The Post-TAGGS Glow

#294: The team talks about their experiences at The Applied Geek and Gaming Summit, and gushes over how exciting and validating the experience was.

Transcript

Josué Cardona 0:07
Welcome to gt radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy, we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about, my name is Josué Cardona. And I’m joined by Link’s stomach.

Link Keller 0:22
rarblghblgh

Josué Cardona 0:24
Link Keller

Link Keller 0:25
Hello.

Josué Cardona 0:26
and lara taylor

Lara Taylor 0:29
hey

Josué Cardona 0:32
Yeah. So you were you were asking me right before we started recording? Lara, How I’m awake because you are not awake?

Lara Taylor 0:39
I am not. I’m not burnt out just exhausted.

Josué Cardona 0:44
exhausted. Yeah. Well,

Lara Taylor 0:46
a good way, in a good way,

Josué Cardona 0:47
in a good way. Yeah. I mean, so we had over the weekend. We finally we had taggs, which was a therapeutic and applied geek and gaming summit, the first ever I think, it went very well.

Lara Taylor 1:03
So too, I

Link Keller 1:05
agreed.

Josué Cardona 1:06
I would very much like to know what you think and what everybody who is there, thanks. We’ll send a feedback Form very, very soon. And

Lara Taylor 1:17
more puppet time. more happier.

Josué Cardona 1:20
More puppet time. That’s all the people want.

Lara Taylor 1:22
that’s what they want.

Josué Cardona 1:24
Yeah. So so I want to talk about two things. One, you asked me, How am I like, awake, and okay. And like, is my brain? Okay? You didn’t ask that one. But you should be asking is my brain. Okay, after this weekend. And

Lara Taylor 1:38
that was what that question was actually going to be.

Josué Cardona 1:42
Yeah, yeah. I, I, um, this weekend was so fulfilling. It really feels like a culmination of 10 years of, of work of doing things. And gian in the chat. It says it was life changing legendary. I, it was it was so fulfilling. And so. So I’ll keep saying fulfilling but it was it was very good. My my batteries are full. I am. You know, how, again, in, in all the best shown in anime, you know, like, you exceed that 100% capacity, right? Like, you’re, you reached 150%. Right. But you’re at level two, you like your, your, your power levels above 9000. Right. Like you broke the meter. Like, like that kind of thing. Like, that’s how I felt. On Sunday. I was a little tired by Sunday night. But after three days of that, and also it got it felt it felt more good as the weekend went on. Because, and I mentioned that and I’m glad he’s in the chat. Because I don’t I don’t think I’ve I haven’t talked him I don’t think there was a moment at the end of the weekend. which. Let’s explain what taggs was, by the way, just in case. So yeah, so the therapeutic and applied geek and gaming summit, a professional conference in gaming convention to we can talk about the gaming convention part that didn’t like it wasn’t as gaming as as I as I wanted it to be. But there were games,

Lara Taylor 3:24
there were games. We did games, we played some games.

Josué Cardona 3:29
It was I’m not disappointed. I’m just just just pointing that out if you think check the schedule. But the idea was to bring together people who use geek culture and gaming culture in either therapeutic or in applied ways. I think they’re using it intentionally within their work. And the work being you know, maybe you’re an educator, maybe you’re some kind of therapist, not just mental health therapist, right? You’re working in medicine and working in community practice. All the things that we always talk about here at Geek Therapy. Let’s bring together people who do this, and let’s learn from each other. The are so we framed it like a professional conference. And it was it was a professional conference for that. And we did a call for proposals. We got a lot of great submissions. I was reflecting on that part of it. I we did not expect to have 80 events running throughout the weekend, right? There were times where that we were we had five concurrent presentations

Lara Taylor 4:29
most of the time. five concurrent

Lara Taylor 4:31
what was four Yeah,

Link Keller 4:33
I think its was four most of the time, but there was definitely a slot on Saturday. That was five

Lara Taylor 4:39
on Sunday too

Josué Cardona 4:40
know, technically, only Friday had four at a time during four time slots, and I believe Saturday and Sunday. Always had five slots running at the same time. And that’s that’s, there was a lot going on at once. And there was a point on Sunday. It was it was during The last presentations on Sunday. And I can only do so much. So I can think my brain can only monitor two at a time. So I was watching two panels at the same time, I had EarPods, air pods, Apple AirPods to two different devices, so one in each ear, so I was listening to two at a time. And then they kind of going back and forth. Fun fact, if you just if you just changed your view, like then you sync up the mouth movements of the person talking in one and then like, your brain kind of blocks the sound from the other. You don’t have to mute that. Anyway. So I was watching

Lara Taylor 5:33
that would break my brain.

Josué Cardona 5:35
I think I think my brain is broken. But at the end, there were two presentations going on. And one of them was from Gian Ramos. And he was he’s a medical doctor, he he was doing a residency in New York City. And he wrote he wrote a blog post about this story. And it’s on the Geek Therapy website. And it it’s the story where he says like, oh, listen, like I was in residency, I listened to the Geek Therapy podcast, like I was thinking about this, this, this this. And then I did this stuff with a client who was catatonic and there’s it’s a beautiful story. But there’s a sense of pride to hear him tell the story. As the presenter as he’s presenting the story to teach other people and show them and like that was one of the stories that he showed. He’s doing this simultaneously while on on the in the other room. There is Vanessa hence, who is talking about using media to address transgenerational trauma, and is talking about how do we talk about race and racism. And she’s bringing up like horror movies like um, like us and the series like them, and she’s talking about Black Panther. And she’s bringing up all these different things. And I’m and and Vanessa, I met because she was a student at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, taking the Geek Therapy, the geek culture and therapy course, that Patrick O’Connor and I co developed. He taught it there for two years. She was in one of those classes. They in I always guest lecture, but they invited me for final presentations. So I’m there I’m watching the final presentations of getting feedback. And I remember very clearly Vanessa’s presentation, she used the X Files as a as her for her project. And it was great and like, and I did meet her in person, eventually. And then but I’m seeing her right. It’s like, it’s like two students of yours, right? Like, like, like work that you’ve done over the years. And now they’re here at this conference that you set up for. You set it up for them to come and teach other people. Right. And it was like, so that was like the last thing during the weekend, right. And the rest of the day was through like, we joked about how many people like there were tears on Sunday, but it was because of the different presentations, right? It’s like because of the topics because the things that were being covered videos that were shown.

Lara Taylor 8:01
Kelli Dunlap I swear.

Josué Cardona 8:03
Yeah, she was she was doing.

Link Keller 8:07
She warned us.

Lara Taylor 8:09
She did.

Josué Cardona 8:10
Yeah, yeah. And it. It was it felt like on Friday, I was like, Oh, this this feels good. And on Sunday, I was like, Oh, this is this is what I hoped it would be. And yeah, so it was a success. So anyway, so I felt like I was overflowing with positive energy with multiple things. And, and I definitely want to talk more about taggs. But But I kept thinking about something from the video game. Ni No Kuni and I think about this all the time and and I love talking about it. But I hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Like, this week, in particular. Taggs taggs aside, this week has felt like 2020 right, it feels like I don’t know if there’s a word for, like 2020 PTSD yet if we have that, right. But I think this week just feels like 2020 and not just like at the national scale. Right? It’s like, yeah, COVID numbers are up again. There’s outbreaks, hospitalizations are up. One of the vaccines got like, the shutdown, right there. We’re like, No, no, let’s stop that. Um, the George floyd case is now you know, on trial. Like we’re seeing that on TV. Like there’s so many there’s more shootings, there’s just like horrible things happening. And then on personal level, like I’m talking to people and school had this issue and like I have nobody to take care of the kids are like this other thing. Like it felt so much like 2020 that it feels like last year was shocking. And now it was it does feel a lot like it’s just re visiting that that horrible 2020 it sucks. I don’t know if either of you feel that way this week, but it, I’ve felt that way. You know, I know a lot of people who do too, and but because of taggs, I was like, whoo, I feel really good. But for the last year, it’s been really hard for me to check in with people that I would like to check in with. Right, like, like, I’ve become very conscious of how much I’m able to handle or take on. So I, I often don’t ask, if I’m already not doing well be asking someone how they’re doing. And then being honest, and, and having a conversation about how bad things are or how they feel becomes more than I can handle at times. So sometimes I don’t I don’t ask them because I don’t feel equipped. And or I don’t want more of that. Because I’ve already have enough. But with taggs, I felt like I’ve been feeling good, right? And instead of being like, Hey, everybody had an amazing weekend, right? Like, like, How was yours. It’s not what I did, it was more like, Oh, I can def I definitely feel good enough. I feel. On the one hand, it was like I’ve got I’ve got love to share, you know, I’ve got enough positive energy that I can that I can that I can take some and hand it off. And in some ways, maybe it felt like I had enough that if I got a couple of hits. If I took a couple of hits, I was protected enough that I would still be okay after it. And so it reminded me of this mechanic and in yNi No Kuni where you have this ability to see different feelings and things and people and you can see, they’re not just feeling that some of them is like courage and kindness and things like that. And you can see when someone is like overflowing with one of those things, which basically the game is presenting it to you as like they have more than they need. And then your side quests often have to do with people who then the main quest to where you you meet people who are lacking in those things. So you can find someone with a little extra kindness and ask them if they’re willing to spare a little bit. And then you can take it and put it in a locket and then carry it over and then take it to someone else who needs it. Like as as the as the player you can’t like generate that energy, but you can find it in the world and move it and, and have some one person share it with another. I think about that game all the time. I love the visual of it. And I hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Like I was like, I got a little bit extra here. I can move it this way. So I could, I was able to check in with my friends I was able to check in with I checked it with people I haven’t checked in within a long time because it was like it was too much. But I felt like I could I could do it. This goes if this goes bad. I think it’ll be okay. Cuz cuz I’m like on this particular high, it just felt it just felt very, very good. And and, yeah, I mean, this this week is sucked. It still sucks. But I feel I don’t feel as down as I as I think I would have otherwise, or those I felt before taggs, definitely. I definitely feel good. So I’m mixing these things up because they they’ve been on my mind. And I wanted to make sure we we didn’t just talk about how great taggs was but also kind of bring in this these are the kind of conversations that we wanted people to present a taggs where you you these are real life application or metaphor of something that is a part of a of a game or something, you know, but no, like we we, we live this stuff. We love this stuff. And we see those connections and we’re able to bring them into to the work that we’re doing. So we basically had a whole weekend of that. And yeah, I’ll touch these topics back and forth a little bit. But I’m curious if there’s anything you wanted to say about tax review, you both presented, by the way. Yeah,

Link Keller 8:10
Yes, we did.

Josué Cardona 14:01
I’m very proud of both of you. By the way. I don’t know if I told you this.

Link Keller 14:04
I’m Proud of you!

Josué Cardona 14:05
No, no, I’m proud of you. But thank you. Thank you. I’m glad I’m glad. I’m glad. Yeah. I feel pride in in seeing you both present for different reasons. But it was but I can give you feedback off the air later. But but but it’s I felt I felt very I was very happy to.

Lara Taylor 14:30
Yeah, yeah. Well, I was on five and a half hours of panels on Friday.

Josué Cardona 14:37
Wow. What

Lara Taylor 14:39
cuz our panel was four the teenage nightmare game was four hours long. Got it. Got it? Yeah, yeah. That was a lot of fun. I don’t do well, I don’t do presentations. I do panels. When there are other people there. I could do it.

Josué Cardona 14:57
Do you still get nervous as nervous as you used to

Lara Taylor 15:02
Um, I think this is like an outlier. Because it was I was at home, in my chair in this chair, doing the same thing that I do here, I’m talking to my computer screen, there were just more people on the other side of it. Um, but I’d say this time, I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t as nervous at all. The last time I did a presentation in person, I mini panic attack, I would say beforehand, this time, it wasn’t so bad. But I think when we were doing the panel, teenage nightmare was our opportunity to play a game together as a group of professionals that gets together on Fridays to play. And then we did a debrief after about what was important to us about playing as professionals. And one of the things that I mentioned is, I feel safe with them. They’re very welcome, welcoming and warm. And I think that, in general, tags felt safe. I felt like I wasn’t going to run into somebody who’s like, That’s stupid. You know. So I think we built a good environment and community, like we pulled more people into the Geek Therapy, discord, and there’s a separate discord for therapists and educators and spiritual directors and all kinds of people that use RPGs in their in their practices. And we that we’ve had an influx over there because of taggs, and it’s really cool and injected some excitement into the group. gian is one of those people, and we’re blaming him for all of the extra chatter, and it’s great, we love you.

Josué Cardona 16:57
The discord is, is Gian’s domain. Sohe’s doing his job. It’s good.

Lara Taylor 17:03
Yeah.

Josué Cardona 17:05
So what was it that made it feel safe?

Lara Taylor 17:11
I think that I felt like people got it. Like it’s like, it’s my people. They understand that. This isn’t a weird thing. Talking about how geek culture effects, I think the average person doesn’t really think about how, I don’t know, watching Falcon and the winter soldier affects them emotionally because it reminds them of a thing, or, I mean, a lot of people who are the average people, we’re talking about wandavision that way, but like, I don’t know, people play. They watch Star Wars, and they don’t think about the meaning behind these characters, and why they relate to the stories and all of that, but you say something about connecting with a villain and there was a whole panel on villains. I loved it. I loved so much that that was there. Yeah, just it felt like I was with my people.

Josué Cardona 18:09
Yeah. I’m glad that that turned out to be the case. Because the plan, I kept trying to tell people I know, when we present that pop culture conferences, we have to break down and use particular language related to psychology and mental health or the fields that we’re that we’re using, and, and then and even sometimes present the fact that we’re using this stuff, you know, either in education or, or therapeutically. And, and it’s often we’re still like, pitching an idea, right? And, and a lot of people like, I had no idea that this was possible, or that or that people were doing this.

Lara Taylor 18:55
Yeah.

Josué Cardona 18:57
And then the opposite is when you go to a professional conference for your profession, and you bring this stuff up, it’s, you know, it’s like, oh, the positive version of it is like, Wow, that’s so cool. That’s so interesting. That’s so novel, like, Oh, that’s so cute. I didn’t know, you know, he could, you could do stuff like that. That’s interesting. I love to learn more. And then here, it was, like, those two, like, it’s a given, right, like everybody there already bought into these ideas. They just wanted to see different ways to do it. And so I felt like on Friday, the theme that I was seeing from from the chat room from talking to people is like, Wow, I didn’t know there were this many of us. Like I thought it was alone. Right? It wasn’t like they’re already bought in. And they that was a reaction that I kept hearing. It was like, I can’t believe that there’s more people like me, you know, and and, and good. I’m glad that the right people found the the event I’m nobody I told everybody I don’t you don’t have to explain how to turn on a console. You don’t have to explain what technology is you don’t have to define words and

Lara Taylor 20:07
one of Kelli’s panels. She’s like, I’m gonna I’m gonna speed through this because you all get this already. Yeah. Oh, yeah, one of my favorite comments I saw a couple times through the weekend was it was I’ve learned so much more in like, one day of this conference than I will ever use. And like I’ve learned, so then I have no not that I will ever use, but that this will help my work so much more than even one pet presentation at another professional conference,

Josué Cardona 20:44
right? Like nobody’s had more than their degree. Maybe there’s a training,

Lara Taylor 20:50
that might be what they’re thinking. But it really is like important, like, we had people say that they were using this stuff, more than I would use something and another that they would use this more than they would they get they got more value out of tags than they would out of a professional conference that offered CES for the entire weekend. One person who I think I think this is right, I can almost swear that someone saw a presentation on Friday use it that afternoon

Josué Cardona 21:21
with a client and was talking about it on Saturday.

Lara Taylor 21:29
Only a virtual conference.

Josué Cardona 21:31
Yeah, it’s kind of a blur. But um, absolutely. I think that conversation happened. If not, I’m sure that it happened. Or it will happen. But um, yeah, yeah. Okay. What do you think?

Link Keller 21:46
I thought it was fantastic. I am tired still.

Josué Cardona 21:51
two conferences this weekend?

Link Keller 21:52
Yeah, that is definitely more just just me. I did participate in a concurrent conference, the American death education conference, ADEC. That was for thantologists. So I managed to snag a student scholarship to go to that. And when I did that did not realize they were on the same weekend. So my Friday and Saturday, were both very busy. But Sunday, I just focused on taggs, because adec had already ended by then. Which was really fun. And like, you know, don’t tell them but I definitely had way more fun it taggs.

Lara Taylor 22:30
You got to play jackbox at taggs

Link Keller 22:32
i got to play jackbox at taggs. I mean, they were really missing out. And then I’m also i’m also moving this week. So yeah, I’m still a little tired. But I thought it was fantastic. It was really great to see Geek Therapy people that I know presenting and being on panels and everything. That’s very rewarding to see, you know, members of my community succeed. And then it was really fun getting to meet some of the bodhana group people there. They’re real fun. jack is a hoot.

Lara Taylor 23:08
Absolutely,

Link Keller 23:09
yeah. Yeah. And then I gave two presentations and did a panel and they all went really well. And I was only a little bit nervous for the first one. And to be honest, the reason I was nervous is because I procrastinated on making my slideshows really hard. So it was more like oh my god, I’m not done with this nervousness. So then it was like, Oh, no, what am I going to do? i pulled it off. Nobody noticed. I just wanted to tell you all now. transparency, sometimes you make the slides the night before and that is okay.

Lara Taylor 23:48
Looks like you’d worked on them forever. It’s okay.

Link Keller 23:51
thank you. Yeah, yeah, I really I really enjoyed it. I’m trying to think if I had any, like, real standout, I guess my favorite part was the panel I did with Lara and and gian and we talked about the video games we played throughout this past year in the pandemic, and had the participants jump in and share their experiences too. And that was really nice. I like that, you know, sort of interactive, conversational aspect. And then you already mentioned it, but I really liked Gian’s final presentation on Sunday. You know, I was I already knew a whole bunch of story because I’ve been, you know, friends with Gian for a while now, but it was really I thought he did such a great job on his presentation and really illustrated like why we want Geek Therapy to be, you know, more broadly accessible. We don’t want it to just be specifically therapists who are providing a specific kind of therapy. We want people everywhere. To see the value and using these pieces of media as tools, because that’s what they are there they are tools for communicating ideas and stories. And when we use those, it makes it it makes it more fun and valuable to connect with other people through that kind of stuff.

Josué Cardona 25:17
No, yeah. I yeah, I doubted gian a little bit. But no more never again,

Link Keller 25:23
never again.

Josué Cardona 25:24
Never again, does a good presentation. He did. Yeah, I thought he did. He did really well. I was again, I felt I felt also felt a great sense of pride. And I’m watching him. Kick Ass.

Lara Taylor 25:40
I’m sorry, I missed it. I’m gonna have to watch the replay.

Link Keller 25:44
replay! I’m very excited for replays.

Josué Cardona 25:47
So we we planned it from the beginning. So that, first of all, assuming that it’s just it’s it’s a live event, you can’t go to you can’t just go to something you can’t go to a live event period. But also, you can’t go to all the things we we never planned having five concurrent events. That was not planned

Link Keller 26:09
it got a little out of hand.

Lara Taylor 26:10
i did see a request. I did see a request for next year fewer things at that time. Yes.

Josué Cardona 26:16
I as the person who now has to edit and post all of these things. I understand. I don’t I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is. I think it depends on how many what we’ll see. We’ll see. Because the idea is that we were selling this media ticket, right, this media pass so that people can watch it afterwards. And my hope is that people who experience it and had a good time will tell other people and say, Hey, you You missed out on this thing. You should check it out. And and

Lara Taylor 26:47
then and then maybe we’ll have more people will need more things because then we’ll have more people to watch those things. Yeah,

Josué Cardona 26:54
yeah, yeah, I. So we’ll see. We’ll see how it turns out. But at the very least, I am glad that that part actually worked. Everything was recorded and saved. And I am. I can’t wait to watch the conference that I organized. I’m very much looking forward to it. I saw parts of it some simultaneously. But I would like to, you know, see it. I’d like to sit down and actually watch and enjoy the presentations. And then also learn because that was kind of the point to bring people together from different fields and presenting different things. And again, even people I know, I hadn’t seen that presented this way. before. And it was it was exciting. To meet people from the fact that there were people from around the world is still surprising to me, like I knew, because I had connected with students throughout the whole process. I was like, hey, like we’ve got a student discount, reach out. And so like, they’re sending me proof of enrollment and things like that. And like, I can see that it was International. From the student side, and I knew some of the presenters were from different places. But like to see it happen, right, and to have to know that people were so many different timezone so many different parts of the world, so many different accents.

Lara Taylor 28:20
Everybody just getting up at like, three in the morning, middle of the night to do to come to the conference, or present

Josué Cardona 28:28
or stay up till like, right, it was like, Oh, yeah, like I’m like, there’s two more presentations, it’s 1am. But I’m going to push through, you know, this is being recorded, you don’t have to be here, but they want it to be there. And it’s, it’s, it’s just it, it felt really good. It feels really good. And I was very happy to see that. And, and there’s a there’s a I love the idea that someone at the on the other end of the world, completely opposite side feels alone in, in, in this space, right where they’re doing this type of work. Or they’re interested in it. And they feel like they’re completely alone. And then they spent a weekend connecting with people. And now they don’t feel but even though they had the kind of people all around the world that they were able to do it. Right. And then hopefully they don’t feel that alone anymore. And maybe because we’ve had discussions about this like and I told a lot of people like 10 years ago, I felt alone, there was nobody else. And I had to and this is how I found one person that want a second person. And then slowly they that was one of the greatest things. It was like hearing my story being repeated to me by people who are going through now for the first time. And me being able to tell them it took me 10 years to get here. But we’re here and hopefully I can we can speed you along right? Again, it’s it’s a little different from the From the from the locket metaphor from the game, right? But it’s like that idea like I got I got extra, you want some right like I can speed like, we can cut, we can cut the line, you’d have to build everything from scratch again, I got you we let’s move you ahead so you can like skip all the bad stuff and jump on the line and come on and come hang out with us and just tell us what you’re learning or learn instead of like learning from one or two people come and learn from you know, 80 presenters we had over the weekend 80 it um, yeah, yeah, it’s, uh, it was. That was great. So so that that that meant a lot to me, too. And I feel like people appreciated that right. Like, it was. Yeah, it was it was it was so good. That Yeah. It was good. That was good. So yeah, so you can watch the recordings Lara. As as will. I. I’m working on it. I’ve only uploaded the first half of the first day.

Lara Taylor 31:05
That so that’s a lot

Link Keller 31:06
thats a good start.

Josué Cardona 31:07
So you only have 12 hours of content at the moment to watch. Yeah, yep.

Lara Taylor 31:16
Well, I’ve already watched what, three hours of it. Three hours of that? Yeah.

Link Keller 31:27
I wanted to tell you guys at the the ADEC conference that I was also going to on Saturday, there was a talk that I got very excited about. It is titled superhero grief, a conversation on the transformative power of loss. And I was like, that’s Geek Therapy. You’re doing Geek Therapy, at the other conferences, not the Geek Therapy one! Cool! and I’m really excited. I went in there. And it felt really good to see that there are definitely people who are on the same page as us. But it was also really funny to see people talking about this, outside of the context in which we were talking about it. And so it was very fun to be all like, yeah, you know, when people are grieving, like, like, sometimes talking about video games, or like comic books, you know, sometimes it’s like, you know, like Batman lost his parents, and sometimes people lose their parents, and you can use Batman to relate to that. And I was just like, well, if anybody’s feeling like this talk is a little, you know, intro 101.

Lara Taylor 32:36
Come on over to TAGGS

Link Keller 32:37
just follow, Come with me!

Josué Cardona 32:40
How many people did you bring over? did you You actually tell them that you?

Link Keller 32:44
I was not able to do that. But I did. I did, you know, message the speakers. There were a couple of them passed. And so I was just like, Hey, we should be friends. So told me to hear back from some of them. It’ll be cool. One person unrelated to this conversation. It was at a like a new students roundtable sort of thing. Another person sent me an email was basically like, Hey, you said, grief and video games. And I would like to talk to you about that at some point. Because I’m writing a book, and I want to talk about that kind of stuff. And why? Oh, oh ho

Josué Cardona 33:19
there’s, there’s something. What one thing that one of the reasons why I think tags it was important to happen is because there’s a lot of us out there, and we don’t know about each other. And people. I’ve been to presentations, where I’m like this, I did this presentation eight years ago. And I’m saying that not in? Like, I don’t know, if it sounds like if I sound like a dick. I’m sorry. But it’s like, I’m trying to just the fact that like, oh,

Lara Taylor 33:52
pass the torch on.

Josué Cardona 33:53
This is but not so much that it’s like,

Link Keller 33:57
Where have you been?

Josué Cardona 34:00
Yes. Also, like, we’ve moved past that, in the sense that, like, you just discovered it, but also there’s a whole bunch of people who have written about this already, or moving past it and like we’re, we’re having more advanced conversations. And, and I come over, come with us, right? It’s I don’t want to invalidate what they’re doing. But

Link Keller 34:19
it’s very contextual. Like we we come from that perspective of this is a toolkit that can apply to many different places, a lot of you know, especially the death conference, like they’re coming from the perspective of thanatology, and then, you know, pushing on the borders of that, which edges into, you know, media stuff where we are, but yeah, having, you know, building a space for that kind of built in context of that. That’s the kind of stuff we want to talk about, is very good. And I’m glad that it exists now and it does mean that over the next probably 30-40 years Because it takes a long time for science communities to communicate with each other. But I think this, you know, we’re already seeing it. We’re we’re starting it off. Yeah, I

Josué Cardona 35:11
just don’t know, like I think taggs was needed so that we all have a place where we can come and have these conversations. Because I mean, on the one hand, it It always worries me. Right. When there’s two parts of it that worried me. One is, is this a new idea? Or not? Right. And like it was, it was great. When, when Geek Therapy got started that I was like, Oh, look, Lawrence Rubin has a book on this topic, right? And like, oh, Jane McGonigal had already written reality is broken, right? It’s like, Oh, so some of these ideas that I had, it was great to find them. Here, right? And then and then like, I connected it, then you start connecting with people. But after after 10 years of doing this stuff. I don’t. It’s It’s strange, right? It worries me that people come on and are like, check out this brand new thing. It’s like, I’ll give you an example. Like so. So I don’t. So I’m not commenting on the community that I love. And then I identify the most strongly with when I was in my bachelor’s program, I in electronics engineering. I joined like a extra curricular lab project creation thing. And they were wrapping up a project when I joined. And at that point, it was only the advisor and one other student. And this was in 2005. around there, 2004 2004? Yeah. Yeah, it was around 2004. It must have been 2004. Two. So I joined this program. And I’m really excited. And so he’s wrapping up this project. And he’s got like, he’s ready to present it at a at an event at the end of the week. And I’m like, Oh, cool. Like, what is it, he’s like, check this out. This machine over here, is connected to the phone line. And this beeper over here, in case of an emergency, you press the button, and then that machine will call the police or an ambulance or anything. Because you because you need help. This is this would be really good for older individuals. Right? And so he’s explaining this thing to me. And I’m like, you just described life alert to me. I remember seeing commercials for in the 80s. Have you never heard of life alert? He’s like life alert what is that? I’m like, are you? Are you? Are you serious? I thought he was kidding. So he goes in, he goes everywhere. So he gives a presentation on Friday, and I go and I’m watching. And he goes on stage and introduces this invention of life alert for older people.

Josué Cardona 37:33
Life alert 2, very different.

Josué Cardona 38:08
And people applauded. And like people commented on how useful it would be and how amazing both right and and so I hope that the disbelief that you’re feeling right now. Because you both bracket you both know exactly what I was talking about, as I’m describing, right? You went through the same experience. I’ve gone through that within the therapeutic and applied field, right? It’s like, you’re talking about this thing, but it’s the it’s the feeling that you think it’s something new, when it’s not right, right. It’s like that’s what I’m worried about. It’s like, you’ve you’ve First of all, you’re very disconnected, like you haven’t googled, is my is my first concern. But even if you did, and you didn’t find stuff, when you find out that, like it, it’s good that we have a place where we can all come and learn from each other and see at different levels, and that we’re already doing it in different ways. Right? Like we have different like the panel I did with Janina the the whole idea was, I don’t know if either of you saw it, but like I started it off by by sharing an email that I sent her years ago. And she was like, hey, do you want to be a part of this book? And I was like, No, because you have a theoretical orientation. I have another one. And I don’t think that they match. Right? That’s like, that’s like, that’s a very, that’s an advanced conversation, right? Like we’ve gone beyond using superheroes in counseling. And we’re

Lara Taylor 39:30
talking Yeah, you’re not doing the same thing. You’re doing a similar thing in very different ways.

Josué Cardona 39:35
Like the broad concept of it is the same, right? Like the broad concepts that we were all talking about 10 years ago, are the same. But then we’ve in matures to the point where we can have a discussion about the fact that we’re looking at it from two completely different theoretical orientations, and we would use it the ball this way. It’s the same with like with me and O’Connor when O’Connor has always talked about the Geek Therapy library was inspired by his comicspedia his his theoretical orientation, and even the most model that He has for comicspedia is very different than the way that we’re doing it. Right. I think in some cases for some people, I would recommend the comicspedia for others. I would I would use the Geek Therapy Library model. those are those are like being

Link Keller 40:15
i mean, the coolest thing is that you have options.

Josué Cardona 40:19
No, but my point being that those are advanced conversations,

Link Keller 40:22
yes,

Josué Cardona 40:22
that we’ve been having for that have developed over the course of 10 years.

Link Keller 40:26
Yeah.

Josué Cardona 40:26
And then so when I go to a to like an event, and I see somebody like, talking about something like it’s brand new, and then and then like, I’m sitting in the audience with people who are like, I don’t, I don’t know what to do

Lara Taylor 40:40
I’ve been doing this for 10 years.

Josué Cardona 40:42
But there’s a way again, there’s a way to, and that’s, and I’m not sure if that I found it, but it’s like, Hey, you probably want to, like we want we want to talk to you, we want to we want to talk to you more like we want to show you all this stuff. I don’t understand the like, I was always looking for other people. And when I found them, I felt so relieved. And I have seen people who who find, you know, the other people and then then they’re not relieved. They’re like, upset. Right? It’s like, like, again, like my friend who made the thing. Like he did not believe me, like he was kind of offended that I would imply that there was a thing called life alert. Right. And, and, and there was a, there was like a resistance there. Anyway, this is just one of the many things that a conference like taggs is addressing. And and I’m one thing that I was thinking throughout the weekend was maybe in the future. I don’t know how we do that. But there’s like, just like beginner, intermediate and advanced, right? There’s some conversations that were more introductory into some concepts. And and I liked the idea of that because maybe there were a lot of people who use tabletop role playing games. And they could have gone to maybe like one of Kelli’s presentations as like a very good introductory look like a deep look. But But still, like not super clinical look into the world of video games and mental health. Right? I was like, Oh, that’s that’s like an awesome presentation. It’s more general and very much like a level one, that would have been great for anybody who’s not in that particular world. But someone who’s already using video games, probably knows this stuff, and might want to go to like a more advanced one in that center, but then go to a introductory one for therapeutic tabletop role playing game, right. So like, there’s, there’s a part of that, that I relate to where, where it’s like, Okay, this is my lane. So I want to see what the other people are doing at the at a higher level. I would be bored if I went to one that was like, introductory, right? Like, like just the basic stuff. So I was 80 presentations, we could have done that. But I didn’t. I didn’t. In hindsight, I see it that way. But that’s but that excites me for the future. Or we can do something like that. And I can say like, what would you What would you put this like in you know, in beginner, intermediate or advanced? And, and maybe it’s not beginner, intermediate advanced, right? Maybe it’s like, I’ll come up with something or you know, I’ll ask what what might help but again, it’s like it’s like

Lara Taylor 43:23
is it Squirtle? wartortle? is it blastoise?

Link Keller 43:29
It’s story mode, easy mode, normal mode. And brutality.

Josué Cardona 43:39
There’s, there’s, there’s gotta be Yeah, there’s, you understand what I mean? I wish a different word for like, like I don’t it’s like it’s not hard mode. It’s more like

Link Keller 43:50
okay, it’s just the the more inside baseball stuff instead of

Lara Taylor 43:58
here’s a game.

Josué Cardona 44:00
Give me what are two, two games in the same genre? That one is super more complicated than the other. Something like I’m trying to think can we can we can do this.

Link Keller 44:21
I’m kind of enjoying watching you struggle though.

Josué Cardona 44:28
Come on, gian. Thanks for watching. I can’t think of one right now. But you know what I mean? I don’t necessarily agree with this. But people do talk about Pokemon being like an easy RPG and to an extent I agree that it can be it’s not it doesn’t have as many deep or multiple systems and levels and stuff as they’re not required. They’re not required right not required.

Link Keller 44:56
they are not required they are opt in

Josué Cardona 44:59
right where others You’re like mineral like there’s this and then you keep getting more and more systems right? I

Link Keller 45:03
mean maybe that’s the example is Pokemon is that you can be the just you pop the game and you play it and you have fun and that’s that or, or there’s the people who are like, I want to know all of the elemental interactions. I want to know how to breed the best EVs. So I want to, you know, buy items to make my Pokemon hold while fighting a specific person

Lara Taylor 45:28
or pokemon Go, I need my shinies I need to go to my raids. I need to. Okay, I just want to walk around and catch stuff.

Josué Cardona 45:35
I don’t like mobile as an example. Because that doesn’t know I don’t like survival mode. I don’t like that suggestion. But no

Lara Taylor 45:42
Minecraft creative mode. Survival Mode.

Josué Cardona 45:44
Yes, yes. Yes. I think that advanced is min maxing, I think that’s what it is. Right? It’s like, it’s like at this point, like, we’re playing the same game. But we’re not playing the same game anymore. Right? It’s that it’s it’s it’s it’s min maxing

Link Keller 46:00
it’s, do you want to play the game? Or do you want to read the entire Wikipedia? you can do do both?

Josué Cardona 46:09
And do you want to? That’s a good one, play the game. Read the guides, write the guides that you want to contribute to the wiki? It’s gonna be something like that. I think I think totally you understand what what I’m saying. But I like the idea of min maxing, right? It’s like, Oh, no, like now we’re now we’re really into the we’re talking about systems and how to optimize and and and we’re comparing why one is one works better than than the other like we’re studying at this point. Yeah, we’ll come up, we’ll come up with it. We got we have we have a little bit of time. We put we put taggs together very, very quickly.

Lara Taylor 46:45
Start planning taggs 2022. We are planning in the next couple months. I’m just saying.

Josué Cardona 46:52
Yeah, we definitely it would benefit us to start a little earlier than this. We put everything together very fast. And one of the reasons why I’m also very, very proud of

Link Keller 47:07
everybody

Josué Cardona 47:07
of everything that of it of how it happened. Because it was very fast. It was very fast.

Lara Taylor 47:13
And so most people did not pick up on like, any issues. And that’s wonderful.

Josué Cardona 47:18
the only the only problems that we had were during the keynotes. And that’s because I tried to make them all special. Like I wanted them to stand out. I wanted them to be to have a like I was like trying to put production value into them. And each and every one of them was a disaster. From the technological point. From the technology point, they did not either they were a disaster, or they just ended up being a zoom conference instead of something. I was trying to treat them a little differently. And they all crashed and burned. Again, tech wise, content wise. Glorious, they were good. They were good. We had good people, good people. You got to watch the second one. The second one is really the second the one with our family plays games.

Lara Taylor 48:07
The one that was during our panel

Josué Cardona 48:09
you get so Woody was in the audience. And they brought up Terra mystica. And it was and I jumped on that you got it. You’ve got to you got to you got to watch it. You got to tell the story. And you could I could see Woody through that through his text in the chat. I could see him turning red and just melting. He was It was great. It was fantastic. Anything. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was good. Yeah. Any any other thoughts on on taggs? Do you want to share any memories? I have a memory.

Lara Taylor 48:43
It was cool to see. I went to a presentation by an occupational therapist who said that she was in the Geek Therapy Facebook group. And she said I’ve been lurking in the Facebook group and she’s presenting it taggs and it was awesome. Um, so that was really cool.

Josué Cardona 49:05
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Link Keller 49:08
I wanted to say I mentioned some of my favorites earlier, but I just remembered I really, really liked mama Fox fires opening keynote. No, no, it’s that was that was really good. I think she did a great job opening up for everybody. She really set the tone, being welcoming and open and kind and full of like, friendship and learning and magic. It was just great. Mama is great. Yeah, and

Lara Taylor 49:38
she said, Never schedule her at the same time as link again, please.

Josué Cardona 49:43
It was not my fault. It was Jack’s fault. Completely. 100% Yeah, I mean, having, having mama there and setting the tone for the event. just felt perfect because again, it was the theme was community. Everyone has a seat at the table. And I hope I did it justice when I tried to introduce her. I was like, look like, we’re all doing this work in different ways. But like, like you mentioned the, the wiki Link, right. It’s like the the people who write the wikis, the people who do the live streams, and the YouTube shows, on the games on the movies and things like that. They they’re doing all this analysis and stuff. And then we’re learning from that, too. And it’s actually it’s all part of geek culture. It’s all part of gaming culture, it’s all important. And Mama’s is a mental health advocate on Twitch, building a community and doing it responsibly, bringing in mental health professionals to answer questions that she obviously cannot answer. And she’s just creating a platform for that and talking about mental health and, and making sure that people have resources. And we can’t do everything, right. Like, we can’t. Geek Therapy tries, right to do more than maybe that than it than it is currently. We stretch ourselves out, let’s just put it that way. Right. And, and, and, and, and Mama is like doing the twitch thing, in a great way. And she’s a great asset to the community. And then she’s also Plus she gets it right, like she is in the discord, right? Like, she knows that she’s welcome there. Right? She knows that she can, she can come play in all these spaces. Because we appreciate we value, what she has to offer and what she’s offering and what she’s giving. And the fact that she not only agreed to do the keynote, she also offered to do a presentation. Because I so again, we can learn from each other. And just because you have a fancy degree, or your license does doesn’t mean that you are an expert in the things that we’re talking about here, or anything for that matter. But But mama is like, oh, like, how about I teach all about building a community? That’s like focused on mental health and everything that I’ve learned doing this so far. Like, yeah, these people can use that. 100%. And plus, again, like we have, it’s at every level, right? Like I think it was it was just beautiful. I think I think it was I think it was great to have her there. Yeah, I’m so I’m so glad that she did it. I fucked up that video, too. So like the Basically, there is no video for that presentation. If you saw it live, you saw it. There is a video up. But I had to actually recreated the entirety. I had all the slides. So I recreated the entire thing from from scratch with the audio. I was able to capture the audio, but the video was not.

Lara Taylor 52:46
Yeah, I’m impressed that you got that up during the weekend. If you had your right. Yes, I

Link Keller 52:50
good. Good job. This way you are going above and beyond. I am very impressed.

Josué Cardona 52:56
Like I said I was on a drug called positivity. I’m doing okay. I was I was I was fine. I still got some sleep. Um, and and yeah, no, it’s fine. It’s it’s, it’s good. And I’m hoping by the time this episode is published, all of the videos are up, and so people can can check it out. But I’ll tell you one story that, uh, one moment that I that I that I enjoyed, I don’t know if the other people in the room enjoyed it. But I it was a fun memory for me. Just like some people were brand new to this right in the sense that like, Oh, I saw an ad on Facebook. And I didn’t like it seemed interesting. I was like, oh, toxic. Yeah. And I like that sounds like me, I want to be a part of that. I didn’t know, Geek Therapy. They didn’t know the bodhana group. They weren’t like friends with other people there. And so, but there’s so many things that connect us, right? So there was one person who presented. It was a really cool presentation. So I’m talking to the person at the end. And he’s bringing something about like, have you ever read Jane McGonigal’s Super Better? He’s like, Yes, I love that. But like that book is like, such a big part. Like of what we’re doing right? And, and then he goes and says, and there’s this one chapter in the book.

Link Keller 54:18
Josué!

Josué Cardona 54:19
Yeah, he’s like, it’s a secret identity chapter. And we’re actually like, it inspired an entire program that we’re doing. And I’m like,

Link Keller 54:26
did you just start like glowing and vibrating and lifting off the ground with your god powers? Because damn! that was so perfect.

Josué Cardona 54:36
Yeah, usually it’s like, hey, fun fact, I’m in the book, but he’s like gushing about the one chapter and I’m like, I’m in that chapter. That’s me. You’ve probably read my He’s like, I’ve read that chapter over and over and I’m like, you’ve seen my name? multiple times, right? And like, you didn’t realize that until after right like until until the end of the conversation. There was another panel where there’s a there’s a A group of doctors in the UK who have a Twitter account called gaming the mind. And they have they eventually started a podcast too. And I like them a lot. I like we’ve interacted online and stuff. And like I remember, there were some emails going around, because jack was dealing with most of the scheduling. And jack jack Birkenstock Jr. From the Bodhana group. He’s been on the show before, way, way back in I don’t remember what number but he’s been here. And so there’s some emails going back and forth into like, like, we’re in the UK, like, it’s because of the time difference and stuff like what if we just pre record it, and then we send it over. But then like, we’re in there live while it’s playing? And I was like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That I’m like, okay, that’s cool. So then I was able to, actually, I saw, I was monitoring your presentation, I think Link and then I was able to jump over to that one. Because, as far as I can tell, you’re one of the only people who who made a very healthy choice of like not, you don’t need to use the full 90 minutes. You have 90 minutes if you want it. Right, like just use the time, right that you would like to have to fill it 90 minutes. I was like, No.

Link Keller 56:09
Josué you say that like, Oh, yeah, you’re so smart. I panicked over that! I asked you so many times.

Josué Cardona 56:15
I told you.

Link Keller 56:17
I was like, Wait, am I expected to fill 90 minutes?

Josué Cardona 56:20
No.

Link Keller 56:21
Okay, you didn’t answer for all a long time, you did finally the answer. But it took it took me like four times asked you before you know it was like people are going to be disappointed. But you know what? I’ll just lie and say that nobody told me.

Josué Cardona 56:39
Well, I’m I’m very glad I was glad to see that. You. You said what you wanted to say you opened it up for conversation and then you did not try to drag it out. You didn’t try to like fill 90 minutes. You were like, that’s it, folks. This is Thank you. This was great. This is fantastic. You have an extra 30 minutes every time right. so and so. So I I’m pretty sure it was after your second one. So I went to this other presentation for this group. I’m there I’m watching it. And I’m seeing the presentation. And I’m like all in tickets. It’s about anime and stuff. And I’m responding. And then I see the gaming the mind is flashing on the thing. And I had no idea for like weeks. I’m like seeing the emails go back and forth. I know that they’re scheduled to be there. They’re like, I’ve started emailing them back and forth. And like I had that connected the fact that they were at gaming the mind. Like I’ve talked to them on Twitter for years. And then I was emailing them directly like getting information from them their headshots and stuff like that. And then it turns out like, like it My point is that we’re this this group of people is connected in multiple ways. Right? And like the super better example like, like, we’re all speaking the same language. And it was it was moments like that, where you’re like, oh, you’re this person or Oh, you’re I know. Okay, cool. I was like, I got to meet Gian. You know, from from the Discord. I think he came to a few different panels. And I was so happy. You know, that he that he came and it was and yeah, it was it was just so good. It was just, it was just so great. It was good. It was good stuff. I’m very. Yeah. So I still feel pretty good. I guess the more I talk about it, the better the better. I feel like I’m recharged again. does get ticket? No. Gian says I didn’t expect to fill mine. And I went overboard with his presentation. No, yeah, no, no, you did a good thing. Good timing. I don’t think I don’t think he went over.

Link Keller 58:36
Yeah.

Josué Cardona 58:36
i didn’t Think so,

Link Keller 58:38
he he filled the whole time slot

Josué Cardona 58:41
he filled the whole 90 minutes yeah

Lara Taylor 58:42
most people that I went to, they filled the whole time slot. Because when you look at academic conferences, usually you can fill the whole time slot. Okay,

Josué Cardona 58:52
you can be so

Lara Taylor 58:54
Link, yours was the perfect Link gave me a chance to take a break.

Josué Cardona 59:00
I understand.

Link Keller 59:01
I was doing it for you

Josué Cardona 59:02
feeling the need to. But like there’s also there’s a reason why TED talks are 18 minutes long. There’s specific reasons for that. And just, there’s Yeah, you don’t have to drag everything out. You can. I don’t know. I haven’t watched all the presentations yet. I’ll let you know after how I feel. But I think yeah, I think it was I appreciate that. I don’t know if anybody else appreciates the fact that you didn’t feel the need to fill in or you for whatever reason, you didn’t feel pressured right to like, Well, you know, I’m gonna show a video that’s like 20 minutes long, so we can fill this space. It’s like, No, you didn’t have to do it.

Link Keller 59:41
I thought about it.

Josué Cardona 59:42
well i’m glad. Who knows? Yeah, yeah. Well, um, so I, I definitely am trying to put this positive energy towards, like I said, like, I’ve been reaching out to friends and things like that. And another sense I’m It would be very hard to do all the work that I still need to do for taggs if I wasn’t this energized. So I’m, I’m taking advantage of that. And like I said, like, everything from the first two time slots. So that’s eight presentations from from Friday morning, basically are up now and and I’ll keep putting stuff up and then other we’ve been dealing with other stuff. other good stuff with Geek Therapy. So I’ve been I’ve been, I’ve been super busy, but I’m trying to put that energy towards, towards that towards um, it’s it’s good. It’s good to have this much positive energy. And I think there’s there’s a broader conversation that I’m, I’m not even going to bring up because we’re definitely at time already. And I’m, I’m feeling too energized to. I could keep going, but we’re not going to we’re going to wrap this up. closing thoughts, any any final final thoughts? Anything?

Link Keller 1:01:00
I just want to express gratitude to all of the people who presented and helped everything run smoothly and showed up and chatted or lurked or hung out in the discord. Thank you for spending your time with us.

Josué Cardona 1:01:18
yeah, I can second that. I, I’m very thankful for for everybody that chose to be there that chose to be a part of it that chose to present and just participated in general it was it was so so great. There’s, I remember seeing a presentation where someone was like, I want to turn my camera on so you don’t feel so alone. I was like there’s the love, you know, so it was just like, just like it was great. Yep. Anyway, thank you, to that person to

Link Keller 1:01:57
the viewers who leave their their cams on so we can see you’re like, Hmm, yes. Or your Ohh face, thank you you are heroes, we could not do it without you. It’s very important job.

Josué Cardona 1:02:13
I highly recommend you watch the second keynote. Because when I do when I do make a joke at Woody Harris’s expense, the the faces of the presenters, our priceless I like they go, Oh, then I’m like, ah, like the reaction

Lara Taylor 1:02:33
is just you threw Woody under the bus.

Josué Cardona 1:02:36
It was so good. I debated and I didn’t do this. But I debated like zooming in on their reaction during the Edit. But I didn’t I didn’t do that. All right, Lara any any closing final thoughts.

Lara Taylor 1:02:52
I think it was an amazing weekend, I feel energized. I feel exhausted and energized at the same time, which makes it hard because I don’t have the energy to do the things but I want to do all the things. I woke up on Monday and met with my first client and my voice sounded clear my throat into my mic. Like all morning, it was gross. But it was a wonderful time. And the fact that my voice was gone means it I did the same kinds of things that my voice has always gone after Disneyland and San Diego Comic Con and the things that I enjoy the most in life. So I think this is one of those experiences. That is the things I enjoy the most in life. And I had a great time.

Josué Cardona 1:03:47
Yeah. And in case anybody has forgotten, including the people who are here right now, Lara was in the, in the audience at my first presentation. And and Link listened to you know, a podcast that Kelli and I were doing and Gian was like, listen to found the Geek Therapy pod