There Are No Girls on the Internet - There Are No Girls on the Internet x Stuff Mom Never Told You

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

Have you ever wondered about the origins of some of the digital symbols and icons we use in the world of technology? Bridget Todd shares the story of Susan Kare, the woman behind some of the most iconic designs woven into the fabric of what it looks like to use computers and the internet. And speaking of, what does needlepoint have to do with it? Listen to find out! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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844-844-I-Hart. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves.

Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. There are no girls on the internet as a production of IHeart Radio. and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Did you know the trash can logo, the sad Mac icon, and all the other Apple logos and typography that made up the look and feel of early

personal computing was actually designed by a woman? On the Stuff Mom Never Told You Podcast, where I'm a tech correspondent, we did an episode for Women's History Month that was really fun because I got to talk about Susan Care, an influential Apple designer and one of my favorite women in tech. And I had such a good time that I wanted to share it with all of you. Listen to me alongside Stuff Mom Never Told You co-hosts, Annie and Sam, for a deep dive into the lasting legacy of Susan Care, the artist behind Apple. Hey, this is Annie. And Samantha.

And welcome to Steph Mom Never Told You, production of IHeart Radio. Today, we are so thrilled to be joined in the virtual studio space by our friend and colleague, Bridget Todd. Hello, Bridget. Hello, I'm so excited to be back here with you all. Jose, we missed you. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. I miss you, too, as always.

You're so busy, though. We know. We know. You're constantly going. Well, I can always make room for my two favorite ladies. Oh, yes. We were discussing before this. We're very excited for this topic, particularly because we have different levels of experience when it comes to computers and technology. And in this case, Samantha, you're saying you don't know Mac very well. No, I am so not in the loop. I've never used.

use the Mac. I don't have an iPhone. I'm so far away from those products. And I'm a little scared of it because every time I've been on a friend, I literally look at it and touch a button, something goes wrong and I hand it right back. I'm like, I'm sorry. You're like, I launched a missile. I don't know what the fuck I am. Sorry. I'm pretty sure I just started a war somewhere. I'm so sorry. I feel like that too, though, because my phone is the swipe. And one time my friend handed me her her phone and was like, can you text this message? And it was not a swipe and I stared at it. like this makes no sense to me. I cannot figure this out.

Yeah, when it becomes like technology, when you're used to one way and then you try and figure out something else, I feel like it's a trap. It's so true. It's so true. So I use an iPhone. Most of my friends do not use iPhones. They use like Google pixels.

When I am handed a Google pixel, it does not matter how many times I've been schooled and had to do the most basic stuff. Right. I'm not talking about anything advanced. I have to ask like, wait, is it this? Is it that every day? time without help. Right. Which actually relates really well to what we're talking about today. So who did you bring for us to discuss, Bridget? So today we're discussing Susan Care. I'm so excited to talk about

her, mostly because it's Women's History Month. And so I think it's a good time to honor women who, you know, maybe don't always get a lot of the loud public support. And also the fact that Susan care, despite being very much part of tech history, she's still alive. She's still with us. I'm a big, believer in giving people their flowers while they're still alive to smell them. And so not waiting until someone is no longer here to be like, oh, I loved their work. I loved their work. But celebrating their achievements and their legacy while they're still here, she's very much still in tech, making tech history as we speak. And I also just feel like sometimes I come on the show and I bring topics that are a little negative because let's face it, sometimes being a woman

on the internet is not that fun, but there's also lots of fun, joyous, cool, perky aspects of it as well. So I'm super excited to talk about Susan Care. Yes, and I never heard about her story. And I loved it so much because I know we've talked before on the show a lot about women in technology space

and how there is often that these negative aspects to it are being intimidated off of it in various ways. and as somebody who's really creative, like, where in my cosplay closet, as I call it in here. But like, I love the application of how she got into technology. I think it is such a great story. Yes, yes. So let's get into it.

I mean, so if you've ever spent any time around, not just Macs, but computers in general, you have probably encountered Susan Care's work or her legacy. So first and foremost, I should say, if you have not seen a picture of her, there's an iconic picture of her, her with this like awesome 80s blown out curly hair and a sweatshirt and these like amazing new balance sneakers with her sneakers kicked up on her desk at her old school computer.

Y'all please Google a picture of her because it is iconic and truly just this one picture. I saw it on the subreddit old school cool. I was like, who is this woman? I have to look her up and find out everything about her. She is amazing. Yes. It's so effortlessly cool in a way that I will never achieve. Like I saw it and it was like, wow.

I mean, like, I'm looking at it right now. I have to Google it. And I'm like, this is kind of what people want to look like today outside of the outdated computers in the background, which, by the way, I use those in elementary school. So don't start with me. A, B. I'm like, no, you are. She is exactly what people are like, oh, we want to look like this. This is such a great throwback.

And she looks so comfortable, so relaxed and ridiculously cool. I want to be this cool. Yes. She is like an advertisement for Everlane. Like I feel like the norm core vibes of like Oh baggy Baggy sweatshirt and like

Like relaxed fit jeans She's rocking it Honestly you could wear the outfit that she's wearing In like 1980 Whatever this photo was taken You could wear today And people will be like Oh cool outfit

Yes That's what I'm saying Like this outfit looks so comfortable But again yeah She looks so freaking stylish That I'm like I don't want to be back here in this fashion Because I did wear that once upon a time

And that was when it was supposed to be cool when I was a young baby So I love it. So Susan Care, she designed a huge part of the digital infrastructure of using a Mac computer back in the 80s. And so I'm talking all of the fonts, all of the typography, and all of the little icons. And so if you ever remember the little happy Mac when you booted up a computer, like the little computer with a smiley face, that was Susan Care. The concept of the icons for your computer sort of matching up with the thing that you were going to do, even if you used. even if you don't use a Mac, even if you use a PC, that's still a concept that we use today.

So she really was an early architect of how being online sort of looked and felt. And then also just sort of the concept of of how we conceptually move around and we're using a computer. And it's funny because I had also never heard of her. I've been using a Mac for most of my life. It was like the first computer that we had in our home when I was a kid, like in what my parents called the computer room where like you could. You could never bring a snack or a drink or my dad would kill you. Was a Mac.

And I had never even heard of her, even though she had shaped such a big part of my online experiences, both as a child and today. So really excited to be, you know, giving her a little bit of shine because that's so iconic that she, you know, was the architect of that. Right. So the little story that I had about this, like this Happy Mac, and the one reason I kind of know what that is. Now, I've seen the other things. I've seen the watch little icon before. I feel like a lot of these are associated to me as something bad is about to happen because I did something wrong signs usually because the one episode that I remember with

in Sex and the City and we're going to go, you know what I'm talking about, where her Mac crashes and she gets a sad Mac. And the dude keeps telling her you got the sad Mac. Sorry, you can't fix it. And this whole conversation about the sad Mac. And I'm like, why does it have to be a sad Mac? and then the dead mac because we've got the exes

on the eyes and about how angry it looks. I was like, yeah, that does not make me want to get a Mac. Yeah, I feel like that episode

probably scared a lot of people. Also, fun fact, this is how deep my sex in the city knowledge goes. The guy who tells her that at the computer store, As of Mondi from the Daily Show.

Yes, yes, yes. So I was like, oh, he's a comedian. I love them when they bring in comedians that you don't really know, but you always know their face.

Love it, love it. Annie, you got to hop on board. This is what you're missing out when you haven't seen sex in the city. Wait, Annie's never seen it? She's seen like two episodes. I've seen one on it the first episode

and that's it, really. Girl, what are you putting on in the background while you're like doing something else? Like, what are you putting on in the background when you're doing the dishes? Come on. I'm ready. I want to embark on this journey.

I'm just a little nervous. So, Bridget, when we have our sex in the city, we're going to do a watch and like kind of live watching live viewing party. You want to join us? Yes, of course. And they're getting ready to make another view of that movie, which I mean, I have a love-hate relationship with sex in the city. Yes. You look back and you're like, well, this was problematic.

Or like, well, this is not good. But there's just something about it where I'm like, I know I'll probably watch it. Like I know. They're like, you'll take this like problematic movie with like a bunch of lazy puns. Like, just take it. Like, they know what I want. But, I mean, like, say, yeah. Jessica Parker's character carry that Mac at the very beginning,

like at all the things, the fact that she carries it around, like is her treasure. Like she carries it as this, like she and the Mac go hand in hand in the show. Her work, I feel, is grounded around the Mac. Like,

you kept watching the episode toward the end when she moves to Paris. She leaves her Mac in her apartment. So, like, Charlotte goes to her apartment and she's like, her computer was just sitting there. Right. It's like such a big deal. And it's actually funny that you say this. because when I was thinking through this episode,

I didn't think about this, but now I'm like, oh my God, how many different times have Max been? Like, I'm thinking of legally blonde when Elle Woods goes to get her, like, orange Mac and all of her, like, stuffy law students are on their black laptops and she's on the orange Mac.

Right. I guess I had never really thought about how many times Max have been sort of part of popular culture lex of times. It has. It kind of goes into, like, being a designer piece almost. Yeah.

I think I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you don't have to get permission to show Mac. Like normally you have to get the companies and pay, but they wanted people to think like, oh, this is a cool, stylish, ubiquitous technology. I think the only time you have to check

is if it's something like real, real bad. Like real bad. You're used that to be it for. Yeah, you're like beating Amanda Death with it. Yeah, I think that's the only time. But I mean, like, I remember, as I'm looking at some of these things, I remember seeing the little bomb icon as a part of the show as well. And again, like I said, that to me is like a big warning sign.

I mean, yeah. I don't know what the bomb means, but the bomb means something bad. Yeah, the bomb, you see the bomb designed by Susan Care. Hopefully you never have to see it. But if you put in a command that like doesn't work and it's like, oh, no good, bad. And also, I mean, even the different icons that you're describing, the sad Mac, the bomb, one of the things that Susan Kerr really architected was this idea of the interface being super user-friendly. So when you do something that is bad, it is very obvious that it is bad.

It is a bomb. It is a sad face. Like, it could not be more clear that you have done something incorrect. Or when something is good, you know, when you would boot up a Mac, you would see a smiley face. All of that was intentionally designed by care to make people who, you know, might have been using a computer for the first time, who might have been a little bit skittish about using a computer, help them sort of shepherd them through the experience

in ways that are like super easy to understand, which I really appreciate as someone who, even as someone who enjoys tech, can sometimes be a little bit like tech challenged, shall we say? You're right. As I am. It definitely tells me when I'm doing something wrong. Definitely I'm like, oh, I'm just waiting.

Great. And look at that happy face. Exactly. Yes. And those are things you take for granted, right? Right? Like somebody had to think through that process and design those things, especially when computers were so new. And people were like, what is this huge behemist thing that's expensive? I don't want to wreck it by pressing the wrong button. Exactly. And I mean, what's funny is that like some people who are a bit younger might be thinking, oh, what's the big deal?

But truly, like, keep in mind that back then in the early days of personal computers, like, most people did not have a personal computer in their home at that point. And so computers were these big, clunky, boxy nightmares that were really inclined toward mathematicians or engineers, not just like your regular user. And so somebody had to take the time to design ways of like illustrating what you were doing in ways that would be simple and user friendly and not scary, not intimidating. Because if, you know, if the whole idea is that you want people to feel the freedom of having a personal computer like in their house, it has to feel like something they can really master themselves. And so Susan Care's design, I think, was a big part of why personal computing later took on, or took off.

Took on. Right. Her history is pretty interesting. Why don't you tell us how she even got started into this industry? So this is my favorite thing. So her background was in art, right? So she was a sculptor. She worked in visual arts.

And so she is not someone who has hard technical skills. She described herself as completely non-technical. And the reason that she first got involved in graphic design in the first place is because her mom taught her these skills that we, I guess, commonly associate with femininity, so like needlepoint and embroidery, which luckily those two skills work in small grid. So if you've ever done needlepoint, you know, you're moving a thread through like a tiny box. And so when she was designing things on a computer for Apple, it also was a small box. And so if it wasn't for her mom teaching her these highly kind of like domestic tasks, we might not, like personal computing might be, might have

gone a completely different direction. And so I just love that because it's such a good reminder that you don't have to be a coder. You don't have to be a hacker to make an impression in tech or to have ownership over it. And so I always like to remember that, that if it wasn't for her mom teaching her how to sew and do needlepoint, truly, I might not be recording this podcast on my MacBook pro right now. It might look different. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

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Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard. They're open to change. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open.

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Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, 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. From viral moments to his story. games from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife-Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them?

On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness. Professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout, Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ledecki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what

motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. When you're thinking about people you do associate with, particularly Mac, but like technology and computers in general is often men. And you do often have this assumption that, oh, there must be like really technically

minded and gotten a lot of education in those fields. And like the names we remember are them. But this is a huge part. What Susan Care did is a huge part of how the technology we use, in particular. with Max, but in other things. And it is what you, like a non-traditional route and this sort of feminized skill set and this kind of traditionally masculized or seen as a very masculine field. And I just love it.

I love it so much. Yeah, it makes me, it's a good reminder for all of us. You know, I did an interview on my own podcast with this really amazing historian and technologist, Claire Evans. And she has this book all about like the history of women in computing. And I guess the thesis would be, you know, that we are often told that technology is a boys club and that women and other marginalized people are trying to like break their way in. But actually, women have been at the start of computing since the beginning.

And so it's like rightfully our domain. We are not trying to break in anywhere. Like, it is our landscape. And that some of the reasons why women kind of get pushed out of tech, both, you know, in terms of like careers, but also just in terms of like who gets remembered, who doesn't, who goes overlooked. first of all, just to be clear, a lot of it is just good old fashioned sexism, like nothing special about that. But then another aspect of it is exactly what you were saying is that a lot of times the contributions that women have made to computers and technology are things that are a little bit harder to preserve. And so, you know, if you make an actual computer, that can go in a museum.

That's a solid, tangible thing. If you design a concept or, you know, do something cool on a message board or develop an icon or, you know, something graphic that is less tangible, those things are harder to preserve and sort of more ephemeral. And so a lot of that work throughout the years has been associated with women and feminization, this idea that like women are a lot of the times the ones who are building the things that are a little more difficult to hold on to. and thus these contributions can really go overlooked unless we make intentional efforts to preserve them, to highlight them, to amplify them, all of that. So completely agree, completely agree. Yes. I mean, here we are talking about it.

And because I'll take every opportunity to bring it up, I do think, too, if you look at something like fan fiction, the website A03 was one of the biggest coding projects of its time, and it was women who did it, but it doesn't get a lot of respect because it's women in marginalized people who did it. seen as this kind of weird corner of women fandom and not, therefore, not worth the respect as something else more masculine. Right. Technology is nothing without people using it for something, right, without users. And so those people who were building that, they were architects of something important and like that we would not even see that as worthy of preservation or like mentioning is a real crime. And I think we really do have to go back and look at history and say,

well, where are the times where because this was associated with women or marginalized people just doing something geeky on the internet, you know how women are, whether it's fan fiction or, you know, recipe blogs or anything like that? Why do those things not deserve to be remembered in the same way that some of the other more obvious contributions to computing and technology in our digital landscape? Like, I completely agree that we need to have a whole scale sort of rethinking of what is worthy of preservation, because I'm not down. down to just live in a world where the stuff that we make, that marginalized people that women make,

is just not worthy of preservation. No way. Yeah, absolutely not. Thank you for letting me bring up fanfiction all the time. I cannot help myself. But I also think it's a good, like, correlation to Susan Care's story where there is this sort of, like, creative, non-technical thing that she was involved with, and she was able to translate that.

into technology because there was this need. And I think also, like, again, having to kind of predict what people's concerns would be and, like, predict what would soothe those concerns and be clear. Like, coming, perhaps coming from a different background actually helped her with that. I think so. I love that point. I think so. So she said that when she first got the call to design things for Apple, she was just like,

I don't know what any of this is. I love this little detail. She was in the middle of working on a life-sized sculpture of a hog which, like, if that doesn't tell you all you know about the hair, I feel like that really. Oh, I want to see it. I want to know she finished it. Yes.

Ooh, that's a good question. I want to know. I want to see this picture of what she was working on. Did she get to finish it? Yes. I need a picture. Internet slews, please. Yes.

Elbow deep and hot. Right? Yes. She gets this call from Andy Hertzfield, who she had gone to high school with, and he was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 80s, and he asked her to hand-draw some icons and fonts to help inspire what was going to be this, like, Mac interface. This was a completely new concept of her. She was like, I had no idea what I was doing.

But luckily, Andy had an idea because he knew that she worked with design and graphics. He told her to go out and buy the smallest, tiniest graph paper that she could find. and then use it to block out 32 by 32 inch squares and fill them with color to kind of come up with the designs because what she would be designing would be a matrix that was essentially a grid. So again, back to that sort of needlepoint embroidery upbringing that she had, which really helped her work in this grid function.

Like truly probably cannot have provided a better basis or education for the work that she would go on to be doing that she had no idea, you know, that she would be so foundational in. And luckily, these skills really came to her rescue. She says, bitmap graphics are like mosaics and needlepoint and other pseudo-digital art forms, all of which I had practiced before going to Apple. This is what she told somebody in an interview in 2000. So again, like, you never know what skill is going to apply later in your life.

Like I'm sure when her mom was teaching her needlepoint, she probably was like, this is really fun and awesome. She probably was not thinking. And I will go on to revolutionize personal computing. because you have taught me how to do needlepoint, mom. Right. Yeah. So I run a Dungeons and Dragons campaign,

and I use Python coding to run it. So basically Python is a bunch of if-then statements. But I think you can take like a really creative, non-technical thing and you can construct it in a way where you can like make it work in that sense. Because if you think about like, conversation if X then Y. Like you can, I don't know,

it's something I find really interesting that you can take those things and you can experiment with them in that way. You could take needlepoint and think about it in this way of like coding. Like I love that stuff. Are there other things that you have learned that you feel might help you when you're doing when you're coding in Python? Like are there other skills that you're like, oh, I wouldn't have thought that this would be something that would help me think about

Python, but actually has been helpful. So something that helps me like use Python more? Or just in general in the work that you do when you're building out these things. The reason I started doing that is because essentially it's almost exactly like this. You have to, when you're running a game,

you have to predict what people are going to do. And that could be anything, right? Like that could be literally anything. And so it's like project management where you have to analyze a person and then try to make that work in a game system, right? Like in a kind of technical rule-based game. So you've got this like really a logical, chaotic person.

Now I've got to make that work in a way where I can say like if X then Y. So the game doesn't break. So I would say like reading people and project management because again, a lot of interactions in life, it's almost cold to think of it this way, but you can see in a technical sense of like person, why needs this, therefore these actions happen. Like you can map out to a certain extent

people and their behavior. That's so fascinating. It's a whole theorem. You have to do all these little like hypothesis of this may happen so you have to problem solve ahead of time, which I know nothing about Dungeons and Dragons, just what she tells me. It's wild. I mean it completely.

I think if you take that to its logical next step, like in tech workplaces and stuff, this is why I always say, if you're someone who's listening and you're like, I want to be more involved in tech, I want to work in a tech space. You do not have to have tech hard skills to be someone who makes your living or takes up a big footprint in tech. People need to have people reading skills, problem solving skills, critical thinking skills. those are not necessarily what we think of as tech hard skills, but these are all things that go into, you know, working, like being able to think in this way.

And so I just love this example because I think it really does illustrate how all of these different skills that aren't necessarily the hard skill or knowing Python or knowing, you know, knowing the code, they will help you when you're doing these kinds of things. It's like a whole way of thinking. I love that example. I mean, there's definitely a whole correlation. between art, music, and math.

And we know that that's been proven to be a linkage. And which is why people talk about losing arts and losing music is really detrimental for a lot of kids' learnings and just overall development. And this is one of those more things because not only what she's doing art, which she's amazing at, which I saw some of the pieces that she's selling now.

I'm like, wow, it's gorgeous. But that translated into, yeah, these little squares and dots, which also equals numbers and such. This is me knowing all this stuff, obviously. but the fact that it's a greater picture of how it's all correlated and it is linked. Oh, absolutely. And I mean, that's why I obviously am such a big advocate for young people going into STEM and STEAM fields

and getting that kind of education. But I also think you're exactly right that you have to have a well-rounded approach. And so if we lose the arts, if we lose music and the funding for these things, when people are like, oh, well, just learn to code and get a job like that, it'll be so much harder if these students are not well-rounded students who do not have a well-rounded arts education. And so, you know, I am an English major, right? Like I did not have a hard skills background. So many people who made a big splash in tech had arts degrees, humanities degrees, you know, studied music, studied literature. And so I definitely am a big advocate for a well-rounded

approach. I am not someone who is like, oh, just learn to code. That'll solve all your problems. because we do need all kinds of skills to have, you know, young people who are really equipped to go into these fields. Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things in this story in Susan Care's story is one of my favorite kind of random, I guess it's a good tell of when you grew up in terms of technology when you're talking about her legacy. Because if you examine some of these symbols, like my ex-boyfriend used to argue so hard, like we need to redefine what these mean because they don't mean the same thing anymore. Right.

One is the icon for saving, if you could talk about that. Oh, it is such a good one. So Susan Carr came up with that concept of the icon being an association or an illustration of the thing that you were doing. So like the paint bucket being used to fill a surface with color or like the scissors being used to be the cut function. So when you think about the save function, right? So if you're a contemporary of me and I think Annie and Samantha,

I think you got you all as well. When you were saving something, you had to save it on a floppy disk. You could put a floppy disk, that square with the metal thing on it, into your computer. And not only that, you had to manually hit save every,

I don't know, 15, 20 minutes. Otherwise, it wouldn't save. Now, here in 2021, you're probably working in Google Docs or some other kind of interface. It saves it automatically. You don't have to put any kind of external thing into your computer for it to save.

This is the concept is, is so different. Yet the little disc, it's still the image for save. And so I almost wonder, like, I don't know that young people know what that. I, like, they're probably not as innately familiar with, like, the floppy disk as we are. Yet, that is still the icon for save, even though you don't even really have to save like we used to, right? It's funny how it's endured. Yeah. Oh my God. You just reminded me. We did a time capsule, I think, in my eighth grade, sixth grade year and I think I put in a thing a floppy disk.

Like blank ones? Really? Yeah. God. I have a lot of floppy disk memories. I remember, oh my God, if he's listening to this, he's going to kill me. My older brother, he had to do a class project. And at the time we were fighting and I remember he had it on a floppy desk that he left on the

computer and I swapped it out with a blank one. So like I put his in my backpack and put a blank one on the computer. So when he got to school, he was like, wait, where's my project? Oh, that's me. That's real petty. It was very petty. It was very petty. If he's listening to this, I apologize.

But you know your Frived it. But you ask what you deserve. So on your side, Bridget. Yes, always. But yeah, no, I just remember that because I knew that it would be outdated by that point. I was right. You were right. You were like prophetic here.

I know, right. I'm sure it costs a lot of money, so I can't believe I did that. Oh, they used to be hell of expensive. The box of them was like $30. Yeah. I'm kind of remind. I was like, why? Maybe I put one.

I just remember putting something to do with the floppy does. I'm going to put this in here because it's going to make it dumb. I love it. It's like one of those things, you know how I think some comedian has this line in his stand-up where when you're driving and you want someone to roll down their window, even though most cars no longer have the crank, that's still the motion that you do to tell someone. even though you're like, well, the cars haven't really had this for a while.

Why am I doing this? That's still the enduring motion that you do. But it keeps it. Yeah, the things like she created this in the 80s and it's still iconic and it's still used today. And even though I may not have known what a Mac was, it was definitely universally used. Right. Well, and that's funny to think about too because there's some technologies like the floppy

disc that did just go by the wayside. And that's one of my favorite things of Back to the Future too. when they thought the fax machine was going to be the thing. But, like, you have a story in here about, like, your copy machine, right? So she was initially going to have the copy function be a little illustration of a copy machine that you would drag and drop your file that you wanted to be duplicated onto the copier. But copy machines are, like, kind of complicated and, like, difficult to render at that size. And so that didn't work.

And then she got this idea to try an illustration of a cat in a mack. mirror, which I feel like that really tells me a lot about how she was thinking about these illustrations. Like, that's a really, like, using a cat looking into a mirror as a way to illustrate the copy functionality. I don't know. I just find that to be a very interesting manifestation of what the copy function does. You know what I mean? Right. Maybe because it started with a C, but I approve that. I want that now. I know. I wish that was the case. That's the direction we've got. And I can just imagine, I mean, that would be iconic if that is what it was. Like today, that'd be on shirts.

Like, the cat just staring into the mirror. Yeah, the copycat. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. I kind of get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. I'm so good.

That is a creative mind. Like, perhaps not the most intuitive. Like, I think that what she ended up going with was like much better. but it's like I can sort of see her her logic, I guess, in what she was going for with the copycat in the mirror. Yes, it's so good. I'm good with it. I would have proved that immediately.

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Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. So at the top, you said that CARES still alive today. What's she up to? So that's my favorite thing about this story is that I feel so often when we're talking about, somebody who had a great impact. We're talking about them after they have, you know, aged out of whatever they're doing or they've passed away, not care. Care is still very much alive and very much involved in tech. So today, she works at Pinterest where you are probably

familiar if you use Pinterest with some of her current designs. She designed the image on Pinterest that is modeled after the pushpin that symbolizes pinning an item. So again, that kind of idea of having the icon be kind of a kind of a visualization of what the user is supposed to be doing. And the spinning button that appears on Pinterest when you refresh. So very much still a person involved in imagining what tech looks like today, the tech that we use all the time. If you use Pinterest,

she's in your, her designs are in your pocket, which I just love. Yeah. You can also find her notebooks today. They're part of the permanent collections at the New York and San Francisco Modern Art Museum, which the one in New York is my favorite art museum on the planet.

It's so cool. I cannot wait to get back there when COVID is over. And one was included in the recent London Design Museum exhibit called California Designing Freedom. So, yeah, she still is this, you know, representing this past and present and perhaps future of design when it comes to tech, you know, still out there, still shaping how we conceptualize the tech that we use every day. I love that so much. And I just realized that I guess if you look at movies or TV show, that's another application where it's not necessarily a real world application. But if you were a designer and you're designing like something sci-fi, what will this look like in the future?

What does this like technology or button or whatever represent and then being able to communicate that to audiences? So, yeah, there's a lot of applications here. Definitely, definitely. Did you say Samantha, she has art you can still get? Yeah. Oh, yes. She had a collection where some of the,

and I don't know, Samantha, I don't know if this is what you're referring to, but if you go to terraprints.com, you can find her limited edition prints. And they include, like, the, like, little logos and things that she designed. You can get, like, the sad Mac on a poster or the Time Bomb on a T-shirt. Right. So, like, some of herself is really nice. Like, I really wouldn't mind one of these blankets that have all these different icons on it that she designed.

And what's funny is that when you go to CarePrince.com, they talk about how she was one of the original originators of what we think of today as, you know, emojis. And so I hadn't even really thought about that, that her designs is why, and I'm emoji obsessed, if you ever text me, get ready to get a million emojis. But yeah, just how fundamental that is in terms of how we think of representing things online. Yes, and that's another great example of what we were talking about earlier where emojis filled a gap that was missing, right?

And you had to like kind of envision what are these emotions? What is this trying to convey? and like that is another example of something that's kind of artistic but being in this very kind of technical world. Right. Also, Annie, I don't know. This is what I read earlier. It has something that is related to your superpower,

one of your useless superpowers, which is including fonts or typeface. Okay. You can recognize. I wasn't sure which superpower were discussing. calling you out, which I'm like, I don't know. You could be lying to me, just randomly naming a font, and I'm just believing you. But yeah, because, like, Chicago was one of the...

I know that was one of her first type phase is what it called. And then the emojis, which was... Is it Cairo? Is that how you say that? C-A-I-R-O. But that's the blanket, right? So she went even further into the world of computer stuff. I'm so official, y'all.

I'm amazing. But the fact that she actually created Typeface, I actually created, like, fonts is an interesting thing because I've always wondered who does this? And also, Andy, why do you know these? Could you recognize what Chicago looks like? Chicago 12? I want to test you now. For the listeners who don't know this, I have a very useless superpower. It's not as good anymore because I used to edit video all the time. And I actually would, because a font does convey an emotion. It does help shape whatever you're... Which is why everybody loves comic sands, right?

No. Futura, that's what everybody loves. And so I can recognize a font. Like, it is one of my most annoying. You get a little alcohol in me, and I'll be like, there's Futura, there's Nancy's chalkboard.

I apologize to anyone I've ever done that to. Do you have a favorite font? That's a good question, because I used to really love, I loved the ones that looked like people's handwriting. So I did really like Marker felt one with a very little bit of Drop Shadow, very little.

Or like Nancy's. I like Nancy's chalkboard. But I don't know if I would say those are my favorite, but they were ones I'd turn to a lot because they, I wanted those videos to feel very approachable, which is actually the stuff I've never told you videos. So they're on YouTube and you can go look at all my chalk and marker-based fonts. I need to do this right away.

I also love a good font, you know. Like I'm not even someone who is technical. this way, but, like, good design is really important. Like, bad design. I can't tell you how many times I've been on, like, a restaurant website page where I'm like, this is so infuriating. The font is terrible and this user experience is terrible. I don't even want to go to this restaurant anymore.

Like, good design can really open some doors and bad design can really close them. I'll just put it that way. Right. It's what matters. You are completely correct. But no, I did like that. I just was like, oh, look, she did this and this. And then that blanket, I was like, oh, I love this blanket.

It just has all those essentially emojis that's all over her blankets that she designed. I was like, that is so cool. And then I thought about the fact that Annie loves talking about how she has the superpower. So you're welcome for telling everyone your superpower. It's a good power. It's probably my most useless one, but also the safest one. I'm glad you're in that direction. Wait, what?

Okay. Silence. I think I killed that conversation real good, y'all. You're welcome. Well, when it comes to care and these icons, she's going to have, like, her legacy is a lasting legacy. It is a lasting legacy. And I guess, yeah, as I said, I think it's important to highlight, you know, what she did was important. You know, I couldn't tell you whether or not personal computing would be the same if not for care.

but I know that she had an impact, and I think it's important to recognize. And I also just think it's important to, again, underscore that she did all of this as a non-technical person. She told the Smithsonian about her time at Apple. I loved working on that project. I always felt so lucky for the opportunity to be a non-technical person in a software group. I was all by being able to collaborate with such creative, capable, and dedicated engineers. And I think it's really awesome that she was holding it down on this group of engineers as a non-technical. woman doing her thing and really building out a lasting enduring legacy in a field where things

don't often last and don't often endure in this way. So I think it's really important to recognize her work. I do too. And I think, you know, even looking back at the time when she was doing this and being a woman in this non-technical space and I don't know, creating these things that have lasted, it's just very, very inspiring. And I'm glad that you brought this story. to our attention, Bridget. Thank you for giving me the space to nerd out on this. Honestly, it truly is because I saw that badass picture of her on old school cool on Reddit. So whoever put that on Reddit, thank you.

Yes. Listeners, please, if you have not seen that picture, look it up. She is amazing. Yes, yes. It's so cool. Just so cool. I had goals. That would be one of them.

Yeah. Her picture. Yes. You can achieve this, Samantha. Now sometimes. I don't think so. I would fall out. Like, there's so many levels of cool that I couldn't hit.

And one of them would be actually sitting like that. Yeah, I'm worried for her back health. She's like really lean back. Well, thanks as always for being here, Bridget. Where can the listeners find you? Well, if you want more nerding out on all things tech and the internet and things of that nature, you can definitely check out my podcast on IHeart Radio called There Are No girls on the internet. We would love to have you there. And you can follow me on social media.

I'm at Bridget Marie on Twitter and at Bridget Marie in D.C. on Instagram. Yes. So go check out that podcast and follow Bridget if you don't already. Listeners and we can't wait to have you again, Bridget. Oh, I can't wait. I cannot wait. Well, talk sex in the city, I bet. Oh. And just like that. And just like that. Annie, you don't get that joke because you don't watch the show. I don't want to be left out of the conversation. And I couldn't help but wonder. I couldn't help but wonder.

All right, all right. I'm down to watch it. I'm just a little nervous, but I'm down to watch it. You're so bad. Yes, yes. It will be. It will be.

And if you'd like to contact us listeners, you can or email stuffmedia, at iHeartMedia.com. You can find us on Instagram at Stuff I've told you or on Twitter at Momstuff Podcast. Thanks as always to our super producer, Christina.

Thank you, Christina. And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told You's a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite.

Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving. for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurt.

with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves.

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