Be Your Full Amazing Self with Sydette Harry

### Have a love-hate relationship with social media? So do we. In Episode 7, we explore the joys and perils of visibility, and talk with Sydette Harry, an expert in online communities.

Trolls, randos, and straight-up neo-Nazis: being a woman online can be tough. This week, we’re exploring how we make choices about what and whether to share online.

Our guest this week is the inimitable writer, editor, and tech/media critic, Sydette Harry, also known as [@blackamazon](https://twitter.com/Blackamazon). She’s an editor at Mozilla and part of the Coral Project, which is working to create healthier communities and comments sections. She’s also smart as hell, exquisitely blunt, and committed to talking about what’s wrong online in the voice she grew up with.

> Yes, in a lot of ways I am more diverse than the average person who shows up to a lot of these things. We’re not going to lie about that. I am, by virtue of being black and female, even though I am a cis, able-bodied person, I am more diverse than the people you usually have in there. That being said, I’m still an Ivy League graduate. I’m still a person of a certain education… So when you say that I am “diversity,” let’s all be clear here: you ain’t doin’ that well, fam. You’re not doing that good.

>

> —[Sydette Harry](https://twitter.com/Blackamazon)

Here’s what we cover—and of course, we’ve got a full transcript, too.

## Show notes

A year ago, [Lindy West quit Twitter](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/03/ive-left-twitter-unusable-anyone-but-trolls-robots-dictators-lindy-west)—and [she’s not coming back](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/opinion/quitting-twitter-lindy-west.html). We miss her voice, but we’re also a little jealous.

Plus: Jenn moves her sports talk to Facebook, Katel closes the tab and never looks back, and we all wonder whether Klout still exists. (Sara used to be influential in burritos. Just saying.)

### Interview: Sydette Harry

Get comfortable, because you won’t want to miss a second of Sydette’s searing commentary on tech culture, Twitter, journalism, race, gender, and weight. We talk about:

- Sydette’s work with the [Coral Project](https://coralproject.net/).

- Why she’s calling out media for [telling amazing people that they don’t belong](https://source.opennews.org/articles/not-belong/).

- How Twitter’s insistence it was the “[free speech wing of the free speech party](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/mar/22/twitter-tony-wang-free-speech)” left it vulnerable to abuse.

- The [Prep for Prep](https://www.prepforprep.org/page) program, the [Bronx is Burning](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-bronx-really-burned/) era, and the limitations of teaching kids from under-resourced areas how to fit into elite circles.

- Presentation voice, “home” voice, and the politics of [code-switching](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/08/176064688/how-code-switching-explains-the-world)