Cris Amaya joins me this week! Cris has an illustrious background in gaming, including serving on the International Game Developers Association, founding Latinos in Gaming, and previously working at Google Stadia, Twitch, and Unity. We discuss the job market and all of its flaws, how difficult it can be to actually be in the job, book recommendations, and more.

Hello, and welcome to the metal woman podcast. I'm

your host, Lindsay the boss POS, and I am so excited to be the

host of the podcast. Thank you all for listening. Thank you, if

you have already rated the shelf, reading the show, you

haven't thought rate the show, go tell a friend, you know, the

whole podcast bill that everyone gives in the beginning. I'm

doing it too. But anyways, back to this one. Together, we're

gonna have conversations about what it's like to be a woman in

the gaming industry, from struggle to success recovering

it all. To our returning listeners. Thank you so much for

supporting the show for leaving those reviews, like I said, and

to new listeners. Welcome. I am so excited to introduce our

guest this week, we have such an amazing list of guests and this

one, it totally does not disappoint. She fits the bill

Chrissa Maya has an illustrious background in gaming, including

serving on the International Game Developers Association,

founding Latinos in gaming and previously working at Google

stadia, Twitch and unity. So that's your roster there.

Welcome to the show. Chris, thank you so much for coming on.

And to third, if you just wouldn't mind expanding on a

little bit of that background I gave, because I think there's a

lot lot to talk about there. And we'd love to hear more about

you.

Yeah, well, first off, thank you for having me. Super

cute intro. So let's see, I am in events, marketing in gaming,

I really like focusing on events, community building

social media. So really consumer focused consumer facing

marketing stuff. Latinos and gaming Latin X and gaming,

however you pronounce it or whatever you prefer. We are a

nonprofit dedicated to getting more Latin X books hired in the

gaming industry. And then in terms of my work experience, you

know, I've done everything from being a social media manager to

be head of an event department, you name it, I've been involved

in the consumer marketing focus side of it in some capacity. And

I'm really excited to see kind of like, what goes on next.

So where did you start? And how did you work up

to where you are? Now? Social Media Manager is such a caught

like, I've been there, you know, tech industry jobs, it's it's

definitely a new thing. I feel like we probably have a lot of

people listening in who have also done that. But how were you

able to kind of take that next step? And what opportunities did

you look forward to get to where you are now.

So I started out in social media management back in,

I'm going to like date myself here, like back in 2012 2013.

Food, don't guess the age. And what I will say is, I didn't

like it, right? Like I, it made me be on social media a lot. And

when you're between the ages of 22 and 23, it's pretty damaging,

to see everybody else winning all the time, and you don't

really feel like you are especially when you're that

young. So I started looking to other things. And I was like,

What do I like doing? Right? Like, I like that I like the

parties I go to I like the games, columns, the taxes, etc.

So I was like, I'm going to be an event manager, being an event

manager is not an easy necessarily not none of these

fields. Forget, you know, like almost all of the gaming

industry is difficult to get into, they expect you to have

pre Vegas experience, they expect you to know the industry.

And as we grow and become more professional, there's an

expectation that you like, are the best of the best, you know,

and so I was entering at a time where it was still a little bit

of the wild wild west. And there was still like a joining of, you

know, this person worked at Google for 15 years, and now

they're working at Twitch kind of kind of energy. So I would do

it on the side, I started as being if you work taxes, you can

get paid for your time at PAX, which covers like maybe your

hotel if you get a cheap one, and you share with a bunch of

friends, or if like depending where you're coming from. And

then you could also get the ticket covered for free. So I

would be an expo hall floor. And then that would also give me the

chance to network. So it was a relatively cheap, and I like

quote marks that one it's a relatively cheaper way to

interact with the gaming developers who were often out on

the show floor. And so I started doing that in 2013. And then in

2015, no, 2013 I started working for a company called well

played. And I was their hospitality manager on the side.

So I still had a full time job I do. And I was also doing a side

gig because my like getting into events full time was not an

entry level position.

Yeah, give it up. If for those of you who haven't

been to PAX, there's east west and I know that they've been

talking about adding some other Oh, I see south on the schedule

actually. I'm an East Coast or sorry, on East Coast one. But

for those of you who haven't looked at PAX, it's an it's an

it's actually a really awesome conference. It's actually where

I got my start as well. So if it's financially feasible, it's

it's it's really fun. There's a lot of business that happens

there. But there's also a lot of fun stuff. So I do recommend it.

I don't know if you have the same experience, but I, I've

only been a couple times, but I have enjoyed it.

The good consultants are what you make? Yeah, so it's

very true. Right? Like, you can go and just party the whole

time. And like, that's your prerogative, you could also go

and have like, set panels you want to go to because there are

certain game developer that you really admire is going to be

there. And then you could be like, hey, I want to meet you,

like, how do I get on your calendar? Right? Like you could,

that could be your entire purpose, and that one

interaction could carry you really far in this industry,

right? It all really depends on like, how you interact and how

you involve yourself, and really what your goals are. And I know,

it's probably scary, especially if you're younger, because I

remember, I didn't really decide what I wanted to do until I was

2324. But college was started when I was 18. And ended and I

was 21. And so like, for me, it was scary.

Kind of wild that we go from having an entire

routine our whole lives from being born and then at 18. It's

like, oh, just gonna ship you away. Put you somewhere. You're

gonna just figure it out. Like nobody has any idea what they're

doing it Lena leave for college or just graduate high school in

general, because that whole routine immediately disappears

overnight. When you graduate, just insane. But yeah,

millennial diatribe,

I think, yeah, it's kind of wild, how heavy the

expectations were on millennials. And if this isn't

just an us thing, I feel bad for Gen Z to like, we come out there

and in the middle of a recession, right. And then they

were like, go find jobs. And I studied political science. And I

remember just being like, where everything's only paying $8 an

hour for Florida. So like, even that was like barely livable,

right? And I just was supposed to do like an unpaid internship,

I was struggling with debt already. Because like, I had to

pay for college to like I didn't necessarily have the funding

some other kids do. And when you think about it, like our

workforce and our work systems that have more like middle, you

know, blue collar, white collar types of jobs, right? If you're

really thinking about those differences, there's classism

there, right? Especially in the gaming industry to get into

gaming, you have to be able to afford, like, the computer I'm

sitting on right now is $1,700. Luckily, it's a work laptop,

right? Like, there's other pieces like being able to afford

to travel being able to afford to play the games. And if you

don't have those bear various of entries down like, oh, yeah,

yeah, it's tough. I feel bad. So one thing I'm going to plug that

annex and given here that we're trying to do is we're trying to

fill those gaps are not the only ones. By the way. I'm like, not

trying to sound like we're taking credit. But there's a lot

of us out there in the DNI space that are doing grants so that we

can help get people funding for what they need to do. So like,

you know, we recently got a guy a new monitor, and he had one

that was 15 years old, and he needed to do to do work,

right? Yes, you are currently speaking to

someone who is working on a 2012 MacBook been able to upgrade? It

is you know what, it is a blessing. It still runs, I have

a billion things plugged into it. Sometimes the fan gets

really angry, but we're still going.

I respect you

know, someone who works in the gaming industry,

but and I actually do have access to gaming computer, but I

share it with a partner and it's not in a good spot I have you

know, it's a whole complicated story. But I guess to sum up,

one thing that I liked that you said is that you're doing grants

because I think as millennials and Gen Z years and even older

generations being saddled with debt anytime I hear the word

scholarship, or there's certain words terms that make me nervous

about companies when they offer things. So grants are worried

that I generally have a good connotation. And I appreciate

the mission behind a grant behind grant funding as opposed

to a lot of other forms of funding.

Yeah, yeah, we have one cool thing about our grant

program too. And I agree grant funding is the way to go to be

real, but we are letting some of our people who have raised money

for us who are bigger in the gaming industry and Latinx

decide how we get that money out to right. So one person I'm

going to name Andy Cortes from kind of funny. Yeah, he raised

seven grand for us. That's not That's not chump change that

could set somebody up for I mean, if you gave me seven grand

when I was between the ages of 22 to like 28, it would have

changed my life at the time, right? It would have immensely

helped me and so we're asking him to like let us know. What

does that go to? Right? Do you want to go to a streamer? Do you

want it to go to a content creator? Like how should they

spend it and then that's like the parameters we're not going

to be so like, you can only get this Alienware computer but we

are going to be specific right? And I'm excited because we're

helping foster that like shame of not just networking but like

community building, right? We're having leaders in the space,

build through our tools and make things happen.

Yeah, I think that's a really important point

that it's, it's not just a one and done process either. It's

kind of it builds on itself. And I like it when there's an

opportunity to also to see things through. Because even if,

even if you even if the person who said raised money, it's

really nice to be able to actually know what it's going to

as well, right, or to at least know that you have the option

because I can also imagine raising money and not wanting to

think about it. But it's nice that the either way you can be

involved in the process from start to finish, whether you

choose where it goes, or whether you say, this is for you to

choose you to decide, but I want to, you know, you're kept in the

loop kind of all the way through, I think that's a really

unique way of giving. That makes a lot to me. Yeah, so, so good

thinking I guess. But forward, I do want to talk a little bit

more about getting into the industry. I know, we've touched

on a lot of points might my goal coming into this podcast was

splitting up into getting into the industry, and then talking

about once you're actually in and we've already kind of

covered both angles, but I want to take a step back a little bit

and get more on track with my original the structure I had in

mind. But I wanted to also share some resources with our

audience. Because when we had initially Matt, you shared some

really good research and stories with me, one in particular about

getting hired and I, I feel like such a millennial slash Gen Z or

when talk about the job market and all of that, like it's kind

of a typical refrain, especially during the Great Recession,

which has come up and so many of my podcasts, but it's hard. I

actually just recently went through the job market. And I

applied for over 100 positions and got no callbacks. And yeah,

it's and I truly don't take that personally. And I'm lucky to

have that that afforded that fortitude, I guess, because it's

difficult to not take it personally. But there's so much.

There's, it's almost like winning the lottery, when you

just get a job interview at this point. There's so many

roadblocks in the way. And it's shared a story with me about a

fake resume that someone had basically optimized for resume

readers that just had utterly ridiculous bullet points in it,

like connected with Reed Hoffman on LinkedIn and slid into the

DMS. And Team coffee maker and shirt team of six was fully

caffeinated with an Arctic coffee beans ground up to 14

nanometer particles. And yeah, that fake resume got tons of

callbacks.

Right.

And, you know, my real one didn't get as many, but

it's okay. But the thing that really struck me about that

resume was the sort of vicious feedback loop or in where that

person just wrote down that they had software developing

experience at every major tech company, and therefore got

callbacks. And that is sort of similar to what you were saying

earlier about breaking into the industry, and how you needed to

already have eight years of experience, right? Which doesn't

really help people. But do you have any words of advice or

resources or just thoughts on how we could change that or what

people could do now when they're trying to get in, breaking

through the system?

I think people need to let go of some of their

preconceived biases about younger hires and newer hires.

And I've been a hiring manager more than once in my time in the

gaming industry. And like, I was, so I hired like, literally

a year ago, I was hiring for two different roles. And one of

them. You know, I did interview a lot of younger candidates, I

did interview a lot of. So here's another problem, and I'm

just going in different directions, but feel free to

stop me. One of the major problems, I

love it. I love changing.

The major in the gaming industry is it's mostly white

men 74%. Like I'm pulling the stat from literally Google

because my coworker of mine, and I were like, what is it? And

it's between 70 to 77% is white men, right? So they're

surrounding themselves with themselves. And this is like,

there's nothing necessarily insidious about that. You know,

it's you know, right. But then when they're like, Who do we go

to hire? Right? Where do we go to do this, like today? I was in

a conversation with a group of people. And we were talking

about who do we bring on for this like, big prestigious thing

next, and it was like, there were 10 candidates, and most of

them were white men brought in by white men, or a white, you

know, yeah, you know, right. So, I was the one that brought on

and for what it's worth, one of the people did try to bring on

Hispanic men. But different on, I brought on two women of

diverse backgrounds, because and I look really hard and they're,

they're a little bit more junior compared to the other

candidates. But I think that's okay. Because I think that it's

really important to, to grow people into the roles to give

them the opportunities to grow. If you're not, if you don't have

the bandwidth and time to train people that you really need to

talk to your company about, like, giving you more headcount

in general, right. And also, I think it's okay to create a role

and train somebody how to be really good in that role, so

that they can advance their career, taking those types of

risks may seem scary, but it's important that we start doing so

or we're gonna continue with this. It's 2021. And we're,

we're literally majority men, majority white men. And so I

think that the only way this will change is you take risks,

as a hiring manager, if you look out and recommend people that

you might not have thought of before, if you think a little

bit outside the box, and if you give people positions of power

leadership, I was recently working with a company. And

there were a lot of women who felt they had no leadership

opportunities internally, right. And the there was a lot of like,

little, you know, groups that were helping manage, like, the

brand, right? Diversity, and I was like, You should take these

young women who don't have, you know, they've been here for five

years, but they're, you know, 25, they're younger, and you

give them the opportunity by putting them in a leadership

role and saying, This is what we need to accomplish, we will be

here to mentor you. Let's figure it out. And that's how you help

develop leaders within your organization and help lift them

up. But if we're not willing to do it internally, if we're not

willing to do it on hiring practices, we will continue to

see a mostly majority white male audience of not even audiences,

you know, faces when gaming and reality is played, like the 50%

of like, 48 to 52%, depending on what you're looking at

statistics of gamers are women. So, you know,

right? Well against the whole, if you keep

doing what you've always done, you're going to keep getting

what you've always got, which is a very metaphorical I don't know

if that's the right word, but it's very short way of saying

that. Something's got to change. Right. I totally agree with

that. I actually was just reading a book. Are you familiar

with the AI researcher? Janelle Shane? Yes, yes. Yeah. So I was

just reading her book, total plug for her. But she's a great

blog called ai ai weirdness. And she released a book called, you

look like a thing, and I love you. And it's a great book. And

she actually talks specifically about resume readers and bots

built to read resumes. And one of them I can't remember who

exactly what this this story was. But basically, one of them

found that the highest likelihood, highest piece of

information that was most likely to get you hired, was to be

named Jared. It was like, every bot learned that that name,

which is a predominantly white male name, somehow made it

through the hiring process more often than a lot of people with

a lot of other different qualifications, which I find

very funny. And speaks to this issue. And I think, Well, I

think one of the things that you raise a good point on is that

employers themselves do have due diligence to actually spend the

time on these types of things. And I don't think we have a

culture that encourages that. Now, from this fake resume

article, one of the things that was amazing was this person kept

getting callbacks. And they kept saying name one thing on the

resume that you found interesting. And almost none of

the hiring managers or none of the hiring managers he spoke

with, could name any one thing from that resume. So clearly,

they're just getting recommendations based on certain

things and the whole ethical issue with AI and how it's built

and how resume readers are built. And it winds up hurting

very specific communities, especially for people in women

of color. And then especially they're women of color. So,

yeah, just this whole cyclical thing.

It's cyclical. Yeah. Another good book, I added,

while you were talking, I ended up with my Kindle, because I

just I just like having a lot to read. And I'm supposed to read

100 bucks by the end of the year, and I'm at 83. Oh, wow,

that like Peter unthread topia is a really good book about Sun

Valley. Yeah, I think maybe we might have discussed this. I'm

not sure. But it's definitely one of those interesting reads.

And the first couple of pages is like, we set ourselves and

evening as part of tech, right. But we set our failure by some

of the first images being a pornographic image of a woman.

Oh, yeah. My boy who did not consent to it, right. And

everybody was fine with it, because it was a roomful of

1970s, white, you know, half high college students, right, I

think there, but it's developed. And it's one piece of a whole

puzzle that has put us in this uncomfortable position of like,

you know, not being able to fight back and not being able to

like, if you really think about it, too, we build the workday we

Build HR structures, we've built communication styles around the

preferences of our white male colleagues. And so when people

minorities come in, and when women come in and try to either

have the same communication style or are different, there

can be a real problem and how they are perceived. And I have

this like little chart that you can find. It's like, you know,

when a woman of color enters the space, and it's like, she is

celebrated a lot is like the first couple of months, because

she's done this, like, excellent job at uplifting and everybody

loves her. And she's great. And she's awesome. And then a couple

of months later, it's like, she's starting to notice the

problems in the company. And she's calling them out because

she's the only woman of color and leadership. And then she

exits the company, whether by choice or by force, because they

didn't understand her, they don't like being called out for

their shit. And it is, like I share it in groups of women all

the time. Like, there's a ton of diversity groups. Every single

time without fail, a woman's like, holy shit has happened to

me. And it's such a shame.

Yes, I was actually going to bring up that

exact graphic, I will absolutely be linking to it in the show

notes. Because I think it's so important to little tangents on

your tangents. The first is I always, always, always share

that story from Boto Growtopia. And my absolute favorite thing

was the male researcher who said exactly, Oh, we didn't think it

was a problem, because there's no women there. So how could it

be a problem? Nobody in the room saw as a problem. You are

literally in the wrong room. That's the issue. Sorry, I

thought that that was so funny. And secondly, 83 books is very

impressive on the year, my yearly goals always 60. And any

if any of the readers would like book recommendations, reach out

to Chris or me. Big books. Yeah. Broto is a good one. And also

the ethical algorithm. Very good one, if you're into okay. Yeah,

if you're into reading, I try to I try to read a minimum of five

learning books, educational books per year, you know,

memoirs, or science books or something. Five out of the 6060s

like my magic number for the year. I tried to make five of

them educational, and the ethical algorithm has been in

there. And Janelle, Shane's book, you look like a thing, and

I love you, which follows up her incredible blog very well. But

anyways, I know that we talked about gaming.

Right, yeah. There's an intertwining there, right. It's

the same sort of energy, the same sort of like, it's built

off of a certain image of like, what technology nerd nerd

fandoms, etc, was the sort of gatekeeping kind of thing but

that still happens to this day.

Even office temperatures, that that's one

thing that always astounded me, the office temperature is set so

that men are comfortable. So I've had jobs where I'm wearing

slippers and Snuggies and all kinds of things because men

typically Well, in pre COVID times, and even now, but I don't

know if men are actually physiologically warmer, it

certainly feels like it. I'm sure if that's true. Typically

wearing pants and long sleeve shirts, button ups, sport coats,

so the office temperature is typically set to cater to that.

And if you're a woman in the summertime, who has the the joy

of wearing a dress when it's hot outside, you also get the joy of

absolutely freezing inside all day. Because yeah, every office

temperature is set in the 60s, Decatur, so very far. At least

the work from home offices will have that problem, you know,

right. Other issues. Chris, what has your experience been as a

minority woman in the gaming industry? What types of things

and experience look,

I have learned through my time in gaming because I I'm

a millennial, right? So I'm 31 years old. And when I was in,

you ain't yourself?

Nobody. Nobody

will call um, you can? Yeah, I was like, Why hide? It

was what's gonna happen. I'm not gonna cry it out. So I'm gonna

use this as an example. And I talked about her in so many

podcasts, but she hasn't. She hasn't picked up on it yet. So I

in college, ran the FSU League of Legends club, I went to

Florida State, I'm accidentally wearing my college stuff like

that, because I'm at home. And I was running the club and I was

one of the only girls there Right. And, you know, another

girl joins the fray and her name was Sloane. And I was so

protective of my space. I was like, not a real gamer. She

thought this I was really ugly. Like it was not pretty how I act

with this girl. And now of course she's one of my best

friends. She also works in the gaming industry, but I had to

over time in gaming, learn the love and respect that other

women bring to the table and I will say that some of my biggest

allies in gaming are women, right? Are women who sit and

understand or respect the every job I leave it You know, I, I

bring with me some incredible women that I would kill to work

with ever again, like, you know, one of my old bosses when I was

working with Google studios, Nicole colop, one of the best

event managers in the business, just crazy good at what she

does, right. And, you know, I learned so much from her. But

you know, like, there's also limited jobs right in that room

coat market feels like there's some of the jobs, right. So if

Nicole and I were in the job market, at the same time, I

might go up against her. And in fact, I've gone up against other

women in this industry, or other people, this industry for jobs,

but I, I'm so respectful of the fact that like, she could get it

like, I love that, right. And that's not somebody I was when I

was younger. And then it might also be you were a young woman

and a teenager thing, and you grew up, but either way, in

terms of how I'm treated overall, it's better, it used to

be a lot worse. It's improving, it used to be really bad. Is it

perfect? No, do I want young women that are exiting college

to get treated the way I have, or still sometimes do? Not at

all. And I think it's important that I, as an older woman in

this industry, use my voice to help to help these young women,

because if I don't speak up, and it is on them, the onus is often

on their careers, because when you do speak out, and we have

seen the effects on some people, right, your career can be

damaged, it can be ruined, and a good good things could

negatively happen. So for me, it is it is imperative that I do

what I can to say, Hey, she deserves an opportunity, hey,

she deserves to be in the room, hey, she deserves to be spoken

for, I will always try to be as a gala terian as possible, and

I've messed it up, don't get me wrong, like I've definitely shot

myself in the foot. But I really want to be there for women. And

recently, I went to the esports business conference in Las

Vegas. And there was a young woman there that was traveling

by herself. And I just was an absolute shock that she was at

the same conference, I went to an after party, that like

there's no door guard, there was nothing and this was months ago,

okay, it's just like October. I know.

I got hit on twice at this party. And I just, I was not,

I'm not there to be hit on I'm not on LinkedIn to be hit on I'm

not posting on my professional, whatever Twitter to be hit on.

Like, sure, I might post a photo of myself but even still not

asking to be hit on if you see me on a dating profile, feel

free to send me you know, a DM right, but I'm not there for

that. Right. And so it really annoyed me that it was two older

gentlemen as well. So it wasn't like, you know, some young new

to the industry there. They were older men who clearly lived

establish the space who clearly have enough money to take

themselves to a $2,000 ticketed event in Vegas. And and it

really rubbed me the wrong way. Because this girl was here alone

and she didn't know anybody. And she came hoping to make friends.

And she's younger the industry too. And the whole time I kept

thinking of how one awesome badass girl she was like badass

bitch like crazy cool that you're there for to how scared I

was for her. And that really sucks to feel right. But it's

unfortunately not wrong. We've heard multiple stories of women

being refeed meets him movements allegations. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Well, it's just so weird. To think I forget

where it was recently. And I thought wow, for the first time

ever, I'm actually not worried. I'm completely comfortable.

What? What a concept, you know, that that has not in and that

was a very specific situation, I'm struggling to remember

exactly what it was. But it's what you're talking about. It's

almost like you're always there's always a guard up, which

also doesn't help with with a professional career. And I don't

mean that in the sense that it's an individual's faults, if they

have that guard up. And they can't really express themselves

or freely say what they wish to say or present new ideas. I was

in a position in a company where when I would present new ideas

to a superior, he said, I'm likely I'll probably say yes to

all of your ideas, because you remind me of my daughter. And it

just it was so disheartening, because I did not see that kind

of sentiment from my male colleagues, first of all. And

second of all, I don't want to my ideas to be valued because of

a woman I want them to be valued because they're good ideas and

the same way backward. I wouldn't want to be approached

at a business conference because I'm attractive but because I'm

interesting and had something interesting to say or write or

you just wanted to get to know a stranger because they're also in

the gaming industry. And that right guard can be detrimental

to your own career but without it you subject yourself to so

many comments and things and situations. It's it's an

impossible choice. off really?

Yeah. I got like thinking of that conference, but

I feel bad your conference organizers if you hear me, I

don't think you are bad people. But let's talk about diversity

and how you bring it to a conference. We were I was in a

panel with like the VP of like Dignitas, like Aaron Ashley

Simon, who is incredible women, like every single woman on the

panel was really cool. 90% of our attendees were women. We

have three men in that room. And at the very end of it, some guy

is like, let's give credit to the men that are here. And of

course, this beautifully gentle saw on the stage with us was

like, yeah, and they all start coughing. And I'm like, Are you

serious? You were plotting the bare minimum right now you

showed up? You got out of bed like i

The bar is beneath the floor. You don't even know

you're stepping over it.

Yeah, there's a picture of me on Twitter making a very

clearly like disgusted face at like that exact moment

happening. It's a really awful like I developed a billion chip

on it. But it was just like, just not I was so annoyed. I was

like this. And then of course, a bunch of men start showing up

because the next panel happens to have somebody from who knows

what they're and like, I wish one that we didn't have to only

be on panels about diversity, I have marketing experience, I am

an event manager, I have built audiences, I have built

companies from the ground up, I do not need to only be on

diversity panels. So I wish people would stop asking for

just those, and to show up and learn about diversity, at least,

like learn what it is to be diverse learn. Like there was a

diversity. There was like a charity panel that was being

held. And all the people on that panel, right met and I was like,

whoa, wait, I run a non for profit, where it was my advice,

right? And anything that's be petty. And so you could have

done a ton of other incredible people for nonprofits. But what

I'm saying is, sometimes there's not thought process behind how

we activate and how we do things. And we really need to

sit down and do the homework, you know, especially for my

white colleagues, it is your responsibility to put in that

extra energy and extra effort. And they're like, oh, but that's

all like learning, you know, whatever. Like, I have to make

sure that I'm acting in a very specific way to not anger

somebody and not come across as intimidating or aggressive.

Because then I lose positioning and power right? In my speech.

And then I my credit is taken away. And I'm the spicy Latina.

Right? And that's a shame. And that's to say, sorry, I went a

little a little bit of a tear. But

no, don't apologize for that. Because

there's so many good points in there. And I was actually

fortunate enough to have some of the women from Dignitas on a

couple weeks ago. And we specifically talked about

panels. It wasn't it wasn't Aaron Ashley Simon, although I'm

very familiar with her work. And she truly seems lovely. I have

not had the pleasure of meeting her. But I absolutely take your

and everyone else's word that she's great. But we spoke about

this exact problem and how often panels that are all women panels

are called and all women panel where they could be called the

marketing panel or the community development panel or a nonprofit

panel. There's no reason why you can't have a panel of all women

who are just all experts, these plenty of panels of all men who

are just experts so and that it's funny that you bring that

up in the context of being on a panel with someone from

Dignitas. Because the Dignitas people had the exact same

sentiment about being on their own panels and sharing those

experiences with other women. Hey, guys, like we're just here,

because we're good at what we do. Not because of our gender,

right? Like, think about it right now. Like one of

the best people in community management in this moment is

Victoria Tria, right. She's the among us account. She started at

kitfox games, she's grown her social media presence in the

presence of everything she's worked on by millions on some of

them, right. And we need to take her seriously on that level. And

she shouldn't just be speaking at women's conferences. And I,

she is a great example. But she's not the only one who's

doing badass work. And I really want us to, like, bring more of

us to the front, not just women, but like diverse people, people

that are other, you know, representations, like diversity

is, of course, more than just women race. Sorry.

Oh, no, you're fine. That's what I was wanting

to say. I know this is not called the metal woman podcast.

But the goal is to actually be talking about diversity

inclusion in a much broader level for everyone to be able to

relate to and understand and learn from. So. I appreciate

that you bring up that point because I do think it's

important to note that everyone benefits from diversity. It is

not just the people you bring in and lift up. There is no

situation in which bringing more voices or collaborating more or

including more people winds up with a bad result. Whereas if

you have all the same type of person, we have seen what the

result is over and over.

And you can clubhouse what it was like super bag

Did for maybe a month it was, oh, gosh, what an

experience

over and over again, I could memorize some of those

people speeches and be like, Hi, I'm blank. Like, like, like, you

know what I mean? Like, we need to give the microphone to so

many other people. And so for Latin X and gaming, for example,

like I do talks for us, but I also starting, you know, not

starting, I can't offer opportunities to the rest of the

team, to other staff to other people that are involved,

because I really, like I'm not the only Latino story. I'm not

the only Latina woman in the industry. And you can hear from

me all the time. There's there's other people out there, you can

hear him too.

Can you tell me a little bit more about Latinos or

Latin x in gaming? What what the organization does? Why you

start, I think why you started is a little obvious, but I still

would love to hear more of the origin story what you do with

it. All that good stuff.

Yeah, yeah. So like next and gaming started,

because, obviously, right, like, we didn't have a support

network, the way like GDC happens every year. And there

was like women's game meetup Lacson games meetup Latinx.

Game, like, whistle tumbleweed, like we were never really like

around. So I started it with, you know, a couple of other

people because I wanted us to be around. So it started as just a

community and like a side thing. And I like put a lot of heart

and soul into it. I really love building communities. I really

love building groups of people together that have common

experiences, which is why I started FSU League of Legends

when I was like 19. And so what happened was that one days, one

of our mentors to that her Mita, who was at 90 of the time and

now runs her own company, it was like, why don't I just give you

guys some money and you become an NPO? And it was like, let's

make a decision. Like, are we ready to start doing this. So

what we offer is grants, which I've mentioned like that we're

trying to help you kind of bridge those gaps. We're going

to be we have other partnerships in the works. But we do do a

career fair every year. And we also do a Hispanic Heritage

Month celebration every year. So those are our three main

features. But that doesn't mean that we're not branching out and

doing other things. There's definitely a lot more to come.

And if anybody's interested in working with us, our email is

contact at Lonex and gaming, liberal comm. And you can reach

us through there.

I was going to specifically ask our listeners

to get involved if they wanted to. Definitely google it. But if

you also are looking for work, yes, contact, contact Chris,

Chris and team. Can you tell me some of what you guys have done

what you're proudest of? What you can brag about, because I

love hearing women brag about stuff.

I love that we have over four no over 5 billion

views of our content all made by Latin X creators, and X folks

showing off their art showing off their speed runs showing off

everything like, oh, 5 million views is no, that's pretty cool.

We also have had 30 people hired in the past year through our

channels and network resources. And it was it means that there

are 30 more people here that may not have been here before. And

voices 30 more voices. And I guess another great achievement

is is that we kind of brag about him. I don't think he ever was

so Fernando Reyes Medina is one of our co founders and he just

got Forbes 30 under 30. And it's an incredible accomplishment.

Yeah, because he came from nothing. He used to do dance

instructing classes so he could pay for college because he was

very poor in Mexico City. And now look at him and he's 30

under 30 He's launching Halo like that's the type of

inspirational story that like Latino kids need to hear that

you can in fact get here. It's a lot of work. But you can get

right.

Yeah, I think well that is that's so great. And

congratulations to him and congratulations to you for

building what sounds like a really awesome and not only

awesome but fun team. Like you guys actually might have some

fun on these projects and like actually like each other which

is the NOC to be up interesting. So

now cut through MPO is because we talked about this

before the programming, but we both lived in DC. And I Oh God

it's like mercenaries for hire NPO edition. Like it's crazy how

just wild some of these people are. But yeah,

that's exactly the experience that I'm referencing.

Someone who worked in DC and left it for a reason, I suppose

you could say it was very fun while it lasted. But it it it's

MPOs can be a really crazy world. Honestly,

thank you. I think they really think

well, things like playing video games actually

like a pretty good preparation. You know, because it's either

you're the one endlessly trying to do something and not getting

the result that you'd like to get. Or you're the one who's

trying to break in and be in a in a guild or clan or something

where you need to learn a little bit, but nobody is patient

enough to teach you anything or give you advice. So very gently

applicable experience. So just really quick to summarize for

all of our listeners, we talked a little bit about getting into

the industry per set, it started for her at 23 ish, sort of

started with you figuring out what you wanted to do and what

you liked and working off of that. I know, that sounds

simple, but it's definitely not that simple. There's a lot of

barriers to go through between resume readers and not having

the right people in the room and not having the right people to

uplift your voice even when they are in the room. And it can be

really tough out there. And once you're in the industry, we

talked a little bit about how hard it is, again, to get your

voice heard, but how important it is to be able to stand up for

yourself. And in a way that's possible. I don't think either

one of us would advocate for people losing a livelihood if

they didn't want to. But in ways that you are able to stand up

for yourself, I think that's a very encouraged thing to do. So

yeah, and then we finally talked about vs awesome organization,

Latinos flashlight next in gaming history, check it out a

lot of events and resources and grant money, and a lot of really

cool stories. So anyone needs an uplifting story, go read

Fernando's biography.

Yeah, seriously.

I like to end every episode on a little moment

of reflection. So this is the chance kind of to look back at

what you've done, what maybe you've liked, what you haven't

liked, what has worked, what hasn't worked, and just share

with our listeners, what one thing you would like to tell

your younger self about getting into the gaming industry and

being successful,

your failures are as much as part of your success as

your win. Don't be sad that you've failed, learn from it.

You know, failure is something that's come up in

these moments or reflection more than once. And it's a real skill

to be able to embrace it. And to come out on top of it.

Particularly for women and people of color. It can be very

difficult because that the barriers are so much greater. So

the chance of failure is so much higher, but don't give up. Yeah,

though, Chris, thank you so much for coming on. This was so much

fun. I I have only gotten to speak with you a couple times.

But I can truly say that each time has been a very fun

experience and a little bit of bellyaching never hurt, I think

it's, it's good. It's good to talk about these things and to

highlight the negative sometimes and highlight what some of the

real problems are out there. Cuz there's no way they're gonna get

solved unless we acknowledge them. So I appreciate your

willingness to be open and to talk about subjects. And to

bring especially perspective from a woman in color, and I

hope that everyone who's learning learns, listens and

learns with an open mind. So that's the one thing we could

all use more of, I think.

Yeah, completely agreed. And thank you so much

for having me. Experiment if

you haven't already. Leave us five star

rating and review. And come listen again next week when I'm

sure we will have another fun conversation.