Billy & I is a 36-page black and white illustrated zine. This zine is both a personal story told through the lens of the Saw film franchise and a love letter to the films themselves. In this zine, I discuss the nature of the Saw
movies, how I connect to the characters in them, and how I’ve processed
things like grief & gender transition through unconventional means.
Some of the themes in this zine are grief, parental loss,
violence, queer love, and gender. This zine also contains spoilers for
the first seven Saw films, as well as (illustrated) graphic content, such as blood and some gore. The price of this zine is PWYC (Pay What You Can), with a recommended price of $10.00.
KOKOBOT - The Airbnb-Owned Tech Startup - Data Mining Tumblr Users’ Mental Health Crises for “Content”
I got this message from a bot, and honestly? If I was a bit younger and not such a jaded bitch with a career in tech, I might have given it an honest try. I spent plenty of time in a tough situation without access to any mental health resources as a teen, and would have been sucked right in.
Chatting right from your phone, and being connected with people who can help you? Sounds nice. Especially if you believe the testimonials they spam you with (tw suicide / self harm mention in below images)
But I was getting a weird feeling, so I went to read the legalese.
I couldn’t even get through the fine-print it asked me to read and agree to, without it spamming the hell out of me. Almost like they expect people to just hit Yes? But I’m glad I stopped to read, because:
What you say on there won’t be confidential. (And for context, I tried it out and the things people were looking for help with? I didn’t even feel comfortable sharing here as examples, it was all so deeply personal and painful)
Also, what you say on there? Is now…
Koko’s intellectual property - giving them the right to use it in any way they see fit, including
Publicly performing or displaying your “content” (also known as your mental health crisis) in any media format and in any media channel without limitation
Do this indefinitely after you end your account with them
Sell / share this “content” with other businesses
Any harm you come to using Koko? That’s on you.
And Koko won’t take responsibility for anything someone says to you on there (which is bleak when people are using it to spread Christianity to people in crisis)
They also use the data they gather from users to conduct research and publish papers. I didn’t find them too interesting - other than as a good case study of “People tend to find what they are financially incentivized to find”. Predictably, Koko found that Kokobot was beneficial to its users.
So yeah, being a dumbass with too much curiosity, I decided to use the Airbnb-owned Data-Mining Mental Health Chatline anyway. And if you thought it was dangerous sounding from the disclaimers? Somehow it got worse.
(trigger warning / discussions of child abuse / sexual abuse / suicide / violence below the cut - please don’t read if you’re not in a good place to hear about negligence around pretty horrific topics.)
There are young people on tumblr that actively seek support from KokoBot right now, if you check the tag for recent posts. Those people did not get paid to promote it, so do not harrass them. If you can, direct them towards resources about Kokobot (like this post) that are more transparent about what this company is up to.
One of my favorite things is taking someone to the Great Lakes for the first time - or describing how you can fly over them and see only hundreds of miles of glittering blue water and no coasts at all; how they have their own Coast Guard (the only lakes to do so); that the Earth’s rotation steers their currents; that they’re studied using ocean models; that they have wrecked more than 6000 ships - and watch them realize that the word “lake” is misleading and that they had no idea of the size and majesty of them at all.
Some fun facts about her majesty, Lake Superior:
It has a surface area of 31,700 sq. miles, roughly the size of South Carolina or Austria.
It’s incredibly deep and has enough water to cover all of North and South America to a depth of 12 inches.
Waves over 30 feet have been recorded.
Its deepest point is 1,333 feet, which is the third lowest point in North America
Its average temperature is around 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 Celsius), which inhibits bacterial growth in bodies, diminishing bloating and gas, and frequently shipwreck and drowning victims to sink to the bottom and never be recovered.
