I Get Uncomfortable In Interviews and On Panels Sometimes

And I thought it was just because I’m shy (which I am) or that I have a bit of crowd anxiety (which I do) or that I’m not really a showman-type (which I’m not).

But I realized recently it’s that often, the panel moderator or the interviewer is trying to get a certain response from me, they want me to say some soundbite that’s easy for the audience to applaud to or they want me to condemn some vague notion of sexism in a way that they find palatable.

I don’t like to be ‘handled,’ and I am not a soundbite person. And so I get very uncomfortable and sometimes a little edgy.  If a panel is going great, everyone knows it and people speak their mind without trying to fit someone’s neat agenda. If it’s going badly, no amount of mollifying is going to make it more authentic. 

I feel like I have dedicated a lot of my life to trying to promote things I believe in in comics, and that’s important. It is not important to me to spout something that fits on a bumper sticker. :)

Moderators and interviewers, really, just let us talk. There are lots of people out there who have amazing things to say, but you have to get out of the way a little bit and take your expectations with you. 

We like you, we want to do a good interview or panel, but we may not agree with a tidy, abbreviated synopsis of our real life experiences. Just let us talk. When I go to a panel with someone, I really hope to hear their real experience, their real viewpoint, not one that they are being pushed towards discussing.

I will say that this stuff is the exception, usually it’s great. But not everything is a soundbite. Some issues are complex and require context and shading. These are not bad things. They’re good things.

That’s all, just my thought for the day.