What wearing a fake mustache and running a made-up research project has taught me about leadership, collaboration, and learning
heehee
Hello!
In this piece, in the spirit of learning out loud, I share some #ahas, #ofcourses, and #whatabouts that have popped up over the last four months of running The Kaiju Papers. If movie monsters and Godzilla are not your thing, don’t worry! This piece is more about leadership, collaboration, and learning than about monsters. That said, a definition might be helpful: “Kaiju” simply means “strange beast,” but refers to the monsters that appear in (primarily) Japanese films.
I’ll catch you up on how we got here, tell you what I’m thinking about the future, and then share some concrete learnings. First, though, some GV updates:
I made a tiny zine about why I approach my work the way I do! Find it here: A Facilitative Approach to Organizational Effectiveness (I’ve been using physical copies of this instead of business cards—that’s been really fun)
I’m slowly, but surely, working on another ART TALKS! Piece about Firelei Báez’s art. For fans of time travel, sci-fi, decolonization, and vibrant colors. She’s got a show in NYC on through July 31! If you can go, go!
Over the next few months, I’ll be in lots of different places: Little Rock (AR), Sharon (PA), Chicago (IL), Portland (OR) … if you’re there, too, and want to explore collaboration, reach out! If you want to know what kind of work I want to do more of, look no further than:
Now for learnings!
WHAT IS THE KAIJU PAPERS?
The Kaiju Papers is a transmedia arts and social justice advocacy project that combines futures thinking, political education, speculative fiction, and storytelling to build more just and equitable futures through the lens of Kaiju media.
The Kaiju Papers is presented as a Very Serious (wink wink) research mission (Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026) that aims to answer the question, “What might our shared future(s) be like if humankind were to implement lessons from Kaiju about love, anti-fascism, the world, and ourselves?”
In more plain language, The Kaiju Papers is an arts & political education project, creating stories and world(s) through the lens of Kaiju and movie monster media. TKP’s goals are:
To remind people of their power and that we can challenge (and change) the status quo
To help folks draw connections between the movies they love and real-world politics and happenings (climate, immigration, surveillance, etc)
HOW WE GOT HERE
If you’re reading this piece, you likely know that I love writing about how everything in our world(s) can teach us about our work, ourselves, and each other, especially in the context of building future(s) that work for everyone. This winter, I wrote about what Ruth Asawa and her art can teach us, what orchids can teach us, and even what a bird can teach us!
As I kept writing, I dove further into understanding futures and sci-fi as organizing principles and ways of thinking. I started playing with these ideas in my work with philanthropic organizations by facilitating time travel exercises, inviting folks into futures-orientations, and generally getting a bit more weird at work.
So that’s our setting—I was writing about everything I could and learning about futures and foresight methods to use in my work with philanthropic organizations.
THEN! On a cold, dark Saturday in late February, I watched my first Godzilla film—Godzilla from 2014 (which, as I now know, kicks off the American Monsterverse movies). I had so many feelings about the big guy! (I think he looks like a sweetie pitbull.) My curiosity piqued, the internet led me to Godzilla Minus One (2023), a Japanese film that won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
I was hooked! What a story! What a way to navigate grief, anger, fear, hope, and healing! I had so many questions about where Godzilla came from—both the character and the story. I had that same thought I have about so many other things: “#ofcourse! I should write about what Godzilla can teach us about facilitation and organizational effectiveness in social justice organizations!” Reasonable, predictable, measured. A normal thought. Like always.
I read somewhere that Godzilla Minus One was a reimagining of the original Godzilla from 1954, so I decided that’s where I would start—all the way back to the beginning. As I was thinking about how to write about the big guy, I remembered one of my favorite jokes: the famed rejection letter to a backyard archaeologist from a made-up Curator of Antiquities at the Smithsonian’s Paleoanthropology division. Perfect: the tone would be absurd, dry, and academic. (I think this kind of humor is VERY FUNNY.)
So, in early March, the Kaiju Field Report was born.
From here, things really got out of hand. I decided I would watch every Godzilla movie ever made and synthesize each film’s lessons. At first, I was focused on lessons about facilitation and organizational effectiveness, but I quickly realized that I needed to broaden the scope to what it is now: to understand what our shared futures might look and feel like if humanity were to act on lessons from Kaiju about love, anti-fascism, ourselves, and the world. Over the course of a few weeks, I decided that the Field Reports would outline lessons for humanity that might come in handy as we work to build more just and equitable futures.
And here’s the thing: I didn’t just work on this in my head, as I was writing. I created a whole silly world: a Field Office, Mission Headquarters … I submitted a scope change proposal to myself, then I wrote a memo to myself approving the scope change. I requested resources from myself with a made-up form (to see it, scroll to the bottom of this page). I wrote a memo to myself to please stop making things up. I wrote an entire project research methodology. (I even downloaded PhD coaching resources to get it right) I was having a blast, cracking up at my own jokes at my computer. #whatabout what happens when you take a joke to the furthest possible limit?
NOTE: If you’re wondering, “who asked for this?” … No one. As the methodology says, “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Some of you watched me experiment in real time: at first, the Godzilla pieces were published under GV Advisory’s newsletter, Making Mischief at the End of Empire. Then I panicked: this is too weird! Too unprofessional! No one will hire me ever again! So, I gave The Kaiju Papers its own home and kept it anonymous. #aha I can position silly things so that they can remain silly and I can remain safe.
Then, I started to wonder how I could invite other folks into the project. I decided to start an Arts Department, whose mandate would be to illustrate a vision of a future in which we had acted on some of the lessons outlined in the Field Reports. But! People were SKETCHED OUT by the prospect of collaborating with an anonymous project. Ugh, fair. #ofcourse I would be sketched out, too
I still wasn’t comfortable saying “hey this is run by genevieve,” so I created characters to maintain my anonymity (they are all either my pets or variations of me wearing a fake mustache).
I wrote a “press release” and an Arts Department Creative Brief, all in the hope that some other goofballs on the internet would see them, get the joke, also see the reverence and hope, and want to collaborate.
AND THEY DID. I started receiving emails containing incredibly hopeful, grounded, and lovely art. The first piece of art was published in mid-April, five weeks after the project kicked off. #aha ohhhh maybe there’s something here
From the start, I decided I would never paywall any content, since I believe that knowledge should be treated as a collective good. I did experiment with paid subscriptions, though: for $8 per month, folks can receive postcards with behind-the-scenes mission updates from the Field Office team. And people signed up! The project’s first paid subscriber posted on the internet that this paid subscription meant that they were on the Mission’s Board of Directors, which I thought was brilliant, so I ran with it. (The project was still at a point where I could go, “yeah! Let’s do that!”) So now, in what I think is very funny commentary on poor governance, paid subscribers get a seat on the Board of Directors but they don’t get any decision-making power. Since this started in April, The Field Office Team (me) has mailed out 24 postcards. Fun! #aha maybe there’s something here
Between May and June, momentum really started to build. I started meeting some folks in the Godzilla and Kaiju fandom who are really kind and talented. Some are paleoartists, paleontologists, comic book authors, and more … the nine-year-old boy version of myself is THRILLED. A few things happened in rapid succession: I started making zines and people started ordering them, I got to go to a Kaiju convention here in Brooklyn and got a ton of encouragement and positive feedback, and other folks started writing about The Kaiju Papers. That’s a lot of validation, coming quickly!
Thanks to that validation, something shifted for me in early June—I had the #aha about “maybe there’s something here” enough times in a row that it became an #ofcourse. I decided to reclaim the project. Enough people told me, “This is not a joke. This is crucial. This is changing the way I think about and move through the world.” I also started hearing from queer and trans folks that The Kaiju Papers was giving them a space to exist—I’ve learned that a lot of the Kaiju and Godzilla fandom is fairly bigoted. I realized that if other folks were treating the project with reverence, I should, too. I should own it!
I added “Creator/WorldBuilder at The Kaiju Papers” to my LinkedIn profile (ha!) and decided to stand up straight about the whole thing. #aha this is not something to hide. I can call myself an artist … right?
A lot of other things have happened since then! For the most part, folks have been incredibly kind. A small number of loud men on the internet have gotten VERY mad about this work. I’m still having a ton of fun, and the project is at a transition point: I’m moving from the “move fast and break things” phase to the “ok, what does this project look like in X years? What do I want this to turn into?” (That’s why you’re receiving this missive about what I’m learning—this is an input into a mini-strategy process :) )
While I don’t know exactly what The Kaiju Papers will look like in any given amount of time, I do have a few concrete goals, which you can read about at the end of this piece! I’m sharing these in the hopes that saying them out loud will make them feel more possible, and that if any folks reading this have ideas or suggestions, that they’ll reach out!
First, though, I offer some of my lessons learned so far:
LESSONS ON LEADERSHIP
In my consulting life at GV Advisory, I often work with Executive Directors and other folks in leadership who think—because of their politics and the fact that they are justice-focused—they have to be collaborative and participatory in every decision they make! This is often not only false, but it winds up getting in the way of the work and productive relationships.
As a consultant, I have SO MUCH experience working with folks on this: I help them get clear on what kind of decisions they need to make when, I help them see that making certain decisions quickly and without much input can actually be an act of compassion, and so many other things. I mean, my chosen co-worker Gabi Fitz and I dedicated a large chunk of a metaphor to this!
As the leader of a growing transmedia storytelling project and publication? It’s a different story, baybee!!!!! Wow! I found myself saying, “I want this to be entirely collaborative” and then getting resentful or frustrated and confusing my collaborators. Or I found myself asking for input where it wasn’t really needed: people are happy to follow instructions when they make sense and when it’s appropriate for the relationship. My. Goodness.
At one point, I had to say no to a prospective collaborator, and I was so worried. I thought, “now we have to get on a call and develop community agreements and go through a whole conflict navigation thing to make sure no one is hurt…” and my husband said, “it is nowhere near that deep! You can just send an email with the words, “sounds like this isn’t going to work out, thanks anyway!” and that BLEW MY MIND.
At work, I have a lot of power, but so much of it is influencing power. I ask a lot of questions, I preface any suggestions with caveats like, “here’s where my knowledge gaps are,” or “I am not the one who will be managing this down the road…” and for the most part, I like that. I’m good there—it’s my lane. Saying “no” to something without having multiple discussions about it?! WHAT?! #aha not everything has to be participatory for it to be politically aligned
I’ve been eating my own cooking, and asking myself the same questions I ask my clients. I’ve had to:
Get clear on where i’m open to collaboration and where I’m not, and being ok with that (and open about it)
Realize where I’m saying things like “this can belong to everyone” and where I don’t actually mean it
Notice my reticence in the beginning to just say “no” to stuff for fear of hurting peoples’ feelings or looking bad
Get get honest about where I’m trying to be participatory for the sake of being participatory rather than it being rooted in strategy and good for the work + people
I’m confident that I’ve never been flippant about these things when I’ve seen leaders of organizations come up against similar stumbling blocks, but I’ve got to admit that running The Kaiju Papers has helped me understand these behaviors in a whole new way.
LESSONS FROM A FAKE MUSTACHE
I can’t talk about what I’ve learned so far without talking about the mustache. I thought that I would be mortified walking around in public in a fake mustache, but it’s actually had the opposite effect: when I’m wearing the mustache, I feel GREAT. I feel confident, like the arrogant cowboy of my dreams.
I’ve wandered around Chicago and New York wearing it—my mustachioed self (known as Dr. Tex “Steve” Collins) has visited the American Museum of Natural History three times (thrice?!), the Field Museum in Chicago, and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art (where the mustache got us free admission, thank you very much). I also attended a Kaiju convention (my first experience of an event like this), and felt little-to-no social anxiety. When it’s just me, without a mustache, I can feel so anxious! The mustache helps me not worry that I look like a dork: I’m already a dork.
The mustache has also solidified what I already knew about myself: in large groups, I love having a job. I am not unlike a cattle dog. In one-on-one settings, I’m relaxed. In groups of four or more people, I get antsy and feel best when I have a job to do. Whether it’s playing music, facilitating, or getting everyone snacks, I feel my best when I am being helpful. The mustache gives me a job, so it helps me feel more comfortable around large groups of people.
LESSONS FROM BEING ON THE INTERNET
The internet is a wild place to be. The Kaiju Papers has accounts on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Bluesky, and—as I mentioned above—for the most part, people have been great. A small number of people have been TERRIBLE! Yes, there are folks who hate my politics, but there are also folks who appear to have similar politics but behave in very wild ways. I’ve started running into some parasocial and judgemental behavior, and it’s been a good reminder to set and re-set solid boundaries.
This is a stretch for me—this project has catapulted me out of my usual comfortable bubbles: my political alignment bubble, my clear communication and collaboration bubble, and my “most folks are respectful” bubble. Kind of a rude awakening, but a good reminder of how grateful I am for my bubbles. Plus, it’s good to get out of these bubbles, right?
I’ve set some clear boundaries for myself about who I respond to and how, who can break through The Kaiju Papers characters and meet me, the real genevieve, and how much time I spend on social media.
HOW MY LEARNINGS ARE INFORMING MY CONSULTING PRACTICE
All of these learnings are informing my work with philanthropic organizations—here’s how they’re translating at the moment.
TKP is like an experimentation ground: I can try things at TKP without much risk. When they’re ready or more solid I can bring them to my client work through GV Advisory. Futures methodology is a good example—I can play with ideas and get clear on what feels good and what doesn’t before I bring them to clients.
I’m becoming an even better partner to folks in Leadership, with more empathy.
I have to use plain language with TKP—instead of “just & equitable futures,” I say “better futures.” TKP is helping me see where I live in philanthro-speak!
TKP is reinforcing my belief that whimsy and joy are not frivolous. My approach to this work deserves to be taken seriously and respected.
TKP is making me more patient—it gives me a space to make my own decisions and exercise a different kind of power, so I am more comfortable with slower pacing at work. TKP soothes the urgent parts of me who need to see progress to feel good. This is not something I want to enable too much, but having a space for this makes me a better and more patient collaborator in other parts of my life.
WHAT’S NEXT
TKP is growing fast! Here’s what’s coming in the next few months, in order of set-in-stone to aspirational:
SET IN STONE:
TKP will continue to publish Field Reports and art.
We’re opening The Kaiju Papers Literary Magazine at the end of July. A new collaborator whose work I really admire will be managing submissions and writing for the mag, and we’ve got a couple of other writers lined up to contribute. For now, the TKP Literary Mag will be digital, but I would like to explore something in print, pending sponsorship (more on that in just a bit).
TKP will print more zines!
ASPIRATIONAL:
I’m putting the project forward for some fellowships and artist-in-residence programs, specific to arts for social justice advocacy. If y’all know of programs like this that TKP might be a good fit for, please reach out!
In the next year, I’d like to produce an in-person experience along the lines of a museum pop-up: folks might walk through a museum-adjacent space and experience artifacts from the future developed by the Arts Department (such as these artifacts from 326 years into the future), peruse the Field Reports, and then come into a shared space where we engage in some futures work, facilitated by Dr. Tex (me in a mustache). The idea here would be that participants walk away with a sense of what they can do now to build better futures, together—that they’re reminded of their power and the power of community and interdependence.
I would love to have TKP zines stocked at radical bookstores, but I have no idea how to build or start those relationships (and, without funding, I don’t have much capacity to learn).
Speaking of funding! I would love for TKP to not be volunteer-run. I want to TKP to pay for my time, pay artists, writers, and other contributors, but I’m not totally sure how to go about this. I’m thinking of starting a sponsorship program, where folks can opt in to sponsor pieces of the project (such as the Literary Mag, the Field Office, or the Arts Department). I’m also wondering if TKP might be hired for workshops or events, to essentially do what GV Advisory does but in a new context.
Eventually, I would love TKP to become something that is sturdy—that provides space, community, and some sustenance to myself and to contributors. Crazier things have happened, right?
All of this said, if y’all have any suggestions, ideas, or resources to share, please do let me know. And, if you’re into this kind of thing, please consider subscribing!
I’ll be back sometimes soon with some ART TALKS!, but I’m trying to avoid putting too much pressure on myself. Thanks for hanging around.
xoxo
gv
ADDENDUM: line-by-line learnings, using #aha, #whatabout, and #ofcourse
#AHA
Love a mustache
People, like, really love this
One of my favorite pieces of feedback is from queer folks who love kaiju but have not had a pro-queer kaiju-related space to be in
The Knowledge Management work i’ve done over the years is REALLY helping me organize this work
Open calls for collaboration DO NOT work for this project - without context, people think TKP is a Real Institution and their expectations are way too high, immediately (also the number of people who submit to things without reading the details is BONKERS)
Running a fake research institution is great because if I’m behind I can blame it on the bureaucracy
When folks unsub i don’t take it nearly as personally as when folks unsub from making mischief
Learning from moving from substack to ghost: subscriptions from Substack are not entirely reliable: a verification process where folks say ‘yes I really do want to subscribe” is more sustainable than folks who subscribe with one click because I said something funny on the internet
When I feel stressed about the project, I have to remind myself that no one asked for this and it’s entirely made up
I don’t have to respond to mean, bigoted men on the internet
#OFCOURSE
I love writing, I always have. I love this specific style of writing - political analysis and bringing together lots of threads and also being overly academic and weird
Delegation (in some places) is helpful
I love zines
This is not for everyone
The bigger this gets, the more angry some men on the internet are
My work with GV advisory is super helpful for strategy, etc
It’s HARD to do your own strategic work!
This takes TIME
Running a bunch of social accounts is kind of nuts
Collaboration for collaboration’s sake is unhelpful
I want to be liked and the internet is not a good place for that
#WHATABOUT
How to sustainably fund this project? Might folks sponsor the different departments (field office, Literary magazine, arts department)? What other revenue streams might there be?
How to more effectively increase conversions from social media followers to subs to paid subs?
How might TKP work with publishers like AK press, Verso, or Haymarket?
How the heck do people get zines in bookshops?
What else do I need to know about copyright to keep the project safe? Do I need to change anything?
How else might I tend to my boundaries online?