Marie Nicola: Yeah. [Laughing]. I like the sound of that.
Susan: So far, not a hard interview. [Laughing].
Marie Nicola: No, it’s not a hard interview. When are the big questions coming in, Susan?
Susan: [Laughing]. Well let’s start with digital culture because that’s really what you’re known for.
Marie Nicola: Sure.
Susan: And that’s certainly what the show “Nat & Marie” covers.
Marie Nicola: Yeah.
Susan: So tell me. What is digital culture?
Marie Nicola: I consider digital culture to be that world that we live in online. So it’s separate from our physical world, but it’s something that we inhabit and that digital space where all of our computers are connected, and we create this wonderful world called the Internet. So living life online on Internet, whether it’s social media or how we use social media, or whether it’s parallel Internets like the Tor network or, you know, these wonderful places online. That’s basically it. So our lives online.
Susan: So talk about the Tor network. What is that?
Marie Nicola: Tor is– I used to joke around where– Sometimes I’ll hear my friends say, “Oh, I wish that there was another Internet,” and I’m like, “Actually the Internet– There’s many, many Internets.” So there’s the one that we use, which is the worldwide web. But there’s another level, if you want to think another level down. It’s an encrypted space that you can use. You can only access it using a Tor plugin for your browser, and that actually stands for ‘the onion router’. So T-O-R. Basically it’s just peeling away a level of the Internet and having access to something, a place where it’s a little bit more– I don’t know. How do you describe it? Subversive? Is that a good word? It’s like–
Susan: Yeah, it’s a good word. [Laughing].
Marie Nicola: It’s kind of like where the black market is. It’s where a lot of– Whenever you hear about places like the silk road or Atlantis, those are marketplaces that are like Amazon that exhibit or live on Tor, because they can’t have those marketplaces in the worldwide web because they deal in highly illegal things. Like, they’ll use– You can purchase drugs or guns or contraband [inaudible:00:02:43].
Susan: Not that we are advocating any of that. That’s just what that is. [Laughing].
Marie Nicola: No, no, no. That’s exactly what it is. It’s just kind of like this fun– It’s a really interesting place, and obviously it’s not one that most Internet users are using, but it’s out there. And– Oh, go on.
Susan: So there’s a dark side of that, but– And, you know, we just talked about that. But what’s the upside of that? Are there any upsides to the Tor network?
Marie Nicola: The upsides to it is that it’s an interesting place. I don’t know necessarily how people are using it to really benefit other people, but, you know– Actually that’s a lie. Here’s a way that you can twist it. Bitcoins are probably– We’ve all heard about encrypted currencies and people mining for currency off of their computers, and Bitcoins is probably the biggest one out of the lot of them. Bitcoins is probably one of the currencies that’s used the most in Tor or like coins or any encrypted currency.
So if you want to think that these currencies were made popular by the existence of these subversive layers of Internet, I would say that’s probably one of the biggest things of that. That’s how I actually found out about Bitcoins. Like, why does Bitcoins exist? And that’s, you know– I found it out. I can’t even talk right now. Good morning to me.
Susan: [Laughing]. You’ve had a long day.
Marie Nicola: But [inaudible:00:04:05 to 00:04:09]. But I found out about Bitcoins because of Tor. I was kind of curious about– There has to be this other world out there besides the one that we’re accessing every day. And once I started navigating it, I started to notice that there was these marketplaces. When I saw that there were these marketplaces dealing in these highly illegal goods, I had to ask myself, “How are people able to purchase this that it isn’t being traced to them?” It turned out that they were using Bitcoins.
This was a few years ago when that was kind of the only currency that people were using. That was really kind of an interesting thing, and then from that moment, watching the rise of crypto-currencies in the general population. I found it really fascinating. So it went from being this cryptic currency that people could use to maintain their anonymity when purchasing goods that they shouldn’t really be purchasing, has jumped to the mainstream where people can now use crypto currencies to purchase things like pizza or–
Susan: Yeah.
Marie Nicola: Items from [inaudible:00:05:11] marketplace or other things. So these places, these weird parts of the Internet are interesting places to keep an eye on because there’s a lot of– There might be the next big trend coming out of it, so whether it’s Bitcoins or what have you.
Susan: So speaking of Bitcoins, certainly they’ve been– Bitcoin has been in– has really jumped into the mainstream consciousness in the last several months. How– Where do you– What do you think is going to happen with that? There was the bust of one of the stock exchange. There’s been, you know, a high profile suicide. There’s been all– I mean, there’s the usual drama that comes with money and power. But is this here to stay? Or is this a passing fancy?
Marie Nicola: I think that crypto currencies are here to stay. I think that they’re– It’s inevitability. When you have a society, you need to have something they can trade. The Internet really is another world. It has businesses, and it has places where people socialize. It has everything that you would have in– I won’t say the real world, but away from your keyboard you have– Everything you would have from away from your keyboard, you have it online. And so it only makes sense to have a universal currency. Bitcoins just came out of the gate as being the forerunner because it was probably one of the first. Since then, there’s probably about close to maybe 75 to 100 new crypto currencies that have popped up.
Yeah. I don’t think it’s a passing fancy. So I think it’s going to be around to stay. There’s also some really great parts to it. It’s a peer-to-peer technology. There’s no central authority or banks. Managing transactions and issuing of Bitcoins is carried out collectively by network. It’s open source. So anybody can mine for it. You can– Potentially you can have Bitcoins on your computer, theoretically. It’s an interesting thing. So all the things that people don’t like about banks, Bitcoins kind of answers that. I think that attracts a large portion of people to– It attracts a portion of people to gravitate towards Bitcoins and want to use it.
But it’s going to have fluctuations because it’s new. So people are going to buy it up excessively because they think it’s this cool novel new thing. Some people are going to sell it. Eventually it’s going to regulate itself. But the other types of truancies, like where– There’s like Doge coins. Some people pronounce doge, do-gee, doge. There’s different– There’s no standard way to pronounce D-O-G-E. But that was a crypto currency that recently came to everyone’s consciousness because the Internet actually used Doge coins or Doge coins to send the Jamaican bobsled team to the Olympics.
Susan: Oh, I actually hadn’t– I had heard that, but I hadn’t put two and two together. That’s fascinating.
Marie Nicola: Yeah. So I don’t know. Again, I think it’s hear to stay. What is going to– I think Bitcoins is going to be one of the biggest currencies. I think that’s going to be the dominant one. How the little ones are going to stick around and stay alive, I don’t know. Can’t tell you.
Susan: What do– What should banks make of all of this? I mean, what lessons can they learn? Or even bigger brands? What should they be– Should they be worried about this? Should they be figuring out how to belong there? Should they be taking lessons out of– You know, people are there for a reason, the whole democratization of currency and decision. That’s one interesting facet of it. But what should banks learn? And what should bigger brands learn?
Marie Nicola: People should– I think banks and brands should take a look at what’s happening online because it’s– The philosophy of living life online is about not being– being decentralized, being peer-to-peer, being transparent, not concentrating power and resources on a small group of people. It’s distributing it. So whenever people are gravitating online towards certain things like Bitcoins, for example, part of it is the anonymity and the fact that it’s an open source currency. It’s peer-to-peer.
No one owns it, and that is something that brands and banks really should take into heart because it’s like these little seeds that seem like it’s a fad right now. The Internet has been famous for being considered– It’s a fad. Ever since it came around, it’s been a fad.
Susan: Ever since Al Gore invented it. [Laughing].
Marie Nicola: Oh, my gosh. Right. Ever since Al Gore invented the Internet, it’s been a fad. That’s the funny thing. You can’t really think that Bitcoins is going to be a fad, and you can’t really– I think brands should take the Internet seriously enough because the history of, you know, mp3s and music sharing. At the first, everyone thought it was a fad. At first, everyone thought social networking was a fad. Now we have this need for decentralization and people to feel like they are a little bit more in control of their lives online. The backlash to, again, decentralize of banks, Occupy Wall Street was a big thing about that. Right? Do you know?
Susan: Yeah.
Marie Nicola: The 1%. So take a look at that, and I think that they should take that to heart and try and provide– I mean, provide– Take their– How can I say this? Take their clients seriously.
Susan: You know what’s interesting to me? It seems that as the Internet provides this space for exactly what you talk about, decentralization, democratization, empowerment. We see in the real world– And brands talk about being all of those things online, and yet in the real world we see their business actions moving towards quite another different model.
Marie Nicola: Yeah.
Susan: So this divergence of things, where we’re talking about being one way online. We’re trying to move a particular way. Certainly the people are moving in that way, and then you have these big brands, you know. You have articles coming out now about kind of the U.S.–
Marie Nicola: Totally.
Susan: Turning into an oligarchy with very– Well it’s the whole 1% argument, and you have kind of family dynasties and wealth inequality, not just income inequality, but wealth inequality.
Marie Nicola: Yeah.
Susan: I think it’s– Is it Krugman [SP] who’s talking about that? I can’t remember if it’s Krugman or Freedman. I can’t remember.
Marie Nicola: I can’t.
Susan: But anyway, yeah. So but what strikes me as so fascinating is we have the real world moving in one direction, and yet the Internet culture moving in what appears to be a different direction.
Marie Nicola: Absolutely. Because the Internet– This is interesting because the Internet is a place where people feel open enough to live anonymously. While that may not be true, since Edward Snowden had the big–
Susan: Yes.
Marie Nicola: — whistle-blowing moment, you know, with the NSA sneaking, and then you had the five– I call it the mighty handful, but they have another name for it. It’s like Canada, United States, Britain, Germany, and Australia I think it is, the five. They’re sharing the information that they’re gathering on people online. So we don’t really have as much anonymity online as we would like to have or would hope to have. But people are still gravitating online because they can voice how they feel about the world, and they can live and create a utopia for themselves online. So transparency and accessibility and openness, which are some of the main tenants of being online, they create a democratic space that they can’t have in the real world because there’s so many– It’s– There’s always red tape. You know?
Susan: And, you know, if you’ve been following Michael Lewis and the alternate stock exchange, you know the system is rigged too. [Laughing].
Marie Nicola: Yeah.
Susan: There is a rigged system. That question of anonymity, its– You know, there’s that argument about, “Oh, well if I’m not doing anything wrong, then I’ve got nothing to fear.” Yes, part of me feels that way, and I, you know– But the other part of me also recognizes that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and we have a duty to ourselves and to future generations to safeguard our own protection so that our government is not snooping unlawfully abiding citizens. You know? If we’re–
Marie Nicola: Absolutely.
Susan: That should be the– It is the assumption of innocence. Right? And we seem to have discarded that. I’m going to be really fascinated. This whole Heartbleed bug– I really want to know how long the government authorities both in Canada and the U.S., and in fact, among the five nations– I want to know how long they’ve known about it because I think it’s quite possible that it’s been quite some time that they’ve been using that as a backdoor to snoop on ordinary citizens who have done nothing wrong. But I think it’s by process of elimination perhaps that they might have been working. We’ll see. We’ll see where that goes.
Marie Nicola: Yeah. It’s the Internet. Again, the Internet has a great way of finding out. That’s why people have such a romantic view of Anonymous and other hacktivist groups. They’re the ones that are– They take a role of trying to safeguard the Internet. [inaudible:00:15:21] quotation marks I’ll make over that, safeguard the Internet. Or at least enforce the tenants of the Internet. Snooping on people is the biggest no-no, like respecting people’s anonymity, respecting people’s privacy. Because online, privacy is not an admission of guilt.
So this is like– This is a saying that people are holding true and dear, like webisons, netisons, whatever you want to call people who, you know, recognize their digital citizenship. They are fierce about saying privacy. Me wanting my privacy does not mean that I’m guilty of something, and the government has no right to invade my privacy. I am not just something to populate their database. So at some point, whenever a law passes, they can go back retroactively and charge me with something. You know? I have the right to have my windows, to have curtains on my windows and protect what I’m doing inside of my home. You know?
Susan: And, you know, there’s a difference too. I mean, I think the question of anonymity, you have that Amanda Todd suicide and that person operating, I guess. Is it the Netherlands that somebody’s been arrested from? Wherever he is. I don’t necessarily know that that’s the type of anonymity that is being protected. The type of anonymity that really is being protected is a lot of your ordinary, everyday activities that people should not have a right to snoop on if you’ve set your settings a particular way. I don’t think it’s necessarily advocating that people should have the right to go on masquerading as somebody else or, you know, 13-year-olds when they’re actually 45-year-old men.
Marie Nicola: No.
Susan: I don’t think that’s what this is embracing. Would you?
Marie Nicola: No. You’re absolutely correct. It’s not about that. It’s protecting your own personal private information. So it’s protecting the conversation that we’re having right now via Skype. It’s saying that this conversation is–
Susan: Is private until we make it public.
Marie Nicola: Exactly. Until we make that decision to make it public. That’s okay. But we’re having this conversation. It’s a nice conversation between friends. This isn’t something that the government necessarily needs to access. Why should they listen? They shouldn’t have to tap our phones. They’re not allowed to tap our phones as is. Or if I’m sending an email to you, why should the government be able to read that email or scan the contents of that email to find out if I’m talking about something illegal? And some people who are supporting this would say, you know, “That will help prevent terrorism,” or, “That will help prevent– keep us safe in the long run because we’ll be able to weed people out.” Well that’s like the double-edged sword. I mean, I shouldn’t have to give up all of my privacy so that for– And it’s something that may or may not happen. It’s just– That’s just not– That’s not right.
Susan: And I think some of the founding principles, certainly in the U.S., and Canada has followed suit, with the right of the individual. You know? And the whole founding of the U.S. was the right of the individual pushing back against an oppressive government. In that case, the Brits. But whatever the case is, at what cost safety, the balance between safety and freedom. That’s just, you know– That debate isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But if safety comes at a particularly high cost, and we’ve lost our freedom, well that could actually in the long run erode our safety.
Marie Nicola: Absolutely. And Canada is an interesting case. Well the United States has very specific laws about maintaining privacy and the privacy of the person. In Canada, when it comes to our digital rights, we don’t have the same laws. We have– Our privacy– Our commissioner, privacy commissioner– I have it. Sorry. If I get the names of people wrong, then don’t hold it against me. It’s because I’m trying to talk.
Susan: [Laughing]. I know you’ve had a long day, and I really appreciate you doing this today because I know it was not the best with everything you had.
Marie Nicola: No, no. It’s fine. It’s fine. I wanted to. I wanted to. But it’s– In Canada, the [inaudible:00:19:49] we had it– Whatever the NSA leak– I shouldn’t even call it a leak. It really wasn’t a leak. But when the information at the NSA was made public, and people were aware of this, United States was, you know– We need to find out what’s going on. We need to call. We need to find out what information has been accessed, which organizations were providing the information or asked to provide the information, and who was included on those documents. So those are– That’s information that Americans are able to request. In Canada, it’s not the same.
Susan: No.
Marie Nicola: We are– Unfortunately we’re a little bit behind, as far as our digital legislation. It’s going to hurt us in the long run, but right now, we’re a little bit behind. So we don’t exactly know what Canadians were involved in some of these documents. We don’t know what Google in Canada has shared because they had obviously done a request.
So as these requests are coming up from the privacy commissioner, the only way that we can get this information is from a lengthy and expensive court process. So it’s– We’re a little bit behind the times because we don’t fully understand the impact of the NSA spying on Canadians, which is an unfortunate thing. But I think as a population, we’re starting to have these conversations now. We’re starting to understand the impact of living lives online, because so much of our lives are invested online. We talk online. We socialize online. We make plans online. We send invitations for events online. We email online. I sent a proposal for a job the other day via website online. Like everything is online.
Susan: Sure, yeah. I think you’re not alone in that. I think most people who apply for jobs it’s now all done online. We live our lives online and also as millennials take their place, becoming more and more important to existing corporate structures, I think this is going to be high on the list and increasingly important because the digital culture is what they’ve grown up with.
Marie Nicola: Absolutely.
Susan: And disruption, too. I’m fascinated with the hook on disruption. Both you and I are involved with companies that have kind of invented new technologies that are just disrupting what everybody used to do. The whole digital culture is really about embracing disruption.
Marie Nicola: Totally. It’s about creating new ways for people to connect and people to feel that their opinion matters, that they are important. They’re an individual in a very highly centralized physical world, where the banks are in control and there’s the 1%, and we just kind of grind out our days, going to our jobs.
Online you can be a part of everything; you can be a part of decision making. Anonymous as a group, not just as this group that hacks, but Anonymous as a group, again, it’s decentralized. No one person is in charge of it; there might be people that are influential in their organization, but everybody contributes to it, everybody has a say.
Reddit, who, obviously I’ve worked with, Reddit is a really interesting one where information is supplied only by the public. Us, as users, are putting in the news stories and entertainment stories and comedy that we find online. We put it on the site and then other users are voting on it, and the best goes to the front page, so the cream rises to the crop.
Even information is democratic. Information sourcing is democratic online. Digital is a democratic space. I was just talking too much and I got lost in my thought of my romanticism of online.
[laughter]
Susan: I don’t think that was a romanticized story lost. I think you’re absolutely bang on. Reddit is a prime example and you’ve really seen the Reddit culture from the inside, you’ve done some really exciting work with them.
Marie Nicola: Yeah they’re a really interesting organization because it’s just a group of people that work really well together. It’s a small group of people and they really believe in the tenets of the Internet. When the NSAâyou know, the information became public, they organized a giant protest across the United States. Oh gosh. They orchestrated the Internet blackout a few years ago when they were protesting against SOPA and PIPA. They are really just this small organization, but they are the 30th, I think, part of the top 30 most-trafficked websites in the world. They have 10,000 . . . Am I getting this right? Or 5000 active sub-Reddits at any given moment. A sub-Reddit is basically one topic, so a topic forum, whatever you want to call it, that’s housed on Reddit. So there’s 5000 active at any given moment.
There’s thousands upon thousands of users from all around the world. They don’t store information on their users; they don’t believe in that. It’s a really interesting organization because they try really hard to be mentors, in a way, of what the philosophy of the Internet is. Again, decentralized, everyone is important, everyone contributes, and they really believe that if you’re not afraid of putting the power into the hands of the public, they’re really not afraid of what the outcome is because it regulates itself.
Susan: That’s really true. You see that in groups. If you’re managing a group well, even a Google group, if you’re open and supportive when you have somebody who’s disruptiveâand I love disruption, I think it’s what leads to, what breeds success, but there is good disruption and bad disruption. When you have somebody who is negatively disruptive, if you have really created an environment of support within a group you don’t have to do a thing. Those people will come and moderate that group for you.
Marie Nicola: Absolutely. It’s really interesting how the Internet has these, like, little white blood cells, the fighter T cells that we have in our bodies. It really is almost like the same thing online. There are groups of people that identify themselves as trolls. There are groups of people that identify themselves as moderators, or OPsâor people are moderators and then OPs mean original poster. You have people who are interested in sharing information; people that are interested in enforcing the rules and moderating the conversations. You have people that are interested in trying to derail the conversation, which are the trolls. People fall into these archetypes. Sometimes there is a dark conversation about how the Internet is inherently sexist.
Susan: Yeah, we see that in the 3D Techworld. We’ve actually talked about how we actually combat that.
Marie Nicola: Whenever you’re talking about socializing online, it really is a sexless world. I mean I don’t have a gender online; I have a gender in the physical world, but online I don’t have a gender unless, of course, I choose to represent that online. If I want to be identified as a woman, and be known as a woman online, then I am a woman online. For the most part, I mean on places like Reddit, it’s just a username. Sometimes people infer what people’s sex is based upon their username, and sometimes they target them, and then you see the fighter T people. I call them the fighter . . . I always think of them as like blood cells, you know, coming in to fight the infection.
So if somebody comes in and they see someone’s username and they think it’s a woman and they want to target them, then these other groups of people will come in and defend saying, “What does it matter? And why are you targeting them?” I do see that more often. I haven’t really experienced sexism online unless, of course, I am trying to support some of my friends who are very active online.
So Stephanie Guthrie is a really interesting person because she is an active feminist. She’s also a digital culture expert, and she’s a feminist, and she’s very active online. There was a kick starter program that came out, years ago, from this womanâI’m not going to get her name rightâbut anyway, she did a video. She was proposing to fund a video series that examined tropes, female tropes, and video games.
Susan: Oh I remember that. Yeah, that was fascinating, and she just . . . The backlash against her . . .
Marie Nicola: Was unreal.
Susan: The vitriol and the threats . . .
Marie Nicola: Yeah. So that is where the dark side comes out where you see concentrations of people who might be ignorant, and they work as a team, almost, to target people. I find that they are most open to targeting women online or feminists, I should say â people who identify as feminists online more so than anybody else. I think that is because feminists are generally representing themselves as, “I’m a woman and I shouldn’t be afraid of this,” and they’re putting it out there. I don’t think it’s a good thing, I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but I find that you’ll only really encounter sexism online if you choose to represent your gender online. I’m also a jerk to guys online, so . . . I mean, people are opportunists online. If there are some guys that are being dicks online, I have no problem telling them.
Susan: But there is the real dark side, and in the 3D Techworld I know one of the things that happens is women have to lurk in the background because when they try and step up and take their place, it can often be a place where they’re digitally slapped down. Trying to create a culture that is more welcoming, and where certain behaviors are not tolerated, that’s . . . And you start to see women now saying, “You know, we’re women of influence within the 3D, or within the tech space, and we really need to . . .” And really enlightened men, and a next generation, too many of them . . . How do we change that conversation? How do we make this space safer for half the population? Because we see it where even if organizations put out polls, it’s just a really interesting process where women don’t necessarily participate, and yet we know that they’re there watching.
Marie Nicola: I know. Normalize it. That’s the other thing. We talk about digital culture in the world that we live in online. Okay? That’s one thing, but normalize it as a part of pop culture on a whole. So there are shows that are being produced and there are documentaries being produced, and I feel like they’re not even taking it into consideration that there are women online that are doing great things. I think that’s a bit of an interesting thing. I find it as NatandMarie as that entity, we’ve gotten some really interesting comments where we’ve posted some of the videos up on YouTube and YouTube also is famous for having the . . .
Susan: Terrible comments. Most actually just turn off their comments now, you know?
Marie Nicola: Yeah it’s awful. I like to keep it open because I’m kind of curious to see what comes through, but they’re awful. They’re not listening to the things that we have to say.
Susan: No. Literally it’s just a troll magnet.
Marie Nicola: They’re focusing on our gender and I’m just like, okay, you guys are all idiots. You probably would never . . . This is not . . . The first thing I think of is like, “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Like that’s just horrible but I mean, it’s telling because, again, we’re representing ourselves. Obviously with boobs we’re clearly women but I find it interesting that they’re targeting us . . .
Susan: But it’s not just you. I mean, we’ve seen videos with children who have been battling cancer and who have really uplifting messages, and then when the end has come and somebody posts a sad message about the passing of that child, the trolls come out to leave these horrid comments. There’s something that pulls that darkness out of very ill people and gravitates. The best is there and the worst is there.
Marie Nicola: When it comes down to the sexism online, I still think that whenever digital businesses, or entrepreneurs, or start-ups, or people who are considered experts in the world of digital culture, whatever, itâs not normalized for women. I mean there’s a show on HBO called Silicon Valley. I watched the whole first show, the only female main character in that show, the main female character, is an assistant to the main guy. Itâsnot realistic.
It’s the same in the 3D tech world, it’s not realistic. Women are involved in these things and we’re just human beings. I find it sometimes unfortunate to have to say, “Hey, look, we’re here, represent us.” It’s not throwing a bone out; it’s just actually doing an accurate representation of the space and the people that are using the space. It’s not male-dominated online. More women use social, more women are doing blogging, and more women are entering the fields of PR and marketing because of the Internet and because of how they’re able to facilitate conversations online.
Susan: Well, you know, it’s funny. PR is predominantly dominated by women and it always has been, but if you look at the structures of any of the organizations, governing bodies, or associations, most of the executives tend to be men. When I say 3D tech world, I actually mean tech world. My own experience is more 3D, and recently. I would actually have to say that that world is probably a little bit more forward-thinking than the tech world in general because you’ve got a younger group of people who are really kind of stepping into that space and defining a kinder world, I think, but the tech world itself can just be so brutal.
Marie Nicola: I know, and Internet, obviously, is a function of tech. It can’t operate without technology, but to paint a picture that it’s one-sided, that it’s just dudes that are doing it, I get really upset because there was a documentary done based on Toronto, of start-ups in the city, and there was no woman at all in the documentary. I remember having conversations with some of my girlfriends who have different start-ups in the city themselves and I was like, “How did you feel watching it?” They were like, “Oh, it was just [inaudible 00:14:11] . . .”
Susan: It’s so disheartening.
Marie Nicola: It’s so disheartening because I’m like, everyone should know better at this point. You have to represent everybody. You have to take into consideration that whenever you put out anything to the public, that is a role model to somebody. That could potentially influence somebody to make the decision to be a part of that world or not. I’m tired of . . . I don’t know, this is just a side rant. I’m just tired of women and having the only public mentors, I guess, that you see all over the place. They’re also the ones in the advertising and those are all fake in the first place. They’re like all Photoshopped, they’re not even real. Give me a real role model. Give me a woman in tech. Show me the people online. Don’t demonize me because I talk about Internet culture.
And that’s what’s cool about Reddit. Reddit doesn’t care. They love it.
Susan: Yeah they facilitate conversation. You know something else you said about Reddit, that just says to me how on the mark they are, was their role as a mentor. In brand storytelling, I think so many brands get it wrong by casting the brand as the hero and I think that’s a complete mistake.
You may have to think through your brand as a hero through the very early development of your brand, but, ultimately how your brand is going to live in the world is the consumer, the citizen, the person who is interacting with your brand, they actually think that they are the heroes of their own lives. Not the brand, or the product, or the charity, or the organization, or whatever it is. The fact that Reddit understands that they are the mentor, that they offer this gift, and they help somebody on their own hero’s journey and they’re not standing around looking to be beatified or glorified as the hero of somebody else’s life, I think that’s one of the reasons why Reddit is known as the front page of the Internet.
Marie Nicola: Absolutely. I’m not a hero because I drink Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola’s a hero because I drink it. You know? It’s the shift of consciousness of understanding who your audience is and being able to give them what they want and to make them feel important or make them feel like they are a priority. Again, that is Internet. That’s Internet culture. That’s me. I feel like I’m important when I go online. I feel like my voice is meant to be heard. That’s why teenagers and kids these days they go online and they feel important because they’re able to take pictures of themselves and they’re able to be a star and they feel like . . . And that is that. Take a look at how kids are using Internet, not necessarily for the tools that they’re using but how they’re using it and what their psychology is behind it.
I think that brands can take a lot of really good information away from that because those are the people that are growing up and they’re going to be making purchasing decisions as they get older and how they’re using the Internet right now is basically going to be the foundation of how they use it when they’re older. So they share far too much, but they’re the heroes of their lives and they want to share experiences with people. They want to share the cool things that they have in their lives but when they have those cool things, like, when you see a celebrity walk out with a new phone, and you’re like, “That phone looks so cool,” and you love that celebrity and somehow you love that item just a little bit more because your favorite celebrity uses it.
All these young people now that are using the internet and they’re showing their selfies of them, wearing their fancy shirts, or using new products, or being at an event, for them, and their friends and the people that follow them, their lives are cool. So the things that they’re using, by association, are cool too. Again, it’s a different story. It’s not saying that people are cool because they use a product; products are cool because they’re being used.
Again, representation a women, men, different ethnicities . . . It’s going to be interesting to see how brands keep up or if they’re even going to be able to. Maybe they’re just going to have to resign to the Internet and then just collect what the conversations are and use that because all that information is public.
Susan: It’s all there. Yeah. You’re going to see . . . I mean, user-generated, it’s all there, and people want to tell those stories. I think you will see brands kind of enabling those conversations and that archiving and curating content. Certainly curation is becoming more and more important and curation of user-generated I think that’s really a big direction of where things are going.
Marie Nicola: I think so. It’s also a big leap to listen to what your audience is saying. Not just to listen in order to get information so you can regurgitate it in some really well-produced, completely finessed end product. There’s another backlash with that, too. I mean nobody cares. There’s like the no makeup for cancer awareness, no makeup selfies. Well I found that to be a little bit contrived but the messaging behind it is, I think to have a cause, to be able to go without makeup to show that people are interested in seeing raw unfinished, real things. They just use cancer, in this case. I thought that was an interesting moment because that was the first significant global rally around this idea of no makeup selfies. That is gravitating towards they use cancer as the reason for the season, but I think we’re going to see more of this where people are going to be sharing uncensored and raw and unfinished. . .
Marie Nicola2: Yeah, a form of nakedness.
Marie Nicola: A form of nakedness; that’s vulnerability. That’s something people can relate to.
Susan: It is.
Marie Nicola: Go on.
Susan: Oh, no, Marie. I was just going to say I’ve just loved every minute of this. I’m going to have to have you back.
Marie Nicola: Gosh, I talk too much. I’m so sorry.
Susan: No, you’re perfect. You’re one of my favorite people to talk to on this sort of stuff, so it’s great to have you on the show.
Marie Nicola: I know I just talk. Hopefully there are some good usable information there that people can access. Obviously if anybody wants to talk to me more, they can catch me online and this is what I’ll say. My username is online – @karmacakedotca on Twitter, karmacake.com or Nat and Marie.
Susan: Nat and Marie, you have to check that out, natandmarie.com.
Marie Nicola: Yeah, natandmarie.com. NatandMarie is easier, like NatandMarie on Twitter, NatandMarie on everything else. Everything is natandmarie. That was an easy URL to get.
Susan: Excellent. Marie, thank you so much for being on and we’ll talk to you soon.
Marie Nicola: No problem. Anytime. Bye.