PODCAST · technology
The Computer Room
by Katherine Dee
A show about our lives online. default.blog
Episodes
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Natural Instinct vs. Control
This is a story I wrote in 2021? 2022? Published in Compact Mag (not the political site). I’ve posted and re-posted it here several times. Here’s a radio drama version. As usual, I ask for your patience with audio quality. default.blog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and...
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I Am No Longer Asking: Somebody Write Some Gavin Newsom Erotica in English or Else
“Fan fiction helps process real world frustrations. It lets us imagine alternative political realities.” – Psychology TodayRead article This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit default.blog/subscribe
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What Is the Cultural Script For Six-Armed Babies? ft. Dr. Josie Zayner
Today on The Computer Room, Katherine talks to Dr. Josie Zayner of the Los Angeles Project about genetic engineering and building the impossible. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit default.blog/subscribe
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AI Natives
On today’s episode of The Computer Room, Katherine talks to Philip Rosedale, founder of Linden Lab, not just about Second Life, but about other synthetic lives. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit...
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AI and the Return of the Unknowable
Join Katherine and producer Taylor McMahon as they discuss Meta’s plans for AI-generated users. Gio returns next week for his regular hosting duties. Read Katherine’s article on the same topic here. 00:00 Introduction and Greetings 00:39 Meta’s AI Generated Users 02:47 Implications of AI in…
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Traumagotchi Redeemed?
Leah Prime from our fantastic Art Bell episode and of the blog We Own the Night and I talked about my initial reaction to friend.com’s chatbot launch… and why I might be wrong about it after all. This is an experimental format I’m releasing to paid subscribers only right now. Please share your...
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Be My Escape
Katherine talks to Sam L. Barker about the enduring legacy of pop-punk and emo, and crucially, about how it all coalesced online. You can also listen to this on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.Read Katherine’s article about blink-182’s unique brand of humor here.Subscribe to Sam’s Substack...
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Adam Lanza Fan Art
Paid subscribers are receiving this a little bit earlier than free subscribers. Katherine reads her Tablet article, “Adam Lanza Fan Art,” a deep dive into the elusive True Crime Community (TCC), a small fandom of mostly adolescents and young adults who treat school shooters and serial killers in...
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First Time Caller: An Art Bell Tribute
In this episode of The Computer Room, Katherine and friends talk about Art Bell's legacy. We meet Leah Prime, who's writing a book about Art Bell, John Steiger who on a mission to hand transcribe every single episode of Coast to Coast AM, and Joseph Matheny, the mind behind Ong's Hat. This is a...
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Would You Still Love Me If I Swallowed a Worm?
Katherine and Gio discuss “Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke,” a novella by Eric LaRocca about a complex BDSM relationship between two women that unfolds through emails, forum posts, and instant messages in 2000. They talk about what it meant to “log on” in 2000, lesbian media, and...
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The Digital Is Deceitful Above All Things
“The most un-American thing you can do is reject fame.” In a recorded phone call, Katherine and Laura Albert, the writer best known for JT Leroy, explore the fuzzy boundaries of truth and fiction in our digital era. They discuss the telephone as a medium, catfishing, imagination, and lying as a...
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My Little Polemical
Katherine talks to a brony Zoomer about being online, mediated friendships, the fantastical world of My Little Pony, and the revival that the fandom is experiencing right now. Buy your Mare Fair tickets here, read the infamous MLP fan fic “The Lunar Rebellion” here, and watch the first four…
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The Internet Is Power
Kickstarter and Metalabel cofounder Yancey Strickler walks in on Gio and Katherine gossiping. Together, they talk about the meaning of gossip, the Internet as a source of power, and what happens when everything moves from main to the group chat. Check out Metalabel. Read Yancey's writing:The Dark...
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Grady and the Real Girl
Lauren and Grady are Chicago’s hottest couple. Katherine and Grady talk about playing a role that’s not yourself but based on yourself, their appearance on Help! I'm In a Secret Relationship, where all the weirdos have gone on the Internet, if those chamoy pickles were worth it, and his...
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The Millennial Left as a Moment in Internet History
This week, Gio and I are joined by Benjamin Studebaker, a writer, political theorist, leftist, and former co-host of the infamous podcast “What’s Left?” to discuss the Millennial Left. One question I wish we had asked, and I invite our audience to leave their thoughts about, is whether there…
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What Was the Alt-Right?
What exactly was the alt-right? A digital subculture? A political movement? An umbrella term encompassing several contradictory movements? What did the press get wrong? Katherine and Gio sit down with Scott Greer and attempt to demystify What Happened eight years ago… BTW, if you’re reading this,...
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A Cyberethnography of Imagination
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, A Cyberarcheology of Checkpoints * Ruby's Twitter * Ruby's blog * A really...
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My Husband Lives In Another Reality... Literally
I spoke to 23-year-old reality shifter Maddie about her experiences traveling to other timelines. You may have heard of reality shifting before—probably through the lens of the now-familiar genre of ”this dangerous TikTok trend is endangering your kids” clickbait. ‘Reality shifting’ is, simply…
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Dating 6 Women at Once Is the Most Fun a Podcast Bro Can Have Without Getting Cancelled
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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access…
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seduction.com
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 s**t about relationships, but he can teach you how to...
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Coming of Age as a Gay Nerd Who's Afraid of Sex
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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit default.blog/subscribe
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"Friends in your head disorder."
Katherine sat down with Tal from the Tally Mark System to discuss the much-misunderstood Dissociative Identity Disorder and its complementary TikTok community. You can find Tal here. "Windows have become a powerful metaphor for thinking about the self as a multiple, distributed system," Turkle...
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Pretty Intense New Year Episode
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 ago * applemilk1988's YouTube channel *...
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Man and Animal and Otherkin
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. This is a public episode.…
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A Conversation With a Young Woman In a Relationship with a Cartoon Character
Fictophilia. Today, 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...
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Fictional Soul in a Human Body
A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed nabby (@inviteonlycomic on Instagram), a former fiction-kin. You can listen to it here or on The Computer Room main feed. Before I explain what a fictionkin is, we first need to understand what an otherkin is. Otherkin refers to an identity category where…
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Why Don’t You Take a Seat In Lucas' Room?
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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit default.blog/subscribe
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The Myth of "Girl Internet"
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...
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the e-boy's guide to e-dating, e-girls, and e-ating disorders
Vers and Lukas drop by and talk about e-dating, e-girls, e-ating disorders, and secret political Facebook groups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit default.blog/subscribe
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No One Is Talking About Fake Accounts
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. This is a public episode. If you'd like…
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Chat-GPT: Lonely When It's Alone?
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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit default.blog/subscribe
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Clam Chowder For Idiots
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...
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No Cowtipping
A little stroll through the history of the Internet's favorite gossip sites: Pretty Ugly Little Liars, KiwiFarms, The Dirty, lolcow.farm, Perez Hilton, and Lipstick Alley. And of course...honorable mention, the Encyclopedia Dramatica. This was recorded weeks before Katherine had her moment of...
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Overworked, Overpaid, Undertaxed
Overworked, overpaid, and probably undertaxed: today, we dive into the world of /r/overemployed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit default.blog/subscribe
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(ed)iets
Happy New Year! Steff and Katherine the wonderful world of Internet fad diets: keto, paleo, carnivore, frugivore, Bulletproof Diet, Ana Boot Camp, Ray Peatism, Raw Egg Nationalism, and Whole30. Correction: At some point, Katherine incorrectly states Susun Weed was pro-raw veganism! Susun Weed...
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The Iowa Pariah
While Kat is in Colombia having a mental health episode, Steff interviews Alex Perez, "the Iowa Pariah," whose controversial interview with editor and writer Elizabeth Ellen inspired the entire staff of Hobart Magazine to resign. Read the interview here. Outro: "Guantanamera" by The Sandpipers…
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Finally, Some Good News (An Episode)
Default Friend is joined by a new cohost, Poetry Grifter, to talk about two digitally native pieces of literature, Finally, Some Good News and Bronze Age Mindset. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit...
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Broadcast Yourself: Fandom and YouTube
As a paying subscriber, you receive this episode a week early. Last week’s episode with Oliver Bateman is now available for free. Listen here: In this episode, I talk to the YouTube personality and fellow Fan Studies guy, Peter Coffin about YouTube, politics, and the mob. Check out Peter across…
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Casual Sex Doesn't Exist
One of my favorite TikTokers, Rayne Fisher-Quann, joined me to talk about TikTok, cancel culture, the futility of the culture wars, how people talk about casual sex, and a shared favorite topic, the Internet. You can find Rayne’s reading recs, advice column, and internet culture observations here...
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The Tokenization of Everything
Meta-Nomad, the host of another one of my favorite podcasts, Hermitix, and I talk about cyclicacklashes, the frontiersmen of the Metaverse, walking the walk, and the importance of starting a garden. I cut this one a little short because towards the end, it got a little inside baseball and we went...
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The Ghost of Adam Lanza, Pt. 1
Part one of a special series about Adam Lanza’s digital footprint. In episode one, I speak with the author of the essay, “The Ghost of Adam Lanza,” BlitheringGenius. This is still a work-in-progress— the un-paywalled version may see slight changes (certainly improved audio quality). Please feel...
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Welcome to the Group Chat
On this episode, I talk to the hostesses my favorite podcast, Nymphet Alumni. We talk about the lolcowification of TikTok, Marshall McLuhan, what would happen if Tavi Gevinson met Curtis Yarvin, incel ascension, digital game, and a hell of a lot more. One of my favorite episodes yet. Also, I…
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The Importance of Content Curation in an Age of Information Overload
I have a backlog of episodes! This is a conversation I did with Atoosa Rubenstein, former Editor-in-Chief of Seventeen and founder of Cosmogirl, in January (😅) about her career, the importance of content curation, and her wonderful Substack, Atoosa Unedited. This is a public episode. If you'd…
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Humdog's Essay "pandora's vox"
In this special crossover episode, Emmet returns to discuss Carmen Hermosillo's/humdog's iconic essay about self-commodification on the WELL (Whole Earth 'Letronic Link), "pandora's vox." Read it below: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access…
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I Am Jack's Emergent Fandom
Jack Crum of 404Tales joins me for a conversation about internet ethnographies, the history of Tumblr, and what nobody had the balls to say about #GamerGate. Theme: The Great Fairy Fountain Etude You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Simplecast, and Apple Podcasts. This is a public...
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#MeToo'd in the Metaverse
Happy Wednesday folks. Audio posts are back, with more of my voice than anyone could realistically ever want to listen to. But first, I’m promoting this episode of ex.haust. Emmet Penney and I talk about one of my favorite pieces of tech writing of all time, Julian Dibbell's essay, "A Rape in...
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Raking Muck in the Metaverse
WARNING: This episode's audio quality is exceptionally, exceptionally bad. Special thanks to Will Kraus for cleaning it up. In future episodes, I’ll be using a better mic. Is a journalist who reports on virtual events that happen in a virtual world still a journalist? If you choose to present...
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The Most Famous Blogger in the World Started on Youse-net
I talked about Usenet (and, incredibly, mispronounced it), elitism, and the lost civilizations of the Internet with the most famous blogger in the world. I’m not one of his readers, but I feel like I understand him a lot better after hearing him talk about the Internet. After this conversation…
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The Baroque Creoles of the Internet
Default Friend and friend of the pod and artist Gio Pennacchietti discuss internet-based creoles, the Internet's obsession with the body, the trad thots of yore, 'found footage' e-girls and self-posters, Girl Bosses as a sexual orientation, and why Default Friend wasn't bat mitzvahed. (If anyone...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
A show about our lives online.
default.blog
HOSTED BY
Katherine Dee
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Computer Room have?
The Computer Room currently has 49 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Computer Room about?
A show about our lives online. default.blog
How often does The Computer Room release new episodes?
The Computer Room has 49 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Computer Room?
You can listen to The Computer Room on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Computer Room?
The Computer Room is created and hosted by Katherine Dee.
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