MALE SPEAKER: Good afternoon, everybody.
Today for the Talks at Google series,
we have with us Lauren Mayberry, the lead singer of the band
Chvrches, as well as the rest of the band, who
will be playing a musical set at the end.
Coming onto this scene--
[APPLAUSE]
coming onto the scene two years ago with their song "Lies,"
their subsequent single "The Mother We Share,"
as well as their debut album, "The Bones of What you Believe"
helped propel Chvrches to the top five
of BBC'S Sound of 2013, an award-winning appearance
at South by Southwest, and a worldwide tour.
Please join me in welcoming Chvrches.
Now most recently, I think a lot of the audience
was expecting to see you guys at Outside Lands,
but I hear there was a little issue--
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Don't bring it up, don't bring it up.
MALE SPEAKER: No?
OK.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: We're still quite sad about it,
to be honest.
MALE SPEAKER: From what I heard, it
was the airport's fault, so--
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Yeah.
It was a catalogue of disasters within an airport,
and then there was quite upsetting bit where
me and Martin got on the plane and could
see everybody else at the gate, but they wouldn't let them
on the plane even though we could see them out the window.
And then we sat on the runway for 45 minutes
while they offloaded all their bags,
but they weren't allowed in the pit.
This is very upsetting.
But it's OK.
We're going to try and get a show in San Francisco
at the start of the next-- shh, don't tell anyone.
We haven't figured out exactly when yet, but shh.
MALE SPEAKER: Well, I think we're all
looking forward to it, then.
AUDIENCE: Is this live streaming?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: No, it's OK.
We don't know when.
It might happen.
We hope it'll happen.
MALE SPEAKER: All right, so a year ago,
you wrote an article for "The Guardian"
about the perils of being a front woman
in a band in the social media age.
Now, as a band born on the internet,
I take it that social media and being
able to communicate with your fans
is incredibly important to you guys.
But at the same time, this also opened up some avenues
for abusive comments well beyond just normal musical criticism.
Could you talk a little bit about how
you guys use social media to interact
with fans and the experiences that
led you to write that article for "The Guardian"?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Yeah, I guess for us,
we came about getting signed in a reasonably orthodox way.
We didn't go about the traditional tour
the UK for however many years and then tour
Europe, and so on.
We came to a lot of people's attention because
of online streaming and blogs, and people just passing
the songs to each other on social networks.
We operated unsigned for quite a long time
and it was just important for us to use those things as a medium
to communicate with people, get them information.
I grew up in the MSN era of being on band message boards
and street teams and things like that, so from my point view,
social networks for us are like online street teams.
There's been definitely overwhelmingly
positive parts of that for us, but because we
oversee that ourselves, I suppose
when you're logging to do all those things,
sometimes you get a little rape threat over your breakfast,
and that's fine.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, it's not fine, I guess is the point.
We posted this screen grab of an example that we got sent,
and it wasn't even something terribly, terribly offensive.
I was like, this is just generally
the tone of some of this stuff.
Please stop.
And then "The Guardian" gave us the opportunity
to expand on it a bit.
I think the response was generally positive to us
from people in bands or people we meet at shows,
but I don't know if it changed the world
in any revolutionary way.
But speaking about it is probably quite helpful,
and then figuring out that other people actually agree with you
and the world isn't actually just
full of horrible, abusive internet trolls.
It's good to know.
MALE SPEAKER: YouTube just recently changed its policy
on allowing anonymous names for leaving comments.
You can now leave a comment anonymously.
I want to know your opinion on whether that will affect
anything, or is this something that's
going to happen regardless of if people's names are associated
with their messages?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: So they can now leave a message?
MALE SPEAKER: Now they can leave them anonymously.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: I've never actually left a comment
on YouTube in my life ever, so I'm
like oh, that would be a weird thing to do.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, I don't know.
I guess I was thinking about this earlier,
but for me, it's about personal responsibility, and then
who is responsible for that?
If people are posting abusive things,
who's the fall guy for that?
Is the social networks, or is it the person,
or should law enforcement be talking about that?
Who is responsible?
I think where people are allowed to be
anonymous means that they feel like there's
less of a fallout or something.
I feel like to an extent, when people are on the internet--
no offense, because I know you guys are the internet--
[LAUGHTER]
there's a certain level of where you're removed from that,
so maybe you don't feel as much personal responsibility
or something.
I'm not sure.
I'm worried about that.
MALE SPEAKER: You also talk about one
of this problem stemming from kind of a lack of empathy
on the side of the people who are leaving the comments.
Here at Google, we have a very global reach,
and I was wondering if there's any suggestions you have
for either Google or really the industry in general about how
to promote a sense of empathy in our applications.
We're really changing the way that people interact,
bringing it online, and it'd be great to bring
that sense of well-being that we have in real life online.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Yeah, I guess anything
like that is probably helpful, I think--
trying to change the tone of conversations.
But in my mind, it's the stuff that we've
received is just a more exaggerated version of what
happens in real life.
It's the chicken and egg thing for me.
Does that reflect society, or does the society
reflect-- it's kind of hard to tell which.
I don't think that threatening and abusive exists only online.
People probably wouldn't say as much of that right
to your face, but then there's a reason
why people think it's OK to say those things because there's
a certain thread throughout society that
makes people think that's fine.
It's not like the only time ever I've
had anybody say anything offensive or sexist
to me is in this band on the internet.
That happens to people all the time.
I was coming out of a subway in Glasgow
and somebody-- it was the last subway at night,
and someone showed me his penis and said,
do you think you're too good for it, darling?
Which is funny now, maybe, but at the time,
I was like 21 coming home from work,
and I was like, it's not funny when you're there
on the receiving end of that, so to speak.
[LAUGHTER]
What do you say?
I'm like 5'2.
It was like 11:30 at night.
He's a massive guy and had two other mates with him.
What am I supposed to do about that?
Maybe he goes around leaving horrible comments
on the internet.
I don't know.
Or maybe he's busy doing it in real life.
It's hard to say.
MALE SPEAKER: It seemed like-- obviously, you
chose to speak up.
Part of the article was that you're not just
going to "deal with it" as a lot of people
told you to do when you wrote the article originally.
What side of the problem do you think stems from, say,
other female celebrities or other women in general just
kind of dealing with it?
Because I feel like people wouldn't tell you to do that
if it wasn't-- a majority of the people were just dealing with
it, so to speak.
What problems stem from that?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Well, I guess the thing that was confusing
for me was that most people were supportive of what we were
saying, but there was a definite strain in the conversation
where people were saying that the onus is
on us to accept it and deal with it.
That to me is just a follow up from a victim-blaming culture
where people are like, well, it's up to you to deal with it.
It's not up to those people to not behave like that.
It's up to you to suck it up and deal with it.
I was like, it's bad.
It's awful if that's happening to you when you're
using the internet in a personal capacity
because everyone has the right to use the internet to seek out
knowledge and do nice stuff on the internet.
I was like, this is something we're
doing in the course of our employment.
So if I want to be in a band and have a social network,
then I need to accept that?
I think that's a pretty confusing way to look at it.
Also, I suppose probably a lot people
don't want to talk about that because I think it paints you
in a certain light or something like that.
But for me, these are things that we think personally
anyway, and it's something you're coming up
against in your day-to-day job and your day-to-day life.
I don't really see why you should
have to sacrifice doing things that you would normally
do in order to appease what I hope is a minority of people.
MALE SPEAKER: At least in terms of the Google properties,
we can detect and delete comments
that would be considered abusive pretty easily.
But at the same time, obviously you wouldn't see them then,
and that would give you some sense of relief.
Do you think it's only going to encourage the problem if people
feel like they can leave these comments
and they're actually going to be deleted before they show up?
So that generates anger and mean harboring feelings towards you
on the side of the commenters.
Do you think deleting these comments would
help fix the problem, or is it--?
do
LAUREN MAYBERRY: I don't know.
I thought about it a lot when we were
trying to figure out how to deal with it.
I was like, yes, it does make me feel better
if I don't see any of these things.
But then I was like, the option then
in order to not see those things is
to not partake in that part of the job and not do that.
I guess that always gets guess my back quite a lot
when people bring up the freedom of speech thing.
I'm like, well, freedom of hateful speech--
is that allowed?
I think there is a freedom of speech issue,
but from my point of view, it's not the commenter's freedom
of speech, it's our freedom of speech
to go about doing what we're doing.
And in order to do that, then you
have to accept someone talking to you like that.
Yet whenever people bring up the, yeah,
but I can say what I want because it's a free world
and I'm on the internet.
I'm like, you're free to say what you want
but not be a prick.
I feel like that should be like-- you need to write that
into the European Convention on Human Rights.
Freedom of speech, brackets, but not if you're prick.
I don't know.
How do you change it?
I think it's great that companies like yourselves
are trying to make a statement on something like that.
But I feel like there's probably quite a long way
to go before it trickles down into actual day-to-day
attitudes.
MALE SPEAKER: You talked about the story you had
of experiencing this in real life, as well.
Would you consider these abuse of comments online an evolution
of catcalling and other street harassment,
or is this its own separate thing?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: I think it probably
evolves from the same beginning point.
That made no sense, that sentence.
They come from the same starting point,
I think, the same kind of attitude
that if a woman is in a public place,
then she's automatically opening herself up to these things.
The distance created between people on the internet
helps people.
I've never had anyone say to my face,
you think this is rape culture-- you won't know this
until I come around and rape you,
but they do it on the internet.
If someone said that to me in real life,
I would be very alarmed and you would obviously
report them to the police.
But if it's on the internet, then people are like,
oh, it's the internet.
It's harmless, it's fine.
I'm like, hmm?
Is it?
MALE SPEAKER: Either before you wrote the article
or afterwards, did you have any mentors either in the industry
or in your life that had previous experience
with something like this and were able to help walk you
through it, or is that something that you think maybe the music
industry or things in general need to have accessible?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: I didn't speak to anyone about it in that way.
There's always people I've admired in terms of musicians
and how they conduct themselves professionally
and things like that, but I guess
it would've been good if there was a how-to guide where
you could be like, what was this?
Like OK, scroll to that page, and then oh right, OK.
Just ignore it, OK.
I don't know.
I guess that's probably why it was so confusing, I suppose,
because we're really supportive of each other.
I'm the only woman in this band.
I've always been in bands with very supportive guys,
but I've always been the only female in those bands,
so people can empathize with you.
I guess it's not as threatening because it's not
directed at them.
I don't know.
I'm not sure.
Like, women experience that on some level
at some point in their lives, definitely.
So I guess maybe you learned from the textbook of life
or something.
I'm not sure.
MALE SPEAKER: Have you found that these problems
have stemmed from any specific social networks in general,
or is it kind of a broad thing that you've
experienced everywhere?
Like, is it harder to be a prick in 140 characters on Twitter?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Sometimes they're quite inventive,
I suppose.
[LAUGHTER]
I would say the worst one is Facebook.
Which is strange to me, because there's technically more
anonymity on Twitter because you don't
need to use your real name.
If your account gets deleted, you
can make another one however many hours later,
whereas I suppose with Facebook, they
want you to use your real name if you do, I don't know.
That's definitely where most of the comments were coming in.
And also because we still had at that point
the direct message function on, which
is another further removal for those people.
They're like, we are contacting you on the internet
and it can't be seen by other people,
so I can say it directly to you, whatever I wish to say.
Obviously, we figured out how to turn that off now.
So that's much better.
Even now, if you post-- I think I reshared an article that
was on Mic website and it was about an advert
in "Sound on Sound" that was advertising microphones.
It was like a naked woman from the side
and you could see her ass and stuff in it.
To me, I was like, that's not-- what's
that got to do with advertising microphones?
But it was a really interesting article
that the guy who used to run [INAUDIBLE]
and then underneath it, people were just like shut up and go
back to doing what you're supposed to be doing.
I don't want to read this.
I want to come here and listen to music.
I don't want-- why are you talking about this shit?
It's not relevant.
I was like, that article is about music.
I think it's relevant.
But seeing it all kind of unfold again, you're like,
I'll let it go.
That's fine.
I guess the good thing for us now
is that if people know where we stand on it,
they kind of self-police a little bit more.
So rather than us having to go in
and being like, ban user, oh dear, and go through,
people have more of a discussion about it,
so I guess that's positive.
But I don't really know how much that really
changes people's minds about things.
MALE SPEAKER: Do you do you ever respond directly
to these comments?
Maybe in the beginning when you first started receiving them,
or do you generally just try to steer clear?
Basically, any advice you'd have for people
who receive these sort of things.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: I think it's a difficult line to tread,
because my instinct tells me that every time somebody says
that, then if you were threatened,
then you need to go in on the offensive
and just call people out on it.
But I suppose I've got quite a busy day most days,
and I also don't have a huge amount of time
to troll through and be like, oh great, that's happened.
What would your mother say?
Things like that.
I guess it's just trying to gauge it on a day-to-day basis.
I think before we made any comment on it,
it was taking quite a personal toll
to constantly be the person that has to be like no, stop it.
No, stop it.
It got to the point where I was like, I'm just
going to delete the comments and ban the users,
but you can't ban people from life, so that's a problem.
That sounds really totalitarian.
I'm like, get them all and put them in a bin,
but I don't mean that.
MALE SPEAKER: In the article you tread pretty lightly
around the word feminist.
You treat it as if maybe there's some connotations
that you don't want to associate with yourself.
You make a comment that you don't hate men in general.
That you're speaking feminism in terms
of equality for the sexes.
Do you think that the term in general has become unfriendly?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: I think the start of the sentence
says, "I am a feminist" because I am.
And I feel like all the caveats I
put in after that were to counter what people
say to you when you say that.
They're like oh, so you hate men.
Oh, well, all these other things.
No, I don't know.
That's just a stereotype that has
been made to discredit what people are saying about it,
I think.
I have no problem identifying as that because to me,
it means somebody who seeks equality between all people.
It's not about making women better than men.
A white middle class woman's agenda shouldn't be about that.
It should be about generally society being a bit less shit
sometimes.
I think there's loads of great examples of people
who are making something like that more accessible to people.
Because I guess for me, I learned about it through music.
And then I figured out what those people are reading
and who they were influenced by, and that's
how I got into feminist literature and stuff.
It can feel academic and strange in that regard.
I think the internet has been really helpful for that, things
like Feministing and Jezebel and stuff making it more not even
necessarily pop culture-based, but just more
conversational and hopefully more representative
of more peoples, because it's about your everyday issues.
It shouldn't just be in a book in a library somewhere.
MALE SPEAKER: What prompted me to reach out to you
guys in the first place was an article
I read in the January issue of "Pacific Standard."
It's about a writer, Amanda Hess,
who covers her experiences with these comments.
She talks about how she receives these comments where people
are threatening to come to her house, which,
if it had happened in a real life experience,
if you went to the police with that,
they would get a restraining order.
They'd take some sort of action.
But because she received these comments on the internet,
the police brushed it off.
They acted as if it wasn't important.
They told her to get back in touch with them
if someone actually shows up, which
seems like there's a lot of room for something bad to happen
there.
Do you think as we transition to more digital interactions
that we risk losing some of the standards and etiquette
that we've built up over the years
and that some of the safety might disappear
as these things go online?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: I don't know.
I guess that as technology develops
and society changes, then laws need
to adapt to cater for that.
I suppose right now is a pretty big gray area
because if they're like no physical threat
has happened upon you, then what can the police really do
about it?
But then I just think it adds to the people feeling
more alone and more vulnerable and more isolated.
I suppose the thing with that is even if-- Amanda Hess,
you can find her online.
She's very well known.
But even if it was like a conventional stalking thing,
the victim still doesn't have-- I
think that's what she says in the piece.
The victim doesn't have the anonymity
of the person that's abusing them
because they are the known person whether they are
a well-known person or just-- you don't have
to be a journalist or in a band or whatever
to encounter that kind of stuff.
Something needs to be done to figure out
what to do about that, but who knows what it is?
I don't.
MALE SPEAKER: We'll try to figure that out.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Yeah, please.
You guys in charge of the internet, so go fix.
[LAUGHTER]
MALE SPEAKER: I'd like to open the questions up
to the audience.
There's a microphone back there.
AUDIENCE: Hello.
I feel like we spoke a lot about policing and things,
but even with police, bad things still happen, right?
Bullying in playgrounds, for example, is physical abuse.
We can police it as much as we can, but the police don't stop.
Under the assumption that-- not an assumption,
but this is emotional abuse-- being emotionally abused,
the parallel would be a physical body guard.
As a celebrity, as a well-known person,
you have a body guard who protects you
as you move around the physical world.
Do you think an emotional bodyguard for you
on the internet is a reasonable response?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: I think that if it existed, that would be nice,
but it's pretty abstract.
I guess you have to do that job yourself.
I think it's like separating the personal anguish-- sounds
really pathetic, but anguish-- from the professional side,
so trying not to make a knee jerk emotional response
to something, and then just do the block user,
go through that process.
I suppose it's more difficult to deal with because it's not
like a tangible, physical thing.
There's no way of putting somebody bigger in the middle
because there really isn't that.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: That was a hard question.
I wasn't prepared for that.
AUDIENCE: Hi, so I just want to switch gears a little bit.
But I had a question for you guys.
You mentioned at the beginning how your band started off
with the music blogs and social media spreading your name.
And even the way you spell it, you
did it specifically so that you can stand out on the internet.
How do you see the music industry and bands
that you see coming up that are just starting out
utilizing these blogs and social media and the internet
more so now, maybe, in the past?
Do you see that increasing given the rise
of how many people are plugged in in the digital age nowadays?
Is that something that you guys support and promote,
or is it more so band by band and however
they want to spread their name?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: For me, I guess it's a case-by-case basis.
The blueprint that works for one person
won't work for somebody else.
I think certainly for me, I remember
being in bands pre having a Myspace.
That was quite interesting when you
didn't have to put your posters on Myspace.
I guess you just promoted it in different ways.
I suppose now it's kind of unorthodox if a band doesn't
have a Facebook page and things like that.
I think those things are definitely
important tools for us to communicate with people,
but I've always been the person in the band that
runs social networks for bands when I've been in them,
and I tried just as hard at the social networks
for my other bands, but they didn't
connect to people in the same way.
I like to believe it's about the content as well as the way
that we pitched it.
Generally speaking, the music industry
is probably having to adapt a lot
to incorporate all these new technologies.
I think for a long time, people were just
trying to sound like the little Dutch boy
with his finger in the dam being--
I don't know if that metaphor makes sense here--
and then just saying no to the progress because it
was changing the way the industry works,
but I feel like you can't stop that process.
It's just going to happen.
The way that labels and things operate
and the way that even radio and things
that will have to change because you
can't stop the internet now.
It's too late.
A lot of good things have come out of that.
Without the internet, we wouldn't
have been able to cover as much ground as quickly as we have,
and it makes it a lot more democratic in some ways.
If you have a certain amount of technology,
you can make things at home in your bedroom
and share them online.
You don't necessarily have to go through that filter of getting
the guy in the suit to listen to it
and sign off on it before you can release it.
You can self-release on the internet.
That's pretty powerful.
AUDIENCE: Thanks.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: These are hard.
I looked at the sheet earlier, and I
was like, yeah, that's fine.
Coming from left field, I don't know.
MALE SPEAKER: I have a few questions
from some of the people streaming this, as well.
What are the most effective actions
you've seen men take to combat misogyny online?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: I think that's an interesting one
because when men speak to other men about it,
I think sometimes I've seen that be a lot more effective.
Because when I talk about it, people could be like,
oh well, she's saying that because she's a woman
or because she's a feminist and blah,
blah, blah, and it's personal to her
and I don't agree with that argument.
But it's easier to discredit me that way
than it is to a man who's saying that you.
For me, I've gone to meetings of feminist groups in Glasgow
and then been like, not for me.
Because one of the conversations was-- it
was a feminist book groups at university.
One conversations was whether we could
read books that were written about feminism by men.
I was like, that's completely backwards.
I don't want to sit here and be a part of that conversation
because it's not a conversation to be
had in a room full of people who already agree.
It should be a conversation that's everyone's having.
I think if everybody can be involved
in trying to make society a tiny, tiny bit less
rubbish sometimes, then that would be good.
MALE SPEAKER: This is from Eric.
Would you use something like a spam filter that automatically
labeled aggressive emails?
And more generally, what do you think
about the role of technology in reducing online misogyny?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: A spam filter is probably
useful insofar as then you wouldn't see as much of it,
but it doesn't necessarily deal with the root problem,
because it's a way of you dealing with it
rather than going to where it originated
and trying to stop it happening in the first place.
For me, technology has been really useful
because we've traveled so much and it
enables me to keep in touch with people and work on the move.
And the same way it does for everybody--
just simple tiny things that make the day easier and better,
and I think that's a really powerful thing.
I don't want to make it sound like I'm poo-pooing
the internet or anything, because I'm definitely not.
I don't know about technology necessarily,
but what we're talking about the internet
has definitely opened up a conversation about feminism
and misogyny-- yes, it's probably spiked it
a little bit, as well, but if people are talking about it
in the same form, then that's probably a good thing.
I feel you should grade all my answers.
[LAUGHTER]
MALE SPEAKER: We have a music one as well.
Where you stand on subscription music services given
that many prominent artists have spoken out against them?
What you think we could do to improve relations
with music creators?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: That's a pretty controversial topic.
I think that every artist is completely entitled
to have an opinion on it.
For us, it's more difficult to be
very strident about that stuff because without streaming
services and the internet, probably people wouldn't
have heard as much about our band.
There was a gaff the other day where the songs came off
Spotify in Mexico, and people got very upset.
I'm like well, sorry, go back and fix it.
I suppose that's weird in a way because then you're like,
oh, well you don't have my album?
You can't just listen to it?
But then it's just a product of the time, to an extent.
I didn't grow up in an era where the musician
was that prominent.
I remember getting one-- I've only illegally downloaded
one thing.
That was during the time period where
you'd to leave the computer on for like three days.
[LAUGHTER]
I remember having to debate with my mom
whether we would turn the computer off,
and I was like, it's almost there.
It's almost there.
It was just because I couldn't physically get the song.
I think it was like a Letters to Cleo cover of Cheap Trick
or something that was in the film, and I really wanted it,
but I couldn't get it.
I can't relate a huge amount to music streaming in that sense,
but I guess it's about making all that stuff fairer
on the artist, because somebody somewhere is making money off
of those things, but it's definitely
not the people who make the content that's on it.
I guess if there was a way of making those streams somehow
feeding the gain back to the people who've
paid in time and money to make that because at end of the day,
someone is trying to make a living off doing that.
I don't know how to fix it.
I don't know what to do.
MALE SPEAKER: Audience question.
AUDIENCE: I have a question about what
you see the role of the rest of the online community
is in combating misogyny.
Because sometimes people say, if you comment defending someone,
that brings more attention to it.
Do you think that there's a role that everyone on the internet
can play in defending women, defending people in general,
against these kind of comments?
Do you think that brings more attention
to it in a positive way, or do you
think that hurts the cause by recycling back
the focus to those negative comments?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Maybe I'm an antagonistic person,
but for me, I was like, the ignoring it thing-- like,
when you're a kid, and your mom was like, just ignore them,
I don't think that theory works here because if you ignore it,
then people aren't going to be like oh, they're ignoring me
because I've done something really offensive.
They're going to think that you're ignoring them
in an oh well, fair enough way.
If people can be respectful of each other, obviously,
I'm not saying you should go and be a horrible, awful person
in return, because then that's just an eye for an eye.
If people can call each other out on those things,
then that's useful.
Also, even in the last year, 18 months or whatever,
I've noticed loads more stuff about feminism
in the mainstream media.
Is that a trend of what people are writing about,
or are they just more willing to talk about it
and more people are thinking about it?
I'm not sure.
I hope so.
But hopefully it won't disappear again,
like feminism is the new black, and then it's gone.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
You mentioned that you like Feministing and Jezebel,
and I see them sort of as a more palatable or relatable form
of feminism, especially for our generation,
which I think is changing a lot.
What about them do you really like,
and how do you think people can pull elements of that
into their own content that they're creating online?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: That's an interesting question.
For me, people like Jessica Valenti
are really important voices because she's obviously
very intelligent and has studied the academic side of all this
so she knows all the theories and she knows all
the texts that you should check out.
I think the fact that she's taking that and putting it
in a real life situation, and the tone in which she writes
is really relatable, and she's talking about things
that we've all experienced.
I think Feministing is really interesting
because they talk about high court rulings on things,
but then they also have opinion pieces
on things that are happening in pop culture
and things that are being talked about in the news.
I think just having that kind of dialogue is really helpful.
It feels like a nice, quite a useful community,
rather than somebody telling you things and being like,
you think this.
People raise questions and accept comment in return.
That just makes you think about stuff.
Certainly, when I was growing up,
I didn't really have a huge number
of friends that would be interested in the same kind
of things.
I think only within the last few years really
have I found as many like-minded women.
We make the joke that I started a women's collective in Glasgow
to make more friends-- to make more friends who
agreed with me.
But I think that has been very important because it's just
a thing we have where we run live events
and have a radio show and podcast and things just
focusing on women, arts, and music, and things like that.
For me, that feels like a positive thing
to do because otherwise, I feel like I'm constantly thinking
about the negative things-- the horrible things that
are happening and constantly happen on all levels.
I want to try and change the dialog in my mind
and make it something more positive and having people
to talk to about that is pretty helpful
so you don't feel like you're the only one.
You're like, is that fine?
Am I overreacting?
No, no, it's fine.
Yeah, community is key.
MALE SPEAKER: Do we have any more audience questions?
AUDIENCE: Hello.
So I remember a while ago, a comedian once
that there's a strong power in comedy in communication,
especially when it comes to tough topics.
It's something along the lines of if I make you laugh,
maybe you won't be as threatened or defensive.
Sometimes I think about that with music, as well.
So I wondered if you ever addressed
these kinds of tough topics in your music,
or maybe you already have.
Your lyrics are a bit cryptic.
[LAUGHTER]
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Sorry.
When we write music, for me, I just
write about personal perspective,
whether that's on personal events that
have happened to you or a personal perspective
on something that's happening externally.
I suppose the lyrics are pretty cryptic,
so you probably can tell from any of that.
I guess the personal is political to an extent.
The political is personal and vice versa.
There's probably elements of that in the stuff
that we are writing about, but I don't think there's necessarily
any anthems in the same way there
is on a Le Tigre record or something.
MALE SPEAKER: Thank you for coming today.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Thank you for having us.
[APPLAUSE]
We're back.
And this time, you guys get to actually speak.
So that's nice.
IAIN COOK: I don't have a microphone.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Ian never gets-- we don't let him speak.
IAIN COOK: Shall we?
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Yes, we are a band called Chvrches.
[MUSIC-- CHVRCHES, "RECOVER"]
[APPLAUSE]
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Thanks, guys.
We are going to play a couple more songs.
I feel I'm not terribly good at public speaking, to be honest.
It makes me quite worried.
So if there's more vibrato in the voice than anticipated,
it's just left over from that.
IAIN COOK: Me, I'm just looking for someone
that will let me go on one of your slides.
[LAUGHTER]
That's all I want.
If there's anyone in this room-- and there's more of you
than I expected-- so surely, someone
can make it happen for me.
I've come all the way here from Scotland.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: In the name of feminism, let him on the slide.
[MUSIC-- CHVRCHES, "GUN"]
[APPLAUSE]
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Thanks, guys.
We're going to play one more song,
and then we're going to go.
I need to rehydrate because I've sweated
a lot during this experience.
[LAUGHTER]
But it's OK.
It's not your fault.
It's just psychology.
But thank you again for having us.
Thank you for letting people look us
up on you, which has been very helpful to us.
IAIN COOK: One thing is if you're all
here, who's running the internet?
I'm kind of a bit worried about that.
LAUREN MAYBERRY: Thank you for having us,
and for letting us come and chat a bit, stuff like that,
because I think it's really awesome of you guys to do that
and make it be less of a marginalized thing, and thanks.
[MUSIC CHVRCHES, "THE MOTHER WE SHARE"]
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]