This past weekend, I walked into NYC PrideFest with official media press credentials, not as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, but as a proud father supporting my son’s independent journalism operation.
On his own initiative, my son secured those credentials. He is a dedicated, independent civic journalist whose account has officially climbed into the top 200 contributors on the entire Citizen platform.
With my support and mentorship, he is out on the pavement making real money covering parades, fires, and community events. I am not exaggerating when I say I am learning a lot from his success.
Yet, because of our environment and our credentials, people immediately wrote our stories for us:
On the train, a stranger saw my pass, assumed my identity, and offered immediate, warm solidarity: “I’m not gay, but I support you.”
Later, when I mentioned my son was livestreaming the parade, the immediate response was: “Oh wow, is your son gay?”
They looked at the context and filled in the blanks before asking a single factual question. But while observers were making snap judgments, I was being completely transformed by the world-class talent unfolding right before our eyes.
The music set an incredible tone, moving from the global rhythms of DJ Armana Khan to the electric energy of Kemmii, and then to the legendary Kevin Aviance, who left me feeling a sense of pure, unapologetic freedom deep in my chest. The lineup concluded with Bree Runway and Rico Nasty absolutely igniting the audience.
While Bree Runway and Rico Nasty performed, both Kevin and Kemmii stepped right down into the audience to watch their peers. Seeing them standing alongside us, I stepped forward. I expressed my genuine gratitude to Kevin face-to-face, and right there in the crowd, I shared a deeply heartfelt conversation with Kemmii. For a moment, all the noise and external assumptions stripped away, leaving only mutual respect and authentic human connection.
The Dark Side of Data
That stranger on the train who made a snap judgment? They weren’t an outlier. They are the human equivalent of a modern data algorithm.
Right now, data brokers are tracking everyone. They monitor your location, your purchases, and the events you attend. If a data broker’s algorithm tracked me this weekend, it saw a sequence of metadata:
Attended a Pride parade.
Stood in the media section. Interacted with LGBTQ+ icons.
Based on those superficial data points, their legacy systems would instantly flag me, group me into a neat little demographic box, and begin serving me targeted ads based on who they assume I am.
But their assumption would be flat wrong.
They would completely miss the fact that I am a straight father supporting his son’s digital media enterprise.
They would miss the fact that I am an entrepreneur analyzing market psychology.
Legacy data brokers sell corporations proxies of human behavior; lazy guesses wrapped in high-tech packaging. They look at where someone stands and assume they know what that person thinks, wants, and needs. This hurts enterprises by driving up wasted ad spend, corrupting market research, and causing brands to misfire when communicating with real people.
Millions of dollars in budgetary decisions are being built on fiction.
The product my partners and I am inventing strips away the guesswork. We don’t deal in assumptions. We deal in factual, self-sovereign human intent—the raw, uncorrupted truth of what the market actually needs.
The Ultimate Proof of Concept
The parade wasn’t just an event for me; it was the ultimate validation of my business model. It exposed a massive, systemic failure in how data is collected and weaponized.
If a corporate leader relies entirely on traditional data brokers, they are buying a box full of flat stereotypes, completely missing the real-time, ground-level shifts, the independent innovators, and the nuanced consumers altering the market right under their noses.
My son didn’t wait for permission to climb the ranks of digital journalism.
Kevin Aviance didn’t fit into anyone’s predefined box.
And I’m not staying in mine.
I am bringing forth a B2B innovation that gets to the absolute truth of data. We are shattering the lazy assumptions that break corporate strategies, delivering a solution that respects the nuance of the consumer and unlocks genuine, bulletproof market needs.
The age of the lazy assumption is over. It’s time to build for the reality of who people actually are.
This article is so good!