The Computer Room

What exactly was the alt-right? A digital subculture? A political movement? What did the press get wrong? Katherine and Gio sit down with Scott Greer to attempt to demystify What Happened an incredible eight years ago…

Katherine sat down with cyberethnographer and artist Ruby Justice Thelot and discussed the role of imagination in computer-mediated communication, paracosms, building durable relationships with AI, and more. Ruby's book: https://www.irrelevantpress.com/store/pre-sale-a-cyberarchaeology-of-checkpoints-ruby-thelotRuby's Twitter: https://twitter.com/being_on_lineRuby's blog: https://asterisques.com/

Katherine speaks to 23-year-old reality shifter Maddie about her experiences traveling to other timelines. Learn more about Maddie here: https://maddieshifts.carrd.co/

Katherine and Gio discuss the Cut's Andrew Huberman profile, what does and doesn't count as "being political," emo kids, and which up-and-coming public intellectuals they want to model themselves after. 

Ross Jeffries, the author of How to Get the Women You Desire into Bed, The Secrets of Speed Seduction Mastery and webmaster of seduction.com and speedseduction.ai, is considered the Godfather of the Red Pill. In his own words, he "doesn’t know shit about relationships, but he can teach you how to get laid."Gio and Katherine sit down and talk to him about the first PUA newsgroup, alt.seduction.fast, seduction.com, and how the PUA community evolved and the Manosphere developed into what it is today. 

Katherine and Gio review the wonderfully weird film Rukus (2018), which is one part of coming of age story and one part mockumentary about furries.

Katherine sits down with Tal from the Tally Mark System to discuss the much misunderstood Dissociative Identity Disorder and its complementary TikTok community. Find Tal here: https://tallymarksystem.carrd.co/. 

In today’s mini-sode, I talked to Tobyn Jacobs about cut-out art, waifus, and whether or not it’s all just a bit.Follow Tobyn on Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. 

In our first episode of 2024 (naturally recorded in September), we interview pretty intense early Japanese language YouTuber AppleMilk1988 about Stickam, Encyclopedia Dramatica, proto-e-girls, and living in Japan.That McDonald's ad from forever agoapplemilk1988's YouTube channelapplemilk1988's Twitch

Gio and Kat discuss Agamben's book The Open: Man and Animal and what it has to do with otherkins. They read some of it out loud and may or may have not butchered some of the pronunciations. If you need to fast-forward through those parts, peep the PDF of the book here: http://ewa.home.amu.edu.pl/Agamben,%20The%20Open.pdf

Episodes with Gio coming THIS WEEK. We talk so much I haven't been able to edit them down to manageable episodes. I promise!!I spoke to fictophile/fictosexual Cait Calder about what it’s like to have a fictional crush.When I first talked about fictosexuality over at UnHerd, I got a lot of pushback: Why does this need to be labeled? Don’t all women do this?To some extent, sure. The success of Twilight and Fifty Shades is illustrative. Before that, Stephen King wrote an entire book about women's tendency to fall in love not only with fictional characters but with fiction itself—Misery. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth both labeling and exploring. I’m not of the school of thought that the exercise of labeling these more fringe expressions of sexuality is excessive or decadent. If I’ve learned anything from being Terminally Online, it’s that most of these things aren’t “fake.” They’re unconventional and our language hasn’t caught up the way even television has impacted people’s emotional landscapes.Online dating, objectum sexuality (when you fall in love with an object, like a robot or a rollercoaster), the limerence of writers like Dante Alighieri, fandom, divine devotion, and fictophilia all exist on a spectrum.What are the contours of that spectrum, though? “Loneliness” isn’t a good enough answer. I’m still figuring it out.

Cross-posting this mini-sode from default.blog to this feed. Katherine sat down with a former otherkin to discuss life with a human body and anime soul. Check out nabby's art here: https://linktr.ee/inviteonlycomic 

Gio and Katherine discuss the 2005 film Hard Candy, To Catch A Predator, Lucas' room, and the moral panic around and reality of chatroom pedophiles.  

Katherine is DONE with Zoomers re-writing Internet history and being smug to her about it. It is NOT a girl's world, ladies -- at least online. Gio has some other ideas. She and Gio discuss WIRED's "Everyone Is A Girl Online," miladys, Biggie Slonk, pregnant Megumins, and the myth of the "Girl Internet." They collectively mispronounce Tiqqun at least a dozen times.  

Vers and Lukas  drop by and talk about e-dating, e-girls, e-ating disorders, and secret political Facebook groups. 

Steff and Katherine discuss Lauren Oyler's Fake Accounts and Patricia Lockwood's No One Is Talking About This. Warning, Katherine struggles through a Harper's review. She got a little too big for her britches with the whole "reading quotes out loud" thing.

we met online. is a new show from Katherine Dee and Naama Kates. In this cross-posted episode, Naama and Katherine discuss cam girls: the history, business model, cultural context, and psychology of these digital entertainers. Listen here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/we-met-onlineRegularly scheduled episodes of The Computer Room will resume next week.

we met online. is a new show from Katherine Dee and Naama Kates. On episode one, Katherine and Naama discuss 2011’s seminal documentary, Catfish: the movie that started a show, a phenomenon, and a prolific career for its star, Nev Schulman.Listen here.Follow on Twitter: @wemetonline   

Is Chat-GPT sentient? What does it think about when you log off? Steff and Katherine explore new developments in AI, as only non-technical people can. 

Katherine and Steff are joined by Perry Abbasi, a Chicago-based lawyer whose Twitter presence recently "made headlines" -- in other words, revealed just how reliant on Twitter modern-day journalists are. Katherine has also, once again, fucked with the theme. Someone help her.Pieces cited:Police district candidate’s social media full of racist and misogynist postsHow the Online Right gave up on reality