Work Face
A podcast where people finally tell the truth about work. Workplace culture expert Ben Jackson hosts refreshingly honest conversations with people from all walks of life about what actually happens on the job.
Work Face
Forum Drama in the Work Slack (with Allegra Rosenberg)
These days, the platforms we use at work look a lot like social media. But on most teams, these digital workspaces are run almost entirely without moderation.
Allegra Rosenberg, a writer, fandom expert, and cultural critic, shares her experience as a major label talent scout and explains why allowing off-topic channels in Slack might be a bigger risk than you'd expect.
(00:00) Everything is Everywhere Online
(02:32) Insecurity in the Music Industry
(14:20) Slack Channels as Digital Infrastructure
(17:27) Breaking into New York Media
(24:44) The Dark Side of Employee Engagement
(25:11) Why "No Structure" Isn't Freedom
(28:52) Dealing with Workplace Disillusionment
(29:00) Finding Better Ways to Connect
Allegra Rosenberg is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, National Geographic, and The New York Times. Her forthcoming book on the history of fandom culture will be published by W.W. Norton. She’s also the founder of Terror Camp, a polar exploration conference.
Follow Allegra on Bluesky and find her work at allegrarosenberg.com.
See also:
The Smart Cow Problem on Wikipedia
Depths of Wikipedia on Bluesky
The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman
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Work Face is produced by Hear Me Out, a culture strategy firm for leaders with the courage to listen. We help them cultivate trust by having real conversations with employees at all levels about what’s working and what’s not.
Learn more at hearmeout.co and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
We've grown so used to our feeds, which has everything in it, everything's on TikTok, everything's in my Twitter feed, everybody I know from every part of my life, so why shouldn't this work Slack also be filled with everything from every corner of my life? And that is a fallacy. A fandom Discord or a workplace Slack should not be your everything. If it is, you've got a problem.
Benjamin:These days, the platforms we use at work look a lot like social media. But on most teams, these digital workspaces are run almost entirely without moderation. I'm Ben Jackson, and this is Workface, a podcast where people finally tell the truth about work. Today, we're speaking to fandom expert Allegra Rosenberg. Her debut non fiction book is forthcoming from W.W. Norton. She's written for the Atlantic, National Geographic, and the New York Times, among others. She also runs Terror Camp, a polar exploration conference, now in its fourth year. Allegra Rosenberg, welcome to Work Face.
Allegra:Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Benjamin:So maybe before we get into, you know, talking about your past jobs, you could just talk about what you do right now.
Allegra:I'm currently a freelance writer, and I'm working on my debut nonfiction book, a history of fans and fandom culture. I guess I start kind of in the Middle Ages, and then I jump forward to the era of mass culture, which began around the turn of the 19th century.
Benjamin:So what do you remember about the first time you felt insecure in the workplace?
Allegra:It was a music label and I was an A&R scout reporting directly to an SVP of A&R. And for those who don't know what that means, A&R is artists and repertoire. And an A&R executive is the person responsible for signing new artists, picking which songs are recorded, picking which songs end up on the album, in which order, and which songs are promoted as singles. So my boss was, she had gotten where she had in her career for discovering some pretty major artists. And I was responsible for finding her next big one. And I felt like, you know, I was doing good work. I had confidence in my work and I didn't feel like my boss at the time was recognizing it. So I brought that up to her at kind of in an oblique way. And, and I said, you know, I really think that this is good stuff. Like maybe you could take another look at some of it. And she, got really mad, we had a conversation that amounted to her feeling like I was undermining her taste and her opinion by standing up for my own work. And in the music industry, obviously taste is the biggest thing. And so after that, I felt so shaken in my own taste that I had been confident enough to stand up for, and I was like, oh, maybe I don't know anything. Maybe I don't have good taste, maybe I'm useless at this job. And she was really mad.
Benjamin:I'm so sorry to hear that.
Allegra:I mean, honestly, that conversation came about because of a mistake that I had made. You know, you, you think that you can trust people in a workplace, but I was a contractor, I was a freelancer, I only came into the office maybe once every other week, and, and I knew a couple other people in the office, and I had a conversation with someone else, you know, he was like, how's the job going? And I, I told him, and essentially that conversation got back to her. I was honest with somebody, perhaps too honest, and I didn't, I, I wasn't in the office culture enough to understand the relationship between that person and my boss.
Benjamin:Do you feel comfortable sharing more or less what you said about how things were going?
Allegra:I said to him, I'm trying my best, and I, I don't think that, I, I said to him, I think, it frustrates me that she isn't, let's just say, taking my recommendations, because they were in, they're in good faith, and I think that that got back to her, and she was not happy, because I think it was to her, insubordination. I mean, in my case, it was a personal frustration. I wasn't trying to pass judgment on her taste, really. I was just saying, you know, I wish that she would, would listen to me. And then she, the way that that got back to her was that I had essentially insulted her. She was very unhappy.
Benjamin:When this got back to her, do you think that she was surprised to hear the feedback? Was it something, was it her first time hearing it?
Allegra:I'm not sure. I mean, I, I, the thing is that I didn't know her that well. Our, our communication was mainly over email. I was a, I was a part time employee, I reported directly to her and had very little contact with anybody else in the office, and I had no idea that she would react that way. Otherwise I wouldn't have said it.
Benjamin:How many conversations outside of email had you had with your boss at that point?
Allegra:Oh, I mean, I was going into the office regularly to meet with her and present my, let's just say research. So I, I felt like I knew her pretty well. And I, and I think that's why it surprised me that she had that reaction. Cause if she had seemed like a touchy person or a very, you know, someone that I couldn't be honest with… I felt that I had been being honest with her up until that point, in pitching her my, my research and stuff like that, and was one of the reasons why when she didn't seem to be acknowledging any of it in the way that I wanted, it was frustrating.
Benjamin:Did your boss at the time ever have a conversation with you that was not directly related to you pitching or presenting some your research?
Allegra:I'm gonna be real, I can't remember, this was about six years ago, but, it was not a, like a super buddy buddy relationship. I had been hired to do a very specific job.
Benjamin:Do you remember how many other people reported to your boss at the time?
Allegra:In this specific part time capacity, I was the only one. At a music label. You know, someone in that capacity probably has a team of, of between five and 10, all doing different things. I mean, I think in, in, in entertainment, everyone has a very specific job to do. And though I had been hired because we had an initial interview that went well, I was referred by somebody that she trusted. It, it, it emerged that our tastes did not really align. That's what I thought. But then when we had this, this contretemps, I started to think that, oh, maybe I'm just not good at this.
Benjamin:How did that impact the way that you showed up in the role after that conversation?
Allegra:I mean, it seemed increasingly likely that she was never going to really like any of the things that I brought her. And these included artists that I really, really believed in. And I, listen, I kept doing the work until they let me go because of COVID. Cause it paid very well, and I love listening to music and I love finding new bands. So I wasn't just going to walk away, but I mean, I had, I had almost started to think, you know, would I, would I want to bring somebody to her that I really believed in, maybe because I liked them, they wouldn't be a good fit to work with her, because that, like, I really, I was like, I couldn't tell if it was me or, or her. And also, to be fair, a label has a very specific outlook on, on what kind of acts that they want to bring in. It's all determined by trends, it's all determined by numbers. I was bringing her acts quite early on, the numbers weren't there. And she couldn't hear it. For an act to be signed to a label, all these different things have to be right. The scout has to find them. The A&R has to like them. The numbers are there. They have a good team in place already. You know, they're ready in a particular way. And looking back on it now, I think it was a combination of so many factors. It was her taste. It was my taste. It was what the label wanted. It was, you know, where the artists were in their careers at the time when I was bringing them. It was my first time doing this job. Right? I did, I got no tutorial.
Benjamin:So when you came in, no training? Any onboarding? What's the first, what's the first thing that happened on your first day when you walked in?
Allegra:I only was going in like once every other week to meet with her. I mean, I was, this was mainly over email, I would be sending her these spreadsheets of artists. And she would say, hmm, hmm, hmm. And I would go in, there were a couple artists that I went out to see their shows in an A&R capacity, which is cool. There were a couple, I think maybe one or two that we brought into the office for a meeting and I was like, oh my gosh, like, this is it. It just, it just wasn't there. And the artistS that I was the most passionate about, she, I don't want to say was the most dismissive of, but would generally be, the ones that she didn't like, which, again, her job is to discern not only the artists that are good, but the artists that have a chance of succeeding under that specific label, right? There's so many factors in that, and that's where my lack of experience was holding me back. Because, I go into this job, I think,"I just need to bring her good bands." And I realized that not only are there not as many good bands out there as you out there that don't already have a deal, or have label interest, just because a band is good doesn't mean they are ready for a major label deal.
Benjamin:If you could go back in time and talk to Allegra, have a little chat before you took that job, what would you say?
Allegra:I would say work harder for the bands that you believe in. Because in retrospect, maybe a half dozen of the ones that she didn't like are now major money-makers for major labels. And that's not insignificant, I think that that's a comfort to me, that okay, my taste was actually pretty good, but I didn't know how to advocate for them in the language of the industry and of my specific role. I should have kept in touch with their managers, I should have been giving her regular updates on their progress and say, remember, but I was scared to because she had been in this conversation I mentioned quite dismissive of the idea that she could have been mistaken. So I thought once she says no, that's it. And I didn't want to provoke that kind of reaction that kind of insecurity in her that brought up so much insecurity in me. It's a hard thing to get past. And I, at the end of the day, I was like, okay, well, I'm just never going to do this job again.
Benjamin:Was that your last job in A&R?
Allegra:That was my last job in the music industry.
Benjamin:Did you consider yourself a fan of the label before you joined?
Allegra:I was a fan of a lot of people there and a lot of artists there. But, it was a part of a larger lesson I learned about the music industry, which is like, I care so much about the artists. I am such a fan. That doesn't necessarily mean I am the person best positioned to work for or on their behalf within a incredibly competitive industry.
Benjamin:What happened to your career after you left the music industry?
Allegra:I knew that I wanted to go to grad school and I knew that I wanted to be in New York, so I just looked for a two year program that would kind of let me flex my intellectual muscles a bit and do a lot more reading and writing than I had been doing.
Benjamin:So how'd you get into media?
Allegra:Well, I always loved writing. And when I was in college, I did a little bit of music journalism. for a few outlets, including my college magazines. And I really just wanted access to the things that I was interested in, and I thought that journalism might be a way to get me backstage at shows and get me to talk to my favorite, you know, acts. I think I started like my substack right out of college. And I was putting up like, you know, weird little short stories. And then I wrote a piece for a friend, a friend, so friends of mine had a podcast and the podcast had a blog and I wrote a piece for them that did pretty well and it got a lot of clicks and it has even since been cited academically. I was pitching, You know, I pitched a couple friends. I began writing for Ryan Broderick of Garbage Day, again, just someone I knew online who You know, bless him offered me a column on the basis of me constantly emailing him to correct him about fandom stuff. He's like, do you just want to write something? I was like, yeah. So I wrote for him for a while, that got me connected to people like Rusty Foster and all of my New York media homies. I feel like I caught the tail end, like the absolute last like year or two that it was possible to make writerly friends online and get gigs from them. Which I will reiterate for anybody listening to this, it's not sustainable. It is not the way at this moment in time, but if you have something else that's your, your stable gig, freelance writing can be a great way to get your kicks.
Benjamin:How did you feel you were first starting out as a freelance journalist meeting of these New York media personalities, people who you'd read or heard on podcasts?
Allegra:Well it made me wish I went J-school and got an internship when I was 19 and then kept working that whole time, because that's how most of my friends who are journalists full time got their jobs and that lack of full time experience and sort of concurrent lack of, you know, for me, not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but I don't have any interest in devoting myself to one thing wholeheartedly. So, like, I just sort of learned a lot about what it takes , how my friends got to where they were the parts of that equation that I, you know, can't necessarily make up very easily. It was all very enlightening. And, and, and, on the flip side of that, I learned about the stuff that I can do. You know, anybody can pitch any editor, and if the story is good enough, you might get picked up. So like, you know, as, as much as the doors that are closed, there are others that, that remain open for me.
Benjamin:So, you've got a lot of expertise in fandom and fan culture. One of the things that comes along with that is, understanding how large groups of people mobilize online. And one of the things that I have seen and read about, quite a lot in the past few years are companies that are struggling with what almost looked like online mobs inside their workforce, or put differently, companies that are struggling to communicate with an increasingly diverse. group of employees with a bunch of different opinions, often really strong opinions about, how the company is run, what issues the company stands for, how it lives its values. What are some of the things that you have learned about how large, passionate groups of people come together and mobilize online that you think might be relevant to companies with large workforces, of highly opinionated people?
Allegra:Well, one of the most important things to think about when dealing with any large group of people online is affordances. Let's say there's a Slack and there's, like, all these off-topic channels, what are the kind of discussions that are not permitted by the rules, but permitted by the infrastructure to be had? You know, if, if there is a very, very strict, no off-topic conversation rule in the Slack, yes that avoids potential, distracting conversations, but it also avoids the kind of bonding that is maybe very important in a remote workplace.
Benjamin:In a way, what you're talking about is moderation.
Allegra:It's a very, like, "if you build it, they will come" kind of thing, where if you, if you install from the beginning or you implement channels for certain types of discussion or organization, they will fill up. I mean, especially if it's something that the employees are advocating for or seem, there seems to be interest. So it, it's a moderation question, not of what gets posted, but like , what is even putting the thought into someone's head that they could discuss something or take a certain tack in the context of, of the workplace. I'm really interested in the sort of, in fandom, the way that practices are perpetuated kind of mimetically. Like, the fact that there is a patient zero of, let's say, slash-shipping, that you can point to. There was a first person to be like, I think Kirk and Spock should have sex. We know her name. She's still alive. Like, it's stuff like that where it's like, okay, that person, there was a first person to come up with, The Omegaverse, which is a highly explicit subgenre of fanfiction that is now the subject of lawsuits, right? These practices, once they are developed the floodgates just open. I saw something today on the depths of Wikipedia. Bluesky page, which is like the, it's something like, oh my god, I have to look this up now because it's the, I thought it was perfect to describe this idea. The smart cow problem is the idea that a technically difficult task may only need to be solved once by one person for less technically proficient group members to accomplish the task using an easily repeatable method. The term is derived from the expression, it only takes one smart cow to open the latch of the gate, and then all the other cows follow. This goes for social problems as well as technical ones. If you have an organization filled with smart cows, you have to know how to keep the gates closed.
Benjamin:What are some of the gates that you have seen opened?
Allegra:Ok, let's say I'm in a fandom, and I make a bunch of friends, and we want to start a Discord server together. The channels you put into that Discord when you make it determine the tenor of the discussion and of the social atmosphere that will follow. If you have a channel for"personal life and vent," your Discord will be full of people. Let's just say incredibly annoying people who just want to complain about their personal life all day in a server to, that is meant to be discussing fictional characters in. And you will grow to hate that person because you do not care. You barely know them, maybe you thought you liked them, but now you don't because they're talking about their breakup or, you know, like very like intimate issues with their, you know, mother or whatever. Like, this is how a Discord server gets out of control, is that it goes off topic. Let's say we have a Discord server that's about a fandom for something like Attack on Titan, people like Attack on Titan, but oh, the creator, he might be like a, he's kind of a Nazi, oh, there's some like controversial stuff in Attack on Titan. If you're starting a server for that, you make a channel that says "every single discussion about how this guy may or may not be a bad guy goes in this channel." And if you can mute it, if you don't want to hear about it, and if the topic in one channel starts to get on discussion, you have to go there. And that is foresight. You're like, what is something that people get really mad about this, in regards to this one thing? Quarantine. Quarantine, quarantine, quarantine. I think this is widely applicable, but this is something, a lesson I have learned over and over again regarding fandoms.
Benjamin:I have seen so many workplaces where the leaders have chosen not to put guidelines in place for their online communities. They started these Slacks, they've let people go wild, adding all kinds of channels and really not taking community management seriously. And then one day, a channel blows up. Maybe it's the politics channel. Maybe it is the news channel. Maybe it's the, what was the name of the channel where people complain and vent?
Allegra:Just #complaintsandvents.
Benjamin:Complaints and venting channel.
Allegra:Yeah.
Benjamin:And now they got a problem because that channel is now a problem.
Allegra:Mm hmm. But
Benjamin:How do you take something away from people that they have grown to love, right?
Allegra:I mean, it can make them feel like misbehaving toddlers, which essentially they are. But there's a righteousness to their misbehavior and a self consciousness that prevents them, of course, from seeing it that way.
Benjamin:Yeah.
Allegra:And there also is a sense that an internet community, if it's shaped like a community, should be the end all be all, right? We've grown so used to our feeds, which has everything in it, there's none of these, these subdivisions that, that we used to have, which is like, you know, everything's on TikTok, everything's in my Twitter feed, everybody I know from every part of my life, so why shouldn't this work Slack also be filled with everything from every corner of my life? And that is a fallacy. A fandom Discord or a workplace Slack should not be your everything. If it is, you've got a problem.
Benjamin:Absolutely. And so I guess the question that comes to mind for me, putting myself in the shoes of the boss who has to now deal with this problem, what do you do about a problematic channel in your workplace Slack?
Allegra:The best solution is probably to, shutdown, restructure, and relaunch under the guise of, this is long-needed. Right? Because it is, in a way, the straw that broke the camel's back. There might have been things that almost became a problem in other channels before then. Usually, if something blows up to that extent, it's because there's a bunch of things that almost already did.
Benjamin:So rather than targeting the one channel and pissing off all of the people who love that one channel—
Allegra:Piss off everybody. And then, and then it's a clean slate.
Benjamin:Okay. Got it. So let's say I you've convinced me. I'm going to piss off everybody. Where do I start?
Allegra:Again, this is an example where a moderator, or the owner of the online community has to put on their big boy hat and learn from their experience. Not only do they have to go around asking people, doing some kind of survey and saying, Okay, if you're going to, if we are going to redo this, So what would you want it to look like when it's redone so you can get at least close to a consensus? You'll also get people complaining about the stuff that you didn't see if you haven't been doing your moderating job. You know, the stuff that completely went over your head because you just assumed everything in the channels was hunky dory because it wasn't completely on fire. But, you know, there's termites and shit too. You don't see those. That's what you, that's where you come in. That's where something like Hear Me Out comes in so you can get some of that information. I mean, it's really an information problem, right? It's a knowledge transfer problem from the, from the gen pop to the executives or the people who are running the show. And also, Clarification of responsibility is huge. I run this conference, I'm a volunteer, everybody does it as a volunteer. We have this big Discord. This year it has like a thousand, over a thousand people in it. It's impossible to get a handle on. But one thing that we have been super, super strict about is you are here to chat about what's going on on screen. Last year, or the year before last, Someone was giving a presentation and somebody in the chat room for that presentation was completely derailing it to talk about like some controversial, like, Oh, isn't this problematic type thing. And the poor girl who was giving the presentation, nobody in the chat could talk about her presentation in real time because there was an argument happening. And this year we were like, we cannot let that happen again. It was really disappointing. It was a mistake on our part to let that keep going and to not step in earlier, we are going to hire new volunteer Discord only moderators to swat people with fly swatters when they're not talking about the presentation that's going on at the time. Also, we are going to be much stricter, saying, if you want to talk about something that's not the conference, you have to do it on a different server. Make your own. Spin them off. Invite people to them. Fine. But don't let that be our problem. We are here for one reason and one reason only.
Benjamin:It sounds like it's about being really, really clear. Upfront with people about why we are here, what we are here to discuss what is inbounds and what is out of bounds for that conversation.
Allegra:It's the same problem at the end of the day, Which is AN online community cannot be all things to all people and in fact It shouldn't be. And the more specific and clear the purpose for a especially a real time chat server is, the better an experience everybody's gonna have. And also one should not be afraid to completely ice out bad apples, because it is very often the case that one or two people can completely ruin the vibe. I mean, it's very much like, you have to let people vote them off the island. And, and this is less of a big deal in fandom, where it's like, really, this, do, the, why so serious? Just frickin leave. In a workplace, I imagine it could be more complicated where someone is doing good work for and with the company, but in the digital community, they are, a bit of an arse. So I, I'm not sure what I would do in that situation, to be honest.
Benjamin:One of the things that is striking me, one of the parallels between some of these fandom communities and especially a lot of the high growth startups, that I've come into contact with, the parallel that's really interesting to me here is it sounds like they're both suffering from the tyranny of structurelessness
Allegra:I would say that in a fandom environment there is so much, I don't want to say shame, but there is negativity attached to the idea of hierarchy, right? Because fandom famously is a very quote unquote democratic place that nevertheless is governed by status, and is governed by the acquisition of status, usually through mastery of a subject matter or through connection with creators and actors, right? But, the, when you're creating a new community on a platform like Discord, well someone has to run it. And the person that runs it, is, the person that decides to run it, and has the agency to decide to run it, is not always the person, let's say, that's best cut out for the job, they are trying to acquire, often times they are trying to acquire status through that. I mean, I take this kind of stuff very freaking seriously, because I find myself in these positions quite often. And I think, and I also have a lot of workplace experience to draw on when I find myself in these situations. And I think fandom can be quite young, can be quite inexperienced in quote unquote the real world, and this is often their first experience of being in charge of something, of being, of having status in a community. Or maybe they're older and this is the only place in their life where they have any status, right? It's so, there's so much that goes into this. But it's very much, there is a hierarchy.
Benjamin:I'm thinking about how many companies, they talk about turning their employees into evangelists. They want their employees to feel passionate about the company. They want their employees to be engaged, Is that something that they should actually, is that something that anyone should want for their organization?
Allegra:I mean, it depends. I think that there's like a lot of backlash against the, you know, "we're all family here" company concept. And likewise, I think that we're all fans of the brand concept has a lot of downsides. I think it's more important to be… you can be engaged with work without being a fan of something. Especially if you feel like you're making a meaningful contribution or you're getting, you know, in the wise words of Don Draper, that's what the money is for, right? Like, I don't, I think that the fan connection, the fan experience we've been talking about is an extremely volatile one. I think it is the, the people who display the most fervor, the most ecstasy, who are the ones who are, would be dangerous if that, if that coin flip occurs, right? When you put so much of your emotional life into anything, whether that's work or whether that's a fandom, whether that's a relationship, the consequences of that object, you know, going bad or turning sour in some way can be incredibly, harrowing. I think anybody in the #MeToo era who is, you know, fans of any public figure has experienced what that's like when you just, you, you lose that thing, you lose the thing, but you don't lose the feelings, right? It's like an escape from a cult.
Benjamin:What advice would you give to an employee who is feeling disillusioned with a company that they really really loved, were a huge fan of?
Allegra:That energy has to go somewhere. I'm, I'm a big advocate for trying to find your own obsessions. I think I know a lot of people that are like, oh, I used to be like obsessed with so and so when I was a kid, but I've never really been in it and into something like that since. Fandom for a lot of people is something that is closely related to youth, it's childish, it's something they used to do I don't think that, yeah, I think anybody will say that, you know, we as a culture, we do not really keep in touch with our childhood selves that well and, and we leave a lot of stuff behind. But for someone who is struggling with disillusionment at their company, I would recommend finding somewhere else to place that enthusiasm into that isn't a workplace. Because it has to go somewhere and there are many more healthy outlets for it. I think that, like, one of the best ways to do fandom these days is to find a big online community, something you really love a media, a piece of media or whatever, or like a, Sometimes like a craft or hobby can sort of be fandomesque. And then find the people that are into that that live near you. It can be incredibly rewarding to have fandom friends or hobby friends that live near you and that you see regularly. And, and that also gets you away from some of the worst things and the worst affordances about platformed digital fandom.
Benjamin:Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.
Allegra:Thank you so much for having me.
Benjamin:Before I let you go. Is there anything that you haven't had a chance to share? And think we should know?
Allegra:Hire me! allegrarosenberg.com That's where all my stuff is and that's where you can figure out how to reach me. I am open to work!
Benjamin:All right. Everyone hire Allegra. Seriously. She's fantastic. Work Face is produced by Hear Me Out, a culture strategy firm for leaders with the courage to listen. Our consulting producer is Lina Misitzis. Original music composed by me, Ben Jackson. Special thanks to Rob McRae and Michelle Mattar. To learn more about Hear Me Out, visit hearmeout.co, follow us on Instagram at @hearmeout_co, or find us on LinkedIn by searching for Hear Me Out.
