WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.819 Welcome to today's Deep Dive. We have a really 00:00:02.819 --> 00:00:05.799 incredibly specific mission today, and I am just 00:00:05.799 --> 00:00:08.060 thrilled you are joining us for it. We are going 00:00:08.060 --> 00:00:11.199 to look at a single, seemingly simple image. 00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:13.980 Yeah, just one single image. Right. An image 00:00:13.980 --> 00:00:17.640 published in 1993 that... entirely by accident 00:00:17.640 --> 00:00:20.079 managed to predict the entire psychological and 00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:22.199 social architecture of the modern internet. It 00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:24.239 really serves as a profound piece of cultural 00:00:24.239 --> 00:00:27.140 history. And it's completely disguised as a passing 00:00:27.140 --> 00:00:29.179 magazine joke. Our stack of notes for today's 00:00:29.179 --> 00:00:31.339 deep dive comes directly from the Wikipedia page 00:00:31.339 --> 00:00:34.500 dedicated to the legendary adage and meme. You 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:36.759 probably know it. On the internet, nobody knows 00:00:36.759 --> 00:00:39.240 you're a dog. Oh, absolutely. That phrase has 00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:42.619 permeated modern culture so deeply that... I 00:00:42.619 --> 00:00:44.520 mean, almost everyone has heard it, or at least 00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:46.600 they've felt the sociological effects of it, 00:00:46.619 --> 00:00:48.380 even if they have no idea where it actually originated. 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:50.500 To understand the origin, I want you to put yourself 00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:54.159 back in time. Picture this. It is July 5th, 1993. 00:00:54.740 --> 00:00:57.439 A very different era. Completely different. You 00:00:57.439 --> 00:00:59.439 open up a fresh copy of the New Yorker magazine. 00:00:59.899 --> 00:01:02.640 As you flip through the pages of dense articles 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:06.140 and cultural commentary, you pause at a cartoon. 00:01:06.439 --> 00:01:08.879 Just a standard black and white drawing. Exactly. 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:12.219 It's a drawing of a large dog. He is sitting 00:01:12.219 --> 00:01:15.079 upright on an office chair at a desk with one 00:01:15.079 --> 00:01:17.739 of his paws resting casually on a computer keyboard. 00:01:17.959 --> 00:01:19.640 Looking very professional. Yeah. He's looking 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:22.219 down, speaking to a smaller dog who is just sitting 00:01:22.219 --> 00:01:24.640 on the floor nearby. And the caption at the bottom 00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:27.680 reads, On the internet, nobody knows you're a 00:01:27.680 --> 00:01:30.640 dog. OK, let's unpack this. Because the best 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:32.700 place to start is actually with the creator of 00:01:32.700 --> 00:01:35.359 the image, Peter Steiner. He was a cartoonist 00:01:35.359 --> 00:01:37.319 who had been contributing to The New Yorker since 00:01:37.319 --> 00:01:41.359 1979, I believe. Right. And the ultimate irony 00:01:41.359 --> 00:01:44.620 of this massive cultural touchstone is that Steiner 00:01:44.620 --> 00:01:46.700 did not care much about the Internet at all. 00:01:46.819 --> 00:01:48.599 Yeah. The sources mention he actually had an 00:01:48.599 --> 00:01:51.359 online account in 1993, but he felt no particular 00:01:51.359 --> 00:01:54.040 interest in the medium. He was not, you know, 00:01:54.040 --> 00:01:56.760 some cyber pioneer trying to make a grand sweeping 00:01:56.760 --> 00:01:58.819 statement about the digital. future of humanity. 00:01:59.219 --> 00:02:02.599 Not at all. He drew the cartoon essentially as 00:02:02.599 --> 00:02:06.040 a standard make up a caption exercise. He just 00:02:06.040 --> 00:02:08.520 sketched out the dogs, attached absolutely no 00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:10.860 profound meaning to the joke, and sent it off 00:02:10.860 --> 00:02:13.319 to his editor. Just another day at work. Right. 00:02:13.460 --> 00:02:15.900 And he later recalled that it received very little 00:02:15.900 --> 00:02:18.319 attention when it was initially published. It 00:02:18.319 --> 00:02:20.699 was really just another cartoon in a magazine 00:02:20.699 --> 00:02:23.159 that's famous for publishing dozens of them every 00:02:23.159 --> 00:02:25.159 single week. But the cultural simmer took a little 00:02:25.159 --> 00:02:28.289 time. Once it caught on, it began to take on 00:02:28.289 --> 00:02:31.210 this totally unstoppable life of its own. It 00:02:31.210 --> 00:02:33.870 eventually became a staple of early cyber culture. 00:02:34.129 --> 00:02:36.310 Which was a huge surprise to him. Oh, Steiner 00:02:36.310 --> 00:02:39.289 himself was shocked by the trajectory. He later 00:02:39.289 --> 00:02:41.009 remarked that he felt like he had accidentally 00:02:41.009 --> 00:02:43.830 created the smiley face. Which is just the perfect 00:02:43.830 --> 00:02:46.389 metaphor, honestly. Yeah. The smiley face is 00:02:46.389 --> 00:02:48.750 an image so ubiquitous that it belongs to the 00:02:48.750 --> 00:02:51.069 global consciousness rather than a single artist. 00:02:51.310 --> 00:02:53.150 Yeah, it's bigger than the person who drew it. 00:02:53.250 --> 00:02:56.710 Exactly. Steiner admitted he could not fathom 00:02:56.710 --> 00:02:59.150 how a simple drawing of two dogs talking at a 00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:02.830 desk had become universally recognized. And the 00:03:02.830 --> 00:03:05.590 financial reality of that recognition is just 00:03:05.590 --> 00:03:09.310 staggering. I mean, by 2013, 20 years after the 00:03:09.310 --> 00:03:11.930 cartoon was published, Steiner had made between 00:03:11.930 --> 00:03:16.710 $200 ,000 and $250 ,000. That is incredible for 00:03:16.710 --> 00:03:19.319 a single panel. Right. And that revenue was generated 00:03:19.319 --> 00:03:22.300 purely from the reprinting fees. It went on to 00:03:22.300 --> 00:03:24.580 become the single most reproduced cartoon in 00:03:24.580 --> 00:03:27.159 the entire history of The New Yorker. Considering 00:03:27.159 --> 00:03:29.759 the thousands of iconic cartoons that particular 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:31.900 magazine has published over nearly a century, 00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:35.500 taking the top spot is a monumental achievement. 00:03:35.699 --> 00:03:38.479 It really is. The image ended up on coffee mugs, 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:41.879 T -shirts, presentation slides, textbooks. And 00:03:41.879 --> 00:03:44.120 the financial milestones continued well past 00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:46.319 the initial print run, too. Oh, yeah, I saw those 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:48.960 numbers in the notes. In October of 2023, the 00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:51.219 original physical artwork went to a heritage 00:03:51.219 --> 00:03:54.080 auction sale of illustration art. It sold for 00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:58.419 $175 ,000. That specific auction set the record 00:03:58.419 --> 00:04:00.379 for the highest price ever paid for a single 00:04:00.379 --> 00:04:03.270 comic. What's fascinating here is how a throwaway 00:04:03.270 --> 00:04:06.069 sketch managed to capture a massive societal 00:04:06.069 --> 00:04:10.569 shift at the exact moment it was happening, even 00:04:10.569 --> 00:04:13.349 if the artist was completely unaware of the gravity 00:04:13.349 --> 00:04:15.490 of the technological revolution occurring around 00:04:15.490 --> 00:04:17.930 him. To really grasp that societal shift, we 00:04:17.930 --> 00:04:20.009 have to look closely at the landscape of 1993. 00:04:20.990 --> 00:04:24.529 The Internet was not the colorful, video -heavy, 00:04:24.569 --> 00:04:27.269 app -driven ecosystem we know today. Not even 00:04:27.269 --> 00:04:30.149 close. Before 1993, the Internet was largely 00:04:30.149 --> 00:04:33.310 an exclusive, invisible club. It was the domain 00:04:33.310 --> 00:04:35.490 of government engineers, military researchers, 00:04:35.769 --> 00:04:37.829 university academics. It was incredibly niche. 00:04:38.069 --> 00:04:40.490 Very niche. The interface was entirely text -based. 00:04:40.629 --> 00:04:43.350 You were staring at glowing green or amber text 00:04:43.350 --> 00:04:45.329 on a black screen, typing out command lines. 00:04:45.490 --> 00:04:47.569 It was highly technical and completely off the 00:04:47.569 --> 00:04:50.879 radar of mainstream pop culture. But 1993 was 00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:52.779 the year the foundation started to crack. The 00:04:52.779 --> 00:04:54.519 Internet was just beginning to transition into 00:04:54.519 --> 00:04:57.019 the public sphere. General interest magazines 00:04:57.019 --> 00:04:59.439 were suddenly publishing articles trying to explain 00:04:59.439 --> 00:05:02.740 this this information superhighway to everyday 00:05:02.740 --> 00:05:04.519 people. Right. That buzzword was everywhere. 00:05:04.620 --> 00:05:07.220 Yeah. And the sources include a great observation 00:05:07.220 --> 00:05:09.759 from Mitch Kapoor, the founder of Lotus Software 00:05:09.759 --> 00:05:13.319 and a very early digital activist. He provided 00:05:13.319 --> 00:05:16.220 a quote to Time magazine in December of 1993, 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:19.420 reflecting on the cultural momentum of that specific 00:05:19.420 --> 00:05:21.920 year. He argued that this New Yorker cartoon 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:24.399 was the true sign that popular interest in the 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:26.759 Internet had reached critical mass. Which makes 00:05:26.759 --> 00:05:31.060 perfect sense. It does. When a mainstream, highbrow 00:05:31.060 --> 00:05:34.019 literary magazine can publish a joke about a 00:05:34.019 --> 00:05:36.439 niche computer network and the general public 00:05:36.439 --> 00:05:40.000 actually understands the punchline, a major threshold 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:42.180 has been crossed. And a large part of what the 00:05:42.180 --> 00:05:44.920 public was beginning to understand was the very 00:05:44.920 --> 00:05:47.600 specific, almost theatrical nature of this new 00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:50.300 digital world. Theatrical is a great way to put 00:05:50.300 --> 00:05:53.139 it. Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor for The New 00:05:53.139 --> 00:05:55.259 Yorker at the time, offered a brilliant perspective 00:05:55.259 --> 00:05:58.670 on why the joke landed so perfectly. He noted 00:05:58.670 --> 00:06:00.490 that the cartoon resonated with the collective 00:06:00.490 --> 00:06:03.189 wariness about the facile facade that could be 00:06:03.189 --> 00:06:05.509 thrown up by anyone with a rudimentary knowledge 00:06:05.509 --> 00:06:09.389 of HTML. That phrase, facile facade, really jumps 00:06:09.389 --> 00:06:12.889 out. HTML, or hypertext markup language, is the 00:06:12.889 --> 00:06:15.629 basic coding language used to build web pages. 00:06:15.730 --> 00:06:17.730 Right, the building blocks. And Mankoff is pointing 00:06:17.730 --> 00:06:19.730 out that if you knew just a little bit of that 00:06:19.730 --> 00:06:23.199 code in the early 90s, You could build a digital 00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:25.500 storefront that made you look like a massive, 00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:28.399 legitimate corporation. Or even in a text -based 00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:30.639 chat room. Exactly. You could present yourself 00:06:30.639 --> 00:06:33.199 as a wealthy socialite, a renowned expert, or 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:36.360 literally anything else you desired. This phenomenon 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:39.420 was not just a psychological quirk of early users, 00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:42.860 though. It was baked directly into the technical 00:06:42.860 --> 00:06:46.339 architecture of the Internet. I feel so. To understand 00:06:46.339 --> 00:06:49.019 why this facade was so easily constructed, the 00:06:49.019 --> 00:06:51.519 sources point to the work of legal scholar Lawrence 00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:54.560 Lessig. He breaks down the actual mechanics of 00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:57.019 this anonymity. Okay. The fundamental protocols 00:06:57.019 --> 00:06:59.100 that run the internet, the underlying rules that 00:06:59.100 --> 00:07:01.540 dictate how computers talk to each other, simply 00:07:01.540 --> 00:07:04.459 do not require a user to confirm their own physical 00:07:04.459 --> 00:07:06.459 identity. Wait, let me make sure I understand 00:07:06.459 --> 00:07:08.920 the mechanics of that. If I log on to a computer 00:07:08.920 --> 00:07:12.019 at a university lab in 1993, I still have to 00:07:12.019 --> 00:07:15.060 type in my student ID, right? The school knows 00:07:15.060 --> 00:07:18.079 exactly who is sitting at that terminal. How 00:07:18.079 --> 00:07:20.879 does the internet strip that identity away? That 00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:23.560 is the crucial distinction Lessig makes. The 00:07:23.560 --> 00:07:26.040 local access point, like your university computer 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:29.220 lab, does require you to log in. They know who 00:07:29.220 --> 00:07:31.639 you are locally. Right. But that local system 00:07:31.639 --> 00:07:35.079 holds your identity privately. It does not embed 00:07:35.079 --> 00:07:37.939 your physical identity into your external internet 00:07:37.939 --> 00:07:41.120 transactions. When your message or your data 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:43.360 request leaves the university network and travels 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:45.500 out into the wider web, the personal identity 00:07:45.500 --> 00:07:49.100 tag is stripped away. The underlying TCP IP protocols 00:07:49.100 --> 00:07:51.160 are just moving packets of data from point A 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:53.439 to point B. They do not carry your driver's license. 00:07:53.579 --> 00:07:56.470 The architecture itself creates the mask. So 00:07:56.470 --> 00:07:58.170 what does this all mean? We suddenly have this 00:07:58.170 --> 00:08:00.449 new, globally connected system where you can 00:08:00.449 --> 00:08:02.870 communicate with anyone, anywhere, and the system 00:08:02.870 --> 00:08:05.470 is actively designed to hide who you really are. 00:08:05.689 --> 00:08:07.829 It's a huge shift in human interaction. How did 00:08:07.829 --> 00:08:10.329 society react to being handed that kind of power? 00:08:10.569 --> 00:08:13.269 The initial reaction, particularly among early 00:08:13.269 --> 00:08:17.029 adopters and sociologists in the 1990s, was highly 00:08:17.029 --> 00:08:20.389 optimistic. This technological mask was viewed 00:08:20.389 --> 00:08:23.610 as a profound, unprecedented liberation. The 00:08:23.610 --> 00:08:25.889 sources highlight the perspective of sociologist 00:08:25.889 --> 00:08:28.310 Sherry Turkle, who studied human -computer interaction. 00:08:28.730 --> 00:08:30.990 Her take paints a fascinating picture of those 00:08:30.990 --> 00:08:33.090 early days. She was very influential in this 00:08:33.090 --> 00:08:36.490 area. Very. She saw the dog cartoon as a symbol 00:08:36.490 --> 00:08:39.470 of total liberation from real -world prejudices. 00:08:39.830 --> 00:08:43.009 Think about it. In these early text -based spaces, 00:08:43.470 --> 00:08:46.889 you have no physical body. You have no vocal 00:08:46.889 --> 00:08:49.269 accent for people to judge. Right, no visual 00:08:49.269 --> 00:08:51.950 cues at all. None. Other users cannot see your 00:08:51.950 --> 00:08:53.940 race, your gender. gender, your physical age, 00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:55.779 or your physical abilities. All they have to 00:08:55.779 --> 00:08:57.940 judge you on are the words you type on the screen. 00:08:58.559 --> 00:09:00.879 Turkle elaborated on the psychological freedom 00:09:00.879 --> 00:09:03.059 of that environment. She noted that you could 00:09:03.059 --> 00:09:05.279 be whoever you wanted to be. You could completely 00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:07.320 redefine yourself without having to worry about 00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:09.580 the societal slots other people automatically 00:09:09.580 --> 00:09:12.440 put you into based on your appearance. Even Peter 00:09:12.440 --> 00:09:15.000 Steiner, the cartoonist who admitted he didn't 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:17.320 care much about the Internet, later said he shared 00:09:17.320 --> 00:09:19.759 this optimistic interpretation. It's a very appealing 00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:22.299 idea. It is. The appeal of escaping the snap 00:09:22.299 --> 00:09:24.240 judgments that happen the second someone looks 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:26.440 at you in the physical world is universally understood. 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:30.860 This. specific freedom led to a behavior that 00:09:30.860 --> 00:09:33.259 the sources refer to as computer cross -dressing. 00:09:33.379 --> 00:09:36.159 Computer cross -dressing. Yes. Yes. John Gilmore, 00:09:36.279 --> 00:09:39.240 a pioneer of Usenet, which was an early distributed 00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:41.340 discussion system that basically served as the 00:09:41.340 --> 00:09:44.159 grandfather to modern forums like Reddit, he 00:09:44.159 --> 00:09:46.440 spoke about this concept. Okay. Because your 00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:49.279 physical self is completely absent from the interaction, 00:09:49.620 --> 00:09:52.639 it can be alternatively fabricated or heavily 00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:56.169 exaggerated. You are handed an unchecked creative 00:09:56.169 --> 00:09:59.330 license over your own identity. If you wanted 00:09:59.330 --> 00:10:02.250 to fabricate your gender, your age, or your economic 00:10:02.250 --> 00:10:05.049 class, you could do it effortlessly. You could 00:10:05.049 --> 00:10:07.409 theoretically log into five different chat rooms 00:10:07.409 --> 00:10:10.049 and be five completely different people exploring 00:10:10.049 --> 00:10:12.470 different facets of your personality in each 00:10:12.470 --> 00:10:15.029 one. There is a deep, nuanced interpretation 00:10:15.029 --> 00:10:18.009 of the cartoon mentioned in the sources that 00:10:18.009 --> 00:10:20.629 highlights the power dynamics of this unchecked 00:10:20.629 --> 00:10:23.820 license. The cartoon is not merely a joke about 00:10:23.820 --> 00:10:25.940 a dog learning to type. Right. It goes deeper 00:10:25.940 --> 00:10:29.039 than that. It is about the specific freedom the 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:32.379 dog chooses to avail itself of. The dog is utilizing 00:10:32.379 --> 00:10:35.620 digital anonymity to pass as a member of a privileged 00:10:35.620 --> 00:10:38.440 group. And in the context of the cartoon, the 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:41.639 privileged group is human computer users. Precisely. 00:10:41.980 --> 00:10:44.179 It serves as an allegory for how the Internet 00:10:44.179 --> 00:10:46.940 allowed marginalized groups to shed the physical 00:10:46.940 --> 00:10:49.360 markers of their marginalization. They could 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:51.940 pass and have their voices heard in spaces where 00:10:51.940 --> 00:10:54.480 they might otherwise be ignored, dismissed, or 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:56.519 actively discriminated against in the physical 00:10:56.519 --> 00:10:59.139 world. While that utopian vision of liberation 00:10:59.139 --> 00:11:01.980 is beautiful, giving human beings a magical, 00:11:02.120 --> 00:11:04.820 consequence -free mask of anonymity inevitably 00:11:04.820 --> 00:11:07.220 leads to complications. It always does. There's 00:11:07.220 --> 00:11:09.500 a darker side to having unchecked creative license 00:11:09.500 --> 00:11:12.470 over your identity. The sources bring in a fascinating 00:11:12.470 --> 00:11:15.509 psychological study from the year 2000 conducted 00:11:15.509 --> 00:11:17.909 by researchers Morahan Martin and Schumacher. 00:11:18.289 --> 00:11:21.429 They were investigating the mechanics of compulsive 00:11:21.429 --> 00:11:23.929 or troublesome Internet use. Looking at what 00:11:23.929 --> 00:11:26.909 was drawing people in too deep. Exactly. They 00:11:26.909 --> 00:11:29.090 wanted to understand what specific elements of 00:11:29.090 --> 00:11:31.110 the digital world were driving severe addiction. 00:11:31.659 --> 00:11:33.759 What were they actually looking for in that study? 00:11:33.899 --> 00:11:36.440 Were they looking at the games or the chat rooms? 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:38.360 They were looking at the psychological hooks 00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:41.200 of the medium itself. They suggested that this 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:43.799 exact phenomenon, the ability to represent oneself 00:11:43.799 --> 00:11:46.840 behind the mask of a computer screen, might actually 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:50.200 be a core compulsion driving troublesome Internet 00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:54.080 use. So the mask itself is the drug. Yes. The 00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:56.840 intoxicating power of that facile facade Mankoff 00:11:56.840 --> 00:12:00.009 described can become highly addictive. Consider 00:12:00.009 --> 00:12:02.769 a hypothetical scenario. If someone's real life 00:12:02.769 --> 00:12:05.169 is incredibly difficult, if they feel powerless 00:12:05.169 --> 00:12:07.830 at their job or socially isolated in their physical 00:12:07.830 --> 00:12:11.129 community, the ability to log onto a server and 00:12:11.129 --> 00:12:14.190 instantly become a powerful, respected, or completely 00:12:14.190 --> 00:12:16.690 different entity offers a massive psychological 00:12:16.690 --> 00:12:19.750 escape. That makes total sense. The compulsion 00:12:19.750 --> 00:12:22.149 to stay online, where you control the narrative 00:12:22.149 --> 00:12:25.629 of who you are, can easily overpower the desire 00:12:25.629 --> 00:12:28.629 to participate in the physical world. where you 00:12:28.629 --> 00:12:31.269 lack that control. If we connect this to the 00:12:31.269 --> 00:12:33.649 bigger picture, the very architectural feature 00:12:33.649 --> 00:12:36.269 that made the Internet feel so freeing and utopian 00:12:36.269 --> 00:12:39.950 to sociologists in 1993 is the exact same feature 00:12:39.950 --> 00:12:42.370 that makes it psychologically dangerous. A double 00:12:42.370 --> 00:12:45.090 -edged sword. You can hide your physical vulnerabilities 00:12:45.090 --> 00:12:48.110 from prejudice, but you can also use that exact 00:12:48.110 --> 00:12:51.029 same mask to hide malicious intent or to completely 00:12:51.029 --> 00:12:53.909 detach from reality. Absolutely. Here's where 00:12:53.909 --> 00:13:00.080 it gets really interesting. just stay confined 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:02.720 to sociology papers or the pages of the new yorker 00:13:02.720 --> 00:13:05.600 the joke rippled outward into the broader culture 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:08.639 in incredibly surprising ways society was actively 00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:11.500 trying to process this new mode of human interaction 00:13:11.500 --> 00:13:14.080 and you can see that reflection in the arts like 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:17.159 the play yes in 1995 a playwright named alan 00:13:17.159 --> 00:13:19.779 david perkins wrote a stage play directly inspired 00:13:19.779 --> 00:13:22.500 by the cartoon literally titled nobody knows 00:13:22.500 --> 00:13:25.340 i'm a dog The premise of the play aligns perfectly 00:13:25.340 --> 00:13:27.860 with the Morihan Martin and Schumacher study 00:13:27.860 --> 00:13:30.299 we just talked about. It revolves around six 00:13:30.299 --> 00:13:33.179 individuals who are completely unable to communicate 00:13:33.179 --> 00:13:35.639 effectively with the people in their real physical 00:13:35.639 --> 00:13:38.740 lives. Because they're paralyzed by their physical 00:13:38.740 --> 00:13:41.860 world insecurities. Exactly. But they find the 00:13:41.860 --> 00:13:44.460 courage to socialize, connect, and express themselves 00:13:44.460 --> 00:13:47.620 anonymously on the internet. It is the sociological 00:13:47.620 --> 00:13:50.259 debate played out on stage. And the tech world 00:13:50.259 --> 00:13:53.639 embraced the cultural milestone as well. Apple 00:13:53.639 --> 00:13:56.460 Inc. developed an internet suite, which in the 00:13:56.460 --> 00:13:58.940 mid -90s was essentially an all -in -one software 00:13:58.940 --> 00:14:02.100 package combining a web browser, email client, 00:14:02.379 --> 00:14:04.700 and newsreader. A big deal at the time. Huge 00:14:04.700 --> 00:14:07.740 deal. And they named the entire project CyberDog, 00:14:07.779 --> 00:14:10.590 specifically to honor Steiner's cartoon. The 00:14:10.590 --> 00:14:12.690 image became an iconic meme before the general 00:14:12.690 --> 00:14:15.009 public even really used the word meme. That's 00:14:15.009 --> 00:14:17.850 very true. But the Internet of 1993 did not stay 00:14:17.850 --> 00:14:20.789 the Internet of 1993. As the technology matured, 00:14:20.789 --> 00:14:23.450 we moved away from the anonymous text based chat 00:14:23.450 --> 00:14:25.830 rooms of the early days and entered the modern 00:14:25.830 --> 00:14:29.009 era of social media, data tracking and algorithmic 00:14:29.009 --> 00:14:32.049 surveillance. That evolution brings us to a brilliant 00:14:32.049 --> 00:14:35.190 full circle moment detailed in the sources. In 00:14:35.190 --> 00:14:38.129 February of 2015, The New Yorker published another 00:14:38.129 --> 00:14:41.009 cartoon. This one was drawn by Kamran Hafiz, 00:14:41.289 --> 00:14:43.629 acting as a direct sequel to the original. It 00:14:43.629 --> 00:14:46.590 is a devastatingly accurate update. The 2015 00:14:46.590 --> 00:14:49.350 cartoon also features two dogs, but this time 00:14:49.350 --> 00:14:50.970 they're not the ones sitting at the keyboard. 00:14:51.230 --> 00:14:53.169 The dynamic completely flipped. They're sitting 00:14:53.169 --> 00:14:55.570 on the floor, looking up and watching their human 00:14:55.570 --> 00:14:58.269 owner sitting at the computer. One dog turns 00:14:58.269 --> 00:15:01.029 to the other and asks, Remember when, on the 00:15:01.029 --> 00:15:04.649 internet, nobody knew who you were? It perfectly 00:15:04.649 --> 00:15:07.129 captures the death of the very anonymity Steiner 00:15:07.129 --> 00:15:10.779 was originally joking about. By 2015, the concept 00:15:10.779 --> 00:15:13.399 of true, effortless anonymity on the mainstream 00:15:13.399 --> 00:15:16.100 Internet was largely a relic of the past. It 00:15:16.100 --> 00:15:18.240 really was. Between tracking cookies, following 00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:20.539 your browser history, sophisticated algorithms 00:15:20.539 --> 00:15:23.039 analyzing your behavior, social media profiles 00:15:23.039 --> 00:15:25.580 tied directly to your legal name and facial recognition 00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:27.960 software, the Internet no longer simply knows 00:15:27.960 --> 00:15:30.799 you are a dog. It knows way more than that. It 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:33.059 knows what specific brand of dog food you prefer, 00:15:33.299 --> 00:15:36.200 how many blocks you walk every Tuesday, and the 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:38.559 demographic profile of the other dog. you associate 00:15:38.559 --> 00:15:41.580 with. The facile facade Mankoff described hasn't 00:15:41.580 --> 00:15:44.200 necessarily disappeared, but it has been heavily 00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:47.039 commercialized, tracked, and monetized by the 00:15:47.039 --> 00:15:49.919 platforms hosting it. Exactly. The facade is 00:15:49.919 --> 00:15:52.970 now a product. To summarize the incredible journey 00:15:52.970 --> 00:15:55.490 outlined in these sources, a throwaway magazine 00:15:55.490 --> 00:15:58.149 caption drawn by an artist who barely utilized 00:15:58.149 --> 00:16:00.809 the technology managed to perfectly define the 00:16:00.809 --> 00:16:04.110 sociology, the privacy debates, and the cultural 00:16:04.110 --> 00:16:07.090 compulsions of the entire digital age. It's wild 00:16:07.090 --> 00:16:09.429 to think about. It began as an optimistic joke 00:16:09.429 --> 00:16:12.090 about liberation, evolved into a clinical study 00:16:12.090 --> 00:16:14.669 of psychological compulsion, and eventually became 00:16:14.669 --> 00:16:17.029 an elegy for the digital privacy we surrendered 00:16:17.029 --> 00:16:20.009 along the way. It functions as a perfect encapsulated 00:16:20.009 --> 00:16:22.059 time capsule. of our relationship with technology. 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:24.480 So think about your own digital footprint today. 00:16:24.659 --> 00:16:26.919 When you open a browser, post on a forum, or 00:16:26.919 --> 00:16:29.500 scroll through a feed, how much of a dog are 00:16:29.500 --> 00:16:31.840 you actually able to be? That's a great question. 00:16:32.059 --> 00:16:35.120 How much of your true, unvarnished self are you 00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:37.879 putting out there? And how much is still a carefully 00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:41.100 constructed, albeit highly tracked, facade? This 00:16:41.100 --> 00:16:43.779 raises an important question. Because while human 00:16:43.779 --> 00:16:45.820 anonymity might be vanishing under the weight 00:16:45.820 --> 00:16:48.759 of data tracking, the concept of the mask itself 00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:51.960 has not gone away. No, it hasn't. It is simply 00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:55.299 being worn by entirely new entities. I want to 00:16:55.299 --> 00:16:57.120 leave you with a final thought to mull over, 00:16:57.299 --> 00:17:00.299 drawing on a fascinating concept mentioned right 00:17:00.299 --> 00:17:02.320 at the end of our sources, tucked away under 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:06.000 the see also section. It is a concept known as 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:09.220 the dead internet theory. A very unsettling theory. 00:17:09.319 --> 00:17:12.420 It really is. The original 1993 - joke relied 00:17:12.420 --> 00:17:14.299 on the freedom of hiding the fact that you are 00:17:14.299 --> 00:17:17.700 a dog typing at a keyboard but today as online 00:17:17.700 --> 00:17:19.880 anonymity has evolved and the architecture has 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:22.380 been flooded with massive automated networks 00:17:22.380 --> 00:17:25.160 of bots and ai algorithms designed to drive engagement 00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:28.480 the context has shifted entirely the whole paradigm 00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:30.960 has changed When you read a comment, debate a 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:33.200 stranger, or consume a piece of digital content 00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:35.660 today, the most pressing question is no longer 00:17:35.660 --> 00:17:37.579 whether the user hiding behind the screen is 00:17:37.579 --> 00:17:40.059 secretly a dog. It's whether the user behind 00:17:40.059 --> 00:17:43.079 the screen is even a living, breathing entity 00:17:43.079 --> 00:17:46.680 at all. A complex and lingering thought to navigate 00:17:46.680 --> 00:17:49.619 as we continue to build this digital world. Thank 00:17:49.619 --> 00:17:51.019 you for joining us on this deep dive. We'll catch 00:17:51.019 --> 00:17:51.440 you next time.