#those two things are kind of linked yeah it's called intersectionality

[atlantis-just-drowned]

Supporting aromantics and non-hierarchized love would actually benefits everyone including alloromantics btw. I would have been through far less traumas if people gave two shits about friendship.

[timalexanderdollery]

America’s sex education system is broken. This chatbot wants to be the solution.

Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that answers teens’ questions while maintaining their anonymity. | Planned Parenthood

Can a chatbot teach teens about sex? This episode of the Reset podcast uncovers alternatives to traditional sex ed.

US sex education is decades behind other countries. Right now, it isn’t even mandatory in every state. Add to that the awkwardness people feel about sex and bodies in general, top it with the idea of having to have these discussions in public, and what you get is a system that’s devolved into a total mess.

It’s no wonder 84 percent of teens look for sexual health information online. The problem there is that a lot of the answers they come across — about everything from STIs to puberty to pregnancy to sexual orientation — are often just plain wrong.

Naturally, tech wants to find a solution.

That’s how Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that encourages teenagers to ask all of their potentially uncomfortable sex-related without ever revealing their identity.

To build Roo, Ambreen Molitor, senior director of the Digital Product Lab at Planned Parenthood, first interviewed Brooklyn high school students about their online habits and what they would want out of a bot that talked to them about everything from safe sex to coming out. Her team discovered that above all, “teens really wanted to be anonymous.”

“Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms. But also online, because more often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. They’re very cognizant of what they type into the browser or the search query — which is really unique.”

In this episode, Molitor tells host Arielle Duhaime-Ross that Roo is seeing great success so far. Parents have even reached out on LinkedIn to praise her bot.

Of course, the complexities of human sexuality, specifically as they need to be explained to a developing and curious teenage population, can never be fully resolved through an anonymous computer that’s been preprogrammed with answers.

That’s where Nora Gelperin, a parent and longtime sex educator who’s currently the director of sexuality education and training at an organization called Advocates For Youth, comes in. She developed a sex ed video series called Amaze.

With over 80 installments on topics ranging from gender identity and sexual orientation to sex trafficking, intersectionality, puberty, and even wet dreams, Gelperin revealed that technology can be “really a great companion for adults, whether they’re parents and caregivers or professionals having these conversations.”

But don’t expect a chatbot like Roo or even an extensive and informative video series like Amaze to solve the problems that a lack of comprehensive sex education leave behind.

“I think that there is a lot of information that needs to be supplemented to any of those technology-based resources because they can’t talk about values, they can’t talk about what do you do if you think you want to have an abortion but your religion tells you you’re going to go to hell. Or what do you do if you think you’re committing a sin by masturbating. Those are the things where the technology is kind of limited,” Gelperin says.

Listen to the entire conversation here, where you can find out what a high-school-age person actually wants to be told about sex. Below, we’ve also shared a lightly edited transcript of Molitor’s conversation with Duhaime-Ross.

You can subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Kids and teens are hungry for this kind of information.

Ambreen Molitor

Almost 84 percent of teens actually look for sexual health information online. So our team built a sex ed chatbot named Roo. It’s only 9 months old. Very much in its infancy.

Roo allows folks, specifically teens, to anonymously ask all kinds of questions around sexual health information. The interface is very much like a text format. So Roo will prompt you, greet you, and allow you to have the open space to ask a question. It can be as short or as long as you want and Roo will respond to you in 180 characters or less.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

I’ve had pretty terrible experiences with chatbots and they don’t have the greatest track record in general. Maybe you remember Microsoft’s chatbot attempt a few years ago. They had to shut it down because Twitter managed to train it to be racist and misogynistic in less than 24 hours.

So when I heard about Roo, I was honestly pretty skeptical. I know Planned Parenthood is good at teaching people of all ages about sexual health but I wasn’t convinced the organization would have the tech chops to make a bot that didn’t suck. So I decided to put it to the test.

My experience with Roo wasn’t terrible. And that’s surprising. So I asked Planned Parenthood how they went about designing it.

Ambreen Molitor

How Roo works is three-fold.

First there is software that is built. It’s artificial intelligence, and the actual software that we use is called Natural Language Processing (NLP). For folks who are not familiar with what that does, it’s the same software that allows you to talk while you’re texting, it completes your word or completes your sentence.

That’s the same software we’re powering with Roo. So Roo is trained to anticipate the question and also anticipate the sentiment of the question to be able to answer it.

The second and third layer are human inputs.

The second input is we have a content strategist that comes in and ensures that the answers that we provide have that nonjudgmental tone. It provides the personality that brings Roo to life.

The third most important one is a team of educators that reviews each answer and ensures that it’s medically accurate and up to date.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Ambreen’s team talked to teens at a high school in Brooklyn about their online habits and what they wanted out of the bot.

Ambreen Molitor

Teens really wanted to be anonymous. Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms, but also online. More often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. So they’re very cognizant of what they type in the browser or search query, which is really unique.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood actually even has a texting service where you can talk to a sex ed professional directly. But now you’re developing a chat bot. So it sounds like you still feel a need to remove a human from the equation even further.

Ambreen Molitor

Yeah. That’s because at certain times we found that teens feel comfortable with talking to a bot because it eliminates some strong bias and they’re quick to open up to the actual questions they need to get to.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

According to Planned Parenthood, teens like using Roo because it protects their anonymity. And the fact that it comes in the form of a cute little avatar doesn’t hurt.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s gender-neutral. You cannot determine if it has a certain gender identity or even sexual orientation. If you take a long time to type something, Roo starts to like fall asleep and has some Z’s going over his head. And they love that. They’re like, “This avatar is actually paying attention to me. They’re taking the time to understand and connect with me in unique ways.”

Another thing we get so much feedback on is, “Not only is it great that I feel safe, but I also feel like this avatar really is listening and understanding my habits.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Does it have a human form or human shape?

Ambreen Molitor

It’s a blob. It’s just basically an avatar that’s a rounded rectangle with eyes and a mouth to provide gestures.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So it’s your friendly neighborhood sex ed blob.

Ambreen Molitor

Precisely. It winks, sleeps, snores, all of those things.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood doesn’t keep track of who uses Roo but users can opt in to share information about their age and race.

Ambreen Molitor

Of those people who opt in to provide that information, 80 percent of them have identified as teenagers. So it’s about 60-40 percent male to female and 2 percent other gender identities.

Almost 70 percent of the folks that we talked to — again, who have opted in to provide us information — are what we consider people of color. So they’re of a diverse background and race and ethnicity.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood also monitors the questions people ask Roo. And some of the subjects teens broach with Roo have been surprising.

Ambreen Molitor

Consent is a topic that we did not anticipate either from the learnings through visiting the high school or through the data that we were seeing from our website. Otherwise, we anticipated lots of questions around puberty and around those changes.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

“Is this normal ...”

Ambreen Molitor

Correct. The spectrum of normalcy is what every teen wants to understand, it’s where they live. Normal is very important to a teen. And that’s something we knew going into it.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

These are big, complex, heavy topics. How does Roo answer these questions in 180 characters?

Ambreen Molitor

We start off by describing consent. We say that there’s no one way to do it. And then we provide just an example or some guiding principles for that. Once we answer the question, we recognize that someone may want to go deeper. And we have link-outs to pages on our site and videos on how you can find or figure out different ways that people can ask for consent. So it goes one step deeper when 180 characters cannot fulfill the curiosity that someone has about that question.

Approximately 80 percent of the time, we’re answering the question correctly. A lot of it falls on two years worth of data and testing that we did. So we didn’t just launch it and go with it.

The other reality we need to call out is that machine learning is not 100 percent accurate. I think Roo’s very humble to say, “I’m not built to answer this question,” or, “I don’t understand it,” or, “I actually don’t think it’s appropriate for me to answer it.” And we’re really good about handing it off to a human.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So there are questions Roo can’t answer. Which means Planned Parenthood had to build in some guard rails. For instance, if someone appears to be in crisis, Roo will hand off the conversation to a mental health hotline.

Ambreen Molitor

The other time that Roo does handoffs is when there’s decision-making in mind. So the birth control question is a really good one where there are several different birth control methods and there’s not one directional way to suggest this birth control method that’s universally great. That’s where decision-making comes in. That’s an opportunity for Roo to understand that it’s best to hand it off to an educator.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

The feedback from teens seems to be positive so far. But there’s another demographic that Roo has also been attracting.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s so funny. Parents love this. I’ve actually had, anecdotally, parents reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, “Thank you so much for this bot.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

On LinkedIn — great place to talk about sex ed.

So Roo seems to be a surprisingly not-terrible chatbot. But when I think about Roo, I honestly feel kind of sad. Because I see why teens might prefer to use Roo rather than turn to an adult for help. And that makes me wonder:

Why is sex ed so broken? And is Roo really the solution?

For the answers to these questions and many more, listen to the full episode and subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Qs1Mvy

[gracieyvonnehunter]

America’s sex education system is broken. This chatbot wants to be the solution.

Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that answers teens’ questions while maintaining their anonymity. | Planned Parenthood

Can a chatbot teach teens about sex? This episode of the Reset podcast uncovers alternatives to traditional sex ed.

US sex education is decades behind other countries. Right now, it isn’t even mandatory in every state. Add to that the awkwardness people feel about sex and bodies in general, top it with the idea of having to have these discussions in public, and what you get is a system that’s devolved into a total mess.

It’s no wonder 84 percent of teens look for sexual health information online. The problem there is that a lot of the answers they come across — about everything from STIs to puberty to pregnancy to sexual orientation — are often just plain wrong.

Naturally, tech wants to find a solution.

That’s how Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that encourages teenagers to ask all of their potentially uncomfortable sex-related without ever revealing their identity.

To build Roo, Ambreen Molitor, senior director of the Digital Product Lab at Planned Parenthood, first interviewed Brooklyn high school students about their online habits and what they would want out of a bot that talked to them about everything from safe sex to coming out. Her team discovered that above all, “teens really wanted to be anonymous.”

“Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms. But also online, because more often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. They’re very cognizant of what they type into the browser or the search query — which is really unique.”

In this episode, Molitor tells host Arielle Duhaime-Ross that Roo is seeing great success so far. Parents have even reached out on LinkedIn to praise her bot.

Of course, the complexities of human sexuality, specifically as they need to be explained to a developing and curious teenage population, can never be fully resolved through an anonymous computer that’s been preprogrammed with answers.

That’s where Nora Gelperin, a parent and longtime sex educator who’s currently the director of sexuality education and training at an organization called Advocates For Youth, comes in. She developed a sex ed video series called Amaze.

With over 80 installments on topics ranging from gender identity and sexual orientation to sex trafficking, intersectionality, puberty, and even wet dreams, Gelperin revealed that technology can be “really a great companion for adults, whether they’re parents and caregivers or professionals having these conversations.”

But don’t expect a chatbot like Roo or even an extensive and informative video series like Amaze to solve the problems that a lack of comprehensive sex education leave behind.

“I think that there is a lot of information that needs to be supplemented to any of those technology-based resources because they can’t talk about values, they can’t talk about what do you do if you think you want to have an abortion but your religion tells you you’re going to go to hell. Or what do you do if you think you’re committing a sin by masturbating. Those are the things where the technology is kind of limited,” Gelperin says.

Listen to the entire conversation here, where you can find out what a high-school-age person actually wants to be told about sex. Below, we’ve also shared a lightly edited transcript of Molitor’s conversation with Duhaime-Ross.

You can subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Kids and teens are hungry for this kind of information.

Ambreen Molitor

Almost 84 percent of teens actually look for sexual health information online. So our team built a sex ed chatbot named Roo. It’s only 9 months old. Very much in its infancy.

Roo allows folks, specifically teens, to anonymously ask all kinds of questions around sexual health information. The interface is very much like a text format. So Roo will prompt you, greet you, and allow you to have the open space to ask a question. It can be as short or as long as you want and Roo will respond to you in 180 characters or less.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

I’ve had pretty terrible experiences with chatbots and they don’t have the greatest track record in general. Maybe you remember Microsoft’s chatbot attempt a few years ago. They had to shut it down because Twitter managed to train it to be racist and misogynistic in less than 24 hours.

So when I heard about Roo, I was honestly pretty skeptical. I know Planned Parenthood is good at teaching people of all ages about sexual health but I wasn’t convinced the organization would have the tech chops to make a bot that didn’t suck. So I decided to put it to the test.

My experience with Roo wasn’t terrible. And that’s surprising. So I asked Planned Parenthood how they went about designing it.

Ambreen Molitor

How Roo works is three-fold.

First there is software that is built. It’s artificial intelligence, and the actual software that we use is called Natural Language Processing (NLP). For folks who are not familiar with what that does, it’s the same software that allows you to talk while you’re texting, it completes your word or completes your sentence.

That’s the same software we’re powering with Roo. So Roo is trained to anticipate the question and also anticipate the sentiment of the question to be able to answer it.

The second and third layer are human inputs.

The second input is we have a content strategist that comes in and ensures that the answers that we provide have that nonjudgmental tone. It provides the personality that brings Roo to life.

The third most important one is a team of educators that reviews each answer and ensures that it’s medically accurate and up to date.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Ambreen’s team talked to teens at a high school in Brooklyn about their online habits and what they wanted out of the bot.

Ambreen Molitor

Teens really wanted to be anonymous. Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms, but also online. More often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. So they’re very cognizant of what they type in the browser or search query, which is really unique.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood actually even has a texting service where you can talk to a sex ed professional directly. But now you’re developing a chat bot. So it sounds like you still feel a need to remove a human from the equation even further.

Ambreen Molitor

Yeah. That’s because at certain times we found that teens feel comfortable with talking to a bot because it eliminates some strong bias and they’re quick to open up to the actual questions they need to get to.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

According to Planned Parenthood, teens like using Roo because it protects their anonymity. And the fact that it comes in the form of a cute little avatar doesn’t hurt.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s gender-neutral. You cannot determine if it has a certain gender identity or even sexual orientation. If you take a long time to type something, Roo starts to like fall asleep and has some Z’s going over his head. And they love that. They’re like, “This avatar is actually paying attention to me. They’re taking the time to understand and connect with me in unique ways.”

Another thing we get so much feedback on is, “Not only is it great that I feel safe, but I also feel like this avatar really is listening and understanding my habits.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Does it have a human form or human shape?

Ambreen Molitor

It’s a blob. It’s just basically an avatar that’s a rounded rectangle with eyes and a mouth to provide gestures.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So it’s your friendly neighborhood sex ed blob.

Ambreen Molitor

Precisely. It winks, sleeps, snores, all of those things.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood doesn’t keep track of who uses Roo but users can opt in to share information about their age and race.

Ambreen Molitor

Of those people who opt in to provide that information, 80 percent of them have identified as teenagers. So it’s about 60-40 percent male to female and 2 percent other gender identities.

Almost 70 percent of the folks that we talked to — again, who have opted in to provide us information — are what we consider people of color. So they’re of a diverse background and race and ethnicity.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood also monitors the questions people ask Roo. And some of the subjects teens broach with Roo have been surprising.

Ambreen Molitor

Consent is a topic that we did not anticipate either from the learnings through visiting the high school or through the data that we were seeing from our website. Otherwise, we anticipated lots of questions around puberty and around those changes.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

“Is this normal ...”

Ambreen Molitor

Correct. The spectrum of normalcy is what every teen wants to understand, it’s where they live. Normal is very important to a teen. And that’s something we knew going into it.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

These are big, complex, heavy topics. How does Roo answer these questions in 180 characters?

Ambreen Molitor

We start off by describing consent. We say that there’s no one way to do it. And then we provide just an example or some guiding principles for that. Once we answer the question, we recognize that someone may want to go deeper. And we have link-outs to pages on our site and videos on how you can find or figure out different ways that people can ask for consent. So it goes one step deeper when 180 characters cannot fulfill the curiosity that someone has about that question.

Approximately 80 percent of the time, we’re answering the question correctly. A lot of it falls on two years worth of data and testing that we did. So we didn’t just launch it and go with it.

The other reality we need to call out is that machine learning is not 100 percent accurate. I think Roo’s very humble to say, “I’m not built to answer this question,” or, “I don’t understand it,” or, “I actually don’t think it’s appropriate for me to answer it.” And we’re really good about handing it off to a human.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So there are questions Roo can’t answer. Which means Planned Parenthood had to build in some guard rails. For instance, if someone appears to be in crisis, Roo will hand off the conversation to a mental health hotline.

Ambreen Molitor

The other time that Roo does handoffs is when there’s decision-making in mind. So the birth control question is a really good one where there are several different birth control methods and there’s not one directional way to suggest this birth control method that’s universally great. That’s where decision-making comes in. That’s an opportunity for Roo to understand that it’s best to hand it off to an educator.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

The feedback from teens seems to be positive so far. But there’s another demographic that Roo has also been attracting.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s so funny. Parents love this. I’ve actually had, anecdotally, parents reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, “Thank you so much for this bot.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

On LinkedIn — great place to talk about sex ed.

So Roo seems to be a surprisingly not-terrible chatbot. But when I think about Roo, I honestly feel kind of sad. Because I see why teens might prefer to use Roo rather than turn to an adult for help. And that makes me wonder:

Why is sex ed so broken? And is Roo really the solution?

For the answers to these questions and many more, listen to the full episode and subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Qs1Mvy

[shanedakotamuir]

America’s sex education system is broken. This chatbot wants to be the solution.

Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that answers teens’ questions while maintaining their anonymity. | Planned Parenthood

Can a chatbot teach teens about sex? This episode of the Reset podcast uncovers alternatives to traditional sex ed.

US sex education is decades behind other countries. Right now, it isn’t even mandatory in every state. Add to that the awkwardness people feel about sex and bodies in general, top it with the idea of having to have these discussions in public, and what you get is a system that’s devolved into a total mess.

It’s no wonder 84 percent of teens look for sexual health information online. The problem there is that a lot of the answers they come across — about everything from STIs to puberty to pregnancy to sexual orientation — are often just plain wrong.

Naturally, tech wants to find a solution.

That’s how Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that encourages teenagers to ask all of their potentially uncomfortable sex-related without ever revealing their identity.

To build Roo, Ambreen Molitor, senior director of the Digital Product Lab at Planned Parenthood, first interviewed Brooklyn high school students about their online habits and what they would want out of a bot that talked to them about everything from safe sex to coming out. Her team discovered that above all, “teens really wanted to be anonymous.”

“Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms. But also online, because more often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. They’re very cognizant of what they type into the browser or the search query — which is really unique.”

In this episode, Molitor tells host Arielle Duhaime-Ross that Roo is seeing great success so far. Parents have even reached out on LinkedIn to praise her bot.

Of course, the complexities of human sexuality, specifically as they need to be explained to a developing and curious teenage population, can never be fully resolved through an anonymous computer that’s been preprogrammed with answers.

That’s where Nora Gelperin, a parent and longtime sex educator who’s currently the director of sexuality education and training at an organization called Advocates For Youth, comes in. She developed a sex ed video series called Amaze.

With over 80 installments on topics ranging from gender identity and sexual orientation to sex trafficking, intersectionality, puberty, and even wet dreams, Gelperin revealed that technology can be “really a great companion for adults, whether they’re parents and caregivers or professionals having these conversations.”

But don’t expect a chatbot like Roo or even an extensive and informative video series like Amaze to solve the problems that a lack of comprehensive sex education leave behind.

“I think that there is a lot of information that needs to be supplemented to any of those technology-based resources because they can’t talk about values, they can’t talk about what do you do if you think you want to have an abortion but your religion tells you you’re going to go to hell. Or what do you do if you think you’re committing a sin by masturbating. Those are the things where the technology is kind of limited,” Gelperin says.

Listen to the entire conversation here, where you can find out what a high-school-age person actually wants to be told about sex. Below, we’ve also shared a lightly edited transcript of Molitor’s conversation with Duhaime-Ross.

You can subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Kids and teens are hungry for this kind of information.

Ambreen Molitor

Almost 84 percent of teens actually look for sexual health information online. So our team built a sex ed chatbot named Roo. It’s only 9 months old. Very much in its infancy.

Roo allows folks, specifically teens, to anonymously ask all kinds of questions around sexual health information. The interface is very much like a text format. So Roo will prompt you, greet you, and allow you to have the open space to ask a question. It can be as short or as long as you want and Roo will respond to you in 180 characters or less.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

I’ve had pretty terrible experiences with chatbots and they don’t have the greatest track record in general. Maybe you remember Microsoft’s chatbot attempt a few years ago. They had to shut it down because Twitter managed to train it to be racist and misogynistic in less than 24 hours.

So when I heard about Roo, I was honestly pretty skeptical. I know Planned Parenthood is good at teaching people of all ages about sexual health but I wasn’t convinced the organization would have the tech chops to make a bot that didn’t suck. So I decided to put it to the test.

My experience with Roo wasn’t terrible. And that’s surprising. So I asked Planned Parenthood how they went about designing it.

Ambreen Molitor

How Roo works is three-fold.

First there is software that is built. It’s artificial intelligence, and the actual software that we use is called Natural Language Processing (NLP). For folks who are not familiar with what that does, it’s the same software that allows you to talk while you’re texting, it completes your word or completes your sentence.

That’s the same software we’re powering with Roo. So Roo is trained to anticipate the question and also anticipate the sentiment of the question to be able to answer it.

The second and third layer are human inputs.

The second input is we have a content strategist that comes in and ensures that the answers that we provide have that nonjudgmental tone. It provides the personality that brings Roo to life.

The third most important one is a team of educators that reviews each answer and ensures that it’s medically accurate and up to date.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Ambreen’s team talked to teens at a high school in Brooklyn about their online habits and what they wanted out of the bot.

Ambreen Molitor

Teens really wanted to be anonymous. Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms, but also online. More often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. So they’re very cognizant of what they type in the browser or search query, which is really unique.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood actually even has a texting service where you can talk to a sex ed professional directly. But now you’re developing a chat bot. So it sounds like you still feel a need to remove a human from the equation even further.

Ambreen Molitor

Yeah. That’s because at certain times we found that teens feel comfortable with talking to a bot because it eliminates some strong bias and they’re quick to open up to the actual questions they need to get to.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

According to Planned Parenthood, teens like using Roo because it protects their anonymity. And the fact that it comes in the form of a cute little avatar doesn’t hurt.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s gender-neutral. You cannot determine if it has a certain gender identity or even sexual orientation. If you take a long time to type something, Roo starts to like fall asleep and has some Z’s going over his head. And they love that. They’re like, “This avatar is actually paying attention to me. They’re taking the time to understand and connect with me in unique ways.”

Another thing we get so much feedback on is, “Not only is it great that I feel safe, but I also feel like this avatar really is listening and understanding my habits.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Does it have a human form or human shape?

Ambreen Molitor

It’s a blob. It’s just basically an avatar that’s a rounded rectangle with eyes and a mouth to provide gestures.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So it’s your friendly neighborhood sex ed blob.

Ambreen Molitor

Precisely. It winks, sleeps, snores, all of those things.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood doesn’t keep track of who uses Roo but users can opt in to share information about their age and race.

Ambreen Molitor

Of those people who opt in to provide that information, 80 percent of them have identified as teenagers. So it’s about 60-40 percent male to female and 2 percent other gender identities.

Almost 70 percent of the folks that we talked to — again, who have opted in to provide us information — are what we consider people of color. So they’re of a diverse background and race and ethnicity.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

Planned Parenthood also monitors the questions people ask Roo. And some of the subjects teens broach with Roo have been surprising.

Ambreen Molitor

Consent is a topic that we did not anticipate either from the learnings through visiting the high school or through the data that we were seeing from our website. Otherwise, we anticipated lots of questions around puberty and around those changes.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

“Is this normal ...”

Ambreen Molitor

Correct. The spectrum of normalcy is what every teen wants to understand, it’s where they live. Normal is very important to a teen. And that’s something we knew going into it.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

These are big, complex, heavy topics. How does Roo answer these questions in 180 characters?

Ambreen Molitor

We start off by describing consent. We say that there’s no one way to do it. And then we provide just an example or some guiding principles for that. Once we answer the question, we recognize that someone may want to go deeper. And we have link-outs to pages on our site and videos on how you can find or figure out different ways that people can ask for consent. So it goes one step deeper when 180 characters cannot fulfill the curiosity that someone has about that question.

Approximately 80 percent of the time, we’re answering the question correctly. A lot of it falls on two years worth of data and testing that we did. So we didn’t just launch it and go with it.

The other reality we need to call out is that machine learning is not 100 percent accurate. I think Roo’s very humble to say, “I’m not built to answer this question,” or, “I don’t understand it,” or, “I actually don’t think it’s appropriate for me to answer it.” And we’re really good about handing it off to a human.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

So there are questions Roo can’t answer. Which means Planned Parenthood had to build in some guard rails. For instance, if someone appears to be in crisis, Roo will hand off the conversation to a mental health hotline.

Ambreen Molitor

The other time that Roo does handoffs is when there’s decision-making in mind. So the birth control question is a really good one where there are several different birth control methods and there’s not one directional way to suggest this birth control method that’s universally great. That’s where decision-making comes in. That’s an opportunity for Roo to understand that it’s best to hand it off to an educator.

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

The feedback from teens seems to be positive so far. But there’s another demographic that Roo has also been attracting.

Ambreen Molitor

It’s so funny. Parents love this. I’ve actually had, anecdotally, parents reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, “Thank you so much for this bot.”

Arielle Duhaime-Ross

On LinkedIn — great place to talk about sex ed.

So Roo seems to be a surprisingly not-terrible chatbot. But when I think about Roo, I honestly feel kind of sad. Because I see why teens might prefer to use Roo rather than turn to an adult for help. And that makes me wonder:

Why is sex ed so broken? And is Roo really the solution?

For the answers to these questions and many more, listen to the full episode and subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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[windwardstar]

1, 5, 8, 20, 21, 22, 33, 35, 41, 44 for the Trans Asks

1. How did you choose your name?

I found this one generator that let you put in your name and year of birth and it would pick the name in the same spot as yours in popularity for a specific year that I forget. But it came up with Acey and I just love that name, and it clicked, but then I was like “I’m ace though, I can’t be named Acey” (I totally love it though as a nickname still jsyk if anyone feels the urge to call me that, it’s totally cool). And then I found a link to the US census archives that went back WAY far, and I started going through those and just looking at all the names that existed in the 1800′s and the turn of the century. And Osie (also Ocie) was there for both a boy and a girl’s name but really low on the list.  And then it fell off the list. I think there’s like one person living with the name right now.

But since it’s not really one that people living now really know anyone with, they don’t have any gender attached to their mental framework of the name. Which is great. Because I don’t have any gender attached to me.

Plus it can be shortened to Os which is very nicely a clear shortened nickname that gives away no gender.

5. What was the first time you suspected you were transgender?

The first time I suspected I was trans/considered the idea that I belonged to the label of “trans” was in high school when I read a book called Parrotfish (it was not in fact about fish as I was hoping since I just grabbed it based on the title and cover. It was about a trans man high school student). Well I related A LOT to like everything the character went through and also discovered what being trans was. Although I didn’t know if I qualified as trans or not because I didn’t feel like I was a boy but I knew I wasn’t a girl. So much like my orientation at the time I thought I just wasn’t anything.

8. How would you explain your gender identity to others?

“You know how computers have chips and stuff that you can code various things for them? Well I just never got the gender chip. And my processing server doesn’t really quite understand the concept either. So there’s like two levels of “does not compute error 404 gender not found” going on.

20. What do you wish you could have shared with your younger self about being trans?

You can have no gender. Also, the sooner you embrace that, the sooner you’ll feel more comfortable in your body and with your appearance. And yeah, you’ll still feel uncomfortable with certain things, but you’ll have a name for it, and it’s called dysphoria.

21. Why do you use the pronouns you use?

Ease of use. I’m used to responding to she/her and it also makes me feel not misgendered when people use she/her for me since I have those as my pronouns. (I am very much NOT OUT to anyone in real life so I can’t exactly ask anyone to change my pronouns.)

22. Do your neurodivergencies affect your gender?

OH yeah. I know being autistic definitely impacts how I understand gender as a social construct.

And then PTSD and other mental illnesses have definitely impacted the way I mentally relate to myself. It’s kind of hard to feel like I have any sense of gender when I’m struggling with the concept of existing. Woo disassociation.

33. What trans issue are you most passionate about?

I don’t really know.

35. How do you feel your gender interacts with your race, disability, class, weight, etc. from the perspective of intersectionality?

Well, my mental illness and neurodivergencies already play a role as mentioned above. As an asexual aromantic and autistic person who is also rather short (5 ft) who I am combines a lot of identities that are stereotyped as being immature or childish. How I dress to best reflect my lack of gender is generally an attempt to hide my hips and chest, which tends to make me look younger than I am. So basically everything acts to make people think I am younger than I am and treat me like a child, which is often really trying for me to deal with and has made me wonder if my friends and peers see me as a child or even the people I work with where I am managment and don’t get as much respect.

41. What is the place (blog, website, forum, IRL space) you get most of your info on being trans or on trans related things?

Tumblr.

44. Free space! Answer any question you want, or make up your own question to answer.

... yeah, Idk.

[queerascat]

the #Jughead mess masterpost

this post marks the last time i’ll be responding to asks about / reblogs of the post i made about the fight for Jughead’s correct portrayal on the CW’s Riverdale. after 3 days of responding to nearly 15 asks / posts on the topic and the anxiety that that has caused me on top of everything else going on in my life, i’m calling it quits on that post. while i still stand by the admittedly unclear point that i was attempting to make, i do apologize to those who were hurt by my unclear wording. i’m also done with talking about asexual representation in general or fandom-related anything anymore. while i appreciate the kind words of encouragement i received, it’s not worth the cost to my mental health to talk about even my own representation anymore.

this post serves as both a future point of reference on the mess that took place on this blog and as a “self-serve” response to the future questions, accusations etc i’ll inevitably receive.

if you’re seeing this post because i linked you to it instead of actually responding to you, sorry not sorry. i’ve already tried my best and am now out of “best” to give. chances are the answer to your question(s) / response to your accusations can be found here. help yourself.

original post: what you mean is “keep Jughead true to character”

questions / accusations / responses: (quotes are not always direct)

“jughead is aro too holy shit.”

“i understand what you’re saying, but i’m upset because Jughead won’t be asexual.”

“…you trying to act like aces (and aros) are reacting to these news wrong bc they are not rejecting the idea that asexual ppl can’t do romance at all is honestly nonsense bc jughead is not only asexual, he is aromantic…” ie. why i chose not to explicitly refer to Jughead as aromantic & why my post was only about (his) asexuality.

“I appreciate that you voiced the separation between ace and aro…”

“it makes sense to shorten [keep Jugehead true to character] to “keep him ace"”

“My main concern is that the media is really bad with asexual representation, so my immediate thought is that since they’re giving him romances, it’s less of a "find yourself” journey and more of a “he’s straight now” situation.” ie. i also think CW is probably going to fuck up and portray Jughead as heteroromantic heterosexual.

the submission to Fuck Yeah Asexual by the anon i pissed off

“it is CLEAR from his wording that he means aromantic asexual and yet here you are, trying to strip this rep from us. you couldn’t have chosen a worse character to talk about while raising your flag of diverse ace rep, you arophobe.” ie. my usage of “character” was not meant to treat Jughead’s sexuality as a personality quark and i understand that aromanticism can be an intrinsic part of a person’s asexuality, but why does that forbid me from talking about only one section of that intersectionality?

“So what if aroaces want to conflate asexuality with aromanticism? How dare you demand that I be two pasted together orientations, actually.” ie. i still don’t understand how i did this and would still love to get some clarity on this (i suspect i understand, but?), but at this point am calling it quits on this particular post.

“how can you say aro aces have plenty of representation compared to romantic aces??? When have aces ever been explicitly aromantic in the media???”

“I’m not fighting for any “One True Asexual Narrative”, I’m fighting for Jughead’s Asexual Narrative. I am fighting for the narrative that could allow others to empathize with me, and give me something to relate to so I don’t feel like shit about my asexuality after watching too much TV. Please don’t attack us for wanting to see people like ourselves on TV, thanks. There is a huge difference between wanting to see someone like yourself and wanting “one true asexual narrative”–I honesetly do not understand how you came to this conclusion, this is one example, and there really are not any others in this medium? so how is there a pattern?” ie. yeah, fucked up and should have been clearer and not suggested that people are of a hivemind and are all fighting for a singular thing for a singular reason. that said, the pattern i spoke of does exist and here are some examples of it.

“You have no right to be upset, no one even did the stuff you’re claiming. Your reaction to Jughead’s erased aromanticism is “and?” You didn’t even care and that really hurt and made me feel attacked. I see the pattern you spoke of, but that has nothing to do with Jughead because he is canon ace and all those other examples are headcanons. Aces fighting for an already ace character to stay ace (in a way that includes his aromantic tendencies) is nothing like your examples.” ie.  ……once again, no matter how intersectional your or Jughead’s asexuality might be, my post was about one thing and one thing only and that was not aromanticism. it’d be nice if people would acknowledge that. also, there is a pattern with Jughead that ties into what i spoke of and the pattern affects more than just asexuals. 

“It still sounds a lot like you honestly think romantic aces are the ones being erased. My problem with this is that aro aces and especially allo aros are erased so much of the time in ace communities, yet when aro aces make something about them romantic aces scream erasure while completely ignoring the context.” ie. i do not think that romantic aces are “the ones” being erased. i was attempting to point out that more than one group of asexuals can be hurt by something, that the response to something hurtful can in and of itself also be hurtful to others if we are not careful. nothing i said was even about aromantic vs romantic aces and aces aren’t even the only ones being hurt.

or you could just browse my entire #Jughead tag in chronological order.

[biofunmy]

Rebel Girls – The New York Times

And a few boys, too. When riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill played their first New York show in 22 years, these are the fans who showed up — one as early as noon and two who hadn’t told their parents. Hi mom and dad!

Photographs by Nina Westervelt

Produced by Anya Strzemien

Interviews by Sharon Attia

June 7, 2019

If the end of this decade is memorialized as a time when women got really angry, and then even angrier, the music of Bikini Kill could provide the soundtrack.

The feminist punk band — credited with helping to launch the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s and writing its anthem, “Rebel Girl” — hadn’t played since the band broke up in 1997. But they reunited this spring for two shows in Los Angeles and four in New York. Next week will bring two more in London.

A lot had happened in those 22 years. And yet, the sound of thrashing instruments and women screaming seems more relevant than ever. As the critic Evelyn McDonnell put it: “The return of Bikini Kill feels less like a blast from the past and more like a superhero’s intervention.”

Here are a few of the fans — many of them surprisingly young, from places as far-flung as Minneapolis, Montreal and Florida — who attended the first New York gig on May 31 at Brooklyn Steel. They had all come in search of a good time (actual moshing and crowd-surfing included) and to witness a history-making moment.

These interviews have been edited and condensed, and profanity has been removed (sorry, not very punk of us). A few follow-up questions were asked later over email or DM.

Kayla Brooke, 27

Montreal

How early did you get here?

Noon.

You’re basically third in line.

Yeah. The other couple was here before us and they’re such angels. It’s very community feeling.

Would you consider yourself a riot grrrl?

Yes, but a modern riot grrrl, so a little bit more intersectional, if you will. That’s something that’s huge for me in my feminism: intersectionality. Because if we’re not talking about all those things then what are we doing? If our spaces are just for white women, then we’re not really creating safe spaces.

Bria Bisono, 21, and Xavier Medina, 19

Florida

Did you fly or drive to New York?

Xavier: We flew. We bought the tickets at the end of January. I was like, “It’ll be cool, I’ll come with you. I know they’re cool.”

Bria: We didn’t even ask our parents. We just booked it.

Alison Mop, 19

New York, N.Y.

How did you get into Bikini Kill?

Probably from YouTube, to be honest.

And what’s the name of your band?

How long have you liked Bikini Kill?

I’ve liked them for a while actually. I was a teenage punk girl, so they were always a big influence for me. I never actually thought that I would see them live, so this is an opportunity I couldn’t miss.

What about their music do you love?

I’ve always loved punk rock because it was a really inclusive movement, and as a handicapped person I was always welcome and felt safe in that spot. And when I found out there was a feminist movement within the punk movement, I was attracted to it. And I found this band and was like, this woman is my hero. Kathleen Hanna is great.

Molly Schnick, 40, and Nic Offer, 46

New York, N.Y.

Is this your first Bikini Kill concert?

Molly: No.

Finally! When did you see them last?

My former band played shows with them in 1994.

What was your former band?

We were called the Tourettes.

Olivia Linnen, 18

Bronx, N.Y.

and Leila Roberts, 18

New York, N.Y.

How long have you been into Bikini Kill?

Leila: Probably since I was 8 or something. My parents grew up listening to punk and stuff, so I grew up listening to it as well. And then I put her on to it when we became friends in high school. And then I started showing her stuff when she was 16. So this is her first punk show.

Did you grow up going to punk shows with your parents?

Yeah, for sure, totally.

Are they here?

No, they’re not.

Heather Hildreth (a.k.a. “Siouxsie Cupcakes”), 34 and Naomi Parnes (a.k.a. “Siren Sixxkiller”), 28

Denver, Colo.

How long have you two been friends?

Naomi: Our best friend title became official sometime in 2016 after we performed our “Wayne’s World” burlesque act for the first time, but that’s an entirely different tangent. One of us was like, hey, I’ve been calling you my best friend lately, that cool with you? And the other of us was like, yeah I’ve been doing the same, should we send out an announcement or something?

Do you consider yourselves riot grrrls?

I can’t officially speak for both of us — our telepathy isn’t quite that honed yet — but I have a feeling I know that Heather would say the same as me, which is unequivocally yasss, I consider myself a riot grrrl. It’s been a label I’ve been inspired by for many years.

Your mohawks* are cool. What���s the story behind them?

Thank you! I definitely enjoy having a mohawk, even though it’s the most high-maintenance hairstyle I’ve ever attempted to maintain. I’m Cherokee and Jewish, so my hair genetics are strong and mighty — even with half of it shaved off on the sides, there’s still just so much of it to control.

*pictured at the top of the article

Daniel Abbott, 34, and Jen Varani, 37

Raleigh, N.C.

What does riot grrrl mean to you?

Daniel: I knew that it wasn’t specifically for me as a male, but as a queer boy they were singing to things that I was experiencing. I was experiencing bad dudes, I was experiencing people critiquing my appearance, and so it still resonated with me.

Morgan Mitchell, 23

Cincinnati, OH

Is that a Daria tattoo on your leg?

Yeah, it says, “You’re standing on my neck.”

And what’s the other one?

This is like a Joan Jett/Siouxsie Sioux punk girl.

And what’s she holding?

It’s a switchblade, and it says “Rebel Girl.” So, a Bikini Kill reference.

Tiffani Argentina (a.k.a. “Gemini Blitz”), 29 and Torrie Ogilvie (a.k.a “Torrie Rose”), 31

Brooklyn, N.Y.

What is it about riot grrrl that you like?

Tiffani: Female solidarity.

Torrie: It’s really especially impactful at this time in our country’s history.

What’s your favorite Bikini Kill song?

Tiffani: I would have to say “Rebel Girl.” It’s an anthem! It’s just like, “We’re girls and we want to be cute and we want to have fun but also don’t mess with us.” That’s the kind of spirit that I like to embody on a daily basis.

Chloe Smith, 18, and Anna Murphy, 16

Red Hook, N.Y.

So, given your age, this is obviously your first Bikini Kill concert. How’d you get into them?

Chloe: In ninth grade, because I was watching “Portlandia” and then I became obsessed with Carrie Brownstein and I was like, all right Sleater-Kinney kind of goes, so then I like dove too hard into “Rebel Girl” kind of stuff. I did a presentation on it.

Angelica Moreno, 27, and Bobby Bosak, 32

West Palm Beach, FL

How long have you been into Bikini Kill?

Angelica: Since high school, so I was probably like 14 when I got introduced to them.

Bobby: When I started getting into punk music, about 17 or 18 or something like that.

Cool. What is it about their music that you like?

Angelica: I don’t know. It’s just like the message that they portray and like hell yeah, women. I just love everything about it.

Bobby: What she said.

Danielle Cusack, 22

Minneapolis, MN

Why do you think this reunion is important?

I think it’s important because there’s generations of people here. At the L.A. show there was a little girl on the shoulders of her father watching Bikini Kill. It was so heartwarming and amazing to see that this tradition is being continued. And I think it’s always important for people to see women on stage who are angry. Because we’re constantly told that we have to contain our anger or we have to be sad.

What are you angry about?

Everything. For real.

Sahred From Source link Fashion and Style

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[biofunmy]

Rebel Girls – The New York Times

And a few boys, too. When riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill played their first New York show in 22 years, these are the fans who showed up — one as early as noon and two who hadn’t told their parents. Hi mom and dad!

Photographs by Nina Westervelt

Produced by Anya Strzemien

Interviews by Sharon Attia

June 7, 2019

If the end of this decade is memorialized as a time when women got really angry, and then even angrier, the music of Bikini Kill could provide the soundtrack.

The feminist punk band — credited with helping to launch the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s and writing its anthem, “Rebel Girl” — hadn’t played since the band broke up in 1997. But they reunited this spring for two shows in Los Angeles and four in New York. Next week will bring two more in London.

A lot had happened in those 22 years. And yet, the sound of thrashing instruments and women screaming seems more relevant than ever. As the critic Evelyn McDonnell put it: “The return of Bikini Kill feels less like a blast from the past and more like a superhero’s intervention.”

Here are a few of the fans — many of them surprisingly young, from places as far-flung as Minneapolis, Montreal and Florida — who attended the first New York gig on May 31 at Brooklyn Steel. They had all come in search of a good time (actual moshing and crowd-surfing included) and to witness a history-making moment.

These interviews have been edited and condensed, and profanity has been removed (sorry, not very punk of us). A few follow-up questions were asked later over email or DM.

Kayla Brooke, 27

Montreal

How early did you get here?

Noon.

You’re basically third in line.

Yeah. The other couple was here before us and they’re such angels. It’s very community feeling.

Would you consider yourself a riot grrrl?

Yes, but a modern riot grrrl, so a little bit more intersectional, if you will. That’s something that’s huge for me in my feminism: intersectionality. Because if we’re not talking about all those things then what are we doing? If our spaces are just for white women, then we’re not really creating safe spaces.

Bria Bisono, 21, and Xavier Medina, 19

Florida

Did you fly or drive to New York?

Xavier: We flew. We bought the tickets at the end of January. I was like, “It’ll be cool, I’ll come with you. I know they’re cool.”

Bria: We didn’t even ask our parents. We just booked it.

Alison Mop, 19

New York, N.Y.

How did you get into Bikini Kill?

Probably from YouTube, to be honest.

And what’s the name of your band?

How long have you liked Bikini Kill?

I’ve liked them for a while actually. I was a teenage punk girl, so they were always a big influence for me. I never actually thought that I would see them live, so this is an opportunity I couldn’t miss.

What about their music do you love?

I’ve always loved punk rock because it was a really inclusive movement, and as a handicapped person I was always welcome and felt safe in that spot. And when I found out there was a feminist movement within the punk movement, I was attracted to it. And I found this band and was like, this woman is my hero. Kathleen Hanna is great.

Molly Schnick, 40, and Nic Offer, 46

New York, N.Y.

Is this your first Bikini Kill concert?

Molly: No.

Finally! When did you see them last?

My former band played shows with them in 1994.

What was your former band?

We were called the Tourettes.

Olivia Linnen, 18

Bronx, N.Y.

and Leila Roberts, 18

New York, N.Y.

How long have you been into Bikini Kill?

Leila: Probably since I was 8 or something. My parents grew up listening to punk and stuff, so I grew up listening to it as well. And then I put her on to it when we became friends in high school. And then I started showing her stuff when she was 16. So this is her first punk show.

Did you grow up going to punk shows with your parents?

Yeah, for sure, totally.

Are they here?

No, they’re not.

Heather Hildreth (a.k.a. “Siouxsie Cupcakes”), 34 and Naomi Parnes (a.k.a. “Siren Sixxkiller”), 28

Denver, Colo.

How long have you two been friends?

Naomi: Our best friend title became official sometime in 2016 after we performed our “Wayne’s World” burlesque act for the first time, but that’s an entirely different tangent. One of us was like, hey, I’ve been calling you my best friend lately, that cool with you? And the other of us was like, yeah I’ve been doing the same, should we send out an announcement or something?

Do you consider yourselves riot grrrls?

I can’t officially speak for both of us — our telepathy isn’t quite that honed yet — but I have a feeling I know that Heather would say the same as me, which is unequivocally yasss, I consider myself a riot grrrl. It’s been a label I’ve been inspired by for many years.

Your mohawks* are cool. What’s the story behind them?

Thank you! I definitely enjoy having a mohawk, even though it’s the most high-maintenance hairstyle I’ve ever attempted to maintain. I’m Cherokee and Jewish, so my hair genetics are strong and mighty — even with half of it shaved off on the sides, there’s still just so much of it to control.

*pictured at the top of the article

Daniel Abbott, 34, and Jen Varani, 37

Raleigh, N.C.

What does riot grrrl mean to you?

Daniel: I knew that it wasn’t specifically for me as a male, but as a queer boy they were singing to things that I was experiencing. I was experiencing bad dudes, I was experiencing people critiquing my appearance, and so it still resonated with me.

Morgan Mitchell, 23

Cincinnati, OH

Is that a Daria tattoo on your leg?

Yeah, it says, “You’re standing on my neck.”

And what’s the other one?

This is like a Joan Jett/Siouxsie Sioux punk girl.

And what’s she holding?

It’s a switchblade, and it says “Rebel Girl.” So, a Bikini Kill reference.

Tiffani Argentina (a.k.a. “Gemini Blitz”), 29 and Torrie Ogilvie (a.k.a “Torrie Rose”), 31

Brooklyn, N.Y.

What is it about riot grrrl that you like?

Tiffani: Female solidarity.

Torrie: It’s really especially impactful at this time in our country’s history.

What’s your favorite Bikini Kill song?

Tiffani: I would have to say “Rebel Girl.” It’s an anthem! It’s just like, “We’re girls and we want to be cute and we want to have fun but also don’t mess with us.” That’s the kind of spirit that I like to embody on a daily basis.

Chloe Smith, 18, and Anna Murphy, 16

Red Hook, N.Y.

So, given your age, this is obviously your first Bikini Kill concert. How’d you get into them?

Chloe: In ninth grade, because I was watching “Portlandia” and then I became obsessed with Carrie Brownstein and I was like, all right Sleater-Kinney kind of goes, so then I like dove too hard into “Rebel Girl” kind of stuff. I did a presentation on it.

Angelica Moreno, 27, and Bobby Bosak, 32

West Palm Beach, FL

How long have you been into Bikini Kill?

Angelica: Since high school, so I was probably like 14 when I got introduced to them.

Bobby: When I started getting into punk music, about 17 or 18 or something like that.

Cool. What is it about their music that you like?

Angelica: I don’t know. It’s just like the message that they portray and like hell yeah, women. I just love everything about it.

Bobby: What she said.

Danielle Cusack, 22

Minneapolis, MN

Why do you think this reunion is important?

I think it’s important because there’s generations of people here. At the L.A. show there was a little girl on the shoulders of her father watching Bikini Kill. It was so heartwarming and amazing to see that this tradition is being continued. And I think it’s always important for people to see women on stage who are angry. Because we’re constantly told that we have to contain our anger or we have to be sad.

What are you angry about?

Everything. For real.

Sahred From Source link Fashion and Style

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