Ephemera

Each month, host Stephanie Bee uses primary sources to tell a story that could've only happened online. Ephemera is a show about the Internet that does its research and preserves stories in amber. It is made with an understanding that its listeners are just as fascinated with the liminal space of the Web as I am. It is a cyberpunk, plunderphonics, digital archive of human stories, particularly ones I find interesting.

E25: "in minecraft" 05/26/2022

E24: talking animals 12/27/2021

23: viral 12/02/2021

23: viral Get in touch (even about vaccination): Audio engineering is kindly provided by Miguel Tanhi of Much Different, a live podcast recording venue in Brooklyn, NY. — FURTHER READING: “Almost half the world is living through this pandemic without Internet”: Kate Petrova’s thread on Amazon scented candle review data: That image from FARK.com: The LA Times’ followup reporting, interviewing Eddie Moreno’s colleagues: This episode's cover art is a simplified explanation of SARS-CoV-2 lineage descent, published by and alongside the Pango viral lineage nomenclature system. I chose it because I think it cleanly illustrates the ever-evolving state of the virus worldwide. For a comprehensive list of all documented viral lineages of SARS-CoV-2, try scrolling through this link for a few minutes: Finally, a note: as I edited and published this episode, the WHO declared the Omicron variant to be a "Variant of Concern", leapfrogging the intermediary "Variant of Interest" status. In Pango nomenclature, Omicron was previously known as B.1.1.529. There are other nomenclatures too but basically you'll probably only ever hear Pango nomenclature or WHO nomenclature. I don't know very much about Omicron at all but I want to stress, at this time, that travel bans are ineffective at preventing international transmission, and that vaccination remains the #1 most effective tool we have to protect ourselves from this pandemic. Access to those vaccines is an enormous issue of vaccine equity and vaccine imperialism. As director-general of the WHO Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has pointed out, eight billion doses of vaccine have been administered worldwide. The supply exists, but it is constrained by imperialism and the rent-seeking profit motive. I applaud US president Joe Biden's seemingly-sincere attempts to end the vaccine patents and liberate the world from our global pandemic. Nursing unions in nearly 30 countries are begging him to do so. If we do not protect the entire world from this plague, it will never leave us. Ephemera will be back with a much less depressing episode, shortly before Christmas. /episode/index/show/ephemera/id/21350786

22: Basically, no-one knows if HFT is good or bad. 01/07/2021

teaser: an interview with VR Church's Pastor Alina 11/26/2020

21: An Outward Expression of an Inward Faith 11/26/2020

20: America Is The Dark Souls Of Things You Can Walk Across 09/05/2020

unfortunately, as you probably already know, people 08/04/2020

18: ** Paid Modeling Gig. ** 05/14/2020

long time no talk, listeners 05/13/2020

long time no talk, listeners FULL TEXT: Hey, babes. This is just a short little announcement to update you on ephemera’s release schedule during this whole plague meets great depression thing. If you wanna pull your patreon pledges, I have no issues with that, but they are still going to the ephemera research slush fund. I’ve been researching and writing episodes and our boy Miguel has been editing them, but we both had COVID symptoms at some time in the last month or two - he lives in New York, my heart goes out to the guy - which obviously took some time. Miguel just sent me episode #18, and after I listen to it, I’m gonna upload it for you to listen to. Episode 19 is about Horse Ebooks and the nature of Barthèsian simulation, Foucault, all that good stuff, and I expect to publish that during May as well. I’ve fully written scripts for episodes 19 and 20, and I’m about half done with the script for #21. I also submitted Ephemera for publication and funding from the CBC, canada’s national broadcaster, and I’m waiting to hear back about that. The pitch took a fair bit of my time that couldn’t directly transfer over into regular episodes, but I submitted it and I’m waiting to hear back. If they take me up on it, I’ll make a six episode season looking in particular at women’s experiences with the Internet, re-telling a few stories I’ve told before but with tighter production. During this unprecedented global crisis, ephemera will still publish, but since I no longer know what time is, or how it proceeds from one moment to the next, it’s a little harder to have my scheduled research and writing blocks. Also, I’m back in school, which is taking a lot of my time but allows me to apply for Canada Student benefits. Ephemera will get back on track, work out the kinks in publishing, catch back up to itself, and continue to provide you with unique perspectives on interesting stories. It is so so SO important to me that Ephemera is good, remains at the consistent level of quality I’ve reached with Miguel’s help, and that’s something I’ve heard from listeners that you care about as well.All of this is, basically, just to say that hey, there’s an episode coming out later tonight. And I’m making another zine. Thanks. /episode/index/show/ephemera/id/14410871

17: The Other Nefertiti 03/04/2020

16: I FEEL SO LONELY // WE LIVE IN PUBLIC 12/15/2019

16: I FEEL SO LONELY // WE LIVE IN PUBLIC I was recently asked if I’d include my scripts in the episode notes. I’m happy to do so! Read along at your leisure here: Molly Osberg writes for Fusion about the relationships between the first camgirls: I’ve been assured by Paul Brown, who ran a Jennicam fansite, that Jennicam updated every fifteen minutes, with the premium feed refreshing every two minutes. People have written that the site updated at a variety of speeds - every 15 seconds, every three minutes, every twenty minutes, and so on - but the general state of things was a new image every fifteen minutes. Mr. Brown writes in his email to me:“As I remember it, however, there were a few times here and there when the updates were more frequent. That was definitely a rare and short duration thing.” Also, I state in the episode that Jennicam’s premium feed was $15/month, but it was actually $15/year. No wonder she went into debt. Alex Goldman, producer and co-host of the Reply All podcast, was obsessed with Jenni and spent a year tracking her down for a 2014 interview. You might be interested in hearing more from him on his connection to her website (unfortunately, his page of additional material he references has been lost to bit rot): A partial archive of JenniSHOW, Jenni's online video series from 1998 (remember, Jennicam worked in serialized photos): Jenni’s 1998 Letterman interview: The salacious WaPo article: Jenni’s “I FEEL SO LONELY” post-it sign: (ps check that /poetry/ directory. just wild) Josh Harris’ “WE LIVE IN PUBLIC” sign: Steven Kaplan, who was one of the pod people in Quiet, reflects on it here: (with photos!) rent WE LIVE IN PUBLIC here (or if you know me IRL, come over and we’ll watch it): A profile of Justin.tv’s early days. It’s interesting to compare Justin Kan’s reaction to 24/7 surveillance to Jenny’s: essay by Ana Voog, of “anacam”, about her early days Online and then walking away from it: ANIL DASH: “Now we are all Jennicam.” YT vid: “JenniCAM Invented Reality TV” (as discussed in the ep, that was MTV’s The Real World, but it’s a good video): Closing music: Anais Mitchell - 1984 Additional audio resources provided by: /episode/index/show/ephemera/id/12409565

15 - A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? The world’s biggest graveyard. 10/16/2019

EXCERPT: an interview with Molly Kalan 10/13/2019

SPLINTERNET 3: GDPR and the Right to be Forgotten 09/11/2019

SPLINTERNET 3: GDPR and the Right to be Forgotten Splinternet is an irregular report from Ephemera. Once upon a time, we thought of the Internet as like the Wild West; anarchic and mostly empty. The dream of the World Wide Web was ‘all of the world’s knowledge, at all the world’s fingertips’. But this dream has failed to materialize. As Scott Malcomson says in his book ‘Splinternet’, from which I’ve taken the title of this series: “the Internet is cracking apart into discrete groups no longer willing, or able, to connect.” This month, we’ll be looking at the regulatory approach of the European Union, which seeks to curtail and police the Internet, but in a way that defends the privacy and human rights of Internet users. This is quite different from authoritarian forms of policing the Net, and the EU are pioneers in uncharted territory on this. Are there problems with the EU’s approach to copyright and surveillance? Are they being adopted elsewhere? Will they work? --- SHOW NOTES: My sincere thanks go out to ephemera’s patrons. I couldn’t have done a research-focused series like SPLINTERNET without your support. Patronage also includes nearly an hour of bonus episodes, two hours of other content, and the right to do a voice on the show. View all current and former patrons on this page: While you're there: Have an idea for a show, or just want to get in touch? Want a better handle on the idea of the “splinternet”? Here’s a quick and good tv interview: There are a lot of new GDPR compliance related businesses that want to sell YOUR business their products. More here: More on the right to be forgotten in criminal cases: PDF link （！）to the letter signed by Tim Berners-Lee, Jimbo Wales, and a lot of other Internet luminaries about the dangers of the copyright directive: MEP Julia Reda’s blog posts on articles 11 and 13: James Bridle's "Citizen Ex", with an essay on algorithmic citizenship and downloadable browser extension. PS here's his self-driving car hex: You actually CAN get an internet passport. The ultimate in cyberstatehood swag! /episode/index/show/ephemera/id/11205593

14 - i felt i should just go to japan and die there. 08/02/2019

13: The Life (and Deaths) of The WELL 07/01/2019

(UNLOCKED) Companion Ep 1: My Process 05/31/2019

(RE-UPLOAD) 01: Tell Me About the Rabbits, George 05/31/2019

12: Swatting: Terrorism for Children 04/25/2019

11: Emojigeddon 04/05/2019

10: if everybody rode motorcycles the government would collapse 03/12/2019

SPLINTERNET 2: "To be a journalist in Russia is suicide." 01/23/2019

SPLINTERNET 2: "To be a journalist in Russia is suicide." Splinternet is an irregular report from Ephemera. Once upon a time, we thought of the Internet as like the Wild West; anarchic and mostly empty. The dream of the World Wide Web was ‘all of the world’s knowledge, at all the world’s fingertips’. But this dream has failed to materialize. As Scott Malcomson says in his book ‘Splinternet’, from which I’ve taken the title of this series: “the Internet is cracking apart into discrete groups no longer willing, or able, to connect.” The Internet’s “destructive creativity”, born from Silicon Valley libertarianism, must be tamed. China’s solution has been to retreat from the World Wide Web and create a parallel Chinese Internet, which will soon dwarf the English one. In Russia, the mafia state pairs the Chinese panopticon with extralegal violence against the media. Want a better handle on the idea of the “splinternet”? Here’s a quick and good tv interview: Here’s a cool 1-hr tv doc on Russia’s “Creepy, Innovative Internet” from Bloomberg TV. It’s great, especially the segment that starts at 28:50, which is about a facial recognition app that’s been downloaded over a million times. The op-ed Anna Politkovskaya wrote for the Guardian about being poisoned: Yulia James and Sophia Jones for Wired: I couldn’t have done this episode without the Freedom House reports on internet freedom. If you really want to drill down into the nitty-gritty, that’s where I’d start. Here’s their scores for Russia, year-by-year (100 is Least Free, 0 is Most Free): 2009: 49 2010: n/a (no report) 2011: 52 2012: 52 2013: 54 2014: 60 2015: 62 2016: 65 2017: 66 2018: 67 Support Ephemera: get in touch: This month's Patreon exclusive - a tour of Wikipedia's odder internal policies. Music used: Olafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm - Four Pussy Riot - Police State Alberto Iglesias - Los Vestidos Desgarrados Max Richter - infra 3 Frank Ocean - Voodoo /episode/index/show/ephemera/id/8243477

09: EVE Online is Like Vegas for Nerds 12/20/2018

08: If Marty McFly Can Do It So Can We 11/29/2018

SPLINTERNET 1: 大妈你观察 (Big Mama Is Watching You) 11/02/2018

07: The Corrupted Blood Incident 09/27/2018

06: Chesterton's #cockygate 08/23/2018

05: just like lost but everyone is hurley 07/20/2018

04: De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum 06/21/2018

Ephemera

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