June 10, 2021 • 41 mins
Chris goes down the rabbit hole.
Update: Cara Cunningham, creator of the iconic “Leave Britney Alone” video referenced in this episode, announced her transition in August 2021. “I’m happy to be in a place where I can embrace who I am,” Cunningham wrote in her announcement. We couldn’t be happier for her, too.
Note: This series discusses topics that may be triggering to some listeners, including depression and suicide. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text 741741 to speak to somebody immediately.
Created, written, hosted, and executive produced by Chris Stedman
Co-executive produced by Beth Anne Macaluso
Story edited by Aaron Edwards
Sound design by Dylan Fagan
Music by Aaron Wong Kaufman, with additional music by Ben Seretan
Episode 3 theme performed by Sadie Dupuis of Sad13
To listen to “Music Inspired by Unread” go to unread.bandcamp.com
For photos, videos, memes, and other visuals referenced in this episode, follow us on Instagram and Twitter @unreadpod.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi. Before this episode begins. I just want to make
sure that you know this series gets into some things
that might be triggering for some listeners, specifically suicide and depression.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts,
please seek assistance from a mental health professional, or visit
the National Institute of Mental Health website at n I
(00:20):
m H dot ni H dot g o V for resources.
If you're currently in crisis, you can call one hundred
to seven three talk two, or text the word hello
to one seven for one to speak to someone right away.
Thanks for listening. Britney Spears's music video for her two
(00:48):
thousand nine single if You Seek Amy tells a story
that's familiar to followers of her career. It starts in
a dark bedroom littered with lingerie, booze, and half naked models.
It's the more ing after a rager, and Brittany is
at the center Messcarus Mudge, the epitome of sex appeal
bad Brittany, but after a lot of gyrating and er ography,
(01:12):
she abandons her boustier for a pink polo shirt and
white skirt cardigan over her shoulders. She steps out the
front door into a perfectly manicured lawn where she's joined
by a country club husband and two kids. A swarm
of photographers rushes to them. This is good Brittany, Star Brittany,
the archetype of the All American dream. This tension has
(01:36):
been a cornerstone of Brittany's career and the story she
tells with her music. It's a story that goes all
the way back to Baby One More Time, the good
girl gone bad, the image of perfection shattered, the sexy
and liberating in between. But watching the if You Seek
Amy video, now I see another story too. Inside the house,
(01:57):
with its shuttered windows and shadows, is a private space,
somewhere Brittany can be her uninhibited self to name and
explore her darker truths in the company of trusted others,
before she steps out into the world and faces the
public with its prying eyes and camera flashes, though she
has to transform to put up an image of perfection.
(02:20):
A few months after If You Seek Amy was released
as a single. As it climbed the pop radio charts,
Alex and I became friends. I have vivid memories of
us blasting it in his bedroom or driving down the
highways of Chicago windows down, the two of us going
wild as it boomed from the car speakers. In the
song itself, which is just one massive double entendre, Brittany
(02:42):
goes on a metaphorical search for a woman named Amy.
I can't get her off my brain, she sings. The
frenetic energy of the video and the song remind me
of my own search for Alice, the anonymous figure Alex
befriended in Brittany fan forums. I don't know how long
they talked or when they last did, but I do
know that he was still thinking about her in his
(03:04):
final days, enough to include audio files of them talking
in his otherwise short farewell email. How do you call?
Do you have like a like an happer road for?
I'm Chris Stedmand and this is unread episode three. If
you seek Alice? Tell them that all the little let's
(03:29):
still see I get Jesus. Yes, Can you teach me
(03:55):
how to be an investigative journalist in like the next
thirty minutes? That'd be super helpful. Yes, I can. In
that it's a job. That's not a job. I mean,
all you have to do is be good at looking
for things? Okay here, I mean, anybody who lives on
(04:15):
the internet right now. It's probably decent at searching for stuff.
You can do it. That's my friend Carrie. We've known
each other for almost a decade. We met as speakers
at a skeptics convention, a gathering of people who share
interests like scientific skepticism, atheism, agnosticism, and just generally questioning things.
(04:37):
I was smoking in the hotel lobby. It was Las Vegas,
and I was a little ship back then. When Carrie
and I started talking, she told me smoking was bad,
So I signed my pack of Parliament lights for her
and wrote don't smoke on it. She still has that
pack on display in her apartment. Carry is an investigative journalist,
an excellent one. She co hosts the podcast Oh No,
(04:58):
Ross and Carry, and holds a mask 's degree in
journalism from the University of Southern California. Do you have
a spoke Yo account? I don't. Okay, I do, and
it can be pretty good for reverse looking up phone
numbers and emails. Logging onto Spokyo is literally the most
beginners thing you can do when looking for a person.
(05:20):
So the fact that I haven't even done that should
tell you where I'm starting. Fortunately, Carrie is no beginner.
Carry was also one of the first people I reached
out to in the moments after getting Alex's email. She
helped me process it and then we snapped into action,
hoping there was still a window. First, she helped me
connect with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline so that I
(05:42):
could arrange a wellness check at the most recent address
I had for Alex. As I was on the phone
with them, Carrie was digging away as she does, eventually
finding what we thought was his sister's phone number but
turned out to be his mom's. That was a hard call.
I'm reaching out to Carry again because finding Alice feels impossible,
(06:04):
and I don't know anyone who's found the unfindable more
often than she has. But to understand why this search
feels like such a shot in the dark in the
first place, you have to understand Alice's world. When I start,
she's nothing but a fragmented voice that sounds like Brittney's
and a trail of Internet accounts that seem to no
longer exist. What I'm saying is to understand how to
(06:27):
find Alice, you have to understand the space from which
she emerged. The strange, ephemeral online world of a Brittney stand.
If you've spent even a little time on social media,
you've almost certainly bumped into a stand. The term stand
often gets traced back to the Eminem song of the
same name about a diabolically obsessed fan. Today, it's used
(06:50):
to refer to an artist's most fervent devotes, people whose
very identities orient around their love of a star. You
can find them in the replies to every tweet about
a celebrity, especially a pop star, and probably half of
unrelated tweets too. Stream good Days Here they write in
all caps below every Scissor tweet with links to the
(07:11):
song on each streaming platform, Lana out sold. They reply
to a tweet about climate change or the death of
Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Stands are all over the Internet most
of the time. That's how they find one another and
where they do their good work. They also congregate in
more private spaces online enclaves of their own making, typically forums.
(07:34):
They're known for being zealous in both their adoration for
and defensiveness of their chosen artist. Perhaps the most notable
example can be found in the Barbs or Nicki Minaj
fans who I will never say an ill word about,
both because I think her album Queen didn't get the
love it deserved and because I'd like to know peace.
The barbs also exemplify something central to the stand phenomenon.
(07:57):
Stand groups begin with a shared love for an artist,
but they become much more than a fan club. These
groups develop characteristics, language norms all their own. Barbs aren't
just nicky fans. Being a barb is a lifestyle. That's
because online stand groups are, at their core communities, places
(08:18):
where people find a sense of identity and language for
their experiences, where they cultivate a feeling of purpose and
coherence that helps them make sense of their world, almost
like a religion. It's no surprise, then, that these communities
often include more marginalized members of society. Queer people in particular.
(08:38):
Stands build their own digital universes to inhabit refugees built
for and buy them. But these groups aren't bubbles. They
shape the culture around them too. The discourse surrounding Brittany
is a perfect example of this influence. Empathy toward her,
once relegated to STAND spaces, now dominates the conversation. This
(09:00):
is true more indirectly too. The Britney references of today
are more playful than cruel, often framing her as a
stand in for all of us instead of a punch line.
Whether it's a screenshot of an early career interview where
Britney says everyone's been doing emails, or a gift of
her turning around in the middle of a concert as
if she just noticed something. Hundreds of moments from Britney's
(09:23):
career have become well loved memes. Beyond these little flashes,
a broader period of her life now serves as a
meme too. If Britney Spears survived two thousand seven, I
can survive today is a mantra for the times. But
the Britney memes of today are not just a result
of people mining the past. Her current Instagram output inspires
(09:45):
them too. People recreate videos of her doing fashion shows
down the hallway of her home, or post videos of
her twirling and making silly faces in front of the
camera with captions like what my ns A agent sees
through my webcam and don't even get me started it on.
All the memes that were born when she casually mentioned
accidentally burning down her own gym in an Instagram video.
(10:07):
So many of these memes emerge in Britney stand spaces
and eventually shape our view of the world too. Yet,
even as stands define our online experience, there's so much
more going on in their communities than meets the eye.
It's in this wonderland that I hope to find Alice.
But first I have to go down the rabbit hole. Fortunately,
(10:30):
I know just the rabbit. I don't know. How are
you a bottom? Like a child? I like like imajority things.
It's like when you watch a performance on television. You
just want to believe it's all real, even though it's not.
But I don't care. I don't want to know. I
want to have a fantasy. That's do it again. I
went to him to understand the culture of Brittany stand
hum a bit more and the relationships forged in it.
(10:52):
He starts by explaining why he got involved in the
first place. I'm twenty three years old. I just it
out of my first and only straight relationship. Um, I'm
done with college and I'm back with my parents over
eating and I go online like that's my life, you know,
purely online, And you know, since I don't have much
(11:16):
hobbies in my life. One of them is Britney Spears.
I go and um, I had no idea that there's
a whole side dedicated to Britney Spears, which makes sense,
you know, like I'm from Greatia. For his first few
months on this Britney fan forum, he mostly just read
threads and kept up on Brittany news. Eventually he decided
to dive in, and he quickly found it was the
(11:38):
perfect outlet for his particular sense of humor. As soon
as he started ship posting, Do I found his match
in another poster who went by the name Ambient Hollow.
That was Alex. He was morbid, he was fun. He
made fun of breaking, but not like you know, he
was comedian like that. And at one point we just
(11:59):
started talking and we went from the side, you know,
two emails. Once they moved their conversations off the forum,
things turned more serious. Do I opened up to Alex
about his life. He's the first person that I came
out to as homosexual, which my son shuttled to some
people because I held like mustache and everything. But um, yeah,
(12:23):
I think I was late bloomer for a lot of things,
and I certainly wasn't so it was like this person
that I could talk to for ours and Alex opened
up to do about his He's the first person that
I actually ever heard that was dealing with depression, and
I remember reading about it because I really wanted to
be like a good friend, even though like he's on
(12:44):
another continent. They would get lost in conversation, swept up
in the magic of finding a space where they could
beat themselves. Seriously. I would stay up lad until five
a m. In the morning because his time, and we
will just talk forever, and we would, you know, create
dis content on the forum. When they did, they weren't
(13:06):
just sharing a love of Brittany, but also building a
new world, their world together. I never met a person
in my environment that loves Britney Spears. So when I realized,
you know, he loves Brittany just as much as I do,
and we can just take that love and build, you know,
imaginary topics, it was such a high stand. Communities are
(13:29):
little ecosystems, small universes, places that are not only built
around a star, but where new stars rise. Do It
and Alex, who both felt disempowered in other parts of
their lives, became celebrities in their own little corner of
the Brittany stand Um. You know, I don't want to
be this braggy guy, but we were really famous there.
Like I remember one time we got suspended and we
(13:52):
had people signing petitions to bring us back. It was fun.
It was really great prodoite of my life, even though
I was just by myself in the room, but like
it was my body. One thing they bonded over was
lovingly teasing Brittany. That could get them in trouble. On
the forums, fans could be extremely defensive of her, and
(14:12):
for good reason, but sometimes they get mad at Alex
and do it even when they weren't making fun of her. Seriously,
like people discuss mental health and who better to discuss that,
you know, the NUS and people will report that because
they thought we are making fun of her. To be fair, though,
do it and Alex would make fun of her too.
They're not some anomaly though. This is a thing in
(14:35):
stand culture, something that from the outside might not make sense. Yes,
Brittany Stands will destroy you if you say a single
bad word about her, But on the forums they call home,
you will also find a sea of memes teasing Brittany
in fact, there's an entire genre of meme popular among
(14:56):
her stands based on a single unflattering photo of her,
who they've named need. Even if you're not familiar with
it by name, you've probably seen the photo. It's the
one where Brittany is sitting in her booth and kind
of like looking really over it and like, well, just
look it up for yourself anyway. Tabloids might initially popularize
(15:16):
images like this, but stands are the reason they're seared
into a corner of your brain if you spend any
time online. For many stands, the teasing is just another
way of expressing love. I don't know how you are
with your family, but like I never really said my
sister like I love you or anything nice. You know,
when you love somebody like that, you just poke fun
(15:38):
of it and all people will understand. This is also
a very queer thing. Here's former MTV b J Dave
Holmes again, who I reached out to for help understanding
Britney's connection to her queer fans in the early twenty
one century. Right, queer people are coming out earlier. The
Internet makes it easy for you to find your tribe
(16:01):
at and also there is we have to acknowledge that
there is a queer gaze. You know, there is a
There is a gay man's way of loving, particularly a
diva that is part adoration and is also part making fun.
(16:26):
The love comes with with a crack with a devastating comment.
While once kept to more marginal spaces, stand culture and
queer culture at large has helped poort this phenomenon to
the mainstream. Today, we playfully drag those we love most,
our favorite celebrities, but also one another, while protecting each
(16:48):
other's humanity when a real attack comes. The demand to
honor Britney's dignity first gained major notice with Chris Crocker's
iconic leave Brittany Alone rallying cry. Her song is called
give me More for a reason, because all you people
want is more and more and more and more and
more alone. Crocker may have been roundly mocked at the time,
(17:12):
but that cry is actually what got me to start
paying attention to her humanity. While many of us were
late to Crocker's party, a lot of people are there now.
For many attendees, though, especially the most ardent ones, it's
not just about Britney's dignity but also their own. I
think gay men are still reflectively used to indirect representation,
(17:35):
like you're still all all boys are taught to stifle
their emotions and push their feelings down and never be
sad and never be vulnerable. You've got to stuff all
that ship down. And so where fifty years ago gay
men were attracted to over the top actresses because that
(17:58):
was like a way to launder emotion and it was
like you can you can. I can't have my emotions,
but you can have them for me and I can
like kind of feel it along with you. I think
she was a little bit that for young gay men.
I don't think I understood the depth of people's connection
and devotion too and with her like until I started
(18:19):
seeing the Free Brittany movement. And it's really it is
felt very deeply the Brittany fan forums where Alex and
Dummett were a profoundly tight knit world. But the fans
in these forums weren't just posting. Sometimes they would meet
(18:40):
in a tiny chat voice chat rooms that were popular
among some message board users in the early to talk
over audio instead of just through text. It's in one
of these audio group chats where a user popped up
one day who shook their entire world. I remember, like,
you know, you would go to tiny Chet because you
were like, you just wanted to spend some time. And
(19:02):
at the time, this girl she would come in and
she sounded exactly like Britney would. And the thing that
really was fun. She never claimed to be Brittany, which
only gave her credit to be Brittany. She would come
in and she would just talk random everyday stuff. She
would love as Brittany. She would be as Brittany, you
(19:22):
know everything signature she would do it. My Twitter. My
Twitter is Banana Alan and I created it today and
um banana Alice. No, okay, it's it's like this, where
can you personal a little chat thing like down here? Yeah? No,
(19:49):
it's my person already. Oh oh it's you let it go.
Five followers. I was one of the I'm one of
those followers. I Alice, if you're my most bite song
of all time is Piece of Me with thirty plays
True Life. Wow. And so the audiences with Alice began.
(20:13):
They'd talk about mundane things like cooking. I like to cook.
Probably have a favorite recipe, that's fine, Do you do
you have a favorite recipe? No? I don't have a
favorite recipe or anything, but I like making most sad Ya.
What kind of jobs she should get? You have such
a sweet voice. You should be like a telemarketer or something.
Oh yeah, she should be. I'm calling from you know,
(20:37):
and I'm trying to solve it. The music she was
listening to, do you have any foundations for new music house? Um,
I don't know. I really like this guy named Ron Pope.
He's really cool. He's like he's a guy from New
York and he's um. I like him alive. She'd even
(20:58):
get a bit maternal with them in moments, telling overly
excited stands to go to bed. No, I didn't sleep
at all. I haven't shot at all. Oh my god,
Oh my god. Bed no way. At first it was
an exclusive club. The first couple of times she were there,
(21:19):
there wasn't that many people on tiny chat. It was
like fifteen people or something. But then lower about this
mysterious figure started to spread and stands with joint tiny
chats in the hope of holding court with this uncanny
Britney sound alike. She was almost like a mirage there
for a moment, then just as quickly back into the
shadows and then she kind of stopped, you know, shumming up,
(21:45):
but she didn't vanish completely. Alice liked a talked to
Alex outside of the tiny chats. I remember Alex telling
me that she once had talked with her and then
actually it was like this depressed person as well. He
never talked to Alice one on one, but do says
(22:05):
Alex told him they bonded over mental health. He has
no idea if their connection went beyond the one conversation
Alex mentioned to him, though it's been almost a decade
since those Alice tiny chats. I asked to do it
if you had any thoughts about where I might look
for her now, if I was trying to find more
information about Alice online or like some of the other
(22:27):
people who were in the chat with you and Alice
and Alice pertly know how you can because tiny chat
is not the then side, and I think majority of
those accounts are either bent or gone. Yeah, they were
all anonymous, and so you know that's the problem. It
is the problem, which is why I need to go
(22:49):
back to Carry, who I hope can help me cut
through the fantasy and figure out how I might actually
find this person. My first issue is a big one.
I don't have much to go on. I don't even
know if Alice is this person's actual name. Well, that's
tougher because you're not starting with their name. You're not
actually finding the person. You're finding the name first, right,
(23:12):
So we begin going through what little I do have.
We start with the texts between Alex and Alice. As
I tell Carrie about them, I noticed that a couple
have a kind of signature at the end these text messages.
There's really not much there except that one of the
messages um Alex said to Alice, Oh my god, I
(23:32):
want to taco so bad hashtag deep and then she
replied why don't you go to Taco Bell question mark
via mo plus and then afterwards in parentheses H T
T P colon slash slash m O P L dot
us and I've I've never heard of this mo plus before. Yeah,
(23:53):
what's that might be something to look into, I guess.
Oh yeah, definitely a mo plus. It the best calling
up available, Chris says its website. So this person was
using some calling app. Yeah. That's kind of interesting though,
because that seems like a way you would sort of
(24:15):
cloak your identity. Carrie looks around on their website. You
could try I do this stuff all the time, like
sending an email, just to really try to be extremely
casual about it before they can get their defenses up.
You might be able to get something that way. Yeah. No,
I'll definitely try reaching out to them. See look, I'm
(24:36):
talking to you, and I've already I'm already much further
than I was before. Next, we pour over the audiophiles
Alex sent Carry uses headphones to listen while I poke
around for more Alice info online. Every now and then
I hear Carry laugh, and each time I guess which
part in the audio she's at. As she listens, Carrie
(24:57):
jots down user names she hears other people in the
tiny chat share as they discuss who's in the room.
She points out that people often use different versions of
the same handle for a bunch of services. So I
put variations of those user names into my search bar.
It feels like we're making progress, but still no solid leads.
So wanting something a little more interesting, I start reading
(25:19):
up on Britney's Instagram, looking for anything resembling a clue.
On November one, a day after Halloween, and just over
a month before Alex took his life, she had posted
something that seems to fit the bill. The caption reads,
oops a day late, but hey, I was Alice this
year for Halloween. Could mean something, But Alice in Wonderland
(25:41):
is not exactly an obscure reference. I do this dance
for a while. Searching user names looking through Brittney's Instagram
carries right. Anyone with the Internet can be an investigator.
Most of us do it all the time, background checks
on our Tinder dates, stocking xs, even the ones we
don't really give a shit about, looking for meaning in
(26:02):
every other post. Everyone leaves a digital paper trail these days,
and within a few minutes of googling someone, we can
piece together our own story of who they are based
on the fragments we find. But how do we know
what's real on the surface. Alex's digital paper trail, at
(26:23):
least the one associated with his birth name, didn't tell
the full story. Alex started using the Internet early, and
from the beginning he didn't play by the rules. As
a ten year old, he started trolling mostly grown up
movie fans on a message board. He'd post reviews of
movies that hadn't even been released, yet the adults were
not amused. As more people moved into the virtual world
(26:47):
with the rise of my Space and Facebook, Alex took
a similar approach to those spaces. While everyone else was
using social media to share engagement photos, college graduation posts,
and job announced Alex used it almost exclusively like he
did those forums. For humor to play. Here's show she
(27:08):
recalling one especially memorable Facebook update. He made a post
that I had had a kid. Oh my god, I
remember that, and then and then your dad, your dad. Yeah,
I mean, honestly, you probably remember it better than I do.
(27:30):
I did remember it, but I wanted to get his
wording exactly right. So I went digging through some files
Alex left for us, and there it was the fake
pregnancy announcement. So that it's two screenshots. One is from
Alex says three hours ago, and then it says, finally
able to break the news, my sister is pregnant with
a baby. Boy. You go, girl. Never thought I'd be
(27:53):
an uncle at such a young age. God bless can't
wait until thor Emmanuel blesses us with his present and
heart emoj And then below it is a screenshot from
your dad's Facebook and it says one hour ago and
it says, just learned that I am going to be
a grandfather soon. Seems weird. Seems weird, But good being
(28:20):
so mad at him that because I had to ideal
with the fallout of that, and at that point I
did not think it was funny. At that point, people didn't,
at least on social media. People did not think that
people control like that. At the same time that he's,
(28:41):
you know, posting these silly things on social media throughout
the years, he's on message boards, posting very serious things,
connecting with people, meeting people. You know, all these people
are seeing aside of him, or he's showing these people
aside of him, or feeling comfortable enough to be super
(29:01):
authentic in a way that he didn't ever feel like
he could be on social media. Hey guys, and better
than you. Oh my god, I'm having so much fun
on the beach. That's Alex in in a video he
posted to Instagram with the caption my short film inspired
(29:22):
by like everyone on social media. James remembers the time
Alex shared his frustrations about how a lot of people
reacted to his Instagram posts he had posted just like
a shirtless photo of him outside, which got like, you know,
hundreds of likes, and then he posts like a really
beautiful picture of just like an open window and some
landscape and it got like no likes, and like in
(29:43):
the comment section, he like calls out all his own
followers for like not liking content unless it was like
a sexualized picture of him, like naked outside. I think
it just speaks to like how conflicted he was about
Instagram or social media and like loving it and also
hating at the same time. Well, so fial media left
Alex feeling disillusioned. On forums he could be his full,
(30:05):
uninhibited self. Being himself in so called real life often
came with consequences. Back when he worked at that Bengal
shop with Bath in two thousand nine, Alex would get
reprimanded for playing music too loud or not having the
details of the latest Bengal special memorized. It was clear
to Bath that Alex found so many of the job's
(30:26):
rules pointless. Why memorize every kind of bangle when you
could just turn around and look at the board behind you.
I just remember like anger, and I don't mean rage,
I just mean in response to him being too much
or too annoy or whatever he were to get in
trouble for being too much music wise or customer service wise.
(30:46):
It wasn't met with shame or worry. It was met
with like anger and sarcasm or snippy irritation. And I
do think that probably was a big part of why
he liked the Internet so much, because he could kind
of like, he didn't have to jump through any hoops.
He could just like put whatever he wanted, whatever you
want on the Internet, and let's you get your account suspended.
(31:10):
But yeah, yeah exactly, I mean yeah, and he and
he did a lot all the time. Yeah, but it
didn't cost him a paycheck or yeah, exactly cost him much.
He just opened into account and he did. Freedom. That's
(31:31):
what the Internet gave Alex. Freedom to express himself, freedom
from a world with so many pointless hoops to jump through,
hoops that can feel especially daunting when you're living with
mental illness. The Internet's promise of freedom from rules and
gatekeepers is actually a big part of what fuels my
(31:53):
fantasy that Alison Brittany could be one and the same.
Over the years of Brittany self has used the Internet
to circumvent various gatekeepers. She rocketed to fame at the
beginning of the Internet era, but it wasn't until the
late two thousand's, in the midst of a media frenzy,
that she really took to the Internet to express herself publicly.
(32:15):
During that time, Brittney's website became one of the only
places where she could speak directly to people. Fans still
talk about the posts she shared on her short lived blog.
Perhaps the most infamous was titled You'll never see it
my way because you're not me real talk. I'm like
sure I wrote a anger post with that exact same
(32:35):
title at one point. Then there's the first post on
her blog, a poem entitled Remembrance of who I Am.
It included a note, this is for everyone who thinks
they know me. After years of Brittany being almost untouchably famous,
her blog seemed to offer her unfettered thoughts. Today, Instagram
(32:58):
has taken center stage as a window and Brittany's life.
But in an era of highly polished celebrity social media accounts,
when so many A listers employed teams to carefully construct
digital personas, Brittany's Instagram stands out as feeling like her
blog almost intentionally low fi and haphazard on Instagram. It
(33:18):
feels like Brittany is really being Brittany. Is it outlandish
to think that this same Brittany, who has regularly gone
online to express herself and rejected the manicured approach to
social media, might stumble into some online forums to chat
with fifteen or so trusted stands. Another thing fueling this
(33:42):
fantasy is that I know for sure that Alex did
connect with some of his favorite celebrities online. There was
Mira Sarvino, star of Alex's all time favorite movie Romeyan
Michelle's high school reunion. Alex left some of his passwords
to show she, including one to a Twitter account of
his that somehow hadn't been suspended in his d M.
(34:04):
There she was Mira Sorvino, chatting it up with a fan.
What we thought might have been a fantasy while Alex
was alive, just one of the many funny, random absurd
things he'd text us about had actually been real. Here's LEXI.
You're sort of immersed in your own ship and then
(34:24):
like he sends you like a weird tax being like,
oh my god, I'm talking with Mira Sorvino. And you're like,
what cool um? And it's like obviously, like I want
to be supportive, but it's like, in the back of
my mind, I don't fully believe him, but like I
don't know if he actually is that's amazing, you know,
And turns out he was. They're definitely like were moments
(34:47):
of me like not believing him, and those moments were
like probably when I was most immersed in my own
mundane life. Alex was also always posting about his biggest
celebrity crush, Fred Durst, the lead singer of Limp Biscuit
(35:09):
I Know. Eventually all of Alex's Durst tributes got Fred's attention,
and he left an emoji comment on one of Alex's
Instagram posts and viewed some of his stories. Alex talked
about it for weeks. Thanks to the Internet, fans can
feel closer and more connected to their favorite stars than
ever before. If Alex was interacting with the star of
(35:32):
his favorite movie and his number one crush online, is
it possible he was interacting with his favorite singer too.
I go back to my search for Alice, which in
a way feels like embodying Alex's digital freedom. It is
freeing to put my skepticism to rest and just dive
in show. She an expert internet sleuth in her own right,
(35:56):
offers to help, and we decide to swap notes. Tell
me what you found about Alice so far, because you're
like the super sleuth extraordinaire. Well, I guess that when
I first started doing the investigating, I was hoping that
what I would find would be proof that it was Brittany.
(36:18):
But while show, she's found a lot more than I
have other clips of Alice talking to people in tiny chats,
some of her old tweets and other posts, she hasn't
found proof. In fact, she's mostly found skepticism. As I
started doing more investigating, I saw so many posts from
people um that said it definitely wasn't Brittany. People are
(36:43):
very passionate over this. That was one thing I found.
There are a lot of posts where someone just asks
who has banana Alice, And it's pretty hilarious to see
there are so many passionate response is saying it's not Brittany,
this was from so long ago. It's just someone pretending
(37:06):
who cares leave it alone. I tell carry about these
discussion threads too. I mean, so what I'm getting from
all of this is you have probably already a community
of sleuths who are on this because it's just the
sort of thing anybody would obsess over right. If you're
(37:27):
a Britney Spears fanning, you think maybe you talk to
Britney Spears like you've already. It's got a lot of
the work Chris is now trying to do. My feeling
about it is that there's probably a lot of this
fook work just sitting out there waiting for you, um
in the form of these other fans. So I create
an account on that forum to reach out to some
(37:49):
of the people who say they interacted with Alice. Well,
I'm waiting for it to get approved. I look in
other parts of the online Brittany stand world. I find
a Twitter account that some Britney fans they kiss her
latest secret profile. Then I spot a verified Twitter account
belonging to an actor that follows and has interacted with it.
I message him to ask why a lot of fan
(38:11):
sites were claiming it was her. He says a friend
of mine was following it and buying into a conspiracy
that it must be her. Trying to reach out in anonymity.
This response makes me think of Alex. How he was
that friend for me, always sending me some new Brittany theory,
how he tried to get me to go into the
tiny chats when Alice was there. I never fully integrated
(38:35):
into Alex's online world, but he would invite me to
dip my toes in. This was one of Alex's greatest gifts.
He would pull you out of your own life and
into his world. You felt like you could like step
inside of this fantasy with him and like sort of
escape your real life and like go into like fun
(38:55):
alex Land. And a lot of times I would find
myself not caring whether or not something was real, even
as Lexi and I and so many of his other
friends went on with our own mundane lives. We benefited
from the way Alex's weird online world liberated him and others.
It seems to me now that so much of what
(39:16):
Alex was doing for me, how he helped me expand
the range of my voice over the years, was what
these online stand communities were doing for him. I may
never have joined in on the tiny chats myself, but
my own world was better, more colorful because of the
people he met in them. As I continue to poke
(39:37):
around on Twitter, I decided to look again for accounts
that have a similar handle to the one Alice shared
in one of the tiny chat recordings Alex sent me.
I had done this a few times already, but before
I never bothered to reach out to the profiles I
did find, figuring they were all copycats inspired by the
lore of Alice. This time, when I searched, there's an
(39:58):
account I didn't see the last time I looked, one
using the same user name Alice. Once did I tell
myself that it's obviously not her, that there's no way
she could be hiding in plain sight, or that she
would choose to return to Twitter during the exact window
of time is my search for her. I almost don't
reach out, but then I imagine Alex's Harry ghost telling
(40:22):
me to submit to the fantasy. Even if it isn't her,
this person is obviously aware of Alice. So I send
a message just in case they know something. I'm not
sure i'll even get a reply, but the next day
I do, and she says it's her. It's Alice. Next
(40:53):
time on unread, Oh gosh, I'm just I've had a
stomach ache last three day straight. I can't. I can't
imagine I'm not going to respond her immediately because I
feel like this is such an online thing. I feel
like I'm responding to her too quickly. It's like I'm
texting with somebody who I just met on an app
(41:14):
or something. I'm like feeling like I'm responding too quickly.
I don't want to be. I'm trying to play it cool,
you know. It's like you're texting Alex on Instagram like
a friend. He is just gonna like disappear good
Hi. Before this episode begins. I just want to make
sure that you know this series gets into some things
that might be triggering for some listeners, specifically suicide and depression.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts,
please seek assistance from a mental health professional, or visit
the National Institute of Mental Health website at n I
(00:20):
m H dot ni H dot g o V for resources.
If you're currently in crisis, you can call one hundred
to seven three talk two, or text the word hello
to one seven for one to speak to someone right away.
Thanks for listening. Britney Spears's music video for her two
(00:48):
thousand nine single if You Seek Amy tells a story
that's familiar to followers of her career. It starts in
a dark bedroom littered with lingerie, booze, and half naked models.
It's the more ing after a rager, and Brittany is
at the center Messcarus Mudge, the epitome of sex appeal
bad Brittany, but after a lot of gyrating and er ography,
(01:12):
she abandons her boustier for a pink polo shirt and
white skirt cardigan over her shoulders. She steps out the
front door into a perfectly manicured lawn where she's joined
by a country club husband and two kids. A swarm
of photographers rushes to them. This is good Brittany, Star Brittany,
the archetype of the All American dream. This tension has
(01:36):
been a cornerstone of Brittany's career and the story she
tells with her music. It's a story that goes all
the way back to Baby One More Time, the good
girl gone bad, the image of perfection shattered, the sexy
and liberating in between. But watching the if You Seek
Amy video, now I see another story too. Inside the house,
(01:57):
with its shuttered windows and shadows, is a private space,
somewhere Brittany can be her uninhibited self to name and
explore her darker truths in the company of trusted others,
before she steps out into the world and faces the
public with its prying eyes and camera flashes, though she
has to transform to put up an image of perfection.
(02:20):
A few months after If You Seek Amy was released
as a single. As it climbed the pop radio charts,
Alex and I became friends. I have vivid memories of
us blasting it in his bedroom or driving down the
highways of Chicago windows down, the two of us going
wild as it boomed from the car speakers. In the
song itself, which is just one massive double entendre, Brittany
(02:42):
goes on a metaphorical search for a woman named Amy.
I can't get her off my brain, she sings. The
frenetic energy of the video and the song remind me
of my own search for Alice, the anonymous figure Alex
befriended in Brittany fan forums. I don't know how long
they talked or when they last did, but I do
know that he was still thinking about her in his
(03:04):
final days, enough to include audio files of them talking
in his otherwise short farewell email. How do you call?
Do you have like a like an happer road for?
I'm Chris Stedmand and this is unread episode three. If
you seek Alice? Tell them that all the little let's
(03:29):
still see I get Jesus. Yes, Can you teach me
(03:55):
how to be an investigative journalist in like the next
thirty minutes? That'd be super helpful. Yes, I can. In
that it's a job. That's not a job. I mean,
all you have to do is be good at looking
for things? Okay here, I mean, anybody who lives on
(04:15):
the internet right now. It's probably decent at searching for stuff.
You can do it. That's my friend Carrie. We've known
each other for almost a decade. We met as speakers
at a skeptics convention, a gathering of people who share
interests like scientific skepticism, atheism, agnosticism, and just generally questioning things.
(04:37):
I was smoking in the hotel lobby. It was Las Vegas,
and I was a little ship back then. When Carrie
and I started talking, she told me smoking was bad,
So I signed my pack of Parliament lights for her
and wrote don't smoke on it. She still has that
pack on display in her apartment. Carry is an investigative journalist,
an excellent one. She co hosts the podcast Oh No,
(04:58):
Ross and Carry, and holds a mask 's degree in
journalism from the University of Southern California. Do you have
a spoke Yo account? I don't. Okay, I do, and
it can be pretty good for reverse looking up phone
numbers and emails. Logging onto Spokyo is literally the most
beginners thing you can do when looking for a person.
(05:20):
So the fact that I haven't even done that should
tell you where I'm starting. Fortunately, Carrie is no beginner.
Carry was also one of the first people I reached
out to in the moments after getting Alex's email. She
helped me process it and then we snapped into action,
hoping there was still a window. First, she helped me
connect with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline so that I
(05:42):
could arrange a wellness check at the most recent address
I had for Alex. As I was on the phone
with them, Carrie was digging away as she does, eventually
finding what we thought was his sister's phone number but
turned out to be his mom's. That was a hard call.
I'm reaching out to Carry again because finding Alice feels impossible,
(06:04):
and I don't know anyone who's found the unfindable more
often than she has. But to understand why this search
feels like such a shot in the dark in the
first place, you have to understand Alice's world. When I start,
she's nothing but a fragmented voice that sounds like Brittney's
and a trail of Internet accounts that seem to no
longer exist. What I'm saying is to understand how to
(06:27):
find Alice, you have to understand the space from which
she emerged. The strange, ephemeral online world of a Brittney stand.
If you've spent even a little time on social media,
you've almost certainly bumped into a stand. The term stand
often gets traced back to the Eminem song of the
same name about a diabolically obsessed fan. Today, it's used
(06:50):
to refer to an artist's most fervent devotes, people whose
very identities orient around their love of a star. You
can find them in the replies to every tweet about
a celebrity, especially a pop star, and probably half of
unrelated tweets too. Stream good Days Here they write in
all caps below every Scissor tweet with links to the
(07:11):
song on each streaming platform, Lana out sold. They reply
to a tweet about climate change or the death of
Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Stands are all over the Internet most
of the time. That's how they find one another and
where they do their good work. They also congregate in
more private spaces online enclaves of their own making, typically forums.
(07:34):
They're known for being zealous in both their adoration for
and defensiveness of their chosen artist. Perhaps the most notable
example can be found in the Barbs or Nicki Minaj
fans who I will never say an ill word about,
both because I think her album Queen didn't get the
love it deserved and because I'd like to know peace.
The barbs also exemplify something central to the stand phenomenon.
(07:57):
Stand groups begin with a shared love for an artist,
but they become much more than a fan club. These
groups develop characteristics, language norms all their own. Barbs aren't
just nicky fans. Being a barb is a lifestyle. That's
because online stand groups are, at their core communities, places
(08:18):
where people find a sense of identity and language for
their experiences, where they cultivate a feeling of purpose and
coherence that helps them make sense of their world, almost
like a religion. It's no surprise, then, that these communities
often include more marginalized members of society. Queer people in particular.
(08:38):
Stands build their own digital universes to inhabit refugees built
for and buy them. But these groups aren't bubbles. They
shape the culture around them too. The discourse surrounding Brittany
is a perfect example of this influence. Empathy toward her,
once relegated to STAND spaces, now dominates the conversation. This
(09:00):
is true more indirectly too. The Britney references of today
are more playful than cruel, often framing her as a
stand in for all of us instead of a punch line.
Whether it's a screenshot of an early career interview where
Britney says everyone's been doing emails, or a gift of
her turning around in the middle of a concert as
if she just noticed something. Hundreds of moments from Britney's
(09:23):
career have become well loved memes. Beyond these little flashes,
a broader period of her life now serves as a
meme too. If Britney Spears survived two thousand seven, I
can survive today is a mantra for the times. But
the Britney memes of today are not just a result
of people mining the past. Her current Instagram output inspires
(09:45):
them too. People recreate videos of her doing fashion shows
down the hallway of her home, or post videos of
her twirling and making silly faces in front of the
camera with captions like what my ns A agent sees
through my webcam and don't even get me started it on.
All the memes that were born when she casually mentioned
accidentally burning down her own gym in an Instagram video.
(10:07):
So many of these memes emerge in Britney stand spaces
and eventually shape our view of the world too. Yet,
even as stands define our online experience, there's so much
more going on in their communities than meets the eye.
It's in this wonderland that I hope to find Alice.
But first I have to go down the rabbit hole. Fortunately,
(10:30):
I know just the rabbit. I don't know. How are
you a bottom? Like a child? I like like imajority things.
It's like when you watch a performance on television. You
just want to believe it's all real, even though it's not.
But I don't care. I don't want to know. I
want to have a fantasy. That's do it again. I
went to him to understand the culture of Brittany stand
hum a bit more and the relationships forged in it.
(10:52):
He starts by explaining why he got involved in the
first place. I'm twenty three years old. I just it
out of my first and only straight relationship. Um, I'm
done with college and I'm back with my parents over
eating and I go online like that's my life, you know,
purely online, And you know, since I don't have much
(11:16):
hobbies in my life. One of them is Britney Spears.
I go and um, I had no idea that there's
a whole side dedicated to Britney Spears, which makes sense,
you know, like I'm from Greatia. For his first few
months on this Britney fan forum, he mostly just read
threads and kept up on Brittany news. Eventually he decided
to dive in, and he quickly found it was the
(11:38):
perfect outlet for his particular sense of humor. As soon
as he started ship posting, Do I found his match
in another poster who went by the name Ambient Hollow.
That was Alex. He was morbid, he was fun. He
made fun of breaking, but not like you know, he
was comedian like that. And at one point we just
(11:59):
started talking and we went from the side, you know,
two emails. Once they moved their conversations off the forum,
things turned more serious. Do I opened up to Alex
about his life. He's the first person that I came
out to as homosexual, which my son shuttled to some
people because I held like mustache and everything. But um, yeah,
(12:23):
I think I was late bloomer for a lot of things,
and I certainly wasn't so it was like this person
that I could talk to for ours and Alex opened
up to do about his He's the first person that
I actually ever heard that was dealing with depression, and
I remember reading about it because I really wanted to
be like a good friend, even though like he's on
(12:44):
another continent. They would get lost in conversation, swept up
in the magic of finding a space where they could
beat themselves. Seriously. I would stay up lad until five
a m. In the morning because his time, and we
will just talk forever, and we would, you know, create
dis content on the forum. When they did, they weren't
(13:06):
just sharing a love of Brittany, but also building a
new world, their world together. I never met a person
in my environment that loves Britney Spears. So when I realized,
you know, he loves Brittany just as much as I do,
and we can just take that love and build, you know,
imaginary topics, it was such a high stand. Communities are
(13:29):
little ecosystems, small universes, places that are not only built
around a star, but where new stars rise. Do It
and Alex, who both felt disempowered in other parts of
their lives, became celebrities in their own little corner of
the Brittany stand Um. You know, I don't want to
be this braggy guy, but we were really famous there.
Like I remember one time we got suspended and we
(13:52):
had people signing petitions to bring us back. It was fun.
It was really great prodoite of my life, even though
I was just by myself in the room, but like
it was my body. One thing they bonded over was
lovingly teasing Brittany. That could get them in trouble. On
the forums, fans could be extremely defensive of her, and
(14:12):
for good reason, but sometimes they get mad at Alex
and do it even when they weren't making fun of her. Seriously,
like people discuss mental health and who better to discuss that,
you know, the NUS and people will report that because
they thought we are making fun of her. To be fair, though,
do it and Alex would make fun of her too.
They're not some anomaly though. This is a thing in
(14:35):
stand culture, something that from the outside might not make sense. Yes,
Brittany Stands will destroy you if you say a single
bad word about her, But on the forums they call home,
you will also find a sea of memes teasing Brittany
in fact, there's an entire genre of meme popular among
(14:56):
her stands based on a single unflattering photo of her,
who they've named need. Even if you're not familiar with
it by name, you've probably seen the photo. It's the
one where Brittany is sitting in her booth and kind
of like looking really over it and like, well, just
look it up for yourself anyway. Tabloids might initially popularize
(15:16):
images like this, but stands are the reason they're seared
into a corner of your brain if you spend any
time online. For many stands, the teasing is just another
way of expressing love. I don't know how you are
with your family, but like I never really said my
sister like I love you or anything nice. You know,
when you love somebody like that, you just poke fun
(15:38):
of it and all people will understand. This is also
a very queer thing. Here's former MTV b J Dave
Holmes again, who I reached out to for help understanding
Britney's connection to her queer fans in the early twenty
one century. Right, queer people are coming out earlier. The
Internet makes it easy for you to find your tribe
(16:01):
at and also there is we have to acknowledge that
there is a queer gaze. You know, there is a
There is a gay man's way of loving, particularly a
diva that is part adoration and is also part making fun.
(16:26):
The love comes with with a crack with a devastating comment.
While once kept to more marginal spaces, stand culture and
queer culture at large has helped poort this phenomenon to
the mainstream. Today, we playfully drag those we love most,
our favorite celebrities, but also one another, while protecting each
(16:48):
other's humanity when a real attack comes. The demand to
honor Britney's dignity first gained major notice with Chris Crocker's
iconic leave Brittany Alone rallying cry. Her song is called
give me More for a reason, because all you people
want is more and more and more and more and
more alone. Crocker may have been roundly mocked at the time,
(17:12):
but that cry is actually what got me to start
paying attention to her humanity. While many of us were
late to Crocker's party, a lot of people are there now.
For many attendees, though, especially the most ardent ones, it's
not just about Britney's dignity but also their own. I
think gay men are still reflectively used to indirect representation,
(17:35):
like you're still all all boys are taught to stifle
their emotions and push their feelings down and never be
sad and never be vulnerable. You've got to stuff all
that ship down. And so where fifty years ago gay
men were attracted to over the top actresses because that
(17:58):
was like a way to launder emotion and it was
like you can you can. I can't have my emotions,
but you can have them for me and I can
like kind of feel it along with you. I think
she was a little bit that for young gay men.
I don't think I understood the depth of people's connection
and devotion too and with her like until I started
(18:19):
seeing the Free Brittany movement. And it's really it is
felt very deeply the Brittany fan forums where Alex and
Dummett were a profoundly tight knit world. But the fans
in these forums weren't just posting. Sometimes they would meet
(18:40):
in a tiny chat voice chat rooms that were popular
among some message board users in the early to talk
over audio instead of just through text. It's in one
of these audio group chats where a user popped up
one day who shook their entire world. I remember, like,
you know, you would go to tiny Chet because you
were like, you just wanted to spend some time. And
(19:02):
at the time, this girl she would come in and
she sounded exactly like Britney would. And the thing that
really was fun. She never claimed to be Brittany, which
only gave her credit to be Brittany. She would come
in and she would just talk random everyday stuff. She
would love as Brittany. She would be as Brittany, you
(19:22):
know everything signature she would do it. My Twitter. My
Twitter is Banana Alan and I created it today and
um banana Alice. No, okay, it's it's like this, where
can you personal a little chat thing like down here? Yeah? No,
(19:49):
it's my person already. Oh oh it's you let it go.
Five followers. I was one of the I'm one of
those followers. I Alice, if you're my most bite song
of all time is Piece of Me with thirty plays
True Life. Wow. And so the audiences with Alice began.
(20:13):
They'd talk about mundane things like cooking. I like to cook.
Probably have a favorite recipe, that's fine, Do you do
you have a favorite recipe? No? I don't have a
favorite recipe or anything, but I like making most sad Ya.
What kind of jobs she should get? You have such
a sweet voice. You should be like a telemarketer or something.
Oh yeah, she should be. I'm calling from you know,
(20:37):
and I'm trying to solve it. The music she was
listening to, do you have any foundations for new music house? Um,
I don't know. I really like this guy named Ron Pope.
He's really cool. He's like he's a guy from New
York and he's um. I like him alive. She'd even
(20:58):
get a bit maternal with them in moments, telling overly
excited stands to go to bed. No, I didn't sleep
at all. I haven't shot at all. Oh my god,
Oh my god. Bed no way. At first it was
an exclusive club. The first couple of times she were there,
(21:19):
there wasn't that many people on tiny chat. It was
like fifteen people or something. But then lower about this
mysterious figure started to spread and stands with joint tiny
chats in the hope of holding court with this uncanny
Britney sound alike. She was almost like a mirage there
for a moment, then just as quickly back into the
shadows and then she kind of stopped, you know, shumming up,
(21:45):
but she didn't vanish completely. Alice liked a talked to
Alex outside of the tiny chats. I remember Alex telling
me that she once had talked with her and then
actually it was like this depressed person as well. He
never talked to Alice one on one, but do says
(22:05):
Alex told him they bonded over mental health. He has
no idea if their connection went beyond the one conversation
Alex mentioned to him, though it's been almost a decade
since those Alice tiny chats. I asked to do it
if you had any thoughts about where I might look
for her now, if I was trying to find more
information about Alice online or like some of the other
(22:27):
people who were in the chat with you and Alice
and Alice pertly know how you can because tiny chat
is not the then side, and I think majority of
those accounts are either bent or gone. Yeah, they were
all anonymous, and so you know that's the problem. It
is the problem, which is why I need to go
(22:49):
back to Carry, who I hope can help me cut
through the fantasy and figure out how I might actually
find this person. My first issue is a big one.
I don't have much to go on. I don't even
know if Alice is this person's actual name. Well, that's
tougher because you're not starting with their name. You're not
actually finding the person. You're finding the name first, right,
(23:12):
So we begin going through what little I do have.
We start with the texts between Alex and Alice. As
I tell Carrie about them, I noticed that a couple
have a kind of signature at the end these text messages.
There's really not much there except that one of the
messages um Alex said to Alice, Oh my god, I
(23:32):
want to taco so bad hashtag deep and then she
replied why don't you go to Taco Bell question mark
via mo plus and then afterwards in parentheses H T
T P colon slash slash m O P L dot
us and I've I've never heard of this mo plus before. Yeah,
(23:53):
what's that might be something to look into, I guess.
Oh yeah, definitely a mo plus. It the best calling
up available, Chris says its website. So this person was
using some calling app. Yeah. That's kind of interesting though,
because that seems like a way you would sort of
(24:15):
cloak your identity. Carrie looks around on their website. You
could try I do this stuff all the time, like
sending an email, just to really try to be extremely
casual about it before they can get their defenses up.
You might be able to get something that way. Yeah. No,
I'll definitely try reaching out to them. See look, I'm
(24:36):
talking to you, and I've already I'm already much further
than I was before. Next, we pour over the audiophiles
Alex sent Carry uses headphones to listen while I poke
around for more Alice info online. Every now and then
I hear Carry laugh, and each time I guess which
part in the audio she's at. As she listens, Carrie
(24:57):
jots down user names she hears other people in the
tiny chat share as they discuss who's in the room.
She points out that people often use different versions of
the same handle for a bunch of services. So I
put variations of those user names into my search bar.
It feels like we're making progress, but still no solid leads.
So wanting something a little more interesting, I start reading
(25:19):
up on Britney's Instagram, looking for anything resembling a clue.
On November one, a day after Halloween, and just over
a month before Alex took his life, she had posted
something that seems to fit the bill. The caption reads,
oops a day late, but hey, I was Alice this
year for Halloween. Could mean something, But Alice in Wonderland
(25:41):
is not exactly an obscure reference. I do this dance
for a while. Searching user names looking through Brittney's Instagram
carries right. Anyone with the Internet can be an investigator.
Most of us do it all the time, background checks
on our Tinder dates, stocking xs, even the ones we
don't really give a shit about, looking for meaning in
(26:02):
every other post. Everyone leaves a digital paper trail these days,
and within a few minutes of googling someone, we can
piece together our own story of who they are based
on the fragments we find. But how do we know
what's real on the surface. Alex's digital paper trail, at
(26:23):
least the one associated with his birth name, didn't tell
the full story. Alex started using the Internet early, and
from the beginning he didn't play by the rules. As
a ten year old, he started trolling mostly grown up
movie fans on a message board. He'd post reviews of
movies that hadn't even been released, yet the adults were
not amused. As more people moved into the virtual world
(26:47):
with the rise of my Space and Facebook, Alex took
a similar approach to those spaces. While everyone else was
using social media to share engagement photos, college graduation posts,
and job announced Alex used it almost exclusively like he
did those forums. For humor to play. Here's show she
(27:08):
recalling one especially memorable Facebook update. He made a post
that I had had a kid. Oh my god, I
remember that, and then and then your dad, your dad. Yeah,
I mean, honestly, you probably remember it better than I do.
(27:30):
I did remember it, but I wanted to get his
wording exactly right. So I went digging through some files
Alex left for us, and there it was the fake
pregnancy announcement. So that it's two screenshots. One is from
Alex says three hours ago, and then it says, finally
able to break the news, my sister is pregnant with
a baby. Boy. You go, girl. Never thought I'd be
(27:53):
an uncle at such a young age. God bless can't
wait until thor Emmanuel blesses us with his present and
heart emoj And then below it is a screenshot from
your dad's Facebook and it says one hour ago and
it says, just learned that I am going to be
a grandfather soon. Seems weird. Seems weird, But good being
(28:20):
so mad at him that because I had to ideal
with the fallout of that, and at that point I
did not think it was funny. At that point, people didn't,
at least on social media. People did not think that
people control like that. At the same time that he's,
(28:41):
you know, posting these silly things on social media throughout
the years, he's on message boards, posting very serious things,
connecting with people, meeting people. You know, all these people
are seeing aside of him, or he's showing these people
aside of him, or feeling comfortable enough to be super
(29:01):
authentic in a way that he didn't ever feel like
he could be on social media. Hey guys, and better
than you. Oh my god, I'm having so much fun
on the beach. That's Alex in in a video he
posted to Instagram with the caption my short film inspired
(29:22):
by like everyone on social media. James remembers the time
Alex shared his frustrations about how a lot of people
reacted to his Instagram posts he had posted just like
a shirtless photo of him outside, which got like, you know,
hundreds of likes, and then he posts like a really
beautiful picture of just like an open window and some
landscape and it got like no likes, and like in
(29:43):
the comment section, he like calls out all his own
followers for like not liking content unless it was like
a sexualized picture of him, like naked outside. I think
it just speaks to like how conflicted he was about
Instagram or social media and like loving it and also
hating at the same time. Well, so fial media left
Alex feeling disillusioned. On forums he could be his full,
(30:05):
uninhibited self. Being himself in so called real life often
came with consequences. Back when he worked at that Bengal
shop with Bath in two thousand nine, Alex would get
reprimanded for playing music too loud or not having the
details of the latest Bengal special memorized. It was clear
to Bath that Alex found so many of the job's
(30:26):
rules pointless. Why memorize every kind of bangle when you
could just turn around and look at the board behind you.
I just remember like anger, and I don't mean rage,
I just mean in response to him being too much
or too annoy or whatever he were to get in
trouble for being too much music wise or customer service wise.
(30:46):
It wasn't met with shame or worry. It was met
with like anger and sarcasm or snippy irritation. And I
do think that probably was a big part of why
he liked the Internet so much, because he could kind
of like, he didn't have to jump through any hoops.
He could just like put whatever he wanted, whatever you
want on the Internet, and let's you get your account suspended.
(31:10):
But yeah, yeah exactly, I mean yeah, and he and
he did a lot all the time. Yeah, but it
didn't cost him a paycheck or yeah, exactly cost him much.
He just opened into account and he did. Freedom. That's
(31:31):
what the Internet gave Alex. Freedom to express himself, freedom
from a world with so many pointless hoops to jump through,
hoops that can feel especially daunting when you're living with
mental illness. The Internet's promise of freedom from rules and
gatekeepers is actually a big part of what fuels my
(31:53):
fantasy that Alison Brittany could be one and the same.
Over the years of Brittany self has used the Internet
to circumvent various gatekeepers. She rocketed to fame at the
beginning of the Internet era, but it wasn't until the
late two thousand's, in the midst of a media frenzy,
that she really took to the Internet to express herself publicly.
(32:15):
During that time, Brittney's website became one of the only
places where she could speak directly to people. Fans still
talk about the posts she shared on her short lived blog.
Perhaps the most infamous was titled You'll never see it
my way because you're not me real talk. I'm like
sure I wrote a anger post with that exact same
(32:35):
title at one point. Then there's the first post on
her blog, a poem entitled Remembrance of who I Am.
It included a note, this is for everyone who thinks
they know me. After years of Brittany being almost untouchably famous,
her blog seemed to offer her unfettered thoughts. Today, Instagram
(32:58):
has taken center stage as a window and Brittany's life.
But in an era of highly polished celebrity social media accounts,
when so many A listers employed teams to carefully construct
digital personas, Brittany's Instagram stands out as feeling like her
blog almost intentionally low fi and haphazard on Instagram. It
(33:18):
feels like Brittany is really being Brittany. Is it outlandish
to think that this same Brittany, who has regularly gone
online to express herself and rejected the manicured approach to
social media, might stumble into some online forums to chat
with fifteen or so trusted stands. Another thing fueling this
(33:42):
fantasy is that I know for sure that Alex did
connect with some of his favorite celebrities online. There was
Mira Sarvino, star of Alex's all time favorite movie Romeyan
Michelle's high school reunion. Alex left some of his passwords
to show she, including one to a Twitter account of
his that somehow hadn't been suspended in his d M.
(34:04):
There she was Mira Sorvino, chatting it up with a fan.
What we thought might have been a fantasy while Alex
was alive, just one of the many funny, random absurd
things he'd text us about had actually been real. Here's LEXI.
You're sort of immersed in your own ship and then
(34:24):
like he sends you like a weird tax being like,
oh my god, I'm talking with Mira Sorvino. And you're like,
what cool um? And it's like obviously, like I want
to be supportive, but it's like, in the back of
my mind, I don't fully believe him, but like I
don't know if he actually is that's amazing, you know,
And turns out he was. They're definitely like were moments
(34:47):
of me like not believing him, and those moments were
like probably when I was most immersed in my own
mundane life. Alex was also always posting about his biggest
celebrity crush, Fred Durst, the lead singer of Limp Biscuit
(35:09):
I Know. Eventually all of Alex's Durst tributes got Fred's attention,
and he left an emoji comment on one of Alex's
Instagram posts and viewed some of his stories. Alex talked
about it for weeks. Thanks to the Internet, fans can
feel closer and more connected to their favorite stars than
ever before. If Alex was interacting with the star of
(35:32):
his favorite movie and his number one crush online, is
it possible he was interacting with his favorite singer too.
I go back to my search for Alice, which in
a way feels like embodying Alex's digital freedom. It is
freeing to put my skepticism to rest and just dive
in show. She an expert internet sleuth in her own right,
(35:56):
offers to help, and we decide to swap notes. Tell
me what you found about Alice so far, because you're
like the super sleuth extraordinaire. Well, I guess that when
I first started doing the investigating, I was hoping that
what I would find would be proof that it was Brittany.
(36:18):
But while show, she's found a lot more than I
have other clips of Alice talking to people in tiny chats,
some of her old tweets and other posts, she hasn't
found proof. In fact, she's mostly found skepticism. As I
started doing more investigating, I saw so many posts from
people um that said it definitely wasn't Brittany. People are
(36:43):
very passionate over this. That was one thing I found.
There are a lot of posts where someone just asks
who has banana Alice, And it's pretty hilarious to see
there are so many passionate response is saying it's not Brittany,
this was from so long ago. It's just someone pretending
(37:06):
who cares leave it alone. I tell carry about these
discussion threads too. I mean, so what I'm getting from
all of this is you have probably already a community
of sleuths who are on this because it's just the
sort of thing anybody would obsess over right. If you're
(37:27):
a Britney Spears fanning, you think maybe you talk to
Britney Spears like you've already. It's got a lot of
the work Chris is now trying to do. My feeling
about it is that there's probably a lot of this
fook work just sitting out there waiting for you, um
in the form of these other fans. So I create
an account on that forum to reach out to some
(37:49):
of the people who say they interacted with Alice. Well,
I'm waiting for it to get approved. I look in
other parts of the online Brittany stand world. I find
a Twitter account that some Britney fans they kiss her
latest secret profile. Then I spot a verified Twitter account
belonging to an actor that follows and has interacted with it.
I message him to ask why a lot of fan
(38:11):
sites were claiming it was her. He says a friend
of mine was following it and buying into a conspiracy
that it must be her. Trying to reach out in anonymity.
This response makes me think of Alex. How he was
that friend for me, always sending me some new Brittany theory,
how he tried to get me to go into the
tiny chats when Alice was there. I never fully integrated
(38:35):
into Alex's online world, but he would invite me to
dip my toes in. This was one of Alex's greatest gifts.
He would pull you out of your own life and
into his world. You felt like you could like step
inside of this fantasy with him and like sort of
escape your real life and like go into like fun
(38:55):
alex Land. And a lot of times I would find
myself not caring whether or not something was real, even
as Lexi and I and so many of his other
friends went on with our own mundane lives. We benefited
from the way Alex's weird online world liberated him and others.
It seems to me now that so much of what
(39:16):
Alex was doing for me, how he helped me expand
the range of my voice over the years, was what
these online stand communities were doing for him. I may
never have joined in on the tiny chats myself, but
my own world was better, more colorful because of the
people he met in them. As I continue to poke
(39:37):
around on Twitter, I decided to look again for accounts
that have a similar handle to the one Alice shared
in one of the tiny chat recordings Alex sent me.
I had done this a few times already, but before
I never bothered to reach out to the profiles I
did find, figuring they were all copycats inspired by the
lore of Alice. This time, when I searched, there's an
(39:58):
account I didn't see the last time I looked, one
using the same user name Alice. Once did I tell
myself that it's obviously not her, that there's no way
she could be hiding in plain sight, or that she
would choose to return to Twitter during the exact window
of time is my search for her. I almost don't
reach out, but then I imagine Alex's Harry ghost telling
(40:22):
me to submit to the fantasy. Even if it isn't her,
this person is obviously aware of Alice. So I send
a message just in case they know something. I'm not
sure i'll even get a reply, but the next day
I do, and she says it's her. It's Alice. Next
(40:53):
time on unread, Oh gosh, I'm just I've had a
stomach ache last three day straight. I can't. I can't
imagine I'm not going to respond her immediately because I
feel like this is such an online thing. I feel
like I'm responding to her too quickly. It's like I'm
texting with somebody who I just met on an app
(41:14):
or something. I'm like feeling like I'm responding too quickly.
I don't want to be. I'm trying to play it cool,
you know. It's like you're texting Alex on Instagram like
a friend. He is just gonna like disappear good
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