What Is Fictosexuality? (Tanja Välisalo)

Welcome to Post Games, a podcast about how and why we love video games.

I am your host, Chris Plant, and I am so happy to have you here as we discuss the most powerful force in the world.

Not nihilism, not hatred. I am talking about love.

And wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, don't turn off the episode.

Please, this won't be sappy. I promise.

Let's all start with a deep breath, a sincere question, and an honest answer.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

I believe the answer is universally, yes, that having the hots for a character in a cartoon,

a book or a video game is something that we've all experienced, at least once,

but rarely said aloud. Names like Jessica Rabbit and Lola Bunny, Flynn Rider and Prince Zuko

might send a tingle up the back of your neck, and that my friends is OK.

The flutter of the heart and the raising of the pulse might end with the credits roll,

or it might continue the character appearing in people's social media avatars,

or their bumper stickers, or throughout their favorite fanfiction.

And on a dark and lonely night, they might even have switched on in Cognito mode,

and search for a certain character's name, plus Rule 34,

their computer screen filling with Yogi Bear performing the most taboo of X on a delighted snagopus.

And that, too, is OK, even if it's less common.

For most people, these crushes, from the sweet to the not safer work,

go no further than attraction, because after all fictional characters by definition are fiction.

But for a small group of people who identify as Ficto Files,

the feeling is flourishing to love.

Video games have been associated with Ficto Filia before it even really had a name,

but especially since 2018, when a man symbolically married Hatsune Miku,

a fictional pop star who appears in gobs of video games, where players not only help her sing

hit songs, but select her clothes, style her looks, and decorate her deeper room,

a sort of adorable green room space where you can hang out with this teal-haired icon.

And, away from video games, they have the freedom to create songs for the character to sing,

using specialized Bokaloid software, which used to say,

fans can make Hatsune Miku into whatever they'd like.

We have come a long way since Miku. Since 2018, the biggest and wealthiest tech companies

have sunk billions into artificial intelligence to create machines that don't just sing and dance

and wear your favorite clothes, but perform menial tasks and shower the user in flirtatious praise,

chopped often from copyright-protected text, and then collaged by predictive algorithm.

Many tech CEOs have been open about their desire to hook customers with chatbot tools designed

to mimic human behavior. Cautious brands have paid celebrities, millions of dollars to appear

in Super Bowl ads where they talk to their smart home speaker like it's their best friend,

while Elon Musk has proudly loaded his AI with an army of sex spots, a glorified mechanical

parrot that will say all of your favorite naughty words. Which is why I felt so strongly about doing

this episode. I believe that in the coming years, we will need to be collectively prepared to have

some tough, sensitive, and often contradictory conversations about what it means to fall in love

with fictional characters. So, this week on Post Games, I am talking with one of the leading

researchers of Fiktofelia and Fiktosexuality, Tanya Balisano. I spoke with my guest because

Fiktosexuality is broadly misunderstood in various between people, regions, and experiences.

So I wanted to chat with someone who has spent time reading, analyzing, and contextualizing the

words and feelings of people from across the community. That said, I want you to have the chance

to hear directly from people who identify as Fiktophilic or Fiktosexual, too. So I've included a

variety of links in the show and it's ranging from interviews with the man who symbolically married

Hatsune Miku to lesser-covered everyday experiences of people in places like the Fiktosexual subreddit,

where experiences range from Fiktosexuality to semi-fiktosexuality to having characters that provide

a sense of stability and comfort. I do ask, though, that if you choose to visit these sites especially

community spaces like Reddit, that you engage with them sincerely, we don't want to be tourist

in these communities. We want to learn about the wide breadth of human experience and see where

it overlaps with our own, especially if you listen to this episode and hear yourself in it,

which is my long-winded way of saying, I want to handle this topic with as much respect as possible

because we all deserve as much. So for this week, act one, what is Fiktophilia, act two,

fandoms, parasocial relationships, and big tech? A special Patreon bonus, I have it. A big milestone,

this is a rare peak behind the curtain. I know it's a little inside baseball, but I think you will

be excited to hear about where the show is going and I can't wait to tell you. And act three,

as always, the news of the week. Plus, we have a new song from the upcoming game, Tears of Metal.

All of that, and more, right after this break.

This episode is brought to you in part by Incogni, as a video game journalist who has been doxed.

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Act 1. What is Fictifilia? Today's guest is Dr. Tanya Valesalo, a teacher, researcher and

project coordinator at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies at the University of

Yavaskala in Finland. Her research focuses on game and fandom studies beyond today's topic

her work ranges from research on esports and streaming to sexual violence and popular media

like Game of Thrones. In the first half she'll introduce us to the history and communities of

Fictifilia and Fictosexuality and in the second half we'll talk about Fictifilia in relation to

fandoms, parasocial relationships and the mega companies that seek to exploit relationships

with fictional characters in order to convert massive audiences into AI true believers.

The study states that the quote, present intention is not to propose Fictifilia as a problem

or a disorder. What was the intention of the study? To understand what this phenomenon is,

how people themselves understand it, what kind of experiences and emotions are related to it,

and to kind of understand how they position themselves as parts of a larger communities

or in relation to different identities. So that was kind of the focus because there was some

really no existing research on this particular phenomenon or there was very little of it

or it was older so we wanted to get into the heart of what is happening right now to understand.

It's picking up understanding. I'm sure there are plenty of people listening who have felt

an attraction to a cartoon character before. How is Fictifilia different from people watching a film

like let's say Roger Rabbit and being attracted to Jessica Rabbit or Roger Rabbit? How is

Fictifilia different than those feelings? The main difference is that people who identify as

Fictor Romantic, it's a huge part of their identity and they often are either only attracted to

fictional characters or at least it is a major part of their romantic or sexual identity.

So I think that's the biggest difference because for all of us it's very normal and natural to feel

attraction to a fictional character because fictional characters are built like that. We are

kind of responding to them as if they were real people. That's kind of the essence of a fictional

character but then when it comes to this Fictophilic experience, fictional characters are

forming kind of the focus of these persons romantic and sexual feelings. How new is this as a feeling?

Or I guess another way to put it is what are the earliest examples you could find of

Fictophilic feelings? Oh gosh, I'm sure you could find really old examples. Of course we don't have

access to the earliest or it's difficult to say what would be like the earliest case but

I would expect that it's as old as mass media at least because mass media is something that

has allowed us to connect with these different fictional characters, representations of

fictional characters in many different media forums. Of course there are certainly, I'm sure we

can find examples from even before but mass media has allowed us to have a variety of fictional

characters we can encounter every day. So it's easy to find an ideal person from that variety.

I will avoid stepping on the third rail here of modern religion. So I'll just say let's say

Greek gods but I couldn't help but find a similarity here between the relationship with people

and gods and again for using Greek gods for a safety net. Is there a difference between

that kind of intense passionate relationship and something like this? Well, I'm more

than expert in religious experiences. I'm sure there can be a kind of a religious connection

with a deity that comes close to Fictophilia. I have originally studied history and my background is

in history research. So I of course have to say that it's always kind of dangerous to draw

two direct parallels between earlier phenomena and current phenomena because we can never completely

get into the kind of the cultural context and mindset that people used to have in ancient days. So

I would actually think of Fictophilia more like a phenomenon that can have similar

similar previous examples in the past but still I would think that Fictophilia is strongly a

modern phenomenon when we define it as Fictophilia per se because it's the word that the people

use who have found each other through internet. I think that's one of the major things that

allows this kind of phenomenon to arise is that there have probably been people

for ages who have had these kinds of private experiences, experiences of not being able to find

anyone in this plane of existence in real life who would be as interesting or as attractive as

a particular fictional character but they were very alone experiences certainly because

these people were not just able to connect with each other. Now with the online groups, different

kinds of online communities, forums, it's possible to find others who have these fairly rare

experiences at least a lot of the much of the population of the world then it's easier to form

communities. So if we look at for example English speaking forums and online websites you can have

as we found in our research that there are loads of these forums and discussions where people

discuss these experiences so they have been able to find each other and find this peer support

and find through others through discussing with others find an understanding or what is this

that I'm feeling and experiencing and to give a name to that experience. I think you have to have

the peer support, you have to have the community to be able to find a name. Let's take into

the communities because there is this tension. So your study notes that one of the most common topics

in these online forums is stigma and shame and yet they are choosing to speak about it. So they're

breaking past some layer of that stigma and shame. What gets them over that hump?

I think certainly the main kind of takeaway from this that this is clearly so important to them.

These are not emotions that come one week and are gone the next but they are clearly something

that has stayed with them for a while. It doesn't mean that the situation isn't different a year

or two years or five years later but in a point where they come and discuss these emotions

in an online forum in these online settings they have already been feeling this way for quite a while.

So it clearly takes precedence in their life and of course we presume that lots of these people

are young people. We don't know their age exactly but we expect and can cause true

from some of their writings that many of them are quite young. So of course it is possible

that these experiences are something that are part of their development for example. So it doesn't

mean that they necessarily have had these emotions for a decade even though these kinds of cases

exist as well but in general it's clearly something that they're a pondry. They are trying to

understand themselves. Why are these emotions with me? Why am I different than my friends or

family members or other people around me? Because others seem to be able to form relationships

with other people and I don't. So it's clearly for them it's something that it's kind of a riddle

they want to understand themselves and I think that's why they also start talking about it. Even

though there's hesitation there can be fear how will others feel about me and in this study

we actually noticed when people write about this stigma. For some it's stopping them

from sharing with their friends or families. They experience them because of themselves

as fictophilic or fictor romantic or fictosexual. So many of them don't share it anywhere else

except on this online forums. You have a great term for the feelings that are going through the

minds of someone who is experiencing fictophilic emotions and it's the fictophilic paradox. Can

you explain what that is? So fictophilia can be problematic for the people experiencing it

because at the same time they have found this love or attraction to this wonderful person

but this person is a fictional character. It's not someone they can actually interact with

in their daily lives and we know that love and attraction are usually considered as positive

feelings even though they can also bring off course different kinds of sorrows and pain with them.

But at the same time these people experiencing fictophilia they are very much aware that this

is not a real person so they can never truly be with them. So happiness and attraction and love

may be on the other hand but then again there's always the distance. There's always the distance

with the fictional love. They can never really really be together. They can never really truly

interact and that brings the pain or the sorrow in these. I think it's something that's very

familiar to many of us. We look at an amazing film or TV series that deeply affects us or play a

game where we interact with characters who are really important to us but when the story ends

or when the game is over or you are done with the book it doesn't continue and the sadness

you feel when you have to kind of leave it. Of course you can go back and rewatch or replay

or reread but still there's an ending. Yeah. I don't know. Have you experienced that when you have

played a really great game or a really wonderful movie or you're sad that it ends?

Yeah. It's the sadness that it ends. Oddly I feel like a lot of modern media is keen to this

so it doesn't end. It wants to create the sense that it's just a part of our world. Star Wars

as much as part of our world as anything else it will never end. You can go visit Disneyland.

It's trying to create a sense of this fictional thing being real and we'll get into this more in

the second half of the way that people close that distance. Before we get to that though

I did want to pick it other ways. This feels similar to I guess I would say typical experiences.

In the study you talk about fictophilic super normal stimuli. It sounds like a fancy term but

it's actually quite easy to explain. It is where the superior capacities and features associated

with fictional characters evoke this feeling especially when compared to quote real people.

You have fictional characters who can constantly succeed. They can do all sorts of things that are

impossible in the real world and they also have physical appearances that are defy

physics. I would say all of that said how is this different from say photoshopped images of models

that are on our magazines or the tweaking that is done with light even in a film. Are we more

accustomed to these super normal stimuli than we might assume? I think we certainly are and I

think you're hitting a really interesting point there because I find that fictophilic has a lot

in common with the so-called parasocial relationships we might have with different celebrities so for

the longest time in fan studies, audience studies, psychology. There's been research on how people

relate to celebrities, movie stars, TV hosts and so forth and there are lots of similarities to

these really intense fan relationships with these real people, these performers in comparison to

emotions and connections people experiencing fictophilia have with these fictional characters.

So I think there's a lot of similarities but the biggest difference currently in the

H or social media is that you have the possibility it might be very small but you have the potential

of actually reaching the celebrity you are admiring. You might be even able to meet them but

despite the way you live, where you are in the world, you might be able to get a response

from that celebrity through a social media account. That's the difference so I think that's why

certainly how celebrities they have the kind of public images that are of course polished and

and you mentioned like photoshopping and these kinds of enhancements to the represent physical

representations as well. But I still think that they are very similar but there is the difference

in a sense of possibility of actually being together or touching the person here or in law.

We of course know this on Instagram you don't necessarily know if it's a real person that's

really in effect. We're absolutely going to be getting back into that in just a moment but before

that just on the super normal stimuli I in my head when I think about this as someone who

has not experienced this by definition I assume it is almost entirely physical attraction which I

guess makes me a cliche of a man in some ways but what I enjoyed in this study and it makes so

much sense is super normal stimuli can be all sorts of things and you I believe even point to like

what a 40-year-old man with kids would actually find to be super normal stimuli and it's not just

appearance can you explain what the other versions of that are? I think it's just any personality traits

or activities or practices connected to that character that you consider that are ideal so it

could be that the fictional character could appear as the ideal mate who well these are clichés

but brings breakfast to bed or is always in a good mood or you know any of these traits that

real people just or not you know we all have bad days and none of us are perfect so with the

fictional character you can always at least imagine that they are the perfect partner

so that they are the answer to all of your wishes, dreams, expectations before we wrap this

section I do want to go back to that parasocial and celebrity comparison because that for the

person experience it might sound like a negative that you can't close that distance but you also

describe that as in some ways a positive because the fictional character is not being real also makes

them quote in your words safe what does safe mean in this scenario? In some games fictional characters can

respond to you can reciprocate your feelings for example in some ways so technically that is

possible but still you are always aware that it is the way they are coded to do it's the algorithm

really working there so in general fictional characters are safe because you don't get anything

unexpected you know what they are you know what's coming you are not in any way surprised

necessarily you can always just close the window or or TV or the book or the game and you can

turn it off so in many ways you have the control you are in control of the fictional characters

their representations so there's none of the danger that comes with human relationships

where you don't necessarily have the full control you never do you don't know what the other

person is going to say or do and of course the very real possibility that the real person might

leave you the fictional character never does well I think that's a nice sour sweet place to take a quick

break and then we'll come right back this episode is brought to you in part by a factor you got the

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breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active act to fandoms parasocial

relationships and big tech so here we're going to talk about both how the tepilia ties into games

and really the experience of it I want to start with the gaming this is a gaming podcast

what characters from gaming have you seen inspire thick to feel like feelings for

fictophilia there is no specific one character that we have found that would arouse these emotions

so rather I would say the japanese role playing games that might be the like ashan ray that comes up

often but I think the diversity of characters that ficto sexual fictor romantic fictophilic people

are attracted to I think it just goes to show that these fictophilic emotions are more about the

person experiencing them rather than the character the fictional character that awakens them

so it's more about coming across a certain character in a right time and right place

who somehow responds or answers to the needs the person has at that moment perhaps the most

famous example of ficto sexuality is akiko kondo a middle aged japanese man who famously

symbolically emphasis on symbolic here because it's often misreported married hot scene miko

a character that is a vocaloid basically a pop star and akihiko kondo has since become something

of an outspoken advocate for cultural acceptance of fictosexuality why do you think this particular

person's fictosexual relationship has attracted so much public and media attention for nearly a

decade I think that's really just down to the novelty of the phenomenon for many people it's as

we discussed many people experience the stigma related to fictophilia and it makes them scared

telling about their experiences even to their friends or families so I think this case is different

because this person has come out publicly to discuss fictophilia so I think it's just because

it's so new for so many people reading the new stories finding out about this now I must say I

haven't really followed closely this kondo's case I'm not familiar with them I would also be

hesitant in a way to to give you know analysis or judgments on you know someone I I don't really know

I think what research can do is we can give a deeper understanding on the phenomenon based on

the kinds of stories of multiple different people we're talking the first half about this

distance that people feel during this kind of paradox in what ways did you see people trying to

close that gap to carry the character with them in some way to recreate the character that they

love in the real world well the fictophilic paradox it's something that many of the people we

studied they or the experiences we we studied they depicted how the paradox

became real for them or felt especially cruel or hard on those moments when they were disengaging

from media so those moments when people were actually engaged in engaged with the character somehow

watching a tv series episode or playing the game those were the moments when they

felt really close to the character but then the shift from doing that to something else

is one of those places where people often really felt the distance and where it felt really painful

but on the other hand also everyday life situations so situations where other people go out with

their partners talk about their partners are able to do everyday things with their partners

these experiences of fictophilia also described these moments as potentially painful places where

these people had to were faced with the different realities they and their friends or family members

had because they were able to go go go grocery shopping with their partner and the person

who felt they were attracted to or even in a relationship with a fictional character they

couldn't really do that that difference also from others make the distance feel further and more

there is another term that you used in some ways as a counter to the parasocial relationships

that we were talking about in the past and that is love objects which is I think a bit more

positive sounding than parasocial relationships in service a different purpose can you describe

how these two perspectives are different the parasocial perspective versus the love

love object perspective I'm not actually quite sure that there is such a different huge difference

because there are also some researchers feel that fictophilia is kind of just one expression of

parasocial relationships now being a really academic guest for you and saying that I think these

definitions like finding out if these are different or similar would need a bit more

research on that level before I would dare to re-respond to that I'll pivot to a game related

thing which is we briefly touched on that games are unique in these situations and that games can

at least create the illusion of interactivity and I am very curious about how the way that technology

is evolving is going to impact these sorts of experiences I think it was something like the

tubers which came from a mix of game development tools and Folkaloids like Hatsune Miku they are now

popular enough to fill conventions in baseball stadiums how do you see fictophilia in expressions

of it evolving as fictional characters become quite responsive in real time settings that's a

really interesting question as a researcher I'm really excited to see where the future will

take us on this because certainly with different AI solutions becoming more and more prevalent and

cheaper and easier to access I think there is true potential when we did our study this

kind of avalanche of large language models and technology based on them had multi-attabend

it was maybe emerging slowly so I think doing this research now or maybe five years from now

might bring new really interesting possibilities I find it completely possible that people

experiencing fictor-amantographic to sexual emotions or just fans in general would more and more

find these new technological solutions to use to interact with the characters that they love and

need it by her so I think it's not something that's necessarily only about fictophilia it's

something that might change ways that fandom works in a sense that ways that fan activities take

place yeah I feel like we're just feeling to see that with the generative AI chatbot so especially

on platforms like x which are promoting these sorts of experiences it is a feature of the platform

sorry I was just going to add that technically it's now very possible for a person with with

fairly like medium technical skills to be able to create a chatbot based on the fictional character

that they really really love if they have enough data to so so certainly it's possible already

beyond this rigid scope of fictophilia we do have the broader culture of sexualized or romanticized

characters across entertainment the fandom of them how have corporations fed this culture or

subculture fans having at some level romantic or lustful feelings whether it is

fictophilic or something a little more common for fictional characters how are people or companies

converting that into money that is actually really interesting because often it seems that

large media companies media producers they are using or finding the techniques from fandom so

we have seen for example with this launch of transmedia production in the last 10-15 years

with these large transmedia products where the same fictional universe is dispersed to many

different products and and mediums how many of these practices are directly coming from fandom the

things that fans have been doing for decades and ages these strategies that they have created

now companies are using those strategies to create revenue they are directly using the kinds of

tools of narrative expansion for example so I think probably in the future we we will again see

commercial entities taking notes or what fans are doing yeah and then capitalizing on that

because we have seen that happen so many times a last thing friend you study fandoms as a

larger tent not just this what did your research into fictophilia help you better understand

about fandom in general in the fan experience I think the study of fictophilia really showed the

diversity of fan experiences and also what I found very interesting was the connection or the

engagement with the title of fan so the identity of fan many of these people described that they

do not find a place for themselves in fandom that they do not identify as fans so fictophilia

was something different from fandom it's really interesting that fandom has become in the last

decades such a prevalent phenomenon that we see more and more of these different identities

being defined through not being a fan and I think that actually tells us something about

how fandom here has really become mainstream and they need to be more it sounds like in some way

fandom used to meant intense almost fanatical relationship and you're right now everyone is a fan

of something fans used to be the ones bearing the stigma so fandom was something that was considered

unhealthy childish not fitting for adults certainly for example and we have seen the change in that

in the last decades now I think we can just see these new cultures new identities emerging

for whom fandom is now the mainstream fan cultures are in many many places now the mainstream I think

this is also something that is partially perhaps a generational question I think that

myself for example I have identified as a fan of different things from very early from my teenage

years so I think these kinds of phenomena just show that these identities are also tied to certain

times places and generations that is a perfect place to end it thank you so much where where should

people look if they want to follow your work or they want to know more about what you do oh I'm

kind of boring in a sense that I don't I don't have a cool website at the moment and I'm actually

spending a lot of the time off social media nowadays but I think blue sky is probably the

place that can be found that's perfect thank you so much thank you

a patreon bonus a big update on post games here is where we split for patreon subscribers something

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for everybody else though no worries we still have the news of the week and a new song from the

upcoming game cheers of metal as the title suggests it is a heavy metal anthem so let's split

so

act three the news of the week okay so for this episode's news I wanted to catch y'all up on the

growing concern about child safety on roadblocks my friend and former colleague Nicole Carpenter

recently spoke with the roadblocks head of parental advocacy about the company's efforts

around child safety and it stands on the hundred plus active lawsuits against the company

we don't discuss it here because it would have become the entire conversation but at one point

in Carpenter's interview and it's available on vulture.com I'll link it in the show notes you should

go read it the head of parental advocacy at roadblocks makes an unusual comparison to quote

true young british schoolgirls who went off to fight ISIS you're gonna need to read that part

on your own anyway Nicole Carpenter is a reporter whose work has appeared across a variety of

publications from 404 media to aftermath game file to game spot and she previously worked with me

at polygon her interview with dr. Elizabeth Lovatov is available on vulture in the story

roadblocks head of parental advocacy says we're all responsible for kids's online safety let's

hop into it but you spoke with dr. Elizabeth Lovatov who is the head of parental advocacy at

roadblocks a relatively new role created to address the let's say mounting concerns from both

parents and politicians that child predators will use a platform to groom abduct and abuse

children but before we get into that I'd like to set the table because I think there are many older

people who aren't parents and they still don't know much about roadblocks so first just how big

is roadblocks roadblocks is massive people who don't know a ton about roadblocks itself see

roadblocks as a game but roadblocks is actually a platform that has thousands of games on it and

so many of those games at any given time have tens of thousands of people playing it and when you

add all of that up you get millions and millions of people playing per day you have long been an

advocate such fans such critic of neopets yeah and I am talking with the uh CEO of neopets

cited today for a future episode and I'm realizing everyone who played neopets was better prepared

for roadblocks than everybody else because the like superstructure it was there like that it's

an entire different side of video games that has just grown and grown and grown to be bigger than

arguably all of video games yeah I actually think about that a lot my relationship to neopets

as a child and that place for me as a child and when I'm thinking about what roadblocks is now

for children and I you know I was a child when I was playing neopets I wasn't thinking about safety

concerns and I looking back I don't even really know what neopets was doing to be safe-ish but I

don't remember hearing a ton about like safety issues on the platform the moderation was pretty good

you could talk to other people but it was um through neo-male or on forums which were heavily

moderated I don't remember looking to connect with people off the platform either I mostly stayed

contained within neopets and I think that might be because there weren't other you know well you

could go to AOL you could go to instant messenger and so but yes anyways I think a lot about

neopets and its role in my life as a child compared to roadblocks and what children are you know

that space for children now these sorts of spaces for children are important but the safety is also

a major concern there are a few things that you said there one about like how moderation works

into being on or off platform we're gonna get to all of that in just a second first I know it's

like very tough because users can register under false ages but what percentage of the user

bases estimated to be children okay so roadblocks actually has some improved data ads of recently

the February shareholders report because of their new age of verification tools which is like

an AI face scan that determines your age based off your face it's probably not perfect and

there probably are ways around it again this data is like you know who it maybe it's a little

wrong but it's probably mostly right and they said that their user bases younger than they

actually thought based off self reported data so 45% of daily active players have verified their age

35% of that is under 13 38% are between 13 and 17 and 27% of people who have you know done

the age verification are over 18 so that's a significant amount of people who are under 18

you mentioned with neopets like being able to communicate via neomail or unmoderated forums how

does roadblocks allow players to communicate with one another roadblocks let's players communicate

through chat functionality that is embedded into the games is there moderation yes there is

moderation there are filters and you know the roadblocks says it's a mixture of human and AI

moderation and the thing now is that with this age verification the AI assist the AI tool to

like verify ages that is designed specifically to turn off the ability for people to chat you know

unilaterally people who are in the under 13 bracket with the age verification can only talk to

people on roadblocks who are also within that like under 13 bracket and so the hope there is

an under 13 person no longer can talk to someone who's over the age of 18

and that nobody in either direction is exploiting that system yes so like people who are

age verified as over 18 aren't going to be able to use the communication tools to even contact

people who are under 13 there are still ways you know it's not like a perfect system I certainly

have worries about it we've seen this before with people using I can't remember which app this

was for people using like cartoon characters or like photos of video game characters I think

Death Stranding's Norman Reedus was used as like a face that could get past it I don't know

if it's just a quarter sum system yeah yeah and roadblocks is the way that the AI age verification

works is that it's through video and so put the circle on your face and you just turn your face

back and forth it's not just like judging by a photo but you know there's if there's a will

there's a way how long has child predation been an issue on the platform I would say that likely

always been an issue but around 2020 like all other platforms and video games like it blew up and

it blew up at such an explosive rate where you know you saw a very what seemed to be a big

increase in the amount of people who were being arrested for this or lawsuits that were happening

started to go from like 2020 after that huge boom and what a lot of the you know roadblocks

those critics are saying is that roadblocks expanded at such a rate that its moderation could not

keep up with you know the explosive growth that like the growth was the priority and not keeping

people who use roadblocks safe I want to come back to that idea at the very end but first you

mentioned the lawsuits you reported that roadblocks is currently facing over 100 lawsuits from

parents and caregivers who believe their kids have been harmed from the time with the game there

are also lawsuits from government institutions roadblocks itself it's we're saying disputes these

claims you mentioned the AI moderation you mentioned the age getting what else is roadblocks done

to improve safety since these lawsuits started to bubble up the other part of that beyond the age

verification is sort of like building up its tools for parents and allowing parents the ability

to block certain games or to limit chat or you know just just to have like more control over what

their children are doing on roadblocks and so that's like what that sort of like suite of tools

is what this whole push has it's been built around the age verification is like the big thing

that a lot of it is centered around so the two problems from me and I'm not I'm not

speaking even really as journalist here so much as like parent who doesn't allow their child to

use roadblocks anymore is the question of passing the buck and then scaling and at first passing

the buck you you asked dr. Molovedov about a specific case I might believe his two curls were

abducted and she told you quote look at what the articles say the fact is they may have spoken to

this person or met them on roadblocks but then they were a course to they went off to a different

platform that's the end of the quote what does she mean by different platform here and why there's

like a different I guess measurement of responsibility yeah this has been roadblocks lined for a long

time and kind of downplaying roadblocks as role in these sorts of incidents because what happens

in a lot of these cases is that children will meet someone on roadblocks through that chat

functionality and this a lot of these cases did happen before the age verification started

limiting that who you can chat with so that said so two people will meet on roadblocks and they will

exchange information maybe they'll go to discord maybe they'll go to Instagram maybe they'll

go to Snapchat and then they will continue their relationship their you know whatever that may be

on another platform they may still use roadblocks as a place to like interact but what roadblocks

is saying is that like yeah a lot of this bad stuff's happening like somewhere else and kind of

downplaying the role that like well these people are meeting on roadblocks this is where they're

finding people and so discord is has also been named discord and Snapchat have both been named

in some of these lawsuits you know trying to hold them accountable for this as well yeah I

personally think it's fucking insane to say like oh I met your kid at the school playground but

all the bad stuff happened in my car right I know it's not one for one legally I'm not in the

interest of getting sued but I guess the bigger question that I have for you both as a reporter

and somebody you know analyzing all of this the bigger picture is it feels like this is

it is bigger than roadblocks to give them I guess credit that every tech company is trying to

scale quickly and that there is no effort to match moderation at the scale so there might be

an effort to moderate but not to match the scale is that I'm asking you the impossible question

what do parents do with that I know because like because yeah it is bigger than roadblocks

but you can't deny the role roadblocks has in this because it's where people meet and that's

such a crucial part of these these incidents these relationships is like it's such a core piece

of this predator problem however I don't know like it the thing it's so confusing it's so hard

because I am at a loss too for what parents do do you fully say no you can't be on roadblocks

do you try to use these parental tools it's very confusing and I'm speaking as someone who's

not a parent I can't imagine what it looks like to have to navigate this as a parent and to

see these stories but to also see what your children want what your child wants to get you know

it is a social platform like a lot of people are you know just talking with their friends on

there they're like just you know doing that sort of thing but like the risk is so real that yeah

I think it would be hard for me to overlook that risk there there was a part at the end of the

interview where she actually asks you what would you do and I find it so interesting because that's

a recurring thing again that I see in tech and you are a great interviewer and you did your job

and I I will say what my feeling is on that yeah is I am very tired of people asking that question

when the answer is actually very easy which is slow down yeah it's actually unbelievably easy

but the really what I think is often being asked is what do we do without having to do the thing

that works yeah yeah because roadblocks is at this scale now like more people are playing

Roblox's top games and they are playing seems top games you can't go back from there and I think

that's the problem is that you can't scale down now like it's already out of the box and that

is such a really real problem that Roblox scaled at this rate and didn't have the moderation to

keep up with that and that's what makes this problem so hard is like you can't undo that you can't

go you can't just go back and try to slap a safety bandaid on it the only thing that brings me

joy because I want to end on positive note is that you know we should have learned this lesson

from social media and now like I'm gotten a second shot at it and we didn't learn it from Roblox

but you know we won't be fooled a third time and like you know like build a whole bunch of

data centers that cost like a lot of money and then like do this again that that won't happen

that won't happen cool got it and yeah you said it out loud so I've got you on the record

in Nicole Carpenter great thank you so much for doing this and thank you so much for

reporting on things that are existentially crushing you're welcome no but thank you for having me

I am always happy to talk to you and talk to you about Roblox where should people find you

do you hear her she's trying to speak for me what do you say she said you can find my mommy

Nicole Carpenter at on blue sky at wow yeah incredible I'll ask her to write it down for the show

notes yeah if she could write it down for the show notes being a dog is rough I'll see you later

but yeah yeah yeah yes whoop I just got fit it just a little just a little on the hand

and that is a wrap on fictifilia this was a challenging topic for me to parse I hope listeners that

you walk away not with judgment of individuals but as I said from the very beginning skepticism

of platforms governments and companies that seek to exploit how we feel for their gain and if

there's no gain to be had then prepare for them to squash those feelings and the people who have them

also just hope that you learned about one of the many ways that we see and experience the world

in the unique ways each of us loves people and art next week you might not know that yes

but you would not be playing video games today without them the ESA protected games from the U.S.

government in the 1990s in the 2000s leading to the monumental supreme court decision that gave

games the same protections as other art forms now with growing concerns around gambling and

child safety inside of video games and tariffs and artificial intelligence outside of video games

the ESA must once again guide the medium through a period of existential peril I talk with the ESA

president Stanley Pierre-Louis about everything from artificial intelligence to calls for unionization

and he provides a history of the ESA from its origins in the wake of early 1990s mortal combat

hysteria to its heyday overseeing e3 to its current form during the trump administration

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you