What if the Internet breaks tomorrow? Then you'd realize that you're a human being, and you're not validated by what other people think of you - it's how you think of yourself.
It is one of the most validating things for an artist like me, to have people sing along to your songs.
We released '1950,' and I felt so grateful for the response from the queer community as well as just musicians and people in the industry responding to it and validating the art I had made. It makes me feel super hopeful.
It's funny; I think I'm at a level of recognizability - is that even a word? - where it's just really nice. I think when people are really famous, it can be hard for them because they feel like it's an invasion. But for me, it's just a few times every day when someone will say something sweet and validating, and it's just the best.
The problem with taking venture capital is if you take $5m from someone, it may feel great; you may feel like they're validating your business model. But they're giving $5m out to 20 different people, hoping one of them will be a hit. They don't really care if it's you.
It's very validating to have people who do what you do react to a song in a cool way.
Don't solicit feedback on your product, idea or your business just for validation purposes. You want to tell the people who can help move your idea forward, but if you're just looking to your friend, co-worker, husband or wife for validation, be careful. It can stop a lot of multimillion-dollar ideas in their tracks in the beginning.
There's obviously some validity to it. But I think it also points out that you obviously can do it on your own because people have been doing it long before they had the stuff.
For most people, their home is their most valuable asset. Yet most of us don't take care of it.
Don't try to guess what it is people want and give it to them. Don't ask for a show of hands. Try your best to write what you like, what you think your friends would like and what you think your father would like and then cross your fingers... The most valuable thing you have is your own voice.
I think doing research is probably the most valuable thing you can do for any career you're interested in pursuing, and not just a career on YouTube or in media. Really take a look at people whose careers you admire and learning from their successes, but also their mistakes.
Most people who call themselves conservatives can't explain the American value system.
The people and the mindset that killed 3,000 of our fellow citizens on September 11 2001, would have killed not 3,000, but 300,000 if they could have or 3 million or 30 million. We need to do everything we can within our value systems and legal structures to make sure that doesn't happen.
If my stories make people uncomfortable, because it questions your set ideas and value systems that are convenient for a group of people or ideas that promote patriarchy and religious fanaticism, then my job as an artiste and a writer is done. The more you will cry foul, the louder my characters will speak.
I don't really go into labels or an in-depth discussion of different value systems because for me, it's sort of the truth of the situation in D.C. Certainly, in my fictional depiction of it, there are decent, shameless people on both sides at every level.
One of the great things about my mother is she really valued people's character more than what they did.
I wanted to find a way to intelligently argue that we should be valuing our own skills and talents instead of valuing the number of people we can get to look at us.
Do you remember the first three years of Steam? People absolutely hated that Valve forced you to launch their game through what some people called a virus at the time, which was the Steam client. But Steam led the digital distribution revolution: it was the first across all platforms.
About half the people at Valve have run their own companies, so they always have the option not just to take a job at another game company, but to go start their own company. The question you always have to answer is, 'How are we making these people more valuable than they would be elsewhere?'
It's not like vampires are inherently bad. It's just people need to make better vampire movies.
