Christian Vega
It was weird being invited to #Junket. I don’t know how they got my contact details
but an invitation turned up in my inbox one day
WTF?! Hm. OK. Someone’s obviously been punk’d… or
they’re about to be. When one has
experienced the lifetime of stigma and prejudice that I had, an intense
apprehension accompanies any social situation that does not explicitly state
that your community or allies will be present.
My thought process eventually concluded with, “y’know just go, it’s not like I’ve got much
in your diary these days*?” and this would be the thought I would keep
coming back to in order to convince myself to go. (* I’ll eventually get to this)
So in the lead up to the (un)conference, delegates were
invited to sign up to the event’s app, allowing one to check out who else was
going. This didn’t make it any easier-
there was CEO of this and founder of that; the twitter elite and the tumbler
famous; next-level hipsters and celebrated youf leaders - everyone was
intimidatingly impressive- and though I had worked hard to make achievements in
my own little corner- I felt this wasn’t comparable to what others had done
with their careers. Also, at this moment,
I am unemployed, technically homeless, completely robbed of my professional
confidence* and I’m not really one who naturally enjoys mingling and meeting
new people- what could I possibly contribute to this self-declared “junket”?
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| Welcome Donuts |
After driving down from Sydney, I checked in to the
ridiculously lush QT Canberra. There was
lots of fanfare out to welcome delegates who had gathered around the hotel
lounge. I made a bee-line for reception so I could quickly get to my room and
hide in my self-doubt and anxiety until just before the welcome session.
5:30pm finally rolls around and after a quick shower and
shoving the hotel “welcome donuts” into my face to settle my nerves, I made my
way to the hotel’s conference space and found no one I knew (or maybe just one
person I hardly knew) and sat down.
“This is a safe space for optimism; this is a safe space for
altruism,” Jess Scully, the “curator” (ie: the person who headed up the
delegate selection process) announces. OK.
Keep an open mind, you cynical arsehole. “Go to this fun thing and that-
there’ll be free drinks!” Hm. Not that effective for someone who doesn’t drink
and with already massive reservations. What
am I doing here?!
“Now all of you who are hosting a session get up and you
have 60 seconds to pitch your idea to the audience.” My heart rate shoots
through the roof. You see, in the week before
the conference Jess had encouraged (pressured maybe?) me to identify some a
topic I might want to discuss. Again,
being so full of self-doubt and super time poor* I kind of ummed and ahhed and
bashed out a rough idea on my keyboard and emailed it through. I didn’t think I had refined it enough to
actually lead a discussion with a bunch of young go-getters who I didn’t know
let alone throw it into a pitching session, a competitive corporate process that
isn’t really part of the way I work.
A line for the microphone had formed. I deliberately placed myself behind about 60
other delegates- giving myself about an hour to observe others pitch and start
to put together something I could present.
Again, this didn’t make it easier; everyone was super articulate, racing
against a 60 second countdown, the professional development and training that formed
the public speaking skills being exercised was obvious. But then some of the
ideas people were pitching were ones that embodied a politic I could identify with-
encouraging more young people to vote, dismantling white supremacy, preserving
indigenous culture in a digital age, challenging sexism in video games, normalising
differently abled people, making representations of sex in the media less weird.
Every pitch was met with applause and encouragement. Hm, while I’m out of my comfort zone, at least there’s stuff I can talk
about. Then came a pitch that surprisingly that was surprisingly
reassuring.
“… how do we value introverted leadership as much as
extroverted leadership?” Again, massive applause. Encouragement. This was a moment that I
thought, alright, so you’re a bit
different, that’s fine. These peeps seem cool, it’ll be ok… oh wait… Argh, What the hell was I going to say?!
With about 5 delegates in front of me my mind retreated to
its zen-like survival state. “Just do what you always do,” I told
myself. So I did…
“Hi. My name is Christian and
while I don’t have a lot of time to introduce myself I’ll say 2 things: I’m someone with a history of being an
actual junkie and a whore and while those words may be slurs to you- ones that
you probz shouldn’t use- to me they, are my job, my life, and my community.”
Everyone became silent. Just
keep going and no one’ll hear the crickets…
“So people like me spend a lot of
time fighting for acceptance, to be recognised as a legitimate part of the
broader community. But the prejudice, stigma and discrimination we are tired of
dealing with is not experienced by us alone. Laws are a way of saying who is in
and who is out in this country. So rather than constantly arguing for
recognition- because I think we actually shouldn’t have to- I want to turn this
conversation around and ask instead, in Australia, what is a crime?”
Applause. Encouragement. Just like any other pitch. Phew.
Following the pitching session was dinner and as I made my
way to the eating space out of nowhere some random walks up to me, shakes
my hand and says, “hey I really respected what you did up there and I’d like to
talk to you more.” When acceptance so earnestly expressed one takes a moment to
scan for insincerity… nope… whoa!
In fact that was a recurring instance. People were genuinely curious to hear from
someone of my experience- but more than that, people were interested in
building solidarity- either by self-identifying their own drug use or sex work,
or some other personal link to it. I made lots of connections, planned future collaborations, and met a few new friends
out of the experience. Even the issue of the exclusion created by alcohol (at
one stage the hashtag morphed from #Junket to #Drunket) was discussed. It’s weird, all of this kum-ba-yah positivity was not something with which I was used to being comfortable but it made me realise
something- I had been punk’d.
*For the past eight
months I’ve been involved in a fairly intense bullying situation. I don’t
really want to go into the details of it (it involved me losing my job and
moving interstate as recently as a week before Junket) but I’ll say when one is
the victim in that situation it becomes second nature to retreat, to hide, to
shut down. I hadn’t engaged with social
media in any significant way during that time and my once on-the-verge-of-burnout
portfolio of community activity had now faded to near obscurity. It made me scared. I had been tricked into seeing everything through the lens of doubt and cynicism. And it was fucked.
As well as learning heaps, being inspired, and having way
too much fun, Junket made me face these fears and reconnect to a world I had
hidden away from. I needed that pressure- no, encouragement- I needed the opportunity to step out of the cage that had been built around me. Of course the process
wasn’t perfect (what process ever is first time around?) and “the brightest minds” are aware
enough to know that Junkee and corporate sponsors were gaining from our
participation, but ultimately it’s indisputable that the organisers had made
good on the (urban) dictionary definition of what a Junket was going to be: “An…
event for which an individual personally pays little to nothing, but reaps
extreme benefits.”
For me, what I gained was summed up by a delegate during the
feedback session: “it’s OK to be uncomfortable.”
I’m back, cunts.
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| #Junket Last Day 6AM Alone contemplating an amazing 2 days of listening, learning, sharing, and being welcomed and inspired. |
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