WEBVTT

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Hello.

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I'd like to introduce you to someone.

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This is Jomny.

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That's "Jonny" but spelled
accidentally with an "m,"

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in case you were wondering,

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because we're not all perfect.

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Jomny is an alien

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who has been sent to Earth
with a mission to study humans.

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Jomny is feeling lost and alone
and far from home,

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and I think we've all felt this way.

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Or, at least I have.

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I wrote this story about this alien
at a moment in my life

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when I was feeling particularly alien.

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I had just moved to Cambridge
and started my doctoral program at MIT,

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and I was feeling intimidated and isolated
and very much like I didn't belong.

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But I had a lifeline of sorts.

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See, I was writing jokes
for years and years

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and sharing them on social media,

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and I found that I was turning
to doing this more and more.

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Now, for many people, the internet
can feel like a lonely place.

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It can feel like this,

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a big, endless, expansive void

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where you can constantly call out to it
but no one's ever listening.

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But I actually found a comfort
in speaking out to the void.

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I found, in sharing
my feelings with the void,

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eventually the void started to speak back.

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And it turns out that the void
isn't this endless lonely expanse at all,

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but instead it's full of
all sorts of other people,

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also staring out into it
and also wanting to be heard.

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Now, there have been many bad things
that have come from social media.

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I'm not trying to dispute that at all.

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To be online at any given point
is to feel so much sadness

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and anger and violence.

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It can feel like the end of the world.

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Yet, at the same time, I'm conflicted,

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because I can't deny the fact that
so many of my closest friends

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are people that I had met
originally online.

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And I think that's partly because
there's this confessional nature

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to social media.

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It can feel like you are writing
in this personal, intimate diary

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that's completely private,

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yet at the same time you want
everyone in the world to read it.

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And I think part of that, the joy of that

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is that we get to experience things
from perspectives from people

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who are completely
different from ourselves,

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and sometimes that's a nice thing.

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For example, when I first joined Twitter,

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I found that so many of the people
that I was following

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were talking about mental health
and going to therapy

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in ways that had none of the stigma
that they often do

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when we talk about these issues in person.

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Through them, the conversation
around mental health was normalized,

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and they helped me realize
that going to therapy was something

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that would help me as well.

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Now, for many people,

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it sounds like a scary idea
to be talking about all these topics

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so publicly and so openly on the internet.

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I feel like a lot of people
think that it is a big, scary thing

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to be online if you're not already
perfectly and fully formed.

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But I think the internet can be
actually a great place to not know,

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and I think we can
treat that with excitement,

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because to me there's something
important about sharing your imperfections

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and your insecurities
and your vulnerabilities

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with other people.

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Now, when someone shares
that they feel sad or afraid

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or alone, for example,
it actually makes me feel less alone,

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not by getting rid of any of my loneliness

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but by showing me that I am not alone

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in feeling lonely.

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And as a writer and as an artist,

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I care very much about making this
comfort of being vulnerable

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a communal thing, something that we
can share with each other.

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I'm excited about
externalizing the internal,

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about taking those invisible personal
feelings that I don't have words for,

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holding them to the light,

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putting words to them,

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and then sharing them with other people

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in the hopes that it might help them
find words to find their feelings as well.

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Now, I know that sounds like a big thing,

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but ultimately I'm interested
in putting all these things

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into small, approachable packages,

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because when we can hide them
into these smaller pieces,

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I think they are easier to approach.
I think they're more fun.

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I think they can more easily help us
see our shared humanness.

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Sometimes that takes the form
of a short story,

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sometimes that takes the form of
a cute book of illustrations, for example,

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and sometimes that takes the form

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of a silly joke that
I'll throw on the internet.

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For example, a few months ago,
I posted this app idea

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for a dog-walking service

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where a dog shows up at your door
and you have to get out of the house

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and go for a walk.

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(Laughter)

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If there are app developers
in the audience,

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please find me after the talk.

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Or, I like to share every time
I feel anxious about sending an email.

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When I sign my emails "Best,"

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it's short for "I am trying my best,"

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which is short for "Please don't hate me,
I promise I'm trying my best!"

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Or, my answer to the classic icebreaker,

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if I could have dinner with anyone,
dead or alive, I would.

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I am very lonely.

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(Laughter)

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And I find that when
I post things like these online,

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the reaction is very similar.

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People come together to share a laugh,

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to share in that feeling,

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and then to disburse just as quickly.

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(Laughter)

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But -- yes, leaving me once again alone.

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But I think sometimes these
little gatherings can be quite meaningful.

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For example, when I graduated
from architecture school

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and I moved to Cambridge,

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I posted this question:

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how many people in your life
have you already had

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your last conversation with?

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And I was thinking about
my own friends who had moved away

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to different cities
and different countries, even,

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and how hard it would be
for me to keep in touch with them.

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But other people started replying
and sharing their own experiences.

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Somebody talked about a family member
they had a falling out with.

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Someone talked about a loved one
who had passed away

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quickly and unexpectedly.

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Someone else talked about
their friends from school

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who had moved away as well.

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But then something really nice
started happening.

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Instead of just replying to me,

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people started replying to each other,

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and they started to talk to each other
and share their own experiences

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and comfort each other

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and encourage each other
to reach out to that friend

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that they hadn't spoken to in a while

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or that family member
that they had a falling out with.

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And eventually, we got this little
tiny micro-community.

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It felt like this support group formed

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of all sorts of people coming together.

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And I think every time we post online,

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every time we do this, there's a chance

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that these little
micro-communities can form.

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There's a chance that all sorts
of different creatures

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can come together and be drawn together.

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And sometimes, through
the muck of the internet,

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you have to find a kindred spirit.

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Sometimes that's in
the reading the replies

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and the comments sections and finding
a reply that is particularly kind

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or insightful or funny.

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Sometimes that's in
going to follow someone

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and seeing that they
already follow you back.

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And sometimes that's in looking at someone
that you know in real life

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and seeing the things that you write
and the things that they write

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and realizing that you share
so many of the same interests

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as they do, and that brings them
closer together to you.

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Sometimes, if you're lucky,

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you get to meet another alien.

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But I am worried, too,

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because as we all know,

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the internet for the most part
doesn't feel like this.

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We all know that for the most part,
the internet feels like a place

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where we misunderstand each other,

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where we come into conflict
with each other,

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where there's all sorts of confusion
and screaming and yelling and shouting,

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and it feels like
there's too much of everything.

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It feels like chaos,

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and I don't know how to square away
the bad parts with the good,

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because as we know and as we've seen,

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the bad parts can really, really hurt us.

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It feels to me that the platforms
that we use to inhabit these online spaces

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have been designed
either ignorantly or willfully

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to allow for harassment and abuse,
to propagate misinformation,

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to enable hatred and hate speech
and the violence that comes from it,

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and it feels like
none of our current platforms

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are doing enough to address
and to fix that.

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But still, and maybe
probably unfortunately,

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I'm still drawn to these online spaces,
as many others are,

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because sometimes it just feels
like that's where all the people are.

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And I feel silly

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and stupid sometimes

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for valuing these small moments
of human connection in times like these.

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But I've always operated under this idea

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that these little moments of humanness
are not superfluous.

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They're not retreats
from the world at all,

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but instead they're the reasons
why we come to these spaces.

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They are important and vital

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and they affirm and they give us life.

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And they are these tiny,
temporary sanctuaries

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that show us that we are not
as alone as we think we are.

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And so yes, even though life is bad
and everyone's sad

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and one day we're all going to die,

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(Laughter),

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I think the inflatable metaphorical
bouncy castle in this case

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is really our relationships
and our connections to other people.

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And so one night,

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when I was feeling particularly sad
and hopeless about the world,

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I shouted out to the vote,

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to the lonely darkness.

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I said, "At this point,
logging on to social media

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feels like holding someone's hand
at the end of the world."

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And this time, instead of
the void responding,

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it was people who showed up,

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who started replying to me and then
who started talking to each other,

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and slowly this little
tiny community formed.

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Everybody came together to hold hands.

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And in these dangerous and unsure times,

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in the midst of it all,

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I think the thing that we have
to hold on to is other people.

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And I know that is a small thing
made up of small moments,

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but I think it is one tiny,
tiny sliver of light

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in all the darkness.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)