Deja Foxx

I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, by a single mom. And when I was 15 years old, I moved out because of her struggles with substance abuse. The next year, 2017, while living with my boyfriend and his family, my senator voted to strip the funding that I needed when I walked into a clinic with no money, no insurance and no parents to walk out with the birth control I needed to take control of my body.

My future. It was personal, and I told him so at a town hall meeting in Mesa. I asked, if birth control was helping me to be successful, reach for higher education, why would he deny me the American dream? Millions of people saw that video overnight. I had gone viral. My life went from private ...

to public, requests from CNN rolled in to go live. The Washington Post called me the new face of Planned Parenthood. Social media put me, a 16-year-old girl working at a gas station, on even footing in the public discourse with a United States senator. My world has opened up in unimaginable ways because of social media, both good and bad.

Yeah, I mean, my introduction to TED Talks were through my public school education.

My teachers would put them on on the board and we would watch and

I had never really thought about if I were to give one what I would say.

And when the opportunity came, I sat with what I knew.

Ja noin vuosikymmeniä sitten se on tehty mahdollisuuksia, joita en ole edes voinut ajatella. Mutta olen nähnyt sydämellisiä algoritmeja ja tavoitteita, joita yritykset hyödyttävät heille. Esimerkiksi 2021-luvun päivä, kun ystävä kertoi minua ennemmin.

And what I know is that teen girls have some of the solutions to save us from some of our biggest problems.

I know that my friends have built new and amazing strategies to protect themselves and me.

and that I've built political power online that has translated into real-world impacts.

And so as I was thinking about what to write, going through the process, I had to remind myself that I didn't need a Ph.D., even though some of the people here definitely have those.

Kuusi päivää myöhemmin, kymmeniä kymmeniä arvoja, 60 000 tykkäystä, 4 000 retweeteja, 600 vastauksia myöhemmin, ja tämä cybermopi oli saanut DM-kysymyksiä ja kommentteja kaikissa sosiaalisten media-palveluissa. Nyt tarvitsen, että olet minun rauhassa.

I needed to lean into my experience, what I knew.

20 vuotta vanha, yksityiskohtainen pandemian jälkeen, ja päästä huoneeseen ensimmäisenä päivänä, koska se on myös sinun huoneesi. Joudu ulos henkilökohtaisen henkilökohtaisen turvallisuuteen ja tietoisuuteen. Minulla on täysin kommentteja, joilla näyttää sinun näkökulmastasi ja arvostelua, että itse olet vain tullut rakentamaan.

Yeah, people hate everything teenage girls like.

My final essay I ever wrote in college was, why don't we call selfies self-portraits?

And I've been interested in this question academically.

But also in praxis, like, you know, I think about my first viral moment, which was me going toe-to-toe with my senator, Republican senator, who voted to take away my access to birth control funding.

Social media platforms didn't have a solution for the hate that they facilitated, but young people in my community did.