BACK ISSUE
THAT TIME THE INTERNET WASN’T A HELLSCAPE
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to pay tribute to this thing called Beyoncé’s internet. No, not today’s digital hellscape, but the one we first fell in love with way back in ye olde days of AOL, Napster, and LiveJournal. *dial up bings and gurgles* This week, Josh and Tracy reminisce on how being online once had the potential to affirm us. How did we go from that to *gestures at the entire World Wide Web* whatever mess this is? And how can we imagine and create a better cyber world for us, by us? To help answer these questions, we’ll be joined by two people we would definitely rank in our Myspace Top 8, Bridget Todd (digital activist and host of “There Are No Girls On The Internet”) and Naj Austin (founder of Ethel’s Club and Somewhere Good).
Episode Transcription
[00:00]
[Church-like music starts to play]
Tracy: Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today to pay tribute to this thing called the Internet.
Josh: Now they will have you believe that Al Gore invented the internet, but we know better. I said, did you hear me?
Tracy: What'd you said?
Josh: We know better.
Tracy: Mmm-hmm (affirmative). We sure do. We are here to remember the real internet. Beyonce's internet, the internet we all knew and loved and now mostly hate.
Josh: Before the "snap-grams" and "insta-chats", we had Yahoo chat rooms and instant messenger.
Tracy: Yes we did. Before we could put all of our feelings in the Twitter thread, we had to put them in sad blogs, like Zenga and live journal. Y'all know nothing about it.
Josh: And before streaming, we had to download our music on peer to peer networks like Napster.
Tracy: Tell them about the networks.
Josh: They don't know nothing about the networks.
Tracy: Not a thing.
Josh: It took three days to download one album, but it was free.
Tracy: Amen. Amen. That is the internet that we knew. And that is the internet that we shall dearly miss. As the Bible says, "He who thou shall follow-
Josh: Mmm (affirmative)
Tracy: -into the gates of the Kingdom of the Lord, shall look around and be like, hmm, I made it."
Josh: In Beyonce's name, Ye-men.
Tracy: Ye-men.
[Cheering and scoring fades]
[CLIP] Voice: Beyonce? You look like Luther Vandross.
[CLIP] Voice: Ho, but make it fashion.
[CLIP] Voice: But you ain't heard that from me.
[CLIP] Voice: Fierce
[CLIP] Voice: Call ‘em
[CLIP] Voice: You see, when you do clownery--
[CLIP] Voice: ‘Cuz we won’t stop.
[CLIP] Voice: Can’t get no sleep ‘cuz of y’all--
[CLIP] Voice: the clown comes back to bite.
[CLIP] Voice: Y’all not gonna get no sleep cause of me.
[CLIP] Voice: It's Britney, bitch.
[CLIP] Voice: [Voices overlapping] We were rooting for you, Tiffany. We were all rooting for you… [overlapping voices crescendo]
[CLIP] Voice: Who said that?
[02:19]
[Intro music starts]
Josh: Welcome to Back Issue.
Tracy: A weekly podcast that revisits formative things, people and moments that we missed and that changed us.
Josh: This week, what happened to the internet y'all? What happened?
Tracy: Men happened to the internet, probably. White ones in particular.
[CLIP] Speaker 1: Imagine, if you will, sitting down for your morning coffee, turning on your home computer to read the day’s newspaper. Well, it’s not as far-fetched as it may seem.
[CLIP] Speaker 2: It spans the globe like a super highway. It is called Internet.
[CLIP] Speaker 3: Allison, can you explain what Internet is?
[CLIP] Speaker 4: Internet is a growing grid of interdependent computer networks interlaced. It’s evolved from a US military board from the 1970s to a worldwide computer switchboard.
Tracy: Each week, we'll go back into the past and revisit unforgettable moments we all think we remember.
Josh: And learn what they can teach us about where we are now.
Tracy: I'm Tracy Clayton and my screen name is honeymolasses2004.
Josh: I'm Josh Gwynn and my screen name is Chaka Tom 2000.
Both: [laugh]
[Beginning of scoring]
Tracy: So, Joshua.
Josh: So, Trace.
Tracy: When you go outside today or tomorrow and you see people in this post "damn-demic" world, does it feel weird? Does it feel like something's different or missing?
Josh: What do you mean?
Tracy: We're about to be out and social again for the first time in well over a year. And there's not the barrier or the protection, maybe of a webcam or a social network, and it feels good and refreshing. But it's also like... I'm terrified. How do I do this?
Josh: Like, can I turn my camera off right now? [laughs]
Tracy: [Laughs] Right, exactly. Where's the mute button? That exactly.
Josh: I think that there's the sense that we live online has only really gotten bigger in the past year. Right? We're always on fucking line. At one point we were able to compartmentalize it where it's like, here's IRL, here's the internet. But now even more than ever, I really feel like that divide is breaking down.
Tracy: I think it's broken down. I think it's blurry, it's near-sighted and far-sighted. Everything is all mixed up and jumbled. They're intertwined in a way that I feel can't be un-twined basically.
Josh: "Unter-twined".
Tracy: Is that a real word?
Josh: No. [Laughs]
Tracy: Why did I believe you? It sounds like some old English stuff.
[Scoring ends]
Tracy: But when did it start? How did we get here? Oh, I got an idea. I got an idea.
Josh: Okay.
Tracy: (singing) Let's start at the very beginning. You didn't know that was Julie Andrews, did you?
Josh: [Laughs] What you know about Julie Andrews?
Tracy: No but for real, I feel like we should use this episode to dig really, really, really deep into the throwback ways that we used to use the internet and how we use the internet now, today, and how we're going to use it in the future.
Josh: Ok
Tracy: And I think that later in the show, we should talk to Bridget Todd about this because she’s perfect for this conversation.
Josh: Mmm (affirmative)
Tracy: She’s a digital activist, and she’s the host of the podcast “There Are No Girls on the Internet”. And there, she chronicles the online experience of marginalized voices and talks about how we’ve been in this shit from the beginning.
Josh: From the get go!
Tracy: From Jump street.
Josh: I love her.
Tracy: Same.
Josh: I wanna invite someone too, though.
Tracy: Ooh. Who?
Josh: Okay. So I think we should talk to Naj Austin.
Tracy: Oh, of course!
Josh: You might know her because she built this fantastic space called Ethel's Club.
Tracy: Mmm (affirmative)
Josh: It was this whole community. It was like a "we work" meets a social club, but for POC people in Brooklyn. But then the pandemic hit, right?
Tracy: Mmm (affirmative)
Josh: So, she shifted her entire focus to online. So, she's currently building this network called "Somewhere Good" and it's billed as a social network for us and by us.
Tracy: Sign me up. I'm there. I will go any place called "Somewhere Good". Honestly.
Josh: Same. Same. What a title.
Tracy: Right? It's probably not great though, because now everybody knows how to kidnap us.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: You start a dungeon, you call it "Somewhere Good." We'll be there in five.
Josh: We'll be there.
Tracy: Right. But before we go to "Somewhere Good," I think that we should look back at it a little bit (giggles) and we should talk about our old school throwback, formative internet memories.
Josh: Okay
Tracy: But first, I have got to go and do a thing and then come right back.
Josh: Like right now?
Tracy: Mind your business. Mind your business.
Josh: (laughs) Wait.
Tracy: I'll be back. I'll be back.
Josh: I would just like to be known. Tracy just left our recording session for this show.
[Whirl, swish, transport ghost-esqe sound design]
Tracy: Woahhhh, oooooh.
Josh: (laughs) Tracy!
Tracy: First of all, my name is ghost of internet past.
Josh: I wish y’all could see her right now. She has on a wig that looks like Velma from Scooby Doo.
Tracy: That's generous because...
Josh: Giving you something that he could feel.
Tracy: (singing) To let them know the ghost is real.
Josh: Yes!
Tracy: Wooooo. I am the ghost of internet past. Ooh, my God.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: I am here to take you on a journey through the olden days of the internet.
Josh: You’re clearly Tracy with a wig on
Tracy: Ghost of internet past, okay?
Josh: Okay. Are we doing like a Christmas Carol now? Like the Charles Dickens book or the lesser known, but equally important to the kin of Christmas literature, “A Diva's Christmas Carol” starring Vanessa Williams.
Tracy: Shout out to that reference. But, look. I told you I don't know how many times, I am a ghost. I am out here trying to do my job and function and take you on a harrowing journey through the Internet's past, present and future. Okay? Is that all right with you? Do I need a permission slip because I do not get paid enough to have to wait through your little drama and disbelief. Okay?
Josh: Oh damn. Okay. Well tell me ghost.
Tracy: Mm-mm (negative). Racist. That's racist.
Josh: Wait, what?
Tracy: You can't say that. I can say it. You can't because y'all messed it up. It is now a pejorative. You and your little mortal friends lost the ability to say "ghost" after Nene read LaToya Jackson in that one show, what “The Apprentice” that one time. You remember?
[CLIP - Nene and LaToya on “The Apprentice”]
Speaker 1: Why you sat there and looked like Casper the Ghost. Disappear, ghost.
Tracy: See? You fucked it up. And now the proper term is "person of spirit".
Josh: Okay? Okay. So, person of spirit--
Tracy: Mmhmm
Josh: --do you have any memories? Pre-internet?
Tracy: You know I do. Let me take you back.
[Music starts playing]
Tracy: Can't you just hear the dial up tones right now? I can hear them so loudly. I remember this period of fun with computers before the internet was around. I used to go to work with my mama sometimes and I always loved to go because there was a word processor there and she would let me play with it. If you don't know what a word processor is--
Josh: I was about to ask.
Tracy: Oh my gosh. Don't make me feel so old! I'm already a ghost, so I'm a thousand years old. It's like an electric typewriter, sort of. Just push in the buttons. I felt like I was doing something important. And speaking of that line printer, I remember the very first computer that we had. It was this big IBM computer. They were not Macs back then. They were still IBM, with a little apple on it. And it was this big white clunky box. And the screen had two colors: black--
Josh: And green?
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's it!
Josh: Yeah, I remember that one.
Tracy: I used to play solitaire and I felt so grown. I was like "click clack, clack, clack". I would also-- I got my hands on a "how to type" notebook.
Josh: Was it Mavis Beacon?
Tracy: It was not. Shout out to Mavis Beacon.
Josh: Shout out to Mavis Beacon (laughs).
Tracy: This is before CD ROMs, Joshua. This was a book.
Josh: Oh my God.
Tracy: It was a book that was printed long-ways.
Josh: You had to read a book (laughs).
Tracy: Yes. I would prop it up next to the computer screen and just type and do the drills. It was my favorite thing in the world. Just so pure.
Josh: What a different world.
Tracy: Do you have a first internet memory? Oh wait, sorry. Frog in my throat. [ghost sound effect] Do you have a first internet memory?
Josh: You know what, person of spirit? I totally do.
Tracy: Tell me about it.
Josh: I remember we used to get mailed the internet in the form of AOL discs.
Tracy: Yes
Josh: I just remember being on AOL and you would get a certain amount of hours per month or something they would send you in the mail. And you'd put the CD in. I would use up all my hours playing Carmen Sandiego.
Tracy: (singing) Where in the world is--
Josh: (singing) Carmen Sandiego.
Both: (lauging)
Josh: And I just remember it was so slow that you would click something and then you would go and eat. And then you would come back and it would be half loaded.
Tracy: Yes!
Josh: And I remember this one time, my dad got me and my sister a Sony Vaio for Christmas, which was like… at the time, it was "that" computer.
Tracy: Cutting edge.
Josh: But he was afraid that we were going to break it, so he wouldn't let us take it out of the box. And by the time we were able to take it out of the box, there was a new version of it out.
Tracy: (laughs) [ghost sound effect] Okay so, seeing as how I am an actual ghost, in spite of what Josh will have you listeners believe, I have real powers. I'm going to use some of those powers to just kind of collect some stories from people all around the world.
Josh: And I, I, I-
Tracy: (Laughs) Ain't no way. I'm not getting paid enough for this.
Josh: (Laughs)
Tracy: But I want to know what they say when they hear the question, "What is your first memory of the internet?"
Josh: Okay, let's do it.
Tracy: All right, please keep your hands and feet inside of the carpet at all the times. We don't have insurance, so if you get hurt, you're on your own. And honestly, I might fall off and grab my back as well.
Josh: Damn (laughs) Okay.
Tracy: We might be in this together.
Josh: Okay.
Tracy: Wooo, ghost sounds
[Woosh, transport-y sounds]
[12:20]
Speaker 1: What is my first memory of the internet?
[Dial-up sounds]
Speaker 2: We had a computer in the living room and you literally had to go and log on.
Speaker 3: My first memory of the internet is logging on to AOL with a physical disc, a CD.
Speaker 2: You would get the [dial up sound effect] sign on sound.
Speaker 1: I had a crush on a guy in high school and we would go over to his house to hang out. I wanted to make out with him, but he would be on these message boards, sci-fi and message boards.
Speaker 4: I went straight for the chat rooms at the time. I was nine or 10. So you'd drop your age, sex, location, just kind of announcing, I'm a child and this is where I live.
Speaker 5: My first internet memory is when I heard about Napster. The first song I downloaded was Sir Mix-a-Lot Baby Got Back.
Speaker 6: Neo pets. I think for a long period of time, from about 9 to 12, I was taking care of my digital pet.
Speaker 7: I was an early adopter of Myspace. I figured out how to do the HTML codes. I was doing it for a lot of my friends
Speaker 8: Going to my cousin's house in the summertime, because he was actually the only one in our whole family that had the internet. So, it was eight of us going to his house and just sleeping over there, just to use the internet.
Speaker 9: It was total chaos.
[End of scoring]
Josh: Yo, in its early incarnation, the internet was so much fun. It was so thrilling--
Tracy: Yea!
Josh: --and exciting and so new.
Tracy: Yeah and so much less toxic.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy:There's always been assholes on the internet. I remember being in AOL and internet chat rooms and stuff, and there'll be people who would hit one letter over and over again to make the screen scroll real fast. So you couldn't see anything.
Josh: Proto-trolling.
Tracy: Exactly! That's where I first met the internet troll. Then you had this little broke-down section of the internet where people were making their own pages on Angel Fire.
Josh:: And GeoCities.
Tracy: Oh my God. GeoCities, nothing worked. Every link was broken.
Josh: It was fake gifts and line art and stuff.
Tracy: Yes. So much scrolling texts, people's dimensions of the pictures were all wrong.
Josh: All wrong.
Tracy: And it took five minutes to load, but it was just wowwwww, you got your own web page. I've got my own web page.
Josh: I feel like the first webpage that I ever set up myself was either a live journal or a Zynga. Did you have those?
Tracy: With all these feelings inside? I had to put them somewhere. (laughs)
Josh: That's what I'm talking about. I just can't believe that someone had the business model "You know what's missing from a journal?"
Tracy: What?
Josh: "It's not public."
Tracy: (laughs) People need to be able to read this and then comment.
Josh: Like, what?
Tracy: Nobody needed that. No one needed that at all. But you know what, though?
Josh: Mmm (affirmative)
Tracy: The more I think about it, the thing that really, really changed my life was blackplanet.com.
Josh: You know what?
Tracy: Who have you ever heard say that before?
Josh: You. (laughs)
Tracy: I owe my life to blackplanet.com. It's true though.
[Music starts playing]
Josh: Okay. So why did you love BlackPlanet so much Tracy?
Tracy: Well, first of all, I feel like we have to define what BlackPlanet was when it was when it was. But this is like around the dawn of all these different tailored social networks. And at the time I am a freshman in college at a super, super, super white school. There's literally 20 black people on campus. And this is how I found and connected with and talked to other black people and basically did not lose my entire shit right away, right? And I mean the user interface, with the broken HTML codes, scrolling text for some reason, there was a guest book People be, "Hit up, hit my spot. I just came by to hit your spot." Do you remember what people were saying that?
Josh:: No. I think BlackPlanet was a little bit before me.
Tracy: Bless you, bless you.
Josh: (Laughs) But, I did know a little fact about BlackPlanet.
Tracy: Oh what?
Josh: Did you know that the guy who invented BlackPlanet taught Oprah and Gail how to use the internet?
Tracy: I don't understand that sentence.
Josh: (Laughs)
Tracy: What do you mean? How?
Josh: Okay, so in 1999 Omar Wasow, the founder of BlackPlanet, was a guest on the cultural institution that was the Oprah Winfrey show. You got Oprah, you got Gail, and they’re asking him all these burning questions about this newfangled phenomenon called the Internet.
[CLIP: Oprah learning how to respond to an email]
Voice 1: What's a link?
Oprah: A link is a hook 'em up.
Voice 2 : A hook 'em up because you get you through to click 'em.
Oprah: [crosstalk 00:17:12] click em. I was so excited to read an email from the first lady. I had to fire off a message right away. Dear Hillary, can I call you Hillary?
[Music starts under dialogue]
Tracy: This is hilarious. I am surprised by how young he is.
Josh: Right?
Tracy: He looks like he's about 24 maybe tops.
Josh: Everyone looks like they're 24. Did you see Oprah and Gail with those fresh presses?
Tracy: Yes. Not a single stitch of new growth in them parts. I see you.
Josh: I love the rudimentary questions that all of us would find silly today.
Tracy: What is a link?
Josh: Valid at the time.
Tracy: I would have known zero of all of that stuff. And see in the beginning, I thought that only people like Oprah had their own email addresses.
[Music fades]
Josh: You know another really big moment in internet history for me?
Tracy: What?
Josh: I'm going to say some names and I want you to tell me what they have in common.
Tracy: Oh dear. Okay.
Josh: Adele, Sean Kingston, My Chemical Romance--
Tracy: Eee!
Josh: Taking Back Sunday, Solja Boy, what do they all have in common?
Tracy: I'm going to take a guess here. Were they all discovered on Myspace?
Josh: They were all popping on Myspace. They got it popping on Myspace.
Tracy: So my, Myspace page - one day, I was like, I'm going to revamp it. I couldn't do all the HTML coding and shit that everybody else was doing.
Josh: Girl, I went to coding university on Myspace.
Tracy: Look, the blinking text.
Josh: I went to coding university.
Tracy: (Laughs) I wasn't great at that. So I remember I typed up this really funny interview with myself to tell people about myself, got mad notes that way, mad messages. I was like, "Yeah, I don't need your scrolling text. I'm good like I am."
Josh: Oh my God. Oh, I just remember the internal anxiety around moving people in your top eight.
Tracy: That's the worst. Oh, you know what else I think is a really big turning point in the progression of the internet. It's not social media or anything.
Josh: What?
Tracy: LOL cats.
[Plunky music starts playing]
Josh: What is LOL cats?
Tracy: Do you remember LOL cats?
Josh: No.
Tracy: Oh my gosh. Let me see if I can explain it. So it was just pictures of cats. Can I tell you about my favorite one?
Josh: Yes, please.
Tracy: There's a cat in a birthday hat, right? And the cat is sniffing at a birthday cake. And the first one says, nom, nom, nom. And I remember being like, "That is what eating sounds like. Oh my God, this is amazing."
Josh: (laughs) Tracy, I feel so seen.
Tracy: I did feel seen. When did you first feel seen on the internet? When the cat was eating a birthday cake.
Josh: Nom
Tracy: I know, it's his birthday, give him the cake.
Josh: (laughs)
[End of scoring]
Tracy: I feel foolish right now.
Josh: No, it's like, you have to be there. You know what I mean?
Tracy: Absolutely.
Josh: It's so hard. There's this ephemeral nature to these memes.
Tracy: Mmm (affirmative)
Josh: I'm trying to think of how I would explain Tay Zonday's “Chocolate Rain” to someone. Do you remember Chocolate Rain?
[CLIP: “Chocolate Rain” by Tay Zonday]
Tracy: Oh do I ever. Absolutely. When I found out that that song was about racism.
Josh: What?
Tracy: It's about racism. I swear to God, hand to God.
Josh: I feel like you're lying.
Tracy: Chocolate rain is about racism, Josh. I swear to gosh. I swear to Josh, gosh.
Both: (laugh)
Tracy: No, let's explicate it - poem style. We'll start at the beginning. First stanza, if you will (clears throat). And I read:
[Coffee shop sound design starts playing]
Tracy: Chocolate rain, some stay dry while others feel the pain. Chocolate rain, a baby born will die before the sin. Chocolate rain, the school books say it can't be here again. Chocolate rain.
Josh: (snaps) Ashay, ashay
[Coffee shop sound design ends]
Tracy: I mean he's clearly talking about how some people get caught in the chocolate rain, black people, and others can escape it. White folks, they don't have to deal with the chocolate rain, which is probably really messy if it's raining chocolate. And you're just outside without an umbrella.
Josh: I pulled up this lyric on genius.com.
Tracy: See? I'm right. Thank you.
Josh: So when he says chocolate rain, some stay dry and others feel the pain. Do you know what it says?
[Classical music starts playing]
Josh: This refers to the mistreatment of black people throughout history.
Tracy: Sure does.
Josh: The dry can be interpreted several ways, either as more rich well off black people are able to escape the quote unquote chocolate rain, here being interpretable as police brutality, urban decay and poverty. Wait what?
Tracy: Shit's deep, right?
Josh: Black people, who are quote unquote wet by the chocolate rain have to deal with the immense fear when confronted by the police.
Tracy: Layers, layers.
Josh: Even if they do everything right and cooperate with the police, they can still be shot, killed, or really beaten by the cops who feel quote unquote threatened just because of the color of the civilian's skin. I did not know. I feel like I owe Tay Zonday an apology.
Tracy: You owe Tay Zonday an apology. Everybody listening owes Tay Zonday an apology. This man was woke while y'all was snoozing, sleeping.
Josh: I had no idea, my brother.
Tracy: See, write him an email.
[Classical music ends]
[Ghost voice sound effect]
Tracy: So see, maybe there is a way to explain the internet. Ooooooo--
Josh: I swear you got to stop with this voice.
Tracy: No. I will not. I was hired to do a job. I'm going to do it. All right. So let's take another magical ghost trip around the world because remember I am a ghost with magical powers.
Josh: You know what? (laughs)
Tracy: This time I want to see how people answer the question: When was the last time you felt affirmed by the internet?
Josh: Okay, bet. Let's do it.
Tracy: All right. I'm going to need a little something on the gas this time though.
Josh: Wait, I'm sorry. I thought this was magic.
Tracy: You got magic money? Okay, let's go.
[Transport-y whoosh sound]
Speaker 1: The time I felt affirmed by the internet.
[Dial up sounds]
Speaker 2: I can't really think of a time where I felt like I was affirmed by the internet.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I can say I've ever felt affirmed by the internet. A lot of who I am as a black woman, plus size, et cetera, et cetera. The praises aren't often sung for those groups.
Speaker 4: So I'll often see something on Instagram that I connect with from a writer or an artist that I really like, and I'll save those type of posts so that I can look at them again later when I need to see something comforting or inspiring or educational.
Speaker 5: I don't know, maybe good would be a better word. Just good about the internet was probably when I graduated with my doctorate and I posted a picture and everyone was like, oh, congratulations. Hey doctor.
Speaker 6: I've been having the best time on Tik Tok. it's nice to be able to see different versions of yourself out there in the world. It really reminds you just how much we all actually have in common.
[Scoring fades]
Tracy: Josh, do you have an answer to this question? Was there a moment where you felt affirmed by the internet that stands out?
Josh: Not in a long time child. I feel like there was this moment on Tumblr where everybody was learning about social justice, but also looking at beautiful things--
Tracy: Yes!
Josh: --and listening to music and finding these little micro communities.
Tracy: So accepting.
Josh: That felt really dope. And I don't know if I felt that on the internet since.
Tracy: That's a good answer. I miss Tumblr, just put the porn back and then we can...
Josh: Know your brand.
Tracy: Seriously. You all had it made. Dummies. When is the time that I felt affirmed on the internet? I think it was at the beginning of the season of Black Girl Magic. Remember?
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: It's the only time I can say that I enjoyed posting pictures of myself because I knew that no matter what I looked like, no matter how ashy I was, no matter how lopsided my fro was--
Josh: I see you sis.
Tracy: --every black girl going off in the comments.
Tracy: Yes knee cap, you better pop that. You better pop that pinky toe girl, yes.
Josh: Ooo, buttons.
Tracy: Top button slightly undressed so you can see the necklace underneath.
Josh: I see you stitches, denim fabric.
Both: (laughing)
Tracy: I miss it. I feel like it doesn't really happen anymore because everybody's sad, but...
Josh: (laughs) How true is that? Yeah. I think that a really big part of that is just how central the internet has been to our lives, right? It used to be this thing that was an accessory. It was a bag that went with your outfit. And now, it is the outfit.
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: It used to be something that you could escape. And now, it is our lives, especially within the last year.
Tracy: Yes. You have to go off the grid - intentionally.
Josh: Yeah. And so I guess that takes us to now, right? How we're feeling about the internet right now.
Tracy: Oh, right now. Like today. Okay, that's my cue. My next shift is starting in a little bit. So, look over there!
Josh: Wait, where?
Tracy: Over that way.
Josh: (laughs) Where are you going?
Tracy: Mind your business. Look over there. I can't believe that [inaudible 00:26:50]. Oh. Ooh.
[Transport-y whoosh magic sound]
Josh: You know what? (laughs)
Tracy: Oh, I'm a ghost. Can you believe it? Oh.
Josh: I want you to know that just because you changed wigs, like Megan said, does not mean that you're a new person.
Tracy: You trying to call Megan Thee Stallion a liar?
Josh: Okay, no. No, I'm not doing that. (laugh)
Tracy: Okay. All right. So like I was saying. Ooh.
Josh: I wish you all could see this Ms. Frizzle wig that Tracy's wearing right now. She looks like a Tracee Ellis Noss.
Tracy: Wow. You know what? It's all right. You better tip well after this shift.
Josh: (singing) My ghost friends.
Tracy: (singing) My ghost friends. (giggles) I am quite clearly and evidently the ghost of internet present. And my hair is banging. You a hater.
Josh: (laughs) It's cute. It's cute. It's cute.
Tracy: Thank you. It's actually a ponytail. It's not even a full wig.
Josh: (laughs) Don't tell nobody. Don't tell nobody. Ooh, here we are in the present. Oh, man. Josh, I would love to hear some of your thoughts and feelings on the state of the internet today.
Josh: Exhausting. Depleting.
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: Anxiety-provoking.
Tracy: I feel that. I feel that.
Josh: All of the above.
Tracy: Yes. Yes. I agree with all of those things. It is anxiety-producing, but it's still also a part of my existence and my identity and my job. So it's like catch-22.
Josh: I feel like it makes it worse.
Tracy: Yeah. It's not great, Bob. Not great.
Both: (laugh)
[Start of scoring]
[27:52]
Tracy: So yeah, I'm really tired of the internet. And actually, I am so tired that I can't even tackle this part of the ghost tour by myself. So I called in some reinforcements.
Josh: Like a personal assistant?
Tracy: Kind of, but only if the personal assistant is far more capable and qualified than the boss.
Josh: Okay. Okay.
Tracy: Yes. So in this scenario, the more qualified assistant is Bridget Todd, who is going to come through and help us unpack the state of the modern internet. I'm so excited. Bridget is a digital activist and she's the host of a podcast called “There Are No Girls On The Internet”, which is a brilliant title.
Bridget: The real irony of where we are with the internet experience today is that Black folks, queer folks, sex workers, trans folks, we are the ones who really did invent the internet. And if we didn't invent it, we're the reasons why it's good, right? Back in the 19th century, computing was really associated with women. And so much so that people described computing power as killer girls, because it was so associated with feminized labor.
Tracy: Okay, some things, right?: first of all, is there anything that marginalized people did not invent or make better?
Josh: The answer is no.
Tracy: The answer is no, you are correct. Secondly, am I the only person who didn’t know that computers were even around in the 1800s?
Josh: No, I don’t think I knew that either.
Tracy: Like, what? And thirdly, I did a google search because I was like “is this true”? And it IS, and I found out about this white woman named Ada Lovelace. And she was one of the world's first computer programmers waaay way back in the 1830s.
Josh: I at least knew that the first computers were Black women, right?
Tracy: Bascially.
Josh: Hidden Figures, Hidden Fences (if you understand that reference)!.
Tracy: (giggles) Get out.
Josh: But either way, it started with black folks and femmes - that’s where all of this computing power comes from.
Bridget: The internet and technology has actually never been a boys club. And the fact that today we find ourselves trying to just take up space on the internet in technology that is often so hostile to us is completely at odds with how it actually started.
Josh: I feel like these are the realest words I’ve heard today.
Tracy: Too real!
Josh: (laughs) And I feel like now the Internet just feels dark and unsafe and just gross.
Tracy: Yeah, that should be the internet’s resume.
Josh: (laughs)
[Music starts playing]
Tracy: And Bridget spends a lot of time thinking about these things. She brought up her favorite example right now to help us understand how operating online works differently for women and people of color. Okay, there’s this woman whose name might be familiar to you:
Bridget: Ifeoma Ozoma.
Tracy: She was one of the first folks hired on Pinterests..ss.ss public policy team. I don’t know the scientific word for Pinterests.
Josh: (laughs) Pinterests
Tracy: Fun fact: she’s the reason why Pinterest no longer allows for plantations to be described as romantic venues for weddings. So, ok, Ifeoma Ozoma had an idea--
Bridget: Her and this amazing woman, Jade at Color Of Change, formed a partnership to make it so that wedding websites and Pinterest could not describe plantations as a beautiful, charming location, and not a torture site.
Josh: OOOOOOO I bet the Blake Livelys were PISSED!
Tracy: The Blakes probably started an institution. They started a union.
Josh: They were like “how dare you take away my plantation”??
Tracy: We’re protesting! Where are we supposed to get married now?
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: So, needless to say: love Ifeoma, love what she’s about, she has this really great penchant for finding happening that shouldn’t be happening, right?
Josh: Mmm (affirmative)
Tracy: So when she gets hired at Pinterest, she noticed that some other things were off.
Bridget: One of the first things that she did when she was hired at Pinterest was saying, "Hey, there's a lot of dangerous medical and health misinformation on Pinterest."
Josh: On Pinterest? Like, on Pinterest though? I thought you go to pinterest for gluten free, keto friendly chia seed pudding recipes and like fairy light tutorials. How’s there medical and health misinformation?
Tracy: That is where you go to enrich and better your life and everything. So you think that Pinterest would be like, “thank you, we’ll heed this immediately.” It is! But, that would be too much like [inaudible].
Bridget: You would think that a woman pre-COVID really designing a framework to crack down on health misinformation would be championed at Pinterest. But, for this work that black women and other underrepresented folks always do of making these spaces better and safer, she was actually deeply, deeply harassed by her own coworkers. And so people at Pinterest doxed her, they put her information on white supremacist websites. Eventually, she had to leave the company.
Josh: Ok, so one thing I will never understand is why Black people and women always get in trouble for doing their job. Like, you asked me to be here? How are you mad at me for doing the thing that you hired me to do?
Tracy: We can’t win because if we don’t do it, we get fired.
Josh: Okay?
Tracy: It’s just so messed up. And then on top of all this, even when we do the job and we get in trouble for it, and then we have to leave the company, turns out the work that we did made it better for everybody.
Bridget: When she left Pinterest, another woman, a white woman, sued Pinterest for gender discrimination and won. And good for her. I'm glad that she won. But she was open about the fact that the reason why she won is because Ifeoma Ozoma had been so open about her experiences at the platform as well. And so this woman got a huge payout, Ifeoma didn't get a dime. And it was one of those stories that's like black women, we are the ones who make tech safer, more inclusive, a better place to spend your time.
Josh: See - remember when I told you the Internet was exhausting? I am TIRED. (laughs) I remember seeing this Tiktok where this girl was like - I just wanna stop being perceived. SO REAL.
Tracy: Yo, can I just exist without somebody’s gaze?
Josh: Exactly.
Tracy: That is so, so real. And then even if you have a relatively “easy” time on the internet as a black woman, you still risk being triggered by seeing someone else’s terrible time. I remember when all this Pinterest shit went down and I had to log off because I was just like “this mirrors not only my experience, but the experiences of so many people that I love.” I just couldn’t take it, I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Bridget really thinks that this has a lot to do with why the internet is not fun anymore. In the past - we weren’t being perceived as Tik Tok homie said - we were just having fun.
Bridget: It's so funny because back then, it used to be that the internet was where you went to feel anonymous and the real world was attached to your actual maybe kind of boring identity. And now, it's really flipped. If you have the privilege of logging off, the real world is where you go to be anonymous. The internet is where it's attached to your name, your employer is in your bio, all of that. And it also feels like something that I can't quit on, even though sometimes I want to.
Josh: I mean facts, I get it. I understand it. I receive it. I don’t want to, though, because then where does that leave us? The internet just sucks now? It’s just gonna be an awful place?
Tracy: I mean...yeah?
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: It looks like that for a lot of us?
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: When the internet first started, there was this idea that there was gonna be this big, equalizing of the power among everybody, and voices for the voiceless and all that. But Bridget thinks it was, in the words of Karlie Redd from love and hip hop hollywood: all a lie. It was all lies, I’m holding up an imaginary paper.
Bridget: We have never really let go of that vision that it was going to be this libratory, democratic thing where all voices can be heard equally. I do not think it's possible on any platform that currently exists to have all voices be heard equally.
Josh: Ugh.
Tracy: It’s sad and sobering. I would much rather be drunk when it comes to stuff like this because--
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: --especially for me because I started out with a really great experience on social media and I was like “voices to the voiceless”, and it is true! It was that. But that’s the bare minimum, you know? We should have moved past by now. That’s the bar and the bar is--
[Scoring starts]
Josh: --in hell.
Tracy: --very much in hell.
Josh: I will say though: hearing Bridget talk about who’s voice is heard and who’s isn’t gives me an idea.
Tracy: Ooh! If it’s a good idea then it’s also my idea too because I took you on this journey.
Josh: Wait, what if it’s a bad idea?
Tracy: Oh, I don’t know you.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: Woo-hoo.
Josh: Fine we can share the idea. After the break.
Tracy: Oh. Still a ghost.
[36:48]
Josh: Okay. So this is Back Issue and we're back.
Tracy: Hey.
Josh: Wait, Tracy, where'd you come from?
Tracy: Oh, here, there, everywhere. It's me.
Josh: You're not a ghost anymore?
Tracy: Do you see a wig? No. Just a bomb-ass bonnet. What did I miss though?
Josh: So we just heard from Bridget, and she was talking about how there are no spaces online where everyone’s voice can be heard equally within the internet, as it exists right now, right?
Tracy: Uh-huh, ok. =
Josh: That makes me think: we should talk to someone who’s trying to imagine a different internet? Someone who’s trying to revisit how we engage with the internet and focusing on OUR experience specifically online.
Tracy: Oh man a new Internet? Sign me the fuck up.
Josh: So guess what? I talked to Naj Austin, who's currently building this online platform called Somewhere Good.
Tracy: Ooh.
Josh: (laughs) Are you still a ghost?
Tracy: I think so. It's just so hard to break character. I’m so serious about my trade.
Josh: Method. Method.
Both: (laughs)
Josh: But she's building this social platform. It's called Somewhere Good, and it's by and for people of color. And she's gotten so much support. Gabrielle Union's an investor.
Tracy: Ooh. It's like she's looking everybody in the eye. It's her character, Isis, from Bring It On and she's like, "Gestures to the internet."
[CLIP] Voice 1: I know you didn't think a white girl made that shit up.
Josh: Right. And prior to that, she founded Ethel's Club, which was the social club meets coworking space in Brooklyn. Iconic. Fantastic. We stan.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
[Music starts playing]
Josh: But with Somewhere Good, I wanted to ask her what the internet looks like for us by us.
[Music plays and fades under dialogue]
Josh: So you already created Ethel's Club and now you're working on Somewhere Good. Tell me all about it.
Naj: Before I had anything, let's be clear, there was literally no Ethel's Club, there was maybe an Instagram page with maybe six images on it. And I was on Twitter being like, "I'm building a new kind of space for people of color and it's going to be amazing and it's going to be in Brooklyn and I'll figure it out, how to get there." And then Morgan Jerkins, a journalist, found me. Then one of our investors, Roxanne Gay, found me and another person found me. Then customers are like, "I've been looking for this my whole life." Reaffirming what I'm building. I said, "Can I get on the phone with you? Because I haven't built it yet. So this is a perfect time to chat." And it became this thing that is not mine, which is the wildest thing about a startup, which is if you build it the right way, it very quickly becomes everyone else's. Ethel's Club is not mine at all. People have such ownership over it in a really beautiful way.
Naj: I always had a vision that was much bigger than a physical space. I remember talking to one of my early investors and telling the story of how in five years, we're going to have an Ethel's Club airline.
Josh: Oh!
Naj: And what does that airline look like as you're flying around in black excellence? What is that, right? So for me, my mind is always trying to figure out how to center marginalized identities.
Josh: Mmm (affirmative).
Naj: How do I make this blacker? What's missing from this narrative?
Josh: The experience of having to shift could throw a lot of people off and you seem very, very calm and very okay with it.
Naj: I wouldn't go that far. I present okay, because I have to. It could have all gone wrong. It could have been the worst digital experience ever. And I would have been like, "Well I thought it was a good idea. I definitely planned on it being really great."
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Naj: When we had the physical space, that was my first version of taking all of that energy and all of those thoughts and manifesting it into something. And so for us, it was like, "Okay, just moving mediums."
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Naj:It wasn't even a big conversation for my team.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Naj: And we're going to keep it moving. We know that the bar is so low for products and places and spaces that center people of color and black people, and we believe we are the best people to build it.
Josh: When you think about Somewhere Good, can you tell me what you're envisioning? When you say that phrase out loud, what images pop into your head?
Naj: The first word that comes to mind is reflection. As a black woman navigating the internet, I often don't feel reflected and I've just had to be okay with that because there has never been a true alternative. And so again, in that same vein of trying to poke at everything that exists now and ask, "How can I make this more reflective of me and my identity," we're doing the same thing with social media. How do you make it where it's a kinder, more intentional place? How do you build real, radical community into social media, a place that is known for hate, misinformation, doom scrolling. No one's like, "Oh, I love social media. It fills me with joy."
Josh: (laughs) Not in a long time.
Naj: Exactly. And that's very funny you say that. When we did user research calls this summer, they hate all the platforms now, but they would always say, "Back in the days of MySpace and Tumblr." "When I could own what I was doing online and when I could make this creative landscape of my own doing is when I felt the most powerful." And then that has slowly been taken from us over the last couple of years.
Josh: Yeah.
Naj: And so Somewhere Good is a new social platform designed for the rest of us. And when we think about what new social looks like in terms of recognizing all the people that are forgotten on the other platforms, it looks like ownership. It looks like creation. It looks like actual authentic connection, all the things that are missing from the narrative now.
Josh: So how do you plan to organize Somewhere Good to make it truly a place that's good for all of us? What's on the checklist?
Naj: It's less of a checklist and more so a lot of feelings, a lot of conversations that manifested into what Somewhere Good eventually became. When you're onboarded, it feels affirming from the very beginning. One of the things I was obsessed about was, when you join any kind of platform these days, and you're asked to upload a profile picture. It's you scrolling through your photos, looking for the best photo of you
Josh: Where's the lighting hitting?
Naj: Exactly, right. Horizontal, vertical. [crosstalk] It's a whole moment.
Josh: (laughs) Right.
Naj: That should be an affirming moment, thank you for selecting the best photo of you. We're so happy to have that beautiful shining face. It should feel that way in the product.
Josh: We're going to get push notifications that's like, [crosstalk] "I see you sis. C'mon with the angles."
Naj: Right. Exactly.
Josh: I mean, that would make my day better. I'm not going to lie.
Naj: Right. And so how do we optimize this so that a person who is walking through life and has never felt very reflected in a lot of the places they're going, where they come to this and they're like, "Wow, I didn't even know I was looking for a black sustainability group. And now I found this amazing community and they're here in Brooklyn and they meet up safely in Prospect Park." We want to make it easy where we also have an approved list of black-owned places in your city that you can go to where you'll feel safe. We have always thought about Somewhere Good as being additive towards the IRL experience. And so trying to make this circular experience where you, black person I'm talking to, is always centered and celebrated everywhere you go, every click you make, every relationship that you foster, whether it's online or offline, all of those moments can be magical for people because they are because we've never had them. That's how low the bar is.
Josh: Yeah. What is your dream for black people in the digital space?
Naj: I want everything.
Josh: Yes!
Naj: No, I really want our own internet, like a place where we can all go to feel reflected in text, to feel seen, to have the things that we're thinking about either discussed or just written down in that way. I think there's so much about our legacies and our ancestral backgrounds that are not easily find-able. And I think so much of going forth is looking back. But the biggest issue I've heard when I've talked to other black folks about this is where is it? And I'm like, "That's a good question." I want black people to feel safe in all of the ways that safety can present itself, whether it's walking into a Starbucks, whether it's being pulled over, whether it's simply existing in your bed. I think a lot of what I'm chasing is that feeling of feeling like you can simply exist. And that's okay. And no one's going to try to take that away from you.
Josh: Thank you so much for sitting down with me.
Naj: Of course. Thank you.
[Learn something from this bounce remix starts playing]
Josh: So as the patron Saint of this podcast, Tyra Banks taught us in the textbook that is America's Next Top Model, Trace did we-
[CLIP] Tyra Banks: Learn something from this.
Tracy: Um, you know what? I think we did. I don't know what I was expecting from this trip down memory lane. I was like, "Is it going to make me sad because those times are gone? Is it going to make me happy that those times are gone?" But I think a thing that I'm learning in my personal life as well is that it doesn't make any sense to try and recreate the past.
Josh: Yeah. I feel like a lot of people are trying to do that right now.
Tracy: Because everybody's like, "Oh, I can't wait to get back to normal." Well, you're going to be waiting for a while because normal is today. And that's it because everything keeps changing. Does that make sense?
Josh:(singing) On this journey of discovery.
Tracy: (singing) On this journey of discovery.
Josh: (singing) Of finding you and finding me.
Tracy: (singing) Finding you and finding me. (laughs) That's the only words I know. We have to stop.
Josh: But yeah, I totally hear you. I totally hear you.
Josh: I keep looking at the internet and being like, "Yo, I do not feel safe." (laughs)
Tracy: Seriously.
Josh: When was the last time that I felt safe? And I really don't think that it's a matter of going back to the last time that I felt safe, but doing what Naj is doing in terms of using my imagination to create a new idea of what safety could look like given these parameters, you know?
Tracy: Right. And also wet going outside is going to look like.
Josh: What existing is going to look like. I don't know. It brings up a lot of feelings for me, a lot of them. And I found this video actually that I think expresses them really well.
[CLIP] “Never Gonna Give You Up” starts playing
Tracy: Did you just Rick roll me? Is that what just happened to me? Are you kidding me right now in fucking 2021?
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: You know what? I will go get that ghost and just be like, "Get his ass. Get Joshua Jenkins. Go get him." Wow.
[Music starts playing]
Tracy: Back Issue is a production of Pineapple Street Studios.
Josh: This show was created by Tracy Clayton.
Tracy: And Josh Gwynn. Our senior producer is Josh Gwynn and lead producer is Emmanuel Hassis, our senior editor is Leila Day.
Josh: Our managing producer is John Asante. Our associate producers are Alexis More, Xandra Ellin, and Brianna Garrett. Our intern is Arlene Arevalo. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman and Max Linsky. Our engineer is Raj Makita. He made a lot of the original bops you were bopping to in this episode, and Davy Sumner.
Tracy: This show also features bops from the musician Don Will, you can follow him at DonWill on the socials. You can follow me Tracy @brokeymcpoverty.
Josh: And you can follow me Josh @regardingJosh on all the socials. Subscribe to this podcast, wherever free podcasts are sold. Also leave a review. It really does help.
Tracy: Yeah. And some stars and stuff too. And you can follow the ghosts of internet past and present @bombassghostswithwigs on all the socials. We'll see y'all next week. Bye!
Josh: In 1999, Omar Wasow, the founder of Black Planet, was a ghost on the-- a ghost (laughs)
Tracy: (laughs and snorts) Sorry, that just tickled me.
Josh: (laughs) [crosstalk]
THE END