There Are No Girls on the Internet - Her Playboy picture changed the internet forever - Stuff Mom Never Told You

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Even if you’ve never seen Lenna Forsén’s image, you know it, because an image of the Swedish former model went on to be one the most important images in internet history. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Welcome to There Are No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the intersection of technology, identity, and social media. Now, even if you've never seen the iconic image of former model Lena Forsen, if you've ever shared a meme on the Internet or texted a picture to a friend, in some ways, you have her picture to thank for it.

I joined my friends Samantha and Annie over at the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You to dig into the Lena image and why this month, Lena, is finally retiring as the First Lady of the Interested. internet. Hey, this is Annie. And Samantha. And welcome to Stephelne Evertolder, your production of IHeartRadio. And today we are once again thrilled to be joined by the fabulous, the fantastic. Bridget Todd, welcome, Bridget. Thank you so much for having me. It's always such a joy when I get to start my week talking to you all. Yes. I feel like you have an extra glow. Maybe it's because you've been soaking in all of the sun on the beautiful beaches abroad. I've seen, I've been stalking you on and I'm like, how is this woman always traveling?

And I miss, and I'm sad that I'm not invited. I'm just kidding. Oh, you all should have come. We actually, so I was in Mazatlan, Mexico for the eclipse to be in the past totality. We actually, it was one of those trips where we'd invited all of our friends. We were like, we're going to get a big house on the beach. It's going to be amazing. And then all of our friends are in and then one by one by one by one.

I'm just there alone, essentially. Oh, no. It's okay, you enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I love Mexico. It is one of my favorite places. It was my first time in Mazatlan. 10 out of 10 completely recommend.

Okay. Did you see the eclipse in totality? I saw the eclipse in totality. It was my first time ever being in the path of totality of an eclipse. Have either of you ever experienced this? No. Yes. Once.

What were your thoughts, Annie? I am dying to know. Oh my gosh. If this was a different podcast, we would go into a whole separate thing because I had like a relationship issue that was happening on this day. And it became kind of a drama situation. So a lot of times when I look back at it, a lot of the pictures I took, I was like, oh, wow, we were fighting. But it was also a work event that I was at.

So there was that layer. But it was beautiful. It was so cool. I... It sounds silly, but I love space. Like, I love... The stars are, like, my favorite thing. So it was really, really cool to see.

It was not what I quite expected because the glasses... Samantha and I were joking about this recently, but the glasses feel so funny because you're, like, looking around, like, they're not working. And then you, like, find the space you're supposed to look at. I was just like very, very happy to see it.

Honestly, like, all that drama I was working aside, I remember thinking this is really cool that I get to see this, and I'm really happy that I get to see this. Yes, that was what I remember too. I burst into tears. And the next day, I woke up in the middle of the night in a panic because I was worried that I will forget what it looked like being in totality. like that's how

like I had never seen anything like it anybody who listens to their no girls on the internet is probably so sick of me talking about this eclipse and I am fully making seeing this total eclipse like my personality for this time being but yeah and I'm already planning where I will go for the next one so I guess I will see y'all in I think what is it

Spain so that's that's like the good one the next one that you can see you have to you can go to Spain and see it, I think, in 2026. Okay. But then the one that you're referring to, Sam, is like, don't quote me on any of this, but that's supposed to be like the big one, the big one that we'll probably be able to see in our lifetimes.

And I think it's in parts of the African continent. I want to say Morocco. Don't hold me on that either. Yeah, I did say at one point, like, you would be able to view it in the U.S. That's the next time you'll be able to it. I don't know if it's like the actual, like the totality, as you say. But like, I don't know, because I know nothing about this. That's the only, I know the date and I know kindness.

For this past eclipse earlier this month, we had done so much planning, including like looking at farmers' almanacs to see what the weather and cloud coverage is like this time of year. And that's how we settled on Mazatlan, Mexico, because it was the place that is closest to us on the East Coast in the United States that was most likely to not have cloud coverage in April because you could see it from Vermont and upstate New York in Texas, but a lot of those places in April might be cloudy. And so I have friends who are in Vermont and upstate New York who were like, oh, we're just going to see it from our house. And I'm like, oh, will you? Then on the morning of the eclipse in Mazatlan, Mexico, we'd been there for a week every single day. It's like a beautiful, cloudless blue sky day. So I wake up on April 8th, the day of the eclipse, and it's cloudy. The first cloudy day we've had in Mexico for the entire week we have been there. During the eclipse time, the clouds did part, so we did get to see it. But there would have been a lot of feelings had we not been able to see it. It's a lot of pressure to put on a trip like that, honestly. It's a lot of pressure to put on the eclipse. I mean, it exists. It's not their fault. Yeah. It's not like you can contact like the manager of the sky to be like, actually, we didn't get a good view.

This was when we were like, okay, for y'all who are Christians here, tell this God that. Truly. And then we get canceled. We were like getting a little superstitious, like the things that we were doing to try to like ensure good skies. It was getting a little out there. We'll just leave it at that. He brought a shaman in. They're like, we're going in.

Oh, my gosh, Bridget, I want to ask so many questions about this later on Mike. Oh, well, I'm very glad that you got to see it. It is amazing. Like, truly. And over on the other podcast, I Do Saver, we did an episode on, like, weird companies making money off of the eclipse with their products. And I have heard from so many people about the foods they made for the eclipse, and it's brought me so much joy. Oh. Oh, yeah.

Like, totality, like tea. Oh, that's good. Oh, my gosh. many things like this. So I feel like we have a couple of, we have some years to brainstorm things like this. The next giant celebration. But keep that in the back of your head, you know. Oh, next time definitely doing a clips themed food party or dinner party or something. I love that. Yes. There's so many puns. I will hold myself back for now. But I have to say, I am very, very excited to talk about the topic. I think he brought today, Bridgett, because it is the thing that I love of, like, the history of something I think a lot of people don't question the history of, and it's fascinating and I didn't know about it. So can you tell us what we're discussing today?

I feel the exact same way, and today we are talking about the Lena image. Is this something that either of you had ever heard of? I do not know. I'm never heard of this. No. So even if you're listening and you're like, what is the Lena image? I've never heard of this image. I've never seen this image. Even if you don't know this story

and you don't feel like you've ever seen this image before, you kind of do know this image because as Linda Kinsler puts it in a really meaty piece for Wired that I'll be referencing a few times in this conversation, she writes, whether or not you know her face, you've used the technology and helped create. Practically every photo you've ever taken,

every website you've ever visited, every meme you've ever shared owes some small debt to Lena. And it really is exactly as you were saying, Annie, one of those stories that is foundational to the Internet and technology that you don't necessarily think of, don't necessarily think of how it came to be, and especially I think it's one of those stories that says a lot about technology.

Here on Sminty, we have had plenty of conversations about this. I've had many conversations about this on there, no girls on the Internet. about how things like massaginy are kind of can sort of be baked into the foundation of technology. And I think that is one of the reasons why tech is so often perpetuating massagogyny, not because it's some sort of an unfortunate bug, but because this massagony can be sort of foundational in some ways. And I think this image really is a good example of what I mean.

And I think especially as we're having conversations about the rise of things like Nudify apps and AI-generated adult content creators, we're seeing what is kind of becoming a marketplace that is men making money off of the bodies and or labor of women without their consent, certainly without their compensation. And I think this situation in the Lena image where this image of a woman went on to create

this entire field of technology without her consent can perhaps really tell us something about where we're headed in 2024. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, especially when you consider where it comes from, which I know we'll talk about. But also, yeah, these conversations we're having now about, like, actors, perhaps not given their consent to being used in certain ways. And honestly, it extends to all of us if you posted an image online, not consenting to using an image, to an image getting used in a certain way. But so much about this history is fascinating because it feels so standardized, which is odd.

Can you tell us about that? Totally. So for folks who don't know, the Lena image is literally an image of this woman, Lena. Lena Forsen, she is a woman from Sweden who in the 70s was a model. So this kind of sensual image of her wearing a tan hat with a purple feather flowing down her bare back, staring kind of seductively over one shoulder. That image of her was published in Playboy in 1972. She was essentially a playmate. That image would go on to become what's called a standard test image. So big caveat here, I am not an engineer. If I say something that is, you're like, if you're an engineer listening and you're like, that's not totally correct, I am not an engineer,

but here is a definition of what a standard test image is that I found from caggle.com, which is like a developer community site. They say a standard test image is a digital image file used across different institutions to test image processing and image compression algorithms. By using the same standard test images, different labs are able to compare results both visually and quantitatively. The images are in many cases chosen to represent natural or typical images that a class of processing techniques would need to deal with. Other test images are chosen because they present a range of challenges to image reconstruction algorithms, such as the reproduction of fine detail and textures, sharp transitions, and edges, and uniform regions. So basically, to put that in layman's

terms, a standard test image is like a test image that tests to make sure that the technology is working as it should be or like rendering the way that it should be. Lena's image is not the only common standard test image. There's also one that is like a bunch of different colored jelly beans on a table. There's another one that's called peppers. That's just a bunch of different colored like red and green peppers, like jalapeno peppers. So this is a just a thing that becomes a way for technologists to test that the image generating technology is working correctly. I do think this is very interesting for a lot of reasons, but if you have like jelly beans and peppers, those are things to be consumed. And then when you're thinking about where they

got this image from of Lena, like how did this happen? How did this image become this standard testing thing? So this is actually a pretty interesting story. The story of how Letta's playboy picture becomes this standard test image that is everywhere and very ubiquitous, starts with computer and electrical engineer Alexander Sawchuk. According to the newsletter for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, or the I triple E, as I have found out, it's sometimes called. I was talking to somebody about this and I was like, oh, the I-E-E-E-E, and they were like, it's just the I-Triple-E.

I would definitely say it that way as well. Yeah, I would too. I-E-E.E.E.E. Actually. The I-E. Exactly. So it's the summer of 1970. Alexander Sautchuk was an assistant professor

of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California and also a grad student in the SIPI lab as a manager. As the story goes, he's like frantically searching around the lab for a good image to scan for a colleague's conference paper.

He had just sort of gotten bored with their usual stock test images because they mostly had come from like 1960s TV standards and they were just a little bit dull. He wanted something glossy and sort of like fresh and dynamic, but he also wanted to use a human

face specifically. Just then, as the story goes, somebody happens to walk in holding the most recent issue of Playboy magazine. Why this person was bringing Playboy magazine into his workplace, happens to walk in. I love it. You know how you just come into your work? Okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, like, I mean, I do think that that sort of like gives you a sense of, of like, the dynamics that we're dealing with, right? That somebody just happens to walk in with the most recent Playboy under their arm. Right. The engineers tore away the top third of the centerfold so they could wrap it around the drum of their

Merhead Wire Photo Scanner, which they had outfitted with analog to digital converters, one for each red, green, and blue channels, and an HP 2100 mini computer. So all of that to say is that they effectively cropped this image so that you can't see the models bare ass in the image. So it's just a picture of her from the shoulders up, looking over her shoulder. It's still like quite a seductive photo, but the full photo has her like bare booty in it. She's wearing like a feather boa and like thigh high stockings looking over her shoulder. So back in the 70s and 80s, this image was really sort of like used in very limited cases. You could only really see it on dot org domains. It was pretty limited to like engineers.

Then in July of 1991, the image was featured on the cover of optical engineering alongside that other test image. of the different colored peppers. Funny enough, I took a look at that cover. It's all black and white. So I'm like, oh, I think they're trying to demonstrate that like these images had all these different dynamic colors, but both of them are rendered in black and white, kind of rendering that meaningless.

So this is when Playboy gets wind of this. And they are not happy because it's basically copyright infringement, which I, this is not related to the story, but I always have to add this whenever it comes up, how litigious Hugh Hefner and Playboy were, I always think this is very rich because, as y'all probably know, Hugh Hefner made an entire lucrative industry off of images of Marilyn Monroe that she did for a calendar company for which she was only paid $50. Many years after that photo shoot, Hugh Heffner bought those photographs from the calendar company, republished them without Marilyn Monroe's consent or permission in 1953. That was the first ever issue of Playboy.

Hugh Heffner paid $500. She got $50, right? So whenever I read about how Latigious Playboy is, which they're very litigious, I always have to chuckle at that that, oh, like, you don't want somebody profiting off of your intellectual property but had no

problem profiting off of a woman's body without compensating her fairly or even her consent. Interesting. This is like part for the course for him. Oh my God. Don't even get me started on Hughner. We will be here all day. The things that came out after he died, which I'm like, wow, he had a pretty good, like, powerful handle on people not talking until he died.

Oh, my gosh. I was listening to an episode of Celebrity Memoir Book Club where they read a lot of ex-playmate and ex-Playboy Bunny memoirs. Some of the things that they write about, I'm like, oh, my God. Like, even Lena in an interview, she talks about how in the 70s after this photo shoot, she was invited to go to the Playboy Mansion. And the quote is something like, they made it clear in the invite that I would have to spend time with Hugh Hefner while he was in his dressing robe. And I said, no, thanks. I mean, she already knew. Well, he got him was like, yeah.

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That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. So Playboy threatens to sue these engineers.

And at this point, the engineers, it sounds like, had like grown very fond of using this image so they thought back. Eventually, Playboy backed down because, as a Playboy vice president put it, quote, we decided we should exploit this because it is a phenomenon. So, yeah, by his own words, like,

let's exploit this. No talk about the fact that this is two groups of men fighting over who owns this image of a woman in one case being used in a manner that is completely without her consent or control. It just already from the beginning, it just feels to me like men fighting over how they can use a woman's representation that I think is so foundational to some of the conversations we're having about technology like AI right here in 2024. Absolutely. And she did become pretty foundational, right?

Oh, absolutely. So this is when the image of Letta really becomes super popular. The whole drama about the cover catapults this image into what you might think of as early internet virality or popularity. This was in 1995. The use of the photo and electronic imaging has been described as clearly one of the most important events in history. It is truly hard to overstate how ubiquitous this one image. in technology. There is this fascinating interactive piece by Jennifer Ding

at the pudding. The piece is so cool. It's like one of those interactive pieces that has a timeline. Definitely check it out. But in that piece, Ding actually includes a freeze frame of the show Silicon Valley on HBO where in the background there is a poster with the Lena image on the wall, right? So this image is also included in scientific journals just all over the place. Ding found that within the dot edu world, so like

websites related to education, the Lena image continues to appear in homework questions, class slides, and to be hosted on educational and research sites, ensuring that it will be passed down to new generations of engineer. So this became so popular that Lena herself is often called the First Lady of the Internet. Wow. Yeah, I could like her taking that picture, having no idea that this is what would happen, which yeah, I mean, I guess that speaks to the next question, why did this image take off the way that it did? Well, if you ask David C. Munson, who is the editor-in-chief of the I-E or the I-Triplee transactions on image processing, he said that the image happened to meet all of these requirements for a good

test image because of its detail, its flat regions, shading, and texture. But even he will not leave out the obvious fact that it's also a picture of like a seductive, sexy young woman, duh, right? Like, that's definitely part of it. He says, the Lena image picture is of an attractive woman. It is not surprising to me that the mostly male image processing research community gravitated toward an image that they found attractive. And so I do think there's something about these highly male-dominated spaces where it's

not just that there's a lot of men. It's like their worldviews, their interests, their perspectives, their biases that are really taking up a lot of space in these spaces. I just think that men feel like these spaces are theirs and that they are free to decorate those spaces with the pretty women that they think they feel like they should be able to use without their consent or compensation. I just think that, like, Annie, you mentioned earlier that the other test images are these things that you consume, right? Like peppers or jelly beans. There's another famous one of a baboon that has different colors on its face, it's interesting to me that it's these things that are not human, things that are like

animal or that you consume that like throwing a sexy young woman into that mix, I don't think maybe seem like a huge departure for these guys. Yeah. And again, when we think about things in the realm of AI or even, I know I've complained about this many times, but in like the worlds of fandom or gaming, it's like that. It's like you can come into our world on our terms and you wear what we want you to wear. You are here because we let you be here in this male-dominated space, but you're going to do what we want. It's not up to you. And that's the only way that you can be in this world. But that being said, there has been some pushback recently-ish, right, Bridget? Yeah. So one thing about what you just said, when I was researching for this episode,

some of the different engineers who had contributed to this image's popularity, they were quoted when they actually met the actual real Lena at a conference that she was invited to. They were like, I can't believe she's a real person. And part of me was like, you didn't even see her as a real human. They just saw her as something that they had, like an image in a picture that they had been consuming for decades. And they had so removed her from being a real breathing human that meeting her in real life was like, they were surprised that she was real. And I think that really speaks to the sort of fandom element

that you were talking about, this idea that, like, you can come if you are a fantasy and in some ways not even a real human. You know what I'm saying? You're like, do I ever? Yeah. Like, don't say anything that I don't like, keep quiet and look the way I like.

Then you can be here. But, oh, you're a real person? Oh, no, I don't want you here at all. Yeah. So you're exactly right, Annie. All of this happened, but it was not without pushback. Around like the 2010s, people started publicly asking whether or not this image of a woman from Playboy should be so foundational to technology, especially in education settings. You know, given conversations about the need for more women in these spaces and how to make these spaces more inclusive and more diverse, that's really around when you start hearing like people in public being like,

wait a minute, maybe this isn't so cool. In 2015, Maddie Zug, who was then a student at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, right here in D.C. where I live, who I should say now is a product safety engineer at Apple who focuses on preventing tech-enabled abuse and stalking and harassment on Apple platforms. So like, go Maddie. Maddie sounds like she was cool in high school and is cool now. So Maddie wrote this op-ed, basically asking the question of like, should I as a high school student at a STEM high school be given like an image from Playboy as part of my educational in technology in STEM? She writes, I first saw a picture of Playboy magazine's Miss November

1972 a year ago as a junior at TJ. My artificial intelligence teacher told our class to search Google for Lena Soderberg, not the full image though, and use her picture to test our latest coding assignment. At the time, I was 16 and struggling to believe that I belonged to a male dominated computer science class. I tried to tune out the boy's sexual comments. Why is it advanced science technology, engineering, and mathematics school using a Playboy centerfold in its classrooms? Her piece ends with saying, it's time for TJ to say hello to inclusive computer science

education and say goodbye to Lena. So Maddie was not the only person who was like, maybe this image shouldn't be the thing that all of our education is centered around. In that piece for Wired, I mentioned, they talked to several women in technology who had very similar stories. This one is actually pretty funny. Deanna Needle, a math professor at UCLA, had similar memories from college. So in 2013, she and a colleague staged a quiet protest. They acquired the rights to a headshot of the male model Fabio Lanzoni and used that for their imaging research. So they kind of like turned it around. Like, oh, you're going to use a sexy woman?

Well, we'll use a sexy man. What do you think about that? I love it. So in that piece, they actually track down and speak to the real Lena, who also called for her image to be retired. She says, I retired from modeling a long time ago. It is time I retired from Tech 2. We can make a simple change today that creates a lasting change for tomorrow. Let's commit to losing me. And there's actually some news on that front because as of April 1st of this year,

that IEE officially retired the use of the Lena image and announced they will no longer be using that image in their publications. Ars Technica points out that this is kind of a really big deal that will likely have a ripple effect in the space because the journal has been so historically important for computer imaging development. It'll likely set a precedent removing this image from common use. In an email, a spokesperson for the ICCI recommended wider sensitivity about the issue, writing, in order to raise awareness of and increase author compliance with this new policy, program committee members and reviewers should look for inclusion of this image and if present, should ask authors. to replace the Lena image with an alternative. Yeah, I love that from Lena herself.

Like, let's commit to forgetting me. That's such a great line. But it does speak to, it speaks volumes, as you've been saying, Bridget, to our attitude towards women on the Internet and towards consent on the Internet. And so when we're thinking about this, which was foundational,

what do you think about, this, the legacy of this image. Yeah, I love that question. You know, when I was reading about how this image came to be, I'm imagining a very different time, right? It's the 70s. People aren't necessarily having a lot of public loud conversations about the power dynamics of who's in the room and who's not in the room where a lot of this technology is getting belt. And it really made me think of like, wow, the 70s, that probably was such a different time. But here in 2024, we are having those conversations. Loud voices are publicly having those conversations. There are women and people of color and trans folks and trans folks and trans folks and all kinds of folks who are building

and making the technology that shapes our world today. And so in 2024, it almost feels like we are pretending that we're still in this 1970s. We didn't really know who could have foreseen world when in fact we're not really in that world. People are asking the questions. People are raising the alarm. And I guess I don't think it should be several decades after AI technology becomes ubiquitous for people to start asking the question about how traditionally marginalized people like women are being used and represented and perhaps exploited without their consent in these spaces. I think it provides a really interesting precedent for what's going on here in 2024. And Jennifer Ding put it really well. She writes, to me, the crux of the Lena story is how little

power we have over our data and how it is used and abused, that threat seems disproportionately higher for women who are overrepresented in internet content, but underrepresented in internet company leadership and decision making, given this reality, engineering and product decisions will continue to consciously and unconsciously exclude our needs and concerns, right? And so I really agree with that, that this Lena story really is a story about power dynamics and who is represented in technology and who is just sort of like has their needs exploited or erased, right?

Like women, men wanting to consume the bodies of women is like foundational to the internet. It's like why we have the internet the way that we have it. And I think we know that now. It's like an objective fact about the internet and technology. I don't think we can still make technology that does not honest about that. Because if we're not being honest about that, we can never fix that.

We can never question that. We can never have that be a dynamic that we stop perpetuating with technology. Yeah. And I think it's like going back to the point about being in a classroom setting and being shown explicitly, like, this is how women are viewed in the space. This is what built a lot of what we use today. And we're still talking about it is telling in itself, and especially when we're seeing that perpetuate in all of these. spaces where it still feels in a lot of ways, even though women and marginalized people have built those spaces, that like, you're the guest here. And you're only here because we're opening

our gates a little bit to let you in. But otherwise, get out. And I just think that's a dynamic we need to be questioning in 2024. And I think so like something about the use of this image, it's ubiquity in education spaces, I find so telling. But also, even if you're not studying to be an engineer or something, I think there is a dynamic that says that if you are a person who is traditionally marginalized, you're not a decision maker, you're not a powerholder, you're not doing or making anything that anybody needs to care about. And the entire dynamic is that we use you, in fact, right?

So Ding actually points this out on her piece. She says, while social norms are changing toward non-consensual data collection and data exploitation, digital norms seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Advancement in machine learning algorithms and data storage capabilities are only making data misuse easier. Whether the outcome is revenge porn or targeted ads, surveillance or discriminatory AI, if we want a world where our data can retire when it's outlived its time or when it's directly harming our lives, we must create the tools and policies that empower data subjects to have a say in what happens to their data, including allowing their data to die.

And so I think even if you're not somebody who is a techie, that does concern you, this dynamic that just says, we consume, we exploit, we make money from you, and you don't get to have a say about it. That's the dynamics that I think this Lena image really did usher in without really even necessarily meaning to. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letter. Help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriters, Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst singer in the group?

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opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where sports slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real.

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because they didn't care enough and they wanted to build on this toxicity because they knew it could make money is the most concerning thing to me. And then the, and then the powers that be are saying that, yeah, yeah, we're definitely going to control this and then just goes after an app instead of the root of the problem. Seems like the biggest part of the conversation because even in the AI world with new apps coming through, new programs coming through, and they're all competing with each other, they don't want to let go of the toxicity, but that's what's making the money, which is really, really concerning.

Yeah, and I mean, like, if there was one so what of why I wanted to have this conversation, Sam, that is exactly it, that it is about money, it is about capitalism, it is about making money off of people's own exploitation and selling that exploitation back to them to make more money. And it's just a really toxic dynamic that I believe is harming us

and making the people who have created that dynamic rich. All the while they get to be like, oh, it's not a big deal for you. Actually, this is going to be really good for you. This is going to be convenient for you. And I don't know. Like, I woke up this morning when I was trying to decide what I wanted to talk to y'all today about. And one of the ideas that I had that I scrapped was just this feeling that being on the internet just doesn't feel fun anymore.

Any time I go on a website, any time I Google something just to find out information, it feels like a scam, it feels like exploitation. I feel like I am one click away from somebody getting my social security number. It feels like AI generated garbage. And I just think we have hit the wall of that feeling. I can't imagine that I'm alone in this. I think the feeling of showing up online today in 2024 feels exhausting. And I think part of it is because it feels like we are being bled dry by people that we have already made rich.

from our own exploitation. Do you all ever feel that way? Oh, absolutely. I think with, because getting on TikTok, the first opening video, I'm sure you've seen it, is that content manager who's like, I'm here for the safety of TikTok.

Have you seen this? I have not. She's been there. She is for safety and something. She has a very specific title. Oh, is it trust in safety? Yes. Susie someone, she is very white

and she's very red-headed. So I was like, okay, so we've played into the xenophobia. She's like, look, I'm a white person. I'm going to help you out here. Don't worry, guys. Don't worry. I got this. But that's the first thing that I'm seeing.

So, like, you know, urging TikTok users to talk to the government because they voted this in and this is real bad and all this is whatnot. And I'm just like, all right, it's going to go away next. This is now my attitude because also I'm very tired. But also, I just got an email saying that AT&D, yes, has a record that, oh, that data reach, they have your stuff. But good news, since you don't have a bill with us, we don't, we didn't, you didn't get any pertinent information. But I literally think every month I have been given, seen an email that says something of my information has been breached. And it's nothing that I have done. It is literally everything from my insurance, my dental insurance, my health care provider, my internet, which I'm like, what the hell, my phone subscription, my cell phone, which I'm like, I'm starting to get back to that.

I think I want a landline. I've got this moment, y'all. To each of those things popping up on things, I'm like, I hadn't, I haven't. to use that information in order for me to have health care. So y'all let my health care information go out and they have my social security number. There's nothing I can do about that. As many times as I can change my password, the next email I'm getting is telling me that I've got a data breach of my information. So what is the point? At this point, the only way is to rewrite my identity and to never get online again, which would be really hard for my job. Yes. Like if you

have a phone in your life, if you vote, if you drive, these things that we are required to do to participate in public life should not just be avenues for somebody to make money and scam us. But yet, it feels that way. And you know what, Sam, I have actually not seen the TikTok that you're referring to because I have not opened my TikTok app in days because it's starting to feel like QVC and I cannot take it anymore. Like whatever happened to spaces on the internet,

internet that we're supposed to feel like safety or exploration or fun or community or connection. I hope that somebody out there listening is like, Bridget, you're old and unhip. We have those spaces. They are, XYZ. Tell me about them. I want to know about them. But I think that we should, we really got to get back to those principles of the internet feeling like something other than being taken for a ride on which you are the chump. Right. And I will say a lot of people have felt like Discord and Reddit has been, like, brought in, but we already know Reddit has had its problems. And then I think there's a new lawsuit with Discord with its problems and its terms of service changing as well. I'm like, what?

Totally. It's happening. So there's literally no one is protecting the individual to have, like, there's no protection for us at all, but they want us to say, they want us to take away things from us, which is like the least of our worries. Or they're just like, sorry, you're like you can't sue us. Yeah, I think everybody is feeling that, but I think it is particularly dangerous for people who are traditionally marginalized because, yeah, which it's just the expectation that, oh, it's totally fine if people who make apps that non-consensually undress women using AI, why wouldn't they be able to advertise on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter? They got to make money. That's a business. Like how easy it is to erase the human people at the heart.

of this dynamic, erase their concerns, erase their needs, erase their harm, because men got to make money off of it. Right. I'm sick of it. Right. Or it's tradition. Literally like, yeah,

this image has always been here. We need to teach it as a historical. It's historical now. It was definitely not exploiting somebody or taking advantage of somebody or using humiliating content because she wasn't humiliated, I don't think,

but like in the ideal of like it being forever and ever and ever, of like your seductive picture being used for IT people, which is a whole different conversation in itself. Yeah, I mean, so Lena, the real life, Lena, and again, there's a really interesting Wired article that has an interview with her.

She doesn't feel like she was exploited. She's actually really proud of that image, even as she recognizes that it's, like, time for it to be retired. However, she does wish that she had been fairly compensated for what would go on to be her, like, non-consensual contributions to tech. When she took that image, there's no way that as a, you know,

young playboy playmate in 1971 or whatever, you would have a sense of like, well, if this goes on to be, to make me the first lady of the internet, I better have compensation and protections. No way, right? So in that wired piece, they say, it makes sense that she would feel this way.

Unlike so many women in tech, Lena has at least been acknowledged, even feted for her contribution. She did that work, and the people started using that photo in this neat new way. And now she has this kind of immortality woven into the design of the machine.

This is from Marie Hicks, a historian of technology, and the author of Programmed Inequality. All of this happened for a reason, Hicks writes. If they hadn't used a Playboy centerfold, they almost certainly would have used another picture of a pretty white woman. The Playboy thing gets our attention. But really what it's about is this world building that's gone on in computing from the beginning. It's about building worlds for certain people and not for others. I find it interesting, too, that they invited her to the conference. Like, I'm wondering what the purpose was other than to, like,

for me because it obviously wasn't to ask her questions about tech and how she did this thing because they did not even consider human as we know it was just literally to ogle her in real life yeah i was thinking about why they did that i don't know i part of me wonders if it was like an attempt to be like oh we need to acknowledge the way that this woman's image was so foundational to our technology but then like not really doing it like still sort of treating her as like a booth babe or something? Like, I don't know. Right.

I just find all of that interesting in this level of like not, again, of not what she was doing this for. She came in with like whatever her ambitions were in being this model and whatnot. And then all of a sudden being told you're being used as an example for computers, like for images for computers. And not only will you see this, but your grandkids will also. like if she has children, like any of those things and your family members forever.

And like, who would have ever thought that that's how that image would go on to be used in history? And I really think like this is where we are today and this is like why I wanted to talk about this is that I think like the idea, the concept of images being shared online, the way we understand that in 2024, the fact that this image of Lena

became so foundational to that concept without her consent, you know, perhaps without like, proper contribution to the way that she actually was foundational to that, and building out this entire universe around it that is mostly, like, controlled and protected and profited off by men, and nobody's stopping to ask about the ramifications of that until decades later. I just think it really establishes, like, a concerning precedent for where we're going right now with AI in 2024.

And it doesn't have to. We can learn from what we did with that leda image if we ask the right questions, if we center the right perspectives and the right. voices. And so, yeah, I don't want to wait until 2040 to be like, oh, should we have been talking about the ways that women and girls and other marginalized people are being exploited and used to make technology companies money? I don't want to ask that question when it's too late. Right. And here's like the big conversation is, shouldn't we also recognize that big companies and big tech companies and big companies that are developing are purposely leaving out

marginalized people because they like the old ways and that it's only making a certain amount of people money. Yes, that's exactly, I think that I would argue that's exactly what's going on. I mean, in 2024, there are so many loud, thoughtful voices from women and people of color who are really talking about AI in some interesting and thoughtful ways. So they exist. They are out there. This is the tale as old as time when it comes to technology. It is not that they are not there. it is that they are being, whether intentionally or unintentionally, marginalized, sideline, silenced, pushed aside to make room for voices who are just repeating the status quo, who are just saying like, well, I'm trying to get rich.

So who cares how this harms somebody? Who cares about whether or not this goes on to exploit? And I think that's really, it's really like a, it's a little bit of a complicated cultural dynamic and cultural shift that I think that we really got a break. Yeah, yeah. And it's really sad going back to your point, Bridget, of like, the internet not being a place of joy anymore because so many times it was marginalized people who made those spaces because they couldn't find them anywhere else. And then these companies come in and are like, okay, well, we can make money and then it doesn't become a joyous space anymore. It becomes a very toxic, a toxic place.

And so, like, hearing this story and seeing how so much of what we use still is based on something that was a guy walked in with the Playboy magazine. It's bad when you, that doesn't feel so out of place and what we're talking about in our current time. Yeah. And again, I mean, I opened up our conversation with this, but I guess, and I guess I'll close with that too. I believe people, when I say this, people think I sound alarmist or extreme, but I mean it the way that I mean it. I think that these things are features, not bugs. I think we've got to be honest about the ways that things like misogyny and exploitation, particularly when it comes to marginalized people, has been foundational to technology

and the internet from the very beginning. I love the internet. I love technology. It is why I do the work that I do. But I think that until we are honest about that, but these things are features and not bugs, we will never get anywhere. And so I think that it really starts with having honest conversations about where we started so that we can get to a place that we add that actually feels a little bit better for everybody. Yes. Yes. Well, thank you so much as always,

Bridget. Every time you come on, I'm like, we could talk for hours about this and this and this. Invite me back for an episode just dragging Hugh Heffner. Yes. I'll be here for it. I think we need to do this. Because I'm thinking about for a minute about the magazine world and jumping into like all of that. Don't even give. I mean like this is like, spoiler alert, I like totally had this wrong for so long in my life. I was like, oh, Hugh Hefner was a champion for free speech and civil rights and blah, blah, blah. Then I like grew up and learned that I was like, actually, I think he wasn't such a good guy.

Right. We really fed into the, but read the articles. They're so good. Oh my God. They've got Gourvedell. Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Please come back for that, Bridgett. In the meantime, where can the good listeners find you? Well, you can listen to my podcast. There are no girls on the internet. You can follow me. I'm not really on social media that much anymore, but you can try to find me there. I'm on Instagram at Bridgett, Marie, D.C. I am at Blue Sky at Bridgett, Todd, on threads at Bridget, Marie, and DC. Sometimes on TikTok, I'm easy to find. You'll find me. Google me.

Yes. Google me. Pets a flex. It's true, though. Our listeners are smart. They can find you. And listeners, if you would like to contact us, you can. Our email us, stuff media, mom, stuff at iHeartmedia.com.

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