Her Playboy picture changed the internet forever - Stuff Mom Never Told You

Published May 1, 2024, 12:10 AM

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. 

There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Toad 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 a former model Lenna Forson, 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 Lenna image and why this month Lena is finally retiring as the first Lady of the Internet.

Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, I walk to Stuff. I never told you your propictionure of iHeartRadio. Today, we are once again thrilled to be joined by the fabulous, the fantastic Bridget Todd to 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 feels like you have an extra glow. Maybe it's because you've been like soaking in all of the sun on the beautiful beaches abroad. I've been stalking you on Instagram and I'm like, how is this woman always traveling? And I missed and I'm sad that I'm not.

I'm just kidding. Oh you all should have come.

We actually so, I was in Mazatlan, Mexico for a clips to be in a hospitality. We actually it was one of those trips where we'd invited all of our friends.

We were like, we're gonna get a big house on the beach. It's gonna 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. No enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it. I love Mexico. It is one of my favorite places. It was my first time in mazat Lawn. Ten out of ten completely recommend it.

Okay, did you see the eclipse and totality?

I saw the eclipse of totality.

It was my first time ever being in the path of totality of an eclipse.

You 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 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 like 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. Samanth 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 up. 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, Like that's how like I had never seen it, but I'd never say anything like it. Anybody who listens to their no girls on the internet is probably so sick of me talking to me about this eclipse, and I am fully making seeing this total eclipse like my personality. But it's kind But yeah, 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 the one.

The next the next one that you can see if you can go to Spain and see I think in twenty twenty six. Okay, so but then the one that you're referring to, Sam is like, don't hote me on any of this.

But that's supposed to be like the big one, the big one that we will.

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 houte me on that either.

Yeah, I did say at one point like it you would be able to view it in the US. 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 in no kind for this past eclipse.

Earlier this month, we had done so much planning, including like looking at farmer's almanacs to see what the weather and cloud coverage is like this time of year. And that's how we settled on Mazetlan, 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 and Texas, but a lot of those places in April might be cloudy. And so I have friends who were in Vermont and upstate New York who were like, Oh, We're just.

Gonna see it from our house, and I'm like, oh, will you.

Then on the morning of vietclipse 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 eighth, 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. Luckily, 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've not been able to see it.

It's a lot of pressure to put on a trip like that. Honestly, it's pressure to put on the eclipse.

I mean, it exists.

It's not their fault. So you can can contact like the manager of.

The sky to be like, actually, we didn't get a good view, and we were like, okay, for y'all who are Christians, here tell this God that truly did we get canceled?

We were like getting a little superstitious, like the things that we were doing to try to like ensure good sky.

It was getting a little a little out there. We'll just sleep it at that.

He brought a shaman in like we're going in.

Oh my gosh, Bridget, I want to ask so many questions.

About this later.

Oh well, I'm very glad that you got to see it. It is. It is amazing, like truly, and over on the other podcast I New Savor, we did a 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 story. So oh oh yeah, like totalityea, like.

Tea, Oh yeah, that's good.

Oh my gosh, so many things like this. So I feel like we have a couple of we have some years to brainstorm things like this.

Next giant celebration, but keep that.

In the back of your head, you know.

Oh, next time, definitely doing eclipse themed at food party or dinner party or something.

I love that.

Yes, there's a so many puns. I will I will hold myself back for now, but I have to say I am very, very excited to talk about the topic he brought today, Bridget, because it is a 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 Lenna image.

Is this something that either of you had ever heard of?

I do not know, not known, So even if you're listening and you're like, what is the Lenna image?

I've never heard of this image. I've never seen this image. Even if you.

Don't know the 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 it helps 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 Lenna, 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. On you here on Sminty, We've had plenty of conversations about this. I've had many conversations about this on their No Girls on the Internet, about how things like massogyny 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 misogyny, not because it's some sort of an unfortunate bug, but because this misogyny 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 new toify 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 Lenna image, where this image of a woman went on to create this entire field of technology without her consent, perhaps really tell us something about where we're headed in twenty twenty four.

Yes, 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 just and honestly, it ekes sense to all of us if you've posted an image on her line, right, 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 Lenna image is literally an image of this woman, Lenna Letna Forsin. She is a woman from Sweden who in the seventies 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 nineteen seventy two.

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 at 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 at an engineer. But here is a definition of what a standard test image is that I found from caggle dot 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 reasons. So basically, to put that in Layman's terms, a standard test image is it's 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.

Lenna'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 callapeno peppers. So this is 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, a 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 Lenna's Playboy picture becomes this standard test image that is everywhere and very ubiquitous starts with computer and a 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 ee.

And they were like, it's just the I triple ELL.

I want to so I E E.

Actually the I E exactly.

So it's the summer of nineteen seventy three.

Alexander Sauchuk 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 colleagues's conference paper. He had just sort of gotten bored with their usual stock test images. Because they mostly had come from like nineteen sixties TV standards and then we're 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 that 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, I'm cannot tell you how good you.

Just come into your institute. Okay, cool?

Yeah, Like, I mean, I do think that that sort of like gives you a sense of like the dynamics that we're dealing with, right, that somebody just happens to walk in with the but 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 twenty one hundred mini computer. So all of that to say is that they effectively cropped this image so that you can't see the models bears 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 I look like.

A feather boa and like thigh high stockings looking over her shoulder. So back in the seventies and eighties, 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 nineteen ninety one, 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 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 fifty dollars. Many years after that photo shoot, Hugh Hefner bought those photographs from the calendar company republished them without Marilyn Monroe's consent or permission in nineteen fifty three. That was the first ever issue of Playboy. Hugh Hefner paid five hundred dollars. She got fifty dollars. Right, So, whenever I read about how litigious Playboy is, which they're very litigious, I always had 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 par for the course for him.

Oh my godness, don't even get me started with Rough Heffner. 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 X Playmate and ex Playboy Bunny memoirs. Some of the things that they write about, I'm like, oh my god. Like even even Lenna in an interview, she talks about how in the seventies, 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 invites 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. Was like, yeah, yeah.

So Playboy threatens to suite these engineers and at this point, the engineers, it sounds like, had like grown very fond of using this image that they thought back. Eventually Playboy back 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, oh, let's exploit this.

Yeah.

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 it.

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 twenty twenty.

Four, absolutely and she did become pretty foundational, right.

Oh, absolutely, So this is when the image of Leta really becomes super popular. The whole drama about the cover catapults this image into what you might think of as like early Internet virality or popularity. This was in nineteen eighty five. 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 is 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 Lenna 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 Lenna 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 Lenna herself is often called the first Lady of the Internet.

Wow, I kind of 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 asked David C.

Munson, who is the editor in chief of the i E or the Tripoli 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, it's 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, 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 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's 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 the worlds of fandom are 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 gonna do what we want. It's not up to you, and that's the only way that you can you can be in this world. But that being said, there has been some pushback recently. Ish right, Bridgie.

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 Letta 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 got 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.

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, 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 to hear it at all.

Yeah, so you're exactly right, Annie. All of this happened, but it was not without pushback. Around like the twenty tens, people started publicly asking whether or not this image of a woman from Playboy should be so soundational 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 twenty fifteen, Mattie Zugg, who was then a student at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology right here in DC, riilive who I should say now is a product safety engineer at Apple who focuses on preventing tech and abled 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 at a STEM high school be given an image from Playboy as part of my education in technology and STEM? She writes, I first saw a picture of Playboy magazines Miss November nineteen seventy two, A year ago. As a junior at TJ, my artificial intelligence teacher told our class to search Google for Lenna Soderbird, not the full image, though, and use her picture to test our latest coding assignment. At the time, I was sixteen and struggling to believe that I belonged in a male dominated computer science class. I tried to tune out the boy's sexual comments. Why is an advanced science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics school using a Playboy centerfold in its classrooms? Her piece ends was 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. You had very similar stories. This one is actually pretty funny. Deanna Needle, a math professor at UCLA, had similar memories from college. So in twenty thirteen, she and a colleague staged a quiet protest. They acquired the rights to a headshot of the male model Fabio Lonzoni and used that for their imaging research. So they kind of like turned it around, like, oh, you're gonna 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 tracked down and speak to the real Lenna, 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 two. 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 first of this year, that I Triple E officially retired the use of the Letna image and announced they will no longer be using that image and their publications. Ours 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 I Triple E 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 Letna image with an alternative.

Yeah. I love that from Lenna 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 what I was reading about how this image came to be. I'm imagining a very different time, right, It's the seventies. 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 built.

And it really made me think of, like, Wow, the seventies, that probably was such a different time. But here in twenty twenty four, we are having those conversations, loud voices, are publicly having those conversations. There are women and people of color, and trans folks and queer folks and all kinds of folks who are building and making the technology that shapes our world today. And so in twenty twenty four, it almost feels like we are pretending that we're still in this nineteen seventies we didn't really know how 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 twenty twenty four 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 let us 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.

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 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 tech spaces where it still feels in a lot of ways even though women in 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, yes, get out.

And I just think that's a dynamic we need to be questioning in twenty twenty four. 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 power holder, 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 and 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 Lenna image really did usher in without really even necessarily meaning to.

I think there's a big conversation here on like the power of capitalism within the tech industry and what makes money. I can't help but think, like with the Lina image, the fact that this toxicity was used to make more profit and more power within this industry. It took forty to fifty years for it to even have a conversation about like let's change it, let's retire it. But the fact that it had that much push back 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 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, like what I wanted to talk to you all today about, and one of the ideas that I had that I that I scrapped was just this feeling that being on the internet just doesn't feel fun anymore. Anytime I go on a website, anytime I google something just to find out information, it feels 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 being showing up online today in twenty twenty four 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 re 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 in something like she has a very specific safety Yes, Susie someone she is very white and she's very redheaded. It's I was like, okay, so we've got played into the xenophobey. She's like, look, I'm a white person. I'm gonna help you out here.

Don't worry about don't worry out.

I'm get 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 and not whatnot. And I'm just like, all right, it's gonna go away next. This is now my attitude because also I'm very tired. But also I just got an email saying that AT and d Yes has a record that oh that that reached 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 perfect information. But I literally think every month I have been given seeing an email that says something of my information is has been breached, and it's nothing that I have done. It is literally everything from my insurance, my dental insurance, my healthcare 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'm gonna have this moment, y'all to each of those things popping up on things, I'm like, I hadn't. I have to use that information in order for me to have healthcare. So y'all, let my healthcare 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. Like, 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 that we're supposed to feel like safety or exploration or fun or community or connection. I'm I hope that somebody out there listening is like Bridget you're old and on hip. We have those spaces, they are syz tell me about them. I want to know about them. But I think that we should. We really got to get back to, like 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 read it has been like brought in but we already know Reddit has god its problems. And then I think there's a new lawsuit with Discord with his problems and its terms of service changing as well.

I'm like, what totally it's happened.

So there's literally no one is protecting the individual to like, there's no protection for us at all, but they want us to say, they want us to 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 see 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 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 gotta make money off of it.

Right, I'm thick of it, right?

Or is tradition literally like, yeah, this image has always been here, we need to teach it as a 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 this Yeah, I.

Mean so Lenna, the real life Lenna.

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 young playboy playmate in the night in nineteen seventy one 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, Lenna 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, dude, that they invited her to the conference, Like, I'm wondering what the purpose was other than two like for 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 aggle her in real life.

Yeah, I was thinking about why they did that.

I don't know, I have parted 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 specially 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 your family members forever.

And like who would 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 twenty twenty four, the fact that this image of Leta 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 controlled and protected and profited off by men, and nobody's stopping to ask about the rampifications 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 twenty twenty four.

And it doesn't have to.

We can learn from what we did with that letter 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 twenty forty 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 exact. I think that I would argue that's exactly what's going on. I mean, in twenty twenty four, 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 the oldest 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 like it's 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 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 that actually feels a little bit better for everybody.

Yes, yes, well, thank you so much as always, Virtute 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 Hefner.

Yeah, I'll be for it.

I think we need to do this because I think for a minute, back into the magazine world and jumping into like all of that.

Don't even get I mean like this is like spoiler alert. I like totally had this wrong. For so long in my life, I was like, oh, you have was a champion for free speech and some little riots and.

Blah blah blah. Then I grew.

Up and learned and I was like, actually, she wasn't such a good guy.

Right, I mean we really fed into the but read the articles so so good.

Oh my god, yes, yes, oh yes, please come back for that, Bridget. 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 Bridget Marie and DC. I am at Blue Sky at Bridget Todd on Threads at Bridget Marie and DC sometimes on TikTok.

You'll I'm easy to find. You'll find google me. You'll find me. Yes, google me.

That's 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 is stephaniea momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter at most of the podcast, on TikTok, and Instagram that Stuff I Never told You. We're also on YouTube. We have a tea public store and a book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to our super produced Christina, our executive producer My and your contributor Joey. Thank you, and thanks to you for listening. Stuff Will Never Told You. This proction by Heart Radio. For more podcasts on my heart Radio, you can check out the heart Radio app Apple Podcasts wherever you listen to your favorite shows

There Are No Girls on the Internet

Marginalized voices have always been at the forefront of the internet, yet our stories often go over 
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