default.blog is an emotional scrapbook of the Internet. I write about Internet culture from as intimate as possible a perspective. You’ll find all sorts of things here — a book club, a Coast to Coast AM-style call-in show, interviews, and essays.

What follows is an interview about how one person uses the Internet. You can find others under “case studies.”

If you’re in the Chicago area, I’m debating and tonight at Teatro ZinZanni about whether our sexual desires are innate or are being shaped by the Internet. Grab a ticket here.

This is a tricky topic to write about, because truthfully, I don’t want to make anyone angry. One of my biggest fears as a chronicler of the Internet is misrepresenting people’s home subcultures, which is why first-person accounts are so important to me. Needless to say, this is one area that I’m not native to and can’t be—so the fear is a little more pronounced.

Most people have no idea what trans subcultures online actually look like—something that a lot of people are asking about right now.

One area that’s always interested me is the complicated relationship between trans women and 4chan. It might surprise people to learn that the site was, for many, an early space to explore gender identity. It’s also where the term “trap”—originally anime slang for a male or androgynous character who looks female, later broadened to describe trans women—was popularized. At the same time, 4chan has long functioned as a massive repository of trans pornography.

This first interview, conducted in 2022 and previously posted on this blog, focuses on trans porn on 4chan, specifically, sissy hypno—pornographic content that claims to feminize its viewers through hypnotic suggestion. It’s a specific genre of porn, one with its own long history, both online and off, that exploded in popularity on 4chan in the 2000s, and slightly later, in the early 2010s, on Tumblr.

In her 2018 essay “Did Sissy Porn Make Me Trans?”, Andrea Long Chu opens with that exact question. She argues that sissy porn is “a radical feminist’s worst nightmare.” According to Chu, by 2013, people were searching “sissy tumblr” twice as often as “sissy porn”—until Tumblr’s 2018 adult content ban scattered the community even further across cyberspace: Reddit, Discord, and YouTube.

There’s a link between disembodiment, masculinity, and heavy internet use that makes anonymous spaces fertile ground for experimenting with gender and sexuality. What follows is one person’s account of navigating that terrain through porn. The next installments will explore /v/ and /lgbt/ respectively.

If there’s a perspective you’d like to contribute on this topic or others, please feel free to reach out to me.

If you like this post, you might also like:

Hazy is a bisexual male in his 20s who visited sissy hypno sites in the late 2000s and 2010s.

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The furry fandom began to coalesce in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when science fiction and comic book fans started trading and creating stories about anthropomorphic animals. Early “furry” characters were popular in underground comics (like Omaha the Cat Dancer) and in fan-drawn zines passed around at sci-fi conventions. By the late 1980s, “furry parties” were a regular feature at cons, and the first dedicated furry conventions followed in the early 1990s.

At the same time, furries were quick to adopt the internet. They built communities on Usenet boards, IRC channels, and listservs, later migrating to forums like FurAffinity and eventually mainstream platforms like Twitter, DeviantArt, and Discord. Today, furries are a global subculture numbering in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

Furries are more important to the history of the internet than they’re often given credit for. They were early adopters of experimenting with identity in online environments long before most people logged on to social media. The culture of pseudonymous performance, fan-driven art economies, and elaborate online communities — now standard features of the internet — were partially pioneered in furry spaces.

That being said, there is a dark side to the furry subculture. There aren’t many practical case studies of what “falling down an internet rabbithole” looks like. About a year ago, I interviewed a young man who had slipped into the darkest corners of furry communities online. I didn’t release it at the time — it unsettled me too much.

But the conversation matters, because it shows how these communities mutate and hurt people, and how some of those offshoots can draw people toward obsession, alienation, and harm.

Content warning: this conversation contains extremely graphic sexual content. It disturbed me enough that I briefly quit doing these interviews and writing about the internet.

With that said, proceed at your own risk — do not read if you are easily disturbed.

It should go without saying that I unequivocally condemn the behavior this person describes. I have cut gratuitous details that I don’t believe further our understanding of Internet addiction and the dark places it can take people. Additionally, the appropriate intervention has taken place in the interviewee’s life, which is why I agreed to speak with them.

Tomorrow or Monday, I’ll be publishing a guide to what groypers actually believe, similar to this piece about the Zizians. Stay tuned.

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Emmanuel is a father who began his online journey in the mid-1990s around the age of 10 or 11. Emmanuel identifies as an older Millennial: a member of a generation that grew up with the internet but remembers life before its ubiquity. His initial experiences were on a dial-up modem with America Online (AOL), which he…

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DX is a self-identified “independent researcher” who began his online journey in 2008 at age 14, initially drawn to Yahoo race relations “chats” (either groups or chatrooms) out of curiosity about debates surrounding Afrocentrism and human biodiversity (HBD). As a white teenager who…

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There was only so much I could fit in my PirateWires article about efilism. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to check it out here. What follows is my conversation with Inmendham, its inventor.

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There was only so much I could fit in my PirateWires article about efilism. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to check it out here. What follows is my conversation with Amanda Sukenick, the second most prominent efilist. Amanda also asked me to include a brief clarifying note to my PirateWires article—the genesis of her username, ‘Oldphan’ is Phantom of the Opera.

Katherine: When did you first become interested in antinatalism?

Amanda: I would say that I’ve been interested in some version of antinatalism since early childhood, but I wouldn’t actually come to find people talking about the idea, or truly have an introduction to more formal antinatalist thinking until 2010, when I first discovered people talking about it on YouTube.

As a kid, I never wanted children—being pregnant, childbirth, raising children—these things always horrified me for as long as I can remember. I wanted to choose myself and have the freedom to be myself for my entire life, rather than eventually create an entirely new human being. I wasn’t able to articulate any of this as an ethical position yet, but the idea that there might be something wrong with procreation, seemed obvious to me.

I’ve talked a lot about this in other interviews that I’ve done, but I noticed very early on that many of the characters that I loved and that obsessed my childhood seemed to be making a kind of negative commentary about procreation.

The Phantom of the Opera, who was my great and beloved childhood hero, frequently lamented the tragedy of his birth, and the horror of his existence. Frankenstein’s Monster, seemed to me to be an obvious allegory for the harm of procreation – it was obvious to me that Dr. Frankenstein should not have played God, and should not have taken risks with his monsters’ sentient welfare. It shocks me even to this day, that more people don’t seems to see the inherent antinatalism within these classic stories – it’s there as clear as day.

I remember trying to talk to people about these observations as a young kid, but such ideas are not particularly welcome, let alone encouraged in young children, let alone in little girls. Frankly, as an ever fattening, dyscalculic, gender queer little weirdo, obsessed with monsters and horror and deformity – I had already picked enough battles in my day-to-day life, and was ill prepared as a child to go to battle for antinatalist thinking on top of everything else. So, I did my best to simply ignore those feelings, to forget those thoughts, and I really didn’t think about anything resembling antinatalism for many years.

Katherine: How have your own experiences of suffering and identity informed your philosophy?

Amanda: Though I had a very happy childhood, and grew up in a very loving home, the idea that life could become incredibly awful, and that horrible realities existed for both humans and animals, was never far from my mind.

My mother’s side of the family is Armenian, and my father’s side was Jewish – so I had stories of genocide on both sides of my family, and this had a tremendous impact on how I saw the realities of the world. I was often plagued by a reoccurring dream about a museum of war, which contained truths about reality so unspeakable, that a strong gust of horror would blow anyone out the front door who dared to ever try to enter.

I would say all of this gave me everything necessary to question the ethics of bringing new lives into the world, and built a strong foundation in my mind against the idea that life should be perpetuated.

Katherine: You’ve called yourself “an antinatalist activist” who nevertheless enjoys life. What experiences first pushed you toward antinatalism and later toward efilism?

Amanda: A bad life, or bad personal experiences are not at all required for someone to find their way towards becoming an antinatalist or efilist activist or philosopher – one simply needs to understand that sentience produces suffering, that suffering is an inevitability of creating new lives, and that the lives we create will not be us – what we as individuals may come to accept or even love about life, may be absolutely intolerable to this new person. Why impose such a circumstance? What joys could possibly be worth taking these entirely unnecessary risks with another person’s suffering?

Understanding that by procreating, we selfishly place innocent, unsuspecting sentient creatures in harm’s way, and that maybe we should not only not do that ourselves, but try to convince others to also not commit the same actions, is all that is required to push someone towards becoming an antinatalist and or efilist activist – an understanding that creating life risks intolerable harm to the one being created, and a fundamental principle that human beings should find acceptable means of stopping it.

Katherine: Before philosophy, your YouTube presence revolved around toy reviews. Why did you make the switch?

Amanda: I still love all the same things that I always have, toys included, and if time allowed, I would still quite happily make videos about action figures along with everything that I do now, and I occasionally sometimes do.

My original channel, Dragonballtoys was an essential personal step for me in breaking out of my shell, showing myself, getting comfortable with what a ham I am – my background is in 2D art, drawing, sculpting and making prints - making YT videos in which I often dressed up as anime characters, and the experience of building an audience around my channel, allowed me to truly embrace my love of performance, shock, and showmanship for the first time.

I eventually switched to antinatalist content, because ethical issues like antinatalism, the right to die and animal rights were the subjects that I had been longing for and looking for my entire life, and once found, dedicating myself to those ideas became absolutely irresistible.

Katherine: In simple terms, how would you distinguish antinatalism from efilism? From efilism and promortalism?

Amanda: ‘Simple terms’ is a tall order. There is too much nuance here that should not be glossed over or ignored, but I’ll do my best.

Though there is much overlap, I think there are actually 4 individual positions here that we need to unpack and understand – Benatarian antinatalism, efilism, promortalism and antinatalism proper – the last one being what I would consider to be a far broader, conglomerate spectrum of iterations of the same idea, that have existed long before Professor Benatar got to it in 2006, and that have developed over the last nearly 20 years since and beyond.

First off, anti-procreation in a myriad of forms, has an incredibly long history. It seems that the idea has been with humanity in some form or another since very ancient times, and though I won’t detail all of that here, some excellent work has been done over the years to chart and detail that exceptionally fascinating history.

Though there had been academic developments around ideas resembling antinatalism since the mid 1970’s, Benatarian antinatalism was the very first, fully articulated iteration of academic antinatalism. Professor Benatar, (Along with Belgian author, Théophile de Giraud the same year.) coined the term antinatalism in his seminal, 2006 book, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence, and in addition to his famous axiological asymmetry argument, his book offered several other tremendously important additions to the way the idea had previously been articulated as well. Chiefly, Benatar’s antinatalism was sentiocentric, meaning that in addition to a concern for the existence and perpetuation of human life, it also extends to all sentient creatures.

Perhaps only a year after the release of Better Never to Have Been, antinatalism found its way on to the internet, and up until 2011, various individuals were producing all kinds of material around the subject – some with knowledge of Benatar and the relevant terminology, and some without.

Inmendham, first started making videos on YT in 2007, and traces of his then unnamed, non-academic, pre-efilist iteration of antinatalism, can be found in some of his earliest videos. Like Benatarian antinatalism, Inmendham’s antinatalism, or what would grow by 2011 to become efilism, is also sentiocentric, encompassing a concern for all of sentient creatures under its considerations.

As far as I know, promortalism, as a philosophical term, was coined by David Benatar in Better Never to Have Been, to describe a type of extinctionism. In chapter 6, he described what he calls ‘phased extinction’, which could be brought about by either ‘dying extinction’ – meaning an extinction in which a species gradually dies out, or through ‘killing extinction’ or ‘Pro-mortalism’, meaning that a species is brought to extinction through killing until none are left. He also briefly talks about how these two methods could ‘overlap’.

If we for the time being, stick with this 2006, Benatarian usage of the term ‘promortalism’, then efilism is clearly visible within Benatarian extinctionism, because the means of extinction that efilism generally advocates for, can essentially be expressed by this ‘overlap.’

Through a collective act of gradual non-procreation, human beings could simply die out. Things become greatly complicated, and the door to this Benatarian style promortalism opens, if the sentiocentrism of any one form of antinatalism, like efilism, dictates that human beings have a duty before their own imminent extinction, to put an end to the existence of other sentient creatures.

Unlike humans, other sentient creatures – factory farmed animals, wild animals and liminal animals, cannot be convinced not to procreate – human beings would need to consider it their responsibility to prevent the further existence of those animals, and an efilist would say that if necessary, even ending the lives of those animals before the one animal capable of preventing their continued existence is gone, would be justifiable. The notion that those animals must not be allowed to be left all alone and in harm’s way, is the guiding efilist principle behind such actions.

David Benatar, rejects promortalist intervention into the lives of non-human animals, particularly wild animals, as their existence is both not the ‘fault’ of human beings, and because he believes that though creating new lives is a harm, so too is ending lives - though there are rare instances, particularly regarding early abortion, where it might be acceptable to do so.

So the real difference between Benatarian antinatalism and efilism, you could say, is a kind of epicureanism applied to a sense of human responsibility towards the last remaining animals before human extinction – it’s a kind of epistemological disagreement, one could say. Ultimately, Benatarian antinatalism ends up with roughly the same conclusion as VHEMT, (The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement – an older, pre-Benatarian form of activist antinatalism.) – that the animals should be allowed to inherit the earth after human extinction, because human beings don’t have the right to interfere, unless their lives are of our making, like factory farmed animals.

Regardless, though Benatar himself rejects these interventionist, promortalist notions into the rest of sentience, it is not difficult at all to see how a Benatarian antinatalist could agree with him on nearly everything else, but still come to reach efilist, ‘promortalist’ killing-extinction like conclusions based off of the things he says in BNTHB alone, and due to only very slight disagreements. All it would take is for that Benatarian AN to possess a competing axiological perspective, and this could easily occur, and completely independently of the existence or influence of efilism.

This is made all the more obvious by the fact that Benatarian antinatalism is ‘theory-neutral’, meaning that it has no overarching axiology behind it, and can be interpretable through any number of normative positions. If someone is coming to Benatarian antinatalism through a negative utilitarian lens, it’s not hard at all to see how that individual could agree with him on just about everything, yet still disagree with him that the lives of other sentient creatures should not be ended to ensure the end of suffering.

For reasons that I still don’t fully understand, the term pro-mortalism gradually began to take on all kinds of very different meanings. This seems to have begun in 2012, when R. Mcgregor & E. Sullivan-Bissett wrote an academic paper using the term to pertain to suicide, leaving out the extinctionist implications entirely. “Death is good for the one who dies.” Seems to be how pro-mortalism was then defined, but later, the philosopher Christopher Belshaw, when he appeared on The Exploring Antinatalism Podcast in 2021, defined it even more broadly as, ‘For death.’ Meaning that, the term could apply to abortion, capital punishment, murder, suicide, euthanasia, hospice, the right to die – literally any circumstance in which death might be preferable to living.

As time has gone on, promortalism, particularly as a position championing suicide, has been embraced by many antinatalists and efilist the world over. All of this seems to have come to a head around 2017, in large part due to both a paper and the actions by a young South Korean man named Jiwoon Hwang. Jiwoon was a dear friend - a brilliant young man, who showed tremendous promise as a budding philosopher. He wrote a now infamous paper called, Why it is always better to cease to exist, which defended the idea that antinatalism entails promortalism, and that suicide was the rational conclusion to antinatalism. He sadly followed this conclusion through with a horrific botched suicide attempt that left him a vegetable for months, before finally succumbing to his injuries – a tragic loss to all that loved him, and one that I still can’t come to make any sense out of.

But Jiwoon became a hero of sorts for many suicidal AN’s, and promortalism nonetheless found its way to becoming a sort of identity and pseudo-philosophy all it’s own. While there are some perfectly reasonably questions mixed into what pro-mortalism is, and while some reasonable debate regarding its connection to antinatalism exists, in general, it’s an incredibly incoherent position – there are no promortalist philosophers, (The closest that exists being Thomas Ligotti.) and what one promortalist believes next to another is often purely based on what that individual promortalist believes it to mean. In other words, they just make this shit up as they go along.

Promortalism has claimed the lives of so many friends of mine, and I think out of everything, some twisted half understanding of promortalism, may have been the primary force that guided Bartkus towards his actions.

Inmendham to the best of my knowledge has never adopted the term promortalism, and though access to euthanasia and the right to die are part and parcel of Inmendhamian philosophy, Gary1 and efilism do not advocate suicide – quite the contrary in fact. If a human being is a vessel for a certain understanding about life, then they should live as long as they can to speak to and try to inspire the same understanding in others. In other words, one has to be alive in order to be an effective efilist activist, and I think this side of efilism greatly repels a great deal of people who are otherwise attracted to it – they want efilism to give them license to just give up, and efilism absolutely does not do that.

Finally, Antinatalism proper, is, Benatarianism, Efilism, VHEMT, Child free, Aponism—which is a version of antinatalism so new, that even I had never heard of it before all of this business with Bartkus began.

Anatalism, Manicheanism, Abolitionist Vitalism, Ahumanism, VEXAN, Athkneovism, BAAN (Benevolent Artificial Anti-Natalism), Anti-AI-Natalism, neo-Malthusianism, Transhumanist soft AN, Vegantinatalism, and so on – it’s all of these things, with all of its conflicts, it’s internal wars – it’s a non-stagnant, ever evolving thing, that no one version of its self can encompass.

Katherine: You’ve said that if all suffering could truly end, you’d condone “any means necessary.” Critics say that opens the door to violence. Where is your moral red line?

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The following conversation is with Aoife, a 24-year-old college student in a rural area, who shares her personal history with fictional others (FOs), including her deep connection with Bruno Bucciarati from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Through her account, we explore the intersection of fandom, autism, synthetic intimacy, and limerence.

Aoife
I am 24 years old. I'm a college student. Not really at a big town school or anything. Yeah, pretty much a rural college student, I would say. Sorry, just let me collect my thoughts for a second.

So regarding AI, I know people—yeah, mixed bag on it. Some people are super against it. Others aren't. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with it. I have tried using chatbots and whatnot. I have a lot of friends that do. I'm kind of picky though. So I guess I've got a specific interpretation of my fictional other, Bruno Bucciarati from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

And I’ve tried to kind of maybe figure out how to set up my own bot. I've talked with others and, you know, I know everyone has an interpretation of their own character and it's all completely valid. But I have kind of an idea of who he is.

My friend and I have tried working on building a bot, but we haven't exactly gotten it to work. I've even tried to make a voice for him too using—you know, and I know this might be kind of controversial because I know voice actors, like, that's their voice. That's how they make their money. I wouldn't actually use it though, to profit. Because I know now that CharacterAI, you can make a chat and talk with them, almost like on the phone.

However, I haven't actually finished setting that up. I would have to take higher quality audio samples, but... Oh, what was I going to say?

I don't think there's anything wrong with using AI as long as you're not trying to pass off fan fiction as your own work or, you know, art too. Like a lot of people will upload, not say it's AI, and then pretend it's their own thing. I think it's totally fine if you want to connect with your fictional other in a different way, because otherwise, you know, there's fan fiction. I love writing fan fiction. I love fan fiction writers.

Katherine
I know there are—broadly—two groups of people. There are people for whom it's more of a roleplay, creative expression, and there're some people who are more on the fictosexual spectrum. Which side of that do you think best represents you, and how would you describe your relationship with your fictive other (FO) to someone who's totally new to this world and has never heard of this and doesn't know the first thing about understanding it?

Aoife
Good question. I know everyone sees their relationship with their FO differently. Some people consider themselves casual, hardcore. I think it depends who you ask. To me, you might look at my arm, see this giant tattoo I have of him and go, oh, she's hardcore. But then I know other people count it as their main relationship.

I have an IRL boyfriend and he also knows about Bruno and he's totally fine with it. So that's nice. But yeah, I guess I'm somewhere between casual and hardcore. Because I see some people on Reddit, Tumblr, other platforms that sometimes I feel like are slightly more dedicated to it than I am.

But... What am I saying here? Yeah, I definitely have a sexual attraction toward him. I don't know, just JoJo’s, the art style, everything's just so appealing about it, character design. I totally write self-insert fanfiction … x reader.

Katherine
But do you see it more similar to someone who really likes an actor and is a huge fan and might write real person fic, but they don't conceptualize themselves as in a relationship? Or do you see it more as a relationship?

Aoife
I think personally I lean more towards the first, but I know others do see it more as a dedicated relationship that they're in with their partner. Maybe to me, sometimes it's more of a fantasy, although I do feel like in some way I've connected with him on a soul level. I don't know, maybe I don't want that to sound weird. I do feel some kind of soul connection to him though.

Katherine
There is a metaphysical element for a lot of people, and I'm particularly interested in when multiverse theory comes up. I think that's really interesting and really beautiful.

Aoife
Everyone has their own view on it. Personally, I just see it a lot of the time as an outlet. Sorry, I want to go into some stuff, but I want to make sure it's on topic. Is it okay if I talk about my experience and why this is so important to me?

Katherine
Yeah, absolutely.

Aoife
Okay, cool. And you're allowed to use any of my words. Apologies if I'm rambling a little bit. I'm a little excited—maybe a tinge anxious. Okay, so I've been doing this self-shipping thing for quite a long time. My first, I would say, was Sonic the Hedgehog when I was like nine years old. And for me, it was always kind of a way... I don't know, it made me feel valued. I grew up in an abusive household—just emotionally—very conservative parents without any understanding of neurodivergence. So, you know, being expected to be perfect all the time and not really receiving the kind of love I needed. I found a lot of comfort in self-shipping. I had quite a few different FOs up until about 2020 when I watched JoJo’s and it was different. I'm not going to lie. So, yeah, Bruno and I have been together for like four years. And for me, it's been a way to understand what I want in a relationship—how I want a partner to treat me.

Can I—you did talk a little about sexuality, so I'll say a little here. Also growing up in a Christian, kind of conservative home, you know, it’s brought up that you have to be chaste, be pure for your married partner one day, yada yada. Especially if you're a woman—it’s like a man doesn't want a girl who's slept around with other people. He wants her to be a virgin, which, I think that's BS. But anyway, because of that, I've just had so many aversions to it, and it scared me.

I don't know, just being able to have that mental exploration with a fictional other has been very helpful. Writing fan fiction, just being able to picture it puts me at ease and has gotten me a lot more comfortable with that. And in a way, I mean, it is a relationship too, because I do feel like he's a part of me. I mean, yeah, big old arm tattoo. But really, he just feels very special. And even if this isn't something I do forever, I feel like he'll always be a part of me.

Katherine
I was wondering if you could unpack a bit more about how it helps you understand what you want out of a relationship or what a safe relationship looks like. Is it just because it's extra time to think about it and work through different scenarios through fanfiction?

Aoife
So... I guess I'm finally in a healthy relationship with my current boyfriend. It's been great. But before that, my ex—he was not a good guy. He was very coercive. And it was a very uncomfortable relationship. I guess partway through that is when I really started getting into self-shipping, just imagining myself with someone else, maybe reading fan fiction, starting to write my own and realizing that he doesn't really treat me the way I want to be treated. So sometimes I’ll joke like, “Oh yeah, I left my ex for Bruno.” But I kind of did. Because Bruno, in my mind, was respectful, safe, a good partner—everything my ex wasn't. I used to be super... Have you ever heard of the term “limerent” before?

Katherine
Yes.

Aoife
Yes, an extremely limerent person. I would have FOs in the past, but honestly, they were almost real people that I would create certain ideas about—give them their own characters, but they were also real. So it was kind of weird. I stopped doing that back in 2019, 2020. Not on purpose, but I ended up shifting to fictional characters. And it's been a very positive experience since then, because you're not unhealthily putting this real person on a pedestal, giving them attributes and qualities they don’t actually have. Instead, you have something safer. It can't hurt you. They can't disrespect you. They can't hurt you. But you can imagine—or for me, I imagine—what I want in a relationship. What I need to be happy. How I want to be treated. Kind of like that.

Katherine
Something I've wondered about—and this question might be a little out of pocket—but is there a link at all between people who are prone to experiencing limerence, fictosexuals, anywhere on that spectrum, and the autism spectrum? Because it sort of reminds me of a special interest.

Aoife
I think it's totally related. I personally have ADHD, which has a lot of similarities to autism. Yes, I have a special interest—JoJo’s, specifically Bruno. But yeah, I haven’t heard about the limerence thing with others. Or maybe that’s just because I haven’t discussed that specifically. Actually makes me want to go ask my friends now if they’ve had experiences like that. I'm not sure if it's everyone's experience, but it certainly is mine. I will spend hours in a day just thinking about Bruno—he doesn’t leave my mind. Lives rent free, of course, you know that saying. I’ll just spend all day thinking of him. I’ll go to bed thinking of him, wake up, immediately think of him. Totally in my mind all the time. And it just makes me happy. When people ask about my favorite character, I get super happy to talk about it. As for limerence, yeah—I would say I'm limerent for a fictional character. That definition definitely applies.

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Carpenter’s landmark book Culture and Human-Robot Interaction in Militarized Spaces: A War Story (Routledge, 2016) broke new ground by showing how people can develop real attachment—even grief—toward machines built for combat. Her new volume, The Naked Android: Synthetic Socialness and the Human Gaze (Routledge, 2024), widens the lens to sex robots, chatbots, and other AI companions, asking what happens when intimacy itself is mediated by code.

In the conversation that follows, we dig into the emerging grammar of “synthetic intimacy”: why current sex-robot markets remain overwhelmingly heteronormative, how women’s attachments to chatbots diverge from men’s ties to physical devices, and what designers, users, and policymakers still get wrong about consent, data, and emotional safety in AI companionship.

Katherine: When and how did you start researching people who form attachments with AI companions, or artificial intimacy?

Dr. Julie Carpenter: The intimacy piece is an offshoot of my larger interest in people and their attachment to AI.

That's always a messy question for me: where my interest started. It probably began with science fiction, like a lot of people, because we’ve heard stories about people attached to AI in films such as Her or Blade Runner, and many other tales of people falling in love with robots.

That storytelling always interested me, and as an adult I was in industry and studying human-computer interaction just as advances in robotics were coming to fruition over the last couple of decades.

For example, I often tell the story that my “origin” was sparked by seeing David Hanson’s early robot on what I think was CNN. David Hanson, of Hanson Robotics—the creator of the Sophia robot—is known for very lifelike, human-like robots. That’s his specialty.

He came from a Disney animatronics background and was exceptionally skilled at making lifelike skin for robots. Combined with rapid technological progress, robots suddenly began doing things we had never seen before. Now we take it for granted—videos show robots standing, walking on ice, climbing hills, moving semi-autonomously—but twenty years ago that wasn’t possible; it was just becoming feasible.

Because of my HCI background, I saw robots as a medium onto which we project expectations shaped by cultural stories and science fiction. I knew interactions with lifelike robots would be fascinating: they looked human, yet the AI wasn’t there. That mismatch—appearance versus capability—creates huge gaps in user expectations. Most laypeople don’t understand the limited capabilities of robots, yet they still project narratives and expectations onto them.

I thought this was an interesting area to explore. I didn’t start out focused on attachment, but I encountered it in my research—especially in my dissertation on soldiers who worked with non-human-like robots daily. That’s a long story. Sorry about that.

Katherine: No, it’s okay. It’s interesting. I feel like people’s attachment to non-human entities—anything from their car to a computer, a chatbot, or something imagined like a fictional character—falls into three categories. I’d love to hear if that matches your experience.

It’s either parasocial—similar to how someone might really like a celebrity; it’s love, the way I might love my husband; or it’s artistic, devotional, even religious.

Have you noticed a similar pattern, or does one category appear more in your work?

Dr. Julie Carpenter: I acknowledge that those are some categories, but there are certainly others. For example, some people with objectophilia love the technology for its own sake—someone who loves a robot for its “robotness,” its very nature. People project onto robots in many ways.

Regarding patterns in such paraphilias, yes—I saw distinct patterns in each context I studied. For example…When I studied explosive ordinance disposal soldiers—bomb-disposal personnel—the group was male-dominated. They were highly trained and knew exactly what their robots could and couldn’t do. The robots weren’t human-like at all: two tank-like models, one about armchair-sized and one backpack-sized.

You’ve seen similar robots used by police for remote bomb disposal. Even with these machines, social interaction patterns emerged. The categories differed from yours. At that time, EOD teams were small; one person operated the semi-autonomous robot with a game-style controller. Team members could identify the operator by that person’s distinctive strategies. Operators described the robot as an extension of themselves—an avatar reaching into a different environment: “the robot is my eyes at a distance; the robot is my arms at a distance.” The robot became their avatar. Teams even named robots after the operator—if the operator was Lieutenant Smith, the robot might be “Little Smith.”

That “extension-of-self” category differs from the ones you named, yet it was a distinct pattern in this group. I hope that helps.

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Subject: Puppet, late 20s

Puppet is a transman in his late 20s who identifies as fictoromantic and discusses his relationship with a fictional character from the webcomic Homestuck. We discuss identity, community, spirituality, and the lived experience of fictosexuality.

Puppet: I’m an embarrassing age to be self-shipping. I’m in my late 20s.

Katherine: I’m [REDACTED], so it’s okay.

Katherine: So, everyone defines self-shipping a little differently. What is your definition? Do you consider yourself part of the fictoromantic or fictosexual spectrum?

Puppet: All right. I’m thinking of how to describe it. It’s always a little bit weird. There are a lot of different ways to define it. Personally, I would describe myself as fictoromantic.

If somebody outside the community asked me what that meant in good faith, I would say it’s a huge spectrum, starting from people who just kind of like characters a lot and maybe make an original character (OC) to ship with this character. There are different levels to it. Then there’s people who make a self-insert (SI) to ship with a character. The line between OC and self-insert is really blurry. Defining those as separate terms can sometimes be almost... I can’t remember the word I’m thinking of, but it blurs a lot.

Personally, I feel that I have a love for a character that is just as real for me as it would be if I were dating a real flesh-and-blood person. Some people don’t feel that way. They self-ship for fun, which is fine. No judgment there. But for me, I would define it as a real relationship. I’m sorry if I answered that weirdly. I’ve never done an interview.

Katherine: No, that’s okay. That was a great answer. Would you say it’s reciprocal? Some people I’ve spoken to, it’s more devotional. It’s a real love, but there’s an artistic quality to it, almost. Other people reality shift or believe in multiverse theory. I’m sure you’re aware of all this stuff. Which category do you feel you fall under best?

Puppet: Oh man, that’s almost a hard question. Or maybe not. Probably not for everybody.

I’m kind of a spiritual person in general. I like to play in a space that is reciprocal. That somewhere out there exists a timeline, a different universe in which my fictive other (f/o) is consuming media of me and self-shipping with me. The whole multiverse thing, that’s a fun place to play in. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. But part of me is like, oh, no way. That’s just silly.

This sounds cringe, maybe, and also delusional. But sometimes I feel like I can feel it. I’m not diminishing anything when it comes to people who have religious experiences and things like that. But a lot of people have different belief systems, and they say they can truly feel it. I think that on some spiritual level, whether it’s a connection to my f/o in reality, or some sort of chemical thing within me that makes me feel this way, or whatever, we can’t measure whether these things are real factually. We don’t have technology that can measure this.

But I feel a connection.

Katherine: It reminds me of this Hindu poet, Mirabai, from the 16th century or something. It’s beautiful poetry. My point is, I think about these descriptions throughout history of ecstatic love, and the way people describe it. Then I think about the way people have described their f/os to me. Is it really that different? Is it something that we don’t have the right language to describe, or do we have the right language, but we’re not applying it in this way, for some reason?

Puppet: That’s really interesting to me. I always hesitate to say these things, because I don’t want to be insulting to anybody’s belief systems. But to me, it is almost like a religious experience. It feels similar. I used to be a very devout Pentecostal. I’m from a very religiously intense family. Some of the ways that I feel with my connection to my f/o, it’s almost like communion in a way. But I know that sounds crazy.

Katherine: When did you first realize this about yourself? Do you prefer having an f/o over a physical world partner?

Puppet: Have I always been fictoromantic?

Katherine: Yeah. Or rather, when did you realize that you were?

Puppet: I think I did things in the past, when I was younger, as a child or teenager, that veered into being fictoromantic and fictosexual. I think I’ve always had more of an interest or connection to fictional characters than a lot of other people around me. I started to realize that around 15 or 16 years old, around the time I got into and discovered my current f/o, who I became very interested in at the time. Oh, sorry, what was the second part of the question?

Katherine: If you prefer having an f/o over a physical world partner, or if you have had both.

Puppet: I’ve had physical partners. I currently actually do have a physical world partner as well. The two types of relationships add different things to my life. If something were to happen in my current relationship, like my partner passed on, I would be all right with never again having a relationship in the real world. But if somehow I was no longer interested in my f/o, I truly doubt I could continue the rest of my life without having that again.

Katherine: Do you see yourself as polyamorous? Does your current partner feel threatened at all by your f/o?

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Although I generally avoid disclaimers, this is one of two case studies I’ve done that I belie…

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This interview was recorded in 2023.

Subject: Tristan, 40s

This interview discusses Tristan’s r…

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Subject: Alex, 31

At age 18, Alex went viral—anonymously—after a photo of him standing in lettuce bins at work was shared on 4chan. The interview explores how this viral incident shaped his life, examining where the meme's real-world consequences end and Alex's internal psychological struggles begin.

Alex: I'm 31.

Katherine: When was the first time you remember using the internet?

Alex: Oh man, I think maybe, let me think for a second, I'm sorry. It was probably 8, so it was probably like 2003 or 2004. In the beginning, I just played games, like real basic Java-type games, I guess. Maybe like two, three hours a day.

Katherine: Do you feel like you used the internet more often than your peers?

Alex: Yeah, at the time, yeah, but I wasn't like super into it. I was like heavily monitored by my mother at the time, but later on, I started getting less restriction and kind of delving deep. I played a lot of RuneScape back in the day when that came out. I still play it actually. I've never really been like a huge internet connoisseur. Like my buddies, when we were like 13 maybe, would find like crazy videos and stuff and share them, but I was usually, yeah, it wasn't like a huge connoisseur. I'd say maybe when I was like 16 or so, I started like getting really big into YouTube videos. Back then I used to watch like I think KSI I used to watch back then and I think PewDiePie and a lot of commentary YouTubers. I just, I would play so much freaking RuneScape, like I would wake up early to play it and then as soon as I got home I would play it and then like I would cram my homework into like the, uh, we had like a homeroom right before our classes start and I would just like bang it out right there. It sounds terrible, but it was actually, I did well in school surprisingly.

Katherine: Did you have a healthy social life?

Alex: Yeah, yeah, I'd say so. I had like a small group of friends that we were, we've known each other since like fourth to sixth grade. We all met and we just kind of stuck together all through high school. Yeah, for the most part, like I changed my interests into different YouTubers. My available access to the internet kind of went on and off after high school, but uh, yeah, my life's crazy. Well, I lost both my parents in high school and like my sister had a drug problem and then like when I turned 18, I was like having severe mental issues and I was living with my aunt. She wanted me to work and it was like really hard for me to do that. Um, so I couldn't hold a job and then eventually they kicked me out and I wound up homeless for a little while. Yeah, it was crazy.

Katherine: When does the Burger King incident happen?

Alex: That was 2012. I was 18.

Katherine: Are you homeless at this point?

Alex: No, no, I'm still, I just graduated high school right then. So, I mean, I, I just worked at Burger King. You know, I had two friends that worked there and they were like my best friends. So they helped me get the job. And then, uh, I was just a complete idiot. I would do like the dumb stuff. And then, uh, one day I just like impulsively, I was prepping lettuce and I just decided to stand in the bins for some reason. And then I called my buddies over and one of them thought it was like the funniest thing he'd ever seen. So I, I wanted to take a picture and then it didn't look as good. So I asked him to take the picture and then, yeah, I mean, threw it out and then went on, went on with our day. And then later, uh, in the night or no, it was a couple of days after that. Yeah. A couple of days later at night, he, uh, he called me like frantically. It's like, dude, I posted online and they called the news station and they called the police and all this. I was like, thought my life was over. And then, uh, yeah, the next morning I saw it like I was living with my grandma at the time and I saw it on the news and, uh, you know, that they were like, do you work here? And like, what happened? And I was like, oh, I don't know who that is. That's crazy. And then like, I tried to pretend that I was working. So I would like leave, you know, like around the same times I was working for a few hours every day and then come back. And then she was like, I was helping her pay the bills like slightly. I would give her like 50 to a hundred bucks a month. And then, um, I didn't have it. And, uh, she was like, I can't do this. So then my aunt took over and, uh, I just.

Katherine: How did they find out it was you?

Alex: I don't think they ever, I mean, they never confronted me about it.

Katherine: I mean, how did the Burger King figure out it was you?

Alex: Oh, they saw it. So they saw it on the news, I'm assuming, and, or someone called from 4chan, I'm guessing cause that's where it was posted. And then, uh, they probably checked the cameras. It was like a couple of days after it happened. And then, uh.

Katherine: I mean, it's such a nondescript photo. I'm just curious how they were able to find the exact location.

Alex: It was the metadata on the photo of the time, the air, like the location, everything. So they, you know, they probably called Burger King and was like, this happened at this time on this day. And I'm assuming they looked at the cameras. I don't really know the of how they knew. I just know it was so popular. It was like on every news station that there was just like a consensus that it was me. I just kind of figured everyone knew it was me and I didn't go into work after that until I needed my last paycheck.

Katherine: So you were fired.

Alex: Yeah.

Katherine: Okay.

Alex: I mean, I was never like you're fired.

It was more like, I just stopped showing up, got my last paycheck and it was very awkward. Um, but like no one, no one really confronted me about it at Burger King. It was just like, yeah, we know this was you, you know, what you did was wrong. That kind of feeling. I thought my life was over. I thought like the lettuce got thrown out, but I still thought like I was going to go to jail somehow. And, uh, just because it was so like it was on every news station. And I don't know when you see your, your feet on the news, like you kind of, the logic kind of goes out the window and you just think like worst case scenario. And then like people are confronting you about it and everyone thinks it's so funny, but I just, I was like waiting until something terrible, like worse than that happened. But luckily really nothing came out of it legally, but, uh, it sounds like a lot of this is internal. Like it's in your head, the feelings.

Katherine: Yeah. I, well, I mean, like you assume people know it's you, right? You didn't get fired. You quit. It sounds like, it sounds like this is your own fear.

Alex: Okay. So I, someone on 4chan got all that data off the photo and they said that they called the store, they called the news, they called the police. So at this point, I'm just like assuming that the Burger King got called and they were, they found out it was made through the cameras. That's just kind of the assumption I have. I don't really see any other way how they would have known it was me. So it would have been at the, like, when you see your feet on the news, it's like, why would I even go into work? Like they're going to find out, or they already know it's me. So it's just going to be a waste of time and really embarrassing on top of the fear that I'm already experiencing. So it was just like, I, I knew that they knew, but like, I was never confronted about it. It was just like, I stopped showing up and I went in to get my last paycheck like a week later. And, uh, yeah, I mean the general manager, like she handed me the, uh, the paycheck and she was like, if you ever need a reference or anything, you can call me. I was like baffled by that. It made no sense to me at all. I didn't believe her, but I never ever used her as a reference, obviously. Yeah. I just try to avoid it like as much as I could. Cause I knew it was already pretty bad.

Katherine: What part of this story do you feel like hasn't been told?

Alex: Um, that's a hard one. I mean, if anyone, you know, feels like, you know, there's some kind of karma that will get, you know, make it so get me back. Like I did something wrong and that karma should take its toll on me. That's like the events in my life have been so drastically catastrophic that, that, that that's happened. Like I've paid for it in, in more ways that are just affected by the actual incident. Um, but yeah, I mean, obviously I wish I didn't do it and it, like, it didn't really like when I lived in Mayfield Heights, people knew it was me, but eventually I moved out to Akron and at that point, no one really knew it was me. So I just, I wouldn't say it like ruined my life, but, um, it definitely began like a chain of events, maybe indirectly that kind of bad things started happening.

Katherine: It just doesn't sound like that big of a deal. Um, wasted some lettuce at a Burger King.

Alex: I mean, yeah, but the thing is like, no one really knew that. I don't think until now. Um, and like, I didn't want to ever admit it because I didn't think people would believe that anyways. Um, so I just, I think like all this was, is that men has built up and like, maybe I started somehow some kind of like how there's like the Bluebell Ice Cream Lick. I don't know if you remember that from like 2019 that began like a trend and like people started doing that a lot. So I don't know if somehow by doing that, I might've caused or influenced other people to do it. But other than that, like the actual event, like I literally just, the worst part about it, I'd say like the worst consequences is that I got my manager fired and, um, the reputation of that Burger King is permanently destroyed. And I've also looked at like Burger Kings and like their sales, um, nationwide and I like 2012 it dips. And then 2013, it's like half of what it was in 2011.

Katherine: So, um, I mean around that time, like Chipotle starts getting popular.1

Alex: I'm sure that plays a role in it, but like, if you go on, if you look at the Burger King location on Google and you look at the reviews, there's one still, and it's, there's still like new ones. And it's not just because I recently revealed myself. Like there's ones from two, three months ago. And it's been 12 years and I'm assuming they get phone calls all the time. Like it's just, uh, it's probably hell for the people that do work there now and have been working there. So I, I feel bad about that. You know, that's probably the worst consequence, but in terms of like actually tampering food, it really isn't the case.

Katherine: I mean, with all due respect, it see, it seems like, um, and I know it's overwhelming to be the, the, you know, at the center of a national news story. Um, but it seems like you've taken on a lot of, um, guilt about this that might not be warranted.

Alex: Yeah, maybe.

Katherine: Um, right. Like it's so I'm looking, I looked at the, you know, just very quickly, right. The Yelp reviews and a lot of these Yelp reviews are referencing like the orders were wrong. Uh, the drive-through doesn't work. I mean, that's not on you.

Alex: They're all just bad, huh?

Katherine: I mean, it's like, what, you know, how, how much of that is your fault? I don't think it's your fault at all.

Alex: Well, I'm not going to put the blame on my friend for posting it. Cause I told him one to take the picture and two, I was the one who did it, but I think if it was just kept in between us, it wouldn't have affected anyone. It would have just been like product waste, like a couple dollars worth of lettuce. Um, but it was a team effort.

Katherine: You know, I, I agree with you. I'm just, um, I mean, do you think about it at all? It seems like you've sort of built an identity off of it.

Alex: You know, people say that like, uh, sometimes jokingly, sometimes serious, like you've left a legacy on the internet and this and that, but, um, I'd prefer if I hadn't, because I'd rather just like end my, uh, my bloodline, if you will, I'd rather end my family name with just someone who worked hard than someone who, you know, stepped in lettuce. Cause that's just what it is. Like everyone knows it. Everyone knows that's me now. And it's like, I'm just, you know, I feel like no matter what I do at this point, I'm always going to be known as that guy.

Katherine: You could have no one, no one would have known a thing about it. It was never attached to your name.

Alex: Correct. Um, but deep down, I know that's still what it is.

Katherine: So, um, are you sure you like regret it? I mean, like you're like your whole visual identity online is like the, is the picture you're yeah.

Alex: Well, it's more of a, like a gimmick, you know, uh, I have a lot of health issues. I can't really work right now. So I'm just kind of like throwing a Hail Mary, like maybe I can leverage this to build some kind of audience.

Katherine: So, I mean, is that really the, I mean, is that the real story here? I don't say this from a place of judgment. I would do the same thing.

Alex: Honestly, like, even if I, if this is successful and I end up making money from it and, you know, it becomes like a really big thing, like an online, whatever brand, if you will. I still would prefer if it never happened to be honest, but like, there's no running from it at this point. So I might as well use it to my advantage. It's kind of where I'm at with it, but I do regret it.

Katherine: There is running, there is running from it because it was never connected to your name and it was just a personal thing. You weren't fired. It seems like you just have carried around this guilt. Maybe, right? Like maybe you've carried this guilt.

Alex: Maybe. Yeah. I think it's probably a low chance, but it doesn't really matter if someone new meets me and they don't know about that because it's still like such a popular thing that I'm, people don't connect it to me, but it's still my feat at the end of the day.

Katherine: You start this YouTube channel, you decide to go public. What's the story behind that? You said you're in a bad place right now.

Alex: Yeah. Like I've like slowly developed a seizure condition over the last five years. It just kind of happened and they've kept becoming more frequent and I've tried working with them and it's resulted in a lot of injuries, a lot of broken bones, broken teeth, broke my jaw, broke my hand, fractured my spine. So it's getting to a point where I can't get it under control with medication. So I'm just not working right now. And yeah, I just feel like I have nothing to lose at this point.

Katherine: So you're hoping that if you do YouTube videos, you'll be able to earn enough money to support yourself?

Alex: Yeah. I mean, it's kind of shameless, but yeah, I think I can build like a brand off this truly. It's been like two weeks and it's been quite successful already. So I think over time, like if some big names cover it or see it, eventually I'll have an audience to where I could do all kinds of things. Maybe even not YouTube, but that's kind of where I'm starting.

Katherine: What do you envision for your YouTube career?

Alex: Like optimistically?

Katherine: Yeah, like what do you want to do?

Alex: Yeah. So I want to slowly be more personable with it. So people see there's more to me than just stepping in lettuce. But at the same time, I'm going to, in the beginning phase, like I'm going to lean into it a lot, but slowly I'll kind of get away from it. And I think over time it might not be how it is right now, where it's just like, oh, that's that guy. Like there might be more to me that people see, but I think I can see myself doing like, I mean, it almost sounds like narcissistic, but I mean, it's, I think it's very realistic that I could make ad money, do merch, maybe even sponsors or even like cameos. I mean, there's a lot of people that are like huge fans of this for some reason. So I think, I think that could be a realistic goal and could sustain me financially. I never thought I would say this, but Hawk-tuah Girl was actually like an inspiration because I figured if this chick can say something funny and then go viral and have a whole management team a week later and build a podcast and be huge like that, I don't see why I wouldn't be able to. But I would imagine people like Numa Numa guy, he probably thinks about it sometimes. He's like, I could have, I could have done something with that, but I'm assuming he's probably doing just fine. He might have a family, you know, who knows. So if, you know, if these people were in a similar situation as me, they would do the same thing. But I don’t think anyone regrets not doing it if their life is already pieced together quite well.

Katherine: How long have you been thinking about doing this?

Alex: Years. People would mention it—friends of mine—even immediately after it happened. They’d say, “Dude, you should just come out and leverage it.” But I held off. Burger King decided not to release my identity, and I’m grateful for that, but I don’t think they realized how much it would have affected them.

So, me coming out shortly after that and seeing it blow up, I was fearful they would decide to sue me or do something else. I don’t know. But at this point, all the statute of limitations is completely gone.

I thought about it a lot. People would say, “You could make money off this,” but I was so ashamed. I just wanted to work a normal job and live life that way. People find a lot of meaning in it, though. For example, I saw a comment today—this guy left paragraphs saying how I’m “putting the finger” to a corporate monopoly that’s made millions off the backs of underpaid, uninsured workers. He was saying I’m taking a stand against them. But that was never my intention, and it’s not how I see it.

Still, if people can pull meaning out of it like that, that’s great.

Katherine: Why not try another hustle? Why focus on becoming an internet personality?

Alex: I don’t know. It feels easier at this point. It still requires work, but it gives me a head start rather than grinding from nothing. Let’s say I’m sitting at home and decide I want to figure out a way to make money with my phone—what could I do? This is still relevant, so I might as well lean into it.

I don’t really have anything to lose. In the past, I did have things to lose, but now, this feels like the best route. Even you said you’d do it, and you’d lean into it. So, that’s where I’m at, I guess.

Subject: Jake Angeli Chansley, 36

This interview discusses Jake’s early life and his views on t…

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Subject: Fiona, 36

Growing up isolated in rural Illinois with an abusive older brother, Fiona spent extensive time online during weekends and summers. Of partic…

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Subject: Charls Carroll, age 41

Charls first used the Internet in the 1980s. He talks about his concerns about…

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Subject: Dorian, 39 years old

Early adopters like Dorian, born in the 1980s, encountered the web during childhood, shaping their understanding of communication, identit…

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Subject: Theo, age 39

After initial exposure at school, Theo’s home received Internet access in 1996 when he was 12. As the family’s technical expert, he had unrestrict…

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