Innovating through technology is a form of survival. You know, to see and be seen to build community.
There Are No Girls on the Internet.
As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridge Todd and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. One of the biggest questions that I'm grappling with these days when it comes to social media is where are we all going next? The entire social media landscape is shifted. Facebook feels less and less relevant by the day. I mean, is anybody even still on threads? And Twitter is well Twitter?
When I scroll Twitter these days, it's clear just how much these platforms are not built for us with us in mind. It honestly just does not feel good to show up there anymore. And as Twitter's policies get more and more hostile, more and more people like me are jumping ship. And in this time where we're all searching for what's next, a black owned alternative that tries to put more power in the hands of the people who use their platform might just be the next big thing.
Enter spill Spill is a meme forward, highly visual social media platform where users post spills. As in spilling, the team, the team behind SPILL is clear that they want it to be a place where black and brown folks and other traditionally marginalized identities can feel safe showing up. But the platform is for everybody, and for Kenya Parum, building better and safer technologies is a kind of community love language.
My name is Kenya Parum and I serve as the global vice president for Community and Partnerships at SPILL.
For Kenya, technology is just another and a long career of advocating for traditionally marginalized communities. So I'm very excited about SPILL. I'm very excited to talk about SPILL, But if it's okay, I would love to start with you, Kennya, like, how did you get your start in technology?
What brings you to this work?
Well, I did a really non traditional pathway to becoming a tech executive. I started off in the world of electoral politics and was an entrepreneur for the better part of a decade. I've always worked at the intersection of my purpose and my passions, and so that has meant advocating on behalf of marginalized communities, whether in the world of civic engagement or then transitioning into entertainment and film.
I've always been passionate about narratives and the impact that is created from narratives, and so joined the Spill team at the top of this year and it's been a wild ride ever since.
Do you see the work with you know, being a tech executive. Do you see that work as overlapping with your interest in narratives and stories, particularly for marginalized communities.
Here's the thing. The role of just a tech executive, right is super broad.
Right.
What I do see mad overlap in is the skill set required to be successful at building community, particularly on behalf of communities that are underrepresented and underserved. So much to my surprise and affirmation, my non traditional pathway was recognized by the folks who brought me on to this team.
And because you know, imposter syndrome is real, girlfriend, And I gotta tell you, I didn't know if, if you know, the route that I took to getting to this place would be seen as qualified to be in a role like this. But what I do know is that, you know, advocating on behalf of communities that are in need, you know, making sure that we redirect resources to the folks who into the communities who stand to benefit the most from
receiving those things. Looks like politics, it looks like community building, it looks like advocacy, it looks like engagement, and so, you know, just tremendously grateful. I pinched myself every single day.
Well, I would love to dig into that because you mentioned imposter syndrome, and I obviously don't need to tell you that there are not a lot of tech executives that look like us. Did you ever see yourself being somebody who was like that, did have the title of global tech executive?
And did you ever think that, like I.
Assume you don't have like a like you're not like an engineer. I feel like oftentimes people think that if you don't have some specific hard tech background, you don't really get to take up space in conversations about technology.
That's so it's so real. I mean, yeah, I've always felt like I was put on this earth to do big things thanks to my parents, doctor Thomas parm and Devita Hopkins farm. I am a kid who has had a battery in her back and a tank fuel full of positivity fuel my entire life thanks to them. So, you know, I've always felt, you know, mission driven technology is all around us. Right, we're surrounded by technology, you know, whether that's you know, any tool that we use to
advance insert blank here, right is a form of tech. Right, language and lexicon is technology. Fashion is technology. You know, uh, culture, Right, tech, tech is culture, and so you know, uh, I think I think it's important to always acknowledge that, you know, tech is not just you know, connecting wires and tubes and infrastructure at all times. Right, tech is expansive and whenever we're building new worlds and and charting new courses, right, you need a squad full of people who know how
to traverse uncharted terrain. And you know, I love my engineers, you know what I mean. But they're great at what they do, and we're great at what we do, and together we make an amazing team.
So that's such a good way to put it.
And that's sort of the framework that we come to to around technology on this podcast, where it's not just it's not just coding and engineering, it's also culture. It's also media. Like everything comes down to tech. It touches every aspect of how we show up to the world. And I don't want to you know, smarch any of your competitor platforms. But I think we see what happens when there's not investments made in the community building or the culture building or the world building.
And it's just the engineering aspect.
I think we can see where sometimes that isn't doesn't really work out so great for the people who are using the platforms.
Listen, I mean, I'm only here to talk about spill, right, not gonna get me there, girl, I'm only here to talk about spill. But what I what I will say about that is, you know, we are we are in a really interesting time right now where having computers in our hands right empowers us to do so so so much. And you know, we all hear this, this this large scale you know, call to action for more black and brown folks and marginalized folks and queer folks to get
involved in tech right in STEM and in Steam. But now that I'm in this seat like and living it, I completely understand how revolutionary it is to be able to take part in building a world that has an opportunity to function better, more holistically, healthier for people who look like us differently than the I r L. Right, the r L can do things that the I r
L can't do. And I, as a black woman, love that and arrive in my seat to do my work every day with a sense of excitement and vigor knowing that I'm not just creating this world for me, but for everybody else, and doing it with some badass teammates who I admire. And you know, what a joy you know.
And tech also gives us an opportunity to look at, you know, the brilliance of younger generations that are out there innovating in real time, not because they desire to just go viral, right, but because innovating through technology is a form of survival, you know, to see and be seen to build community, right, And that's what we're really focused on at Spill.
The story of traditionally marginalized people has always been a story rooted in resilience. We show up in these spaces that are not always built with us in mind, and
we innovate. We take the lemons we're given and make lemonade in the form of art, building, movements and connections and spill it's also a story rooted in resilience, in taking a situation that seems tough and turning it into an opportunity to build something instead Spill starts with an origin story that might be familiar to a lot of folks and technology right now, a layoff. Alfonso Terrell was working at Twitter a year ago when there was a tumultuous change in leadership.
Well it was one November fourth night, twenty twenty two. Now, I'm just kidding. He's probably laughing. He's gonna laugh when he sees me start this off like that. Alfonso Terrell are amazing CEO, outgoing global head of Social and Editorial for Twitter. Was a part of the first round of layoffs when that other person fired him on November fourth, and he placed a phone call to our co founder Davares Brown, who's arguably one of the foremost technologists of
our generation. And they had both met on their first day at Twitter some time ago, and you know, fonsvict of the phone to devirus and said, hey, you know, basically I've been laid off and it's time to build. And that's when they started. So everything you see from Spill is, you know, from a phone call that was placed not even a year ago, which is incredible.
So the story of Spill then is really a story about us, like doing what we always do, taking situations or spaces that are kind of hostile to us and.
Making lemonade out of those lemons.
It really takes having that larger vision to see how those tough moments could actually be used to create something bigger.
Listen, you know, yes, yes, and you know the story of spill is a story of preparedness meets opportunity one thousand percent right. We've experienced a couple of different waves of growth along the way, arguably before the technology would say that we were prepared for it, right, but our team, you know, did our best to kind of meet the needs that were exposed by you know, some of the failures from the those other apps.
You're being so like charitable.
And so we was some honey, I told you I started off with politics. Okay, so you know we but we you know, preparedness meets opportunity. That's that's how we got to this place, right and doing it afreate doing it, scared building it anyway, trusting going off of what you know. You know, Fons always says you are more right than
you think you are right. You're more more right than you even know in terms of the hypotheses and the theories around why this is the time to center us, you know, And we had a lot of different proof points that told us that along the way, I mean, first wait list sign up, first bill went up in December of twenty twenty two, twenty five thousand sign ups in twenty four hours, fifty thousand by the end of
the week, you know, ore waitless. Now for iPhone and Android, you know, it's north of five hundred thousand people we've got. You know, I can't give out any other numbers than that, but I will just say that we got a healthy amount of people on this beta iPhone only currently app and you know, are hitting numbers that we thought we
would be hitting, you know, next year. And so again it's just continued validation of our thesis, which is that if you build an ecosystem that centers the most marginalized, the people who drive culture, who advance culture forward but unfortunately receive the line share of hate, you know, it creates a healthier ecosystem for everybody. Right, If we center ourselves,
it's not about excluding everybody else. It's just saying we're being demonstrative about who we're building this platform for, about where these opportunities are going to be centered. And we believe that it creates a better opportunity in a healthier social ecosystem for everybody. And that really could be modeled throughout the entire world, right, it really could.
What do you think our tech landscape would be like if that were a given? If when people were making platforms they started out trying to figure out how to make sure that the most marginalized, but also the people who are creating the culture on their platforms are really the ones that they are centering, that they are listening to, that they are amplifying.
It would look exactly like spill. That's exactly what it would look like. It would be the spill averse times four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And you know what, we got it right. That's why we're here, and that's why we're doing this. And are there are validation points outside of like it's not just because of some moral issue, right, or ethical issue of why we need to do this. It actually makes dollars
in cents. Right, So, if we're going to talk about culture drivers, people who advance culture, people who create content that we all share virally across the internet, right, Goldman Sachs released a report talking about the creator economy not too long ago, and said that it's set to approach half a trillion dollars by twenty twenty seven, which is going to double in size over the next five years.
Right right now, we're at you know, two hundred and fifty billion today, they're expecting it's going to be around four hundred and eighty billion dollars.
Right.
That's a creator economy, right, And that's content that's created by underserved groups and people, and we know that it outperforms other content by industry benchmarks. But unfortunately, these content creators don't have safe spaces to show up and be authentically themselves or have the proper tools or compensation models
to monetize for their audiences. And then on conversely, right, we see big brands painting street you know, signs and rename placards and making these big pledges to spend ad dollars with multicultural vendors, and they're trying to meet their commitments and struggling to do so right and creating these creator funds that don't end up getting spent right. And so, you know, we find ourselves at a time right now where the convergence of these things are happening right, we
have a robust creator economy that is thriving. We've got brands that are struggling for a lot of reasons to meet their stated commitments, right, and then we have a group of bold individuals who said we're going to build this and and meet us where we are. And I believe that that has a lot to do with our success and why we've got so many folks at the table ready to link arms with us to do this work.
What are some of the ways that Spill is doing things differently in service of doing exactly that.
Well, let me just let me just qualify for the people who don't know, Spill is visual conversation that moves at the speed of culture and on the app through memes and visual media and conversation, we're building a space that's brewing with creators who are not just creating culture, but also being recognized for the culture that they are creating. We are essentially proving that cultural and technical competence can
be symbiotic. Right, And so that's everything from you know, the technology that we're using to keep people safe on the platform using large language model AI trained by black and queer folks, right, Essentially a more culturally competent version of like a chat GBT, which allows again for people to show up authentically as their best selves, but also keeps you know, folks safe from people who have learned
how to move around moderation systems and use different language. Right, it means that we are elevating the value of the content and the culture and what it means to access the culture. And so you know, clicks, likes and views and the spilloverse are valued much higher than they are on any other platform. Or we have a lot of
justifications for why that's the case. And then the second, the third, the third piece is you know, we are really focused on making sure that creators receive proper attribution for the heat that they put out there in the world.
We are so tired of seeing folks dances be stolen and our cultural lexicon be reappropriated without folks receiving that compensation and so and just attribution, right, you know, just give us the cred for the trends that we set and if you decide to monetize it makes you the person who actually created it is at the front of that of that line, right, and that they're at the table. So you know, that is just a few of the
things that we are doing differently. We're basically trying to make it as easy as possible for us to do what we naturally do, which is to create an express us ourselves through multiple forms of mixed media, using pop culture references and things that exist in our brains. We know our group chatsbeat pop, and I know you are part of like five or six ten of them, right.
Meme culture is a big thing, and so we're just trying to create an opportunity for us to do what is most natural and authentic to us in a much safer environment and via tools that aid in our continued creation.
Let's take a quick break at our back.
While the labor of black folks generates engagement, not to mention money for the people who run online platforms, all too often we aren't seeing any of the cash. Remember Peaches Monroe, she created the expression on fleek on social media and didn't see a dime from it, even after it was adopted or taken by everyone from Rby's to
Bath and body Works. Law professor kJ Green argues that both online and offline, black public creativity has always been rendered public domain in ways that can leave black creators getting screwed. Some platforms like TikTok have tried to mitigate this by establishing creator funds meant to pay people out who drive engagement on social media platforms, but Kenny has says spill is doing things differently by building the platform with an eye toward crediting and compensating creators fairly from
the start. Something that you mentioned that I think is so important that I want to come back to because it comes up a lot on the show is this idea of what happens when marginalized creators make something on a platform and then it just gets taken and without
credit or attribution or compensation. And we've actually looked into some of the academic research around this, where it seems to suggest that when something is created on the Internet by a black person, there is a dominant understanding that it quote kind of belongs to everyone, and like who cares who created it, who cares who gets credit? It's the Internet, it doesn't matter. But then when those same things are created by non black creators, they are seen
as much less sort of communal. And it's very interesting to me how platforms can kind of aid to this lack of equality around who gets ownership online. It may sound like we're just complaining, like, oh, I want my attention or I want my credit, but this really matters, Like people have really seen meaningful come ups off of creating something on the Internet, and the way that our communities are just sort of shut out of that oftentimes and it's seen as just okay, really doesn't sit right
with me. And I've never really thought about the way that platforms themselves, the way these platforms are designed, can actually contribute to that.
Yeah, it's deep, and I mean, we gotta listen. We can't act like this framework doesn't already exist. We talk about intellectual property all the time. Right, there was a time in our history when black folks in America held the most number of trademarks and patents than anybody any other ethnic demographic. Right, Like, we we know what this means. Right, there is historical precedent for what happens when we own
the things that we put forward. So you know, in many ways, you got to know where we've been to know where we're going right and to understand how we got to where we are right now. And so much like we saw in the music industry in the nineties with hip hop, and you know, a very clear transition
of ownership. You know, when these brands like you know, Comb's Global before was Comb's Global, right bad Boy, you know, started to emerge, right, and you know, folks started to run their own record labels and and get into the distribution game. And you know, we saw a shift in
what happened to music, what happened to creativity. You can put this moment in time for social and what Spill is doing akin to that, this is the first time that we've really had, you know, spaces like this and an opportunity like this, and we're ready to capitalize on it.
That's I would have never put that together, but I think you're right. And I think that the proof of concept when Spill was first coming together that it's time. I think people are ready to acknowledge that it is the most marginalized folks who are the ones who make social media platforms what they are, and that you know, there are plenty of platforms. If it wasn't for marginalized people, they wouldn't be what they were, like, they wouldn't be fun places where people kept showing up.
Bridget be clear though, right like and I have to check myself on this all the time. You know, that little that little word global in my title, text me every time because the don't let the American domestic minority lexicon fool you bridge it like together we are the global majority. And the truth is that by twenty thirty, America is going to be more brown than it is not.
And so you know, we are seeking in my personal goals for that the creators on Spill to essentially become their own media companies.
Right.
I think this is the way that we jump and expand our cultural influence and monetization opportunities outside of just one time creator and affiliate program models, right and really start talking about how do we build continue and sustaining ecosystems for what we already do naturally. Right, it's time and Spill is here to bridge that gap.
Wow, that is a far cry from some other platforms where they you know, people use the word users and it's like very clear that these other places are just trying to mine you for what you have and.
Take whatever whatever you have from you.
And it's like a completely it feels like a flip of the script to say, actually, we want the folks who show up to our platform to get something out of it, to be building something out of it, to be compensated, to be credited, all of that. We want that to be baked into the experience of showing up on spill.
It seems very different.
Absolutely absolutely.
Back when audio only social media platform Clubhouse was all the rage in twenty twenty, its creators were pretty open about the fact that one of the ways they got so big was through intentionally courting black influencers and celebrities, and it worked. Clubhouse was valued at one billion dollars in twenty twenty one and over four billion dollars today.
But after welcoming black voices to the platform to build it up, it kind of felt like the powers that be did it actually do anything to make the experience of being there actually feel safe or good for us. Racist and misogynist to harassment was rampant, and it never really felt like Clubhouse did anything to address it. It really felt like Clubhouse built their name off of black
folks showing up there and then basically abandoned us. I remember it clearly out of time when we were all stuck in our houses craving much needed connection.
It's done so one.
Question I have is that I think a lot of people, myself included, have felt kind of burnt by platforms in the past, where you know, I'm thinking of the experience of Clubhouse when we were all, you know, quarantining in the early days of the pandemic, where it felt like a platform that was kind of centering black voices and black folks, and then when it maybe hit a certain
peak that seemed to be all but abandoned. And so for folks who maybe feel like they've been burned in the past by that dynamic and platforms, what do you say to those folks about joining spill is some Is that a dynamic that you're familiar with? And what would you say to somebody who who was worried about that showing up to a new platform?
Girl From personal experience, I have been you know, taken advantage of in influencer programs. I have been taken for granted. I know what it feels like, I know what it looks like. I think that's what also informs my position and the position of you know, my colleagues and teammates with spill right, our leadership looks like me and you. That's not going to change you know, our team is reflective of the teams that we are centering with this app in every way, and that's not going to change.
Our terms of service in our community guidelines are super clear and as we grow, they're only going to get more and more refined. And so you know, I'd invite everybody to look at what we are saying so that we say what we mean and mean what we say and hold us accountable to that. It's an invitation for those many reasons I can say that I can't imagine
a world where you know, anything like that happens. Spill is a company h that is founded on and centered around these particular principles to make sure that marginalized communities and creators receive proper attribution, to make sure that brands know how to step to us correctly, and if they need some help, let us, you know, bring them to the table and make sure that they that they know you know how to come correct and you know, to make sure that we are treating this group of taste
makers as the stakeholders that we are. So that's not going to happen. But you know, the best thing that I can say is come along for the ride and continue to hold us accountable, and we'll show.
You what When folks show up to spill, what are you hoping? It feels like? Like what's the vibe that y'all are trying to curate for the platform?
There was a creator cool Urban Hippie who posted a picture of the the Great Migration photo who said, this is what spill feels like right now. Uh Phil Lewis posted an image of the rug Rats uh as as Moses leading folks across the sea. keV on stage posted that it feels like a you know, a huge cookout and family reunion and it's bustin'. It really is like that.
Uh So, you know, I want folks to feel like, you know, you're walking into your you know, cousins backyard party where you know, you know people and you're ready to meet new people that you don't know, and everybody feels like family after the first thirty seconds, and you know, by the time you've walked through the threshold, you've got a plate in one hand and a sip in the other and the DJ is you know, got you mobbing, and that's it. You know, that's what we wanted to
feel like. And you know, the feedback that we've gotten thus far is that you know, mission accomplished.
More.
After a quick break, let's get right back into it. It's interesting to me that the images that people used are like the Great Migration or leading someone. It does feel like we were in this moment where every time I had an interview, we're talking to somebody about platforms, it would be like, where are we all going next?
Like, what's the next platform?
What does it feel like to be launching a place that people are saying like, might feel a little better, might feel a little more fun, might remind you what, like what brought us to platforms in the first place? In a moment where everybody is searching, what does it feel like to have a plat to be running a platform like that?
A tremendous amount of pressure and responsibility to get it right because it's personal for me, right, this isn't just a job. This is arguably the next sus of my life's work. And many of my colleagues can say the same thing. Another reason why you know this will always be for us, by us. Everyone is welcome who is down with our mission. Let me be clear, right, spill is not at all you know about gatekeeping or excluding
those who are aligned with our mission. Doesn't matter if you look like us or not, right, but you know, we are just, you know, very demonstrative about what we stand for, and if you're aligned with that, then cool. But it's personal for me and for my colleagues, and so I know we all feel a tremendous amount of
just a desire to get it right. We feel very connected to the outcomes that we are project are going to come from this endeavor and very much want to make sure we do this thing the way that we're supposed to. You know, we are building with intention, which is why we have to kind of block out some of the calls for people, you know, for asking us to build faster or give us this feature right now,
or what have you. You know, a lot of this has also been an education for our communities who have not had access to beta products in tech for or as much compared to our white counterparts, and so a lot of people didn't recognize that they were walking into a beta product or what that even meant. They didn't know, Oh, their only iPhone only, Oh they're only a month a week out of test flight. Oh they still have a whole product roadmap that they have to fulfill. Right, A
lot of people didn't recognize that was the case. And so imagine our surprise to be a pre beta startup app funded to the tune of three million dollars at the time, in the same line as Threads, who bump
their timeline up because of us. Don't think I didn't see that and all of the others, right, So imagine our surprise to be named amongst the giants that lets us know again, you know that this is the time for us, that the market and the demand is there, and that we just got to stay really focused, really disciplined, and keep doing what we're doing, and the sky's the limit for all of us.
I mean, speaking of Threads, Mark Zuckerberg famously his motto was move fast and break things. And I personally don't think that that ethos gets you intentional spaces that really have taken the time and the intention to build something really, you know, with a lot of thoughtfulness in mind. And I think that when you are building a platform for people who are traditionally marginalized to face things like harassment or bullying and that kind of thing doxing just for
who they are, and showing up. You really don't want to move too fast, and so I wonder is there do you ever feel from folks who maybe really like Spill that they're like, oh, this needs like I want it to be open to everyone right away, or I want there to be more people right away. Do you is it difficult to resist the calls to do things really quickly and to be for everybody right away as opposed to taking a little bit slower and with a little bit more intention.
You know, what we see the most are people wanting all of the features all at once, right now immediately. That's the that's the most pressure that we get. We've actually seen some interesting you know, folks being very careful and selective about who they give their golden ticket invites out to on Spill. You know, that's been some interesting behavior to watch folks be really protective and selective of
this space already. You know, we hear that people want the features and that excites us because our team, we know our product roadmap. Everybody else is going to find it out in real time and the stuff that we've got coming is very very very exciting, and it's going to just open up a whole world of opportunity and
creativity to fulfill our mission. And as we've stated it, you know again, I think it's just about us reminding ourselves that we come to the table with decades of experience, all of us combined, and this work didn't just start, you know, when we all took our position here. I'm bringing my you know, experience, Fonds our CEO, bringing his breadth of experience. I mean, I don't know if there's anybody more talented and more perfectly positioned to lead us
in this endeavor than him. You know, somebody who was you know, the outgoing social and editorial head for that former Bluebird app and you know, clear award winning Webby Award winning can Lyon Award winning Come on, right, We've got some of the best builders and technologists behind us. So this is an a team, y'all. Right, Like this is this is a really talented team who's bringing their life's work to this space and we are being met with a hell of a lot of support across across
the way. So we've got what we need to be successful. And our biggest ask for our community is, you know, come on, spill, have a good time, trust us and or allow us to earn your trust and together we're gonna We're gonna do this.
We're in this moment that feels like the future of technology is kind of happening right now. What do you see on the horizon as it pertains to technology or platforms or what would you like to see in this moment? Like, you know, what do you think is next for us?
In the space?
Spill is next? You know, what people experience right now on platform is just a drop in the bucket of what we have in store. There are tons of not just features, but really interesting partnerships that we're going to be bringing to the table again blending the IRL and the URL in the advantage of people who are black, brown, queer, and other marginalized groups. Right So we've never seen that before. So I don't want to look past that opportunity right now.
I want to stay present in that this is the space that we are cultivating and curating and stepping into right now. And tremendous excitement fills my spirit when I think about what we've yet to do and what we can do.
Okay, so I know you probably can't answer this, but I promised my producer that I would ask.
Oh, okay, wait a minute, I already know the answer.
You're not going to be an answer.
But okay, do you have any sense, any sense at all of when it might be open to everybody and not be invite only the answer?
Probably, I can't. You can't say, but the answer.
Do I have a sense of it? I have a whole sense of it.
Oh, but can you share it with us?
You guys see a lesson in asking your questions?
That right? That is fair?
Do I have a sense? I have all the senses I do. Here's what I will say. It's going to be a really big quarter for us. It's going to be a really big quarter for us. So get on spill if you're not already, and I'd be happy to extend a special exclusive for your listeners. I'm going to drop an invite code for y'all. So for the listeners of the There Are No Girls on the Internet podcast, please accept this invitation to join the spill a verse.
You can use the code spill Mob that's s p I L l M O B as your invite to get on platform and I'll see you there.
Ken Yet, you've just made a lot of people very happy because I have literally gotten dms that are like, can you get me a spill code? Where's a spill code? So you've made a lot of people very happy.
You can stop dming me, Kennyet. This is incredible.
I'm I'm rooting for you all like I'm already on spill.
I love it.
I love how quickly it moves. I love how you said this earlier night. It really sounded correct to me. It feels like what the inside of my head looks like sometimes, where it's references and memes and jokes and video like. It feels like taking a walk through the inside of my brain in the best way possible.
That's so great and that makes sense, right, I mean, we are not a monolith at all, right, but there is something to be said that we do have black women as engineers in this product. So we do have black women as the head of community and partnerships, support, moderation, editorial as well. Right, right, we are in these spaces, and so you know it should feel for us, by us, because it is for us, by us, but it is
for us. It is by us, for us, and for everybody who is in alignment with our with our mission. Bridget I just want to say congratulations to you. I think what you have done with this with this podcast is incredible. I am a listener, I am a supporter. Thank you so much for having me today and I wish you all of the success. And I better see this in the spill averse. You can put this on the spool of course.
Of course, so with people are showing up on spill, you know, given that it's still in beta, what kind of relationship do you hope to have with folks to us trying out the platform?
So, uh, we are building a reciprocal relationship with our community in Spill and that's never really been done before at this level either. And what that means specifically is an invitation for the community to give us feedback. And that's exactly what this beta stage allows us to do, right. It means, you know, communicate with us, not just help us find the bucks, but let us know what you'd
like to see. And I you know, I'm going to be starting, uh to engage with our creators on a much more you know, one to one level to really understand what types of you know, activities do you guys you know, want to be engaging in on and off platform, What types of tools do you need specifically when you create over here? What would make you want to create
over here? Like, we really want to build this space for UH, the creators who again are driving culture and having to figure out how to move around weird algorithms on other platforms.
UH.
We want we want to make sure that you feel centered and that the tech that you engage with on Spill feels like it was designed for you, because that's what we're doing. So we are inviting everybody to partake in this UH beta stage with us and give us this feedback in real time so that when we do make it to the Promised Land, we can look around and know exactly how we got here, linked left and arm with our cousins who helped us along the way.
So that's I'm so glad you added that, And it goes back to what you were saying about. You know, not every not everybody has had the experience of, you know, beta testing something, and so if you've never had a platform in beta before, or showed up to a platform in beta, this could be your first time to really see what that's about and really really help build the platform that you want to see. So I would urge listeners to really take you up on that.
Yeah, and brands too, you know, don't sleep, don't sleep brands would need to make their way to spill start engaging with the spill verse because we are curating it very intentionally. Like I've been saying, you know, a group of folks who we know and they know set the trends.
But to have us all gathered in one space at one time, celebs and notables mixed with content creators, mixed with journalists, mixed with you know, public figures, mixed with everyday folks, right, all in one beautiful gumbo is a very powerful thing and they know that. So we need everybody support to go the long haul. And Bridget, I'm so grateful to have yours.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for being here, kidiot, this was a dream. You are saying. You are such a good podcast guest. I can't even I'm so excited.
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi? You can read us at Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed. Creative Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review.
Us on Apple Podcasts.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Oh My very will