What's it like being a technical games journalist?

Award winning journalist, Jeffrey Rousseau talks about being in the technical journalism space in the gaming industry. Technical and business journalism differs from reviews and interviews. He deals with numbers, watches stocks, and other client facing data. Games journalism is usually consumer based. 

Follow Jeffrey R at https://x.com/JRpotential 

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Junae (00:02.751)
I was trying not to be, I was trying not for the first thing to not be me laughing, but here we go. We are in another episode of Gaming for the Culture. And today we have a good friend of mine who I've never spoken to before, but like we're close. I don't know how to explain it, but we have Jeff, another journalist in the gaming industry. Jeff and I do separate types of journalism.

Jeff Rousseau (00:09.608)
Here we are.

Jeff Rousseau (00:23.176)
Yeah.

Junae (00:31.583)
But at the same time, we have like in that Venn diagram, we have like that middle section where we overlap. So Jeff, tell the people about yourself.

Jeff Rousseau (00:36.992)
Mm -hmm.

Jeff Rousseau (00:40.712)
Hi, hello everyone, I hope you're doing well. I hope you're drinking your water, you get plenty of sleep, and if not, you need to take care of those things and do that. It's always funny when I'm asked to talk about myself because I don't think I'm good at it, but I guess long story short, I am a guy who just grew up who likes news mainly because there's facts, there's what people think, and then there's what people think when they're given facts.

And yeah, I grew up, I like games. My mom, my mom, me, superintendents, I just grew up, I liked it as a hobby. And what's funny is that as I played more games and getting older, it's just like, that just led me into being interested in other things, culturally, entertainment, and just finding out how things work, the people involved in it. Yeah, art, music, and all these things. And you know, and...

A lot of people don't know is that I worked in corporate America for, I want to say it was close to like eight years. And then I decided, you know what, I'm going to just go be a games journalist. And I did. And I was, was being aware because everybody and their mom knows that I'm no longer where I used to be at. And I really can't say much about that other than the fact is I'm not there. That's fine. But during that time I was there those three years, I did a lot of good work. It's still a great site to visit. Games industry that business, everyone should go there.

because it's still, and I think this is something Janaye and I will get into, but it's still one of the places where you can go to get.

hard fact driven journalism that's objective. I know everyone tends to put that in air quotes objective, but still it's one of those sites that talk to the business about the business. And I find that very interesting because that can mean so many things. Also about myself, gaming is not really my number one hobby, believe it or not. I, Janay and I are probably getting into it. You don't necessarily need, it doesn't necessarily.

Junae (02:39.647)
Boo, boo this man, boo this man. I'm skittin'.

Jeff Rousseau (02:45.352)
need to be the number one thing I think for you to be great at any kind of journalism, whether it's a very reporter based or enthusiast based. Of course there's some overlap, but I don't necessarily think like you need that to be good at that. But anyway, long story short, despite the fact that I love like news and learning things, whatever, I like spending my time being very artsy and around artsy things when it's my off time.

And anyway, I'm rambling, but yeah, that's me. I will more than likely want to know about like, yeah, I don't really want to know about what game you're playing. Tell me what album you're listening to. What book are you reading? Let's talk about that instead. So yeah, that's me. I did win an award for journalism. Let me not gloss that over because another thing I did with my career is that I try to not talk to the same people.

because it's, I don't wanna say it's easy, but you can certainly keep recreating the same.

Not narrative, but you can keep recreating the same thing that people often talk about. So, hey, why don't we talk to more different people? It's quite easy, especially when they're the faces of larger corporations and that tends to be where the news focus. So, long story short, I like talking about the business of games and everything that intersects people. I'm more interested in what's going on with the people, especially those in the margins or who are often overlooked because...

As we have these bigger stories, for example, the layoffs, there's still something to understand and be known about how are the folks, especially the ones who are the last ones through the door, how are they affecting or how are they assessing how all these things are happening? You know what I mean? So yeah, I like talking to brown people. Shocker. That's it.

Junae (04:46.239)
I think that was great. I think it wasn't long enough because there are some things that I'm about to go back and ask you about. So working in the corporate world, what was your job?

Jeff Rousseau (04:48.52)
Hehehehe

I was when I was in corporate America, what was I doing? I oddly enough was working on more like the digital front facing and where we were helping customers with, you know, like rewards and stuff like that. It was like I worked for like a credit card company and stuff like that. So just be like on a digital and where they would try to get their rewards, take advantage of things everyone likes.

a sale and stuff like that, just helping them, hey, if you log in or you do this or what have you and like that and helping like craft social media and more technical writing stuff is what I was doing. And that was very interesting those years because I realized that.

like people and offering them services are such a powerful thing, which is why every time I read something about life service games and how much money and cost and manpower gets into that, that is very scary to me, especially to be on the support side of end of those things. But that's just me. It is very scary. Anyway, I think one of the most interesting things about being in corporate America for all those years that I don't think I talk often enough was that I

learned how to be able to discern corporate speak and also like make my face like dead and non -reactive to things even though I'm like screaming on the inside. What are you saying? But you know, they just see me in my little suit and in my business casual thing and as they have no idea what I'm thinking, I'm like, this is a bad idea. It's gotta blow up in your face. But hey, we'll see. You know, that was fun.

Junae (06:41.023)
haven't learned that, I think I've gotten more expressive because you know, power to the people. And I think that was, I feel like I know what you're talking about. So I'm going to elaborate with my own experience as a customer service representative for like Best Buy. When I was about 18, 19, and they were talking about, you know, they were like, hey, let's push these credit card sales. And I was like, okay.

Jeff Rousseau (06:46.76)
Right, right, right, right.

Junae (07:09.311)
You know, just tell me what you want me to do. And then they were like, but we want to do what's best for the customer. So like, don't make them like spend over what they have, but like push the credit card sales. And so I was like, so like, do we let them spend within their means or do we push a credit card? And they didn't really have an answer. And I think that's when I was like, I get it. It's not really about that. You just have to say that. So like your morals will come in, you know, and, working in any of these like

customer facing jobs, I've faced racism too. And so I'm kind of like, hey, y 'all gonna do anything? And they're just kind of like, it's part of the job. I'm like, I'm the only black girl here and like at the time or like whatever the case is. And so I can understand. So I think, you know, I just feel like what? Like, I'm just very like expressive in that manner. And it would probably do me good to be able to like save face, but like I just.

I can't and I'm not like reprimanding myself for that. I just think that's really cool that you're able to do that. And it also speaks volumes to like what you've been able to accomplish because that's like a skill to not be like, what are y 'all talking about? Like, are you not so squid? Or be like, what does this mean? So I think that's really cool. Let's,

Jeff Rousseau (08:11.976)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (08:34.344)
Yeah, it, one more thing I'll add before we move on, I don't wanna talk about that forever. It took years because a lot of people...

There's people that think they have good ideas and then there's the end result. But the thing is when you're not in position to really say, I think that's a bad idea given my experiences because of where I fall under the totem pole. You're just like.

Hehehehehe

Junae (09:08.191)
That's, I get it. I get it. I get it. I 100 % get it. Let's talk about the type of journalism that you do versus the type of journalism that you've done versus a lot of the gaming journalism. Having to like specify and specify.

Jeff Rousseau (09:10.856)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (09:18.728)
Mm -mm.

Jeff Rousseau (09:26.664)
Yeah. Yeah. And the reason why you mentioned specify is because journalism can be so many things because you have just use, you know, when I was at games industry that was, I was effectively a business reporter, just reporting on the game games industry, which I think I told you like, because of those skills that I'd probably be able to like do anything else after that.

I think it's true because of like how the team just helped me and I just learned how to do things. But so there you read about acquisitions. The big one is layoffs. You know, what a studio director, their understanding about a game success or failure after a certain amount of time in interviews and stuff like that. And again, you know, that is like

talking about the business to the business on a site like that versus say Kotaku, which is a good site to read. They laid off some staff, which sucks because those are really good people. But that's a more consumer facing site where as you can read it, it's like talking to the folks who play the games. It's like, hey, did you guys know about this? And again, it's all still really good journalism. And that is talking about things like

I saw something that was really interesting like a game didn't have dating or sim options because the I think they reported That directors say well a lot of my staff like they haven't really dated so we're not gonna put something They're not too familiar with in a game and I like yo, that's real. I I know that's why I'm not making fun of nobody but that that's real, you know what I'm seeing

Junae (11:09.727)
No Jeff stop that's wild. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, to not fabricate. You just opened up a whole different can because...

Jeff Rousseau (11:21.064)
Right, to not... You know? Yeah. But, you know, creatively... go ahead, I'm so sorry.

Junae (11:29.055)
No, it's fine. I will say this after you are done saying it because you definitely just opened up like a whole different.

Jeff Rousseau (11:35.624)
Yeah, and they were talking about that like creatively, why does this game not have it? And then they reported that and that those are the kinds of things you could read at Code Talk as well as things about like, you know, culture reports about here are the conversations that are happening like culturally online from people like what conversations are happening, what's the big story and stuff like that versus like games industry, that business is the business. Both of these things are important, but they're obviously different things. And the thing is my brain is more skewed

to reporting things as a business reporter. But before I finish, you had a point, and please.

Junae (12:15.295)
I was just thinking about fabricating an experience you didn't have and equating that, right? In this case, it's dating, but in other cases, it's writing a female lead, writing a black female lead, writing a queer lead, right? You know what I mean? And it's very interesting that it's more acceptable to be like...

Jeff Rousseau (12:26.6)
Mm.

Mmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mmm.

Junae (12:39.967)
We ain't ever done it before, so we didn't put it in there versus like, we did it because we thought y 'all would like it, but we really didn't do like our due diligence or justice to it. So that's it.

Jeff Rousseau (12:49.379)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. Like you said, because it's literally like experience because, and you know, like the whole thing with dating too is like, if you're going to put that in, I know that's a whole different thing. And like some games do a really good job of it. Others don't. I'll leave that to the experts. I'm not one of those experts, but you know, that was real. He like the developer was like, no, why are we going to put something in there that we not, you know,

Junae (13:14.911)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (13:18.408)
But yeah, it's like you said about like authenticity. Now, the other thing about game journalism too is that you also have the more enthusiast press, which is, and again, I'm not like bad -mouthing, like all these things exist. And then you have more enthusiast press where they speak from perspective of, you know, we're talking to other people who play games who are excited about these things.

We talk about the shows. How can we perceive these things? And more culturally around that, like I'm thinking about like, you're kind of funnies, you're Spon -on -mes, you're, is it called grown women gaming? Is that who I listen to occasionally? Yes, thank you. See? And them as well. And they all bring interesting perspectives, but that's still like different from like,

Junae (14:03.007)
Yes, yes, DWG.

Jeff Rousseau (14:16.936)
little old me who's like, I'll straight up call myself what I am, like a nerd where you can stick me in front of like a conference or something like that. And I be like, yeah. I get back to you with Dennis, like, all right, here's all like the developer points and like how to think about this from a business perspective and what have you. And then also you have content creation. That's media, that's not journalism because it's not held to journalistic practices, which is a whole nother thing.

But just for me to break that down, it's like journalistic practices, i .e. so you don't wind up sued. Let's think about it like that. That's why people say allegedly, you don't wanna get sued. You know what I mean?

Junae (14:58.079)
Yeah, my first instance with allegedly. Well, so I have done journalism like since high school and I used to write for my university's paper and they would send me to places, right? Like I would go to town meetings. I would talk to like, you know, the municipal people, municipal,

Jeff Rousseau (15:08.616)
Mmm.

Jeff Rousseau (15:24.488)
Paladies? Municipalities?

Junae (15:27.898)
municipalities. And so, you know, I went to one and they were talking about flooding. And I always had my little recorder. So I had a recorder and then I always had a notebook, right? Like handy dandy notebook, like

Jeff Rousseau (15:29.672)
municipality.

Junae (15:43.615)
Basic package if you were gonna make like an American Janae doll like I always had like a recorder a package on me like a microphone like and a cam You know what? I mean? Like these are my these are my basic like assets like these are my accessories and so I was recording the town meeting and then I would go back and I listened to it and She this lady was talking about cleaning up this flood and so she was like, yeah We have to use shop bags and I was like shop

shopping bags shopping. So I wrote shopping bags and she wrote in it was like we said shop bags. I never knew what a shop vac vacuum was until like later on like I feel like that's like a home ownership type of or like I'm fixing up something type of and so like I got reprimanded because I didn't know what that was and so

Jeff Rousseau (16:22.472)
Hmm.

Jeff Rousseau (16:28.648)
Yeah.

Junae (16:34.399)
That's way different than me being a content creator and being like, I like it. Like, you know, like if I was a content creator of that flooding meeting, it would be different where I would like, wow, like the floods really suck. Like they should do something about it. But like as a journalist, I can't be like, that sucks, right? I can give you the facts for you to put together that it sucks. So the type of journalism that I do that's a bit different from Jeff is that I haven't focused on like the numerical.

Jeff Rousseau (16:42.984)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (16:53.704)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Junae (17:04.127)
data and stuff like that that comes from, it's like if you were putting stock in certain video games, right, like Jeff is the person you'd want to talk to, his articles are the one you would want to read. I was, am doing things for like indie developers, black developers, black people in the gaming industry, black content creators, you know, anything that really centered around like black women and then like black men and then like, you know,

people of color, so there's levels to it, right? There's order. And what I'm mostly known for right now are reviews, which we were talking a bit about it earlier, like doing chair reviews and gaming paraphernalia reviews, or just things that you would use every day if you had a home office or a little setup that consisted of a PC or a laptop. And that is integral.

as well, because, you know, it's not really just about like, did you like it or not? There's different things. And as a person who's done journalism for a very long time and has learned a lot about like accessibility and stuff like that, talking something, talking about like chairs can be really simple, right? But during that time, so like, I don't mind talking about it. I was like a couple different, I was in a couple different weight classes. And so when I started reviewing chairs, I was a bit thicker.

So like the chairs they were sending over didn't fit me. So that means like, you know, I have to tell people like, hey, if you're like medium size, like this isn't gonna work for you. Like if you're a large size, like this isn't gonna work for you. Like literally breaking it down in that manner, letting people know like, you know, this is for people who are like size small or like, you know, petite and things like that. And so I took that a bit seriously than what I've seen other people do with like chair reviews, you know, and stuff like microphones and things like that.

Jeff Rousseau (18:32.36)
Mm.

Hmm.

Junae (19:00.575)
once again, like accessibility, like are the knobs easy to turn? Like, are they pressed? Like, do they give you feedback to know if you've done it? And so my OG type of journalism was like, you know, local news. And then I worked for NBC for a bit. So I got like bylines over there, like talking about like robberies and fake storefronts and cigarette taxes and people faking it. And, you know, like, it was a wild time.

Jeff Rousseau (19:26.632)
That's cool, but that's cool though. That's cool.

Junae (19:28.479)
Yeah, you know, and so that's the difference in what we're doing with journalism and the like games journalism, right? So like, I'm more of like, customer facing, right? So I'm going to do the game reviews, I'm going to do the product reviews, I'm going to do those things. And Jeff is like, here, we're talking to like the stockholders, right? We're talking to the people who are invested in this, we're talking to the people who want to know deeper, right? So that's why Jeff is...

was a part of gameindustry .biz, you know, and we love that and we appreciate it because I haven't seen too many Black people on the B2B side, the business to business side of gaming, as I have seen like business to customer.

Jeff Rousseau (20:11.016)
Yeah.

Yeah, thank you. But before I say what I'm gonna say, those reviews that you do, I appreciate that you do that because it is difficult. To me, it's scary because I would have no idea how do you tell someone about these things unless you really think about it. Like if you told me, say, hey, review this laptop, I'm gonna look at you like you told me to grow a third eye, you know what I'm saying? Or a head says, because the thing is I have good hearing.

I'm mostly able -bodied except for my vision. I would honestly not know how to go about that process. And I gotta say, the fact that you do that really speaks to your ability and your craft, because again, I would not know how to do that. That would scare me.

Junae (21:02.335)
Thank you, I appreciate that. It was very terrifying because I started working with like Tom's Hardware and PC Gamer and I was on the Spawn on Me podcast and then that's how one of the editors found me and then he was like, hey, do you wanna write reviews? And I was like, yeah, I've never done like technical reviews until then and now I'm like an expert. Like now I'm like, I got you, this is what you need to look at and.

wanting to extend that to other people. Like I've been wrote a book about how to review video games, but then I've started like expanding that into anything technical, just in case, you know, people were like interested or you want to be like a tech journalist, right? So I call myself now tech and game journalist because I can do both. And you know, there is another world and you know,

Jeff Rousseau (21:36.712)
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (21:48.52)
York.

Junae (21:54.047)
you were gonna say something and then I'm gonna, we're gonna talk a little bit more about what I'm about to say, but there is another world of like technology, journalism, you know, as well, but I want you to finish what you were gonna say.

Jeff Rousseau (21:56.84)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (22:05.576)
yeah, to the point of,

gaming business to business journalism, the thing about that is even without media being in the precarious spot that it's in now where there's been layoffs, myself as an example, across the field and...

There aren't a lot of verticals that do that anyway. And...

The few that are, let's not beat around the bush. You can just take a look at the staff and see what they look like and whom, the demographics and what have you. And the thing about that, I want it, and I always want people to ask themselves, as we go forward, whenever that word progress is used, how we're more progressive.

I always want people to think about what does that really mean when you say that in terms of like journalism and reporting because we do have more, the landscape is better now because we have more like enthusiast press where people are able to create their own platforms like yourself, Caliph Adams, growing women gaming, Not Your Mom's Gamer, providing that academic lens. You also have, who else am I forgetting? I'm forgetting someone.

Jeff Rousseau (23:36.936)
I'm doing bad right now. I am so sorry, I forgot. First thing, but anyway, back to the point is that you have people who've created their own platforms so they can be in charge of like seeing what they want from their perspectives because still the thing about like gaming and journalism is like off the top of my head, like people who I read, whose work I appreciate that work on larger sites. I think of like Alicia James. She's at Windows Central. I was about to say TechGrey.

please don't let me mess up where she works at. Alicia, I'm so sorry. Alicia, because she does cover tech and that intersects with gaming, she does great. You have Taylor Lyles over at IGN. Taylor does great work. You have Justin Carter who Justin.

you know, regularly contributes to game developer and game developer. That's another site that does like a lot of like business to business stuff. Justin's great at that. Justin also writes for over at Gizmodo. You have Jordan Miner over at PCMag. Of course, Ash Parrish over at The Verge because that's a big site lady and we all see you out there doing work. So appreciate that. You also have Guido over at Now Aftermath for what they're doing. And

Yeah, but out of everybody that I named, you know, a lot of that's not business to business. And that's not to take away what they do at all. my God, I forgot someone. The other person I was thinking of was Tyrone. Tyrone over at Inverse. Tyrone, I don't know how to say your last name. I don't know if it's pronounced Doed. Whatever, when I meet you, you have to correct me, brother, my bad. But anyway, all these people, right? And a lot of that is like consumer facing news. Again.

very important. There's different angles to that, infinite angles of that to be reported and looked into. But the business to business stuff, it's smaller, right? Because it's like, I just think of Justin over at Game Developer and the news that they'll cover. And then I'm drawing blinks. And then there's Bloomberg. But from what I know, I don't think there's a Black person covering the gaming beat over at Bloomberg. I don't think so unless I've

Jeff Rousseau (25:50.664)
somehow miss this person. And then if I'm wrong, someone please correct me. But yeah, it's just one of those things because of like the media landscape. It's just, you know, when you notice that you just sit back here like, huh, okay, that's interesting, I guess.

Junae (26:11.423)
Yeah, I think that's...

There has to be a need for diversity and inclusion. And the need has to be realized. And if the need is not being realized, then there is no need. And so, because, you know, it's very much so like, it's just writing about gaming. Why do we need a black, brown, queer person to do it when it's...

just writing about gaming, you know, where even if we review the game, even if it's just numbers, right? Why do we need someone to do, you know, yeah, why do we need a inclusive person to talk about this thing when like, you know, anybody who's qualified can do it and.

Jeff Rousseau (27:02.152)
and

Junae (27:07.807)
a lot. I feel like as a black woman in the journalism space, I've heard a lot of stories about how like a woman, a black woman has changed like history by being able to uncover something that somebody else's brain wasn't tuned into because you know, we're all going to be sensitive to different things because of our upbringing and because of who we are and you know, the things that we're just able to notice. So

I kind of, I say the same thing, right? Like learning when I was doing the documentary and I was traveling from place to place to place to place, talking to a lot of Finnish and Swedish women in the gaming industry was interesting, is interesting because they've talked about how they feel like these countries are people first versus product first. And, you know, there are a lot more women in the industry.

But since they are predominantly like white countries, the white women who are now in the industry and they're like, we've solved our diversity issue. We have no more, you know, but a lot of them aren't thinking about it because they're white men and then they only saw white men. And then they're like, the women are in here. And it's like, but if 90 % of the population is white,

Jeff Rousseau (28:19.912)
That's not how that works.

Junae (28:35.487)
then like, it's okay, we're okay now, we've did it, we've solved it, you know, like, so yeah, and then there are people, there are white women here who are like, you know, we're not the target audience for diversity and inclusion now that we've made it over that hump, you know, and any country is going to have immigrants. And so it's like, you have to include them as well, because you need them because they're here.

Jeff Rousseau (29:00.712)
Yep.

Junae (29:03.743)
You wouldn't need them if they weren't here. Like, I don't know how to make that really make sense, but like, you know, these people are here, so we need to include them in our views and like how things are happening. So.

Jeff Rousseau (29:16.36)
They are residents in your society that now you are also in proximity with.

Junae (29:28.095)
And they need to be catered to. No, exactly. They need to be catered to just like, you know, every everyone else. So I think one of the interesting things that I learned about journalism. So when I started like my journey about just journalism in general, not even game journalism, a really big thing came up about my hair. And I talked about this in like a different episode.

Jeff Rousseau (29:28.328)
I'm sorry, you were saying. Yeah.

Junae (29:49.631)
where you know I had like natural hair and I had decided like maybe my second year in college to go natural because like she's doing too much and I was just always like overwhelmed and so then like my hair being natural ended up like being a problem and you know also like black

Jeff Rousseau (30:05.512)
Damn, they were trying to get you to have the black reporter lady silk press all the time.

Junae (30:10.975)
Yeah, in Chicago at that, in this human place. You know what I mean? Like, like, it would literally look like this at the end of the podcast, like I would start it like a straight and it would just like go to this. So I was like, I'm going to be a game journalism because nobody cares what I look like. False. No matter what industry you're in, you're still going to be a black woman. Because while I was watching E3, I would see the girlies with pierced like

Jeff Rousseau (30:13.288)
Oof.

Junae (30:37.151)
you know, lips and noses and colorful hair and they weren't doing half the job I was doing at NBC, right, at the Northern Star, which is a university's paper. They wasn't doing half the stuff. They were stumbling. They were using the wrong arm to talk with their microphone, which I always joke about any time I'm watching.

Jeff Rousseau (30:44.552)
Yeah. Right.

Jeff Rousseau (30:56.168)
Wait, hold on, the wrong arm? Is it supposed to be, this is my right, is it supposed to be your right? That you scream?

Junae (31:02.527)
It's supposed to be whichever arm they're closest to. So you're not reaching across them and you're not reaching across your body. And I'd, yeah, yeah. And I joke about it all the time when I watch like AW and wrestling, because they're always like, and I think for a little bit of my career, I also started doing cross body. And I was like, girl, what did you train for all of these years? Show them your final form. And so I'm not like,

Jeff Rousseau (31:06.28)
Jeff Rousseau (31:11.624)
So you're not doing one of these, you're doing one of these. Okay. Okay.

Jeff Rousseau (31:18.984)
Meal.

Jeff Rousseau (31:28.296)
Mm -hmm.

Junae (31:29.631)
judgy, but I was just saying like at that time where I was learning all of like my tactics all of my ethics and things like that I was like I can like report for e3 like officially and you know that turned out to be like really difficult to do and so Just like moving from traditional local news

to gaming news to then just being like independent. Like I've been independent my whole career except for like that one year I worked at Microsoft, that one to two years I worked with like Tom's Hardware and PC Gamer, besides that I've been independent. I've been like, you know, doing things my way or like lending my talents to like this person and that person. But I say all of that to say like, no.

No matter the industry, I think you face the same things. And I'm wondering if this also happened to you from focusing on like a digital aspect of like credit cards and getting people deals and stuff like that to writing about the business industry of gaming.

Jeff Rousseau (32:33.064)
trying to think what's funny is with my corporate America job I actually ended up moving to a

Jeff Rousseau (32:42.888)
Ended up moving to a division where like, there was a good number of like other Haitian people. I'm Haitian by the way. Like y 'all probably can't see this somewhere in a beanie that says Haiti.

Junae (32:53.727)
We couldn't tell by this big logo hat that you have that you're Haitian. We couldn't tell.

Jeff Rousseau (32:56.616)
Yeah, that has the Haitian flag, right? You couldn't tell. Yeah, there were other Haitian people there whom I already knew anyway, just working in company. I was like, that's cool. OK, that's funny that how that just worked out. And like, and no, not really, because at the time, like our director of that division, she was a Afro Latina woman and she was mad cool. Like she was around our age group. Right. And.

She's like, no, I get it. Like sometimes she'd be like, yeah, it's kind of racist. You know, these people look at me weird. Like, I don't know. Like I don't have an MBA and I have all this work experience. So whatever. But hey, you know, but she was like mad cool. And yeah, no, I didn't have a problem with that. Now, in the game journalism thing, I was thinking like, damn, have I ever had like anything? Not really. I won't say where. I won't say where I was at. I won't say whom, so this be very vague. No, no, this is.

You'll probably find this funny. So the thing about me is most people can't tell because I hardly take full body photos of myself. I am like six feet tall. I am lanky. Right. And like a lot of people is like, you're how tall? I thought you were like, yo, someone hit me with like five, seven one time. I was like, damn, that hurts. But I never take a picture of, I honestly don't post like full body pictures of myself unless it's like on Instagram once in a blue moon. But anyway, that's just me. Whatever. I'm rambling. So.

Junae (34:10.271)
Wow, how dare you.

Jeff Rousseau (34:22.536)
I also have locks. So you like people watching see like I've decided to grow out like a black man beard. Now this was before I decided to grow this out. So I just have my mustache. So I have, I'm like six feet tall. I have locks. I'm like kind of tall and lengthy. So I'm somewhere. And then someone was like, Hey, such as such was like looking for you. When I was like, well I wasn't around. I was doing stuff. They confused me.

with someone who was considerably shorter than I, I wanna say like four feet shorter than I, completely different hairstyles. And I think they didn't even have a mustache. Yes, they did. And the outfits that we had were different. So I sat down, I'm like, that's funny.

Junae (34:58.399)
No stop. No stop!

Junae (35:12.831)
Yeah. Ooooo

Jeff Rousseau (35:14.696)
It would have been worse if I had this beard. I'd be like, word? And a beard too? And you still did that? Yeah.

Junae (35:17.631)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you're like, your biases are showing. So I'm not going to make an excuse for anybody who does that, but I do have a bit of science to why people cannot. Go ahead.

Jeff Rousseau (35:29.992)
Before you continue, I know you're about to drop some knowledge. I'll shut up. But like, it was a thing where there weren't a lot of us present. I will say that.

Junae (35:37.279)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (35:40.456)
But still, it's like if you were to like, you could literally point me out and I would stick out. Because again, I am like almost taller than almost everybody. I got this great skin tone. Shout out to my mom and my dad. Appreciate you. But it's like, come on. Anyway, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Junae (35:57.375)
No, you're totally fine. You're totally, totally fine.

Jeff Rousseau (36:03.464)
Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. funny.

Junae (36:04.319)
You

Junae (36:08.831)
It's very interesting because like the fact that I'm about to drop, right? It's not an excuse whatsoever. And I feel like in a closed working environment, I feel like we should all take the time to at least respect other people and like realize them as individuals. So the reason why a lot of people may not let's just let's let's let's make it black and white literally.

The reason why a lot of black people cannot, a lot of white people cannot recognize black people is because they did not grow up around black people. That's one, right? And two, they could have easily just like have not paid it any attention because you know the history between like white and black people, especially in the U .S. And so what happens when you don't grow up around a group of people is that you have a hard time distinguishing their like features and things like that. So.

I told this to, I was in a group with a Filipino, Vietnamese and a Chinese girl. And they're like, yeah, like, what do you think she is? And I was like, girl, I have no idea. And I was like, I'm not even gonna go down that road because I don't know. And then one of the other Chinese girls was like, yeah, you know, sometimes I have a hard time between like Filipino and like Vietnamese and things like that, because, you know, I just don't know. And then like, I feel, I feel bad. And I was like,

Jeff Rousseau (37:18.536)
Right.

Junae (37:33.119)
The reason you feel bad is because like if you're a Chinese, first of all, who like grew up in the US and not around other like Chinese or things like that, you're going to have a hard time telling the difference between like Korean and like, you know, Japanese and like things like that because you don't, you didn't grow up with them. You just see them. You're like, you're another like East Asian person, but I don't know exactly which country you come from. So it's the fact of not developing those muscles.

the fact of not developing that skill to like recognize that people look slightly different but easily they'll be like yeah you know shorty with the brunette and you're like who who are we talking about shorty with the green eyes and the brunette and you're like can you just call her by name so like i know who you are like something like that so

Jeff Rousseau (38:12.744)
Yeah.

Yes. Right? Yeah. It's funny. And this is like random, but like my neighbor, like what's funny is like, it's like not surprising, but I live in a predominantly like black area, right? And me and my neighbor, we just chopped it up. So like, since I moved here, he's like, he a funny dude and we were always talking, we're chilling, whatever, while he's working on his truck. And then one day he just asked me, he said, Hey, are you in shape? Because the thing is I started hanging like the flag on my car because I realized, people don't really know unless like,

It's like Haitian flag day or I'm wearing like the flag as a wrap my head around and you know, they just don't know. And I was like, okay, this is a way so people just find out that I am. And then he's like, are you Haitian? I was like, yeah, you know, I just, it just never came up in conversation. It just never did. And what's funny was that he's like, but you don't look it. And the thing he himself is Haitian. But the thing is, it's that.

I find you don't look it so interesting because in my case, it's like both my parents are straight from the island, literally from the island. I am literally a child of Haitian people straight from the island. How do I not like look it? That's why I find conversations like that interesting. Cause this is like, how about you don't ask? And if the person mentions it, that that's fine. You don't need to know. Even though for me it's funny because like when you go to all my social media bios, I pull Haitian as the first thing. And then I'll put that I'm also from the South.

Junae (39:19.295)
Yeah.

Junae (39:23.935)
Yeah. Yeah.

Junae (39:32.607)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (39:42.92)
you know, well, South Florida or whatever. But that's just me just be so you just know where like maybe where my head is at or whatever. And it's just funny. Yeah. Right.

Junae (39:44.799)
Yeah.

Junae (39:48.799)
Yeah, so you can gauge to not try certain things with me or say certain things to me. I get that. I... that's funny. It's... that's why I'm like... Yeah, what are we... what is this Haitian division that's happening among us?

Jeff Rousseau (39:54.856)
You know?

Jeff Rousseau (39:59.848)
Yeah, it was funny and uncomfortable. I was like, where? Man, you're from the island yourself. I was like, really? What are we doing? What are we doing?

Jeff Rousseau (40:10.472)
It's yeah, and the thing is it's just like and one of the things I like to do is that you know Just just go to things and in May when it was Haitian Heritage Month I went to a lot of functions, you know Ran by Haitian folks just to celebrate and a lot of those things a lot of people were Asian, but there's no defined look which is also Very odd to me. I think that can then go into video games about like what people think what back people

look like or that one look or whatever and it's like no you can literally just like you could literally just like look at my neighbor and see all these different kinds of people

Junae (40:50.335)
I think it's important that we continue to push the narrative of that, you know, we're not like an anomaly, right? Or wait, am I tripping? Yeah. Yeah, you know, yeah, we don't, we don't have to look like something for us to be something. And yeah, that that's a hard thing to like deal with. You know, I think before I continue, give me your favorite or most

Jeff Rousseau (40:57.128)
Yeah, we're not anomaly or monolith, you know, we all look different.

Junae (41:18.175)
memorable Haitian proverb that you have.

Jeff Rousseau (41:21.768)
Is there a Haitian proverb? I'm bad at those because the thing is my mom has told me them and I have not recalled. Wait.

Junae (41:25.855)
No worries. Yeah.

Junae (41:31.359)
Here we go.

Jeff Rousseau (41:33.64)
Damn, I lost it. What's funny is that I wrote, no, I am so sorry. What's funny is that I'm working on like, well, sometimes I'm working on a narrative thing and I wrote some down like literally in my notebook and I don't have them. But one thing I think about as far as like Haitian Proverbs goes, it's just like, you can't really go forward and then shun your people along the way. I don't know the proper way to say it, but it's like,

Junae (41:35.231)
That's okay.

Jeff Rousseau (42:02.472)
That's something I think about that I grew up listening to.

Junae (42:04.607)
I like that.

Jeff Rousseau (42:08.264)
That doesn't work, especially like in gaming where...

Junae (42:12.255)
I love how you're bringing it back to the podcast and I'm so far beyond gaming right now. It's so funny because I'm like, and they're like gaming and I'm like, yeah, we're doing gaming for the culture.

Jeff Rousseau (42:15.976)
I...

especially in the gaming space because like you tend to, yeah, it's like, you're going to stick out and people are going to notice, this person over here is doing these things. And then like people start to register you for things. So that's why I like, and people can definitely just do their career, not necessarily have to like outwardly say, hey, I'm for the culture or whatever, or.

I'm black and I'm proud. We're like, no, everybody has a different way of doing it. Like, I understand that. What was funny to me was that while I was doing my work over at a games industry, someone I talked to, they mentioned, it's like, hey, I respect the fact that even though you're working at a larger publication, you're still very much about like what you were before then. Like you still want to uplift like developers and like game professionals from the margins. Even though like you could not do that. You could just be.

someone who just does his job and does it like everybody else. And I appreciated that. And someone else told me something that made me kind of laugh. And then it says something to the effect of like, I think you're like the only person who like talks to black people as a journalist. And then, and the thing was, but they had to explain further. They meant like within like the time of my tenure at a larger, like traditional site, because other people have done that for years. Like quite literally people have done that for.

Junae (43:38.111)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (43:48.04)
longer than I even thought about it. Again, shout out to like, Not Your Momma's Gamer, Khalif Adams, respond on me. You know, Rowan Gaming, like, like they've done that before I even thought about like going on to a site to do it, right? And I thought that was funny because I was like, no, other people do that. And then they looked at me and they're like, not as often as you think. And I was like, I just kept that to myself. I was just like, hmm, interesting.

That's it. I don't know. Yeah, it's something. And before I start, I'm ranting, but like the thing I always think about, especially with journalism, is just that if we're quote unquote more progressive and we're still replicating the same things and the only difference is the calendar year, I don't get it. Why?

Junae (44:16.703)
See ya.

Jeff Rousseau (44:44.52)
constantly talk to the same kind of people who have the same kind of, and I understand different people offer different perspectives. That's fine. But why not make it a regular thing to talk to different people about different things, about what's happening right now, or how are they assessing things? To me, as a journalist, there's a lot of information there to be distilled to people.

Junae (45:14.367)
going to I see you're why talk to you know the same people and I'm gonna raise you because one thing I learned writing for a news publication is that the weather is the biggest topic like it's really up there like people love to talk about the weather and I hated it so much and so

Jeff Rousseau (45:38.44)
Yeah.

Junae (45:42.783)
I think if we apply the current logic of people talking to the same people, it's like, well, why is the weather? Why do we keep feeding into the weather being such a big deal, but not something like global warming, right? Like we keep talking about, it's the hottest summer record ever, hottest summer record ever, hottest this, hottest that.

And it's like, we're just talking to the people like, it's going to be a hot one today. yeah. yeah. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, and instead of being like, we have broken a record for the third year in a row. And it's very concerning because, scientific facts, you know? so I think that's a part of it. It's a lot of these places. It's hard sometimes to think that, you know, at the end of the day that there are still companies because they're doing some things that are good, the stuff that you did.

Jeff Rousseau (46:05.704)
Mm -mm.

Junae (46:35.199)
you know, is really good. And the other stuff that people are doing, it's really good, you know, talking to people, getting that different perspective. I don't think it's in their business model. I think it's a perk, you know, it's, it's a perk that you're doing that, that they have someone like you, that they have someone that's thinking outside of the box, but would they hire 10 people like that? Who would cater to the people who have a hard time with change and have a hard time?

getting outside of that box.

Jeff Rousseau (47:07.528)
I think

The thing with media, there's budgets for things and if it's not within budget, then it's just not feasible. And again, there are people who are definitely trying and doing their best within the realms of reason of which they have capable with their respective platforms. And the thing I think about with gaming,

shit.

Jeff Rousseau (47:39.72)
is like you said, dude, there's so many different other things to focus. And of course, yes, the layoffs, that is something that is very important. That is something that should be a talk about how developers sustainability, how hard it is for them to get publisher funds to work on the games and stuff like that. Yes, that's important. But also I think that

Despite all these things, there's still other people to talk to about, hey, how are you doing this? Like this one studio in a different country. And that's another thing I thought about too, is just international coverage.

is something that could always be improved on. It's not just...

the US, even though I know it's a large part of the games market, you also have the focus on East Asia. But you know, there's also other studios, you know, of course, yeah, every now and then, folks will talk about like the Africa game scene and the number of African countries and what they're doing, what have you. But it's like, when you look at that, it's just like...

I feel like the coverage could be more robust if there was more resources put into it. You know what I mean? I'm sure you've noticed where like it tends to be kind of samey in a certain way. Like one thing I liked is like when GamesIndustry .Biz, I think it was South Africa Games Week and they talked to different folks at different like professional levels and stuff like that. That was really interesting to me versus what you normally tend to see. But I don't know, there's just so much going on with journalism and I think it just hyper focuses.

Jeff Rousseau (49:21.64)
on certain things where the biggest publications focuses on those things. Not everybody can be like Jason Schreier, like, no, and this is not Shady to do. He's really good at his job. I don't really aspire to do things like him. My thing is that I would just like to be able to talk to different people and just offer different informational resources about here's why they're deciding to do this.

what were the business risks and the market currently right now being scary in terms of like funding? Here's how they were able to do things. I tend to think about things like that.

Junae (50:06.207)
really try not to repeat topics, but I think you brought up a good one about like, there's a lot of coverage with certain nations, countries, than there are with others. And it's frustrating. I'm not gonna lie to you. I miss a police car alarm. I'm just gonna be honest with you right now. I miss it.

I miss it, just a smidge. I just heard it just now. I know we were talking earlier about like, can you hear? And I don't even know if they can hear, but I heard and like, I did, I did. And I was like, I miss it. Cause then it's like, danger. The one that I'm hearing is kind of like, what's going on? You know, like, not like, you know.

Jeff Rousseau (50:41.96)
Yeah. You heard it? wow, okay. Wow.

Jeff Rousseau (50:54.984)
I don't live too far from the police station, actually. But anyway, go ahead.

Junae (51:02.167)
Yeah, refocusing. So you talked a lot about, you know, not covering like as much outside of like Asian countries and like a lot of the Asian art that's going on. It's on.

Jeff Rousseau (51:12.616)
Latin America too, I'm so sorry. Latin America as well. I think like they need more than what's now, like especially Latin America. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.

Junae (51:22.399)
I agree with you, you know, and I think it does come down to resources. I think Latin America gaming industry needs more resources, but then also the people covering gaming need more resources to specifically focus on Latin America and, you know, parts of Africa and the Caribbean and all these other places, you know, and Pakistan and India and...

you know, I think a lot of the gaming industry that's doing really well would be that East Asian would be like the white, like the predominantly white countries like Finland, Sweden, Norway, like they have a very big presence in the industry, mostly like mobile, you know, but still like you wouldn't talk about mobile gaming without mentioning them. So I think we could shy away from them to talk more about

Jeff Rousseau (52:09.992)
Mm -hmm.

Junae (52:19.615)
stories from people that we've never heard of before or even considered, but I agree with you with the resources on both ends.

Jeff Rousseau (52:29.256)
them. It's one of those things too I think about

Journalism media and all that stuff is a business and it makes sense why people would create their own platforms and sources to be able to do the kind of things that they want to do. But also it's just like, there's a lot left on the table when we just focus on the same news beats. And I don't know if anyone's looking for like a new, a journalist to like.

expand your coverage. Yes, I'm saying this like, yes, I would definitely create a presentation or talk to this man. It's like, okay, so here's probably why you should extend like coverage in here. Am I the person that would be that person for you to help you with that? Yes, for these reasons. But also there's other people like these people right here that can help with that. But I...

Junae (53:24.959)
Pay Jeff and send him to all the countries to find the people to boost your website.

Jeff Rousseau (53:32.04)
You know, thank you. But it's, yeah, there's just so much. And I would be remiss as well to not mention how like, it's still very interesting to me that even though we have all these things happening.

Jeff Rousseau (53:54.248)
How coverage...

How cover just so places.

To me personally, it's like, well...

Why are reports like this for these type of subjects? It kind of, so just to something I think about, like for example, with Tales of Zao, I remember I am forgetting this gentleman's name, the studio head, the face, you know what I'm talking about. I am forgetting his name.

Junae (54:26.943)
I do, yeah. That's, you know what Jeff, that's fine. We could look it up right now. We don't have to even shirk away from that at all. I got you, right? So.

Jeff Rousseau (54:32.872)
Yeah. Yeah.

Junae (54:43.198)
Okay, that was made by EA. Abu Bakar Saleem. Yes.

Jeff Rousseau (54:49.48)
Yes. So he put out a video where he was talking about like essentially the loud minority of hateful people just focusing on a game just because the character on, wow, this just like triggered something in my brain about something else. But I'll mention that that's like a lighter, funnier thing we'll talk about. But like how this is a game that's clearly inspired by like African folk tales.

And that character is obviously black from the diaspora. He was talking about how they were receiving a lot of negativity. And essentially, this is a hate campaign. It's like everybody who is not a white guy, these people are just going after them. We are within the age of Gamergate 2 and all these things, especially what's happening with Sweet Baby Inc and what have you.

But the thing is, anyway, going back to my point, I'm rambling, but I was reading a report and it mentioned how he was talking about how like, yeah, we're receiving this negative stuff and to combat that, you know, what are we gonna do? We're gonna make the game cheaper. And I just want everyone to know like, this is a game that it's created with these stories, but anyone can play it and appreciate it. That's the whole point of making game development. And I do agree with that sentiment. Even if I made a game myself about a very specific,

particular thing like I don't know like gentrification around like South Florida anyone would be able to play that the way I would imagine it but yeah to this point anyway I'm reading a report I won't say what publication and they didn't mention the fact that obviously this stuff was happening because of racism because of discrimination they just were able to word it in a way and I sat there I was like well why not mention that and I asked myself that well okay I don't run that site but then I thought okay if I was to write that would I not?

have said that, I would have, because you can see it. But I don't know. Yeah, please inform me. I don't know if just people are just shying away from it. That's what I assume professionally.

Junae (56:51.807)
Can I give you some insight?

Junae (57:01.727)
So this could go three ways. Either I mentioned it, either I wrote it, I mentioned that was happening by racism, and the editor was like, can we like reward that? Or like, what does that mean? That's one, right? Or they didn't mention it. So I guess two ways, right? They didn't think about it, they didn't mention it. They were just like, man, this is, you know, sex at this game was receiving so much hate because it's actually really good game.

Jeff Rousseau (57:06.952)
Mm -hmm.

Jeff Rousseau (57:20.36)
-huh.

Junae (57:31.615)
I've had it happen to me, like especially. So I have a very specific time when it happened and it was just over like wording, right? Like I remember I was working for NBC Sports before it was NBC Sports. So me and NBC was like, okay, we was close. And I was like, yeah, you know, such and such came to show up and show out. And they're like, show out.

Jeff Rousseau (57:44.104)
Yeah

Junae (57:51.359)
Can you give us a word that our readers would understand? And it's like, well, if you're really into sports, you're probably also aware of some of Black culture and like a AVE that's going on, so you would know. And so I've had that happen again more recently where an editor was like, so what does that mean? And then all I said was, what do you mean? And then they let it go. You know what I mean? Or they're like, well, what does that mean? And I was like, what do you mean? Which part? And they were like, it's great. And then they just sent it to the presses.

Jeff Rousseau (58:01.64)
No.

Junae (58:20.415)
I think that's also the difference because like, you know, I, as a Black woman, writing something that was like a very much so like Black experience and like, you know, the editor was just there for like grammatical things and others and you know, like accuracy and not necessarily like the storytelling part, that was my part. And so for them to just be like, what do you mean? I was like, what are we talking about?

Jeff Rousseau (58:36.104)
You

Junae (58:46.431)
because I've seen it happen to me before. Hopefully that this person was mindful of it and unfortunately got lost in editing. Because when you challenge people to be like, well, why do you think we shouldn't mention that? Why do you think we should reword it to be nicer? I also have the same issue with TikTok.

Jeff Rousseau (59:07.368)
Yeah.

Junae (59:12.255)
and using trigger warning, you guys, I'm gonna use some words. I have an issue with them using stuff, replacing stuff with like suicide versus unaliving. Because I understand that the app is gonna censor you, but I also feel like we're taking away the severity and the weight of that word by like changing it to something else, right? So like that's...

Jeff Rousseau (59:38.952)
Yeah, that's real!

Junae (59:40.127)
Yeah, that's really all I have to say about that. I just hope that it gets challenged. And I hope that people are more mindful that, you know, because if you put two and two together, why they just didn't say it, right? If you go minus the journalism, minus like, you know, I guess cognitive thinking, I guess just an interest or following it. Like, if you put two and two together, why they just didn't go, yeah, like, this is really racist, because I feel like

Jeff Rousseau (01:00:07.944)
Right.

Junae (01:00:09.375)
The only time headlines really lead into racism is when it's like blatant, right? They can never just be like, here are the undertones, right? Because I just want to say this, a lot of non -black people and people who lived in the situation that CJ lived in in Grand Theft Auto are playing Grand Theft Auto every day. And they're not like, you know, I don't have to relate to CJ. Baby, I don't relate to CJ and I don't play GTA. So like, you know what I mean?

Jeff Rousseau (01:00:17.064)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:00:30.44)
You

Jeff Rousseau (01:00:37.288)
Hmm

Junae (01:00:39.519)
relate to that man. I don't know what he's going through. I don't know what he been through. I never did that a day in my life. Like, I don't know her sorry to this man. I don't know him. And so it's really interesting that like, I'm not African. I can't play you know, I'm not from any part of Africa. Nor do I know the folklore. So this game doesn't apply to me. And so and if it doesn't keep your mouth shut.

Jeff Rousseau (01:01:02.28)
Right.

Junae (01:01:07.199)
at the end of the day because there's a reason why 51, the numbers have probably updated to like 55, but there's a reason that 51 % of women are gamers because we was playing games, I didn't have an Xbox OG, but like with Halo, there was no Barbie game. There was, aren't these, like women were playing Doom, they were playing Halo, they were playing Tekken, they were playing.

Jeff Rousseau (01:01:08.52)
Yeah, dude.

Jeff Rousseau (01:01:17.748)
Mmm.

Junae (01:01:31.423)
You know what I mean? GTA, they were playing all of those. And not once was it in like a positive light to be a woman in any one of those games if women were even in there in general, right? People were playing crazy taxi when they was running over, you know, women when they was doing this, doing like women have always been in that negative aspect. Obviously there's like Tomb Raider and things like that. But we were playing games when it wasn't in our best interest, you know, we were playing games even when we were the victim in the game.

Jeff Rousseau (01:01:45.704)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Junae (01:02:00.479)
And so, but once again, that's experience, that's empathizing, that's, you know, being able to like, take yourself out of this, like, why can't this be for me? To be like, hey man, there's people who are gonna enjoy it.

Jeff Rousseau (01:02:14.248)
Right? Yeah. And to your point, yeah, it's ridiculous because obviously you could see that the hate campaigns, Game of Gate 2, is just so frivolous. And there's a lot of good reporters talk about like, these people have no idea what they're talking about. Yeah. In the reporting, like, if I see something that is blatantly sexist, I guess, depending upon the site,

you know, don't let me say it or whatever, but yeah, yeah, I should, I should definitely be able to tell my editors like, come on, like, what are we doing? Or, or I can say implied, you know, that that's the thing is like, and I just think, and wow, it just jogged like a memory to me. Like there's a site.

Junae (01:02:53.087)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:03:03.496)
that I frequent and never in my days have I ever seen them mention anything regarding blatant racism or things of that nature regarding gaming or anime or what have you. Even though I remember reading an article about something that happened with anime, voice acting, what have you, no mention of the racial aspects of that. Even though it was Bright As Day.

Even though you can see it, it's like, hold on, but this person and that person and this character, oops, sorry. And then it's just like, but wait a minute, but the implications are just like, what? No mentions of those undertones, right? And then this is the same site where I read a review about a game and then a person decided that, by the way, like this game has also kind of gotten bad.

Junae (01:03:39.679)
you

Jeff Rousseau (01:04:02.088)
whatever because the director said this is like, wow, here's why there's no black and brown people in this game. And I was like, is that the first time that this is being mentioned on this site? It probably was. I just find that interesting. Just little things like that. I just find it interesting regarding like game journalism and what have you. Now back to the point, the thing that was triggered in my head, you're gonna find this very funny and you're gonna have to prove me wrong. You're gonna find this very funny. So I want you to think about these. These are all games. Tales of Zao, Suddenly June,

Junae (01:04:15.391)
Yeah.

Junae (01:04:28.895)
Okay.

Jeff Rousseau (01:04:32.2)
We have...

Dustborn What is it? Something after midnight? That one Xbox game. Wait, wait, wait

Junae (01:04:46.207)
After midnight. If it's scary, I super don't know.

Jeff Rousseau (01:05:00.712)
South of Midnight, South of Midnight. Okay. So what I said, I said Tales of the South, Dustborn, South of Midnight, Suddly June.

Jeff Rousseau (01:05:12.264)
There was another game. The folks behind The Life is Strange, they're making another game with young women where there's like... I think that's the first game where they have one of the characters is black. I was like, look at that. Y 'all finally got there. Anyway, all these games, what do they all have in common other than the fact that these characters are black?

Junae (01:05:28.959)
Yeah.

Junae (01:05:43.903)
I don't know.

Jeff Rousseau (01:05:45.0)
Okay, when you look, I am forgetting one more game. I am, my God, I am forgetting one more game.

Junae (01:05:51.935)
like besides them being black, it's a game. It probably, you know, got crazy pushback and crazy comments.

Jeff Rousseau (01:05:55.528)
No, not necessarily. There's another one I'm forgetting. It's where Flintlock and Flintlock, there we go. So these five games, what do they have in common? I know you're like, Jeff, where are you going with this? All these games have black people, yes? Most of them are women, yes? Okay. Why is everyone the same skin tone?

Junae (01:06:15.583)
Okay. Yes.

Junae (01:06:22.559)
Jeff Rousseau (01:06:26.536)
I've noticed that ever since I saw a random tweet from Black Girl Gamers. They're like, they mentioned something about like, there was some, it was a random tweet I saw one day, right? I was in between work and I saw that and I was like.

Junae (01:06:35.167)
Well...

Jeff Rousseau (01:06:40.712)
Y 'all cooking with this, y 'all cooking with this. I didn't really like comment or whatever, but it stayed in my head. And I'm like, y 'all cooking with this, but this is something I can only talk to with another black person that's really into games and that understands where I'm coming from. We know that with technology.

and colorism and all this stuff and how they work and they can span whatever. But why is like the shades of, why are our skin tones more so, yeah, literally like ours, the default, like do dark skin people not exist? I just find that so bizarre.

Junae (01:07:19.391)
No. No. Because dark skinned people end up like Mr. Popo. So I actually have a reference. you didn't like that?

Jeff Rousseau (01:07:28.712)
I didn't like that, but hey, you know what? You know what? We gonna let it rock. I'm gonna let you talk, because this is your show. You do have a point. I just sat there. I was just like, why is everybody the same shade of brown? And you can go back further. You can look at Miles Morales. You can look at homeboy from Deathloop, him and Juliana. I'm just like.

Junae (01:07:39.743)
Yeah.

Junae (01:07:49.183)
So I'm going to make a bold statement. So this was me connecting it to it. But I also think this is when it started. So I had the pleasure of knowing Neil Adams before he passed, right? He was he drew Batman for

Jeff Rousseau (01:07:52.488)
Okay.

Junae (01:08:04.383)
an odd number of years and he's the person who came up with the black green lantern, John Stewart. And so as he regales me the tale of coming up with John Stewart, he's talking about the back and forth. And I have a video about that. So if you want to hear what he has to say, please go watch the video on my YouTube. He's going as he's doing the back and forth about like not giving John Stewart like a slave name, like Lincoln Washington. He's also talking about like he's not going to make him and he literally says shit Brown.

Jeff Rousseau (01:08:09.768)
Mmm.

Junae (01:08:31.519)
He was like, we're not doing that. He's like, we do that with every character. He needs a different color. And he talked about how when they were drawing black people, he like knew like the hex code, like whatever that would be. He knew the color that they were using for black people and then started giving like John Stewart a different color. And as he was telling me that I thought it was so interesting because I'm like, yeah, every time I've seen Storm, she's always like lighter or caramel, right? Like if we're equating it to food or like.

Jeff Rousseau (01:08:58.472)
Mm -hmm.

Junae (01:09:00.191)
Right? Because she's never really like a sandy brown or anything like that. Like it's always like this caramel, like espresso, peanut butter color. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I think it's just what they're comfortable with. Right? It's what they're comfortable with and it's what they've seen as acceptable because I don't know, anytime they make someone dark, like dark, not brown, but like

Jeff Rousseau (01:09:08.04)
Even though in a cartoon she dark right? Yeah

Junae (01:09:30.111)
dark anytime they make someone dark, it's like they forget about the shading, they forget about the colors, they forget about the undertones. You know, they forget that like how their hands are supposed to look like they just forget and so you know that right and the Killmonger haircut, right? We could talk about them having the same color, the same haircut, the same texture, right? Because even though we have gotten more variety, we're still going to get the two French braids, right? We're still going to get those two French braids, we're going to get like that little

Jeff Rousseau (01:09:34.536)
Yeah, and they look great.

Yeah.

Junae (01:09:58.591)
textured kind of shaped fro, which is not exactly that 70s fro, right? But we still got that, you know, like, yeah, you know what I mean? And it's like, all they did was really add some definition. They really didn't get what we were trying to say. And we're not asking. I was so excited. You know, we're not asking for every hairstyle ever. Like, we get it that it would be a lot. Like, y 'all wouldn't even know what to do. Like, the game would be as big as Call of Duty with like 130 X gigs.

Jeff Rousseau (01:09:59.88)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:10:03.731)
Mmm, the curly fro now, yep.

Jeff Rousseau (01:10:10.6)
You

Jeff Rousseau (01:10:22.408)
Yeah, right.

Junae (01:10:28.703)
I was really excited to talk to someone from Saints Row, but because today is just independent, they actually didn't let me talk to anybody because I wanted to talk to an artist and be like, how did you include, how did you effortlessly include so many black hairstyles? You know, I just really wanted to know. And then I was like, F you, Saints Row, you didn't want to talk to me. You know, take it up personal. Cause I'm like, nobody else cares. Nobody from any other place is going to be like, hey,

Jeff Rousseau (01:10:39.08)
all those kids.

Junae (01:10:57.407)
I really want to talk to the artists about like how they got this hair. They don't care because you did that for us, right? You heard some people talking about it and you were like, dang, we should do it. And you did it and I want to talk about it. And you're like, sorry, you're not really averaging 30K views per like, you know, minute. And that was really disappointing because I felt like they did something that we actually cared about and that they actually took time to care about. And I just never got to talk to anybody.

about it, but I still appreciated it, even though I wasn't playing Saints Row. And I actually think you brought it up to me. I think you're the one who mentioned it to me. You're like, Janaye, did you play Saints Row? And I was like, no. Yes. Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:11:31.272)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:11:35.496)
Yeah, I mentioned like, there was the character creator for the game. Yeah, I remember I told you like, yeah, yeah, just take a look at it. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Junae (01:11:45.567)
Yeah, yeah. So like, you know that and so like that was kind of frustrating because like, yeah, I'll be doing it. Yeah, I'll be doing what we be asking for, you know, but then there's always there. There is that I guess I can call it and we're not saying one thing or another about Kanye, you guys. Just an example. Please don't get like upset or say, Janay said, because I didn't say anything except what I'm about.

to say, okay? I call it like the Kanye concert effect, right? So Kanye is a black artist, he's from Chicago. And before he was like, charging all those huge prices for like white teas, and then he started to bring them down. It just feels like a place for like black camaraderie to happen. But who's mostly at the concerts? Non black people singing the N word as loud as they possibly can with no care in the world.

Jeff Rousseau (01:12:41.416)
This is what No Name was talking about.

Junae (01:12:44.959)
no care in the world because they're surrounded by their own. And I really felt the effect of this going to a Childish Gambino concert. And I felt like people were missing.

Jeff Rousseau (01:12:53.672)
Yo! Go ahead, finish. Yo, go ahead and finish.

Junae (01:12:57.631)
I felt like people were mistreating me. Like they were mistreating me. Like this isn't for me. You know, like I'm telling you, like I really got like, it was, it was just the racial treatment. Yeah. Like it was, it was rooted in racism. You see me like itching, like trying to get it off of me. Like it's rooted in racism, the way that they were treating me. And I was like, y 'all not, y 'all will never be a brown girl from Williamsburg.

Jeff Rousseau (01:13:09.576)
It was weird. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:13:16.264)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:13:26.184)
You feel me? Yo, all right. Yeah.

Junae (01:13:26.623)
Y 'all will never be a Gambini girl forever. This is for me. And like, it's hard to just deal with that.

Jeff Rousseau (01:13:36.2)
It's one of those things... Did I write about it this last year? Yeah, it's one of those things where...

like liking games and being in it and it can feel surreal, you know, and it's, I'll tie this into a larger point. It's.

It's why now I ask people or at least want them to consider, well, what is it exactly that you want?

Do you want more games starring people from different backgrounds and stuff like that being heroes or doing whatever? Do you want that? Or do you also, or do you want that? Or do you want that the people behind them, like the dynamic still hasn't really changed? Which is it?

Jeff Rousseau (01:14:37.0)
Realistically, we want both, right? But the thing is, so there's this game.

You know, like using South of Midnight, for example, it looks really interesting when you see the gameplay. The thing I'm asking is like, so when are people gonna start like interviewing like the black folks working on the game? I know like when they announced it, one of the head Xbox people who was a black man spoke about like,

We have people from certain different backgrounds who are working on it. And I know like there are black people who are working on it. Like I know them. Like I think I'm mutual with a few of them, right? But I would like to see them in interviews. I would like to know who are they have black people writing or whatever. That's me personally. And the thing is like going back to the whole journalistic thing is because I want to know it's like, are they just contractors? Are they just, are there no black people in the league who are doing these things? Because it's again to help.

people understand it's like, hmm, now what's going on there? Now why is that? Back to the whole concert thing, it's funny I mentioned that because it's like, I do like Tyler, the creator's music, and I did see him live when he was down here, but I was part of a larger music festival where there's different kinds of people, so the crowd was diverse. However, when I think about it, I'm like, would I ever get a ticket to go to Camp Phlogna?

Junae (01:15:55.487)
Okay.

Jeff Rousseau (01:16:02.376)
and do that myself knowing what I know the crowd will look like. Jadae is shaking her head. She's like, no, I've seen them videos too on YouTube. I'm like, nah.

Junae (01:16:10.207)
No, what big, I went to Afro punk in 2016 where he was there, right? It was just Tyler, I believe. Maybe he asked about it. I was really, really like, a little bit of lore about me is that like Lord of Squad was my friends, but I didn't have any friends. So like, I love, you know, I loved golf weighing in a different way than like just like musical. So it's like, my God.

Jeff Rousseau (01:16:16.744)
Mm -hmm.

Jeff Rousseau (01:16:30.28)
Hmm.

Junae (01:16:37.855)
which also led me to get married to someone who looks like Taco Bennett and then we're divorced. So you know what I mean? Like it was really deeply rooted. It was really deeply rooted. But I went to Afro Funk in 2016 and I, Tyler the creator was performing right after, was it a reggae artist? It was some guy, maybe he wasn't reggae, but it was some guy with dreads. And I was standing over there and I was like, this is cool. And they're like, Tyler's coming.

Jeff Rousseau (01:16:45.992)
Yeah.

Junae (01:17:07.455)
and I don't know where it came from, but it had to be God, because I was like, I need to get out of here. At that time, huge Tyler the Creator fan, like huge, all of it. And I was like, I need to get out of here. And when I tell you by the time I got to the entrance, all these white guys were pushing it, you're not gonna crush me over Tyler. You're not gonna crush me. I'm so glad.

Jeff Rousseau (01:17:23.14)
Mm.

Junae (01:17:30.975)
And you know that's why they came to AfroPunk, right? Like, yeah, they wanted to see the other people, but like they came there to see Tyler and I got, and I was just like looking at that stage part and I was like, nah, they should have gave him the bigger stage. I was like, ain't no way he should have been over here because those people were absolutely ready to trample. You know, they'd be doing the mosh pit and stuff. I am not getting trampled over Tyler. Like I can't, I just, I can't, but.

Jeff Rousseau (01:17:42.728)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:17:53.032)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny because, again, I like his music, but I just find that so funny. And again, I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with that, going back to games and stuff like that. If I made a game, I would very much want anybody and everybody to be fans of it. If there's a few cultural things you don't get, hey, it be like that. You know what I mean?

Junae (01:18:16.639)
Yeah, you know, I think it's funny that you say that because I just entered in my first game jam and

Jeff Rousseau (01:18:22.696)
yes!

Junae (01:18:25.663)
So I entered in my first game jam and the game is in Patois. And then, you know, people are like, you should make it accessible, make it in English. No, because when y 'all was playing on that PSP and then Japanese games with no English, y 'all was figuring out how to get around the menu, right? And I put something in Patois.

And now it's, everybody off here read it, make everybody, why? But I still put an English part, but I agree with that. And I understand that, you know, I'd be like closing off people and things like that. But for years, did we all not watch Adventure Time and we had no idea what Lady Rainicorn was saying? She was speaking Korean the whole time. We didn't know what she was saying. Sometimes even after the episode, I would go look it up because obviously somebody knew what she was saying, but me, I don't speak Korean. I didn't know what Lady Rainicorn was saying. And it's just like...

things like that, you know, where it's like people will figure it out because like, and I was also gonna do an audio version so you could at least try to catch it, but it'll be English. It'll be like, I get it, like you gotta let people in, you know, cause here we are talking about like where games should be accessible. And I'm like, no, it's in a different language that you'll never understand. Like, you know, but I do want a lot of people to play it. I do want a lot of people to get into it, you know, but I think.

It's okay if everything not for everybody. I think that's okay.

Jeff Rousseau (01:19:53.224)
Yeah, it is. And the thing about gaming too is just that it is so many different things. There's journalism, there's all these games that people will not find the time to play. You will not have the funds to buy all these games. You will not have all the time, which I find, which as a sidebar.

Junae (01:20:11.743)
It's true. It's true.

Jeff Rousseau (01:20:16.968)
I don't know if it's a consequence. I guess you can call it a funny thing, like a funny side effect of like covering games as a game journalism. I can't really watch directs or anything like that unless it's a part of my job. Because the thing is I just see them as long running commercials without a stop. I can watch developer interviews where developers talking about why this is why we did the thing, why we made the things, how we came up with these ideas and they're talking to other people within the studio. Those I can watch.

directs and stuff and showcases. I can't really watch those because those are big like commercials to me. I just can't.

Junae (01:20:53.663)
appreciate you putting that into words because I can't keep up with them either you know and they don't really have anything to do with Indie like sometimes the Indie games are mentioned but I don't I don't get excited about them and I was like dang Janaye you know and people be like Janaye the direct you know Janaye the direct I'm like I don't care I'm like I will read an article where it's summarized and then if I see a game I'll go watch it but like

Jeff Rousseau (01:21:05.32)
Sure, yeah, there's one specifically focused here.

Junae (01:21:20.799)
As for me sitting through, first of all, the buildup of y 'all making people wait here while you do a countdown screen until you start the showcase. I hate that. I hate that. Just jumped in. You said you starting at two, start at two. If you gonna do that, start at 150. I don't care. So, you know, like that and then like sitting through this whole like three hour thing and.

Jeff Rousseau (01:21:44.328)
Mmm.

Junae (01:21:45.631)
you know, and buy this game and this game is gonna be so amazing, but it's actually really boring. And when you get it, you'll find out but we'll already have your 75 smackaroos. Ha ha ha. Like, you know, that's kind of how that really feels. And I just have just been trying to put into words. So I'm so happy that you said that because now I could just be like, it's genuine burnout. It's genuine, you know, you know what I mean? It's like,

Jeff Rousseau (01:22:06.376)
Yeah. you're welcome. Yeah.

Junae (01:22:13.983)
you should see through the smoke and mirrors and you're like, you know, and like these people and the layoffs and the people that it took to even get to make this game who were probably like mistreated. It's hard. It's hard to be like a part of capitalism because I'm telling people to buy games with it. I'm like, don't submit capitalism.

Jeff Rousseau (01:22:19.144)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:22:28.136)
Yeah, it is.

That's, I have a response to that, I'll let you finish. Okay, so one thing that, and thank you for sharing, one thing I appreciate, all right, never took for granted with the type of journalism that I do, and I hope I can continue doing that, of course, it's just that.

Junae (01:22:36.383)
That was it. That was my rant.

Jeff Rousseau (01:22:53.864)
We should always be thinking about these things, not necessarily to feel bad. It's not about it to feel bad. We exist in reality. And there is a reason why you're seeing these number of layouts, but like games still keep on being released. There's a reason why maybe certain studios are able to like break through and be lucky. And I know people don't like that notion of being lucky, but

a good number of times unless you're backed by a big publisher? Yeah, you're kind of lucky, especially if it's a small studio and you literally are able to sell enough foresight. All right, everybody was paid well. Do you know, we can work on the next project or what have you. It's these things where they have to exist within this market, which is, you know, God forbid you release a game, that's around the time of a AAA game that decided to pick a random date, you know, stuff like that. And...

The larger point is that I want to inform people because yes, these should be the things that you think about. Yes, this big company that Microsoft laid off, what was it? 9 ,000 people, nearly 9 ,000 people. And again, shout out to Aftermath because they had a report where they were talking about the Summer Games Festival saying how it felt for people who were laid off and just to see trailers for games of studios they're no longer a part of or have been shuttered or have you.

Because these are the realities where like, yeah, fam, your cousin or whoever worked on this thing and they unfortunately got laid off, but you still love video games. And it's like, you know, it's like, yay games. No, my whole thing was that I still remember the words that my managing editor, Brendan Sinclair told me. And I'm gonna still keep that to heart. We are not here to cheerlead the industry.

Yes, I know people that work in industry. Yes, I want them all to have long careers. Y 'all bills need to be paid. I know, you know, y 'all look fabulous. I want you to keep drinking water. You ain't gotta have a care in the world. I want all these things for all my peoples. Yes, that goes without saying, everybody.

Jeff Rousseau (01:25:05.608)
But...

when I just had to check, when we're now sitting at 10 ,000 layoffs, that's more than last year and we're in June.

Like, yeah, I'm gonna sit back and just like, you know what? Maybe, yay, games needs to be reevaluated.

Junae (01:25:27.935)
Jeff, it's like you're reading my newsletter. Cause I literally said the same thing. It's like you're just in my head about it. Cause like, I agree. And you know, it's so funny is that I think I could have got commission on one of my newsletters for doing Black Friday, the Black Friday deals. But I was like, Hey, if y 'all don't have the money, you don't need this. I literally put that at the end. I was like, here are the deals that are going on. But if you don't have it, don't do that.

And I was trying to round up the numbers on like the layoffs because what, what is it at? Because all of last year was like 10 ,000, 8 ,000. And then like you said, you know, it's June and we're at 10 ,000 and trust there's going to be more, you know? And I said, you said it verbatim. There have been a bunch of layoffs, but there has not been a lack of games coming out. So like, well, like there's a disconnect.

there's a disconnect somewhere and like, I feel like we need to find it. So Jeff, I feel like we're going to go forever. I feel like we're going to be here until next week talking about and then, and this part, and we didn't even get to this. So really quickly, I want to talk about something. I want you to expound on something you said earlier about how journalism is and how people think it's supposed to go and what people need to learn about it.

Jeff Rousseau (01:26:26.664)
Yeah, we are gonna go forever. Yeah, I'll be here forever.

Jeff Rousseau (01:26:34.056)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:26:40.264)
Mm -hmm.

Jeff Rousseau (01:26:46.472)
right, yes. So there was a conversation where, I don't need to say, give it more spotlight than it is, but it's news regarding a certain former streamer and the legal or not legal issues that they have. That's their business. Trust me, you won't have to take long to look into it. But a larger conversation was that, well, what can sites...

published, what are their responsibilities? The thing about journalism, and again, because you don't want to be sued, when you're approaching reports about allegations and stuff like that, you have to be careful because the thing is you don't want to be incorrect. You don't want to put out information that is quite literally fabricated. And again, you don't want to be sued. And there's things where even I've had conversations that I'll never see the light of day.

Because I didn't know, well, how am I going to go about this legally or what have you? You know, and the thing about journalism, yes, people are writing reports to inform people about what they can. But if a source says, hey, I don't want to talk about this, whatever, you cannot twist this person's arm. You cannot make them do whatever. And that story can very well just never see the light of day. And if people are just like, well, why aren't people reporting on hearsay, whatever? Again, you don't want to be sued by a larger.

corporation when they said, hey, this is the thing that we sent you in the email legally. This is ABC and XYZ is you can't say nothing about that. It's like generalistically, that's that is what it is. And then the other conversation as well with journalism is about how like it's also elitist to get into it. And it is elitist. Like Janay can tell you because the thing is, it's like, I remember someone said something very recently. I think it was last week.

where they said the thing about journalism is like someone has to give you a chance so you can break in. And that to me is so true, unfortunately, because you, it's not like people are just like, hey, just jump into this thing or we'll help you along the way to get you whatever. It's like, you got to pitch the first good story or someone just sees or what have you. And I just think about that. And this is why a lot of sites don't like Janay and I.

Junae (01:29:09.823)
What did I do?

Jeff Rousseau (01:29:12.424)
You have great hair, that's what you did. So.

Junae (01:29:14.719)
Okay.

Jeff Rousseau (01:29:17.096)
And I think about that a lot. Again, I hope to continue to be a journalist and working on journalism, but that's something I think about. And I was like, you know what? I have to help bring that down. Either it's me talking to a whole bunch of students or helping someone create better programs, what have you. But yeah, it's, you know.

Junae (01:29:41.311)
I like that though. I like that you said that. And when I was writing the book on how to be a successful video game journalist, the first pages, the first chapter are journalism ethics, right? They talk about how you can, it's journalism ethics and it talks about how to be a form of activism.

without feeling like you're doing too much or without doing too much, right? You know, we talked a little bit about it earlier. And I think that when you are the minority in the place, I think you're automatically pushed into activism, whether or not you realize it.

It's very important to be respectful of sources because like you'll never get like that chance again if you mess it up with someone who really could have gave you something good, you know, and I know there are really juicy things that we could talk about, but is it juicy because you want to be the first person to get the likes or is it juicy because it could shift minds and make a difference in the industry?

You know, I think that's really important. And I thankfully did not learn the hard way, even though in my younger journalism years, I leaked something that was not supposed to be leaked because I wanted the likes. And I was at, it doesn't matter. So, you know, and I just got talked to like, hey, like you can't do things like that and you shouldn't do things like that. And so, you know, I really.

Jeff Rousseau (01:31:06.023)
Mmm.

Jeff Rousseau (01:31:18.088)
Yeah.

Junae (01:31:22.015)
I'm glad I got to learn that in a good way. And I know everyone's chasing clickbait because clickbait gets you your 0 .5 cents per user. And you know, you can rack up money, but we have to see people as people. We have to respect them as their boundaries. You know, even if you would get on the internet and be so open about like, you know, something that's happening to you, not everybody is like that. And I think when we...

when we start to think of people as people, we'll be able to have better conversations and people will probably be more inclined to share, but you know, say Jeff was talking to me and I work at XYZ. Do you see that? And you know, I work at XYZ and I'm like, you know, here's something that we can't talk about, but like, I just want to tell you to give you context. And then he's like,

Jeff Rousseau (01:31:54.216)
Yeah.

Junae (01:32:16.991)
Herein first, XYZ is creating the new console that's to put everybody down and everybody's getting laid off. And now I'm like, dang Jeff, you know, we could have had this really working relationship where I would have fed you stuff that I said, don't tell nobody I told you, but tell the people. So like, think of it that way, right? Think of it as like your first secret as like a test to be like, well, what are you gonna do with it? Are you gonna like tell everybody? And I know we're also in the age of like,

Jeff Rousseau (01:32:26.6)
Can't do that, yeah.

Junae (01:32:46.687)
being petty and receipts and people are like, as soon as you do me wrong, I'm about to like, you know, whistle blow for less. Like you're not even, you're not even changing lives. Like you're just like, you know, this person was really mean to me. And I've had it like with you saying it's elitist is somehow an understatement because like I've had conversations that I tell like other journalists what happened to me and I named names.

Jeff Rousseau (01:32:49.832)
Yeah.

Jeff Rousseau (01:32:57.512)
Yeah.

Junae (01:33:12.127)
But I'm like, you know, hey, like, let's not put that on paper because I'm just not sure. Especially if I'm already, you know, like not the top of the industry. If I'm already not this, it's like, if I say this, you know, one, is anybody really going to look at it seriously? Two, is that going to like bar me from like other places and things I need to be? You know, I've, I had a real situation happen when I was interning for PC Gamer where someone just came out online and was like, Janaye, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

Jeff Rousseau (01:33:16.456)
Yeah

Junae (01:33:40.927)
And I had to go talk to someone at PC Gamer and I was like, hey, this person's saying things about me and I'm kind of worried about my credibility and that, you know, I'm just here and like, this really has nothing to do with you guys. Like they're just being, they have had a vendetta for like a very long time. So like, they just pop up randomly and do this. And she was like, I'm not worried about it. You know, she was very much so like, I'm not worried about it. I've worked with you and I think you're wonderful. And I don't have, you know, I can tell that to anybody. And I was just really happy that I was in a place where that happened because like,

the same person has been doing this the whole time they've known me and I've never had a leg to stand and I've actually seen it be more harmful, you know, where people are like, like, yeah, like, let's not work with Janae, like, let's not touch Janae, like, let's, you know, and now I'm in this place where people are like, who? They're like, who cares? Like, you know, we've already seen your work firsthand. So, you know, that's just talking about like credibility and being able to understand when loose lips sink ships.

Jeff Rousseau (01:34:38.856)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it goes back, I guess we could stop right here. It goes back to how like, it's a big industry, but like, it's also small in that sense too, which in my favor, like people recognize, Jeff likes talking to brown people. That's right, I do like talking to brown people.

Junae (01:35:05.631)
love that. And I love that you can do that wherever you go, right? Like if that's your MO, like that's what they're gonna expect for you. And so them hiring you henceforth, they already know what you're about. And I love that as a positive attribute. So yeah, I definitely think we are gonna go on forever and ever.

Jeff Rousseau (01:35:12.616)
Mm.

Junae (01:35:29.695)
Jeff, is there anything you'd like to tell the people, other people that they should look out for, a piece of advice where they can find you?

Jeff Rousseau (01:35:37.96)
Yeah, piece of advice, I think that, well, you can find me at, on X for how, until that shit burns down. At JR potential is literally JR, you know, Jeffrey, last name Russo. Anyway, JR potential, that's where you'll find me. Whenever I have updates about things, you'll find me there. As far as advice goes,

whatever you wanna do as a career.

Just whatever your accomplishments are, just don't forget that people helped you along the way. And it shouldn't be approached like, I did this all by myself. I didn't get to where I was by myself. People recognized my work. They shared it. They didn't have to. They kept on doing that. That's how I got to where I was at. And I'm going to keep that in mind and make sure I pay that forward. And yeah, that's best advice. You don't get nowhere by yourself.

Junae (01:36:40.767)
Go ahead and tell us the proverb you said earlier, because I think that that kind of

Jeff Rousseau (01:36:45.224)
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. my God, what did I say?

What did I say? Like going forward? You can't leave people behind as you go forward? Something like that. I totally messed that up. I forget.

Junae (01:37:00.095)
You can't shun your people as you advance. You can't like look back and shun your people.

Jeff Rousseau (01:37:05.896)
Yeah, you can't shun your people as you advance. Thank you.

Junae (01:37:08.895)
I love that. I think that is great. We didn't even talk about Twitter X. We didn't talk about that. We didn't even get to it. Yeah. So Jeff will be a reoccurring as we get through all of our topics. And this was really lovely. You know, this was our first time actually like speaking to each other and we've known each other for like, I think like two years. Has it been two years?

Jeff Rousseau (01:37:13.608)
Yeah, we can talk about that. That's a whole nother conversation. Yeah, it's weird.

Jeff Rousseau (01:37:29.768)
For, for, yeah. Yeah. I think it's been a little longer than that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Junae (01:37:33.119)
I think it's, yeah, it's longer. It's longer. You're right. You're right. It's longer. So this has been great. This has been a great like face to face. I definitely hope to like run into you at events. I can give you a big hug and tell you how much I appreciate you in person because I do appreciate you and your work and your reach.

Jeff Rousseau (01:37:48.84)
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate you as well.

Junae (01:37:53.791)
and all of that fun stuff. So thank you for being on Gaming for the Culture. Thank you for being in my network. Thank you for being, you know, someone that I can talk to and that I admire and just being like all around like stand up person. And I hope my other guests don't get jelly because I feel like I said this to them off of the episode instead of like on the episode, but I love them as well. They're all wonderful people. Please continue to watch the show or.

Jeff Rousseau (01:38:08.264)
Thank you.

Jeff Rousseau (01:38:14.696)
Junae (01:38:21.919)
If you are on Patreon, you actually get to watch it live and comment and ask questions and then it'll get into the published episode of the podcast. And so if you are not one of my...

patrons on Patreon. Continue to listen to this on all of the platforms that we have. It's all of them. Wherever podcasts are heard, you can hear gaming for the culture. And until next time, wash your hands, wash your butt, game safely, and just be a wonderful human being. Okay, bye!

Jeff Rousseau (01:38:56.296)
Bye.