Creator & Host, Conversations with People Who Hate Me Podcast
Dylan Marron: Biography at a Glance
- Dylan Marron is a writer and content creator known as the host and producer of the critically-acclaimed podcast Conversations with People Who Hate Me and as a writer for the hit series Ted Lasso.
- Conversations with People Who Hate Me is a social experiment that brings together adversarial internet strangers through phone calls and it inspired his TED Talk, "Empathy is Not Endorsement,” viewed by millions worldwide.
- With the success of the podcast, Dylan turned the experience into a book, Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers, about finding common ground with people you never thought possible.
- His latest podcast, The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks, is a six-part journey through the early internet to understand how one of the first-ever online hate campaigns began,
- He is also the creator of the Shorty Award-nominated video series, Every Single Word, which edits down popular films to feature only the words spoken by people of color, highlighting the need for diversity in Hollywood.
- Dylan created, hosted, and produced Sitting in Bathrooms with Trans People, Shutting Down Bullsh*t, and the Unboxing series.
- A popular speaker at universities, Dylan has designed courses for The Obama Foundation, the Wall Street Journal, and TED and addresses topics ranging from online shame to diversity as an asset, dialogue across differences, the role of social media in polarization, “radical empathy,” and the power of wielding softness as strength.
Videos
Biography
Writer and content creator Dylan Marron has been described as a "modern Mister Rodgers for the digital age." He hosts and produces the critically-acclaimed podcast Conversations with People Who Hate Me, a social experiment that brings together adversarial internet strangers through phone calls, fostering connection at a time of division and digital isolation. The podcast inspired his TED Talk, “Empathy is Not Endorsement,” viewed by millions worldwide. He is the creator of Every Single Word (Tumblr's "Most Viral Blog" of 2015; Shorty Award Nominee), a video series that edits down popular films to feature only the words spoken by people of color, highlighting the need for diversity in Hollywood. He also joined the writing staff of the Emmy-winning Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso.
With the success of Conversations with People Who Hate Me – winner of a Webby Award, selected as a Podcast Pick by USA Today & The Guardian, named "the timeliest podcast" by Fast Company, and deemed "essential" by Vulture – Dylan turned the experience into a book, Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers, published by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. Publishers Weekly called it an “enlightening debut,” and the Associated Press praised it as “a fascinating meditation on human connection and on finding common ground with people you never thought possible.”
As a writer & correspondent at Seriously.TV, Dylan created, hosted, and produced Sitting in Bathrooms with Trans People, Shutting Down Bullsh*t, and the Unboxing series. He has been profiled by The New York Times and Forbes and featured on CBS Mornings and the TODAY show.
A popular speaker at universities, Dylan has designed courses for The Obama Foundation, the Wall Street Journal, and TED. He frequently is invited to speak at companies and associations that focus on DEI programming. Dylan addresses topics ranging from online shame to diversity as an asset, dialogue across differences, the role of social media in polarization, “radical empathy,” and the power of wielding softness as strength.
Topics
Fostering Radical Empathy
The typical response to receiving online hate is to ignore it. For several years, Dylan Marron has taken the opposite approach: address it head-on by calling up some of the people behind the hateful messages.
In his talks, Dylan walks his audience through the steps he took to foster radical empathy for a group of people many advised him to ignore, and how we can bring that practice into our own lives and relationships, digital or not.
Creating Alternatives To Online Shame
Online hate and online shame may be different beasts, but, as Dylan identifies, they thrive off of the same digital rewards systems. The topic of "cancel culture" is a divisive one—some argue it's the work of a specific political side, others consider it to be a righteous tool, and a third group contends it doesn't even exist. Dylan navigates this tricky tightrope with nuance, parsing out the harm of online shame without generalization or stigmatization, and identifies ways that we can all unknowingly take part in it and, helpfully, escape it.
Avoiding Debate & Embracing Conversation
One of Dylan's main points is that debate doesn't work, because it's gamified conversation that promises a winner and loser at the end. But, he asks, what does winning a debate actually do? Does it change minds or does it simply offer a spectacle of opposition? Dylan helpfully breaks down the way conversations can veer into debate territory, and how to redirect them into productive, meaningful dialogue.
