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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, I am excited to announce that There Are

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Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet. We'll be back with a

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Speaker 1: brand new season on May sixteenth, and and even more

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Speaker 1: exciting news, There Are No Girls on the Internet is

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Speaker 1: a finalist for a Shorty Award for Best Technology and

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Speaker 1: Science Podcast, and y'all, I am so thrilled about it.

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Speaker 1: So can you do me a huge favor and vote

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Speaker 1: for us to win. Just go to tangoty dot com

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Speaker 1: slash vote or use the link in our show description.

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Speaker 1: It only takes a moment, I promise, and you can

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Speaker 1: vote every day until April twenty sixth. Just go to

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Speaker 1: tangote dot com slash vote. That's t a n G

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Speaker 1: O t I dot com slash vote or use the

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Speaker 1: link in our show description. It would really mean a

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Speaker 1: lot to me. There Are No Girls on the Internet

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Speaker 1: as a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget

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Speaker 1: Todd and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

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Speaker 1: So if you've been listening to their No I was

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Speaker 1: on the Internet for a while, then you probably know

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Speaker 1: that I have been on the Internet for a very

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Speaker 1: long time and I joined the podcast. Main accounts the

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Speaker 1: story of MySpace to talk about the early days of

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite ever social media platforms. You guessed it,

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Speaker 1: MySpace and Wyatt was such a huge part of my

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Speaker 1: online upbringing and development, and it was really fun to

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Speaker 1: take a nostalgic, sometimes cringey, digital walk down memory lane.

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Speaker 1: So take a listen and don't forget to vote for

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Speaker 1: us to win a Shorty Award Originals.

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Speaker 2: This is an iHeart original.

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Speaker 1: If the beginning of Tila Tequila being on my radar

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Speaker 1: as this, like, you know, MySpace influencer for being a

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Speaker 1: queer woman of color, if that was like the promise

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Speaker 1: of the Internet. The day that I saw that image

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Speaker 1: of her in my hometown in DC doing a Nazi

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Speaker 1: salute at a restaurant with a bunch of al right dirtbags,

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Speaker 1: that was the nail in the coffin. And so I

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Speaker 1: feel like that moment for me really crystallized where we

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Speaker 1: started and unfortunately where we wound up.

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Speaker 2: I'm Joanne McNeil and this his main accounts the story

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Speaker 2: of MySpace, Episode three, MySpace Famous. In this episode, we're

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Speaker 2: going to discuss how MySpace, like reality TV, became a

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Speaker 2: vehicle for celebrity. The people who became famous through the

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Speaker 2: platform gave way to the culture of influencers. MySpace felt

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Speaker 2: like a party. I've heard a few people make this

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Speaker 2: comparison when I've talked about the platform with them. Recently.

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Speaker 2: Julia Angwin said it in the first episode of our series.

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Speaker 3: Was definitely a party atmosphere, and my friend Dorothy Santos

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Speaker 3: said it too when we were reminiscing about it the

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Speaker 3: other day.

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Speaker 4: So I wasn't really seeing MySpace as a professional platform

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Speaker 4: as this kind of digital party that just would I

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Speaker 4: could pop in anytime.

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Speaker 2: Well, what's something people usually want to know about a

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Speaker 2: party before they show up? Who is going to be there?

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Speaker 2: The answer was Tila Tequila.

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Speaker 1: Was that rare bids you go?

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Speaker 5: Miss Tila also known as Cio Tequila.

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Speaker 2: Tila was the party before MySpace. Tila was a model

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Speaker 2: in Playboy and car shows. In two thousand and three,

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Speaker 2: she appeared on Surviving Nugent, a reality show on BH

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Speaker 2: one hosted by Ted Nugent on his Texas ranch.

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Speaker 1: Lare I can't handle?

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Speaker 2: But it was social media that made Tila famous.

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Speaker 1: The very first MySpace kind of influencer celebrity that I

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Speaker 1: was very, very interested in and like she was on

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Speaker 1: my top eight and it was this person, Tila Tequila.

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Speaker 1: When I think about like, who was the first MySpace

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Speaker 1: big account, it was her.

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Speaker 2: That's Bridget Todd, host of the podcast There Are No

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Speaker 2: Girls on the Internet on my Space way back when,

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Speaker 2: Bridget was one of Tila's hundreds of thousands of fans.

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Speaker 1: One of the notable things about her is that she

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Speaker 1: was openly queer. And you know, I'm queer and she's

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Speaker 1: a person of color. I'm a person of color, and

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Speaker 1: I remember thinking like, wow, how cool, Like this famous

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Speaker 1: person of color, you know, has a platform around the

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Speaker 1: fact that she's queer.

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Speaker 2: Tila, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, was no heiress like

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Speaker 2: Paris Hilton. Her parents didn't have a lot of money.

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Speaker 2: She had to hustle to get her name out in

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Speaker 2: the world. The Internet was part of that hustle.

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Speaker 6: I have an addiction, yes, okay, So my theramist is

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Speaker 6: that I have a highly addictive personality, and you know

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Speaker 6: I do.

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Speaker 5: So it's I'm addicts internet. So I'm always sweating them

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Speaker 5: online trying to fans. I do this, do that, And

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Speaker 5: I'm addicted to shopping.

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Speaker 7: I'm addicted to sex.

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Speaker 1: You know whatever.

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Speaker 2: This is how people came to know Tila Tequila. She

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Speaker 2: sent friend requests to hundreds and hundreds of people. First

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Speaker 2: she did this on Friendster, and Tila ran into some

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Speaker 2: trouble doing this because Friendster, compared to MySpace, did not

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Speaker 2: feel like a party. Friendster was pretty rigid about rules.

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Speaker 2: In the summer of two thousand and three, Friendster started

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Speaker 2: cracking down on accounts known as fakester's accounts that represented

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Speaker 2: anything other than a user's real identity. So you might

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Speaker 2: have seen Marilyn Monroe fakester that was a user impersonating

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Speaker 2: Marilyn Monroe on Friendster, or you might have come across

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Speaker 2: a snowy owl fakester and people obsessed with bird watching

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Speaker 2: would have friended that account. The fakesters became sort of

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Speaker 2: like community pages, but Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams hated them.

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Speaker 2: He hired a bunch of moderators to remove them all.

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Speaker 2: A group of these outlaw fakesters came together and wrote

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Speaker 2: an open letter protesting Friendster's policy. The ringleader was someone

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Speaker 2: who went by Roy Batti on Friendster, you know, like

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Speaker 2: the Replicant and blade Runner.

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Speaker 7: The corporate masters at Friendster should be thrilled that they

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Speaker 7: have such a vibrant online community as they now have

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Speaker 7: on their hands. What they forget is that a living community,

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Speaker 7: by definition, has a life of its own.

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Speaker 8: Deleting the photos in or entire accounts of fakesters is

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Speaker 8: going to rudely, terribly backfire against the management of this

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Speaker 8: site and will ultimately take the entire community, real or parodied,

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Speaker 8: down with it.

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Speaker 7: The rumblings of descent are already grown, getting louder by

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Speaker 7: the minute. If Friendster wants to see all of the

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Speaker 7: goodwill and excellent word of mouth that is generated go

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Speaker 7: down and scorching, smoking very public flames, then they can

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Speaker 7: go right ahead with their little extermination campaign. The Internet

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Speaker 7: is a big place, and we can easily take our

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Speaker 7: party somewhere else, to a site where we are not

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Speaker 7: only tolerated, but enthusiastically embraced.

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Speaker 2: You know where they took that party. I mean, of course,

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Speaker 2: the fakesters went to MySpace. Friendster was so aggressive about

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Speaker 2: kicking out faxters that it impacted people using their real

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Speaker 2: identities on the platform too. This happened to Tila Tequila.

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Speaker 2: She kept getting kicked off Friendster for adding too many friends.

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Speaker 2: Tila knew about MySpace because Tom Anderson had been an

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Speaker 2: offline acquaintance. He sent her a bunch of invites to

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Speaker 2: join MySpace, but she declined. It wasn't cool. In Tila's mind.

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Speaker 2: MySpace wasn't a party yet. The site had just launched,

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Speaker 2: and no one was really on MySpace yet except for

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Speaker 2: Euniverse staff and their immediate friends. Still, it was a

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Speaker 2: hassle dealing with Friendster mods. Each time Tela's account was

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Speaker 2: deleted from Friendster, she'd have to rebuild her list of

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Speaker 2: friends manually add all of her friends again. And in

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Speaker 2: September two thousand and three, when Tila got kicked off

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Speaker 2: Friendster for the fifth time, she'd had enough. Tila finally

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Speaker 2: took Tom up on his offer, and Tila didn't just

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Speaker 2: sign up for MySpace, she invited everyone she knew on

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Speaker 2: Friendster to join her there. At this point, after months

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Speaker 2: of strategies to evade friends to mods, she had tens

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Speaker 2: of thousands of friends on friends der MySpace exploded with

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Speaker 2: thousands of new users. By two thousand and six, Tila

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Speaker 2: had over a million MySpace friends. It's possible MySpace never

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Speaker 2: would have taken off without Tila if she had declined

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Speaker 2: Tom's invitation social media history might have gone another way,

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Speaker 2: and without MySpace, we probably never would have heard about

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Speaker 2: Tila Tequila. Tila was a new kind of st are,

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Speaker 2: someone who became famous because of the Internet. Sure, on

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Speaker 2: MySpace you called each other friends, but what Tila and

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Speaker 2: many other Internet celebrities were collecting were really just fans.

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Speaker 1: Something about her really represents the sort of duality of

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Speaker 1: all of our Internet experiences, and.

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Speaker 2: What happened next in Tila's career feels representative of how

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Speaker 2: social media itself has changed.

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Speaker 1: I think about her all the time. It's just such

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Speaker 1: an interesting case study for what social media and the

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Speaker 1: Internet can do to people. On the one hand, it

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Speaker 1: can be this like fabulous way to connect and to

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Speaker 1: like see yourself and be seen and build a platform

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Speaker 1: around that. On the other hand, it can be so dark.

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Speaker 3: You had these people that kind of became known from

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Speaker 3: MySpace and from this particular scene and had a very

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Speaker 3: definitive esthetic and sort of cults around them.

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Speaker 2: That's Taylor the Runs, a technology reporter at the Washington Post.

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Speaker 2: Those people today would be just regular influencers. What actually

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Speaker 2: is an influencer? When we use that word, what are

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Speaker 2: we talking about?

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Speaker 3: I think if it as somebody who creates content and

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Speaker 3: sort of monetizes that content through social platforms or builds

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Speaker 3: an audience through social platforms. They're almost independent media companies

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Speaker 3: where there are people that have a lot of times

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Speaker 3: developed an audience for around their own personality, but it

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Speaker 3: can also be around a certain interest or style or whatever,

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Speaker 3: and then they monetize that online audience. Basically, I guess

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Speaker 3: someone who builds and then monetizes an online audience.

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Speaker 2: Taylor makes an interesting distinction. People figured out how to

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Speaker 2: get famous on MySpace, but it wasn't exactly a business,

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Speaker 2: not like what you see with internet celebrities on Twitch

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Speaker 2: or YouTube or Instagram these days.

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Speaker 3: My Space was pretty like embedded in sort of the

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Speaker 3: music industry, not quite the way TikTok is now, but

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Speaker 3: you know, music was a strong culture of MySpace, and

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Speaker 3: so you had a lot of people growing audiences on

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Speaker 3: the platform and using that to get a record deal,

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Speaker 3: you know, or sell out shows or promote themselves. And

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Speaker 3: then you kind of had these more like individual figures

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Speaker 3: that I think seemed like kind of like party type

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Speaker 3: of people. And then you of course had celebrities using

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Speaker 3: it as well, like you know, Katie Perry again because

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Speaker 3: it was sort of like music adjacent, and Jeffrey Star

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Speaker 3: started in music.

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Speaker 2: Jeffree Star, like Tila Tequila, was another larger than life

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Speaker 2: MySpace superstar. He had an iconic look, mac makeup, hot

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Speaker 2: pink hair, a look that you could instantly identify in

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Speaker 2: a thumbnail profile picture. He got famous for creating drama

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Speaker 2: and feuding with other MySpace celebrities. But to be honest,

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Speaker 2: Jeffree Star's deal, I don't get it.

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Speaker 1: Hello, Hey God, it's Jeffree Star.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well, if been in flux with me, they kind of die, okay, love.

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Speaker 7: You to your bike.

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Speaker 2: Why does someone follow a person like Jeffree Star, Like,

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Speaker 2: what do the users who follow the page of a

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Speaker 2: celebrity on MySpace get from that interaction?

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Speaker 3: Well, a lot of it was like aspiration around kind

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Speaker 3: of like emo culture or like esthetics. It was like

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Speaker 3: people with a certain aesthetic, and you would follow these

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Speaker 3: people because they were like a lot of modern day

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Speaker 3: influencers or content creators. They were kind of aspirational figures

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Speaker 3: for that era where they were kind of leading this

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Speaker 3: cool party girl lifestyle or they had like, you know,

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Speaker 3: awesome tattoos and makeup and this.

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Speaker 2: Aesthetic that people really gravitated to. On MySpace, people could

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Speaker 2: advertise themselves. Users would post comments like thanks for the

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Speaker 2: ad when someone added them as friends. The visibility was,

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Speaker 2: in a way its own reward. Jeffree Starr could get

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Speaker 2: gigs for his band through MySpace. Tila Tequila found modeling

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Speaker 2: and acting opportunities through it, but this happened informally, and

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Speaker 2: mind you, most people on MySpace were not trying to

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Speaker 2: be Tila or Jeffrey.

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Speaker 3: My Space was never really like pushing you to like

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Speaker 3: become a creator. You mostly just like looked at other

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Speaker 3: people's pages. The stakes were so low for the average user,

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Speaker 3: and nothing on the internet feels that way now.

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Speaker 2: And if you did become famous on MySpace, it wasn't

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Speaker 2: entirely clear what that would even bring you.

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Speaker 4: I never had a strategy because there was no such

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Speaker 4: thing as being an influencer back then, so like I

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Speaker 4: literally was just posting my life and I guess people

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Speaker 4: enjoyed it, so then I kind of built a following.

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Speaker 2: That's Hannahbath. She wasn't an influencer, but she was definitely

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Speaker 2: MySpace famous.

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Speaker 4: I never had like a plan where I was like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 4: like I'm going to do this, and like that's how

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Speaker 4: I followers. I literally just did it because I was

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Speaker 4: having fun, and then a following grew from that, and

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Speaker 4: people seem to enjoy to watch me and my friends

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Speaker 4: kind of live our lives.

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Speaker 2: So Hannah Bath was in high school in southern California,

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Speaker 2: where she ran in similar circles with jeffree Star. They

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Speaker 2: were in each other's Top eight. Hannah Bath had an

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Speaker 2: offbeat fashion sense, which came through in the picture she

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Speaker 2: posted to MySpace.

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Speaker 4: When I first started on MySpace, when I was probably

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Speaker 4: like around fifteen or so, I was very into like

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Speaker 4: kind of like a vintage like punk look. I was

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Speaker 4: listening to a lot of like late seventies punk bands.

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Speaker 1: I cut my hair.

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Speaker 4: Really short, and I just like it was kind of

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Speaker 4: like a vintage punk golf.

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Speaker 2: Look that I was going with.

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Speaker 4: But I'd wear like all these like wild like vintage clothing,

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Speaker 4: like a vintage wedding dress or something crazy.

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Speaker 2: Hundreds of thousands of people visited her page just to

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Speaker 2: look at her.

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Speaker 4: And then it kind of went from that to like,

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Speaker 4: as I was getting older and kind of finding like

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Speaker 4: who I was, the whole kind of like scene kid

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Speaker 4: thing was starting and I had made friends with a

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Speaker 4: few other girls that were also kind of like MySpace people,

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Speaker 4: and I guess we started the whole kind of scene

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Speaker 4: girl look or vibe, and then that was just that

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Speaker 4: took off.

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Speaker 2: I mean I'd like, like look at the.

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Speaker 4: Photos now and like I feel like it looks ridiculous,

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Speaker 4: but like back then, like I don't know, we thought

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Speaker 4: we looked like so cool.

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Speaker 2: MySpace became a huge part of Hanna About's daily life.

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Speaker 2: She even traveled across the country to meet friends she

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Speaker 2: met on MySpace. I think I was like fifteen or sixteen.

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Speaker 4: I'd met this girl who lived in Minnesota, and like

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Speaker 4: she had messaged me because I always wore like these

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Speaker 4: like gluin extensions because that was a big thing back then,

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Speaker 4: which was horrible for your hair, and she was like, yeah, look,

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Speaker 4: i'd love it. It's like you did my extensions. And

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Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, for sure. So if my dad

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Speaker 4: got me a ticket to Minnesota, who lets meet this

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Speaker 4: random girl. I ended up staying with her for like

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Speaker 4: a week or like maybe two weeks even, and I

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Speaker 4: made all of these friends in Minnesota. I met someone

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Speaker 4: else that I knew from MySpace, and it was like

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Speaker 4: such a fun and awesome time. I feel like MySpace

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Speaker 4: could kind of bring you together like that. Like I

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Speaker 4: feel like now there's maybe like more danger going on

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Speaker 4: on the internet, but back then maybe because it was

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Speaker 4: so new, but I'm sure there was danger there as well.

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Speaker 4: I don't know, everyone was kind of like in this

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Speaker 4: scene and everyone kind of knew everyone, or there was

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Speaker 4: just some kind of like you felt more safe just

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Speaker 4: meeting up with random people.

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Speaker 2: Part of what drew her to connect to people online,

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Speaker 2: even traveled across the country to meet people, was that

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Speaker 2: her offline life could be rough. On my Space, Hannah

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Speaker 2: Bath was glamorous, a scene queen at her high school.

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Speaker 2: People made fun of her for dressing the way she did.

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Speaker 4: At that time in my life, I was like getting

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Speaker 4: bullied really bad. I was dealing with like self harm,

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Speaker 4: and I was just like very depressed and all of that.

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Speaker 4: And I was very open about all of my struggles

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Speaker 4: through like my blogging and my rioting, So the people

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Speaker 4: I was connecting with knew like the real me, and

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Speaker 4: I feel like that's why I was so drawn to it.

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Speaker 4: I just started like posting like things I liked, and

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Speaker 4: then people like like that as well, and I love

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Speaker 4: being able to like express my fashion through my Space

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Speaker 4: because I feel like I got bullied a lot for

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Speaker 4: like how I looked in my style, and then on

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Speaker 4: my Space people like loved how I look looked up

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Speaker 4: to me and like loved my style. So it was

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Speaker 4: like a whole different thing for me because I was like,

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Speaker 4: I'm such a loser at school, and then when I'm

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Speaker 4: like online, I was becoming this like my Space girl.

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Speaker 4: I don't know, it was just it was a trip.

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Speaker 2: With the attention she garnered from MySpace, Hannah Beth built

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Speaker 2: a career, first as a blogger with Buzznet and later

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Speaker 2: working in fashion, including a spot on the reality TV

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Speaker 2: show House of DVF a competition to become a brand

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Speaker 2: ambassador for Diane von Furstenberg, Hannah Beth won. Hannah Beth

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Speaker 2: was never Kardashian style famous, but people paid attention to

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Speaker 2: her in a way that didn't really happen to ordinary

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Speaker 2: people before the Internet. There are blogs dedicated to MySpace stars,

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Speaker 2: and these people were kind of covered in other Internet

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Speaker 2: like subcommunities and forums places like Sticky Drama. But for

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Speaker 2: other MySpace celebrities, the Internet was a double edged sword.

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Speaker 2: They faced harassment online where they built their fate.

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Speaker 3: People would set up blogs about MySpace stars and they

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Speaker 3: would sort of speculate on different things. They would try

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Speaker 3: and find information on these people, and a lot of

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Speaker 3: the comment section would be other fans and they would

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Speaker 3: kind of all Sometimes it was really positive, and then

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Speaker 3: obviously some of it turned extremely dark, where you had

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Speaker 3: kind of the worst of internet comment culture attacking these people,

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Speaker 3: and they had stalkers and you know, harassment and safety problems.

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Speaker 2: Unlike movie stores, the MySpace famous probably didn't have the

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Speaker 2: money to hire bodyguards, they didn't have representation agents, managers

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Speaker 2: invested in their career longevity, and it all came out

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Speaker 2: the cost of privacy.

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Speaker 3: All of that stuff was so niche and so misunderstood

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Speaker 3: at the time, Like now we have this concept of

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Speaker 3: online safety. There wasn't that in the two thousands. So

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Speaker 3: you know, these a lot of women were kind of

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Speaker 3: like building audiences, getting micro fame and had this like

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Speaker 3: dedicated group of people on the Internet that was obsessed

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Speaker 3: with them. But there wasn't like there weren't really like

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Speaker 3: guardrails around any of it. They were almost like too

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Speaker 3: accessible to their fandoms. Like now there's this like you

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Speaker 3: think of influencers as celebrities, so you kind of almost

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Speaker 3: respect them a little bit more, whereas back then, I

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Speaker 3: think my Space stars felt almost like too much, like

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Speaker 3: like they were too kind of on the level of

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Speaker 3: normal people almost, and so like average people just felt

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Speaker 3: entitled to be horrible to them. The visibility that users

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Speaker 3: like Tila Tequila could attain on MySpace was like a

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Speaker 3: hyper popularity I think, the most popular kid at high

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Speaker 3: school times a thousand, and in some ways it could

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00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:58,359
Speaker 3: be more invasive than a traditional celebrity experience because my Space,

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00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:02,520
Speaker 3: like every social now work, was designed for looking at others,

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Speaker 3: surveilling others. People clicked on other people's profiles and assessed

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Speaker 3: them from a distance, and there was no blueprint for it,

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Speaker 3: Like there was no understanding of online fame at that point,

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Speaker 3: so people I think had less boundaries. And then also,

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Speaker 3: you know, the mid two thousands was kind of like

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Speaker 3: peak reality fame and kind of like this really toxic

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Speaker 3: type of celebrity, Like that was like that whole Britney

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Speaker 3: Paris Lindsay era where it was like this culture of excess.

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Speaker 2: No other form of entertainment defines the aughts like reality Television.

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Speaker 2: Survivor and Big Brother both debuted in two thousand that

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Speaker 2: shows like The Bachelor, The Osbourne's and American Idol arrived

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00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 2: shortly after These programs could be made cheaply. New software

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Speaker 2: had just made it easier to edit down large quantities

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Speaker 2: of video footage. Producers didn't have to hire professional actors

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Speaker 2: or screenwriters. It's no coincidence that the reality TV boom

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Speaker 2: happened while the Screen Actors Guild and later the Writer's

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00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:38,359
Speaker 2: Guild were negotiating streaming royalties. With reality TV, celebrities projected

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Speaker 2: the illusion of living ordinary lives, while ordinary people projected

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00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 2: the illusion of celebrity. It was a lot like the

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00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:53,119
Speaker 2: immediacy and intimacy that early online celebrities like Tila Tequila

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00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 2: offered their friends on MySpace. Tom Anderson even said in

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Speaker 2: an interview once he thought of my Space as the

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Speaker 2: reality TV of the Internet. It felt inevitable then that

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Speaker 2: Tila Tequila would leverage her online popularity with a reality

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Speaker 2: show of her own. In two thousand and seven, A

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Speaker 2: Shot at Love debuted a.

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Speaker 7: Tila Tequila began her Quest for Love.

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Speaker 5: I'm a bisexual. Oh.

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Speaker 2: This season on A Shot at Love, it was the

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Speaker 2: first reality dating show featuring a bisexual person.

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Speaker 1: She got a reality show on MTV called Shot at

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Speaker 1: Love with Tila Tequila, and the conceit was that you know,

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Speaker 1: she's a queer girl looking for love and that the

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Speaker 1: house was going to be filled with both women and

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Speaker 1: men because she's queer. Me and my friends like my

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00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,359
Speaker 1: queer circle of friends when I say that, we watched

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Speaker 1: this show religiously, like we had parties, but we thought

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Speaker 1: it was so earnest.

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Speaker 2: It was one of MTV's biggest releases that year and

400
00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 2: ran for a couple seasons. Tila appeared to be doing

401
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 2: really well in the late odds. She made music and

402
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 2: published a book, and she made some savvy business decisions

403
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:14,719
Speaker 2: to monetize her fame, working with Joe Francis, he of

404
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 2: the Girls Gone Wild franchise. She set up a website

405
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 2: called Tela's Hotspot, where she had a blog and webcam

406
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 2: and basically posted the kind of content she had on MySpace,

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Speaker 2: but on a website of her own. Tela even appeared

408
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:33,479
Speaker 2: to be settling down. In two thousand and nine, she

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00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 2: was engaged to Casey Johnson, the Johnson and Johnson Heiress,

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00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 2: but then tragedy struck.

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Speaker 4: She was young, beautiful, and an heiress to an empire. Now,

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Speaker 4: Casey Johnson's sudden death has many asking how and why.

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Speaker 5: At the end of two thousand and nine and the

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00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 5: beginning of twenty and ten was very hard for me.

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00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 5: And as you get to know, during those times, I

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00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 5: made lots of headlines of meltdowns, and you know, that

417
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 5: was my way of like when you lose someone and

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Speaker 5: I didn't know how to cope.

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00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 2: Casey died of diabetes complications. It was only a month

420
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Speaker 2: after they announced their engagement. Things went down hell from there.

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00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, Tala was hospitalized after a drug overdose

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00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 2: and a brain aneurysm. It had been a suicide attempt.

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00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 2: In twenty fifteen, Tila prepared to come back and joined

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00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 2: the cast of Celebrity Big Brother. Then post resurface of

425
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 2: Tila two years earlier in twenty thirteen, defending Hitler on

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Speaker 2: her blog and posing a Nazi regalia. She was kicked

427
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 2: out of the house because of it. Tila apologized. Tila

428
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 2: called it a terrible mistake. In a statement posted to

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Speaker 2: social media, she mentioned her suicide attempt and said she

430
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 2: suffered from severe depress and addiction, and her words, I

431
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,959
Speaker 2: felt worthless and unloved as that pain continued to grow,

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00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 2: causing me to further spiral out of control. And then

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00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 2: she reiterated that she is absolutely, one hundred percent not

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00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 2: a Nazi supporter. Tla's apology sounded heartfelt, and maybe it was.

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00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 2: But two months later, Tila posted a photo of her

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00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 2: baby daughter with a Hitler mustache, and for Bridget, who

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00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 2: had followed Tila's career for over a decade by that point,

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00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 2: it was heartbreaking.

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00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 1: And I remember watching her trajectory from being this person

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00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: that I loved and really admired as like a clear

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00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: woman of color, watching her go from someone who like

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00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: that was her thing in my mind to the way

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00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:58,440
Speaker 1: that now she basically was like radicalized on the Internet

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00:27:58,520 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: and via the alt right.

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00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, Tila was photographed giving a Nazi salute

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00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 2: at a conference with white nationalists in Washington, d C.

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00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: If the beginning of Tila Tequila being on my radar

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00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 1: as this like MySpace influencer for being a queer woman

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00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 1: of color, if that was like the promise of the Internet.

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00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:21,679
Speaker 1: The day that I saw that image of her in

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00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: my hometown in DC doing a Nazi salute at a

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00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: restaurant with a bunch of alt right dirt bags. That

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00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: was the nail in the coffin. And so I feel

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00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: like that moment for me really crystallized where we started

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00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: and unfortunately where we wound up. But those early days

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00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 1: were so full of promise, and then that picture is

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00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: like burned in my mind of because of platforms like MySpace.

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00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: This was a person who allowed me to see part

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00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: of myself that I was still getting comfortable with, and

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00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: then where we wound up was so dark and so

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00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: sad and so heavy.

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00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 2: For others, Fame on MySpace came as easily as it went.

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00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 3: You had people like Tila Tequila go on to become

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00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 3: a reality star because that was the only kind of

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00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 3: attainable access to quote unquote like mainstream fame in the

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00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 3: two thousands was like reality shows. But even then, like

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00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 3: going on a reality show doesn't mean that you yourself

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00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 3: profit very much. So I think all the people from

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00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 3: that era kind of fell off and never really were

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00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 3: able to capture the true value of the brand that

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00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 3: they built Back then.

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00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 2: A few MySpace celebrities dropped out of the public eye

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00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 2: by choice, including Hannahbath.

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00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 4: I think just like as I got older, I just

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00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 4: started to enjoy like having like my privacy a bit

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00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 4: more now, and I just don't love social media like

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00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 4: how I used to love it. So it's just like

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00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 4: it's not one of my top priorities.

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00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 2: But for others who became famous on MySpace, those years

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00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 2: were less than idyllic. It was a horrible time to

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00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 2: be famous. Like it was so toxic and so bad.

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00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 2: Tabloid culture ruled.

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00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 3: It was really playing out on the inner in small

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00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 3: scale through blogs, and so I think a lot of

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00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 3: MySpace stars just kind of like got chewed up by

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00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 3: that system. And you see them now like into crystal healing,

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00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 3: or they've totally reinvented themselves, or they're like super offline,

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00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 3: or you have people like Jeffrey who just leaned one

489
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty percent into it and kind of became

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00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 3: this like internet villain because he literally thrived in that

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00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 3: type of toxicity.

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00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 2: The blowback to visibility online that Taylor describes wasn't only

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00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 2: impacting people like Tila with hundreds of thousands of friends

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00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 2: on social media. People with small followings and relatively ordinary

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00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 2: lives faced harassment and fullying on a social network that

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00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 2: had quickly become the center of their social life. More

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00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 2: on this in the next episode of Main Accounts. Thanks

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00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 2: for listening to Main Accounts, The Story of MySpace and

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00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 2: iHeart original podcast Main Accounts. The Story of MySpace is

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00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 2: written and hosted by me Joanne McNeil. Editing it's sound

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00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 2: design by Mike Coscarelli and Mary Do Original music by

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00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 2: Elise McCoy, Mixing and mastering by Josh Fisher, Research and

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00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 2: fact checking by Austin Thompson, Jocelyn Sears, and Marissa Brown.

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00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 2: Show logo by Lucy Kintania. Special thanks to Ryan Murdoch

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00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 2: Grace Views at the head Frasier. Our associate producer is

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00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 2: Lauren Phillip, our senior producer is Mike Coscarelli, and our

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00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 2: executive producer is Jason English. If you're enjoying the show,

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00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 2: leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast

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00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 2: platform Sadly, my MySpace page is no longer around, but

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00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 2: you can find me on Twitter at Joe mick. Let

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00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 2: us hear your MySpace story at check out my book

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00:31:56,880 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 2: Lurking Main Accounts. The Story of my Space is a

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00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 2: production of iHeart Podcasts.