I was reading one of your Tumblr answers and you said, “It’s a pretty brilliant and powerful thing, putting love into the world. It inevitably wraps up so many more people than we ever anticipate, and always comes back to hold us as well.” 1. I really love that and 2. I was thinking it’s so cool because you’re helping people, but they’re also helping you. I woke up that morning feeling super lost. As excited as I am to see what the next chapter is for Everyone Is Gay and to be in LA with my wife Jenny [Owen Youngs] and to see Dannielle spreading her wings on new projects, it’s a big, big time of change. I woke up that morning feeling so lost. Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing this properly? There’s no road map for it. There’s no place that I could look to see what I should do next. On Everyone Is Gay, I get thousands of inboxes- questions and comments, but I don’t get that many in my personal Tumblr inbox. So when I woke up that morning, there was one there that said all the things I needed to get through that day. It was like a sign. That’s happened to us so many times within the last 6 years, where we get discouraged or we feel a little lost and one of our readers/audience members sort of says, “Look at what you helped me do. Keep going.” And we’re like, “Alright!” Must be the best feeling. You inspire so many people through all your work, who inspires you? You know who I’ve been talking a lot about lately? Amanda Palmer. Especially in the last year or so, I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from her on so many levels. I think the way that she presents herself, her life, and her work in the internet space is really incredible. And she’s really open with who she is and how she is. Whenever I’m feeling insecure or like maybe I shouldn’t say this thing or if I say it this way, does it make me sound old? (which is this new thing I have...that’s like this little demon in the corner), I think about her and her honesty in her work. And I also think about the loyalty and intensity with which she connects with her readers and her fans. I find her to be a really powerful example of courageousness and honestly in the face of what could be a tricky place to be courageous and honest.
The internet is this space where anyone can see what you’re doing and anyone can judge and scrutinize what you’re doing. I think that it can be really scary and that fear for a lot of us makes us get quiet and stop speaking up because we don’t want to get in trouble...we don’t want to misspeak. And she doesn’t stop talking. She keeps speaking. She keeps saying what she believes in a way that matters to her and a way that matters to her readers. She doesn’t take any shit and I think that’s really important. It’s been really important to me to stay strong and keep speaking my truth. I’m also surrounded by so many incredible people that work with Everyone Is Gay. We have so many more contributors than we’ve ever had. I work with a couple of interns- one of which has been with me for over a year now. And those people keep me inspired and keep me going too. How did you guys come up with the idea to create the safe space stickers? We’ve had those stickers for so long. I don’t even remember exactly. We had the EIG Tumblr in 2010 and later that year was when we saw all that mass media coverage about the suicides that were related to LGBTQ bullying, which wasn’t anything new, but what was new was that the media was covering it and showing people it was happening. At that time, we reached out to our readers and said, “We’re already having these conversations. What else can we do?” And in the fall of 2011, we went on our first tour of college and high school campuses because almost unanimously they said, “This is what else you could do…you could come to our schools and talk to the students here.” So I imagine the safe space stickers were created around the same time as thateither the first tour or being informed by being on those campuses. The sticker is pretty reflective of our general tone, which is light-hearted even in giving a message that has a lot of gravity. Also reflective of our Photoshop skills that are nonexistent…. especially in 2011. I’ve gotten better.
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