WEBVTT - 8: Dolores Logs In 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.280 Trigger warning. This podcast involves discussions of child sexual abuse 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:09.879 and pedophilia. Listener discretion is advised. There are a lot 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.959 of ways to see Dolores Hayes, and how you see 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.000 her really depends on not just where you're sitting in 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.439 the room, but all of the places you've been and 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.680 experiences you've had before you even enter the room in 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.800 the first place. And you're like, Okay, the metaphor is 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.159 getting a little heavy here, but go with me for 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:30.920 a second. There's a million ways to see and perceive 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.880 Dolores Hayes. Most are exposed first to the images laid 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.760 out that reference an image that her abuser constructed, whether 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.720 that's in movies or advertisement or pop music. Some of 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.320 us see her through the peaks that the Book of Humbert. 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.800 Humbert gives to her true authentic self in his book, 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.200 Dolores being a better tennis player than Humbert but always 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.680 letting him win anyways. Dolores crying herself to sleep at night, 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:00.320 Dolores dropping a knife onto her foot upon seeing her 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:04.160 friend's father genuinely expressing love to his daughter. But no 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.120 matter how you see her, we all see Dolores in 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.560 relation to ourselves just like we see really anything. There's 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:13.400 a four part series that you can watch for free 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.760 on YouTube called Ways of Seeing, which was originally aired 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.920 on BBC two in nine two, and it's hosted by 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.679 writer John Burger. Maybe you've been taught this in a 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.240 class you've taken before, or maybe you have like an 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.119 exhausting friend that brings it up at parties. But Ways 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.200 of Seeing is all about the ways that modern audiences 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.160 consume mass images and how different image consumption is from 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.680 the centuries of sacred imagery being more difficult to seek 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.920 out before mass production was possible. There's some parts of 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.520 this documentary that are really cool and others that are 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:47.600 really dated. How you can devote an entire episode on 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:51.120 how women view themselves by speaking to five white women 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.640 in Britain of the same financial classes like um come on. 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.000 But in the first episode, John Burger conducts a pretty 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.640 interesting experiment that I think uniquely suited to how we 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:06.800 see Dolores so okay for science picture. The most popular 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:11.600 image in our culture of Lolita Sue Lion gazing over 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:16.000 those heart shaped sunglasses in two. Here's what Burger says 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.360 in the first episode of Ways of Seeing as you 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.680 look at them now on your screen. Your wallpaper is 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:28.480 around them, your window is opposite them, your carpet is 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:32.800 below them. At the same moment, they are on many 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:37.440 other screens, surrounded by different objects, different colors, different sounds. 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.919 You are seeing them in the context of your own life. 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.600 They are surrounded not by guilt frames, but by the 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.000 familiarity of the room you are in and the people 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.360 around you. Okay, so let's think about the Sioux Lion 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:57.480 image in that context. This image has been reproduced countless times, 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:02.040 whether it's this exact image or later reimagined versions of it, 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.320 but the way that you see it is uniquely connected 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.040 to you, You goddamn snowflake. Whether you like it or not, 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.840 you're gonna see this heart shaped glasses image in the 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.840 context of your own life. So some people are going 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:19.160 to see a sexually appealing and consenting underage girl. Others 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.639 might see an aspirational image. Wow, I want to look 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.679 like that. Others might recoil from the image. How could 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:27.840 they make a girl pose like that? She's so young? 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.120 Another person might say, Hey, I've forgot I was going 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.480 to watch that movie. The image exists in a context 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.600 and not just the societal context we've been talking about 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.280 throughout this series, it's also the context of you, how 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.920 this image comes to you and how you interpret it. 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.880 John Burger also speaks to how the meaning of an 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.720 image changes when placed alongside other images. A picture of 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.360 Sue Lion and heart shaped Glasses on its own has 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.480 a different implied meaning than if the heart shaped glasses 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.480 picture is placed beside a photo of Sue Lion when 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.280 she was the years older, or if the heart shaped 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.120 glasses picture is placed next to an image of Stanley 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:09.120 Kubrick berating a female actor. When placed next to something else, 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.800 the meaning of the original image often changes. I've now 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.560 emphasized the ways in which reproduction makes the meaning of 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.840 works of art ambiguous. This is not as negative as 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:24.120 it necessarily sounds, if we realize what is happening. What 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.640 it means in theory is reproduction of works of art 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.880 can be used by anybody for their own purposes. Images 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.080 can be used like words, we can talk with them. 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.880 Reproduction should make it easier to connect our experience of 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.840 art directly with other experiences. So, as John Burger is 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.400 describing this, we see a series of very nineteen seventies 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.840 images juxtaposed next to each other for our purposes. Think 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.840 of a bulletin board in a teenager's room where there's 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.040 pictures of celebrities pinned up next to pictures of friends 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.680 and family. Think of vision boards that people made back 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.760 when New Year's resolutions and hope for the future was 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.040 still a thing that we had. And while we're at it, 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.640 let's take that same energy and apply it to the 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.520 wonderful world of online. Think of how images interact with 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.000 each other and change meaning based on what kind of 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.760 Pinterest board they're placed on, Or think of how images 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.479 interact with each other on a Tumblr page. It's a 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:23.479 full on death battle of esthetics. Each image on its 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:27.560 own has the original intended meaning from the artist, and 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.520 then that meaning probably changes when it arrives to you, 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.440 And then that meaning can change again when you see 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.680 it placed on a scrollable grid of hundreds of thousands 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:40.440 of other images. To quote a late two thousands inscrutable 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:45.679 Facebook relationship status, it's complicated. In an essay she wrote 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.440 on her own experiences with Lolita in the upcoming collection 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.640 Lolita in the Afterlife, one of my favorite writers, Morgan Jerkins, 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:55.680 directs us to in a bulk of quote from a 0:05:55.839 --> 0:06:00.960 January four interview with Playboy writer al And Toffler asks 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.880 Nabokov if he ever regretted writing Lolita nearly ten years 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:09.240 after its original publication. Nabokov replied, no, I shall never 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.719 regret Lolita. She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle, 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.960 its composition and its solution at the same time, since 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.760 one is a mirror view of the other depending on 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:23.640 the way you look the way you look. Dolores exists 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.360 in relation to you, as we've discussed since the first episode, 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:32.440 and she exists in relation to advertising and commercial images. Today, 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.880 we're going to talk about how the image of Dolores 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.039 Hayes has functioned as a community builter, and how the 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.239 reproduction of her image and the discussion of her character 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.440 has been connecting people to each other since the dawn 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.360 of the Internet. Because there is in fact a little 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.360 bit of justice in this world. People who have more 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.760 in common with Doloras Hayes than Humbert. Humbert have found 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.760 and appreciated her over the years and formed communities around 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.640 her image as well learned today, these are pretty widely 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.840 diverse groups of people spanning many races, sexualities, genders, and 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:10.600 many are survivors of abuse. So that's ideal, right, do 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.560 we do it? Well? Hold on, because if we're building 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:17.040 a community around the icon and the image of Dolores Hayes, 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:20.600 we need to remember who has prepared and curated the 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.640 image of Dolores Hayes for us over the last sixty 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:29.080 five years. Well, mainly advertisers who are translating Humbert Humbert 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:33.160 the abuser's account of Dolores Hayes basically at face value. 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.120 And while these fan communities can certainly break through a 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.760 lot of this noise by bringing the perspective of their 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.520 own experiences, when an icon is shaped completely by the 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.880 male gaze, and this image of them is perpetuated by 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.920 every movie ad or pop music campaign it can ladge 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.320 onto for over half a century, aren't things bound to 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:58.040 get messy? Let's find out. Dolores logs in This is 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:33.319 lowly to Podcast. Hello and welcome back to Lolita Podcast. 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.600 I am your host, Jamie Loftus, and today we're taking 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:40.240 a look at the brief but fascinating history of Lolita 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.160 fan forums. Now, there's no doubt that there's ones that 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.200 I have missed here because, as with all things extremely online, 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.959 these histories are very specific, they're very intense, and they 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.079 can be very difficult to find. I'm going to present 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.920 Lolita forums to you from three points in internet history today, 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.240 one snapshot from the early two thousd s, one from 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.960 the mid two thousand tents, and a look at the 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.720 state of Lolita forums or the nymphet community as it 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.080 was called up until pretty recently today in the twenties. 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.640 And will also be touching on the associated esthetic movement 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.600 non sexual nymphete fashion. So before we get into the 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.440 history here, I wouldn't start this episode by saying that, 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.760 while I think it's important to understand the histories of 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.959 these forums and how they've evolved over the decades, it's 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.920 important to acknowledge that, as many of the members I'll 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.520 be quoting today will tell you, there's been a lot 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:37.880 of direct and indirect harm done by online communities that 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:42.480 have at any point glorified predatory relationships and child sex 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.960 abuse in any way, no matter who these communities are 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.319 run by. I've heard from so many listeners on our 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.920 discord and in emails who describe being genuinely fucked up 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.560 by Lolita Tumbler in particular, and I am no exception 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.560 to that rule, particularly when encountering unities that are splashy, 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:05.400 visually driven and not communicating very much in the way 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.000 of context or nuance. It's been a really commonly relayed 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.480 experience that finding these blogs while still a kid and 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.480 very much in the process of figuring out who you are, 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.440 often looking to online peers for guidance on how to 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:24.079 be this messaging could be really harmful. I want to 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.760 share two messages I've received on the subject, both anonymously. 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:32.240 Of course, Tumbler introduced me to the Lolita style, mainly 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.199 through Laana del Ray. I spent most of my time 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.360 after school on tumbler esthetic blogs, which created a very 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:42.560 rose colored idea of Lolita. I had no context for 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.000 the actual novel and felt uncomfortable and intrigued by a 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.280 lot of the media this was around, and me and 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:51.520 my best friend were some of the nerdiest girls at 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.360 our school, nonetheless, who would spend lunch hour singing to 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.640 Launa del Ray songs, specifically off to the races in 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.559 my friend's car. Nearly every day when we were home 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.599 from school. We would repost things about the music and 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.560 aesthetic on Tumblr. There's a strange thing for me, since 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.320 at school I was known as the smart girl. Listening 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.920 to the music and engaging with the culture surrounding Lolita 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:13.920 felt like a way to escape from how it is 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.840 perceived by others. Who says also pre related to my 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.640 transition to almost exclusively crop toss and a skirts for 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.800 a year or so. That ties into a couple other things. 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.560 Though I am now able to see a lot more 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.240 of the flaws within the culture. Let's I've gotten older 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:33.559 and had more experiences in my life. I was the 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:35.959 subject of a lot of attention from adult men when 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.760 I was young, and I really engaged with the book 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:42.960 in the movie, generally not in a healthy way. I 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.040 was on Tumbler when the Lolita aesthetic exploded, and I 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.000 feel like that aesthetic will always be rooted somewhere deep 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:53.599 in my brain. I truly can't overstate how many messages 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:57.480 like this I've received from listeners with a wide variety 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.200 of backgrounds, and how much of it is connected to 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.280 Laana del Rey. So to the several listeners who have 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.280 contacted me asking why I'm talking about her so much, 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.840 it's because current Lolita imagery is very connected to her 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.320 early career. From what I've noticed, there's a notable uptick 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:19.240 in activity in these online communities, first when movie became 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:21.840 more accessible at the same time the internet did in 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.880 the late nineties early two thousand's, then again in the 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:30.560 early two thousand tents, when Lana del Rey came into prominence. Okay, 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:34.360 one last meme, I promise this is from Instagram user 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.360 psyche Delicious three thirty three from just a couple of 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.440 days ago. Here are a few different panels of the memes. 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.040 Those red flags look pretty green when you idolize Laana 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:48.200 del Rey as a preteen. I would give anything to 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.679 be able to forget all the ship I learned from tumbler. Uh, 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:55.040 this is over some images of common Lolita tumbler posts. 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.080 Do not trust bitches who post shit like this, worst 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:03.680 mistake of my life. And then lastly, a picture of 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.640 Lana del Ray with the speech bubble saying this, Yeah, 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.120 I romanticized the little lad to aesthetics so much that 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.400 I got hundreds of my underage fans dangerously obsessed with it. 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.640 So what. There is a big reckoning going on right 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.600 now about misinterpretations of the book stemming from Internet culture 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.680 of the two thousand tens, and it's been fascinating to 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:27.240 watch it unfold. And a lot of comments like this 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.199 cropped up when Lana del Ray's latest scandal involving her 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.280 using very racially charged language to explain how she is 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.640 not racist. But when she did this and every time 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.120 she does this, there is a wave of tweets from 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.000 people who were there for her big moment on Tumbler 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.560 in the early two thousand's and how that has affected 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.920 their image of themselves. There is a great recent Twitter 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.680 threat about this from Jezebel staff writer actually rees from 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.000 this last week on the subject. Here's two of the tweets. Okay, 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.280 but being on Tumbler when Lana was first coming out 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.439 was an experience. Let me tell you. She goes on 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:05.240 the gift sets, the cultural appropriation arguments, the SNL thing, 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.080 where are my veteran benefits? And she's right. I mean, 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.400 this was a subculture on the Internet from almost ten 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:16.080 years ago, and it is haunting people. Many of Llama's 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.640 credics have characterized her framing of Lolita, which we discussed 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.240 at length a few episodes ago, as a form of 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.560 paras social grooming and if you're not familiar with the term. 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.040 It consists of two kind of interconnected terms. The first 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.280 is para social, so i'll go lemony snicket mode for 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.800 a second. Paras social is a word which here means 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:39.239 a psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.560 encounters with performers in the mass media. So this is 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.080 the feeling a consumer gets when they feel like they 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.760 know someone who is a public figure, when of course 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.600 that public figure doesn't know them, Like when I talked 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.360 to like a framed photograph of Rachel Weiss. She cannot 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.960 hear me, she does not know me, but I love 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.560 her performances so much that I feel like she's my friend. Tumbler. 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.520 Users of the Two Thousand Tents didn't know Lana del Rey, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:04.840 but they did know her image, and her image and 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.120 music made this young audience often feel like they did 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.360 actually know her and that she was someone to look 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:12.560 up to. So the second half of that phrase is 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.680 when we've discussed on the podcast before, and that's grooming, 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:19.320 which means quote when someone builds a relationship, trust and 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.240 emotional connection with a child or young person so they 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.320 can manipulate, exploit, and abuse them unquote The implication of 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.480 para social grooming is basically that a public figure that 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:31.920 many kids looked up to and felt like they knew, 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.000 made them feel like and made money off of convincing 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:40.280 underage fans that the dynamic between Humbert Humbert and Lolita 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.320 was romantic and something to aspire to. I mean, after all, 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.120 if it wasn't, why would your para social friend Laana 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.640 del Right be saying it? And why would all your 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:54.200 online friends be so encouraging and excited about it. This cycle, 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.680 as many have told me, created at times a vortex 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:02.440 of misinformation and mischaracterization that young users were spreading to 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.600 each other. All this to say, there is no doubt 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.320 that Nymphete and Lolita forums have over the years provided 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.600 both a space for teens to congregate around Dolores Hayes 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.480 and spread a lot of confusion well into the two 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:21.000 thousand tents that glorified the Humbert Lolita dynamic and perpetuated 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:25.520 information that really messed with people's heads. And yes, Lana's 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.200 approach to framing Lolita has a lot, a lot, a 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.960 lot to do with where those misconceptions were coming from. 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.760 That said, I think it's really valuable information to know 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.240 a little more about the history of these forums and 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:42.600 all the nuances that come with them. So let's get started. 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.080 But first, let's rewind the clock about twenty years back 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:51.000 to the early two thousands. George W. Bush has stolen 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.040 the election. Songs like Oops, I Did It Again and 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.520 Drops of Jupiter are topping that charts. Low Rise Jeans 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.840 are offensively on Trent and the Sex in the City 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:05.040 and Spice Girls driven girl power. Highly commercialized third wave 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.320 feminism is kind of the best we have to offer 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.680 in the mainstream. Adrian Lines movie was a hit overseas 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.960 in n but in the US was relegated to showtime 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.879 and home video. Not that that stopped teams with access 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.720 to a Blockbuster membership to getting their hands on a copy. 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.600 It's in this era that the first Lolita fan websites 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.399 begin to crop up. Around this time, there weren't many 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.680 centralized places to find conversation around Lolita. It was something 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.720 you had to really look for, predating all the big 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:41.280 social media giants, and something that's challenging but not impossible 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.760 to find traces of now these days you'll find almost 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:49.320 exclusively dead links and dead profiles, but here's a summary 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.399 of what remains or is remembered in old blogs and 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:57.080 reddit posts about these early Lolita message boards and forums, 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.119 a real graveyard of the Internet. So I'll summarize some 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:07.640 common themes. First, overwhelmingly users identify themselves as teenage girls 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.479 on these forums. The topics they focus on kind of 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:15.640 very There are conversations about the movie, definitely more so 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.480 than the Stanley kuberc nine sixties one. There are images 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.600 which are half dead links now of mostly young sis 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:28.639 white girls imitating images from the movie, and some discussion 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.880 of what they thought it meant to be a nymphete, 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.200 with a pretty wide array of responses. Some users think 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:40.440 that it is about presenting yourself as a cultural Elita, 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.360 as an underaged person who is interested in people who 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.800 are much older. Others are more willing to believe that 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.879 it is an aesthetic or an attitude. Next, there is 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:56.080 the occasional post or mentioned from dead linked users who 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.280 creeped into these forums who are identifying as hum arts. 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.480 So this is the Internet of the early two thousands, remember, 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:08.040 so Generally claims of being an older, attractive doctor or 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:12.000 lawyer are extremely difficult to verify, as they provide no 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:16.600 photos or last names. These older men are tentatively tolerated 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.399 in these communities, it appears, or at least are not 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.760 asked to leave right away if they gaze from a 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:29.320 respectful distance without harassing the teenage users. Then the occasional haters. 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:33.160 There are rogue posts from people who warn these teen 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:38.720 communities badly edited HTML, dizzying backgrounds and all, that these 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.400 teens don't get Lolita, that it was actually a book 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.440 about abuse, and that by discussing Dolores Hayes or admiring 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.960 images of her in any way, they were inherently misunderstanding 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.920 the texts. These posts are understandably not received very well 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:59.280 in these communities, but not without reason, because my final 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.600 observation is that even in the two thousands, there is 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.760 a lot of conversation about Dolores Hayes herself, and it's 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.600 clear that these teenagers have read the book. It would 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:14.080 be an oversimplification to say that teen girls were glorifying 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:17.800 the message of Lolita. I don't think that's necessarily true 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:20.920 during this era. At least, it would be more accurate 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.560 to say that they are glorifying the image of Dominique 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.679 Swain as Lolita in a pre Lana del Rey world. 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.920 This is the strongest image there was to pull from, 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:36.360 along with other nineties era teen seductresses, your Drew Barrymore's, 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:40.160 your Alicia Silverstones, and this era is generally a push 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.480 and pull between wanting to be the girl Dominique Swain 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.840 plays and genuinely discussing the Dolores Hayes of the book. 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.760 So it's a mix of emulating these very male gaze 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:56.600 images fed by nineties and early two thousands culture, and 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:00.160 some pushing back on them. It's not unknown in these 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.960 forums that Dolores was an abused child. The teen girls 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.360 on the forum were not necessarily there to glorify relationships 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.240 with older men. There are some talks about encounters they 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:13.960 had with older men, but just as much talk about 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:17.440 being interested in people at their age. For some users, 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.520 and I could relate with this, the desire for someone 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:25.040 older seemed a little more abstract and more of a 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:29.480 response to the questionable maturity of teenage boys on offer. 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.240 I mean personally, I definitely remember thinking how much better 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.760 dating an older person would be than the filthy fourteen 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:39.960 year old boys that I went to eighth grade with. 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:43.520 So at this time, it's really a mix of different 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:47.919 approaches to the material, grounded in a common interest in Dolores. 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.600 While the core imagery is very tied into and as 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.040 far as I was able to observe, motivated by interest 0:21:55.200 --> 0:22:00.440 in Adrian Lines adaptation, the users have clearly read the book. Look, 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:04.040 the core difference I noticed with more contemporary teen users 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:07.040 is a willingness to tolerate the presence of older men 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.760 observing the forums and a less whole condemnation of the 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.040 power dynamics within the book. What I was surprised by 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.720 and kind of touched by, was that these were, however, 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:22.480 completely dead now communities. At the time, they were teenagers 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:26.000 talking to each other about their common experiences, saying that 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:28.800 you could be a nymphant at any age. It's an attitude, 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.840 it's an aesthetic, and the real commonality was processing their 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:38.680 experiences through Nabokov's text and often through Adrian Lines movie. 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.800 So the first wave of nymphet forums are clearly motivated 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:46.400 by the nineties movie and briefly thrive in a pop 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:50.119 culture landscape that was not shy. As we've discussed in 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:55.840 many past episodes about eroticizing images of underaged teens, even 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:59.760 making them at times active threats to older male characters 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:04.000 rather than the other way around. But these forums die 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:06.760 down and seem to stay dead as far as I 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:10.400 could tell, for a while. But in the late two 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:14.480 thousands and early two thousand tens that changes the work 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.200 of Laana del Rey provides a new generation with a 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:21.560 massive resurgence in these kinds of communities, with marked differences 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:25.240 that reflect the changing values of our culture. So what 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:27.520 I think is important to keep in mind, and something 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:30.760 I feel is often lost in the discussion of Lolita 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:35.320 at every point in these communities is this the online 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:38.200 culture surrounding the book, And as we're about to learn, 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:41.600 Lana del Rey's relation to it was a formative and 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:45.159 confusing phase for many of the teens who were active 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:48.320 within it at literally any point in time you can 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:51.320 direct to I see discussions about this all the time 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:54.320 on the Lolita podcast discord and an emails that I 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:57.840 received from listeners. These online spaces are flawed and leave 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:00.359 a lot to be wanting in terms of inclusive, civity 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:02.680 and nuance, and we'll get to that in a bit, 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:06.120 But they're curiated mainly by teenagers who are figuring ship 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:11.040 out under constrictive and complicated societal pressures, not unlike Dolorous 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:13.760 Hayes trying to figure herself out as a young teenager 0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:18.840 under the most traumatic circumstances you could imagine. Back So 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:23.520 let's move forward. Enter Tumbler, the micro blogging what a 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:28.920