Polygon Exit Interview: Christina Gayton, social video producer
Polygon's former short-form video wiz talks their time with the site and their new debut EP
Welcome to Polygon Exit Interviews, a series of chats with my excellent former Polygon employees who were laid off (along with me) when Valnet purchased the website from Vox Media May 1. We’re talking about how these talented people got to Polygon, what they did in their time there, and what they hope is next.
Next up: Christina Gayton, who was a social video producer at Polygon. Christina made short-form videos for Polygon’s TikTok and Instagram, in addition to co-hosting streams and appearing in YouTube videos. Relentlessly creative and full of fresh ideas, in one of their first big projects for the site, Christina lived like Mario for a week. It was very, very funny.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about your pre-Polygon background.
I graduated college in 2021 – I had a make-your-own-major degree at NYU, and I ended up calling it ethical digital media – and then I was briefly freelancing after that. I was doing some editing work for various companies, some social media management for a bagel company and a snack subscription company. And then eventually I thought I'm tired of being broke, I'll get a full time job. My first full-time job was a real estate assistant. I did that for maybe eight months, and then randomly one day, I looked at the Vox Media job board and found the social video producer position.
What do you remember about first joining?
I just remember being super excited and in disbelief. I was definitely pretty shy at first, and nervous to be joining the company, because everyone seemed, and was, truthfully, more experienced than I was. I was just thrilled to be there. I remember going to the Vox Media office for the first time. I was so excited. I was like, Wow, I got a badge, this is a cool, fancy office, and they have free snacks. Just utterly, utterly stoked and in disbelief.
Can you run me through your history at Polygon – what roles you had, and what each entailed?
I was on the video team, but specifically I was the social video producer. I was brought on to focus on TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, that kind of thing. I mostly made videos for short-form, in contrast to the rest of the video team, who mostly focused on long-form. But during my time there, eventually it became a blend. My supervisor, Simone [de Rochefort], started working on a lot more short-form too.
Something that always impressed me about your work is you seemed to come to Polygon with a full-formed sense of your video style, especially comedically. Where did you find that, and how did it develop at Polygon?
Gosh. I think it came from me having watched a lot of content growing up, and I had made a few videos in my free time for myself prior to work. So I knew some basic things about editing, I knew my way around Premiere. I did some theater and sketch comedy growing up, so maybe that's also where it comes from. But I think it is an interesting thing to translate spoken comedy to then edited comedy with sound effects and visuals and the pacing and whatnot.
Are there any specific creators who come to mind who were particularly influential for your style?
I don't know that they were consistently influential for my style, but I think they were influential for the Polygon TikTok – [NPR’s] Planet Money, the guy who makes their TikToks. He would make these very fun sketches in front of a green screen. And although we didn't do sketches, I just liked his editing style, the rhythm, the captions, and how light hearted it was.
Brag about yourself: what’s one thing you’re proud of from your time at Polygon?
There was this short-form essay on body extremism and animation, and I remember I spent so long on that edit and that video in general. Like, so, so long. Looking back, I'm really proud of that, it's that TikTok where I'm like, Oh my gosh. I put so much effort into that. And it also did well views wise, which made me happy. I struggle with that sometimes, being proud of work in terms of Oh, I'm just proud of this thing I made, versus, I'm proud of this thing that I made, plus it got these views.
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Another thing that I'm proud of, but didn't do as well views-wise, is living as Mario for a week. It was just so fun, and I felt so inspired during and after that week, and I am really happy with how it turned out, regardless of how it performed. I think the video also got limited monetization because I put a curse word at the beginning and we didn't remove it. I wish I could have done more videos like that.
Everyone pitched in across sections at Polygon. What’s a time where you did something outside of your core job responsibilities that you enjoyed?
I'll say something else, since we've already touched on this, but the Mario video was outside of my core responsibilities, since it was a YouTube video and not short-form. That was really nice, editing YouTube videos is hard. So much more time goes into that, but that was fun. But completely outside of the video realm, I would say the interviews I did at TwitchCon and VidCon. One of them I turned into an article for the site, and then the others I turned into short form videos. But going to VidCon and TwitchCon definitely wasn't a part of my responsibilities. But I was like, Oh, what if I did? We could get some content out of it. That was cool.
Do you have a favorite Polygon story or video by someone else?
My favorite video by someone else is by Patrick Gill, aka pizza_suplex, now streaming on Twitch. His video on Call of Duty and the military entertainment complex, that's so interesting, it was so well done. That idea has stuck in my mind, and I feel like it has repeatedly come up in conversations.
And then the article by Nicole Carpenter about journal games. I had never heard of journal games before, and once I read about it, I felt like I started seeing it everywhere. The idea of it is very nice, having this physical, paper thing that is representative of your time with the digital game.
What do you think is the biggest misconception that people outside the industry have about the work?
This is something that has come up with friends: Polygon, at the very least, was not so plagued by people annoying us about “woke games journalism.” I don't know if other people on the team have experienced that more, but sometimes when I told people I worked at Polygon or on the video side of games journalism, they would bring up GamerGate and ask if I've experienced any of that, and I'm like, Oh no, it's been pretty chill. I don't really get hate comments on my social media or anything like that. And recently, in Simone's letter to Jim Bankoff, she noted how special of a space Polygon was, because our comment sections were pretty positive. With the layoffs, and Polygon being very much in the news with the sale, I did start to get some comments saying, Good, Polygon is gone. Go woke, go broke. But that was like the first time ever in my three years of working here.
What’s your wish for the future of games journalism or digital media?
It would be nice to have more worker-owned companies or collectives. I remember when I was interviewing for Polygon, I was talking to some of the team members there, and one of the questions I asked was, what is your dream or goal for Polygon? And the answer that Pat gave at the time was for it to become a collective of creators, where we can all make a stable income and support each other.
What’s next for you?
I am very focused on music. I have an artist project under the name of XTINA GG, and my debut EP see u online came out this June. Hopefully I can make a full-time career out of that, but I think I might also start making my own gaming videos here and there. I don't want to jump into a full-time job, I think, immediately, but maybe find something part-time and blend that with my music income, gaming income and figure it out from there.
Where can people follow you and your work?
I have two YouTube channels, one that's just XTINA GG for my music, and then one that's XTINA GG (god gamer).. Kind of cringe, but that's for gaming stuff. And then, of course, I'm on Instagram, Bluesky, all the places.