Kyne Santos  0:00  (Intro quote)
The risk of never breaking these stereotypes is you have people like me when I was younger not wanting to go into STEM, not wanting to do this because I'm gay, or going into STEM but not really coming out and not really wanting to express myself freely.

Kyne Santos  0:15  (Intro quote)
You have people who aren't necessarily science people watching documentaries about science, you have people who aren't necessarily art people that go to the museum to look at paintings on the wall - so why can't we have that same relationship with math?

Vanessa Vakharia  0:28  (Show intro)
Hi, I'm Vanessa Vakharia, aka The Math Guru. And you're listening to Math Therapy, a podcast that helps guests work through their math traumas one problem at a time. Whether you think you're a math person or not, you're about to find out that math people don't actually exist - but the scars that math class left on many of us definitely do. Oh, and don't worry, no calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast.

Vanessa Vakharia  0:54  (Episode intro)
Well, holy shit, here we are - season three, episode one babies! This season is all about the media. I talk about it so much that I thought why not do an entire season on it? Because let's face it: pop culture shapes our perceptions of what it means to be good at math and who's allowed to be good at math, and it is time to shake it up. We're starting season three with a guest that I have legit been stan-ing since 2019. I am still shocked that they agreed to be a part of this podcast. And honestly, if you're a Drag Race fan, you are gonna flip because today's episode features none other than Kyne Santos from Canada's Drag Race! This queen has over 100,000 followers on Tiktok because they've gone viral for their insanely awesome videos featuring short math lessons taught in full drag. This episode isn't just about the importance of representation in STEM, but in the queer community as a whole. And last month, we even joined forces to host the first ever Pi Day drag brunch and it was insane.

Vanessa Vakharia  1:50 
Alright, I'm gonna stop fangirling because it's time for Kyne to blow the wig right off your noggin - let's do this.

Vanessa Vakharia  1:56 
Kyne, welcome to the podcast!

Kyne Santos  1:58 
Thanks for having me!

Vanessa Vakharia  2:00 
You're so welcome, I'm so excited, and I think the first thing I want to do is like, can you just describe your math TikTok videos to listeners who have never seen you before?

Kyne Santos  2:10 
Sure. yeah TikTok is crazy. I only just started getting on that this year, like just a few months ago. So my videos kind of started out as like, little riddle of the days and just fun little math things that I could think about. Because I am that person, like I am that person in the friend group who is like, challenging everybody with like weird riddles, like, "what do you think the bill will be when the when the bill comes? I bet it'll be $58.61"

Vanessa Vakharia  2:35 
(laughing)

Kyne Santos  2:37 
And I, my brain just works that way. So you know, I started making these little videos on TikTok, and then I would just talk about cool math things that I thought were interesting. Because these are things that I think are interesting. And I figure if I think they're interesting then somebody else will, and lots of people did - I was very shocked that it sort of blew up really quick.

Vanessa Vakharia  2:57 
Okay, wait, first of all, what do your friends say? When you ask them questions like that? Are they like kind?

Kyne Santos  3:02 
Oh my god, they just roll their eyes. They're so over it.

Vanessa Vakharia  3:06 
(Laughing) Okay, we're gonna talk more about your math videos. But let's just back up for a second and tell me quickly, like, how you got interested in math? Have you always been interested in math? What was the vibe growing up, like just a little, you know ...

Kyne Santos  3:19 
Yeah, um, I think math has always been like my best subject or one of my best subjects. It was something that my parents really instilled in me was a good subject to practice at. And so I always remember, I found that it came quite naturally to me. And then it wasn't until high school that I really started getting very passionate about it. Because, you know, when I was younger, I saw math as sort of just like adding one plus one and doing this calculation. And then when I was in high school, my teachers encouraged me to do these math contests, which were sort of like - if anybody out there has never done a math contest before, it's sort of like taking a math test, but the questions are much more about problem solving. So it's not like long computation questions, it's questions that really make you think outside of the box. And that's when I started seeing math a little bit differently and thinking, OK, math is actually quite creative and quite, really elegant sometimes. And so I did particularly well on one math contest that I got invited to a math camp at the University of Waterloo, where we just did more math questions all day - very nerdy, I know. (laughing) And then that's when I was really encouraged to pursue math after high school because at one time I wanted to go into like science and physics. But then doing this math camp really opened my eyes to seeing all the possibilities that I could achieve with math.

Vanessa Vakharia  4:46 
Well, I think that's so cool. I know for a lot of our students, the thought is if you're good at math, go into sciences because they don't see what you just said. Like they don't see that math can be interesting and beautiful. We really don't learn that at any point in high school, almost - right? Unless you have someone to take you under your wing. So I think that's really cool. You know, I also love, and we'll talk about this more in a second, but the fact that you're like a math communicator - there is not many of you, right? It's usually like, oh, Sci Comm, we go into science communication, because that seems so much more relevant. But I love that you're starting to be like, hold up - let's talk about math as something that's really relevant and interesting. Exactly! Yeah. I'm like, so thinking about that for a sec, I want to talk about your videos, because the thing is, I think you said that you started by trying to incorporate math into your wig making videos?

Kyne Santos  5:36 
Yeah. So before TikTok, I've  had an online presence for a long time, over on YouTube, I would make these like wig styling videos and sewing tutorials. Everything drag related, right? Because I'm a drag queen. And I've wanted to incorporate math into my videos for a long time. Because, you know, this is something that I've always liked ever since I started doing drag. But you know, in the beginning, people didn't really like it. And people didn't really understand it. And the comments would be like, "Oh, girl, you know, we didn't go to college. Like, this is too complicated for us."

Vanessa Vakharia  6:08 
So wait, how did that - that's so interesting! Like, let's pause on that. How did that make you feel? Were you fighting back? Or were you like, okay, this is not the right audience?

Kyne Santos  6:18 
No, I totally felt the latter. I was like, Okay, so this isn't gonna work. So really, I had kept my online sort of drag personality separate from me being a math student. And I'd never merged those two worlds, because when I tried to people sort of weren't really getting it. And people weren't really into it, and people weren't excited about it. And I was just like, okay, so maybe this isn't going to work. So that's why when I got on TikTok, it was a totally new platform for me. So that's why I felt like, Okay, I'm just gonna take this risk and do something like, completely different from the content that I was making on Instagram, or on YouTube or anywhere else, because this was sort of just like a throwaway platform for me. And then it was just, I guess, a stroke of luck that it got really successful.

Vanessa Vakharia  7:06 
Okay, so I want to say it was not a stroke of luck. I think what you're doing is groundbreaking and SO cool. And let's think about that. So you're, you're making these videos about drag - like, this is so similar to me. I'm not a drag queen, obviously. (laughing) I wish I was!  It's similar to me in the way that I'm in a band, right? And I have these two distinct personalities, which is like being a rock star and being a math teacher. And never shall the two meet, right? Like the second I get offstage, and someone's like, what do you do for money? Because like, everyone knows, you don't make money in music. And I'm like, I'm a math teacher. People are like, I don't get it. Like, "you don't look like a math teacher". And I've been thinking forever, this is the problem, right? Because if someone like you, for example, like thank God, you didn't, but someone like you could easily say, "well, fuck, I guess I have to pick one identity", right? Like, I need to pick - I either need to be a drag queen, or I need to be a mathematician. And that would be so problematic. Like, how did you fight that idea? Like, how did you how did you stay strong to yourself and say, no, these are two core aspects of my personality, I'm not giving one up?

Kyne Santos  8:10 
Well, I feel like over the past few years, it's definitely been something that I have been going back and forth between because, you know, I go through phases of being really excited about drag and being really inspired and feeling like I could do this for the rest of my life. And I just love this, I love being my own boss. And then there are other times where I am doing math, and I feel really excited about that, and feeling like this is really engaging my brain. And there's nothing else like this that I can do for myself that I find as fun. And I guess I've never really had to choose one, because this entire time that I've been doing drag, I've also been in school. So that has always been something that I've had to do. So I've always been able to do drag as a hobby when I get home from school, when I have nothing going on in all my free time and then also focusing on my school. So I've always been very privileged to have enough free time and to be in school. So I could continue doing both of them. But you know, I always had in the back of my mind, the feeling that okay, after I graduate that I'm really going to have to choose, am I going to try to do YouTube videos and try to do drag and perform full time? Or am I going to, you know, apply for a job somewhere? And now that I'm sort of reaching that part of my life, I'm finding that I can now - I'm very lucky that I have sort of merged the two worlds with my drag videos and math so that I can continue to pursue this path that I'm on.

Vanessa Vakharia  9:40 
I'm getting goosebumps, like, I'm just so excited. Honestly, I know this is crazy, but I feel like this is such a breakthrough. Like I always say to my students, like when I'm talking about this type of stuff and about the fact that like, I feel that popular media, you know, tries to make kids choose. I always say to them, have you ever seen a movie where the cheerleader is good at math? And like, I think we would say the same about a drag queen. And I think it's so problematic because, you know, you almost start playing it down being like, "I don't know, I've never had to choose". But honestly, I think you should be really, really proud at the fact that you have in a way chosen - like you have, in a way found a way to merge the two sides of yourself together to show people out there that you don't have to be one or the other. And that these stereotypes of what it means to be good at math, or what it means to be good at drag do not have to be in opposition to one another. So like, I think you're changing so many lives. And this is just the beginning the year the I mean, has anyone else ever done this?

Kyne Santos  10:40 
Not that I know of!

Vanessa Vakharia  10:41 
That's so cool! Like it's just the coolest thing. So okay, there's a quote you gave to BuzzFeed that I'm going to read: you said "when I was young and struggling with coming out, part of the struggle was I had this dream of being an academic. And I thought no one would take me seriously if I was gay, let alone if I was on stage in a two piece dancing to Lady Gaga. But that's the stereotype you've got to break." And that is so powerful, and I want to ask you: do you feel like you're doing that now? Do you feel that you're breaking those stereotypes? And why is that important to you?

Kyne Santos  11:15 
I guess I am. That is something that I've felt really strongly when I was a kid, that I felt that nobody would take me seriously. And nobody would hire me or want me to be an academic, if I was very flamboyant, and very stereotypically gay. So I guess that is something that I'm breaking now, because I am sort of doing the two at once. And if there's other people out there who felt the way that I did when I was a kid, then I hope that they can feel inspired. And you know, sometimes I do get messages from people saying, you know, I'm also a queer person in STEM, and I want to thank you for being so visible. And I really appreciate that.

Vanessa Vakharia  11:52 
Oh, that is so amazing. I hope you're saving all those and framing them because you're right, this goes for anything. You don't often realize the progress you're making day by day, right? Like you're often so focused on the trees, the forest or whatever. I think it's just so amazing, and so cool. And this is like such an interesting time we're in right now. I think we're thing you know, people are starting to really, first of all people are on TikTok more than like anything ever before. And yeah, a lot of young people are on TikTok. So I think this is kind of a huge deal that you are reaching a young demographic that really needs to hear that message, whether it's about like being a drag queen, and being a mathematician or being anything that seems so in opposition to one another. It's so important. But more than that, I mean, I've seen some of your videos where you're like, you're talking about COVID and COVID statistics and teaching your audience how to decipher fake news from real news, how has that like been kind of going for you? Because I'm very curious. Again, we talked about how science communication is such a big thing. But I've been saying since the beginning of the pandemic and the beginning of many of the social movements we've seen this year that part of the reason the public cannot get on board with scientific policy or anti-racist policy is that they simply do not understand the numbers. Have you seen that the way that you're helping the public understand those numbers? Has that been making shifts? Have you been getting messages about that?

Kyne Santos  13:19 
Yeah, people love the PSAs, and I think math is something that is so relevant to our time. You know, I make these videos for two reasons. Number one, I think math is fun. And it's beautiful. And it's interesting to study just on its own. But I also think that math is so important in this world, you know, there's numbers and headlines every day, especially this year with Coronavirus. There's always been these statistics of, you know, the cases have doubled in the last seven days. And people don't know how to interpret these numbers. And so, I think it's a really big shortcoming of people that they don't really know how to interpret them out that they see in the media. And so I think is so important today to be very literate and understand the math.

Vanessa Vakharia  14:09 
You had done a video about how math needs to be used for good instead of evil. Can you can you tell me what you meant by that?

Kyne Santos  14:17 
Yeah, there's a notion out there that numbers don't lie, but they do because people use them to mislead people.  People present numbers that are meaningless and they act like oh, you know, this number proves XYZ. And so when you use numbers to try to add legitimacy to a point of view that numbers can lie numbers can be misleading and numbers cannot give the full context. And so you can use them for good and use them to present information in an unbiased way or speak power to the truth, or you can use them to promote an agenda which, in my opinion, is using math for evil.

Vanessa Vakharia  15:00 
Okay, so what do you think about my theory that I've been forming since about like June that conspiracy theorists are either - okay, I don't even know which one, either they're like, they don't understand math, so they're just like kind of using it for evil, OR what's even more evil, they totally fucking understand the math and understand how to manipulate people with it. They're using their knowledge that the public mostly is afraid of math to throw numbers in their face to sort of like, what's that saying, you know,  when you're like, purple elephant or something.

Kyne Santos  15:29 
I don't know (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  15:30 
The distraction thing, red herring?

Kyne Santos  15:32 
Red herring! (laughing) Maybe purple elephant - I'm gonna use that. (both laughing)

Kyne Santos  15:39 
I mean, I tend to believe that people who are sharing, like, what I would consider really unscrupulous content online - I tend to believe that these people in their own minds think that they're doing the right thing. So I don't think if you asked one of them "Are you using numbers to be like people?" They probably would say no, they would think that they were using numbers in the truthful way. So I tend to believe that they just don't really know what they're talking about.

Vanessa Vakharia  16:08 
Okay, wow, that is so much nicer than everything I was thinking. So yeah, you know, I, but you're probably right. And also like, don't you just want to give these people a math lesson? Like, that's the thing. So you're right, like, maybe we should be like, they're well intentioned, but they don't know what they were talking about. And in fact, maybe they had math trauma, and they themselves can't decipher the numbers, and they're just using them and the only way they know how, Okay, you know what, that's a really sympathetic view, Kyne, I really like that, thank you. Okay. I also feel like you should teach them all math.

Vanessa Vakharia  16:39 
The other thing - I kind of wanted some advice from you. But first, I wanted to know, like, do you ever deal with pushback from these videos, you know, like, as someone out there breaking a pretty fucking big stereotype about what it means to be good at math and what it means to, you know, be clear and be out there and be proud of who you are? Have you received any hate?

Kyne Santos  17:01 
On my TikTok things tend to be quite positive. But I'll tell you what, whenever something of mine gets shared to like a really mainstream platform, like let's say BuzzFeed, or someone posts a video of mine, I will dare not to venture into the comments section. Because you know, people come up with these crazy ideas. "This is what the liberals want from men to emasculate men and this is all their sick plan" and like, just really off the wall comments, so I don't even go into the comments section. I learned a long time ago, whenever anything of mine is shared to like a super mainstream audience, like, I just don't even look into there because it is not worth reading.

Vanessa Vakharia  17:41 
Okay, but honestly, how do you do that? Like, people keep giving me that advice, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, of course. And then OBVIOUSLY, I go read the comments. And like, all it takes is ONE comment to like, set me into the deep end.

Kyne Santos  17:52 
I know - eventually it will get to a point where ... well, of course, I hope this doesn't happen to you. But if ever it gets to a point where the comments really get so bad, then that's when you really learn, okay, I really need to not read the comments.

Vanessa Vakharia  18:07 
That's the thing because I feel like with TikTok it's like, because of the algorithm it gets sent to people who aren't following you. And literally, I posted one random fucking TikTok in June or something, it was something about how this bar was really sexist, and I was reading the sign on the door. And I like I'm not famous on TikTok so like, I didn't think anything of it. I was like, cool. I have like, 10 followers. I picked up my phone qn hour later, and there were like, 200 people being like, "you're so ugly, of course, you're a feminist". Like I was all these comments about my nose. No, it was insane. It was traumatic. I was like, oh my god, they're gonna hunt me down, they're gonna kill me. I turned off the comments on the post it like, sent me into the deep end - first of all, none of the comments were even THAT bad. I mean, they were mean but like, in my mind, I was like, wow, you know this can get so bad, you hear about this all the time, you hear about death threats, you hear about it. So I kind of had to make this decision, which I haven't made yet, but of like, if I want to really have my voice heard on these platforms, I have to kind of grow a tough skin and be able to deal with this.

Kyne Santos  19:10 
Yeah, I sort of I sort of agree with that. It it does take a tough skin but I think there's nothing wrong with curating your comments section and you know, setting restrictions on who can leave a comment because it does take a toll on you. You know, no matter how thick you think your skin is, it does hurt to read some comments and some of them really get to you - you can read 100 really nice comments and then all it takes is one mean comment, and it ruins your day. But luckily my comments on TikTok are not like that, you know, cross my fingers.

Kyne Santos  19:42 
I tend to think that if I want to change people's minds, I have to do it from a loving point of view. I have to, instead of coming at them really aggressively, I have to just show them that you know I am breaking a stereotype and I am doing something that is in my mind a net positive for the world - I'm trying to help the world and make it a better place with math and education. And so you have a hard time believing that there will be people who are against that, you know, but I think those people, you just can't reach.

Vanessa Vakharia  20:18 
Yeah, you just can't reach. I did read a comment last week, it was like, you're never focusing on the most extreme of the haters, right? Like those aren't the people you're targeting your message towards, exactly, you're targeting them to either, you know, to people who are going to help you make change, or people who are kind of on the fence, or people who might, you know, have the opposite opinion of you, but are open even in a small way to listening. And the rest, you kind of have to forget about them. And I was kind of like, okay, that's actually a good way of thinking about it. You know, if your goal is perfection or changing everyone's mind, you're never going to feel like you've accomplished that so don't aim for that.

Kyne Santos  20:56 
Yeah, I'll tell you what, I've gotten some comments from people who have said things like, "Oh, you know what, my, my parents don't really like drag, they don't really get it. But I showed them your videos, and they approved of it, they liked your videos", and I think that is a really good step in the right direction. So there are people out there who are willing to change their minds and open their minds a little bit, you know, if they think drag is really a gross, perverse thing, you can show them this video of a drag queen talking about functions, and they'll say, maybe it isn't so bad. But of course, as you said, there are people out there who are so extreme, and no matter what I do, like they will be against it.

Vanessa Vakharia  21:40 
Well, I love that. And I think those success stories are actually really helpful. Like a small win is still a win. Yes.

Vanessa Vakharia  21:47 
Okay, let's talk about Drag Race. How did you feel? Okay, so first of all, what made you want to go on Drag Race? Like, let's just start with that?

Kyne Santos  21:53 
Well, I was always a big fan of the show in the US. And I've always wanted to go on it ever since I started watching the show, and ever since I started doing drag. And so when they said that they were going to do a Canadian spin off, I was very excited. And I obviously I put in an audition tape, and I was very lucky.

Vanessa Vakharia  22:11 
Just like that?! So you get on the show, you're on Drag Race which is a huge fucking deal. So did your math background come into play? Because I noticed that - like, I find this so hard when I do media stuff too, right?  Like, you know how on TV shows, they have to peg you as something, they want you to be a character, yeah, so like, they never brought up math once actually.

Kyne Santos  22:33 
I mean, I told him that I did math, and I talked about it in some interviews, but I felt that they they wanted me to be the social media queen, and play that character.

Vanessa Vakharia  22:43 
Right, right. Yeah, it's just so interesting how we like, I find it so interesting how, again, even though you're not choosing to, we can only like give out so much information about ourselves, right? And sometimes I find that I'm trying to make myself really easy to understand for other people. So like, sometimes if I'm targeting my message to a certain audience, I'll feel like I need to leave something out because it'll confuse them. So I'll be like, if I start talking about the band, they're gonna get all confused because people get confused again, because these stereotypes exist. I can't just be like, "Oh, I'm in a band. And I own this math tutoring studio." People are always like, I can't compute that, to be honest. So now I like I've been working on crafting my message. So every time I can say "I just need you to know now that you've met me, I'm these two things, like not just one." But anyways, not to make this about me. (laughing) But I was just thinking about how interesting that was. Okay, so generally, though, let's do a quick like, how did you feel about Drag Race? How did you feel about the way they edited it? People say you got the "villain edit". Like, is that - I guess that's a real thing?

Kyne Santos  23:49 
I mean, I don't know, I went in, and listen, I'm a very competitive person. And lots of people were like, "Oh, my God Kyne, I didn't know this about you, why were you so different?" I mean, it was a competition and I wanted to win, obviously. And I went in very competitive because that's kind of how I am and you know, I knew it was a reality TV show. I knew the cameras were on. So you know, I'm gonna have fun and you know, not give a fuck and say what's on my mind. And I mean, I felt every time you go in and you do something on camera, you know that you are giving them the license to do whatever they want with that footage. So you know, I'm not going to sit here and be like, upset or bitter about how it was edited, because they have the right to do whatever they wanted. And obviously, it didn't go the way I had planned, but it made me feel very much like I had a big learning experience from it. And I think you learn a lot more from your losses than from your wins. So it was a big experience for me.

Vanessa Vakharia  24:49 
Yes! You have such a good attitude. Okay, so I mean, time is kind of running out. But you've been so fascinating to talk to and you've said so many - like, I want to mic drop everything you've said - I want to ask a couple of final questions. And one of the final questions I want to ask is, what is the risk of never breaking these stereotypes? What if you didn't exist? Like, what if someone wasn't doing this work, what do you think the stakes are?

Kyne Santos  25:15 
I mean, the risk of never breaking these stereotypes is you have people like me when I was younger, not wanting to go into STEM, not wanting to do this because I'm gay. Or going into STEM but not really coming out and not really wanting to express myself because I feel that I can't.  And so, the world, would it really change that much? Probably not. But you'd have lots of people like me, willing to lie to themselves and willing to not live a free fulfilling life, and why would you ever want that? Why would you ever wish that on someone else? I don't understand. I think everybody should be able to pursue whatever they want and live their lives truthfully.

Vanessa Vakharia  25:59 
I'm literally trying not to cry. Number one, because it wouldn't look good. But seriously, that was so beautifully said, and Kyne I want to say, you know, would the world not change - yeah, those are the stakes actually! I think that the world will change dramatically because of the work you do. And the risk is that the world won't change. Because yes, we're talking about individual freedoms and passions, but on a macro level, just economically, if we don't have diversity and representation in STEM fields, the world doesn't change, the world doesn't change to represent everyone and to meet their needs. And quite frankly, from a pure business perspective, you are more competitive in a global economy when you have diversity. So there is that but also, you're right, it's not just about STEM, it's about the way we treat people and see people and value their experiences. So I think again, you're so humble, but seriously, you are changing so much more than you know, every person who you change, or you help to see their true selves is a win. But I think you're changing a lot more than that, it is that - and not to be all mathematical - but it is like an exponential butterfly effect. Those are two different mathematical terms. Sorry, guys. (laughing)

Kyne Santos  27:08 
Okay. No, I'll actually add to that, I think another important part is that there are, there's lots of people out there who aren't open to drag queens or to gay people, and they have these stereotypes in their minds about what gay people are really like. And I think it's important to break those stereotypes and show that we're not ust one-sided people - we're people with very complex personalities, we're people who have our own ambitions and fears. And we can be very competitive and very sassy, but we can also be very smart and very creative and bring something really valuable to the table when it comes to academia.

Vanessa Vakharia  27:50 
Absolutely. So I often say you can't be what you can't see. And you're really showing people, you're helping them see what they haven't before. Was there anything that made you or helped you get the confidence to be what you hadn't seen before?

Kyne Santos  28:06 
When it comes to sort of integrating my math and my drag, I'll tell you who was a bit of a source of inspiration for me was Trixie Mattel from Drag Race. Because I remember she used to do interviews talking about playing music, because she plays the guitar. And she used to say that her brand was this life-size Barbie doll. And she never thought that playing the guitar was something that she could mix into being a drag Barbie doll. And so she thought she could never collide those two worlds, because of course, she was a professional ... um ... instrument player. I don't know if I just said that right. (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  28:45 
Oh my god! (laughing) A musician?!

Kyne Santos  28:45 
A musician! Yes, yes, yes, that's the word. (laughing)

Kyne Santos  28:54 
Anyway, she would say that one day she just decided to do it. And then from there on, it just made her drag persona that much more complex and that much more three-dimensional. And so that sort of inspired me to think, who says I can't do math and drag? Who says that can't be a combination. And so I just decided to do it. And, you know, just as it happened for her, it just, I felt made my drag so much more complex and three-dimensional.

Vanessa Vakharia  29:23 
Okay, final two questions. What would you say to someone who says that they're not a math person?

Kyne Santos  29:29 
I would say that, you know, not everybody has to be a - you don't need everybody to be getting straight A's in math, and not everybody needs to pursue math as a career. But I think that everybody benefits from math anyway in their lives, and everybody sees math and headlines and in the news, and I think we all need to be a little bit of a math person in the sense that we all need to be able to read math, and we all need to be able to interpret math. And I also think that math is something that aside from being relevant to our world is something that is really beautiful and powerful. And you have people who aren't necessarily science people going to science museums and watching documentaries about science, you have people who aren't necessarily art people or art majors that go to the museum to look at paintings on the wall. And so why can we have that same relationship with math? Why can we go to museums and look at masterpieces of math? Why can't that just be something that is part of the common culture? So I think everybody can be a math person in the sense that there are also beginner science people or beginner art people in the way that they approach those things.

Vanessa Vakharia  30:43 
Oh, my God, I love it! Also, we need a math museum. Also, there is one actually in New York! It's like the world's only, I've never been.

Vanessa Vakharia  30:49 
Final final question. What is the one thing you'd like to see change about the way math is taught in schools?

Kyne Santos  30:56 
Ooh, that is a great question. I would like to see math taught more from the approach of problem solving and intuition, and not so much just rote memorization of formulas. Because when I was in school, I really felt that just having to do long computations was not really something that would make other people like math. And it's not really something that made me like math.  You know, we don't need to train kids to be like calculators, we need to instead train kids to think like the people who program the calculators, which involves a much deeper understanding. And when you get people to connect the dots of math and see how everything connects, I think that is much more - first of all, it's more similar to what you do in higher level math anyway. And second of all, it's more applicable to daily life and problem solving in the real world. You know, you don't need people to know how to do the Pythagorean Theorem when they grow up, but to understand why the Pythagorean theorem is so important, and where it applies the world is so much more important.

Vanessa Vakharia  32:09 
Okay, tell our listeners where they can find you.

Kyne Santos  32:12 
Yes. So you can find me at @onlinekyne on pretty much everywhere, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram that's "online" and then K-Y-N-E - it's my name, it rhymes - easy. (laughing)

Vanessa Vakharia  32:27 
This has literally been so fun, you're so amazing, you're so inspiring, you have so much to share with our listeners, and I know everyone's gonna leave being so inspired. I know I'm so inspired! Thank you so, so fucking much.

Kyne Santos  32:39 
Thanks for having me! This was lots of fun.

Vanessa Vakharia  32:41 
Yay, bye!

Vanessa Vakharia  32:44 
I'm crying. You're crying. I mean, I bet somewhere out there even RuPaul is crying. I just love what Kyne said about representation in the queer community. And it is so true that our obsession with categorizing harms everyone, not just those in math. I am so so happy this conversation happened and I hope you are too - follow Kyne everywhere but especially on TikTok @onlinekyne. If something in this episode inspired you please tweet us at @MathTherapy. And you can also follow me personally at @TheMathGuru on Instagram or Twitter. Math Therapy is hosted by me Vanessa Vakharia, produced by Sabina Wex and edited by David Kochberg. Our theme song is WVV by Goodnight, Sunrise which is actually my band. If you know someone who needs Math Therapy or needs to hear someone else getting Math Therapy, please share this podcast and rate or review it on whatever podcast app you use - those things actually makes such a big difference. I am determined to change the culture surrounding math and to give math a massive makeover and I truly need your help, so spread the word. That's all for this week - stay tuned for our next episode out next Thursday!