Speaker 1: Is that healing or is that causing more damage? I
Speaker 1: feel like all the Black Mirror episodes tell us this
Speaker 1: is actually going to cause more damage because this isn't
Speaker 1: the real person. Like you want the real person here,
Speaker 1: the real person is not here. There are no Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. As a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and unbost Creative, I'm Bridget Todd and this is there
Speaker 1: are no Girls on the Internet. Musical icon Whitney Houston
Speaker 1: died in but that doesn't stopped her from performing. She's
Speaker 1: back from the dead and ready to entertain kind of
Speaker 1: an evening with Whitney. The Whitney Houston Hologram Tour first
Speaker 1: debuted in Europe and it is currently doing a residency
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, leading up to a possible United States
Speaker 1: tour next year. Whitney's family and a state are involved
Speaker 1: with the show's production. Pat Houston, Whitney's sister and the
Speaker 1: manager of her estate, raved about the Hologram show, saying
Speaker 1: we're excited to bring this cutting edge musical experience to
Speaker 1: the fans who have supported the pop culture phenomenon that
Speaker 1: was Whitney Houston because they deserve nothing less and all
Speaker 1: that might be true. The increasing use of holograms to
Speaker 1: recreate people who are no longer living is something that
Speaker 1: we should at least be asking questions about, rather than
Speaker 1: just accept as another new normal of our increasingly tech
Speaker 1: enabled world. In a piece called the Zombification of Whitney
Speaker 1: Houston Spirituality, writer Brooke Obi asks what right do any
Speaker 1: of us have to demand that our deceased heroes, loved ones,
Speaker 1: or anyone else act as a zombie for our entertainment?
Speaker 1: I had heard about, um, this hologram tour that Whitney
Speaker 1: Houston's estate, Um we're putting on in Europe, and it
Speaker 1: was finally coming to the United States. I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about this for a really long time and really haunted
Speaker 1: by this for a really long time, but it was
Speaker 1: kind of out of sight, out of mind. Um. But
Speaker 1: now it is um happening. Uh there's a residency for
Speaker 1: six months in Vegas of this Whitney Houston hologram um.
Speaker 1: And it was so disturbing to me. And it was
Speaker 1: also happening at the same time as Halloween, Like they
Speaker 1: released or they premiered this hologram residency in Las Vegas
Speaker 1: the week of Halloween, and I was like, wow, yep,
Speaker 1: that is perfect. You know, if you want to um
Speaker 1: exhume some ghosts, if you want to um zombifie and icon,
Speaker 1: why not start the week of Halloween. UM. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So that was really what triggered me finally sitting down
Speaker 1: and getting all of my thoughts out of my head
Speaker 1: and onto the page. Well, I mean, the Halloween date
Speaker 1: I think is so kind of perfect because it is
Speaker 1: a really spooky, haunting kind of thing, especially given that
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like for so many of us
Speaker 1: black women, we have this special connection to Whitney Houston.
Speaker 1: I know that she occupies a very special place in
Speaker 1: my heart. Do you feel the same way? Absolutely? I Mean,
Speaker 1: she is everything, She's the voice, you know, and her
Speaker 1: life UM was so beautiful and so tragic and UM
Speaker 1: so unnecessarily ended UM and so it's it's it was
Speaker 1: one of the most devastating, UM celebrity losses UM that
Speaker 1: I've experienced in my life. And you know, I I
Speaker 1: was just so sad to see the people that were
Speaker 1: around her, UM and the lack of care and the
Speaker 1: lack of regard UM for someone who needed help and
Speaker 1: assistance and and wasn't able to get it and wasn't
Speaker 1: able to live um authentically as herself either and still
Speaker 1: have the career um that she wanted to have. And
Speaker 1: so to see what's happening now, this is basically the
Speaker 1: same thing that's happening in her life is now happening
Speaker 1: in her death. She her image is being constructed for
Speaker 1: her um, you know, without her consent um, and she's
Speaker 1: being put to work today. The term zombies contras up brains,
Speaker 1: craving blood vests like Donna the Dead, but those pop
Speaker 1: culture interpretations obscure the actual grim origins of zombies and
Speaker 1: their connection to slavery. I had read is really amazing
Speaker 1: in depth article in the The Atlantic um by Mike
Speaker 1: barani Um and he it was about the tragic forgotten
Speaker 1: history of zombies, and so it's it's talking about the
Speaker 1: ways that um Haitian enslaved people. Their deepest fear was that,
Speaker 1: you know, if they died by suicide, because the plantations
Speaker 1: were so brutal, the French were so brutal in their
Speaker 1: in their slavery of Haitians, that they would be trapped
Speaker 1: in their bodies, and that they would be trapped on
Speaker 1: these plantations forever. And then once Haitian voodoo UM evolved,
Speaker 1: that UM zombie mythology evolved as well, and basically, UM
Speaker 1: there was a sorcerer that would take these dead bodies
Speaker 1: and resurrect them for evil purposes, you know, and use
Speaker 1: them for free labor. And that's what I saw. That's
Speaker 1: what I saw in my mind when I heard about
Speaker 1: this hologram and this idea of taking Whitney Um, who
Speaker 1: was not able to rest and not able to control
Speaker 1: her own image in her lifetime, now in death, being
Speaker 1: used for free labor once again, and racking in money
Speaker 1: for UM the estate UM for the next six months
Speaker 1: in this hologram residency. The thing about this that strikes
Speaker 1: me as particularly sad is that I saw the ways
Speaker 1: that Whitney was stripped of her humanity and identity in life.
Speaker 1: Aspects of who Whitney was as a person were obscured
Speaker 1: to make her more marketable to mainstream white audiences. Music
Speaker 1: labels were segregated by race, and in the beginning, her
Speaker 1: sound was intentionally manufactured to have white crossover appeal. Clive Davis,
Speaker 1: the head of Arista Records, signed Whitney when she was
Speaker 1: just a teenager after an A and R rep saw
Speaker 1: her singing with her mother's nightclub act. Davis became a
Speaker 1: huge force in shaping Whitney's image and career. He vetoed
Speaker 1: her releasing anything to black sounding for her first two albums.
Speaker 1: His choice came with a real cost for Whitney. At
Speaker 1: the height of her success in the eighties, Whitney was
Speaker 1: booed by black audiences at the Soul Train Awards when
Speaker 1: the host introduced her as a nominee for Best R
Speaker 1: and B Artist. Reverend L. Sharpton even organized a boycott
Speaker 1: of her music, calling her Whitey Houston on flyers that
Speaker 1: you can check out on the link in our show description.
Speaker 1: Being stripped of this aspect of her identity was hard
Speaker 1: for Whitney. Sometimes it gets you down. You're not black
Speaker 1: enough for them, You're not R and B enough, You're
Speaker 1: very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them,
Speaker 1: She explained that an interview, and it didn't stop there now.
Speaker 1: In the eighties, the music industry was deeply homophobic, and
Speaker 1: to find mainstream success, an artist would sometimes have to
Speaker 1: conceal parts of themselves. So it isn't surprising that Whitney
Speaker 1: herself did not talk openly about her sexuality and we'll
Speaker 1: never get to hear about it in her own words,
Speaker 1: But her close friend and confidant, Robin Crawford, an openly
Speaker 1: gay black woman who had been decades by whitney side
Speaker 1: as her assistant and creative director, opened up about her
Speaker 1: romantic relationship with Whitney. They met at summer campus kids
Speaker 1: and quickly became inseparable, But soon after Whitney signed with
Speaker 1: Clive Davis at Arista, she ended their intimate relationship because quote,
Speaker 1: it would make our journey even more difficult, Crawford remembers
Speaker 1: at her memoir A Song for You, My life with
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston. In the two thousands, the years leading up
Speaker 1: to her tragic death, Whitney dealt with addiction and family issues,
Speaker 1: like the two thousand three arrest of her husband, Bobby Brown,
Speaker 1: for allegedly hitting her in the face, and the same
Speaker 1: media who had once been happy to portray her as
Speaker 1: Black America's sweetheart gleefully made her the butt of jokes
Speaker 1: for failing to live up to the narrow role they
Speaker 1: had written her into. Whitney wasn't really able to be
Speaker 1: her full self when she was alive, and now as
Speaker 1: a hologram, rendered back to life without any of the
Speaker 1: baggage that comes with being a complex living person. Whitney
Speaker 1: is now and always on, always can, already version of
Speaker 1: herself who can perform on command and generate income for
Speaker 1: others forever, And in a way the hologram suggests that
Speaker 1: that's what music executives really wanted from her all along.
Speaker 1: I was really struck by in your pieces. It's sort
Speaker 1: of that element of you know that these Haitian enslaved people,
Speaker 1: how they that was like their deepest fear, you know,
Speaker 1: being exhumed, being reanimated, and being trapped in this cycle
Speaker 1: of having to work to make money from their labor forever.
Speaker 1: And how deeply kind of sad that is, not being
Speaker 1: able to rest given the kind of life that Whitney
Speaker 1: Houston did live. And I think there's something so incredibly
Speaker 1: sad but also relatable about the life that Whitney Houston lived,
Speaker 1: you know, in order for her to be to be
Speaker 1: sort of like marketable as as an artist, she was
Speaker 1: stripped from so much of what made her her right,
Speaker 1: her blackness, her queerness, so so much of like the
Speaker 1: things that made Whitney who she was. And I feel that,
Speaker 1: you know, she played that game, and then when she
Speaker 1: stepped away to be a more authentic version of herself,
Speaker 1: how quickly America turned on her, How quickly America turned
Speaker 1: her into a joke. And so I do think there's
Speaker 1: some sort of cautionary tale about this tight rope that
Speaker 1: we all have to walk as black women, and that's
Speaker 1: why so many of us identify with her, but as
Speaker 1: this hologram. It's like, in her death, they have been
Speaker 1: able to strip her from all of these things that
Speaker 1: make her her so that they have this marketable version
Speaker 1: that they can just make money off of. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't have to include her blackness, her queerness, her
Speaker 1: addiction issues, her family issues. She can just be a
Speaker 1: hologram money maker, money maker for them in death forever, right,
Speaker 1: And it's probably a lot more profitable for them with
Speaker 1: her not being able to um be alive and to
Speaker 1: have the issues that she was dealing with. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: she you don't have to worry about whether or not
Speaker 1: she's going to go out on stage because they can
Speaker 1: put her out whenever they to. Like it's it's really
Speaker 1: like I was saying in my piece, it's it's that
Speaker 1: the worst black mirror episode. Um that's a very very
Speaker 1: brilliant show. But there's an episode with Miley Cyrus that's
Speaker 1: basically the same thing. They have this pop star that
Speaker 1: they're putting forcing into a coma and then using her
Speaker 1: you know music, um and using um all all sorts
Speaker 1: of other technologies to project her onto a stage so
Speaker 1: that she will behave the way that they want her
Speaker 1: to behave. UM. It's not a very good episode, UM,
Speaker 1: but you know the concept. You know, it's definitely what's
Speaker 1: happening here. And you know, we've heard so much about
Speaker 1: how dangerous and unsafe it is for women and black
Speaker 1: women in particular in the music industry, and so I
Speaker 1: have no doubt that there are plenty of the executives
Speaker 1: who would be all about, you know, how can we
Speaker 1: just make money off of this person and not have
Speaker 1: who they actually are getting the way of our money.
Speaker 1: Some musicians, like Anderson Pok don't want to read it
Speaker 1: up for executives or estate executors to sort out in
Speaker 1: the event of his death. Last year, the musician got
Speaker 1: a tattoo on his forearm reading, when I'm gone, please
Speaker 1: don't release any postthumous albums or song with my name attached.
Speaker 1: Those were just demos and never intended to be heard
Speaker 1: by the public. He debuted this tattoo in August, just
Speaker 1: a few months after the Late Princess previously unreleased album
Speaker 1: Welcome to America was posthumously released. While the album earned
Speaker 1: critical praise, I really can't say if the artist who
Speaker 1: died without a will and was so notoriously protective of
Speaker 1: ownership over his music and likeness that he changed his
Speaker 1: name to an unpronounceable symbol from three to two thousand
Speaker 1: would have wanted this album to see the light of day.
Speaker 1: You talk about all these different black artists who have
Speaker 1: taken great steps to avoid their likeness being used in
Speaker 1: these ways after death, you know, including Anderson pox tattoo.
Speaker 1: That's like, you know, if I die, please do not
Speaker 1: use my likeness or release any songs that were not
Speaker 1: meant to be released to the public. Do you think
Speaker 1: that there is this like that the society idle expectation
Speaker 1: that black artists specifically are just sort of there to
Speaker 1: be mined for their creativity for entertainment and profit even
Speaker 1: in death, and that like, specifically that we as black
Speaker 1: folks are just expected to be these never ending wells
Speaker 1: of profit generating creativity just forever, and like technology would
Speaker 1: certainly like facilitate that absolutely. Okay, So there's this um
Speaker 1: great music journalist named Simon Reynolds who actually coined the
Speaker 1: term ghost slavery when talking about this topic. UM, and
Speaker 1: that's you know what slavery is, right. It was created
Speaker 1: for uh in America. It was created um to enslave
Speaker 1: mostly African people, um, but also indigenous people, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: in order to work for free and to build their wealth.
Speaker 1: And so absolutely this is just another extension of that.
Speaker 1: You know, I do believe that um. You know, black
Speaker 1: musicians and entertainers have been the people who have been
Speaker 1: able to kind of bring through, um a bit of
Speaker 1: these white supremacist layers that exist in this country that
Speaker 1: this country was founded on. UM. But they only want
Speaker 1: you to be able to do that to a certain extent. UM,
Speaker 1: and especially if you start to become political or if
Speaker 1: you start to become a problem in any way that
Speaker 1: could jeopardize, um, for one, white supremacy or uh, you know,
Speaker 1: any of the structures that are in place. You get
Speaker 1: a little too mouthy, a little too um upi um.
Speaker 1: As a black person, of course, they want to put
Speaker 1: you back in their in their place. So I do
Speaker 1: feel like if you know they as long as the
Speaker 1: music is bringing profit, UM, there won't be a problem.
Speaker 1: But if there is a way um to control black
Speaker 1: artists as much as possible, that's what's gonna happen. You know,
Speaker 1: We've seen it in these three sixty deals. We've seen
Speaker 1: it um in so many different ways UM in the
Speaker 1: music industry. And that is what I think. That's kind
Speaker 1: of why really honest over like, why why would I
Speaker 1: stay here this? You know, you can't even make money
Speaker 1: in the same way you have to be on the road.
Speaker 1: You have to do all these different things as as
Speaker 1: artists in order to maintain your integrity and to make money. UM.
Speaker 1: It's just a lot more difficult today, um to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. So yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: people are starting to understand that and starting to come
Speaker 1: up with other ways to protect themselves. UM. I don't
Speaker 1: think a tattoo is gonna do it. UM. I hope
Speaker 1: Anderson Pack has another plan, um, like a will print.
Speaker 1: Super Fans myself very much included pans a Super Bowl
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen halftime show when it was announced that
Speaker 1: justin Timberlake was going to perform with a Prince hologram,
Speaker 1: because Prince specifically said that he did not want to
Speaker 1: be brought back to life as a hologram when he
Speaker 1: was asked about it in an interview with Guitar World,
Speaker 1: Prince said, certainly not. That is the most demonic thing imaginable.
Speaker 1: Everything is as it is and as it should be.
Speaker 1: If I was meant to jam with Duke Ellington, we
Speaker 1: would have lived in the same age. The whole virtual
Speaker 1: reality thing, it is really demonic, and I am not
Speaker 1: a demon. Also, what they did with that Beatles song,
Speaker 1: manipulating John Lennon's voice to have him singing from across
Speaker 1: the grave that will never happen to me. To prevent
Speaker 1: that kind of thing from happening is another reason why
Speaker 1: I want artistic control. So Prince absolutely did not want
Speaker 1: to be a hologram. And what's even worse is that
Speaker 1: Prince didn't even really seem to like justin timber Lake.
Speaker 1: The two had a whole history of making shady digs
Speaker 1: at each other while Prince was still alive. So bringing
Speaker 1: Prince back as a hologram against his wishes to jam
Speaker 1: with the musician, he didn't even really like just seem
Speaker 1: like adding insult to injury. Now, in the end, the
Speaker 1: super Bowl halftime show didn't technically use a hologram. It
Speaker 1: was more of a projection of Prince performing on a
Speaker 1: screen paired up alongside Justin's performance, and I think that
Speaker 1: was the problem with Prince. Prince also spoke out quite
Speaker 1: a bit um about you know how he thought holograms
Speaker 1: were demonic, that he would never want that for his life,
Speaker 1: and said that this is never gonna happen to me.
Speaker 1: But you know, we did see that performance with Justin
Speaker 1: timber Lake at the super Bowl. Would is supposed to
Speaker 1: be a tribute um? And I think it really was
Speaker 1: supposed to be a hologram. And I think if not
Speaker 1: for the outcry of the public, because the public did
Speaker 1: know that Prince didn't want that, that they kind of
Speaker 1: maybe changed it to something else. Um. You know, we
Speaker 1: still saw a projection of Prince, but it wasn't quite hologram. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, when the estate has control over your likeness,
Speaker 1: they can do whatever they want, you know, unless you're
Speaker 1: explicitly in your will saying this is what this isn't
Speaker 1: what you want. And Prince died intestate, so you know,
Speaker 1: they have complete control, um, his estate to do whatever
Speaker 1: they want to do with his image. And so that's
Speaker 1: why you see these commercials with his music in that
Speaker 1: you never saw before. You you see people being able
Speaker 1: to go to Paisley Park, which he would never want,
Speaker 1: you know. So there's just so many things, um that
Speaker 1: can happen to you once you're dead. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've been looking at it from the perspective of you know, celebrities,
Speaker 1: but I think this is definitely something that's gonna start
Speaker 1: impacting our regular day to day lives, uh in the
Speaker 1: near future as well. Yeah, let's talk about that. So
Speaker 1: in your piece, you you bring up you argue that
Speaker 1: the announcement that Facebook flash meta if you want to
Speaker 1: say that, like their whole argument or their whole announcement
Speaker 1: about the metaverse. Do you think that the vibe is
Speaker 1: that they want that are are sort of tech overlords,
Speaker 1: want to be able to reproduce and reanimate anyone famous
Speaker 1: or non famous, anyone anywhere, and that that will be
Speaker 1: a common, a common you know, technological advancement available to
Speaker 1: every in our tech future. Do you think that that's
Speaker 1: like what they're after? I mean, I think that is
Speaker 1: just a thing that happens when the technology is available.
Speaker 1: Um so, you know, especially when people like Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: and the rest of our tech overlords are concerned about
Speaker 1: profit or like we've seen you know, several uh former
Speaker 1: Facebook employees coming forward and sharing damning information showing that
Speaker 1: Facebook is a company slash meta is a company that
Speaker 1: is for profits over people every single time. This is
Speaker 1: just something that could happen as a result of that.
Speaker 1: You know, you provide the technology, it's gonna happen. It's
Speaker 1: just like you create a platform where people can express
Speaker 1: their opinions. There's gonna be harassment. You know, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be racism, there's gonna be terrorism, there's gonna be all
Speaker 1: these other things. And so you know, if you're not
Speaker 1: actively preventing that from happening, then a course it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You're giving people the space to do to do what
Speaker 1: people do. In the wake of the racial justice protests
Speaker 1: all around the globe after the murder of George Floyd,
Speaker 1: an unarmed black man killed by police, Change dot Org
Speaker 1: and the George Floyd Foundation created a three D hologram
Speaker 1: of the late George Floyd to be projected on the
Speaker 1: Confederate monuments in the South. George Floyd's brother Rodney Floyd said,
Speaker 1: since the death of my brother George, his face has
Speaker 1: been seen all over the world. The hologram will allow
Speaker 1: my brother's face to be seen as a symbol for
Speaker 1: change in places where changes needed the most. I had
Speaker 1: the chance to see the projection Richmond, and it really
Speaker 1: was powerful. So holograms can be a way for a
Speaker 1: family to heal and grieve and turn their loss into
Speaker 1: something larger. But when someone's likeness becomes a symbol in
Speaker 1: this way, it's not always empowering and respectful, and also
Speaker 1: opens up the possibility that their likeness could be used
Speaker 1: in offensive ways. For instance, Floyd E's is a collection
Speaker 1: of jokey n f t s that depict pixelated images
Speaker 1: of George Floyd with red eyes. Have co opted his
Speaker 1: image seemingly to intentionally create outrage. We we've seen this
Speaker 1: recently with George Floyd. You know, he was celebritized UM
Speaker 1: in his death and just his image has been I
Speaker 1: think one of the most exploited in in recent history
Speaker 1: UM and for him for his image to go on
Speaker 1: a hologram tour of the South to all of these
Speaker 1: former Confederate statue locations UM, you know by and that
Speaker 1: was you know, something that was supported by his family.
Speaker 1: His family was behind that, along with change dot org UM.
Speaker 1: And so I just think when people are grieving UM,
Speaker 1: whether it's an icon that you loved, UM or you
Speaker 1: know a dear loved one, a friend or family member
Speaker 1: that you love, like, people find ways to grieve, and
Speaker 1: you know, virtual reality, augmented reality, these are becoming more
Speaker 1: and more available in a four ruble for everyday people. UM.
Speaker 1: I know, I have an Oculus that was given to
Speaker 1: me by HBO um PR during Lovecraft Countries run, they
Speaker 1: had some activations UM in in the Oculus world VR
Speaker 1: world UM that they wanted press to see and they
Speaker 1: did a concert, a hologram concert. The point is that
Speaker 1: they want this to be a regular situation. UM. They
Speaker 1: want everybody to have an Oculus, especially at Facebook just
Speaker 1: bought oculus UM, you know shortly shortly after UM HBO
Speaker 1: did all those activate activations in Oculus UM. And so
Speaker 1: now you have to sign in with your Facebook account
Speaker 1: in order to to use that UM. So this is
Speaker 1: definitely something that is going to be available to a
Speaker 1: great deal of people. Um, and you can create avatars,
Speaker 1: and so who's to say somebody won't create an avatar
Speaker 1: based on their loved one, you know. Um, And I
Speaker 1: think you know, we really have to decide, like whose
Speaker 1: life is the most important? Um? Is it? You know?
Speaker 1: The wishes of the person who is now dead or
Speaker 1: the person who's still alive and wants to grieve and
Speaker 1: needs to grieve, And you know, however they choose to grieve,
Speaker 1: you know, should be okay, I mean that's it's uh,
Speaker 1: definitely something that we should all be thinking about. So
Speaker 1: not just musicians and not just with tattoos, Like we
Speaker 1: need to start putting this in our wills, like don't
Speaker 1: use my image, um in any of these ways. Brook
Speaker 1: is right that this is actually a thing that we
Speaker 1: will probably be seeing more and more of. Entertainment lawyer
Speaker 1: Brian Tuck wrote about this extensively. He writes, expect a
Speaker 1: lot more of this in the future. Look at the
Speaker 1: trends and how Hollywood, where major studios crank out the
Speaker 1: same or similar blockbuster projects one after the next. The
Speaker 1: major studios by and large are not risk takers. They
Speaker 1: want bankable stars who better than a superstar from yesterday
Speaker 1: that can be completely controlled via voice acting and digital rendering.
Speaker 1: This digital actor will never show up to work late,
Speaker 1: get arrested for public drunkenness, or be involved in any
Speaker 1: scandal of the types that we've seen in recent years
Speaker 1: that cause an entire production to stop. It is highly
Speaker 1: likely that these digital resurrections or recreations will absolutely become commonplace.
Speaker 1: It's such an interesting peek into kind of a bleak
Speaker 1: tech future. Like a big part of what we talked
Speaker 1: about on this show is like imagining what are collective
Speaker 1: futures will look like with technology, and some of it
Speaker 1: is very beautiful, but some of it is very bleak.
Speaker 1: And so this idea of being ready for whatever bleak
Speaker 1: thing will be the next iteration of our tech future,
Speaker 1: I think is a really really good kind of like
Speaker 1: cautionary point. And I also think, you know, talking about
Speaker 1: how Facebook bought Oculus, there was a time where Facebook's
Speaker 1: motto was move fast and break things right. Like their
Speaker 1: entire thing was just like keep going, keep going, move, move, move,
Speaker 1: don't stop and think about the ramifications, don't stop and
Speaker 1: think about the precedents that you're setting, don't stop and
Speaker 1: think about how this thing will be misused or can
Speaker 1: be you know, can result in real world harms. Just
Speaker 1: keep moving, just move fast. And I wonder if it's if,
Speaker 1: if that attitude, if that climate, has really got us
Speaker 1: in a place where we are making so many new
Speaker 1: technological advances and then normalizing them work or making them commonplace,
Speaker 1: but not stopping to think about what they will what
Speaker 1: kind of future they will actually create. Like in your
Speaker 1: piece you use this great Prince quote. If I was
Speaker 1: meant to jam with Duke Ellington, we would have lived
Speaker 1: at the same time. And I wonder is there an
Speaker 1: element here of focusing so much of what we you know,
Speaker 1: could do or can do that nobody is pumping the
Speaker 1: brakes and thinking what should we be doing? Is this right?
Speaker 1: Is this going to make for a better, brighter future
Speaker 1: or a more harmful, more bleak future? Exactly exactly. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's the same with concerts. You know,
Speaker 1: we should have gone out to see Whitney Houston in concert.
Speaker 1: If we did it, Wow, we really messed up. You know,
Speaker 1: that should make us be even more vigilant about going
Speaker 1: to see Beyonce, going to see Stevie Wonder, going to
Speaker 1: see all these other people that we love who are
Speaker 1: icons um while we have the chance. That's that's what
Speaker 1: life does. Life teaches us, you know, lessons, And the
Speaker 1: point is not to create a world where we didn't
Speaker 1: you know, miss the boat. It's to learn from the
Speaker 1: mistakes and to try better, you know, with with the
Speaker 1: information that you have now. So I mean, I definitely
Speaker 1: think it is it's teaching us a dangerous lesson that
Speaker 1: you know, technology, we can use technology um to um.
Speaker 1: You know, a race history, and that's not the point.
Speaker 1: The point should not be to a race history. It
Speaker 1: should be to learn from history and grow from history
Speaker 1: and do better. UM. And I think you know, we
Speaker 1: see you know, someone like Kanye West who created this
Speaker 1: hologram of Kim Kardashian's um father who's been passed away
Speaker 1: for for decades now, um, and to have him show
Speaker 1: up at Kim's forty a birthday party and tell her
Speaker 1: all these things um that you know you may want
Speaker 1: a father to tell you UM. But it's just like
Speaker 1: he isn't actually saying these words. UM. You know, this
Speaker 1: isn't he has no you know, concepts. Perhaps, I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't really know, but I mean like this hologram
Speaker 1: definitely has no concept of what's going on in the
Speaker 1: present world. Um, you know, has no idea about you know,
Speaker 1: her children or any of that. Like, it was just
Speaker 1: so odd and you know, personally, I would have divorced
Speaker 1: him off of this alone. But you know that's just
Speaker 1: I definitely see us creating holograms of our dead loved
Speaker 1: ones to be at our weddings and to be at
Speaker 1: the birth of our children and all of these things. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, And I'm just I just wonder if that
Speaker 1: is actually I'm not a psychologist in any way, but
Speaker 1: I do wonder what the psychological impact of those things
Speaker 1: will be. Is that healing or is that causing more damage?
Speaker 1: I feel like all the Black Mirror episodes tell us
Speaker 1: this is actually gonna cause more damage because this isn't
Speaker 1: the real person. Like you want the real person here.
Speaker 1: The real person is not here. So this fake stand
Speaker 1: in is not doing it, and they're not gonna do it.
Speaker 1: And the point is to learn how to move through grief,
Speaker 1: how to expand through grief, how to um increase the
Speaker 1: amount of love that you put out into the world
Speaker 1: as a result of the grief. Um you know, so, uh,
Speaker 1: I am concerned. I am really concerned I After a
Speaker 1: company called Khalita created a hologram of Kim Kardashian's late father,
Speaker 1: they said they were flooded with request to do the
Speaker 1: same for regular, though presumably wealthy people asking for hologram
Speaker 1: recreations of their loved ones. And companies like Deep Nostalgia,
Speaker 1: which uses AI to create digital renderings of loved ones
Speaker 1: that smile and move, are already incredibly popular with people
Speaker 1: who want to feel more connected to their lost loved ones.
Speaker 1: So could this be a useful way to process grief
Speaker 1: in the past. In a piece for The Fall called
Speaker 1: Deep Fakes, Dead Relatives and Digital Resurrection, Dr Elaine Cassette,
Speaker 1: psychologist and the author of All the Ghosts in the Machines,
Speaker 1: says that right now tech is ushered in new territory
Speaker 1: of collapsing the dead and the living together. Tech companies
Speaker 1: are the keepers of this information with a one size
Speaker 1: fits all memorialization mechanism. They've got ideas about what's good
Speaker 1: for you, and grief and bereavement are baked into the design.
Speaker 1: She says, I've been in therapy for a very long time,
Speaker 1: and one of my therapists kind of repeated mantras to
Speaker 1: me is there are no shortcuts to grieving. There's no
Speaker 1: shortcuts to processing. And so you know, if there was
Speaker 1: a like a technology enabled future that allowed me to
Speaker 1: experience things that that I'm like I never got to experience,
Speaker 1: or you know, basically, I there's no shortcut to processing.
Speaker 1: And so if I was able to have a hologram
Speaker 1: of you know, the perfect solution, like a perfect recreation
Speaker 1: of what I wish I always had, I am then
Speaker 1: not doing the work of processing the fact that I
Speaker 1: never got that in reality, right like, and there is
Speaker 1: no shortcut to process, and you just have to move
Speaker 1: through it and make peace with it. And I guess
Speaker 1: I wonder if we're enabling the if technology is enabling
Speaker 1: us to think of things as shortcuts, Like if you
Speaker 1: didn't appre if you didn't appreciate Whitney Houston when she
Speaker 1: was here, and or worse, you got on the pop
Speaker 1: culture bandwagon of mocking her and and like mocking her humanity,
Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't get to have a future enabled by
Speaker 1: technology where you can go see her any time you
Speaker 1: want for as long as you live. Maybe you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be processing why it is that you treated her that
Speaker 1: way when she was living. And I wonder if this
Speaker 1: technology is building in this this the shortcuts for not
Speaker 1: having to do that deep work of processing what it
Speaker 1: is we do while we're here to people who are
Speaker 1: actual humans. Absolutely, absolutely, And you know it's interesting because
Speaker 1: I also I write fiction, you know, and a part
Speaker 1: of my process is reimagination. You know. I have a
Speaker 1: whole novel that like reimagines the ending of slavery in
Speaker 1: a way that is empowering for black people, in a
Speaker 1: way that sets us off on a different future, as
Speaker 1: a way of processing the ways in which we are
Speaker 1: existing in this present terrible future, um, as a result
Speaker 1: of slavery that has not been addressed or repaired or
Speaker 1: you know, and it's now trying to be you know,
Speaker 1: by these um uh right wing extremists, you know, being
Speaker 1: erased from our history and from you know, being taught
Speaker 1: in schools. Um. So I'm just you know, I I
Speaker 1: understand um the ideology behind you know, how reimaginations can
Speaker 1: help process and help heal and move through grief. Um
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering what the limitations are, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, you know, what is I think our tech
Speaker 1: overlord should be thinking what is the worst that could
Speaker 1: happen and putting up safeguards right now, and they're not
Speaker 1: going to do that. That's such a good point and
Speaker 1: we we I feel like we've already seen how technology
Speaker 1: is being misused if you don't put in safeguards for
Speaker 1: the reality of how a lot of people will probably
Speaker 1: to use it. Like you know, we have deep fake technology.
Speaker 1: I've seen very interesting, uh useful interpretations of deep deep
Speaker 1: fakes or artists who like make deep feakes of Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg taking accountability for the harmony it's caused, for instance.
Speaker 1: But we already know that how deep fake technology is
Speaker 1: being used is to harass and abuse, marginalize people, women, people,
Speaker 1: women of color. And so this idea that we can
Speaker 1: just quickly put out new technology that's going to completely
Speaker 1: change and alter how our society understands how it works
Speaker 1: and not put in those safeguards or even really stop
Speaker 1: to think about the president They said, I think it's
Speaker 1: really a problem. Yes, absolutely, so I have to ask,
Speaker 1: you know, in reading your piece, it's obvious that this
Speaker 1: piece is sort of like a love letter to Whitney
Speaker 1: Houston and her legacy. What is her? Do you have
Speaker 1: a favorite Whitney Houston song or moment that that you
Speaker 1: want to share with us. M That might be a
Speaker 1: hard question because there's so many to pick from there
Speaker 1: really are. I mean, I feel like I want to
Speaker 1: dance with somebody. Um And I know she was. It
Speaker 1: was really hurt my my heart to hear how she
Speaker 1: was criticized for this song, um by you know, like
Speaker 1: Al Sharpton and and you know other prominent black people
Speaker 1: back when this was released. But I remember my dad
Speaker 1: had a VHS of just like Whitney Houston videos and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. UM. And I remember as a kid
Speaker 1: watching that video and she was so happy, and you
Speaker 1: know I did in the hair, you know, like it
Speaker 1: was just so beautiful, and I just thought she was
Speaker 1: the most beautiful woman. And I was like, yes, how
Speaker 1: nice would that be to dance with somebody who loves you?
Speaker 1: Like how ideal? Like I just I remember so vividly
Speaker 1: as a kid, being just like so enthralled um by
Speaker 1: this video. And my dad also had this the red
Speaker 1: her original record, you know where she's got the um.
Speaker 1: I think her hair is pulled back, but it looked
Speaker 1: like she had just like a low like shaved head.
Speaker 1: UM And I just like, yeah, all you see is
Speaker 1: her stunning face and I'm like, wow, this is the
Speaker 1: most beautiful woman. Like, I just I remember being so
Speaker 1: touched by her music so early on in my life.
Speaker 1: I mean, The Bodyguard was my favorite movie. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be an actress because of the Bodyguard. Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just so much um waiting to exhale. Is like,
Speaker 1: hands down, the best soundtrack that has ever existed to
Speaker 1: a movie. Um, you know, She's just she was so
Speaker 1: gifted and she was so talented. And then when I
Speaker 1: found out later on that she has literally produced like
Speaker 1: all the teen girl movies like The Princess Diaries, and
Speaker 1: I mean just she she did so much that shaped
Speaker 1: uh my childhood. Um, including Cinderella. I mean that you know,
Speaker 1: we definitely that was appointment television. We stopped everything as
Speaker 1: a family to watch Cinderella and to watch Brandy, who
Speaker 1: I also loved so much, be the first black Cinderella,
Speaker 1: and to have Whitney Houston be the Godmother. I mean
Speaker 1: it just there are so many things, um, and so
Speaker 1: many of those songs as well. Like I just I
Speaker 1: remember always having this kind of countercultural mind as a kid,
Speaker 1: and just these ideas, these feminist ideas that I didn't
Speaker 1: know what the words were, how to describe them, but
Speaker 1: like I just felt like Whitney Houston in her music
Speaker 1: and definitely in the music in Cinderella. Like it was
Speaker 1: so much about, you know, just feeling empowered as a
Speaker 1: woman and not taking the positions that we are put
Speaker 1: in in society, UM, laying down, you know, to to
Speaker 1: fight to be an individual and to use your own voice.
Speaker 1: And so then to later find out that there were
Speaker 1: so many ways that Whitney was not allowed to do
Speaker 1: that was just very devastating, very hard um to to
Speaker 1: hear an experience, and you know, it definitely gave me
Speaker 1: um fuel to make sure that I and the people
Speaker 1: around me as much as possible, UM, we're given the
Speaker 1: space to be who they are and to be celebrated
Speaker 1: and supported for who they are, UM, so that nothing
Speaker 1: like this would ever happen. It's a tragedy that we
Speaker 1: lost to Whitney Houston, and it was so unnecessary. We
Speaker 1: didn't it didn't have to be this way. UM. We
Speaker 1: could have made a society that was not queer phobic, UM,
Speaker 1: that was not lesbiphobic, UM, that was not anti black
Speaker 1: that was not misogynistic. That would have allowed Whitney Houston
Speaker 1: to thrive. Um, and we you know, we all can
Speaker 1: play a role in creating that world so that it
Speaker 1: doesn't happen to another person. That's so beautiful and so right.
Speaker 1: I mean, Whitney taught me that nothing is worth living
Speaker 1: your authentic life and living your authentic truth exactly. That's beautiful, Brooke.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that I have not asked or have
Speaker 1: not brought up that you want to make sure it
Speaker 1: gets included? Um? I think that was pretty much it
Speaker 1: I got in my dig about Mark Zuckerberg and just
Speaker 1: why people accomplished, like every chance I can to just
Speaker 1: be like fuck justin Timberlake, Like I just want to
Speaker 1: say that Zuckerberg can go to hell, Like that's it.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think we're good. I do love that,
Speaker 1: like as a culture we all kind of collectively or
Speaker 1: like you know what, fuck fuck justin Timberlake. I like
Speaker 1: him whereever, Like you can't come back from that, like
Speaker 1: it's not paid reparations to Janet or like just be
Speaker 1: quiet forever. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech,
Speaker 1: or just want to say hi, you can be just
Speaker 1: at hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find
Speaker 1: transcripts for today's episode at tangodi dot com. There Are
Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet was created by me Brigittad.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unboss native Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer
Speaker 1: and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow,
Speaker 1: rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.