“Conversations With People Who Hate Me” With Dylan Marron

Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on March 24th, 2022

Part of what’s terrible sometimes is how easy it is for people to hate each other. And how hard it is for people to TALK to each other in meaningful ways when we disagree. And while it’s certainly not a phenomenon that’s brand NEW, the Internet has certainly made it easier for us to voice our dislike for people in ways that are… not always helpful or productive?

Dylan Marron is the author of the book Conversations With People Who Hate Me, and in today’s episode, Nora talks with him about about why we are how we are, and how we could change.

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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Hello there. It’s Nora McInerny, and this is the Terrible Reading Club, which I like to refer to as great books for terrible times. And part of what’s terrible sometimes is how easy it is for people to hate each other. And how hard it is for people to TALK to each other in meaningful ways when we disagree. 

And while it’s certainly not a phenomenon that’s brand NEW, the Internet has certainly made it easier for us to voice our dislike for people in ways that are…not always helpful or productive?

Dylan Marron is the author of the book “Conversations With People Who Hate Me,” a book that grew out of his podcast of the same name. It’s a book about why we are how we are, and how we could change, how we could engage in ways that are meaningful and potentially even transformative. 

I loved this book because I needed it. I have been a person who just … gets online and is like “LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHING BUDDY,” and I’ve also been on the receiving end of it, and really … it doesn’t feel great for anyone involved.

But Dylan’s the person who wrote the literal book on this, so let’s hear from him.

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Nora McInerny: I want you to tell me about the game of the Internet and when you first started to play it. 

Dylan Marron: So the game of the Internet ...  I don't think I realized that I was playing the game of the Internet for a while. I think in my early days, I definitely thought that the Internet was this gift for all of us who had been trying to fashion careers in any sort of media. And it was the way to go about that in a more democratic way. And it excited me, and it was full of potential. I sort of cut my teeth in theater, in downtown New York performance art theater, with an amazing ensemble whom I still credit as, like, my creative home or creative birthplace, The New York Neofuturists. And I loved theater so much. I still love theater. I think what I was craving, though, was a bigger audience. And I don't just mean that with numbers. I think I was just so excited. You know, YouTube was in its post-nascent stage. It was, like, in its toddler years, when it was kind of still figuring out what it was. And I really wanted to crack into how to use YouTube. I just didn't really know how. But I knew that I was making these very fun short-form pieces with my theater crew. And I was trying out new things. So I didn't know how to translate the two. Simultaneously, I was invited to join the fictional podcast, "Welcome to Night Vale." And that really just cracked the door open for me for, like, all the different possibilities of what the Internet could do. Right? I saw it blow up, and I saw it sell out theaters. So that's when I was like, "Oh, the Internet is actually, like, this pathway to being able to create really cool art that is different." And so this was still in the like, kind of utopia of it, right? Of like, "Oh, the Internet is good," and then a few things happen. I decide to make a video series called "Every Single Word," which edits down popular movies to only the words spoken by people of color, as a way to kind of flag a really profound lack of representation in Hollywood that I'm discovering through trying to audition for things and seeing how few roles there are for me and seeing that this problem is so much bigger than me. And so I made this supercut series, and that blew up. And I was like, "Oh my God, this is amazing! The Internet is so cool!" From that, I got a job at a digital television network called Seriously.TV. I threw myself into my work. I loved it. I was making videos. And I also became obsessed with the view counter on the bottom lefthand corner of the screen. And, you know, I started with the best intentions. I really, really, really wanted to make a change. And when you're seeing these, like, huge numbers of eyes that are on your work, you're like, "Oh, my God, I'm making a difference!" I just want to be clear. I'm speaking only for myself. I wasn't getting this mandate from anyone. Right? Like, this was internally motivated. I was so obsessed with the points I was getting, right? The Internet is a point system too. The metrics I was getting, the likes, the views, the comments that I just, I equated the two. So the more views I got on a video about blank social issue, the more I was helping that social issue. And I say that because I need to have love for that person who got caught up in the metric system of this game. Right? And I can't even blame myself. I cannot blame people who are getting caught up in it now. It's how these systems were and are designed. Right? The more views I get, the more I will be an activist. The more activism I am doing, the more attention I am calling to a certain issue. It's even more than vanity. You have a false sense of what activism even is. And so I kind of got to the point where I felt like I was playing an avatar on the Internet. The Internet feels like a game a lot. There's a clear point system, and you're also playing a character. And don't get me wrong, games are great, games are super fun. They exist for a reason so that we can, like, engage in the world in a different way. But I don't think we're meant to engage in the whole world through a game. And I found myself engaging in the whole world, engaging in my existence, determining my worth, based on these fluctuating numbers. Fortunately at the time, my views were just going up and up, and my audience was growing and I tripped into this experience, and I fell into it and I ... I was so taken by it, but then I started realizing that I was designing videos and choosing what to talk about based on what I thought was going to play well. Again, I want to give love to that person, because that's what we do. Right?

Nora McInerny: That person was so passionate. He was still so thoughtful. [Totally.] And, you said we're not meant to experience the whole world through this sort of system. And as your career in this space is starting to take off, we are also seeing more and more and more and more of our lives flattening down into a screen. Now, when we want to order some food, we go on Yelp. We read every disgruntled review left by every single person. [Yeah]. We look up the people that we might date. [Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah]. You know, everything. Like, our careers are available to be gamefied through LinkedIn, our personal thoughts and experiences through Twitter or Facebook, and then the visual appeal of our lives and our existence through Instagram. It's all sort of flattened into this thing. So yes, we have compassion for you. We have compassion for this version of me. We have compassion for this version that lives in everybody who is listening to this. I want to hear more about, sort of, your realization that you are looking for points, and what it takes, as that bar gets higher, to get more.

Dylan Marron: I can only talk about it retrospectively, because when you're in the moment, you don't realize that, you just know that you're furiously climbing a ladder and you're like, "Well, I have to do this for the good of the world." I would post a video, and then I couldn't stop refreshing. I couldn't stop refreshing the comments. I couldn't stop looking away from my phone. I became so addicted to that feeling, and I actually think it's an addiction that persists today. I got off social media for 13 months and I'm back, but in very regimented ways. It's an addiction that persists today. It was such a sugar rush, it was such a like ... I mean, the problem is it just feels so good, like, to post something — especially a short form thing that you can attainably do, like, you can write it in an afternoon, and then it goes out there. Just feels incredible. And you just feel like you're getting affirmation from the world that you're doing something right, which is ultimately all we're looking for, right? We're like, "Am I weird? Am I doing something wrong? Am I saying the right thing?" And these metrics are like, "You are good." Like, "You are saying everything correct." There is, of course, a flip side to that. 

Nora McInerny: All we want is to be seen, heard and known. And this reward system gives us the feeling that those things are happening. [Completely.] And I for some reason cannot remember the name of the documentary that I know we all watched on Netflix. "The Social Dilemma." There we go. And you and I were both at a conference, where we saw Jaron … Lanier? Laneer? I don’t know how to say names.

Dylan Marron: Lin-ee-yay. Or I don't know, I'm just trying to be fancy.

Nora McInerny: Oh wow, Lin-ee-yay. It looks, it looks very French. We saw him speak, and he was talking about the intent of the Internet, and the impact of the Internet, and how different those were. And then there was also sort of like this psychological toll that it's taking on all of us. And one of the things that I have noticed in myself: The point system for the Internet has always been there for me. Even just getting an instant messenger from a total stranger who was probably, like, an old man on the Internet feigning interest in my interests, it felt like what you said, like just being seen. Like, being heard. Like, being acknowledged. And my own experience with the Internet is that I have fanned the flames of the Internet Rage Machine, because it feels like I'm doing something. It feels like I'm doing something. I have participated in a public shaming. I have participated in a comment war where nobody wins. But my comeback got the most likes, so like, obviously I won.

Dylan Marron: Totally. And that's the only referee we have. The only referee we have is ratio-ing someone and clapping back at them in a funnier way that elicits more likes with some pithy comment. You know, like, if you put an all lowercase “OK” under someone's big monologue about what they feel, you win just because you look like you don't care, which is the trump card on the Internet.

Nora McInerny: When in, in reality, I don't know how your body reacts to things like that, but mine reacts very poorly. And I remember having — [To winning?] Or to even just being invited to the game. Right? I remember having a heart rate monitor and seeing like one of my tweets getting, you know, making it to the wrong side of the Internet, making it to a place outside of its intended audience, outside of its context and seeing on my little heart rate monitor my heart rate just brrrrrrrr, up, feeling that in my body and being like, “Cracks knuckles. Let's go girls.” And what does it mean? What does it do to have these interactions, these really intense interactions, with complete strangers other than flatten down their own human existence, all of their nuance, all of the things that they bring to this metaphorical table down into a very small photo that they provided of themselves, perhaps a name or an alias and an ideal that I disagree with.

Dylan Marron: Yeah, yeah. Completely, completely, completely. I'm not the first to say this, but I don't think we were meant to see this many people at one time. I don't think we were meant to interact with this many people. So I'm a big advocate for, like, making our digital world smaller. I think the problem is we are all famous now? I don't mean that in the kind of like, "Andy Warhol was right." But like, I mean that in the way that, like, what is fame other than just seeing images of someone over and over again, so you don't know if you care about them because you know them or you care about them just because you're seeing images of them over and over again. And then they become projection screens onto which you can project whatever you feel about them, positive or negative. I think that's fame. And so in that sense, we're all famous now, because we're all seeing just repeated images of each other over and over again. I don't think we were meant to see this many people, and deal with this many people, because there's no way to actually get to know these people. Right? Like, there is a reason that in the physical realm, right, I don't want to differentiate between the real world and the Internet because I think both are the real world. But the physical realm is different from the digital realm. And in the physical realm, we're just naturally limited with how many people we pass. Even when we're in a crowd, we can't tap on that person's forehead and just see, like, what their aunt said about spaghetti, you know what I mean? Or like, what movie they saw two years ago to the day in a memory that they share. And it sounds cool and fun, but I think we're seeing the consequences of that. Our brains are working well when in a crowd, we psychologically kind of shut down and kind of have to shut everyone out. And we're just like, "OK, who do I know?" Right? Rather than like, "OK, I could potentially know all of these people around me."

Nora McInerny: We’ll be right back.

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Nora McInerny: I want to talk about this shifting away from points, and when the points start to feel a little gross to you, or when your awareness of the cost of these points starts to come into your consciousness.

Dylan Marron: I definitely felt less present in my physical relationships. Like, at dinner with my husband, he would have to ask me to put my phone away, and at hangs with friends. I found myself, with both the adoration I was fielding, but also the hate I was getting, I was just overtalking about it. I find it to be a very common first step with anyone who's dealing with a new experience of anything. I didn't really know how to process what was happening, so I just overtalked about it and overtalked about it and overtalked about it, and I could kind of tell, like, I was only talking about myself and, I'm not trying to claim to be a saint, but that's actually not what I do. Outside of this, I think I'm not only good at asking about people, but I'm also just genuinely interested. Right? Like, I like getting to know the person I'm talking to, and I think this made me look so inward, do so much navel gazing, because I was processing it. And that's also how I dealt with the hate at first, is I would just first ignore it and then just talk about it nonstop to anyone who would listen.

Nora McInerny: So you said two really interesting things. One is that when we're all famous, that sort of flattens us down to this avatar for whatever it is we represent to another person who happens to stumble into our realm of the Internet. Right? It's so easy for us to come across things completely devoid of context. For people to not know, "Oh, actually, this is a thing that Dylan does. It's like a part of his art. And like, you go watch this, this, this, and it'll make sense." No. It surfaces things that are meant to upset us, enrage us, engage us. And we are not meant to see this much. We are also not built for this much attention. We're not. You get a lot of points. Right? You get a lot of likes, a lot of views. And you also start to get the opposite side of whatever a coin is. Right? What's the opposite side of the coin? A negative coin. You start to get people stumbling in. And when this happens, it is so jarring. It's so jarring, because very rarely in real life will someone come up to you and be like, "Hey, whatever it is you're doing right now, I don't like it. And more importantly, I don't like you. I actually think you are a piece of shit. Please die in a fire." You start to get this hate. You ignore it. You obsess over it. And then you want to convert it. Right. You want to alchemize it into points. 

Dylan Marron: Throughout all of this experience of getting all the points and getting all the coin hauls and collecting my coins and observing them and trying to get more of them, I was also getting a lot of hate because — this is a small detail that is, I think, the reason I'm doing what I do, or the reason I was able to make that switch — is that this was that window of a year when Facebook video really blew up. And that's what I was making these videos for, was Facebook video. And the reason that detail is important is that of all the platforms, that is the one where when someone messages you, you can often click on their profile and see the past sometimes 10 years of photos that they've shared of themselves, or that they've been tagged in posts, you know, it's like this just like diary photo album, family tree, employment history resumes, CV, like it's everything. I was getting so much hate. I didn't really know what to do with it. I think at first I, like, just pushed it away and I collected it and, you know, a folder on my desktop that I literally just called THE HATE FOLDER, all caps. And it was just kind of this thing that I couldn't deal with. I couldn't look at it. I didn't even know where to put it. So I then went from banishing it to this digital penitentiary on my desktop to over-talking about it to friends, anyone who would listen. And then … I can't pinpoint the time, but I can say that gradually I just developed, very naturally developed this coping mechanism where I would just click on the profile picture of the person who sent it, and then just spend time on their profile. And I didn't understand it at the time. Of course, in retrospect, I now understand what was happening is like, when you get hate, you're scared of that person, whether you want to admit it or not, and you'll often make very grand pronouncements of not being scared when you get it. But I was scared, right? It's overwhelming. It's psychologically overwhelming. It's stuff that I think we’ll be studying for a long, long time. Online hate is a real, real thing, right? Negativity of any kind is a real thing. And I don't think we yet have the psychological research to even know what it does to us.

Nora McInerny: No, there's no way. One of the things that I think people sort of use to justify it, that I've used to justify it and have had used to justify it against me, is, "Well, you're out here in public, right?" Yeah, but am I? Am I? Are we?

Dylan Marron: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm actually just existing.

Nora McInerny: I'm just existing. And this is the way that all of us exist. There's this idea that, oh, well, if you're doing this publicly, maybe you should have a thicker skin. Maybe you should be prepared for this. There's nobody who has evolved psychologically to be able to manage the knowing that they are also being perceived by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of thousands of people who now, in this version of fame, have direct access to you. [Totally.] Let's say it's like 1994. Okay? You have yet to be born, but you're like …

Dylan Marron: OK, I was 6, not to brag.

Nora McInerny: OK, OK, look, Dylan's 6 years old. It's 1994, you see a movie, Sharon Stone’s in it, you don't think she did a good job. Are you going to, as a 6-year-old or as a 30-year-old, as a 50-year-old, are you going to take the time to sit down, to write a letter, to look up who’s Sharon Stone's representative? How could I contact her and let her know that she disappointed me in this role? No. But now it's 2020, it's 2015. You are able to directly give unfettered feedback to anybody. [Yes.] And it's, I do not think we are psychologically built for this. How could we be?

Dylan Marron: I don't think so either. And that example you just gave is great, because I also think it is important to note that people did do that. Like, at the time, people would write those letters. But the number of people who would go through that trouble is very small, like, very small. And so then it's an accessibility issue.

Nora McInerny: And that feedback, should you have sent it, it would have gone through many layers. And instead, we are all forced to, like, see the sort of, like, these envelopes being flung at us.  

Dylan Marron: Yes, yes.

Nora McInerny: And in some ways, and it has been used in useful ways. In productive ways. Right. The fact that everybody on the Internet has a voice. And you are always so good at pointing this out for a lot of people who have been historically excluded from narratives, from situations in power, having that has been transformative. [Yeah]. And, for some people, it has been a way for us to sort of expend existential angst. 

Dylan Marron: That line is really confusing because, like, the collective action is a really incredible thing, and sometimes it's really hard to tell … what is that tipping point of collective action being used for good or bad? And I think sometimes just because criticism can feel like hate at the beginning, like when you first receive it, and this is something that I've also navigated of like, well, when I use the word hate, what is online hate? Because sometimes you talk to the person who sent it and it's like, "Oh my God, that wasn't hate at all. Like, I don't hate you. I never intended to hate you." And so you realize that you're using this one word to be an umbrella term for everything. But, criticism can feel like hate at the beginning, especially when you're just receiving it on your phone and you're like, "Whoa, I'm just getting a lot of online hate." So I do think it's important to develop a sorting hat, so to speak, of like, figuring out what is criticism, what is negativity, and what is rude negativity, and what is literal hate. Unfortunately, we just use one word to refer to all of that. A lot of the very necessary and overdue social movements that we're seeing take shape in our digital age are because of collective action of the Internet. So I'm very cautious to never categorically deny that. I do think, though, that what becomes very confusing about the Internet is those vital movements of collective action blend in with other movements of collective action against someone who actually isn't the villain and actually doesn't even represent the villain. They just happened to do something too earnest for the Internet or too cringe-worthy or even said something wrong, and they could have so benefited from a different way of identifying their error, or quote unquote error, if they're just the fun person to collectively hate of the moment, which I find so terrifying. Because like, I think we're seeing, like punching bags that become the in vogue thing to take aim at. And those punching bags are people. 

Nora McInerny: We want collective action, right? Everybody wants to believe that they're contributing to the world around them. And for a lot of us, the most tangible, not the most tangible, but the most immediate, way to engage in that world feels like it's coming through a screen, right? Social action that requires that you know your city council person that you like, listen in to the meetings.

Dylan Marron: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nora McInerny: That you show up at school board stuff. It's like, “Oh, my God, who's got the time? But can I get online and just engage, just you have an opinion and make it strong and make sure that people know where I stand?” And what I see, what I fear, and what I know that I've perpetuated is these actions and these ideals that are at odds with what I say I believe. And what I think I believe. What I do believe, I believe, right, which is that we need imperfect people. Right. Which is that we are here not to be perfect, but to learn to grow, that we are all still learning and growing. Like I believe in that, and also, I have punished people for small missteps. I have been punished for missteps, large or small. Who knows? But again, we don't have a referee. We don't have a jury. We've sort of taken on all of these roles ourselves. And one of the fascinating things about your podcast and about your book is that you open yourself up to more of it, right? Like, you basically reach out to people who have said, like you gauge, right, like the level of hate, you're not going to invite somebody to a conversation who's like, "Dylan, I truly think that you should die." But you do sit down and you facilitate these conversations with people who hate you. And how does it go?

Dylan Marron: I mean, the honest answer is it really is amazing when you get there. It takes a lot of work to get there. As you can imagine, a lot of people don't want to do it for frustrating reasons for some, and for very understandable reasons for others. I think where, you know, a lot of people are reticent to come onto a recorded podcast and talk, especially after they sent a comment. But, you know, I believe in restorative justice. And I suppose that what I'm practicing is a form of digital restorative justice, because I would not gain anything by getting my detractors fired. Right? I would not gain anything by having them lose their job. I think what I really do believe in is — and this is not a term I created, it's a term very heavily used by a really amazing activist named Loretta Ross — but it's the idea of calling in. Right? Like, calling someone in. And this goes back to the kind of stuff I was making when I was making socially progressive videos, is that I really thought I was helping change people's minds. I thought I was helping push the needle. But then I realized I was only speaking, these videos were only being championed by people who already agreed with me. And if I, in fact, do want to call more people in about an issue like transphobia, or an issue like police brutality, I don't know what I'm gaining by telling people who already know about it, and finding ways to just creatively talk about it. I want to be clear. I think there's so much value in speaking to your own community about things that affect you. I found that I'm actually better suited to call in the outsiders to the table with love. So I started having conversations with some of the people behind the “hate.” Again, hate is in quotes because as I have these conversations, many people balked at the title and some people were very surprised that they would even be included in such a podcast. Others understood. And my way of explaining the title is that when you receive any form of negativity online, it feels like hate. And only through conversation can we actually sort out what it actually is. Can we differentiate between constructive criticism and rude criticism and unnecessary criticism and cruelty and hate. Right? And so I started having conversations. And what I found was, I mean, there were challenges for sure. I didn't know how to not talk about everything with my guests, especially those with whom I was ideologically opposed. How do I not debate them? But overall, the experience was incredible because, as I said, this was, like, the next step. This was, like, the ideal version of the clicking through their profile pictures and posts, that was actually getting to know them. And because I was getting to know them, I feared them less. And that was all I was ever after. Right? I didn't want to fear these detractors. And I think it's also really important to say, like, there is not a one size fits all reason for why people write stuff online, especially when writing quote unquote “hate” online is so accessible to all of us. So like, we love to cling to these fantasies of like, "Oh, people write mean things online because they're sad in their own lives." Is that true for some of the people I spoke to? Absolutely. But that only makes them relatable, you know what I mean? Like, I also have gone through journeys with emotional health. Is everyone just hiding something? Not really, not necessarily. Everyone was so different from each other, you know? I think that was fascinating to learn and fascinating to see. And a really funny thing happens when you talk to people in in-depth ways and they open up to you and you open up to them is: You start to like them. And when you start to like them, you start to empathize with them. And, empathy, it's a very big buzzword now. Right. I really don't believe that empathy can necessarily be taught. I think we can encourage each other to build spaces where empathy thrives. And one such space I have found is conversation, especially phone conversation, because I think it's bound in real time, but it's also not so vulnerable that you're seeing each other’s faces, so you can feel more free to say things. I found this deep well of empathy for all of my guests. And this was not some, altruistic, saintly marvel, right? This was literally just the natural byproduct of talking to people, that's it. There is no greater magic than that. It just happens when you're in conversation with someone, when you're listening to them, when they're listening to you.

Nora McInerny: And conversation is different from a debate.

Dylan Marron: Yeah, it totally is. From the beginning, I was like, "This will not be a debate show. We're not debating the issues." But debate is so our default. And people would misunderstand my podcast as a debate show, because I think we literally do not have a term for conversation across difference that is not "conversation across difference.” Debate is all we understand. It's like, "Oh, if you disagree with them, you're going to fight them, you're going to battle them?" What would debating about this issue do other than flex my muscles as a verbal fighter, which is totally great for some people. I don't think I'm well suited to verbal fighting. But I also understand that it's valuable for some people and in some spaces. Anyway, this is all to say that I was finding such empathy for my guests, and I could tell that they were empathizing with me too. I had to wrestle with, like, what does this mean that I'm like ... I feel such empathy for people, many of whom I very strongly disagree with politically? But I'm also talking to people on quote unquote, “my side,” right? So I'm also feeling empathy for people who are on my side but said very negative things about me. Is my empathy acting as a sort of permission slip for them? Right? Is my empathy supporting their ideas? Empathy almost feels like you're crossing some invisible border line, and you're like, "Oh my God, I feel for this person, am I now them? Am I now everything they believe?" Again, very organically, I just developed a mantra for myself, which was that, “Empathy is not endorsement.” And it was honestly something I just wrote down in my notes one day. It was essentially like a permission slip that I was giving myself to keep going to be like, "OK, the empathy you're feeling for your guests, it does not endorse their opinions and beliefs. It's literally just seeing them as human beings."  

Nora McInerny: What you're practicing in this podcast and what you're engaging in is also somewhat antithetical to the ways that we're taught to deal with it, and the ways that people who like you or admire you or follow you or engage in your work before are used to seeing you engage, are used to engaging. It is, in some ways, like a bit of an aberration.

Dylan Marron: Yeah, it totally felt like an aberration. This was the question that I woke up with every day, went to sleep with every day, haunted me every day. Was I committing a transgression by empathizing with people? And then how do I wrestle with the fact that the empathy came naturally from talking to people, so therefore, am I committing a transgression by simply having a conversation? And that is stuff that I've wrestled with for a long, long time doing this project. It's still something that haunts me. And I think something we're seeing, especially today, is like, in some moments, conversation itself is seen as a transgression, and extending a hand to someone who thinks differently is seen as a capitulation and also a concession to the other side. It can feel like we're constantly at war.

Nora McInerny: We’ll be right back.

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Nora McInerny: Empathy is not endorsement, that is an important distinction to make. Because when the coals of the Internet Rage Machine are getting stoked right, and they're ready to explode again. One of the things that we've been trained to do is to look for adjacency and to view that as endorsement to sort of conflate the idea that you could associate with a person, and that must mean that you believe all the things that they believe, that you align with them one hundred percent. And what's interesting to me is that the way that you are practicing this conversation online is also a way that people have been connecting in real life forever.

Dylan Marron: And I think that context is super important. Even calling for nuance can sometimes feel like a transgression, because it's like, "Well, what nuance? That person is just a bad person." We're so used to writing people off as human aberrations, as trash, as garbage. And it's like, that renders them disposable and no longer usable to the human race. And I think that we need to shift the ways that we regard each other. I'm very skeptical of using terms like we need to, you need to, we must, mandates. I do think that this is one of the few mandates that I'm going to really stand by. All of this is with the very big caveat of the fact that you should not just be engaging in conversation with anyone. You should not be offering a helping hand to people who have honestly hurt you and physically hurt you. Right? Like, you need to define your own comfort zone of who you're comfortable inviting to the table. Right? And also, it needs to be said that, like, I'm so lucky and privileged to be able to do this project, because the hate I received, don't get me wrong, there was a lot of it, a lot of it was homophobic, but it was also for a short period of time. And there are people — and this especially affects marginalized people — who get such a torrent of abuse online constantly. Right? This is not a viable project for them. They're simply trying to survive in cyberspace. And it's completely understandable if people who are simply trying to survive in cyberspace don't have, like, all the energy to have these difficult conversations when they're facing this both in the digital realm and the physical realm. So those are the caveats. Still … I believe with all of my heart that, like, we should not render other human beings as trash, as garbage, as disposable. I think that is almost disrespectful to our ultimate capacity to change and evolve, for everyone's capacity to change and evolve. And people are scrolling in their minds for exceptions, and you will find people who you determine to be exceptions to that rule. But I do think that we've got to start with the intention of inviting people in. If they continually reject those invitations, that's not on you, right? I really believe in inviting people to the table in searching for nuance and spaces that don't support it. And one of the best ways I've found to engender that nuance, to foment that nuance, to cultivate that empathy is conversation. And it is both simple and complex, and it's also so boring, you know? It's like, it's not as exciting as a clap back online that gets a lot of play. But it is such a vital thing. I believe it's our civic duty, honestly.

Nora McInerny: I agree with you. And, you know, when you add context to the content, when you consider intent alongside impact, there are very, very few people that are simply monsters. Very, very few. And I can sense, like you said, people scrolling through their minds, looking for the exception. And even, even the person that you were thinking of as the exception is loved by someone. Is appreciated as a human, as a person. Not for their ideals, not for their beliefs, but because they are somebody's daughter or somebody's son, somebody's absolute favorite person in the world. They have done something kind and selfless for someone, even if they are abhorrent to you. 

Dylan Marron: Or they have not been loved by someone, you know? Like, there's that too.

Nora McInerny: The challenge is remembering the multitudes when you're only given the first layer. And assuming multitudes in a person, assuming that there is more, and that it might not ever be available to you to know. You had that beautiful visual of being able to tap a stranger on the forehead and see like, "OK, you dad never hugged you, and in third grade, like, you peed your pants during the Christmas concert, and you're really, really worried that something that you said in a moment of anger could cost you your livelihood, render you forever, forever garbage." And I do believe in our human capacity to learn and to grow. And I want to embody that more. And that's how I felt reading your book. I felt like this is a recall to see our own humanity by seeing somebody else's. You had this beautiful visual image in the book of the idea of our digital neighborhood, which is so big, too big, and our real life neighborhood and how in our real life neighborhood, we also, we don't agree with everything that happens in our neighborhood, right? Verbalize that better than I did. [laughs]

Dylan Marron: Well, I just think, like when you're in physical proximity to people, you see all shades of people. You see the good, you see the bad, and you also just see the like ... nothing. You are bound to community rules. And I'm talking about unspoken rules, because you're naturally going to want to keep the peace in your neighborhood. Right? Like, we have solutions in digital spaces that aren't as accessible in physical spaces. For example, Nora, you and I are talking on Twitter. We disagree about something. You've angered me. I don't know who you are. I've never really seen you. But you're kind of annoying me. I can block you, right? And the equivalent in the physical neighborhood is not as easy. You can't just block someone and not see them. Right. You're still going to run into them in the hallways. You're still going to run into them on the sidewalk. And so what you do is you kind of titrate yourself to just be like, "OK, I'm going to keep this as cordial as possible. They are neither my enemy nor are they my best friend. They are a person in this world." And then when neighborhood emergencies happen, you're all there for each other. Often times when there is something very big that happens, again, not because you're like the world's saint, but you're like, if you see someone on the sidewalk having a hard time, you're going to help them up if they tripped. You're going to help pick up their groceries, whether they are your best friend, whether they gave you a weird look one time like. I think that physical neighborhoods tether us to the humanity of other people in a non-overwhelming way. And I want to find ways that we can recreate that digitally. There are, of course, caveats, right? Like, there are neighbors who have caused immense physical and emotional harm to people. That is when you move. That is when you find a solution that is not just, quote unquote, dealing with it. So this is not to say that physical neighborhoods are in any way these, like, ideal havens where no conflict ever happens. It's just that we deal with conflict differently. It's just that we find ways to cope with friction more readily and also more smoothly. And in a way that, like, still acknowledges their humanity, not because you've done this psychological exercise, but because you're seeing their humanity every day. I think the more ways we can replicate the good, the helpful, the psychologically useful of physical neighborhoods in digital spaces, the more I think we're going to be able to figure out how to co-exist more peacefully.