Input Junkie

THE TRANSCRIPT

I really don't want to do this video. As those of you who follow me know, I have a lot of practice in analyzing things from above and I'm resisting doing that this time, resisting doing what is easy for me.

I want to talk about so many *things*.

I guess we should start in order, Friday evening Christina Grimmie was shot. I don't want to talk about this.

I'm going to talk about this, because Christina Grimmie was *shot*. We're going with shot, not murdered, because we're going in order because for many hours we did not know if she would live.

It hit me really hard, not because I knew her personally or particularly followed her work but because she and I have a lot in common, not in an "it could have been me" kind of way though I suppose it could have, more in a "it shouldn't have been her" kind of way because she did everything right and I knew this kind of thing could happen but it shouldn't have happened to her.

These words kept running around and around in my head. "It shouldn't have happened to her."

No, we need to go back further. So, I got my first real death threat, you know, specific death threat that included my address and everything when I was fifteen. My first death threat, *always* an entertaining ice breaker conversation when you find yourself in a group of highly visible internet or entertainment people, particularly women and LGBTQ+ folk and people of color who have *so* many stories to share.

Anyway, when I was in my mid-teens before youtube even existed, I was pretty active in some internet and gaming communities and I got a lot of attention. And just, when you're a kid, you pretty much get used to whatever is around you as normal. Of course when you beat a dude at an online video game, he's going to find it to be a genuinely hurtful blow to his manliness, his identity, and he might stalk down your address and threaten to kill you.

And of course, when you play with the same people enough, some of them will become obsessed with you and call your family phone number and tell you that he's holding a gun to his head and will kill himself if you don't love him. If you want to engage with the internet community, that's just part of the territory, right?

And it never even occurred to me to what, call the police, tell my parents? This was the early 2000's when the internet world was separate from real life. It was ... other. I didn't even think to tell my friends about any of it. I was bored. I had time. So I'd usually engage with it and danced the troll dance and mostly they were just other bored kids and we'd get along just fine in the end.

And I got very good at dealing with internet trolls and not very good at being a human being, and I was a kid, and why would I ever tell anyone about anything bad that happened to me ever when I had no trust that anybody would take anything I said seriously? Even if they did believe me, which they probably wouldn't, or if they did, they'd make a big deal of it and probably blame me anyway and it's not like I'm a saint and I put myself in this situation by going on the internet, by playing games, by engaging with these people. I talked to them, I knew them, I learned that reaction and those instincts and that lack of trust very early in my life and I've used it many times since.

What does this have to do with Christina? We both started on youtube in mid-2009. We're in the same order of magnitude of subscribers. We're both gamers and singers and fairly successful but not super famous, but well respected by a lot of people who are, and we sometimes do events and meet + greets, not within the well-oiled machine of Hollywood with their protocols and security and money, but in that youtubery space where we have all this attention, often very personal attention because of the intimacy of the medium, and basically have a lot to identify with as far as where she was and why. I don't know the extent to which she got death threats or had obsessive fans or stalkers, but for any woman at that level of visibility, I can be confident that she did.

For anyone in a group that commonly gets marked as "other", it becomes likely at relatively low follower numbers, and at a certain level of visibility everyone has to deal with it.

Sometimes male friends ask me how I deal with the threats and the attention, or they get upset about the comments they see on my channel or on twitter and they want to know how it is I'm brave enough to be this visible when so many decide it's not worth the hassle, and I always found that question odd.

How could I possibly worry about what I get on the internet as Vi Hart when that's harmless compared to what I get in real life as nobody?

I didn't get internet famous until I was 22. I got used to the internet threats by 16, and in the time between I went to college, I lived in a few different cities, I travelled to conventions and conferences alone. I'd go out to eat and drink and dance alone. I'd walk down the street alone. I'd been in the world, and since I got internet famous, I've been in the world some more. I know where the real danger is.

How is is possible to be concerned about internet strangers that I can just ignore when I've encountered so many men who I would have encountered whether I was on the internet or not and who physically would not let me ignore them.

Most people have no idea how common sexual assault and violence against women are because people get taught pretty early on that keeping it to yourself and pretending it's not a big deal is very much preferable than even the best case scenario if you talk about it. And forget pressing charges. It's kind of amazing that anyone bothers.

I learned early in my life to have more faith in the humanity of angry men that in any of the uncaring inhuman systems around me. As a teenager, I would turn my trolls into my friends and I usually succeeded, but now I'm 28. I just don't have the time, and it seems the same bored kids who naively did this stuff 15 years ago are still doing it as adults. Plus a new crop of kids, plus I'm more visible. All I can do is ignore, block, ban, and continually discover that all that leniency and attention I used to give people is something they feel entitled to get.

Same way male strangers act towards me in real life. "Just hear me out. Just let me explain. Just give me two minutes. Just give me a chance. No. I mean a real chance. If it were a real chance, you'd see that I'm a nice guy, so give me a chance to do this the nice way."

Christina Grimmie was shot at a meet + greet and I kept refreshing the news waiting to find out whether she would live, but also because I needed to know whether it was someone she knew or someone who targeted her because of her fame.

I don't know why this mattered to me. I knew that most likely it was an ex-boyfriend, a current boyfriend, a family member. It happens all the time, and if not... well, which one is worse? What do I want the answer to be? Why does it matter? Why do I care?

I've always struggled with how famous to be. Fame is an inconvenience. All I've ever wanted is to run off and be a hermit, and the only reason I didn't stop altogether with my public presence as soon as I could afford to is this responsibility I feel that I can do and say that other people can't. Sometimes because of my experience and expertise and sometimes because I'm not afraid of threats, not of losing subscribers or money and I'm certainly not afraid to disappoint people who don't like what I'm saying. I can walk away at any time without sacrificing my income or my dreams and whatever part of me felt fear broke inside me a long time ago or maybe I just forgot what it's like to feel safe.

Christina Grimmie was shot at a meet + greet by a stranger who waited for his turn on her signing line and who she met with open arms and a smile. He waited his turn.

On Saturday morning I found out she did not live. On Saturday afternoon we found out his name and that he was a stranger and we were still waiting to hear why when the world came apart again.

49 people killed in Orlando at Pulse, a gay club during Pride month on "Latin flavor" night by a single hateful person. 49 people. 49 people, a new set of complicated feelings. It's a much bigger tragedy, yet the sting of identification is not as strong because I'm not straight but I'm straight passing and I like dancing in gay clubs mostly to avoid the attention of entitled straight dudes rather than to avoid the hatred and discrimination that so many people in the LGTBQ+ community are *so* familiar with.

And that fueled this shooting, it demands a response. 49 people killed in a hate crime. I want to talk about so many things. I'm a mathematician and I know all the numbers and I understand systems and I want to tell you all the answers. Everyone is shouting past each other in their grief and I want to say hold on let's think rationally about this. I'm a mathematician and I know what to do. I have numbers. I have analyses.

The thing about a functional democracy is that people need to be educated and informed about reality and I can do education. I know so many nice detached impersonal facts. Couldn't I just do a video about guns or about representation and violence in media? It would be so much easier, but we can't be educated and informed, but we can't be educated and informed when we only talk about the things everyone always talks about. There are systemic problems that live behind closed doors.

Why is it so predictable? Not that the Pulse shooter had beat his ex-wife, but that his ex-wife and her family didn't report to the police that he was beating her. Christina's killer broke his father's fiancee's wrist and she *did* report it to the police. Why is it so predictable that they didn't pursue the case because she was drunk?

Why do we allow ourselves to have a legal system that teaches people that some violence doesn't get taken seriously? Forget the part about domestic violence and gun access. We know most mass shootings are domestic, so why do we frame it in reverse as though being a killer explains a history of domestic violence rather than wondering at the failure of our system to teach consequences for this violence might contribute to its escalation.

Christina Grimmie, like so many women, was killed by a man who wanted her exclusive love, who thought if he put in some effort to change his appearance and lifestyle, then he would deserve her. He had a plan for her life. She was supposed to marry him and her having her own life and boyfriend ruined *everything* and so he went to her signing and waited in line and she met him with open arms and he shot her three times.

[pages of a log of many, many youtube comments saying "marry me"]

It hit me so hard because I wasn't scared of this. I was prepared for this. I always knew it was a possibility. And I've always been practical with my online safety but I wasn't supposed to be right, not about avoiding going to certain events or avoiding meet + greets and not about whatever instinct tells me love is more dangerous than hate.

When I'm walking down the street and think someone's following me, I'm supposed to think I'm paranoid and if after a couple blocks that someone runs up to me and tells me they're a fan or a stranger who was struck by my beauty at the club or just some random person who was following me, I'm not supposed to have been right. When I consider crossing the street to avoid walking past a group of men on the sidewalk and resist that urge because it sounds paranoid and then they shove me up against a building or one of them puts his arm around my waist and demands I attend his office party.

I'm not supposed to have been right when a guy at a bar asks to buy me a drink and my instinct is to make up a lie and be super nice and inflate his ego so that he doesn't become enraged at me and I resist that paranoid urge but instead just say no thanks and then he starts describing exactly how he plans on killing me later, I'm not supposed to have been right.

I'm not supposed to have been right when I don't trust people, when I don't think I'm safe, when I'm closed and cold and hide from the world, I'm not supposed to be right.

Christina was right. Love is right. Trust is right. Dancing your heart out at a gay club is right.

We don't know if Christina's killer intended mass murder, but he was armed for it and he fits the pattern and Christina's brother Marcus probably prevented a mass killing when he tackled the shooter to the ground. The shooter shot himself during the scuffle and people say it was to avoid facing the consequences of his actions, but knowing what I know I would guess it was to avoid living with the shame of yet another one of his plans having gone so differently than it went in his head. He failed.

The media pretends these shooting were random and random and senseless and there's nothing we can do to prevent people from trying to commit mass murder and for me the only thing worse than feeling powerless is to know that actually we are powerful.

I wish I were powerless. I so often wish I were powerless. It would be so much more convenient because I know the most powerful thing I can do right now is talk about this and I don't want to talk about this. I'm sad. I feel sad. That's what I wanted to say.