. I guess I'll play professionally. Like that's
like prove yourself nerd stuff. Right. Where as soon as
you say like I'm a game or like I'm a

(27:51):
nerd or like writing books, you get quiz and you're
expected to be this expert, you know what I mean?
I mean, I have Goku in a geta from dragon
ball Z tattooed on my body and I'm not and
I had a podcast I've had to dragon ball I mean,
that's too much, that's too too many. Both, OK, so

(28:11):
I blame him, but like if I don't know if
you remember this, but I tweeted something I think about
our dragon ball podcast. You know, we were having some
guests or something on and someone was like, do you
even watch dragon ball Z? Like something like that or
like have you do you even know who a curatoryama is?
And that's the creator and Funimation who like owns dB Z,

(28:33):
you know, does all the dubbing and stuff. They somebody
went on their account and replied to them and they
have like hundreds of thousands of followers. Replied and said,
yeah she does. I know. It's nice when you've worked
for huge companies that have employed you because of your
expertise to drop in and be like, yeah she does.

(28:55):
That's like when I I'm from Canada, so I moved
to Toronto ten years ago. Oh and that's where a
lot of my like nerd community started. And I remember
I was twenty one and I was going to my
very first nerd party. It was thrown by the local
comic book store, and I was super nervous and and
know anybody you shy like showed up by myself. And
I remember talking to like a cute dude who worked

(29:16):
at the comic book shop and being like, this is
my moment and talked to a cute nerd. Doesn't be great?
And I was like, yeah, I love comics and he
was like, oh yeah, names Spider Man's parents and I'm
like gateke, like literally this. I feel like it's the
thing that people say happens, and I was like, I
can't believe this is happening to me. And now I
write Spider Man. You yeah, for y'all that don't know.

(29:41):
I mean, one of the biggest games is past year
Spider Man at Insomniac Games, Sam worked on that. That
is cool, so so cool. You know, vindication he's getting paid,
But that's it. But that's what it is. And that's
because you and I and the people in this room, like,
despite having to deal with things like that, kept out

(30:02):
of so much. And my hope is that we have
had to deal with a lot of that stuff so
that hopefully the next generation of gals try to deal
with it less and then after that less and less,
and you know, that's that's the goal. Every time I
want to give up, I'm like, I can't. One. I've
already made it this far, and it's farther than other
women of color like I have to be. I'm a

(30:24):
Latina that's made it this far in the industry, and
other people are counting on me. My niece is counting
on me, like people are. I'm I'm taking the brunt
of it because the generation before me took even more
than I did. Um. Yeah, I I totally agree, and
and it is nice. I mean I have seen progress,
and I know Janelle that you've built a really nice community.

(30:45):
I mean, if if if there are women that are
listening that are interested in in in getting into gaming
or doing it competitively, like what do you recommend to
kind of developed and foster a positive community. There's so
many discords out there, um, you know, and and we've
we've built one like our Date Night discords it and
and that's what I always encourage people to do, is

(31:07):
to look for communities for whatever it is that you
want to work on. Because for us, we service the
multitude games, like because we have UM experts like Andy's
a fighting game expert. If somebody wants to come in
and work on something for Smash Brothers, like, he's there
and he will help you because he's he's played UM
tournaments day for he's been a tournament level and so
yeah and so and and UM, and we'd focus on

(31:27):
on UM kids. And also you know women because a
lot of women they come in and they just they're
new to games because they just got a PC and
you know, the games are, you know, and so that's
where you know, I can come and be like, okay,
like these are the coaching tips I can give you,
like and I work one on one with you if
I if you need on with these scrims and um,
we stream them and UM. And that's always like whatever
game it is, there is that there is a community

(31:49):
out there, there's a discord for it. There's like you know,
there's Reddit forums and and UM. It's just so important
to to reach out to other people because like we
provide a safe a safe area for for you to
work on something like this is my goal that I
want to do. Like there's a fourteen year old girl, um,
who wants who's she's so good at Genji? Which is
non traditional for for what for a girl to play

(32:10):
let alone a fourteen year old girl? Um, and she's like,
you know, she comes home from from wrestling practice and
she comes you works on Genji and like that's you know,
that's that's what we do. Um. And uh. So that's
there's other places a character and can the character and
watching he's a yeah, it's a ninja, um guy. And
so I don't know the women tend to to to

(32:32):
flock to certain types of characters and stuff, and so
that one is that's all the guys love Genji because
he's a little he's direct from an anime and so
so yeah, yeah, it's so good. Um yeah, joining and
joining a community because it's not just discorded as other
places to where it's just mostly reaching out and just

(32:54):
searching doing the research. Like it's it's not that hard
to do once you once you you know, set the
search for finding a group of supportive people. I feel
like it's so such good advice. It's so important, Like
for people who want to get into game development, it's
important to you know, communicate to people who are goals
to are people that you look up to, and to
kind of make a genuine try to make a genuine

(33:16):
like connection with people like that and you know, maybe
find a mentor if that's something you're into. But also
beyond that, I always really encourage people to find their
community of their own level, like find the people that
you're going to come up with, because it's one thing
to like look up to people and be like, oh,
I'm gonna try to be friend like someone who has
already established but that's better thing to do. Is to

(33:37):
find the people of your own cohort, of your own level,
and to sort of support each other and come up
together and help each other out. And I feel like
I've talked about this. I wrote a book called Girl Squads,
which is like about women supporting women. And I feel
like a lot of the time, as women were conditioned,
like we're talking about before, to feel like we have
to compete with these others instead of cooperating with each other,

(33:59):
because we we all suffer from this like highland or
syndrome of there can be only one you know what,
because a lot of times there is only there's only
space for one, like there can only be one Latino
who podcasts, so that can be only one woman at
this game studio, only one woman streamer. But it's like
that's that's wrong, Like yeah, the patriarchy has told us

(34:19):
that they made that up. So it's like there's more
than enough room for all of us, and when we
support each other and lift each other up, we all
are stronger for it. So yeah, I don't really know
where I was going with that, but anyway, cool with power,
Like that's I mean, because I'm going back to uh
to school for my master's in sports psychology, Um, so

(34:40):
that I can play for easy works for sports psychology. Um,
because my just insane that that is now a thing
thing now, Yeah, like that's a new job that is
so interesting. I just want you to do a podcast
talking about that. My brother, the things that he tells me.
You know, he's worked for multitude of organs and uh,
you know, he's seen bad orgs and good orgs, and

(35:00):
the good Organs always have reliable staff. And um, that's
something that a lot of the the over Watch League
is now requiring them to have like a psychologist there
for them because these kids are plucked out of their
mother's homes and all of a sudden they're moving into
a gaming house. And you know, somebody that probably had,
you know, like a gor phobia and all of a
sudden now has to live in the house, you know,

(35:22):
with something I've never thought about before. You write, these
are just kids and and so that's you know, and
given that's what I do, because I also provide tutoring
for these kids because I'm qualified for that too, So
I'll help them with their their schoolwork so that they
can work on this other stuff. Um. But that's that's
the type of thing that you um, that you want
in a for working for, you know, with these kids

(35:43):
and um and speaking of going back to talking about girls. UM.
The problem also with living in a gaming houses. You're
living with five dudes. You're living with yeah, and you're
sharing a bathroom with these That was my life when
I moved to l anthing and I lived in a
windowless room with four other dudes an apartment and there

(36:05):
was yeah, and then I had to had to take Molly.
Oh my god, you were there. Oh my gosh, Janelle.
I remember. God. We people don't know this, and I
hope this is helpful for people listening, because I think
you see us and you're like, they're so successful, and
it's like we were in the trenches. We were in
the trenches. Janelle used to make fun, like not make fun,

(36:27):
but used to kind of get on because my I
didn't have any windows in my room. I lived in
like a closet. Essentially, I did my time. I remember
she was grinding all days. Molly was yeah in the house.
I was like, I'm taking your dog. Yes, this is
just the side note. When I was diagnosed with my
autoimmune stuff, I was very sick I was, you know,

(36:50):
trying to host. I was trying to write, I was
trying to submit audition, like all this stuff, and Janelle,
Oh my gosh, I'm gonna go Janelle. Janelle took Molly
for I don't know, like three months or something when
I was really sick and you took care of it.
Was a friend to my dad's dog. So that was great.
So that it's just so funny too that we're like,

(37:10):
we've come up together, and it is come up. Yeah,
we've supported each other. You know what it's so funny
is because when you and I both hopped on the scene,
we're both in the comedy scene. We were nerdy Latina's
and I think a lot of times people did pit
us against each other and they tried to do that, yes,
And what Janelle and I realized was like, oh, people
are scared. I was like, oh, if we work together,

(37:34):
we will be we will be two times as strong.
And that's what we started to do, and we started
to like work our way up real quick. Because I
remember if I couldn't make something, you would I'm like, oh,
well I can't. You know, I have another hosting gig.
But if you want a nerdy Latina, I know the
perfect one and we would tag team out. So that
love day in the family. I love that we have

(37:55):
to take another break. This is such a good combo. Um.
We're going to continue and talk about the future gaming
as well, right when we come back. And we are back,
and so I wanted to talk about, yeah, the future
that you see of of gaming, but also what we
think studios can do as far as problem solving. One

(38:17):
thing that I know, just in not being in the
gaming world but being in the hosting world, is a
lot of studios had a hands off approach when it
came to the comments section, and I'm like, you cannot
allow And I think Maud Garrett touched on this a
little bit. Mod was on our Zelda episode. She's also
a host at a bunch of channels, was like, you
cannot allow people to treat your host this way. And

(38:37):
I was so fed up with a lot of the
channels that I was hosting that just being like, you know,
there's nothing we can do about it. And that's not
true because Janelle, you and I have both hosted at
hyper and they take their mods very seriously. They take
their jobs very seriously. A lot of our mods are
people who are fans who are very loyal to the
channel and will not let you treat the host that

(38:59):
way and and write these harassing comments for me. I
mean when you're starting out. I think, like maybe two
years ago, I was on a channel which is not
going to be named, but um I was did a
couple of episodes with them. The comments were so bad
that I took a break from ifian I's podcast, Like
it wasn't even our it wasn't our podcast, but I

(39:21):
had to take a break just because I needed a
break from everything I was doing, Like and it was
a studios need to lay down a line of like,
we're not going to accept racism, we're not going to
accept sexism. We're not gonna allow you to speak to
our talent like this. You are not welcome here. And
I think a lot of places we're putting the money
over that of saying, oh, yeah, but they're subscribers. We
don't want to lose subscribers. And and the nice thing

(39:43):
about hyper was like, if you are a subscriber and
you act like this, we don't want to yeah, and
that's yeah, that's exactly how how everyone. Yeah, I assume
that we treat your streams like that. That's the thing too.
If people come in and say something, I don't care
if you sub to me like, no, you're not going
to say that to me, and we don't want that here,
like it's ridiculous. Yeah, this is one place where I

(40:03):
will pipe in because I feel like that is a
very huge epidemic and a lot of communities and at
this point in my career, I've been able to work
for a lot of different YouTube channels, and what happens
is people, you know, build a brand on a community
of white males they like consider your host or generally

(40:25):
white male, so you don't see it, so you see
so it passes by and you grow a large community,
and then when you're friends who are people of color
and or women hop on and you see this, you're
in a bad position because this is something you haven't
seen before and you now we're in the position of wondering, oh, snap,
these are my subscribers, but this is also my fan base,

(40:48):
and you have to make the decision of what's more
important to you play and it's safe and ignoring it
and letting your video get those views, or like addressing
it head on and you know, there's been a very
popular media company that we all know of that when
they had a recent shake up due to uh, you
know people at top being outsted for doing gross things.

(41:09):
They've took more control of their community and shifted and
it's a lot better and a lot more positive and
and it's all because they were gonna take that hit anyway,
so it gave them allowance to you know, go ahead
and make that change. But that's a thing that people
are there. They'll turn the other cheek like they won't

(41:30):
you know, goat it on, but they won't make a
hard stance against it. And when you don't say anything
as they're just gonna look at you and be like, oh, well,
you're letting me get away with it. And that's what
I do like about streaming is you can make a
hard and fast stance. And that's why you know, I
like to I pride myself on you know, they're being
women within my stream community, within the Salt Squad, and

(41:54):
that's why you know, we kind of switched from the
Salt Squad because we used to be Shocked Boys, which
was just you know, not it was just something I
made up at Geek and Sundri not even thinking when
I was mating Schulk. And then you know that there's
just you know, women in my community who are like,
oh man, what do we call ourselves? And you know,

(42:14):
you go through that thing because it's it goes back
to that agent conversation of using like hey guys, yeah,
and you know, it's very easy for for me as
a man to be like, well, boys, this for everyone,
but I don't have I don't there's that is the
thing that I don't feel the effects of. So and
it kind of goes back to when people say like

(42:34):
X is and racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic is if
you're not you you literally have a blind side because
you do not feel what it feels to be excluded
in that way. So then I was like, okay, what's
something that you know, uh, that can be accepted as
Salt squad? You know, in that way anyone can be
a member of Salt Squad and then if you join

(42:54):
your the Salt fam and like it's very gender neutral. Actually,
like I love that you brought that up, because in
terms of Danny, you were asking what can companies do
to kind of help this? I think that that's actually
one of the really big things I've I've been blessed
in my time and games to work at two incredibly
progressive companies with like great community managers who value diversity

(43:15):
and great storytelling and all that. But you know, something
that companies can do is unconscious bias training, because I
think a lot of the time, you know, we don't realize,
like you said, the things that we bring to the
table in our own mind that we assume about people.
And like everybody has those assumptions, like I'm a queer woman,

(43:36):
but I'm not a person of color. So like we
all were raised with different assumptions. The world bombards us
with things that we're supposed to think all the time.
So we all, whether we like it or not, come
to the table with these biases that we feel about
other people. And that's okay, Like we all have them,
and we have to the point is that we have
to acknowledge that and be aware of them so that

(43:59):
they don't interfere with our ability to hire the best person,
to work with, good people, you know, all that stuff.
And so but I think that can be a hard
thing for people to comprehend sometimes because if I'm like
everyone's kind of racist sometimes like people are like, I'm
not racist, and it's like, well, like every you know,
in some way, we all have something that we assume

(44:19):
about someone that's not correct, and we just need to
be able to state ourselves that's okay. I recognize that
now and I won't do that anymore. And that's like
when HR and like when companies bring in like great
speakers on diversity and stuff. I love that. I think
that's so important. It just makes people think, yeah, I mean,
just it is funny because you know, we're we're talking
about racism here, but I think this can be used

(44:42):
across the board for all is m it is, yeah,
you do have that hard thing, because I think what's
so hard is like, you know, everyone's more afraid of
being called a racist than actually being racist, because they're
like that's the worst thing in the world. And I
think people miss the point that you can do something
that is racist, you can do set something sexist and
not be a racist and not be a sexist. It's

(45:03):
it's what determines what you are is your actions when
it is called out. Or women can do things that
are sexist, like I've worked with women who do misogynist
things and they don't even know it, but it's oftentimes
because they were raised in this highland or culture where
they feel they have to put other women down in
order to maintain their position, which I totally understand and

(45:24):
sympathize and don't blame them for. But it's like we
have to have conversations like this so that then you
can examine yourself and be like am I doing that?
Am I competing instead of cooperating, like yeah, bigger streamers
need to, you know, take a take a step forward
that too, because one of the things that Ninja, who
is like a popular Fortnite streamer which you know, kids love,

(45:46):
he refuses to play with women because of the comments
in the in the chat because he doesn't want to hear.
And that's why I don't do it, and I don't
because I'm married. He won't play with the woman because
he's married. See Mike Pence, I mean essentially yes, because
he just is afraid of that and instead of instead

(46:07):
of like letting that actually be a teaching moment, he
just and I think that's what we talk about again,
whereas like you let your platform determine what you do
instead of determine what your platform is a great example
of treating the symptom and not the issue, right, which
is again I understand like treating the issue is extremely
hard and not easy and not an instant solution in

(46:29):
any way. So it's like the thought of going about
doing that seems daunting, and it's daunting to me to
be like, how do we dismantle the paintreon key, Let's
just figure it out. But it's like, you know, it's
small things. Everyone can do small things. Something cool in
Apex Legends is they have a character that uses they
them pronouns that's like non binary, and that's that's cool.

(46:52):
I had a conversation at work today with someone because
of that who was like, can you explain what non
binary is to me? And had a great conversation about
it and they were like, that's really confusing. I was like,
I really applaud that that. I really applauded. Like the roster,
the hero roster, the character roster is like so inclusive.
It's just and that's what more and more games need
to be doing. And that's you know, taking a step forward.

(47:14):
Would you know, um, which Overwatch has been doing. And
so yeah, it's like I was so so impressed with
with that launch just at the gate, like just like
very inclusive just opens up that conversation, I feel, which
is so because it makes it more the norm and
our in our culture and the younger kids that are
in there, they are growing up playing this game with
that being the norm. Yeah, just the simple fact that

(47:36):
there are like two separate black women playable characters is
a big thing because, like you know, I was just
having a conversation with Tonay, a friend of the pod
who she was saying, you know, every time there's a
black woman in the game, there's only one black woman
and she's you know, it just has no and then

(47:57):
the other black woman is like Caribbean, which is a
total different, you know, type of black, you know, and
you only see one shade. So that's that I thought
was really it's great that you bring that up. I have,
like I've been in that argument before where people are like, well,
we can't have two like Asian women in a game.
Players won't be able to tell them apart. And it's

(48:18):
like we have like eighteen different white people. However, just
stick a different haircut on or we did it like
and it's but it is that moment of like, oh no,
you're totally right, And it's just like you have to
have that moment of like saying that to someone and
have the like light bulb gone. That's not just happening
in games. That's happening all over movies a lot of

(48:40):
times one Asian person in an ensemble cast or one
yeah yeah, Um, what are some of the great moments
that you've had being in the fandom being at cons?
Because I know you both have gone to cons, have
to I think that honestly, conventions are my favorite thing
about being in this world is because that's a way
the screen. It takes away the and you know, the

(49:03):
anonymous like comments and stuff, and like it's just fans
being fans, and it's people that are passionate, and it's
it's all the good things I feel like about about
this world when I'm at CON's because people aren't going
to say that stuff to my face. Yeah. But and
also just seeing young people and and old people and
all different kinds. So yes, I wanted to know some

(49:24):
some good moments that you all have had at the
places you've hosted at worked at and and at conventions. Um,
when people you know, um have have thanked me for
allowing them to to practice their stuff. And we did
a tournament recently and um, one of the kids is
twelve years old and uh and he was able to
beat a team of masters and he was just like

(49:46):
he was so grateful and he he was like, you know,
they got beat by twelve year old on the laptop.
And because you didn't have a little more older than that.
I was like, because you're supposed to be thirteen to
be in this tournament. We're just like, yeah, just like
that at a and and honestly, like online I get
a lot of comments from from um, you know on

(50:07):
snapchet from the girls are like, you know, I put
this much time, thank you for you know, thanks so much.
You know, like you totally understand because I'm there, I'm
a voice for for people. UM. And and that's something
too like whenever I see anybody, you know, a fan
of HYPERRPG that you know that that it is grateful
for for the work that we do there, it's just
it really just makes me so happy. Yeah, it's amazing.

(50:28):
I met like one of my very best girlfriends through
games on the internet. I found I was like scrolling
through mass effect tattoos on Instagram when I was thinking
about getting my mass effect tattoo and I found this
like epic one on this girl, and I was like,
oh my god, your tattoo is amazing. And we started
talking on Instagram, and like five years later, we're best friends.
And now we live in the state. We moved to
the same city and I see here all the time.

(50:49):
And you know, games are such a great social space,
and not only online multiplayer games, which are like a
very obvious social space, but also like games that people
care about in game fandoms, because you're playing these characters
and you're so much more connected actively to these stories
and like passively consuming a movie or a comic or whatever.

(51:10):
People are just so passionate about them. And when you
connect with other people who have that same passion, and obviously,
like fandom is amazing. Everyone listening to this, I'm not
telling them anything new, but it's so cool and it's
great to be able to meet these people online, um,
to make these friends in Discord and on Twitter, and
then to all congregate at the contents and then you

(51:31):
get to meet them in real life. And I think
about this all the time because when we were growing up,
it was always the thing that was like, don't meet
a stranger from me, You'll die. And it's like, all
y'all in this room right now. First everyone I know.
I have so many twitch creative friends that we all
finally met, like at Pitchcon, and it was just so
funny because everyone had pieces of art to give each

(51:52):
other because I was like I worked on all these things,
like and everyone was just trading art and it was
just like, you know, you just know everybody right away,
and like that's how the Internet we're becas now is
like you can fall in love over the internet, you know, etcetera, etcetera.
It's just it's um, it's just fantastic to have to
have games as something to do together. It's like going
to a thing part together online. You know, it's so fun.
We spend so much time. I feel like, what I

(52:14):
really love about this conversation is I feel like, oftentimes
in the media at large, we spend so much time
talking about how like gaming is like bad for women
and scary and like all this stuff. But like the
truth of the matter is that the amazing and positive
experiences and friendships and interactions that I've made and had
through gaming outweigh anything else that's ever happened to me

(52:35):
by like a magnitude of millions, like best friends, jobs,
amazing experiences like this, it's real life. And I just
encourage girls who want to get into streaming, who want
to try out gaming and art sure if they should
because they've heard something bad or aren't sure if they'll
ever be able to make it in programming, like you
should do it. We need your voice and we're waiting

(52:59):
for your voice and the amount of fulfillment you get
from from putting that out there and the feeling of
accomplishment that you do, like it's it always all the bad,
Like honestly, it's just it's so worth it. Yeah, if
I wanted to push that over to you too, like
do you have good con experiences or experiences in the
fandom that stick out for you? Oh? Yeah, I think
whenever I get to meet, uh, someone that you know

(53:23):
that really enjoys the work I've done, and I do
really enjoy like whenever, like you know, I've this past January,
I've been lucky enough to be on the front page
of Twitch, and you know, that's been good in the
sense of just how many people come in and goes,
oh great, it's a black streamer because when you do

(53:43):
see you know, the front page, and you know, I
feel comfortable saying this because I tell this to my
friends that Twitch in their faces. It's predominantly white. You
see a lot of white guys featured, and then you
know it's it's and to see like, you know, the
change in and them actively trying to switch that up
by featuring more women on the front page, them doing
the Black History Months proper artists. Yea, so the so

(54:09):
it's that type of stuff that's really going to change
the perspective because like you know, Twitch kind of got
burned by leg having these grand stage events and people
being able to read what Chat was saying during this
event and seeing how horrible some of these people can be,
and the fear is it's I think it's once again

(54:30):
trying to put the band aid on the issue instead
of fix it where it's like we're would you we
just won't feature anything that triggers this instead of just
like you know, actively being better about your bands and
actively like responding to your reports. And I think it's
also just like, you know, give me the opportunity to
turn it down if it's too much for me because

(54:50):
I have a certain way I like to handle it,
and it's with like you know, great mods like Flickery
and you know Largo, who who are very quick to
just like zap these eyes and then me even like
bringing them to the front stage, letting them sit there
and try all their silly whack trolls and then let
them run out of gas and disappear when they see
that it doesn't like you don't make yeah, So so

(55:14):
you know that's that's the thing is it is? It
really is like to stop, you know, really kind of
suppressing the people it's being affected instead of dealing with
the people who's putting these people in all these situations.
But I think in the end it is just also
just to kind of bring it back to what this

(55:35):
episode is about, is kind of stepping up. Like if
you're in a game with someone and you see someone saying,
you know, some sexist bs or seeing someone like trolling
someone because they're a woman. You, I mean, what do
you have to lose? Now you're on the internet. You know,
it's it's one thing when you don't even do it
in person, but if you're on the internet and you

(55:55):
can't even just step up and be like, yo, y'all
are being some some butt holes, you know, like chill out.
I do that all the time. It's like chill out
and then you know, and then it gets a little
spicier after. And that's what I'm proud of. Like the
you know, the teenagers, the voice. They group up and
and they totally like go out of for any woman

(56:15):
that somebody was saying that, Like they're like, it's so
it's that it makes me like I feel like a
proud mama, and I'm like, oh, that's amazing. That's such
a testament to the fact that when you sit down
and you teach people like why you should be cool
to people and like how to be cool, they then
spread that message and I think that what you're doing
is amazing. And then they add them and they bring
them to me, and I'm like, cool, my girls. Yeah,

(56:39):
I think and I think it is it is important
to do that because the fact of the matter is,
gamers get so butt hurt when like the media portrays
them as these horrible people, you know, yet do nothing
to to to stop that. Yeah, it's like, how about okay,
you hate it when it happens. Then when you see
trash people being trash, you need to step up in

(57:01):
crushing because we as a community can ouse these people.
You know, that's it. It shouldn't only be on women
to make this change, and it can't only be on
women to make this change, right like, guys have to
step up and you know, yeah, here's what we want
to do. Here's how we want to see the world change.
Just like white people need to stand up for people
of color, and you know, straight people need to stand
up for queer people. It's important and I think if

(57:22):
we all are cool together, we will form a voltron
of awesomeness and then we'll get more diversity games. Yes,
this has been such a great conversation. I will definitely
have to have both of you back and uh wigne
and you know, as as this world kind of constantly

(57:42):
progresses and changes. Um, Sam, where can everyone catch you? Oh?
I'm just at Sam Meg's s A M M A
G G S on Twitter, Instagram, all over the place.
You can check out my books. My latest books are
Girl Squads, A History of twenty Awesome Female Friendships and
Marvel Fear Listen that I'm so excited. It was so

(58:03):
you brought it to our we got to see an
early copy of it. It looked so cool. I was like,
I have to order this. Thank you. Marvels like female superheroes,
so it was like ones that I didn't even know about.
I mean when I started writing it, I was half
of them. I was like, I know everything about this,
and the other half I was like, I'm so cool
and so many great ones. So I picked those up

(58:23):
and play Spider Man PS four Janelle, what about you?
I am Janelle Santa Cruz on Everything dust J and
e L Santa Cruz on all the social media's and
nice dream whenever. I'll post about it on Twitter and
then um we just started a date night underscore o
w Twitch which has all of our preapproved people on
their um LGBTQ friendly and um so we all support

(58:47):
each other and that's a good place to follow and
see who we're hosting. Anymore. And you have a show
on hyper I do hyper Appug every Tuesday. We do
blood Curdling Tales from the Loop UM which is awesome.
It's a tabletop storytelling and and it's sending the eighties
and it's hosted by Karen Rice and it's it's very
spooky and I love it and I'm having a really
good time. Yeah, yeah, Danny, thank you for having us,

(59:08):
if we thank you for having us. I love talking
with y'all and just working. So I've worked with you
both separately. I'm like, you'll need to meet each other. Um,
and hopefully we can get Janelle on on our show, UM,
on Sam and I's show. I am at miss Danny
Fernandez on all the things. So definitely check out our

(59:29):
tea public site. It's t public dot com, slash nerdificent.
We're going to be adding more merch but they've made
really public. Has like made special designs for us for
if he and I which are really cool. Um. I
love them. There's like a Batman one up there, like
old school Batman Robin Uh. They made a Vegeta and Goku,
which like when we made a note for them because
they're like, do you want us to make this, I'm like, yeah, um,

(59:51):
if he has to be Goku, I have to be Vegeta.
And it was so funny because they made it so
on point that they made my widows peak Geta has
a widow speaking, and I even was like, can we
tone it? Down just a little because I was like, whoa,
that's what I look like with his hair. But anyways,

(01:00:13):
check it out and uh again, follow us on We're
on Facebook, We're on Instagram, We're on Twitter. Please send us,
you know, screenshots if you if you review us, or
if you buy merch. We want to see that because
we want to boost y'all. We love our fans, and
y'all are just so positive and allow us to have
these conversations like if you and I were saying, we've
hosted at a lot of places, and a lot of

(01:00:34):
them don't always let us have these type of open
conversations and and talk about really important issues that I
think a lot of people might not know are happening
behind the scenes to us. So we appreciate this platform. Yeah,
and you know me, it's your boy. If you I
F y n W A d I w E on
Twitter and Instagram, if d's on Twitch, come through. Dropping

(01:00:55):
in twitch Prime subs like y'all been doing Anita remind
y'all does not renew. If you dropped them like five
dollar stubs, they renew. But if you're doing twitch frn,
you gotta come back every month. Don't forget me. I
won't forget you. Uh As For shows, On the sixteenth
of February, if you're in the l A area, I
will be doing stand up at the Long Beach Comic

(01:01:18):
Con at from five to six at the Live on
Mint show. You got some other shows coming later this month,
but they're far enough to where I'll just promote them
on the next one. Thank you so much stopping by
and listening, and as always, stay near

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Nerdificent News

Follow Us On

Hosts And Creators

Dani Fernandez

Ify Nwadiwe

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

24/7 News: The Latest

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 44: A Conversation with Women in Gaming