Summary
Before “co-authored, interactive erotica” (otherwise known as sexting), we had chatrooms. Virtual spaces where anyone of any race, gender, class, or creed could come together to fornicate with their words. The MUD and MOO chatrooms of yore belonged to a time when Dungeons and Dragons nerds governed the internet - a utopia of beautiful, unadulterated cybersex. But one fateful day in 1993, this would all change. In this episode, Hannah and Maia discuss the origins of online chatrooms, their dark corners, and eventual evolution into child-oriented platforms (like Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin). Digressions include: beautiful house theory, “meat puppets”, Richard Nixon’s brief stint on IMVU, and Maia repeatedly confusing AOL for AIM.
SOURCES
Rachel Seifert, “Striptease and cyber sex: my stay at Habbo Hotel” Channel 4 News, (2012)
https://www.channel4.com/news/striptease-and-cyber-sex-my-stay-at-habbo-hotel
Paraic O’Brien, “Should you let your child play in Habbo Hotel?” Channel 4 News, (2012)https://www.channel4.com/news/should-you-let-your-child-play-in-habbo-hotel
William J. Shefski, Interactive Internet: the insider’s guide to MUDs, MOOs and IRC, (1995)
https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781559587488/page/n16/mode/1up
Habbo, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habbo
Sara Morais dos Santo Bruss, “CHAPTER 1: The Internet Imaginary and Digital Modernity” Feminist Solidarities after Modulation (2023)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.10782316.4
Steve Downey, “History of the (Virtual) Worlds”, The Journal of Technology Studies, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Fall 2014) https://www.jstor.org/stable/43604309
Sherry Turkle, “Tinysex and Gender Trouble” Sex/Machine: Readings in Culture, Gender, and Technology (1998)
Dennis Waskul, Mark Douglass, Charles Edgley, “Cybersex: Outercourse and the Enselfment of the Body” Symbolic Interactions, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2000)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/si.2000.23.4.375
Samantha Cole, How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex, Workman Publishing (2022)
Julian Dibbell, “A Rape in Cyberspace (or TINYSOCIETY and How to Make One)” My tiny life: crime and passion in a virtual world, Henry Holt (1998)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Okay, I just looked at something on TikTok called Beautiful House Theory. |
| 0:04.3 | It's just this girl basically coming up with this thing that has been around forever but putting a name to it, |
| 0:10.5 | where it's when someone's so attractive that you can't register an attraction to them. |
| 0:15.7 | Like you can't be attracted to them, but you know that they're so hot. |
| 0:18.8 | Right. That's with me, me with like most hot people. |
| 0:21.7 | Yeah, who's like the number one person for you that you think this applies to? Chase Crawford. He's so pretty. Yeah, that makes sense. For me, I'm like, and it's too much. But then I surprised myself because I'm attracted to Chris Hemsworth. And I was like, that's a shock. I personally don't think Chris Hemsworth is that objectively hot. |
| 0:38.9 | I actually just don't really find. |
| 0:40.0 | I don't really get it with him. |
| 0:40.9 | You think he's a shock. I personally don't think Chris Hemsworth is that objectively. I actually just don't really find. I don't really get it with him. I think he's so generic looking. He's got these pretty little eyes. I just don't register buff blonde men as hot. I just don't think he's that hot. Maia has a prejudice against blondes. But then they're like blondes I do think are hot. So here we are. Wow. But they're the exception, not the rule. |
| 0:55.6 | They're the exception, not the rule. |
| 0:56.8 | I mean, I'm shocked you didn't say Jacob Allorty, because this is someone you say that about all the time. No, I don't think that he's, I can acknowledge, yes, but I actually don't think he's, like, so attractive that it makes me. I think he is too much like Sunder Man. |
| 1:10.6 | Oh, like you think he's creepy. |
| 1:11.9 | Like I think he's like a tree. |
| 1:13.8 | I think he is too much like Slender Man. Oh, like you think he's creepy. Like, I think he's like a tree. I think he fits it for me because I can't see myself hooking up with him. But I think he's really hot. Like, every time I see him on screen, I'm like, wow. In euphoria, like, I know he's awful, but I think he's sexy. For me, that's like, I understand and I respect it, but there is something about him that feels amiss. It's not like, I'm like, oh, he's so pretty that I can't even think about him like that. Yeah. Something's amiss. Sorry to be sexist to men. I really pined for Chase Crawford when I was younger. Like he's not my type anymore, but I was |
| 1:44.5 | attracted to him. I'm trying to think, I guess like Jamie Dornan from 50 Shades of Grey, like I just don't really get it. He's, he's like good looking, but it's in a way that I just don't think is hot. But I think it might just be a matter of type. Like, I don't know. But I also think like an aesthetic an aesthetic kind of, like, appreciation is not necessarily the same as attraction. Zane. I think Zane is an objectively very attractive person, but I think maybe too attractive for me to be like, oh. But I don't, yeah, I don't know. Maybe this is just a question of taste, because he's just not my type. Yeah, and sometimes I'm like, maybe my brain is filtering out really hot people |
| 2:18.8 | because I'm like, well, obviously out of my league. Well, I think it's a point of beautiful house series that you're like, well, I would never even consider because they're so hot. Right. So I don't know, it's not like I think Jim and Jordan is that hot. Why is it a beautiful house? I think it's just like you're walking by and you're like, wow, that's a nice house, but you're not going to like go into the house. |
| 2:35.4 | No, you're like... |
| 2:35.8 | Maybe that's what it is. I think it's just like you're walking by and you're like, wow, that's a nice house, but you're not going to like go into the house. |
| 2:35.3 | No, you're like... |
| 2:35.8 | Maybe that's what it is. |
| 2:36.7 | I didn't finish the video. |
| 2:39.2 | Great. |
... |
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