Safe Spaces in the Metaverse | Decentraland Pride 2022

How do queer people build safe spaces online, and who controls them? David Cash hosts artist Jessica Yatrofsky, creative technologist Kadine James, and YouTubers Dion Yorkie and Sebastian Argo for the third panel of Decentraland's Metaverse Pride 2022. They compare early YouTube comment sections with today's platforms, talk about content bans, gated communities, and queer venues in the metaverse, and share their Pride plans for June 2022.

Watch on YouTube

Chapters

1. 00:00 Welcome to the third Metaverse Pride panel
2. 01:11 Dion Yorkie and Sebastian Argo introduce themselves
3. 03:08 Jessica Yatrofsky introduces herself
4. 05:40 Kadine James introduces herself
5. 09:14 Queer excellence and pronouns
6. 11:10 Dion Yorkie on early YouTube community
7. 15:15 Sebastian Argo on bans and Web2 platforms
8. 17:01 Jessica Yatrofsky on gated safe spaces and Room 707
9. 26:19 Kadine James on building queer venues in the metaverse
10. 33:09 Accessibility starts with the phone
11. 34:19 Pride plans, in real life and in the metaverse
12. 41:33 Where to find the panelists

Speakers

• Jessica Yatrofsky, Multidisciplinary artist and author; creator of I Heart Boy and I Heart Girl
• Kadine James, Metaverse strategist, Accenture; founder, The Immersive KIND
• Dion Yorkie, YouTuber and musician
• Sebastian Argo, Creator and musician
• David Cash, Curator, Decentraland Foundation (host)

Key topics

• Community in YouTube's early comment sections
• Bans and demonetization on Web2 platforms
• Decentralized platforms where creators set the rules
• Gated spaces, Room 707, and feminist poetry readings
• Censorship of photography of queer and female bodies
• Queer venues in Altspace and Spatial
• Accessibility through mobile phones
• Pride plans in real life and in the metaverse

In their words

"there's no like computer controlling what you can do or how gay you can be in these spaces" (Sebastian Argo)

"we need to have safe spaces and they need to be gated" (Jessica Yatrofsky)

How to cite

APA: Cash, D. (2022). Safe Spaces in the Metaverse | Decentraland Pride 2022 [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/pmi361fzA4s

Chicago: Cash, David. "Safe Spaces in the Metaverse | Decentraland Pride 2022." Recorded June 9, 2022; aired June 10, 2022, Decentraland. YouTube video, 44:01. https://youtu.be/pmi361fzA4s.

Recording details

Recorded: June 9, 2022, Riverside.fm; aired June 10, 2022, Decentraland

Format: Panel recorded for Decentraland Metaverse Pride 2022

Length: 44:01 · Language: English

Curated and hosted by David Cash for the Decentraland Foundation

About the series

Decentraland Metaverse Pride 2022 was a month of programming in Decentraland in June 2022. David Cash, then Curator for the Decentraland Foundation, curated and hosted this panel series. The panels were pre-recorded and aired on the rooftop of the Cash Labs gallery in Decentraland. Five panels are archived here.

About this record

Presented as edited for the original 2022 broadcast, with the opening welcome and introductions restored in 2026 from the original Riverside recording. Captions were machine-transcribed in 2026 and reviewed by hand, with names checked against speaker introductions. Speaker roles are as of the recording date and may have changed since.

Shared for educational, research, and archival purposes. For corrections, name spellings, or removal requests: david@cashlabs.io

Transcript

Machine-transcribed and reviewed. Timestamps link to the moment in the video.

[0:06] Hello everybody, welcome back to the main stage of Decentraland's Metaverse Pride. Welcome, so excited, happy Pride. This is our third official panel here on the main stage, and really excited to be joined with another bevy of special guests. Here in front of us today we have Dion and Seb social media icons, we have Jessica Yatrofsky, and we have Kadine James. So to kick it off, Dion and Seb have been creating content on the internet for many years on a variety of platforms, and have really done a lot to champion queer relationships, queer identity online. So we'd love to pass the mic over to Dion and Seb, you can take in whatever order you would like, but we'd love to hear a little bit from you. Just an introduction for anybody who might not be familiar with you and your work. And yeah, if you want to open up the conversation on how important it is to create these safe spaces online. Awesome, Dion you can start if you want.

[1:01] Dion you're muted. She's on mute. Can you hear me now? Hi, I'm Dion, I'm a queer pop musician, and like David said, I've been creating queer content online for over 10 years now. It started on YouTube, and from the get-go I realized how important community was, especially in the queer space, because as I was putting out queer content daily sometimes, coming out videos, how to be gay in high school, things like that, I realized the comments, especially back in early days of YouTube, there was so much community, and that community inspired me and I inspired them, and in turn it just kept on snowballing and building into something that, to this day, I really do hold dear to my heart. I think community is at the core of all content, and yeah, I will never stop making content because of that power it has really, and the potential that it has to really just help people in their lives, and yeah, I think it's very special.

[2:09] I'm Seb Argo, and I'm also a pop artist, LGBT creator. I've been doing content for like 10 years too, and it all started because when I was a kid I was in the closet, and I would go on the internet and look up coming out videos, or gay couples, or things like that, and I was always wanting to see myself represented, so that's what inspired me to start creating and start showing people who I am, and yeah, I think it's really important to take the opportunity to do these things because if we don't do it, nobody else is going to do it for us. We have to show our voices and our stories, so yeah. No, absolutely. A conversation that we have a lot on these panels is around how it's important for the queer community to support the queer community because as you put it, a lot of these narratives are not going to be shared otherwise, so yeah, so happy to have you both, and really excited to kick off this conversation.

[3:08] Up next for me, Jessica, Ms. Jessica Yatrofsky, one of my favourite NFT artists, an amazing creative on so many different levels, writing, photography, and beyond into the metaverse. Jessica, how are you today? Do you want to share with people a little bit more about yourself and what it means to you to create safe space in the metaverse? Jessica Yatrofsky. Thank you so much David for having me and I'm just like flattered to be amongst the rest of these amazing artists and to talk about creating safe spaces in the metaverse. Just a little bit about me I am a New York based multi disciplinary artists I know you rattle off a bunch of things that that I do. And just to expand on that I am an activist, I'm an author, and I'm primarily known for my film and photography work, exploring body politics, beauty, gender and I studied the applied arts as an undergrad. I formally trained in painting, drawing and sculpture and I received my

[4:06] MFA from Parsons where I worked on a photographic series that you're familiar with, I Heart Girl and I Heart Boy, where I was documenting subjects that eventually became the two published photography monographs, also titled I Heart Boy and I Heart Girl. So I was always drawn to depicting the body and it really continues to play a role in much of the work that I put out in the world and certainly what I'm doing in the space. And as the first female photographer that was on the Coinbase NFT platform, I intend to really push the envelope with that type of work and not back down from it so I know a lot of what we're talking about here today too is like creating safe spaces that have to do with these very ideas that like I explore. So another part is that my activist endeavors, I'm the founder of a feminist collective called New York Femme Factory, and I'm using that background to inspire to mint my poetry,

[5:07] my writing onto the blockchain, as well as my photography and my film work. And most recently I started a project called Room 707. Fabulous, fabulous. A lot to dive in there. Like I said, one of my favorite people in this NFT space and really excited to explore more of all the things that you do in this conversation and share more with folks about your projects but also how they can hopefully emulate the work that you're doing, especially in the web space, because I think there's a lot of positive change this year, which I think we're seeing across the board. Speaking of somebody who's witnessed this change firsthand. Kadine James, one of my favorite people as well in this metaverse space, we've gotten to work together on a bunch of different projects, you know, kind of working side by side on various different events. The metaverse is constantly growing and you are one of the people behind it.

[5:58] Kadine, how are you today? Would you like to let the people watching know a little bit about yourself? And yeah, also for you. What, you know, creating safe space, especially for queer people in the metaverse means to you. I'd be absolutely delighted to, David. Thank you so much for bringing this incredible panel together today. It's always an honor and a privilege to be a part of these conversations that you bring together so expertly. And equally, I'm a massive fan of your work and everybody's work here. Happy Pride, everyone. I've been working in the digital space for the last 20 years, especially exploring the future of fashion, digital fashion in particular. I've been doing a lot of projects with 3D printing, augmented reality, virtual reality, spatial computing, XR gaming and immersive production.

[6:51] I've opened up two venues. I've built an NFT bar in virtual reality, which lives in alt space. We've been bringing in DJs and artists and hosting crypto art and fashion experiences inside alt space. We've got one happening on Saturday with DJ Hell. I'm also bringing myself in as a producer into those spaces and connecting with the immersive crime collective, which is a community of digital artists and fashion designers and creators that I bring together into my venue in alt space. On top of that, I've just built a 60,000 square foot piece of industrial real estate inside Spatial's Metaverse with the architect, Studio Multi. We're hosting a runway show in partnership with Ready Player Me and Polygon and Maison d'Al on Saturday, where we'll be inviting in the fashion community to dress up their avatars and come in and experience next level content.

[8:03] I'm also a creative technologist. I'm an art director. I'm an artist. I'm an activist. I'm a digital curator. I've produced a number of industry firsts, including the world's first immersive shopping experience with Charlie Cohen, Pokemon and Selfridges in London, where we created avatars and produced virtual fashion experiences for you to wear on your avatar and also to buy in the store. I'm especially committed to the next generation of artists and creators. I lecture on digital fashion at the London College of Fashion and also at NYU. And I'm also a Metaverse strategist for Accenture, where we reach millions of people around the world, bringing them closer to what they love and exploring opportunities around the future of Web3.

[9:00] I'm also an NFT creator, and I'm part of a number of DOWs and sit on multiple tech and media advisory boards. I'm really delighted to be here with you today. Fabulous. So happy to have you, Kay Dean. And I always like to start these talks with, you know, a little bit of conversation of what we've done, because I do think that one thing that's really important to highlight on, you know, during Pride Month. One thing that I think is really important for us to highlight during Pride Month is really, you know, to highlight queer excellence and to highlight, you know, people in the LGBTQIA plus community who are doing really amazing things and who are successful, who are succeeding, succeeding at their business endeavors. So with the introductions out of the way, and hopefully with a little bit of scope who these amazing people in front of you are, I would love to also just quickly go through before we open up this conversation.

[9:49] And just if everybody would just share with me what their pronouns are and how they identify. Personally, I am a queer, gender nonconforming individual, and I personally identify as non-binary. Dion, would you like to introduce yourself in that light? Hello. Yes, I am a queer, non-binary, gender-fluid individual, and my pronouns are he-him. Fabulous. Seb? I am queer. My pronouns are he-him, but I'm also open to, like, any pronouns. And yeah, I think I'm, like, non-binary. Fabulous. And KD? I identify as a queer woman, and I go by she and her. Fabulous. And I should also mention, I didn't mention my pronouns, but I accept all pronouns, principally they, them, he, him, but I'll take it all.

[10:40] You can call me she and I will never be offended. Fabulous. So excited to get this conversation started, and so excited to be speaking with all of you today. Right off the bat, I would like to ask a few questions to each of you individually, if that's okay. And then we can kick it off with a few more, you know, general questions that I would like to kind of, you know, contextualize the majority of our conversation around. But first up, you know, I have some thoughts, you know, to share with each of you, I think, around what this means, what it means to create safe space in the metaverse, what it means to create space for queer people in the metaverse, or in virtual space in general. And to kick that off, I would really love to start with you, Dion, you know, you've been doing this for quite a while, in terms of, you know, creating queer centric content. I think that one thing that's really worth mentioning is before a lot of this

[11:22] virtual space that we're experiencing now existed, you know, people only had, you know, very niche, very kind of ambiguous means to connect, you know, in terms of the queer community, you know, messaging boards, chat rooms, you know, honestly, just kind of sketchy platforms that we kind of resorted to, because maybe mainstream platforms weren't accessible to us as queer people to be our authentic selves. And I think people like you, and you in particular, you know, were creating content in, you know, in a time where a lot of people weren't. And I'm curious from your perspective, I think from my perspective, a lot of your early viral videos, even like, as you said, the comments section were areas of community building. There were areas, you know, there were there were there were points of contact for people to see other queer people and what this means. So I'd love to hear from you maybe considering how far we've come in the past, you

[12:08] know, as you said, like your 10 years time in social media, where you where you think things started at the beginning of your of your time and how you feel things are now. Okay, well, I think, thank you, David, that was beautifully said. And I agree with where you're going with this. I think that the comments section in the early days of YouTube was like so different than what it is now. Like I said earlier, it was it was more of a community back then, or at least it felt like it is now. I feel like with all the platforms, people's attention is divided amongst a lot of things. And it's kind of like a little less like community based, a little more like randomized. And I feel like back then there was it was like kind of easier to build a community that it may be now. Like I feel like now if you're not producing like daily content, if you're not like engaging on a platform and finding your niche, it's

[12:56] going to be hard to build that community. Whereas back then there was less people doing it. So it was easier to kind of find your audience or find your voice and find people who may agree with what you agree with or, you know, support the things you support. And you see that like with TikTok, I find with TikTok, especially the comments section is like these days, like it can be very, very hateful. And that's why I'm very excited about safe spaces and Web3, because like with Web3 platforms, they're decentralized. So you can like make your own rules on the platform. You know, you can have your own sort of like safeguards and things that keep your values as a creator, like intact with the whole community on the platform. And I feel like, yeah, there's a lot of that control is kind of gone in Web2, like even from the start. It was like I was putting out videos on YouTube, but YouTube had a lot of the control as to the medium and how people were engaging.

[13:45] So I think that it's coming a long way as far as like things are changing. But with Web3, I think it's got the potential to really curate audiences and communities and build those safe spaces in like a very deliberate manner that wasn't really possible before. And yeah, so that's kind of where I'm at with that. Amazing. Thank you so much. And I'm really excited to delve in even further. Obviously, you know, you've started to take some of the steps into Web3 and delve into all the things, you know, that we know and love in this space. You know, some of these ideas of decentralization, gated content, you know, what it means to be directly supported by your community. So, yeah, I'm really excited to explore further in this conversation, you know, how you're shifting from, you know, one to the other. So really great to have some of your background.

[14:33] Yeah, you're something you want to add. Yeah. If I may, yeah, like transferring those audiences over kind of to Web3 is the difficult part. And I feel like creating those safe spaces is a way to kind of get people into Web3, like, oh, if you if you check out this platform, it is Web3. But if you kind of learn how to navigate it, it'll be worth it because you're going to find a community that you won't find anywhere else. So I think that's really kind of a strong way to get people into Web3, because right now, like, I find a lot of my audiences with like, what even is the metaverse? And I'm like, well, get into it because it's here to stay. Fabulous. Fabulous. And I'm excited to delve in even further. Same question, basically, for you, Seb, but I would love to specifically ask one. I mean, please take your journey into account, but I would love to have one specific question for you. I know that both of you have experienced recently being

[15:28] banned on TikTok or experienced some kind of a negative experience on certain platforms versus others. And I'm curious from your perspective as a queer creator, how it's been, you know, trying to create safe spaces, especially when you're kind of almost competing against certain companies in trying to do so. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, because like I was going to talk about it because it's hard because you put like so much work and passion into creating this community. And it starts like building up and like people start like like being like, oh, yes, like I feel accepted in this account and everything. And then social media channels like TikTok or YouTube, like just like ban you or like demonetize your content just because they have like community guidelines that you're not even breaking. So that aspect of like Web2 is like what is the community really because you try to contact someone to talk about it and it's just a computer and they won't even like

[16:25] listen to what you're saying or like be like, oh, maybe this like the rules need to change. Maybe like we need to be more accepting of like LGBT content and like POC creators and things like that. And it's like so like that's where Web2 stops feeling like a community. So it's like a great segue into like what Dion was saying that like creating these safe spaces in Web3 and like showing people how like there's no like computer controlling what you can do or how gay you can be in these spaces is what really makes it like way better. Absolutely completely up next. I would love to pass the mic over to Jessica Eitrofsky. Jessica, you've been doing so much. I mean, you've done a lot in Web2. You know, you created a lot of communities through very traditional means through putting out books on social media.

[17:15] But you've also done so much over the past year, year and a half in terms of building community and Web3, especially through the fem factory around, you know, female communities, LGBTQ plus communities and and by POC representation within those communities. I think you've done a really great job of being a steward of representation across the board. So a major props to you. But B, would love to hear a little bit of your thoughts. I know that you have a collection that you were mentioning before. I would love to hear some of your thoughts on where your mind is right now in terms of what it looks like to build community, especially, you know, safe spaces within Web3 and within the members. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, just based on what Dion and Seb was just sharing as well, like that idea of, you know, Web3 being the space where we're not censored as much as we have been in the past. I think like that's I think has been throughout my career, one of

[18:01] the major barriers and also something that fuels me to continue to make this work. Like I'm not going to stop because you think it's true this or that or it's inappropriate. Like, what does that even mean? Like, we're artists, we're creators, and we want to support our community by sharing what we are working on and, you know, representation. And I think representation is something that is so important. I mean, when you were sharing your story about how you were like Googling things and looking up, you know, what is it like to, you know, gay relationships are like all of those things. It's like we have the ability as creators to share our art, our process, our thoughts, our writing, our feelings and talk to other people about it in the metaverse and within Web3 and not feel shunned, not feel scared, not feel intimidated and just feel free.

[18:56] So a lot of what I was doing with my feminist collective was giving particularly women a platform and intersectional women a platform and queer people a platform so that we could do these kind of like underground poetry readings where. Yeah, it's like one of those things where, you know, you stand up and you're like trigger warning. It's like, it doesn't really feel like that here because like we all know that we're coming from different experiences and different backgrounds. And we're here to share those experiences with one another and connect and feel seen and feel heard and know that we're in good company. So bringing that kind of experience into the metaverse so that now I can share with people all over the world is something that is so inspiring and keeps me going and keeps me really optimistic about the future.

[19:49] Because of course during COVID I wasn't able to host these poetry readings like I was prior to the pandemic. I was going all over the world. And, you know, you hit that kind of moment too I think where everybody was zoomed out so they didn't want to just always be on zoom, like reading or sharing and then Clubhouse came and then of course I met you. And there were other things that opened up and web three was one of those things. And so when I think about creating and connecting, I think that this is this is vital. I think to our survival as artists and creators and evolution to so people feel like they have safe spaces to go to, to, you know, all the things that I made before create speak express. And, and we were involved in something during Miami Art Basel.

[20:40] And that was really cool and that was a platform to lift up artists of all types and really enjoy that and that was a VR experience and it was both you know you could see it from home and you can also put on the headset while you were in Miami and see all these wonderful artists and see what what they were doing and then there was a poetry a live poetry component to it so what I'm working on now is what I mentioned to you before is something called room 707 and it is a secret society for writers creators artists collectors all to gather in secret on and off the blockchain. So I know a lot of people talk about like oh well you know blockchain is transparent like why are you making something like a secret society or an underground movement and I'm like, do you know, do you know what being a woman is like do you know what being queers like do you like, we need to have safe spaces and they need to be gated so I know

[21:40] we talk a lot about things being not gated and that kind of has a bad, like kind of reputation for things to be gated, but I think in the sense of also like you know what Dion and what we're saying with their experiences. It's like having something gated means that like you know you're entering into a safe space. And you're not going to be talking to a robot if somebody violates that space. They will be there will be a discussion and they will be removed if they are disrupting the safe space so I think that this is something that we can control because they're decentralized platforms right unlike going to Twitter or going to Instagram being like oh I was trying to have a private discord or a private something where we can control it I think like that is something that I feel is, you know, part of where we're going and no discord is certainly not the answer there's a lot of problems with those, you know,

[22:47] services but being able to at least have a place where we can, you know, gather, where we can mobilize because we still have to mobilize. People don't realize that they think okay all the hard work is done we're done. We don't have to do anything else it's like, no, like, I'm sure like we still all get a lot of hate mail and hate tweets and all this stuff and like you know comments in the comments section so like the work is not done and and and security privacy and protection is something that I care a great deal about and I talked about in my work and also representation right like with my photography work is about representing communities and representing people that I feel in line with so you know and I've had plenty of experiences where people, this is many many years ago when those books came out, where they weren't cool, like, they didn't, they were not received well.

[23:42] And even like the first book that I put out I heart boy they thought I was a man because like a woman would never take pictures like this of like the queer community, and like how dare she, you know, and but that book was more of a love than the second one because when I started depicting women and non binary people in that way in that book. Like you, but I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here with, you know, the four of you because, you know, to me, I was like, these are beautiful people, beautiful humans, and I'm sharing them, and with their consent and they're part of this process and then I would get these really like awful comments from primarily men, but like, Oh, you know, the women in this book aren't particularly attractive, you know, because I wasn't presenting them as like sexual or, you know, in a way that we're used to seeing women depicted in the media.

[24:41] So, like going through a lot of that and even like with my feminist collective just getting really weird messages back when people have like signed up for like, what do you call it like a mailing list and just be calling being called like these crazy names and I'm just like, aren't we past this, like, we're not so like that's why it's important to like not step back but, you know, lean in and move forward and continue to create continue to curate and have these conversations and onboard as many people as we can to use our favorite term, you know that there are safe spaces and you know we're doing that now like you've created a really safe space for this conversation today David so yeah that's that's kind of where I'm at right now thinking about this. No, that's excellent. So many things to touch on there but I really do think that ultimately you know I want to be part of that club and I'll look into it afterwards

[25:36] but you know I got there really is still in need. There really is still a need for, you know, like you said these gated communities and and also to Dion's point you know if you want to, you know, let's say this in a public society you know on general social media that we almost expect the hate because we're going to the general market, but if we can create we have the power to create spaces that are inherently our own. Why, let those types of things be included in them and we have the power to choose what we include what we don't include in their spaces so I think that's really powerful and that's a great, you know message to be sharing people right now, also people watching us in the metaverse right now who have the option to kind of create their immediate surroundings and speaking of, I also do want to pass this conversation over to Katie and somebody who's building a lot of spaces right now in

[26:24] the metaverse Katie and I'm also curious I wanted to angle this kind of same question to you from a bit of a perspective, you know you've worked in fashion for a long time you've worked in. I'd say like, I don't know I don't even know what to call it emerging technologies I guess about this for a long time, and the intersection between the two. Obviously, both of these worlds I think are even if maybe fashion is a traditional ecosystem, you know, very dependent on let's say the queer community, you know, in terms of pushing things forward in terms of a lot of the major ideas, there's a lot of the creative directors, but also in tech I feel like that's something that's not talked about enough you know there are organizations like out in tech, but there are so many queer non binary gender nonconforming people working in the tech field. And I had a conversation like this we had a conversation earlier this week, with a

[27:10] number of trans and non binary artists, and we were talking about, you know, representation, and a number of different issues. But we were also talking about how people who identify often as non binary or trans often are extremely forward thinkers, and often are the people who are also at the forefront of other areas of either our technology science, etc. So I think it's actually really interesting that we see a lot of really major change makers, a lot of a lot of you know the most important artists or coders or technical people end up being queer so anyway just to go on a bit of a soapbox tangent there. But I'd love to pass the question back to you Katie in your experience both as a queer person as a queer woman, you know, and it's also just somebody working in all of these incredible burgeoning spaces. How has it been for you a building spaces but also, you know, interacting with your peers and creating some kind of queer community within, I suppose it within the

[27:59] workspace and within the ecosystem. Yeah, well, firstly, I echo all of the sentiments that everybody is spoken to so eloquently. And equally, David, you know, to your point on the community and visibility and amplification and the spotlight, you know, of our community and making sure that we can amplify and that we have this collective intelligence and this opportunity to bring our community together. I think it's really powerful and I think we've done that throughout the history of time. And we've been kicking the doors down right and we're not going to stop doing that I'm certainly not going to stop doing that. And I really want to, you know, inspire the next generation and I want to look at ways that we can amplify the voices of all of the incredible artists, all of the incredible writers, all of the amazing creative people that are part of our community, especially at a time where many of the venues, you know,

[29:07] have closed down, you know, and thinking about ways that these online spaces can be safe venues and safe places for our community to come together. That's something that, you know, it's really key to do with opening my venue in alt space, bringing in queer artists, bringing in queer talent, making sure that we could put a spotlight on that talent and using those spaces as an opportunity to cultivate that mindset and to bring that energy to the best creators and to the best minds, you know, working, you know, in crypto and in the digital fashion space. And then, you know, opening up my venue in spatial where people can come in through a headset, through their mobile or through a desktop and the opportunity for that accessibility from anywhere around the world for people to be able to do that is something that I'm also really inspired by.

[30:14] I was also a queer ranch, as you do. Recently, a couple of weeks ago, and we were thinking about ways that we could mirror what was going on at the queer ranch festival inside the metaverse. So we're looking at ways that we can create that with the founders of queer ranch in the Ohana Collective. I'm also really inspired by everything that Decentraland are doing in, you know, for Pride Month. But for me, you know, it's pride every day. I always want to celebrate our community. I always want us to be amplifying the voices of our community and making sure that we do have safe spaces for our community to come together. Just on the digital fashion side, you know, we've got an incredible community where, you know, we're investing in virtual land and we're also participating in NFT drops and we're bringing in queer artists and queer creators looking at ways that we can govern those spaces together.

[31:24] And also thinking about how we can use the gallery space and the village space that I've created for metaverse experiences in the virtual world. But then also bringing the community together in the real world, David, because you know, that's also something that I've been doing a lot of, you know, in the real world in physical locations. And then also using the power of augmented reality and virtual, you know, while building and, you know, virtual reality for people to come in and experience digital fashion and experience digital art. But, you know, most importantly, I think I'm really open and have always been a great believer in collaboration and looking at ways that we can activate through collaboration and bring about change and look at ways that we can be visible and that we can be seen.

[32:16] And I think, you know, through collaboration and the amplifying of our community and investing my time in kind of doing that and cultivating that has been, you know, a huge part of my career and a part of my practice. Both as an artist and as somebody that, you know, as an architect, you know, building spaces for the metaverse. And I think we need, you know, much more people from our community building these spaces. And this is something that, you know, I advocate for a lot, David, as you know. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kadine. It's always such a pleasure including you in these conversations. And I love what you do in this space. One of the queens of the metaverse and definitely making things, you know, making things happen.

[33:05] I'll also take queen of the metaverse. I'll take it too. No, incredible, incredible. I love what you said, and I do want to, you know, carry one of those points. We're considering what it means to create spaces that are safe or accessible to more people. I think one thing that you touched on, Kadine, it's also really important is how are those spaces able to be accessed? You know, that's also something that we, you know, we don't consider when we're thinking about accessibility in the metaverse. We also have to think about, you know, really tangible accessibility. We have to think about how are people actually going to experience these events? And to Kadine's point, if somebody can just go on their phone, you know, way more people have a phone than have a computer. So if we can have something that's accessible on a phone where people can come into a space and experience community firsthand in an area like your spatial experience,

[33:49] I think that's really powerful. And that's something that, you know, we can actually push forward. And, you know, in a world where, you know, maybe sub-metaverse solutions aren't accessible to everybody yet because they don't have a computer that's accessible to it or they don't have the internet connection that's accessible to it. And, you know, just using what devices we have, I think, are the ways that we're going to be able to connect more of the world, like the part of the world that is not currently connected to the rest of us. And that's how we can build more communities. So I think that's a really fabulous thing to mention. I want to end this talk because, unfortunately, we're moving towards that. We're not quite there yet. But the last question I wanted to ask each of you before we talk a little bit about what each of you are doing over the next month, because I want to make sure to give everybody some time to shine some light on your current

[34:27] projects and what you have going on. But I would like to ask an A-B question, a two-part question, but it's not too lofty, so bear with me. I would be really curious to each person on this panel right now. A, what are you doing? What are you really excited to do this month for Pride in person? Because I really do think it's important when we're talking about the metaverse to consider the metaverse being a value add to our lives. I still want people to live, you know, full, enriched lives in IRL, in the real world. But I want the metaverse to add to that life. So, you know, I want I want to ask each of you, what are you doing this month that you're really excited for in real life for Pride? And what are you excited for that you're going to do this month in virtual space or in the metaverse this month for Pride? If I can ask each of you that question, let's flip it around this time. Let's start with Katie, if that's OK, because I know you have some thoughts on

[35:12] this. And David, I'm doing so many things, but I first I firstly want to start by saying I want to start by saying how much I love the team at Decentraland and big up Sam and Gigi and Iora for hosting a month long worth of incredible energy and activities. In Decentraland, I love it. And I'm honored to be a part of the official parade this year, the immersive kind. We've got a ruby red slipper that will created a custom float for my avatar is coming in to do a DJ set.

[36:03] We've also got the drag king Dom one coming in to do a performance on the ruby red slipper. And we've also got George Michael disco and DJ Paul Simpa, who's from the mighty hoopla in London and think the pink and guilty pleasures. We've invited Paul into to do the George Michael disco set for us. There's also going to be some other surprises along the way. We've created some wearables that I'm going to drop and give to the community. I mentioned the Ohana Collective, which is an incredible queer collective and the queer ranch. We're looking at ways that we can bring the queer ranch into the metaverse this year inside my my venue in in spatial. And then on top of that, we're also going to host a runway show, which I mentioned with with Maison Dow, the incredible digital fashion designer, Jessica James, and some other complete stars and huge digital fashion creators that are really pushing it.

[37:15] They're going to come in into into the venue in spatial. I've also just dropped an augmented reality crown with Gary James McQueen, who's the nephew of Alexander McQueen, which has been warned by over a million people around the world, which is incredible. The power of digital fashion that anybody with a mobile phone or, you know, being able to jump into these spaces can come in and experience it. What else am I doing? I've just done a huge crypto NFT fashion project, which I'm going to announce in the coming weeks. And I'm just really excited to be a part of our community during Pride Month. I'm looking forward to bringing everybody together and celebrating our queerness and diversity and inclusion.

[38:15] Fabulous. Thank you so much, Katie. And I'm so excited to see everything that you're doing in the metaverse because you're even bringing real life into the metaverse. I feel like you're a full time resident now. So I'm really fabulous and so happy you could join us here today as well. Up next, Seb, really excited to hear what you have planned for Pride if you have one thing you're really excited for, IRL and one thing you're really excited for online. I think IRL, the main thing I'm excited about is just meeting other LGBTQ members, creators, because as Katie was saying, collaboration is so important. And I think it's the best way that we can build a community in Web3 and take advantage of everything it has to offer. Because it's like we're here for each other, whereas in Web2, we've seen that TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, they don't really care.

[39:06] So it's time to show how united we can be and build a community. So I'm excited about that. And then I'm also starting, we're obviously going to be working on more music and we're starting working on a graphic novel. So I think we already got our feet wet on Web3 by launching our first collection a month ago or something. But now I want to get more into it and, like, Jessica and Katie, your projects are so inspiring. So I definitely want to learn more about it and do amazing things like you guys are doing. Oh my god, you're doing amazing things. I'm so inspired by you Seb and Dion and Jeff. Thank you. Conversation has just been such a great, it's just been very close to my heart.

[39:55] I feel really energized by it. Yeah, me too. I love it. I love it. I have the same question for you, Dion. I know you're doing a lot, but yeah. I mean, you know, after the Pinini Express Pride Toronto is finally back. So I'm so excited about that. And in the Web2 space, we have a lot of brand deals for Pride. So just to get back into the space with different brands and reach out to the community. I'm so excited in person and online. And then, yeah, I just dropped a new song called Sweet Peach. It's very queer. And then with that, we dropped our NFT collection a month ago, which was Peach's booties. All these cute little cartoon booties. And that was a fun way to get into the NFT space. So now, as KD and Jessica were talking about so many cool things, I'm just so energized to move forward in the space.

[40:50] Like, y'all have avatars. I need to get my avatar going. I'm very excited about all that. And Seb and I have already talked about, like, how it would be so cool to have, like, a concert venue in the space just for queer artists, like, performers that we could perform in. So I definitely think there's so much potential moving forward in Web3 for Pride in the community. And, yeah, I'm just excited about it all. Amazing. And we're excited for you. Excited to see you push forward into the metaverse. And for everything that you have coming forwards in Web3 and Web2. I just want to say thank you to everybody who's taken the time out of their day to join us. I know it's, like, the most hectic month ever. So I appreciate all of you even more than I usually do. So once again, thank you. Right before we end this, last but finally not least, where can people find each of you if they want to look you up on socials?

[41:39] And then we'll end this one off. Katie, do you want to kick us off? Yes. Thank you so much, David, for guiding us so expertly and for just being an absolute star. It's always such a joy to get to work with you and for bringing Seb and Dion and Jess and I together today for this wonderful conversation during Pride Month. You can get me at The Immersive Kind on Instagram and also on Twitter. And you can also jump into my venues in Spatial at The Immersive Kind and also the NFT Virtual Reality Bar in alt space. You can also find me on my website, which is theimmersivekind.com. And you can follow me on LinkedIn, too, if you like.

[42:30] Really great to meet you all. And Dion and Seb, I'd love to bring you in to perform in the Metaverse. Put me up. Let's chat. I love it. I love it. Making dreams come true in the Metaverse. Jessica, where can we find you online if people want to check out you and your amazing artwork? You can find me anywhere online at jutrosky. Basically, like everything. That's my social handle. So you can find me there and you can also find me at room707.io. Fabulous. Fabulous. Last but not least, Seb and Dion. Seb, where can we find you on social media? I'm Seb Argo everywhere. S-E-B-B-A-R-G-O. And then we're on TikTok as Dion and Seb. So yeah, that's it. Amazing. And Dion, last but certainly not least. Yeah, as on screen, Dion Yorkie everywhere.

[43:20] One extra E on Facebook. Perfect. On Facebook. If you happen to want to find him on Facebook, there you go. Thank you all so much. Thank you all so much again for joining us. Once again, this has been David Cash for the Decentraland Foundation. We'll see you all in the next panel early next week and all month, because we're going to be doing two panels a week all month for Pride, having a bunch of amazing conversations at the intersection of queerness and the Metaverse. Appreciate everybody tuning in. Thank you all for sticking around to the end, and we'll see you in the next one. Take care, everybody. Ciao.