The Socialist Chat Room went live with its first episode on our YouTube channel which you can consider a test-run with mixed success.
I announced my plans to do this show about three weeks ago, and then, as luck would have it, I was struck down with a severe bout of long-Covid which would not shift and threw my plans into disarray. Eventually, I bit the bullet and went for it anyway because otherwise, the show would never have happened. Thankfully, I managed to arrange a great line-up, meaning my biggest concern became whether everyone would turn up on the day!
That did not turn out to be a problem and the guests were absolutely fantastic, but remember when I warned you guys about possible technical difficulties? Well, they happened. Everything that could go wrong, did.
I guess this is what happens when you have a host with poor health, a barely-functioning six year old desk-top, zero technical expertise and about ten windows open on the screen simultaneously. I had much to take in and in hindsight, I should have minimised my talking time to focus on ensuring things ran smoothly. I guess I underestimated the complexity of the task at hand.
First of all, the stream would not start on YouTube for no reason. Cue a panicked conversation to resolve the issue.
Of course, the stream decided to fix itself mid-way through this conversation, making me look like an unprepared mess. Then, for the next ten minutes, my streaming software decided to zoom in super-close so you couldn't see anyone talking. I think this is the point where most of our viewers gave up(!), but I belatedly fixed this issue, and it left me with my final technical problem: My supersensitive mic and Zoom's refusal to put me on mute when I clicked the mute button. This meant my flustered, stammering voice could be heard booming over everyone else's, and even worse, the mic picked up my every breath.
So yeah, disaster...
But... panelist No Justice saved the day. She was also streaming the show and the only technical difficulty she encountered was a host who was terrible at time-keeping, spent far too long on the first topic and then raced through the next two topics to make up time!
I'm making this all seem like a total disaster and yet it wasn't...
I could not have picked five better panelists and they sailed through the whole experience with ease, massively getting me off the hook. I may have deleted the live stream from YouTube and Twitch, but I did get some great clips of these guys, so let's go through them now and let them have their moment.
First of all, we have Lisa Diaz. You may have seen Lisa from her viral Twitter videos calling the government out on Covid-19 safety in schools. She is the co-founder of SafeEdForAll and as you can imagine, she had much to say.