how is this merchandise going to then have a life of its own once it leaves you and part of that is having that merchandise, having the life as well as the person who's selling, it gives you some gives the purchaser either a story, or either the tools to be able to have the merchandise, have a life of its own outside of when it leaves the booth. Either by telling I bought this from a scientist who works on this or this actually represents this galaxy, or this is my sign. And, so I think that will be a way for this to actually be engagement because you want it to spark something into, in that person who actually bought it. You don't want them to say, Oh, I bought these earrings, but I'm never gonna wear them, but when they go out into the world and they put them on and like a special occasion, and then when people ask, what it says, and then they are able to like be science and become like a mini science educator

I actually bought earrings. And one of the reasons why that I really honed in on buying those things was because of the talking with the scientists, and talking about her research and how that, and then part of the one thing that was the big selling point was these are real images and you're going to be wearing the cosmos. So, I think it's what is your message? As far as not just selling, but if you're doing some outreach part, and I would have like that little card that you had to show the different galaxies, if that actually came in, came with my earrings a little small, version of that, so that I could then if you want your merchandise, the people to take your merchandise, and then really talk about it with their friends, then have that and so that they can kind of remember what it is that I saw had the butterfly galaxy. And when people asked me about my earrings, I can say, "Hey, this is the butterfly galaxy." And then maybe we were talking about another thing was being able to have some dialogue with you. And if you had a Instagram page, and had people have it out, and this is where I wore my earrings, we talked about it, and be able to tag you and tell you about it. So I don't know, I guess it's your ultimate goal of what you want with this merchandise to do when it goes out into the world.

So encouraging agency in the sciences, which is like what my work has always been about. I think Latasha, you were saying that like, you want to encourage people to get excited about science, because you want to give them a sense that at least for non scientists, you want to give them a sense, like this is a space where you belong and where you're allowed to ask questions and where you're allowed to be an investigator and, and feel like you have agency in the scientific space. And if that's the goal using a commercial kind of outlet for that is in many ways, lentirely at odds with that, because it's about buying your way into a thing, Oh, by purchasing this thing, I have the capital to buy this thing, then I can be this thing, which I don't think any of us agree that's true, but I do think there is like an implicit messaging that's happening there. That's also kind of at odds with where we are in terms of thinking about the environment and our relationship as like stewards of the environment and not like just buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff. And so I wonder if there's a little bit of like when you're talking, I think this doesn't, it's not like this applies to Startorialist. I think it applies to like trying to be an advocate for this type of engagement at large for me, that's like a little bit of a point of friction.

And those kind of I guess kind of specialty shops or I can, me and my mom used to go to those things all the time and it feels like you've been, I go to those and it's a different experience from Aiden to go to Walmart or whatever like a big store, because then you're like going to these boutiques and you're getting to know the people and it feels like a different kind of shopping. And I think it's all about being then there's a loyalty there that gets that you then translate to other people because you're like, "Oh, I found this really cute shop." And then you want to buy from those people and then introduce your friends to this kind of special experience that you've had.

I just want to add as I'm going to come as a person who loves to go to these things and shop. And also I think that when you have those conversations, it adds to the experience. And then I come away with the merchandise that I feel good about. And something that I'm like, "Oh, I really remember why I bought this thing. And I want to shop more from those ... I want to get something else." When I'm thinking of buying more earrings. And I will remember that experience and then want to go back to that person.

General public is just like this catch all term. That doesn't it's not really descriptive in a helpful way for you as a purveyor of both things that you want to sell and a purveyor of knowledge that you want to integrate or weave into a conversation. And the idea that somehow you could just give that knowledge to people and they just kind of want it, I think, as an older model of thinking about science communication, where you're, you guys are experts and you're just dumping it on people that come to you. Whereas I think thinking like who is my audience? Why are they coming here? What did they want to know? And that's primary. And so that should be both primary for collecting information. So you can keep, I'm learning more, and more and more about who is a Startorialist fan? Why are they coming to you? Why are they buying things from, how do you differentiate those audiences?

on the other hand also having it be legitimize as a form of research communication, if that makes sense. I get super excited, for example, when there's like big press conferences, when the image of the black hole came out. So we have the new image of the black hole on a bunch of jewelry when that image came out, one of the women at one of the press conferences was wearing a dress by one of the designers that we've worked with in the past. And now I've seen her even give more recent talks and she has a custom dress with the black hole image on it, by that same designer. And so that we weren't directly involved with, but we've supported that designer, given her images, helps connect her with other people for other projects.

So on one hand at the Grand Bazaar we wanted to blend in, we wanted to seem like a legit professional retail stand, which we are, but we are at the same time we hadn't really done it for the public before. But at the same time we sent you notice that we wanted to blend in and seem professional like that, at the same time we wanted to stand out, and be recognized as a little bit different. We definitely want to do engage people in conversation kind of whether or not we sold them things. And so it was a fine line that we were riding whether or not I really realized that at the time