One of the issues I, and many others have been having lately, is that it’s hard to speak up about systemic issues due to the harassment and vitriolic reactions we get for doing so. Time and time again, it doesn’t matter who is saying that there are systemic issues we’re dealing with, that person often gets attacked for pointing them out–especially with respect to something as simple as representation or equal pay. Why? Well, it’s for the simple reason that the people who work in creative industries aren’t isolated from the rest of society. If misogyny, racism, and homophobia exist in society (along with the other -ists and -isms out there), then they are also part of working in any vertical, in any industry.

Why did I choose to speak up now? Part of it was timing. Part of it was the fact that I felt my silence was actively hurting my peers and predecessors in these creative industries, because I was fulfilling the stereotypical ideal of “just do the work and stay quiet” as I have for the past ten years. But, there’s a difference between staying quiet and acknowledging that there are systemic issues. They exist. Some people disagree, because they aren’t directly impacted by those issues or they don’t align with their political views. But, for those of us who do see a problem, we all have decisions to make about what to do next. What comes after we acknowledge an issue, the solutions we seek to implement, that’s the hard part. The least I can do is say: “You are not alone in feeling this way.”

To share my feelings, I wrote an essay in Uncanny Magazine for their November issue. Much of the reasons why misogyny, etc. continue to be a problem, is because there’s a perception within the geek community that your standard geek has a monolithic white male identity both as fans and as creators. That perception is fueled by a lack of visibility and PR for the work that folks are already doing, which then leads to more disbelief when people speak up. I used (one of) many examples that happened to me, because I felt that was the only way to highlight my point that I was hoping to be credited for the work that I actually did. The people who read the essay and experienced the same issues, then, understood what I was trying to say. In it, I pointed out that Geek & Sundry did not list my name on their Court of Shadows review, even though Jason Hardy and I co-developed this Shadowrun supplement and I was the lead writer penning 40,000+ words.

In response, Geek & Sundry acted with grace and aplomb by doing the following:

1) A different writer, Ben Riggs, followed up with me to get a statement for a new article they planned to write.

2) They did not roast the other writer over the coals, or get defensive(1). Geek & Sundry took responsibility for the oversight as an error on their part as a major media outlet–this is super important!

3) G&S apologized, and then featured my work in a new article–plus plugged my new anthology Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling which they did not have to do.

This is exactly how situations like this should be handled, and I really appreciate Geek & Sundry taking the time to not only listen and make it right(2) but go above and beyond by writing a feature article about it.

So thank you, Geek & Sundry, for reviving this discussion; I’m seeing a positive impact in my corner of the geekosphere to the extent that new discussions are happening as well. To those of you who are sensing there are systemic issues: yes, there are and yes, they do exist. Focusing on the work can help (and it is what I tend to do), but please do not be afraid to reach out to your peers and get the support you need. You are human, you have feelings, and self-care is extremely important. Your art, your voice–it matters. Now, go make some art!

(1) Alternatively, I’ve seen and experienced the exact opposite where the company a) denies there was a problem, b) tries to explain away or misplace blame, c) throws a freelancer under the bus, and d) goes on the offensive. That is how not to handle situations like this, because you’re operating your company from the assumption that the person speaking up is not credible.

(2) Most of the responses to this article have been positive, but if you want to get a taste of what many women experience for speaking up you can visit the Geek & Sundry Facebook page. It’s not the first time I’ve heard negative comments like these. They’re often said every damn time a woman tries to speak up. Every. Damn. Time.

Mood: Hump Day
Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: Going for Round Two.
Work-Out Minutes Logged Yesterday: Double argh.
In My Ears: Sister Rust by Damon Albarn
Game Last Played: Neko Atsume
Book Last Read: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
Movie/TV Show Last Viewed: Game of Thrones
Latest Artistic Project: My sekrit project.
Latest Releases: Read my end-of-the-year list of releases for an overview of what I’ve put out for 2016.
Current State of Projects: Read my latest project update.

My friend, fantasy author and game designer, Joe Dever passed away today of Lone Wolf fame, and my thoughts are with his family and close friends in this difficult time.

I’ve been struggling with the anecdote I wanted to share about Joe this afternoon, because it feels a little too personal and self-serving to me. I wanted to write something more than platitudes and condolences, and this is what popped into my mind. Forgive me if there’s too much “me” in this post, I just didn’t know how else to say what I needed to.

I first met Joe when I was over in the UK for UK Game Fest as a special guest. He was working with Cubicle 7 for his Lone Wolf RPG, and several folks said I had to meet him. I was completely and totally unaware of his work at the time, but recognized how much he meant to his fans because of the look of awe upon their faces as they walked by or shook hands with him.(1)

I waited until there was a break in the action for fans, in my mind, always come first. And we simply chatted. Both of us opened the conversation the same way, both of us wanting to know more about the other author. No bullshit. No “Well, don’t you know who I am?” No PR PR PR. Just two human beings having a conversation about art, about how writing is more important than sound bites and followers, about how stories matter. We exchanged business cards, and pledged to keep in touch.

Fast forward. Fast forward past a happy, surprised, and awed me looking up his work and understanding how much his work meant to the genre and to his fans. Fast forward to Gen Con. Fast forward to me wandering about the hall, running into him again, and having another great conversation about art and making games and being able to do that for a living. Fast forward to a few convention attendees, who were shocked that a bigger announcement hadn’t been made, grinning from ear to ear upon meeting Joe. This, I thought, was a moment that needed to be shared and not kept in the dark. So I fixed it as best I could via social media. It had to be done.

In the time that I knew him, Joe never asked to stand under the spotlight. He wasn’t hungry for fame, and wasn’t a jerk about it, either. I never once got the impression that he was “above me” or that the popularity he did have, after selling millions of books, went to his head. He was simply Joe Dever, the sharply-dressed creator of Lone Wolf, wholly dedicated to making more art for himself and his fans.

What Joe taught me was what matters most: our art. Nothing else matters. No amount of funny Tweets will change that, or demands for PR, or followers online, or “who” we know, or “what” people say. Nothing. All that matters, is the stories we tell–in whatever medium we choose–because that’s all that will be left behind. Our stories are pieces of ourselves that we share. We get tired sharing them, because we don’t know who is reading them. We get tired of writing them, because we don’t know who will buy them. But, we’ll never know who needs our stories even after we tell them.

Well, I’m telling you now. I’m telling you this after seeing those looks of pure joy on a reader’s/player’s face after meeting their hero. I’m telling you this after meeting a man who loved to write. Someone needs your story. Someone does. Whether you tell it in a comic, or interactively through a game, or in a novel, someone needs your story. You may never meet that person, you may never hear how much they love your story, but do it anyway.

Just write. You have no time to waste.

(1) For context, my fandom and knowledge of science fiction and fantasy and, to a larger extent, the gaming, comics, and SF&F communities is filled with gaping holes. I didn’t have the same experiences many fans and gamers have had growing up, and this often translates to me feeling as if I’m an outsider–even after ten years of working, reading, playing, writing, editing, etc.

If confirmation bias is based on the idea that what “sounds” good is what is likely to be believed, then critical thinking is its nemesis. Critical thinking requires the objective examination and review of facts in order to lead a conclusion, and on the surface emotions don’t play into critical thinking–which is, in and of itself, a fallacy. Human beings are emotional creatures, and while we can manage our feelings we don’t typically rid ourselves of them (or ignore them) entirely. Critical thinking, however, is far more challenging because it requires the acknowledgement of one’s own biases, and that’s often where human beings fall down–especially online.

Confirmation bias is something that everyone can fall prey to, myself included, and it’s often been ignored due to the way that information is presented online. Now, however, it’s not necessarily confirmation bias that I’m concerned about, it’s the side effects that can have a dramatic impact for the simple fact that the more information we share, the more views tend to be simplified, the less critical discussion takes place, and the more stereotypes (via confirmation biases) are reinforced. Unfortunately, confirmation bias is supported by yellow journalism. The goal of failing news outlets, that have not been able to navigate various mediums financially, has long been to trigger an emotional response for the goal of making money. Both legitimate and fake news sources have an agenda; both require an emotional reaction in order to get readers to take action via a share, like, etc. Both require those reactions to make money and stay in business, and only one is based on facts. The other? Inspired by the facts, which means that those lies can be believed because they sound real. Both operate the way they do, because they are businesses.

When a site’s agenda is to make money based on the attention it gets, there is no floor or ceiling for what will or won’t be covered. This is a numbers game. Visits and actions taken are what’s being counted–not the quality of either–and confirmation bias fuels both. The site’s metrics don’t “care” whether that article is being refuted or not. The point of the article is engagement, not belief or disbelief, and no matter how many times I’ve said it–the truth is that fake news sites can be bankrupted if we stop paying attention to them. Attention, now more than ever, has effectively legitimized the need for screaming headlines. To retain critical thinking and pay less attention to fake news, however, a reader needs something that isn’t often afforded online–time.

In order to make an informed decision about the validity of a piece of news, the reader has to click through and read the article. Many don’t, however, and there’s no incentive to do that. Sharing is an incentive, and serves as a separate metric to reading the content on the actual page. Sharing, however, is impacted by confirmation bias. If the headline sounds good, it’s shared. But, if it doesn’t sound good that headline has to be appalling enough to be shared. This means that content needs to be written more and more aggressively, to “keep the reader on their toes”, in order to continue attracting readers. Make no mistake: the long-term goals of retaining readers, encouraging them to think critically, and building so-called brand loyalty aren’t as important as getting eyeballs on the page right now, simply because there is a financial reward associated with immediacy. The more “cliffhangers” there are, to coin a phrase, the more money fake news outlets make because not all of them are beholden to the 24-hour news cycle from mainstream media and, if they are, they can continue riffing off of verified news.

As fake news outlets are paid more attention to, their worth becomes legitimized not only because of confirmation bias, but because of the money and trusted high profile individuals supporting them. (Think back to the power of celebrity endorsements, and how a celebrity’s product placement can influence what a consumer buys.) The more money that fuels fake news, the less goes to factual or well-established organizations, and the less incentive mainstream outlets have to take the higher road. This, too, however, has an impact on critical thinking in the sense that being emotional online is encouraged because someone is making money off of the responses involved. Offline this would never happen. Most people don’t want to deal with a highly emotional person because that individual is viewed as a drama queen, unstable, and untrustworthy, and emotional expression is often taboo. But, emotions are attached to words, they are felt by reading them. That’s why so much of what’s happening can’t be “seen” as too emotional–they’re just words, after all.

Compare this to subliminal advertising. Subliminal advertising is engineered to influence a consumer’s decision without their knowledge, and it’s considered subliminal because the purpose of those ads falls below the average person’s attention span. It was thought to be widely used, but wasn’t addressed until the public demanded it to be.

In 1973 the book Subliminal Seduction claimed that subliminal techniques were in wide use in advertising. The book contributed to a general climate of fear with regard to Orwellian dangers (of subliminal messaging). Public concern was enough to lead the Federal Communications Commission to hold hearings and to declare subliminal advertising “contrary to the public interest” because it involved “intentional deception” of the public. — SOURCE: Psychologist World

Consider, then, that perhaps fake news sites are using a form of subliminal advertising with the intent of intentionally deceiving the public in order to make money. One of the side effects of confirmation bias, is that even after being told something the reader believed to be true was false, the reader still believes that initial article. (This is partially fueld by “The Backfire Effect.”) This is the reason why sites like Politifact and Snopes exist. At the same time, since there’s literally no consequences for lying to get the reader’s attention, there’s no incentive to clamp down on fake news of any sort.

Regardless of whether you buy into the idea that misleading information is a form of subliminal advertising or not, the reality of these sites is that they are producing more money than verified news outlets. That’s concerning at the best of times, and more worrisome as we move further into a “cliffhanger”-style political news cycle. With a divided country, confirmation bias is at an all-time high–which allows misinformation to be used for misdirection that will reduce public pressure in crisis situations partly because there’s only one emotional tone–outrage.

When a reader’s emotional feedback loop begins with outrage, then continues with a momentary spot of guilt for being outraged, and ends with a fresh round of outrage, it will be difficult for the average reader to prioritize what crises are worth responding to in addition to having a job, taking care of themselves and their families, etc. Worse, in my mind, will be the fact that as crises continue to happen, critical thinking will be shunned in favor of an easy answer–which puts emergency professionals like detectives, doctors, firefighters, etc. at risk because they’re simply not “thinking fast enough” to come up with the answer in a crisis situation.

Since it’s unlikely that an entire culture would engage in critical thinking all at once, it’s more probable that one of two things will happen with respect to fake news in particular: either a third party authentication site or ruling body will step in, or we will see a push for verified or trusted websites (a la the Better Business Bureau) as we do individual social media accounts. Both are predicated on the assumption that publishing fake news isn’t grounds for prosecution or public pressure en masse. In order to encourage reform, first there needs to be a demand for it from an audience who has the power to seek it.

Regardless, I sense we’re now reaching critical mass of the content being produced online. We’ve stepped away from “produce, produce, produce” to “produce to evoke an emotional reaction to make money”. What comes after that? What comes after: “I have no time to process the information I’m receiving, so I’ll go with my gut reaction instead.” I don’t know, but I will tell you one thing: the critical mass I thought we were heading towards is happening even faster than I believed it would.

This is not sustainable. If we’re also on track to lose the battle for net neutrality, I suspect the future of the internet will be reduced to pay-to-pay corporate-run conglomerates that produce content within their silos to attract “their” customers or readers. By doing so, the presentation of opposing viewpoints to stir conversation/reaction and extend the life cycle of a piece of news will be continued and amplified with more cliffhangers, instead of presenting verified facts when necessary in repeated intervals.

It goes without saying that I hope I’m wrong. Fictional stories have power, but what happens when the news becomes a fictional story? I guess we’ll find out.

Mood: It’s Monday.
Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: Argh.
Work-Out Minutes Logged Yesterday: Double argh.
In My Ears: Sister Rust by Damon Albarn
Game Last Played: Neko Atsume
Book Last Read: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
Movie/TV Show Last Viewed: Game of Thrones
Latest Artistic Project: My sekrit project.
Latest Fiction/Comic Release: Gods, Memes, and Monsters, Tales of the Dark Eras, and Firefly: The Gorramn Shiniest Language Guide and Dictionary in the ‘Verse.
Latest Game Release: Ghouls & Revenants for Vampire: The Masquerade and Court of Shadows for Shadowrun.
Current State of Projects: Read my latest project update.