The Research Behind Powerful Stories

If you’ve ever wondered how stories bring people together, you will want to take notes from our discussion with Dr. Keven James Rudrow from Syracuse University. Now, let’s dive into a very interesting conversation!

Amanda: Today I’m speaking with Dr. Keven James Rudrow from Syracuse University. Welcome! I’m so excited to hear more about the work you have been up to. Do you want to start by just telling us a little bit about who you are, what you do, what your interests are?

Keven: Right. My name is Keven James Rudrow. I’m an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. I’m also affiliated faculty in LGBTQ studies. Oftentimes that has meant focusing specifically on the ways in which ideas of masculinity, racialized masculinity gets represented, particularly in terms of Black men. I focus a lot in my work on popular music, for instance, so Hip Hop music other forms of media that’s representing the lives, the experiences, the knowledges of Black men as they navigate the world around them. 

Amanda: I love how you pull this theme of stories through all of that, because all the formats of popular culture really are story-based. As you thought about how these stories’ impact other people, is there a particular compelling reason that makes stories so powerful?

Keven: A lot of these stories are powerful precisely because they’re stories that are very powerful. They’re very salient. We feel them individually and oftentimes we don’t realize that other individuals too have had a very similar experience, similar stories, similar narratives and things like that. One thing that I think is profound about merely sharing a story is other people acknowledge those stories and say, “Look, that’s an experience that I have as well.” There’s something powerful about being able to mobilize and unite. 

Amanda: You have that great article on how YouTube coming-out stories are so powerful for queer youth. Because maybe you haven’t shared that story with anybody, having access to somebody else’s can really help, right?

Keven: Right. I think that’s important to remember. Certain stories are more shareable for different reasons. Maybe it’s because of an individual’s sense of insecurity, but that insecurity exists in part because there are all these social factors that say that you should be insecure. You should not feel comfortable sharing that particular story. You can share this story but then there are other sorts of stories that seem to be a little bit more taboo. The coming-out narrative, for instance, coming-out stories, those stories oftentimes existed as part of this archive, but not so much in a larger public eye, really. 

That’s why sites like YouTube, for instance, became popular with the “It Gets Better” campaign. It became a way for individuals who oftentimes didn’t see coming-out narratives, or at least see themselves represented in those coming-out narratives, in mainstream television and film to create their own stories and to tell their own stories. Societally, those stories that have a narrative that conflict with the dominant norm is supposed to be around sexuality are not really supposed to be told. 

Amanda: I love that you’re putting that into two buckets. On one hand, there are these stories that everyone tells, even if it harms, alienates or isolates other people. Then there’s these stories that we’re not supposed to tell. I think, when you’re not supposed to tell your story, the shame that comes with that–you can’t share that. You have to make some different story up to be accepted. It’s incredibly vulnerable. You put those things out there even though you’ve been told your whole entire life, “Never tell that story.”

What is that role? How do people build up that vulnerability and how does that help cement a connection between the storyteller and the listener?

Keven: I think that can be very challenging for lots of reasons. For me, I think the ability to be vulnerable is actually a resistive act, especially in a society in which we’re not necessarily supposed to be vulnerable. Especially if you’re a Black man, for instance, vulnerability can be very challenging to express and also probably men in general as well, because vulnerability hasn’t necessarily been a part of how we think about masculinity. I think there’s something resistive about being vulnerable and being able to tell those stories that emerge from a place of vulnerability. 

I think one thing that could be very helpful for individuals who might struggle to share certain narratives, especially narratives that might cast themselves in a more vulnerable light, is to remember that there’s something resistive about that. This goes back to what you and I were saying earlier about the ways in which many of us are connected through common experiences and common stories, but more importantly, common vulnerabilities that we’ve all experienced.  

Now, we have narratives about those things that we can share with one another and feel connected. I think this comes back to accepting that there can be something very resistive, freeing almost, about embracing vulnerability and putting words and telling stories around those vulnerabilities. 

Amanda: There are a lot of reasons that people don’t want to share their true background. I see this all the time with leaders who feel vulnerable to say, “Hey, I actually wasn’t always that great at this. I didn’t always know what I was supposed to say. I didn’t always know what I was supposed to write.” Do you have thoughts on how you get over that psychological barrier that keeps us from doing all of this good for others and keeps us from validating ourselves and affirming who we are?

Keven: I think that’s a really good question. I think, for me, it has a lot to do with stopping and asking why it is that we do what we do. If we’re doing it because we’re invested in helping individuals through the books, stories, articles, YouTube videos or whatever it is that we’re writing, whatever it’s that we’re creating, then I think we need to acknowledge that an important part of helping individuals includes the ability to tell our stories while also encouraging other individuals to be able to tell their stories. 

I think that’s part of creating a better society. Like I said before, those things aren’t necessarily easy to do. It can be very challenging. I think the best that many of us can do, because it is so challenging, is to be open to regular work on ourselves and remind ourselves of what that ultimate goal is. I think that’s, for me anyway, to be helpful in whatever ways I can, even if they’re small it’s still significant. 

Amanda: I had not thought about this before, but as you were talking, a big part of embracing that bravery to be vulnerable is accepting that you are an actual leader. People are looking to you to tell your story. If you don’t, you have let them down. If you really have said, “I am going to be a leader. I want to fight for change. I want to be part of this resistant community.”, there are good reasons that you might not want to share your story. But there are also really good reasons to do that internal work so that you feel that you can step out safely and lead others.

Keven: Right. I think sometimes people might have fear that their story may not be like the narrative or the story that people might expect. What is the leader supposed to sound like? How does my story sound? Some individuals are like, “Maybe my background doesn’t speak to this sort of archetypical notion of leadership, and so my story shouldn’t be shared.” I think the opposite is true because there are different ways to think about leadership. 

For instance, there’s different ways to think about an individual’s background and how that background carries them to whatever role that they’re currently in. It becomes really important to share one’s experiences. I think that also includes failure. For a lot of individuals, people don’t want to tell their story because if they were to do so in an ethical way it would include failure, and leaders aren’t supposed to fail. That’s what we are told. In actuality, everybody fails. It’s part of growing. It’s part of being successful. It’s part of learning. 

Stories help to facilitate that as well. We learn through other people’s stories of failure and vice versa. Even though individuals need to share those stories, oftentimes their leaders may be hesitant to do so for all the reasons we were talking about earlier. Individuals don’t want to be read in a vulnerable light, despite how that vulnerability can work in a way that can bring people together. 

Amanda: Right. If we just go on with the assumption that all leaders’ stories are supposed to sound this particular way, then we really also are giving into this idea that there are only particular communities that matter. Because if we can’t ever uplift different types of stories, people of different backgrounds, experiences, whose failures don’t look maybe the way we think they should, then we never have the opportunity to call out to the people in the community with those same backgrounds and experiences who maybe would be the next leader.

It is a profound thing to do, to come forward and say, “I don’t care whether society likes my story, I’m going to tell it anyway.” Some of these are very lighthearted examples, some of them are much heavier. How do you see these examples of stories bringing people together, forming different kinds of communities?

Keven: This is something that I think a lot about and something that I really try to emphasize in a lot of the classes that I teach. At Syracuse University, I teach a class called Hip-Hop Cultures. One of the things about hip-hop that I think speaks to all the things that we’ve been speaking to is that hip-hop is a genre of Black expression that hinges heavily on the art of storytelling. That’s not to say that every rapper is a great storyteller, but the genre has heavily emphasized storytelling. 

One of the things that the students share often in that class is the ways in which they find their favorite artist or their favorite rapper because of a story. Usually, it’s some sort of autobiographical album or song, and there’s something about that individual’s background that a particular student might just relate to. It’s fascinating to think about how we find community between ourselves, but then also we find community through the stories that get told through the media that we consume. 

That’s important because that’s not just functioning on an individual, interpersonal level. That’s functioning on a national, if not transnational, level in which an artist can appeal to audiences across demographics just by sharing some things about themselves and having those things be very similar to the ways in which others, all of us, commonly experience. 

Amanda: That class sounds great, by the way. Maybe from that class, or your research, I would be curious of your personal experience. Have you seen the transformative power of storytelling through some of these forms?

Keven: Absolutely. In recent years, and I think this is the case for a lot of Black people in academia, it can be challenging because of the whiteness of academia. It’s a very white space. This isn’t a pop culture reference, but I think one of the things that has been impactful for me has been being in close proximity to individuals, hearing their stories. These are other Black academics, researchers and teachers talking about the different ways in which they have encountered structural racism and different issues in their departments. 

Realizing like, “Okay, wait a second, other people experience those things in their departments too, so it’s not just me, right?” That has been important because I think, for a lot of us, these are just minoritized people in academia in general. We gaslight ourselves into being like, “Maybe I didn’t experience that, or maybe that person was just having a bad day, or maybe that didn’t happen. Or maybe–” We are really great at gaslighting ourselves. 

Being able to talk to other individuals about the sorts of things that they experienced in their departments and realizing, “Wait a second, this is a systemic thing that other people encounter,” I think has been really important in terms of finding a sense of community, but then also realizing it’s not me. I think that example can also be broadened to the ways in which we engage pop culture, television, and film as well. 

I can think of a lot of recent examples of TV that certainly have spoken to me, oftentimes in ways in which other forms of media haven’t. I think the film Moonlight, for instance, is a good example. I think some folks from the research that we did on Moonlight really liked Moonlight in part because it encompassed a lot of the things that they had seen, saw, felt, but had not ever seen represented on a larger scale. That’s not an interpersonal conversation between two people. That’s just a narrative– I say ‘just”, but I don’t mean “just” in a way that reduces its importance because it’s important, but that’s a film. That’s a narrative in a film that still is speaking to a lot of individuals because somebody was brave, vulnerable, wrote and then created a film that represents a lot of things. For whatever reason, we don’t really see this represented in the mainstream media because that’s one of those stories that’s not supposed to get told. 

Amanda: Yes. That’s 100% true. I love what you said about this gaslighting. This thing where it’s, like, “Maybe it’s just me.” You don’t have the words that you need to express what you’re going through, and so then how can you even make it concrete in your own mind?

Keven: Right. Not too recently, I think #BlackinTheIvory was a trending hashtag on Twitter, which was essentially Black academics explaining or talking about different experiences, about what it’s like to be Black in the academy. I think that was an eye-opening moment. In a lot of ways, it demonstrated that we all know what we’ve all felt. But to see that so many people are experiencing those things on such a massive level, I think that speaks to the power of telling one’s story.

Amanda: I agree. I really appreciate you taking the time out. Thanks so much.

Keven: Thank you.  

Amanda: There you have it. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Dr. Keven James Rudrow as much as I did. He has an amazing perspective on what it means to step forward, embrace your power, and tell your story to help others. If this is something that’s been on your mind, we’re dropping three new tiers of service in December that could help you in doing just that.

What I do what to tell you about today is our Change Maker package, a brand-new package that will help give you all of that ghostwriting and editing support you need to get your story on the page, even if you’re not a writer. While that package is only available to our newsletter subscribers right now, head over to our book strategy quiz to stay informed when this package is released to the public and get a ton of helpful information along the way! I know that you are ready for this and you deserve to have your story out there.

Happy writing!