Verwandte Artikel zu Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I...

Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers - Softcover

Marron, Dylan

 
9781982129286: Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers
Softcover
ISBN 10: 198212928X ISBN 13: 9781982129286
Verlag: Atria, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

From the award-winning host of the critically acclaimed podcast Conversations with People Who Hate Me comes a “fresh, deeply honest, wildly creative, and right on time” (Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author) exploration of difficult conversations and how to navigate them.

Dylan Marron’s work has racked up millions of views and worldwide support. From his celebrated Every Single Word video series highlighting the lack of diversity in Hollywood to his web series Sitting in Bathrooms with Trans People, Marron has explored some of today’s biggest social issues.

Yet, according to some strangers on the internet, Marron is a “moron,” a “beta male,” and a “talentless hack.” Rather than running from this vitriol, Marron began a social experiment in which he invited his detractors to chat with him on the phone—and these conversations revealed surprising and fascinating insights.

Now, Marron retraces his journey through a project that connects adversarial strangers in a time of unprecedented division. After years of production and dozens of phone calls, he shares what he’s learned about having difficult conversations and how having them can help close the ever-growing distance between us.

Charmingly candid and refreshingly hopeful, Conversations with People Who Hate Me demonstrates “that talking personally and listening fully—without trying to score points or to convince someone to change their mind—goes a long way toward breaking down barriers. The book will delight his fans and draw new listeners to the podcast” (Kirkus Reviews).

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dylan Marron is the host and creator of the critically acclaimed podcast Conversations with People Who Hate Me, a social experiment that connects adversarial internet strangers through phone calls. He wrote on the third season of the Emmy Award–winning hit television series Ted Lasso. Dylan hosted and produced the six-part audio documentary The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks. Conversations with People Who Hate Me was selected as a Podcast Pick by USA TODAY and The Guardian, named “the timeliest podcast” by Fast Company, won a Webby Award, and was the subject of Dylan’s 2018 TED Talk, “Empathy Is Not Endorsement.” He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his husband, Todd.

 

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Author’s Note AUTHOR’S NOTE
A few years ago, I began a social experiment in which I phoned my internet detractors and engaged them in conversation. This concept grew, and soon enough I was moderating discussions between others who had clashed online as well. I’ve published many of these calls through my podcast Conversations with People Who Hate Me.

This book tells the story of this social experiment, the events that precipitated it, the mistakes I’ve made along the way, and the twelve lessons I learned throughout the process. Each chapter is one of these lessons. I have learned far more than twelve things, and I trust there are many things that I’m not even yet aware that I learned—seeds that are still sprouting in the garden of my mind—but we all have stuff to do and places to be, so I cut it down to a dozen of my most salient takeaways so we can all get on with our beautiful lives.

The dialogue in this book has been verified by recordings and message archives. For the few brief conversations that have no record, I have re-created them from memory and consulted my conversation partner to confirm that my retelling matches their memory, too.

There are seven guests from my podcast whose conversations I spotlight in this book. All of them—with the exception of a public figure—are referred to pseudonymously. Some aliases correspond with the name these guests used on the podcast, others do not.

Comments and messages that I quote have been fact-checked against screenshots. Typos have, for the most part, been left in. However, a few details have been intentionally altered for the purpose of further anonymizing some of the people I mention.

You are welcome to read this book as a guide on how to navigate difficult conversations of your own, or as a distant story that happened to someone once. Take what serves you and leave what doesn’t.

You may see yourself reflected in me, or perhaps you will see your reflection in the people who called me a “moron,” a “piece of shit,” and told me to “killlllllllllllllllllllllll [my]self.” Maybe it’s a mix of both. Or maybe you won’t identify with anyone mentioned in this book at all and wonder if there’s something wrong with you. (There isn’t.)

Whatever the case may be, welcome. I’m thrilled to have you here. Let’s get started.


Chapter 1: The Internet is a Game
“People hate me,” I say, slumping in my chair.

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to tell you: I hate you,” Ethan jokes.

I half smile, more to acknowledge that a joke was made than anything else. Really, I’m just grateful to be talking to a real human being rather than the digital ones I interact with every day. After months of receiving a steady stream of negative comments and messages, homophobic jabs, and a handful of death threats, it has all become too much to bear.

“I’m really sorry,” he says, scrunching his nose to offset this moment of sincerity.

We’re sitting in Ethan’s office on the thirty-fifth floor of a building in midtown Manhattan, where he oversees Seriously.TV, the digital television network where I’ve been writing and producing short, topical comedy videos for the last six months. Our offices don’t look like the typically sleek headquarters of a startup media enterprise. If it weren’t for the production equipment in the halls and the scripts lining his desk, a passerby might not even realize this was a media outlet at all. The furniture that surrounds us seems to have been inherited from a corporate bank, as the generic patterns and high-gloss cherrywood are better suited to talk of investments and portfolios than joke punch-ups and sketch pitches.

My phone pings and I look down to see a notification. Immediately, I tap it, as I have been well trained to do.

“Your page has a new message,” it reads. Like a good user, I click to open it.

“Youre a moron. Youre the reason this country is dividing itself. All your videos are meerly opinion, and an awful opinion i must say. Just stop. Plus being Gay is a sin.”

The cruel irony of getting a hate message while talking to my boss about the influx of hate messages is not lost on me. Wordlessly I show it to Ethan, illuminating his face with the dull white glow of my phone. He sits back after reading it, takes a beat, and then, in cartoonish shock, exclaims: “Wait… you’re gay?!”

“Don’t tell my husband.”

He laughs. This is our little bit. But I’m only performing it out of memory and Ethan can tell. He exhales and rubs his forehead. “I think this is just what comes with the territory.”

I nod and look off into the distance.

“Look, I’m really sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Yeah,” I reply because no one ever knows what to say. Not my friends, not my husband Todd, not my boss, not even me.

“Well, I think you’re great.”

“Thanks, Ethan.” Then, cocking my head to the side, I roll my eyes, and, in a Muppet-like underwater garble, I say, “I think you’re great, too.”

“Now get out of here! And don’t ever come back!” He points a dramatic finger to the door, with an emphasized underbite like a cartoon villain.

I laugh, get up, leave his office, and stand outside his door for a moment so I can reopen the message I’ve just received. I begin my ritual: Take a screenshot. View profile. Scroll. View photos. Next. Next. Next. Back to profile. Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. I do this each time I receive a message like this, which has recently been quite often. In the seconds it takes to complete this ritual, I learn the name, hometown, and workplace of the sender. This sender’s name is Josh. Josh is in high school, a senior from what I can tell. He works at Best Buy. Josh has recently gotten a haircut. “What do yall think?” he asks in the photo’s caption. According to the memes that he’s shared, it seems that we unsurprisingly support different candidates in the 2016 presidential election that’s just over one month away.

I know what’s about to happen. I know I will put Josh’s message in a digital folder that sits on my computer’s desktop. I know that in that folder his message will join countless others just like it, all written by other internet strangers who seem to hate me. What I don’t know, though, is that this one message, and this one stranger, will soon spark a change within me, prompting me to reconsider everything I thought I knew about the internet, disagreement, and conversation itself.
I. TRAINING
This is my dream job. I get to make creative work on the internet about issues that matter to me, all while grinding alongside others who are doing the same. The consequences of this job—namely, the onslaught of hate—may be overwhelming, but I’m not going to give up now. I can’t. I spent the last half-decade consciously working toward an opportunity like this and I’m not going to let it go.

Four years earlier, I was cast as an ensemble member of a downtown performance art collective called the New York Neo-Futurists—Neos, for short—whose signature weekly show had us performing thirty short pieces in one hour. Because of their length—around two minutes each—some audience members would mistakenly call these pieces “sketches,” which we were quick to correct: These were not sketches, they were plays. Sketches, we...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Atria
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
198212928X
ISBN 13 
9781982129286
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
272
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande