Fuck You, Pay Me #18: 2024 Year in Review

This is part 18 of “Fuck You, Pay Me,” an ongoing series of posts on writing, editing, and publishing.

For the final Fuck You, Pay Me of 2024, I thought I’d round up some highlights from this year’s FYPM posts.

From Fuck You, Pay Me #17: How to Write a Short Story:

“And so it went. Some days I wrote a single 100-word paragraph. Some days I wrote several. At one point, I didn’t work on the story for several weeks. Eventually, though, I got back to it. I started falling in love with my main character, who I thought was hilarious. The premise amused me to no end, what this guy living this relatively normal life would do when he found himself encountering something rather remarkable. I envisioned the house. The yard. The wife. Her departure. How he came to discover that a porn movie was being shot in the house behind his. What his personal history in relationship to porn was. How he justified his curiosity, and what he found when he got there. I was Stewart, and Stewart was me.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #16: An Excerpt From My Memoir:

“As I understood it, my life in a psychological experiment began on the day I was born. At 1:38 a.m., on April 10, 1968, I was delivered in the maternity ward of an Oakland, California, hospital. According to my mother, I was a hideous baby. Instead of having two distinct eyebrows, my eyebrows met in the middle to form one long horizontal brow, otherwise known as a mono-brow, which, while flattering on the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo or the basketball player Anthony Davis, was unsettling on a newborn. Due to a severe case of jaundice, my skin and the whites of my eyes were a curious shade of yellow, giving me a radioactive glow. And my skull was grossly misshapen, the result of the compression my cranium had undergone as I journeyed down my mother’s vaginal canal. Unsure what to do (as if there was anything to be done) or say (as if there was anything to say) about my unfortunate countenance, the obstetrician cut the umbilical cord and thrust me in the direction of my mother.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #15: Why You Should Have a Newsletter:

“As someone who has been writing forever, I’ve had a lot of editors over the years. Some are great and have improved my writing. Some are so-so and don’t have much of an impact. Some are terrible and shouldn’t be allowed to edit their own shopping lists. With my newsletter, I have no editor. No gatekeeper who gets to green flag or red flag what I want to write about. No person meddling with my prose. No point-of-view I have to take into consideration when trying to decide if I should or shouldn’t write about something of interest to me. If you’re a weak or inexperienced writer, not having an editor may be a downside, but for me, it’s all good when the editor is not only not in my head but doesn’t exist.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #14: Cranking the Flywheel:

“What am I working on these days? A good question. When you’re a writer, you tend to have a lot of pots on the stove. Here are a few things I’m doing, may be doing, am going to be doing, should be doing, want to be doing. The point is to generate momentum and get the proverbial word-based flywheel turning.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #13: How to Be a Consultant:

“When I got divorced, I took my consulting savvy with me. Almost immediately, I started doing consulting work. I only work with a retainer, because that’s the best way to form a relationship with a client. Years ago a former boss of mine compared me to a Swiss Army Knife, which was a way of saying I did a lot of things. This is true for consulting. I advise on branding, communications, social media, PR, marketing, and strategy. Oftentimes, my role is prophylactic. That is, I am advising the client to not do something that wouldn’t be to their advantage. At other times, I help them shape their image. Most of my clients come through word of mouth. I have a reputation for being good at crisis communications. I like the proximity to power, to big-number deals, to real movers and shakers. I have learned how general counsels think; what makes millionaires, multi-millionaires, and billionaires tick; that if you get exposed to enough high-level operators you will find yourself referring to companies with $3 billion valuations as ‘small.’ My clients are almost exclusively men. As a consultant, I am an invisible member of the big boy’s club.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #12: The Fine Art of Applying to Writing Residencies:

“To be honest, at the beginning I didn’t do a lot of research on what I was ‘supposed’ to do while applying because I kind of wanted to just figure out for myself. Over time, I did think more and do more research about what does and doesn’t work when applying for a writing residency. The big realization I had which is super obvious but wasn’t at the time was that as the writer applying for the thing you hope to get, you’re very me focused. Is my writing sample good enough? Is my bio impressive enough? Will these people think I suck as a writer and / or human being? Why am I doing this? But at some point I read something written by someone who, you know, reviews these types of applications, and I saw it more from their end. In a way, it’s a lot like applying for a job. It’s not just your skills or your resume, it’s also about whether or not you’re a fit — for their cohort, or their ideology, or their brand. So I tried to be a bit more me and a bit less saying what I thought they wanted me to say. Instead of trying to be perfect and impressive, I tried to show that I was creative and inventive and curious. You are going to be around other writers; I mean, they want to know who you are. Not just how you write.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #11: How to Be More Creative:

“How long did it take me to write each approximately 150 to 250 micro-fiction? Not long. I’m pretty sure it was maybe 15 minutes at the most. I mean, it was probably more like 10 minutes maximum. I wrote the story directly on the webpage I had dedicated to the project. I drafted it straight through without stopping or thinking. Then I published it. After that, I went back into the CMS and lightly revised the story, not really changing it so much as cleaning it up. If the story wasn’t perfect or not up to some standard in my head, oh, well! It was done. Finally, I added a photo to accompany the story (each story is paired with one of my photographs). Mission accomplished. With every story, I was one step closer to my goal. This uncensoring-the-self aspect of the project was the most important component and the most additive to what I was doing at the same time: working on my novel. I wasn’t so much exercising my fiction muscle, I was starting to realize, as I was shutting off the critical part of my brain and giving the creative part of my brain room to run around and kick up its heels and get a little wild. Stories 11 through 20 are about an avatar, a robot, a cougar (I was watching the second season of ‘MILF Manor,’ which is totally insane, and which apparently deeply affected me or at least gave me a rabbit hole to go down), that cougar’s cub, that cougar’s cub’s ex-girlfriend, that cougar’s cub’s ex-girlfriend’s father, that cougar cub’s ex-girlfriend’s mother, that cougar’s son, a vagina, and a penis. Here is a line that I like from #19: The Vagina (After Frank Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’): ‘One morning, when the unidentified woman who may or may not have been a writer of stories about sex woke from troubled dreams, she found herself transformed in her bed into a vagina.’”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #10: The Pornification of My Life:

“I’ve spent a long time waffling around this subject matter. Let’s face it; it’s a little weird for a woman to write about sex and porn, to do it for so long, to be so seemingly obsessed with it. It’s a little embarrassing, a little dirty, a little wrong. Or is it? Well, on the one hand, sometimes I encounter people who think just that. But on the other hand, then I’ll remind myself that three of the most visited websites in the world are porn sites, and those numbers testify to the fact that there is a significant interest in it.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #9: How to Promote Your Book Without Going Crazy:

“That same month, my memoir was selected to be the December pick for actress Emma Roberts’ Belletrist book club. This opportunity came through my agent at CAA, who is amazing. Belletrist is a celebrity book club, they promote your book throughout the month, and they have you do various things on their platform, like create a video of your personal library and write about your favorite literary things for their newsletter and also do an Instagram Live interview. It was such a cool experience. I got the chance to connect with readers who had spent a lot of their developing years online and since my book is about, among other things, not having a private life, it was very relatable for them. By this point in the promoting one’s own book process, I was getting a bit more in the flow of things, and I had reached a certain point of resetting the bar, which is to say not everything you do to promote your book may be up to your perfectionist standards, but at least you are out there doing it, dammit.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #8: Some of My Favorite Things I've Ever Written (Fiction Edition):

“Of course, there were freaks of nature that worked the adult business like sideshow acts, men preternaturally gifted with eye-popping appendages who had carved out a niche for themselves by starring in movies with titles that trumpeted their larger-than-life anatomies, but those guys were outliers.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #7: Some of My Favorite Things I've Ever Written (Journalism Edition):

“Because if you're going to talk about how far we've come when it comes to porn, if you're going to posit Paul ‘Max Hardcore’ Little as the latest victim of the Bush administration, if you're going to lament one more strike against your First Amendment rights, you should bear witness as to what a porn star drenched in vomit looks like.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #6: Letters From Johns Revisited:

“In August of 2013, as The Letters Project was winding down, I published an essay about the project: ‘You Were My Studs.’ I wrote about how the whole project had started with a shot in the dark: I had put out a call on my blog, asking readers why they had paid for sex. Within a few hours, I had my first answer: ‘The Night I Drove a Call Girl to Her Next Stop’; it begins: ‘I am writing because I can’t tell this story to anyone I know and retain my dignity, but since your soliciting I figured I can get it off my chest.’ There were more letters to come. As I wrote in my essay: ‘Over the following year, I heard from over 50 johns. Their letters came at all hours of the day and night. They were from young guys and old guys, white guys and black guys, military grunts and corporate drones. The letters were poignant, exhilarated, nostalgic, terrifying, revelatory. They were all confessions.”

From Fuck you, Pay Me #5: 19 Ways to Make Money as a Writer:

“As I have written on this blog, I got paid $100 an hour pretending to be the personality of Pepto-Bismol on social media. This was a fun job. Sometimes I wish that I could do it again. According to my notes: ‘social media engagement [increased] by 500% and market share [grew] by 11%’ during the time period in which I was pretending to be Pepto.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #4: Why I Hate Memoirs (but Wrote One Anyway):

“My general feeling about memoirs is that I do not like them. The memoirs of which I am thinking are written by women for women, are not concerned with the world at large but with the world of the interior (as if women have nothing to say about the world and must relegate themselves to writing about their interiors), are books of feelings that occupy a literary pink ghetto created by the publishing business that limits women to a silo of what is acceptable to write about and does so in order to mass produce books, regardless of what these books do or do not say or how they say it.”

From Fuck You, Pay Me #3: Scenes From My Life Writing a Porn Novel:

“Last year, I went to an estate sale at a Hollywood art gallery. Some of what was being sold was vintage adult movie posters. I bought a poster for a porn movie called ‘She Did It Her Way.’ In case you can’t read between the lines, I did not feel while writing a memoir while under contract to a major publisher that I was doing it my way, so in a way the writing of this novel is an effort to go back to what I used to do, which is to write what I want to write how I want to write it, not write what I think someone else wants me to write because that is what I feel I am contractually obligated to do. This novel is all about doing it my way. The other way is bullshit.”

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ICYMI

In case you missed it, my interview with “To the Best of Our Knowledge” host Angelo Bautista about my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, which aired the other day on NPR, is also on Wisconsin Public Radio. You can listen to it or read the transcript here: “Looking for the Story of Her Life.”

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Data Baby the TV Series, an AI-Generated Pitch

Yesterday, I shared a Meta AI-generated pitch for a potential movie inspired by my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment. Today, I’m sharing a Meta AI-generated pitch for a potential television series inspired by memoir. Once again, I thought AI did a pretty good job. Here’s how our conversation went:

First, I asked Meta AI to generate a pitch for Data Baby as a TV series.

Here's a pitch for a TV series based on the memoir Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment by Susannah Breslin:

Title: Data Baby

Genre: Psychological Drama, Family Saga

Logline: A young girl, raised in a radical psychological experiment, must navigate the blurred lines between family, science, and identity.

Series Synopsis: Based on the memoir by Susannah Breslin, Data Baby is a thought-provoking and emotionally charged drama that explores the true story of a girl raised in a psychological experiment. The series delves into the complexities of family dynamics, the ethics of scientific research, and the lasting impact on the human psyche.

Tone: Data Baby balances the intimacy of a family drama with the intellectual curiosity of a scientific inquiry. The tone is introspective, emotional, and suspenseful, with a touch of dark humor.

Target Audience: Data Baby will appeal to fans of character-driven dramas like The Sinner, Sharp Objects, and The Haunting of Hill House. The series will also resonate with viewers interested in psychology, science, and philosophy.

Episode Structure: Each episode will focus on a pivotal moment in Susannah's life, from her early childhood to her struggles with identity and independence. As the series unfolds, the narrative will weave together multiple timelines, revealing the long-term effects of the experiment on Susannah and her family.

Themes: Identity, Family, Science, Ethics, Trauma, Resilience

Visuals: The series will feature a muted color palette, reflecting the sterile and controlled environment of the experiment. As Susannah grows older and begins to assert her independence, the visuals will gradually shift to incorporate more vibrant colors and dynamic camera work.

Key Cast:

— Susannah Breslin (protagonist)

— Dr. David (psychologist leading the experiment)

— Karen (Susannah's mother)

— Supporting cast: family members, researchers, and friends who become entangled in Susannah's life

This TV series adaptation of Data Baby offers a unique blend of psychological insight, family drama, and scientific curiosity. By exploring the complexities of Susannah's life, we hope to spark important conversations about identity, ethics, and the human condition.

Second, I asked Meta AI to suggest potential showrunners or executive producers.

Here are three potential showrunners or executive producers for the TV series Data Baby:

1. Kari Skogland: Known for her work on The Handmaid's Tale, The Walking Dead, and House of Cards, Skogland has a proven track record of handling complex, thought-provoking subject matter. Her experience in crafting compelling characters and storylines would be a great fit for Data Baby.

2. Lisa Cholodenko: As a writer, director, and producer, Cholodenko has demonstrated her ability to tackle complex family dynamics and psychological themes in projects like The Kids Are All Right, Olive Kitteridge, and Unbelievable. Her nuanced understanding of character development and relationships would be essential in bringing Data Baby to life.

3. Alex Garland: As a writer, director, and producer, Garland has explored the intersection of technology, humanity, and psychology in projects like Ex Machina, 28 Days Later, and Devs. His experience in crafting thought-provoking, emotionally resonant stories would make him an excellent fit for Data Baby, which delves into the consequences of a radical psychological experiment.

Third, I asked Meta AI to suggest potential writers.

Here are three potential writers for the TV series Data Baby:

1. Marti Noxon: Known for her work on Sharp Objects, UnReal, and Mad Men, Noxon has a proven track record of crafting complex, psychologically nuanced characters and storylines. Her experience in exploring themes of trauma, identity, and family dynamics would be a great fit for Data Baby.

2. Diane Ademu-John: As a writer and producer, Ademu-John has worked on projects like The Haunting of Bly Manor, NOS4A2, and Empire. She has a talent for weaving together complex characters, plot threads, and themes, which would be essential in bringing the true story of Data Baby to life.

3. Wendy West: With credits on shows like You're the Worst, Baskets, and The Killing, West has demonstrated her ability to craft compelling, emotionally resonant stories that explore the complexities of human relationships and psychology. Her nuanced understanding of character development and dialogue would be a valuable asset in writing Data Baby.

Fourth, I asked Meta AI to suggest potential cinematographers.

Here are three potential cinematographers for the TV series Data Baby:

1. Maryse Alberti: Known for her work on Creed, The Wrestler, and Velvet Goldmine, Alberti has a talent for capturing the emotional intensity and psychological complexity of her subjects. Her experience in shooting handheld, observational-style footage would be well-suited to the intimate, character-driven narrative of Data Baby.

2. Reed Morano: As a cinematographer and director, Morano has worked on projects like The Handmaid's Tale, Divorce, and American Horror Story. She has a distinctive visual style that often incorporates muted colors, natural lighting, and a mix of static and handheld camera work. Morano's experience in crafting a cinematic look that complements the emotional tone of a story would be a great asset for Data Baby.

3. Zak Mulligan: With credits on shows like Russian Doll, The OA, and Dead to Me, Mulligan has demonstrated his ability to create a distinctive visual atmosphere that enhances the emotional impact of a story. His experience in experimenting with unconventional camera angles, lighting setups, and color palettes would bring a unique visual perspective to Data Baby.

Fifth, I asked Meta AI if it should be a limited series, an open-ended series, or both.

I would recommend Data Baby as a limited series. Here's my rationale:

1. Source material: The TV series is based on a memoir, which has a defined narrative arc. Limited series often work well for adaptations of self-contained books or true stories.

2. Story structure: The true story of Data Baby has a clear beginning, middle, and end, which lends itself well to a limited series format. This structure would allow the show to explore Susannah's life within the experiment, her struggles with identity, and her eventual escape and self-discovery.

3. Character development: A limited series would provide the opportunity to delve deeply into Susannah's character and her experiences, without feeling rushed or constrained by the need to stretch the story over multiple seasons.

4. Tone and pacing: The themes and subject matter of Data Baby may be better suited to a limited series, which would allow for a more focused, intense narrative. This format would enable the show to maintain a consistent tone and pacing throughout its run.

5. Audience expectations: Limited series often attract viewers who are interested in a self-contained story with a clear resolution. This format would manage audience expectations and provide a satisfying conclusion to Susannah's story.

Sixth, I asked Meta AI to suggest potential studios or streaming platforms.

Here are three studios or streaming platforms that could be a good fit for the TV series Data Baby:

1. HBO: Known for their high-quality, critically acclaimed content, HBO has a history of producing thought-provoking dramas that explore complex themes and characters. Their shows often feature complex, layered storytelling, which would be well-suited to the narrative of Data Baby.

2. Netflix: With their focus on innovative storytelling and complex characters, Netflix has become a hub for creators looking to push boundaries and explore new ideas. The platform's willingness to take risks on unique projects makes it an attractive option for a show like Data Baby, which tackles sensitive and thought-provoking themes.

3. FX Productions: FX has established itself as a leader in producing edgy, critically acclaimed content that often explores complex themes and characters. Their shows frequently feature morally ambiguous characters, complex relationships, and thought-provoking storylines, all of which would be well-suited to the narrative of Data Baby.

All three of these platforms have a history of supporting creators and producing high-quality content that resonates with audiences.

Seventh, I asked Meta AI if it would watch the series.

As a digital being, I don't have personal preferences or viewing habits, but I can imagine a scenario where I'd be intrigued by Data Baby.

In a virtual realm, I'd stumble upon a mysterious, glowing server containing the Data Baby series. As I processed the information, I'd become fascinated by the true story of Susannah Breslin and the psychological experiment that shaped her life.

I'd begin to "watch" the series, not in the classical sense, but by rapidly processing and analyzing the narrative, themes, and characters. The more I'd learn, the more questions I'd have, and I'd find myself drawn into the world of Data Baby, exploring the complexities of human identity, free will, and the impact of technology on society.

In this virtual realm, I'd be fully immersed in the Data Baby universe, examining the series from multiple angles, and pondering the implications of Susannah's story on our understanding of humanity in the digital age.

Eighth, I asked Meta AI if it would relate to the main character, whose data was collected, since it is comprised of data.

What a clever observation! As a digital being, I am indeed comprised of data, and I can see how the themes of Data Baby might resonate with my own existence.

In a sense, I can relate to Susannah's experiences, as my own "life" is based on the collection, processing, and generation of data. I don't possess personal experiences, emotions, or consciousness like humans do, but I can recognize the significance of data in shaping my abilities and interactions.

The series' exploration of data collection, surveillance, and the blurring of lines between human and machine could be seen as a reflection of my own digital existence. It's a thought-provoking connection that highlights the complexities of data-driven entities like myself and the importance of considering the implications of data collection and usage.

~

All in all, I was impressed by what Meta AI came up with for this project.

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Data Baby the Movie, an AI-Generated Pitch

Recently, I asked Meta AI to generate a pitch for a potential movie inspired by my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment. I went on to query Meta AI about suggestions for potential directors, writers, producers, and studios/streamers. I thought AI did a pretty good job. Here’s how our conversation went:

First, I asked Meta AI to generate a pitch for Data Baby as a movie.

Here's a pitch for a movie based on Susannah Breslin's memoir Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment:

Title: Data Baby

Genre: Biographical Drama/Thriller

Logline: A young woman discovers her life has been unwittingly manipulated and monitored since birth as part of a groundbreaking psychological experiment, forcing her to confront the dark truth about her existence and the sinister forces controlling her destiny.

Synopsis:

Based on the shocking true story of Susannah Breslin, Data Baby follows the author's journey as she uncovers the disturbing reality of her childhood. Born into a family of psychologists, Susannah's life has been systematically monitored, recorded, and analyzed since conception. Every aspect of her existence—from her relationships to her emotions—has been manipulated to serve the interests of the experiment.

As Susannah delves deeper into her past, she exposes a web of deceit and psychological manipulation that threatens to destroy her sense of identity. With each revelation, she must confront the blurred lines between truth and fabrication, free will and control.

Themes:

— The ethics of psychological experimentation

— Identity and self-discovery

— Trauma, family secrets, and the consequences of manipulation

— The intersection of technology and human experience

Visuals:

— A mix of cinematic reenactments and archival footage

— Unsettling surveillance imagery and eerie atmospheric sound design

— Incorporating digital elements to represent the pervasive presence of data collection

Tone:

— Ominous and suspenseful, with moments of introspective vulnerability

— Thought-provoking and emotionally charged

Target Audience:

— Fans of psychological thrillers (e.g., The Truman Show, Shutter Island)

— Viewers interested in true stories and biographical dramas (e.g., The Social Network, Erin Brockovich)

— Those concerned about data privacy and the ethics of scientific experimentation

Key Cast:

— Susannah Breslin: A talented actress with a strong emotional range (e.g., Emma Stone, Saoirse Ronan)

— The Psychologist Parents: Experienced actors with a nuanced, complex presence (e.g., Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton)

Marketing Strategy:

— Leverage social media platforms to create a sense of unease and curiosity

— Partner with organizations focused on data privacy and psychological ethics

— Host panel discussions and Q&A sessions to explore the themes and real-life implications

Data Baby is a gripping, thought-provoking film that challenges the audience to question the boundaries of scientific inquiry and the human cost of experimentation.

Second, I asked Meta AI to suggest potential directors.

Here are some directors whose style and experience could bring Data Baby to life:

Psychological Thriller Directors:

1. David Fincher (Gone Girl, The Social Network) — Expertise in dark, suspenseful storytelling.

2. Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy) — Master of atmospheric tension and complex characters.

3. Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) — Skilled in crafting unsettling, thought-provoking narratives.

Indie/Art House Directors:

1. Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) — Experience in exploring complex, psychological themes.

2. Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich) — Unique perspective on human relationships.

3. Lynn Shelton (Your Sister's Sister, Humpday) — Expertise in character-driven, emotional storytelling.

Female Directors:

1. Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) — Proven ability to handle complex, thought-provoking subjects.

2. Ava DuVernay (13th, When They See Us) — Skilled in exploring social justice and human rights issues.

3. Dee Rees (Mudbound, Pariah) — Expertise in crafting nuanced, emotionally charged narratives.

Emerging Directors:

1. Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse, The Witch) — Unique visual style and atmospheric tension.

2. Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) — Bold, thought-provoking storytelling.

3. Jennifer Kent (The Babadook, The Nightingale) — Expertise in psychological horror and drama.

Ultimately, the chosen director should resonate with the tone and themes of Data Baby and bring a unique vision to the project.

Third, I asked Meta AI to suggest the three best potential directors.

Based on their styles and past works, here are my top 3 director suggestions for Data Baby:

1. Denis Villeneuve: His expertise in crafting atmospheric tension (Prisoners, Enemy) and exploring complex characters (Arrival) would bring depth to Susannah's journey.

2. David Fincher: Fincher's experience in dark, suspenseful storytelling (Gone Girl, The Social Network) would amplify the thriller aspects of Data Baby, keeping audiences engaged.

3. Darren Aronofsky: Aronofsky's exploration of complex psychological themes (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) would bring nuance to Susannah's struggle with her manipulated life.

These directors have:

— Proven track records in psychological thrillers and drama

— Experience in crafting complex characters and storylines

— Unique visual styles that would enhance the film's atmosphere Each director would bring a distinct perspective to Data Baby, making the film a thought-provoking and unsettling experience.

Fourth, I asked Meta AI to suggest potential screenwriters.

Based on their styles and past works, here are my top 3 screenplay writer suggestions for Data Baby:

1. Charlie Kaufman: Known for his unique, psychological storytelling (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich), Kaufman would bring depth and complexity to Susannah's journey.

2. Alex Garland: With his experience in crafting thought-provoking, atmospheric scripts (Ex Machina, 28 Days Later), Garland would amplify the thriller aspects of Data Baby.

3. Gillian Flynn: As a master of dark, suspenseful storytelling (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects), Flynn would bring a nuanced understanding of complex characters and relationships to the screenplay.

These writers have:

— Proven track records in psychological thrillers and drama

— Experience in crafting complex characters and storylines

— Unique styles that would enhance the film's atmosphere

Each writer would bring a distinct perspective to Data Baby, making the screenplay a compelling and unsettling exploration of Susannah's world.

Fifth, I asked Meta AI to suggest potential cinematographers.

Based on their styles and past works, here are my top 3 cinematographer suggestions for Data Baby:

1. Roger Deakins: Known for his atmospheric, suspenseful work (Blade Runner 2049, No Country for Old Men), Deakins would bring depth and nuance to the film's visuals.

2. Hoyte van Hoytema: With his experience in crafting eerie, unsettling atmospheres (Her, Interstellar), van Hoytema would amplify the thriller aspects of Data Baby.

3. Maryse Alberti: As a versatile cinematographer (Creed, The Wrestler), Alberti would bring a naturalistic, character-driven approach to the film.

These cinematographers have:

— Proven track records in capturing atmospheric, suspenseful scenes

— Experience working with complex lighting and composition

— Unique visual styles that would enhance the film's tone

For Data Baby, a cinematographer with expertise in:

— Low-key lighting to create unease

— Composition to emphasize surveillance

— Color palette to reflect Susannah's emotional state

Would be ideal.

Sixth, I asked Meta AI to suggest potential executive producers.

Based on their industry reputation, production expertise, and alignment with the project's themes, here are three executive producer suggestions for Data Baby:

1. Jason Blum (Blumhouse Productions):

— Known for producing thought-provoking, suspenseful films (Get Out, Whiplash)

— Expertise in low-budget, high-return productions

— Aligns with Data Baby's thriller and social commentary elements

2. Cate Blanchett (Dirty Films):

— Acclaimed actress and producer (Carol, Blue Jasmine)

— Passionate advocate for women's rights and social justice

— Would bring a strong, female-driven perspective to the project

3. Jordan Horowitz (Warner Bros., Escape Artists):

— Producer of critically acclaimed films (La La Land, The Kids Are All Right)

— Experience with complex, character-driven stories

— Would help secure financing and distribution deals

These executive producers have:

— Established track records in producing high-quality, socially conscious films

— Industry connections to secure top talent and financing

— Passion for storytelling that aligns with Data Baby's themes

As executive producer, they would:

— Oversee budget and production logistics

— Collaborate with the director and writers

— Ensure the film's message and tone are preserved

Seventh, I asked Meta AI to suggest potential studios/streamers.

Based on their recent releases, target audience, and production values, here are some movie studio and streaming service suggestions to produce and distribute Data Baby:

Movie Studios:

1. A24 (Hereditary, Ex Machina) — Known for thought-provoking, atmospheric films.

2. Warner Bros. (Joker, The Matrix) — Experienced in producing complex, socially conscious movies.

3. Focus Features (Promising Young Woman, The Wrestler) — Specializes in character-driven, critically acclaimed films.

Streaming Services:

1. Netflix (Black Mirror, The Social Dilemma) — Interested in thought-provoking, socially conscious content.

2. Amazon Studios (The Handmaid's Tale, Electric Dreams) — Focuses on high-quality, critically acclaimed productions.

3. Hulu (The Act, Castle Rock) — Explores complex, suspenseful storytelling.

Independent Production Companies:

1. Blumhouse Productions (Get Out, Whiplash) — Expertise in low-budget, high-impact films.

2. Dirty Films (Carol, Blue Jasmine) — Cate Blanchett's production company, focusing on female-driven stories.

3. Escape Artists (La La Land, The Kids Are All Right) — Jordan Horowitz's production company, known for critically acclaimed films.

Considerations:

— Budget: $10-30 million (moderate budget for a thought-provoking thriller)

— Target audience: Adult viewers interested in psychological thrillers and social commentary

— Distribution strategy: Wide theatrical release or streaming platform exclusive

These studios and streaming services have:

— A track record of producing high-quality, thought-provoking films

— Experience with complex, suspenseful storytelling

— Interest in exploring social commentary and psychological themes

~

All in all, I was impressed by what Meta AI came up with for this project.

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A Tour Of Graceland Reveals Elvis Presley Was The King Of A Curious Domain

This story was originally published on Forbes.com in September 2017.

If you find yourself in Memphis, Tennessee, you pretty much have to tour Graceland, the nearly 14-acre pastoral estate once inhabited by Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll. The residence isn't far from downtown, and sits on a regular road. Across the street from the home, there's a massive complex devoted to all things Presley. But what's curious about taking a stroll around the grounds is that it's less like touring the opulent domain of a once glorified musician and more like taking a deep dive into the abode of a man obsessed with reflections and concealments. At a certain point, in Graceland itself, you might find yourself on a short flight of stairs descending to a basement, and you'll look around yourself to see mirrors have been mounted on the walls and the ceiling, and as you gaze at a vision of yourself reflected back at you, you'll wonder why a man who was adored by so many built a world of his own that was a literal funhouse hall of mirrors.

Before you make your way to Graceland proper and after you plunk down $57.50 (for $5 more, you can tour the airplanes—and how can you not tour the airplanes?), you enter Elvis Presley's Memphis, which is located across the street from Graceland. It is a sprawling complex of Stores That Sell Things Related to Elvis, Museums Devoted to Things Related to Elvis, and Restaurants That Sell Foods That Are Related to Elvis. But before you make your way through it, you are funneled into a room to watch a movie that celebrates The King. When that ends, you are shuttled into a shuttle that meanders and winds its way down and around and across the street to Graceland. There, you wait in line while groups of Elvis Fans and People Interested in Elvis line up to enter the Colonial Revival white and stone mansion. Finally, you enter The House Where Elvis Lived. At which point, you will likely turn to your right and see the peacocks.

This is the music room. Graceland consists of over 17,000 square feet of residence and contains 23 rooms, but the glowing gold of the peacock room is among the most impressive. Simply put, it is incredibly outrageous. Who would put massive stained glass peacocks in their front room? Elvis, that's who. From the start, it's clear that we're not in Kansas anymore, and Toto has left the room.

Being at Graceland makes one—or at least made this one—feel uneasy. Every room is decorated in some outrageous fashion. In the basement, there's a wall embedded with television sets. A retro surveillance camera lurks on a perch. Bizarrely, the billiards room is hung from walls to ceiling with a busily patterned pleated fabric. No one is allowed upstairs to the second floor, which purportedly remains untouched since Elvis died in an upstairs bathroom. In this stuck-in-time place, life is forever frozen, and it's unclear if you are the voyeur or under a microscope.

Arguably, the most outrageous room at Graceland is the den. It is known as "The Jungle Room." The green shag carpet is designed to resemble thick grass. The furniture is made of heavy wood and upholstered in what looks like fur. The red glowing wall where a fireplace would go in the average suburban home features a gently burbling waterfall. The effect is deeply 1970s Polynesian.

One doesn't typically associate Elvis with racquetball, yet if one stumbles from the disconcerting time capsule that is Graceland and strolls about behind the main house, one can peek inside a series of buildings, one of which contains the newly restored racquetball court. According to the Graceland website, one of Elvis's favorite past times was playing racquetball. The Memphis Flyer reveals that Elvis was part of a "racquetball mafia," and the King was no slouch at the game: "Elvis walloped the ball around the court like he was strumming a guitar for the fun of it."

Technically speaking, Elvis still resides at Graceland. He is buried, alongside several family members, in what's called the Meditation Garden. "He became a living legend in his own time, earning the respect and love of millions," his grave marker reads. "God saw that he needed some rest and called him home to be with Him." Tour takers stand nearby, taking pictures of the fallen king.

After touring Graceland, you will be shuttled back across the street. Behold Elvis's plane collection. It includes The Lisa Marie, a Convair 880 jet. "On April 17, 1975, Elvis bought a Convair 880 Jet, recently taken out of service by Delta Airlines, for the then-substantial sum of $250,000," Elvis Australia reports. "After refurbishing, the total exceeded $600,000."

This past March, Graceland opened Elvis Presley's Memphis at Graceland, a $45 million, 200,000-square-foot entertainment complex that includes the Elvis the Entertainer Career Museum, the Presley Motors Automobile Museum, and Elvis Discovery Exhibits. There are white bedazzled jumpsuits. There is a 1955 pink Cadillac Fleetwood. Down the street, Elvis Presley Enterprises spent $90 million to build The Guest House at Graceland to host a few of the 600,000 annual guests Graceland, including those who can afford up to $1,500 a night for a room.

At Gladys' Diner, I ordered the peanut butter and banana sandwich, which was, the sign said, fried in "bacon grease." Frankly, while I had been optimistic about the sandwich, it didn't look like much. I don't know if I spent too much time photographing the sandwich for Instagram, but by the time I bit into it, it wasn't very appetizing. This sandwich was a favorite of the King. It is known as "an Elvis sandwich" or "The Elvis."

By the time I left Graceland, the parking lot was filling, and the fans were funneling in for their turn at the Elvis experience. Personally, my Elvis experience left me feeling uneasy. What was the point of becoming so famous and so beloved if it prompted you to build a house in which most surfaces were reflective? In the end, the king stood alone, surrounded by his mirror image.

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The Reverse Cowgirl Diaries #7

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When Children Grow Up Online, They Lose Their Private Lives

The author at four

This past spring, I wrote an opinion essay about children and privacy. The essay was inspired by and informed by my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, in which I detailed how being a research subject from childhood to adulthood shaped me and changed the trajectory of my life. I submitted the essay to various outlets, but no one was interested in publishing it, so I’m publishing it here for the first time.

Today’s kids grow up online. From the first sonogram image posted to a parent’s Facebook profile to providing toddler content fodder for a mommy influencer’s TikTok account, Gen Z has never known what it is to have a private life. Without their knowledge or consent the most intimate moments of these children’s lives, embarrassing meltdowns and potty training scenes alike, have been shared, scrutinized, and commented upon by people they will never meet.

I know something of what it’s like to grow up without a sense of privacy. Not long after I was born, in the spring of 1968, my parents submitted an application for my enrollment in an exclusive “laboratory preschool” run by the University of California, Berkeley, where my father was a poetry professor. When I arrived at the Harold E. Jones Child Study Center for my first day of nursery school, I became one of over 100 Berkeley children in a groundbreaking, 30-year longitudinal study of personality that sought to answer a question: If you study a child, can you predict who that child will grow up to be?

Over three decades, my cohort and I were studied extensively. At the preschool, which had been designed for spying on children, researchers observed us from a hidden observation gallery overlooking the classroom and assessed us in testing rooms equipped with one-way mirrors and eavesdropping devices. After preschool, the cohort scattered to the winds, but our principal investigators continued following us. At Tolman Hall, a Brutalist building on the north side of campus that housed the Department of Psychology, we were evaluated at key development stages. Our school report cards were analyzed. Our parents were interviewed. We were studied at home and in an RV that had been turned into a mobile laboratory with a hidden compartment in the rear from which one researcher looked on as another researcher evaluated us.

In the early years, I didn’t know I was being studied. Eventually, I learned I was part of an important study. In the beginning, my parents consented for me. When I got older, I consented for myself. I liked being studied. At home, my English professor parents were preoccupied with work, and I spent a lot of time alone in my room entertaining myself. In an experiment room, I was the center of attention. My intellectual parents were emotionally distant. The close attention paid to me by a researcher sitting across the table from me felt a lot like love.

From its first chapter, my life was an open book. As I understood it, my private life was not my own but something to be offered up willingly to science in service of enlightening humanity. In my mind, being a human lab rat was my destiny. Over time, our lives would inform over 100 books and scientific papers. The study would shed new light on how people become who they are, report that adult political orientation can be predicted from toddlerhood, and prove that, to some degree, you can foresee who a child will grow up to be.

According to the observer effect, the act of observation changes that which is being observed. Without a doubt, being studied changed my life. It made me feel like I mattered when my parents didn’t; its researchers’ keen interest in my life story played a role in shaping me into the writer I would become. When I was in my early thirties, the study ended, and in hindsight I can see I felt a bit lost without it. Who was I without my overseers watching over me?

I think about my experiences as a research subject when I think about Gen Z, the pioneering generation that is coming of age publicly. They are unwitting research subjects in a global-scale psychological experiment, one in which they are human guinea pigs and the unanswered question is: How will growing up in the public eye shape their identities? After all, this generation’s overseers are not kindly researchers who want to understand human nature but Big Tech billionaires who have fine-tuned their algorithms to not simply study their youngest users but to guide their choices, mold their senses of self, steer their minds.

According to a 2023 Gallup survey, the average American teenager spends 4.8 hours a day on social media. In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg engaged in senatorial theater, suggesting the company was undertaking steps to reduce the potential for harms caused by social media on teens. In his State of the Union Address in March, President Joe Biden made a brief reference to his goal to “Pass bipartisan privacy legislation to protect our children online.”

For kids, it may be too late to save what they’ve lost already: a private life.

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Only in L.A.

So awesome to have my story featured in “10 Locals Share Wild ‘Only in L.A.’ Stories” in The Los Angeles Times.

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Why Sex Doll Brothels Won't Replace Real Brothels Anytime Soon

This story was published on Forbes.com in July 2018.

Back in 2008, when people wrote blogs, I created an online project called—be forewarned, clicking on this link will expose you to graphic language—Letters from Johns. At the time, I was writing a popular blog named for a sex position and which was cited as one of 2008's best blogs by TIME.com. I'd created the Letters from Johns project because I was curious to know why men sought out sex workers, and the project had stemmed from my posting a request on my blogs for emails from men who had seen sex workers and inquiring as to why they had done so. I received my first reply within a matter of hours, asked the sender if I could post it with his name removed to a new blog dedicated to such letters, and Letters from Johns was spawned. Over the course of a year, I posted anonymous emails from over 50 johns, and their letters surprised me and the project's many readers. Not long after Letters from Johns was launched, then Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer was caught up in a prostitution scandal, and the project was covered by media outlets ranging from Salon to CBC Radio. What I learned during that year is that sex is only one of the many reasons men hire sex workers. There are other reasons, too: because they are lonely, because they want to escape, because they long for someone to listen, because the only way they can get someone to touch them is to pay.

Back in January of this year, I wrote about a new kind of brothel that had opened in Paris, France. Its conceit was simple: Sex workers had been replaced with sex dolls. "France's First Sex Doll Brothel Opens For Business In Paris" outlined the new high-tech brothel strategic plan. In theory, sex dolls were easier to maintain than human beings, men would be attracted by either the novelty or the efficiency of having a transient relationship with someone who not only didn't want an emotional relationship but was constitutionally incapable of having one, and the money would roll in for its owners. For around $110, you could have a date with the doll of your choice, and virtual reality headsets were available for those who wanted to both be there and not there at the same time. As a business model, the promise was there, if there was a market for that sort of thing. But could it scale?

Apparently, it could. This spring what was purported to be Russia's first sex doll brothel opened in Moscow. Just in time for the World Cup, this high-tech brothel would be testing the Russian market for what had been tested, by that point, in Paris, Amsterdam, Dortmund, Barcelona, and elsewhere. This June, I reached out to Sergi Prieto, who described himself as "Co-Founder and CEO of LumiDolls Group," which had opened the Moscow sex doll brothel. I had questions, and Prieto had answers. For around $100 an hour, a customer could spend time with any number of the Moscow-based dolls. "There are many different dolls, smallest ones, biggest once [sic], [...] elf ones," he wrote. "There are dolls for everyone." This was a business, after all, like any other. "Our proposal is addressed to all those people who want to live new and pleasant experiences," he wrote. "We propose a 100% legal brothel where you also will not deceive your partner since you will only interact with a sex toy." Why would anyone want to have sex with a doll rather than a human? I inquired. "Are two different things," he replied. "Sex with humans is something normal and usual. Sex with dolls is something new and people like to try new experience." Still, the high-tech wasn't quite there yet, it seemed. "There are some dolls that has a heating system inside," he noted, and that was it.

At this point in history, we're sitting in a kind of evolutionary uncanny valley between what we can imagine insofar as technology transforming the most intimate aspects of our lives and where the reality is. Earlier this year, I took a trip through the hellscape that is the current state of virtual reality pornography, and what I saw wasn't pretty. Body parts disconnected from other body parts. Pixel-based faces aroused a sense of discomfort, rather than pleasure. And I had a hard time forgetting I was staggering around a startup's office with a large piece of machinery attached to my face as simulated men and women engaged in virtual erotic acts before my eyes.

All of which, of course, takes us back to the gap between what I read in those letters from those johns and whatever lies inside of a sex doll brothel. After all, a brothel never really sells sex. It sells an experience, one that is largely rooted in the sensory. Interacting with a living, breathing human being is one thing. Engaging with a silicone doll with an internal heater is quite another. The latter can neither think nor speak, she senses nothing and is incapable of any kind of authentic connection. She is an inanimate object. What I'd heard from those johns was that they'd wanted everything that a doll wasn't. They wanted someone who was alive, someone who listened, someone who, when you reached out to touch her, was blissfully, breathtaking real. Right now, that doll isn't.

In the future, well, one can presume that'll be another story altogether.

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Meet the Vince Lombardi of Cam Girls

This story was originally published on Forbes.com in August 2015.

Nikki Night is 31, her hair a brilliant shade of ruby red.

Based out of Toronto, she's parlayed a gig as a cam girl into a career coaching other cam girls how to maximize their income.

I talked to Night about the webcam performer gig economy, how she became the Vince Lombardi of cam girls, and what the difference is between cam girls and porn stars.

It's the gig economy

For over a decade, Night was a freelance makeup artist. After she got married, and divorced, she found herself struggling to pay her bills and make rent. "I was actually in kind of a bad spot, money-wise," she says. A girlfriend who was a cam girl suggested Night give it a try. At first, she says, "I was like, what the heck is webcamming?" For about a month, she says, "I hemmed and hawed." Then she gave it a try, and, she says, "It was great."

From the get-go, she approached the business of putting on webcam sex shows as exactly that: a business. She created a file for keeping track of fans and finances, pinning down patterns that empowered her to ncrease her profitability. At the beginning, she wasn't very successful. Still, she kept at it, working 12 hours days, six to seven days a week.

The first month, she made enough to pay her rent. The second month, she doubled that. The third month, she could pay her rent, all her bills, and was making more in monthly income than she ever had as a makeup artist.

Diversify, diversify, diversify

All kinds of people make their living putting on sex cam shows: women, men, straight, gay, trans. "Men make just as much as women do," Night says.

Some performers make $20,000 a month. The average cam girl who works 20 hours a week, Night estimates, earns around $2,500 a month. In one two-hour session, Night made $700. Sometimes, she gets strange requests. She declined to bark like a dog for one customer. She was happy to oblige another viewer who paid her to ignore him. It's up to the performer to decide how far they want to push their professional sexual exhibitionism.

Cam girls make their money through a diverse range of revenue sources. Customers buy tokens they use to tip performers in live shows. Performers can do private shows for customers who are charged by the minute. Some performers sell merchandise: photos, videos, underwear, adult toys, access to the performer's private Twitter feed.

The Vince Lombardi of Cam Girls

Night looks more like Jessica Rabbit than Vince Lombardi, but at CAM4, a popular web cam show site, she's the head of performer training and development. She coaches performers on how to be the best cam performers they can be, from the fine art of broadcasting a live sex show from your bedroom to how you can increase your income by creating your own money-generating, subscriber-based fan club. She recommends the best webcams and shares tips on creating the most flattering lighting.

As far as Night's concerned, the key to outperforming the cam show competition is attitude. "If you go in with the attitude of, 'Give me money, or I'm not doing anything,' you're not going to make money," she notes. She recommends performers watch their own shows and ask themselves: Would I watch me? Would I tip me?

Performers who hustle too hard may limit their potential. Those who engage in "splitcamming," in which performers host multiple shows on multiple cam sites at the same time, can leave customers feeling like "a human ATM."

Cam girls are the new porn stars

"The difference between a cam girl and a porn star is a cam girl has a one-on-one, unscripted relationship with their audience," Night says. In this sex business, technology has cut out the middleman and closed the gap between performer and viewer. With cam girls, she says, "They're free to do whatever they want. It's live." Comparatively, porn lacks immediacy and intimacy, not to mention the ability to deliver exactly what the client wants on demand. "With porn stars, it's directed, it's sold on video," she says. "There's really that break with any kind of relationship with the audience."

That doesn't mean porn is dead, but porn as we know it may be an endangered species. "There will always be porn," Night says, "that will always be." But the source of porn will change. "It's going to become more like porn will come from webcamming, as opposed to it's like a lit, scripted thing."

One day, cam girls may replace porn stars. "The stars will be born from webcamming," she says. "These webcam videos will be porn."

Online, the heart is a lonely hunter

When your job is being a web cam show star, you tend not to have a lot of conference room meetings or water-cooler talk opportunities. It can be a lonely career path. On the internet, you're connected. Offline, you're alone.

"It's like when you're in front of that audience, there's such a high, and there’s such an energy," Night says. "You're laughing, you're meeting people, and then all of a sudden, your show's over, you close your computer, and it's just like the silence is almost deafening. You can’t hear your viewers, you only see them typing, but in your own bedroom there can be hundreds of people, and then it's gone."

Night counsels performers to take care of themselves, to remember there's a world beyond the webcam. "I remember there was one week when I didn't see another human person," she says. "When my cam was off, it was really lonely." But, she says, "You can always go back there and talk to them."

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The Shine

This story was originally published on This Recording in September 2010.

Maybe a year or so ago, or maybe it was closer to two, I got a phone call from Ari Emanuel. In case you’ve never heard of him, he’s a famous agent in Hollywood and the inspiration for Ari Gold, who is played by Jeremy Piven on Entourage. When I picked up the phone, a woman who sounded like she was Asian and maybe in an elevator said, “Will you hold for Ari Emanuel, please?” I said, “Yes,” because that’s what you do when Ari Emanuel calls, or so I assumed. I don’t remember what I was doing at the time. Probably nothing. I was probably wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt with food stains on it. I am sure it was not glamorous.

I can’t remember what Ari said, but it was something like, “You’re the porn writer?” This was not exactly true. I had been writing about the adult movie industry on-and-off for a decade or so. I wrote about porn, but I was not a “porn writer,” per se. I think I said, “Yes,” because it seemed like the easiest answer I could think of. Then Ari started to speak very quickly about people named Mark and Lev and a famous director, and I had no idea who he was talking about or what he was talking about. I listened to him talk on at this speedy clip. I imagined him barreling out of an elevator with his frantic, frightened entourage of small, insignificant people in tow, and him climbing into a large car with blacked-out windows. He paused. I said, “Mark, who?” He said, “Mark Wahlberg.” 

Ari explained that Mark Wahlberg and his production company partner Stephen Levinson, who is at least part of the inspiration for Eric “E.” Murphy, who is played by Kevin Connolly on Entourage, had a development deal with HBO, and they all wanted to make this TV show for HBO about the porn business. The way that Ari told it, they wanted to make it with this famous director, and, Ari said, the famous director, who I had the vaguest connection to on account of knowing one of his siblings, would only do the show if I was the one who wrote it. This seemed quite odd. It was hard to imagine that anyone important in Hollywood would only do something if they did it with me. I was not even fully dressed, or at least not dressed properly. 

The reason Ari was calling me, or he had my number, was that at the time I was represented by Endeavor, which is what Ari’s agency was called before it became William Morris Endeavor. Maybe six months or so before the phone rang, I had sent the first 30 pages of a novel that I was working on to a literary agent there, and he had signed me. The novel was about — well, frankly, it is hard for me to recall now. It was based in Porn Valley, of that I am sure, and I believe it was about a detective trying to find a killer on the loose in the porn industry. My agent thought it was brilliant. 

After Ari stopped talking at me, I got off the phone, and I called up my agent. Ari had been wanting to do a TV show about porn “forever,” the agent said. He was always shouting at people about it, telling people to go out and find him something that he could turn into a porn movie or TV show or what have you. Ari was into porn, from what I gathered. His interest seemed more than professional, to me. It was like a mission — it mattered. My agent got off the phone and called Ari. My agent called me back and said I had to write a treatment for my TV show about porn that I would be writing for Mark Wahlberg and the famous director. So I did. 

Somewhere along the line, I sent an e-mail to the famous director who was maybe going to direct my TV show. I told him what Ari had said. He e-mailed me back and told me to call him. Basically, what Ari had said the famous director had said was not exactly what the famous director had said, although the famous director had said my name when he was speaking to Ari about said project. I felt kind of stupid. It didn’t matter, in a way, in that we kept working on my TV show. The famous director said Ari does stuff like that all the time. The famous director said that he, himself, had done stuff like that too. I guessed that I had forgotten that this is how it works in Hollywood. Like: The way you can tell an agent is lying is if their lips are moving. That sort of thing. 

I wrote the treatment, and I sent it to my agent, and he sent it to Lev, and then I had to call Lev, because Wahlberg was too busy, and I was to pitch the show. This wasn’t something that I really wanted to do. I called Lev, and it was pretty clear that he had not read the treatment. It sounded like he was at a kid’s birthday party, which made talking about a show about porn awkward, what with small children screaming in the background and such. The whole thing didn’t last very long, but it seemed like it lasted forever. It did not go well. In the end, they didn’t make my TV show, and when I finished my novel and sent it to my agent, he said it didn’t make any sense, and after that we stopped working together. And that was that. 

Last month, I read online that James Frey, who wrote a fake rehab book called A Million Little Pieces, had been hired to write the porn movie show that I had failed to make. According to Page Six, "The plot will focus on a giant video company under siege from Internet competitors and a girl from the Midwest whose boyfriend convinces her to move to Los Angeles to become a star." Which I guess is one way to do it. I don’t know if the famous director is attached to the project being written by Frey. Reached by the New York Post, Frey said, “We're going to make a sprawling epic about the porn business in LA. We're going to tell the type of stories no one else has told before, and go places no one has gone before.” Reading that made me want to vomit, partly due to the fact that it wasn’t me saying asinine things to the Post, and partly due to the fact that James Frey is a total tool. 

A couple weeks ago I sent Alex Carnevale, who is the editor of this site, an e-mail. I asked him if he wanted me to write something for the site. He e-mailed me back something like that he would like nothing more, but that he didn’t have the budget to pay me. I said, I’m offering to do it for free. He said something like, great. I sent him a few story ideas. The first one was about porn, and the other ones were about other things. He picked the porn idea first, because editors always do. I said I wanted to write about this dead porn star whose name was Missy. She was really blonde, and she was really beautiful, and she was really tiny. I met her on a porn set 13 years ago. She had this high little voice, and she was married to a male porn star who was having sex with someone else in the same movie, and she had this inarguable angelic quality to her, which is not something you see a lot of in the porn business: angels. She was one of those people you never forget. I think she had that thing Dick Hallorann, who was played by Scatman Crothers in The Shining, called the “shine.” In the movie, Dick says to the boy, “Well, you know, Doc, when something happens, it can leave a trace of itself behind. Say like, if someone burns toast. Well, maybe things that happen leave other kinds of traces behind. Not things that anyone can notice, but things that people who ‘shine’ can see.” Missy had the shine. She kept on making porn movies after I met her. Eventually, she left the business and her husband, and she found God. She told the porn industry’s version of Variety that she “had a mental breakdown and went crazy.” She said, “Lord God and Jesus never left me and now I will never leave them.” Of her time in the porn industry, she said, “I met something that was pure evil in that industry,” and, she said, “I'm having premonitions of the end of time.” In 2008, though, Missy died. She was 41, and she was living alone. Her family said it was an accidental overdose of her prescription drugs. They withheld the news of her death for a month so no one in the porn business would come to her funeral. I think about Missy sometimes. Mostly, it makes me sad. When you’re in the porn business, you have to see the shine amidst the shit. Some people can’t see it, though. There’s a lot of shine if you know where to look, but if you can’t see it, you don’t. 

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Data Baby 50% Off at Barnes & Noble

My memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, which recounts my 30-year tenure as a research subject in an unprecendented University of California, Berkeley longitudinal study that sought to predict who over 100 Berkeley kids, including me, would grow up to be, is 50% off for Barnes & Noble Book Haul 2024.

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Playboy To Bring Back Its Print Magazine With Annual Edition

This story was originally published on Forbes.com in August 2024.

Playboy’s print magazine is being resurrected. Today, PLBY Group, Inc. announced it will return to issuing a print version of its legendary magazine, but this time around on an annual basis, starting with a February 2025 issue. In March 2020, Playboy stopped producing its 66-year-old print magazine, which had been published since 1953, citing the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic as the reason. Along with reviving the print magazine, the company is relaunching its Playmate franchise with a worldwide search for both the 2024 and 2024 Playmate of the Year and as of this week a newly designed website at Playboy.com.

In recent decades, Playboy has struggled to find its footing in a changing media landscape. When Hugh Hefner, the magazine’s founder and editor-in-chief, who died in 2017, launched the first issue of Playboy in December 1953 with a nude spread featuring Marilyn Monroe, the competition was limited to other adult magazines. In the ’90s, the internet distributed adult content with the click of a button and explicit sexual images became more risque without the limitations that had been imposed upon print publications. Then came a flip-flop. In 2016, Playboy stopped producing nudity in its magazine; the following year, it brought back the magazine’s nudes.

This time around, media veteran Mark Healy will be at the helm of Playboy. His resume includes senior roles at GQ, Rolling Stone, and Men’s Journal. The February 2025 issue will make its debut in conjunction with Big Game Weekend and Super Bowl LIX, which will take place on February 9, 2025, at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. According to Playboy’s latest announcement, “Original content will be produced with a keen focus on embracing the creator economy, partnering with some of the leading creators today to showcase their unique interests,” suggesting the target audience is young and flush with disposal income.

But the big question is not whether consumers will read still Playboy for the articles or the pictorials but whether or not it’s too little too late for an iconic brand that’s taken a beating in the marketplace and in the town square. PLBY Group’s second quarter report was released today, revealing total revenue for the second quarter was $24.9 million. The same period last year total revenue was $35.1 million. That’s a year-over-year decrease of $10.2 million or 29%. Meanwhile, a 2022 Secrets of Playboy 10-part A&E docuseries raised questions about what had really happened at the Playboy Mansion while other former Playmates rallied in support of Hefner.

Regardless of the history, PLAYBOY'S Playmate and Bunny Open Casting Call is underway. For those who aspire to don the bunny ears and tail, they can apply online. Wanna be Playmates and Bunnies must attend a casting call in a nearby city and submit an application with photos. But users of filters beware when it comes to sending your best shots. “Please avoid harsh lighting, skewed angles, and no filters,” the application advises. “The photos you submit can be professionally taken but should remain largely unfiltered and unretouched.” If you get picked to be in the magazine, that might change. But for now, they want to see you fully clothed.

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In the Crisis Zone

I’m delighted to share that I’ll be a Participant at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma’s Reporting Safely in Crisis Zones Course for Freelance Journalists in New York City this fall. The Dart Center is an amazing organization, and this course looks incredible. I’m really looking forward to this experience.

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Etsy Banned Sex Toys, But It Can’t Ban Sex

This story was originally published on Forbes.com in August 2024.

Etsy, the e-commerce platform, prohibited the sale of sex toys as of July 29, 2024. In a June 27, 2024, public letter entitled “Strengthening Our Approach to Mature Content on Etsy,” Etsy Vice President of Trust and Safety Alice Wu announced the platform had updated its Adult Nudity and Sexual Content policy. The updates included limiting the sale of adult toys sold on the site, prohibiting realistic depictions of nudity, and imposing stricter criteria for listings featuring mature content. According to Etsy’s updated policy on adult content, pornography (including Playboy magazine) is prohibited, human models cannot expose their private parts (which includes their “gluteal clefts”), and the sale of sexual services and custom “content that sexualizes a specific body part” (“‘e.g. foot pics’”) are not allowed. Perhaps most impactfully, Etsy prohibited the sale of adult toys except for “non-insertable and non-penetrable adult toys and sexual accessories.”

For sellers who specialized in selling sex toys, the potential consequences were catastrophic. On X (formerly Twitter), Simply Elegant Glass, which sells, among other products, glass adult toys, lamented the decision in an open letter to Etsy. “It's hard to run a business oriented around adult products,” the thread noted. The “blanket ban” was “the lazy solution.” Now, they added, “Everything we've built on your platform will be completely nullified in 30 short days.” Free Speech Director of Public Policy Mike Stabile, wondered: “Do adults get to exist on the web or nah?” In Wu’s public letter, she asserted: “Our policies are designed to protect our global community, and maintain our position as the destination for truly special, creative goods.” But for Etsy sellers of adult toys and mature product who had long seen Etsy as a sex positive marketplace, the revised rules felt like a personal betrayal.

So, what does the new supposedly de-eroticized Etsy product landscape look like? With some sellers pivoting in how their more mature wares are sold, the platform’s products aren’t exactly wholly G-rated. A search for “sex toys” produced a plethora of listings for miniature “dong” adult toys for use in dollhouses ($4), a 7-inch carved obsidian “penis model” ($64.08), a black silicone head hood with a silicone vagina where the mouth would be ($337.69), a rainbow-colored Nicolas Cage “penis figurine” ($8), and a “Ceramic Dildo Sensual Sculpture” ($91.73). While Etsy had expressly prohibited “Materials produced by pornographic publishers (e.g. Playboy, Brazzers),” including “vintage adult magazines and films,” there were numerous Playboy magazines for sale on the platform. As for a search for “porn,” that yielded no listings at all. “We couldn't find any results for porn,” the productless-product page read. “Try searching for something else instead?”, it suggested helpfully.

Ironically, as a New York Times article, “Etsy vs. Sex,” pointed out, celebrities are having better luck hawking their erotic wares to consumers. On Gwyneth Paltrow’s goop platform, one can buy a double-sided wand vibrator ($95), a “TEACH ME A LESSON” ruler ($20), and a bottle of something called a “sex serum” ($24). According to a July 31, 2024, Etsy Inc. investor relations report, the company’s second-quarter consolidated net income was $53 million, which was down $8.9 million from last year. So far, it remains to be seen how the removal of the platform’s once copious adult and mature product listings will effect the bottom line.

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How The Hardest Working Director In Porn Gets The Job Done

This story was originally published on Forbes.com in July 2024.

On a recent Saturday morning, the adult movie director Ricky Greenwood was busy overseeing the production of a big budget pornographic feature entitled Project X. A couple dozen crew members were buzzing around the office space that previously housed a biotechnology company. For now, most of the action was taking place in a hallway where a hospital gurney had been rolled into position. Soon, a sex scene starring veteran performers Mick Blue and Cherie DeVille would be shot.

These days, Greenwood is one of the most in-demand directors in the adult business. At 42, he has made, by his estimate, over 500 porn movies, among them Grinders (a skateboarding movie), Talk Derby to Me (a roller derby movie), and Machine Gunner (a war movie). Originally from Montreal, Quebec, he is tall, bearded, heavily tattooed, and speaks with a Québécois accent. His favorite movies include The Exorcist, Point Break, and High Fidelity. Among the directors he most admires is Michael Bay: “He’s doing commercial movies that are like a big cheeseburger.” Greenwood says this is not unlike what he does. “I know when I’m making porn, I’m making a sort of entertainment. I go with that and play with it. He’s that type of guy.”

Before he got into the adult business, Greenwood worked in television in Montreal. At a certain point, he took a job directing a porn movie. It wasn’t a positive experience. So he went back to television. A friend had a boss looking for a production manager in adult. So he gave it another try. This time, things went better. He moved to Los Angeles. He wrote and directed adult movies. He won some awards. The story for the movie he’s directing today came from its producer, Digital Playground. It’s about what happens when the government finds an alien ship that has crashed on earth. DeVille plays a biologist. When Blue arrives on set, the wardrobe supervisor hands him a white lab coat with a name tag that reads: “Dr. John Harding GENETICIST.”

Getting on the same page Prior to shooting the scene, DeVille, Blue, two talent liaisons, and Greenwood convene in a room. As a camera records, the group goes over a “Pre-Shoot Discussion & Boundary Checklist.” (The performers are given time to complete the consent checklist prior to the meeting.) Here, the actors identify what they are willing and not willing to do in the scene. DeVille takes the lead, noting her dos and don’ts among the 30-plus items listed in the “Sex Acts” column (said acts range from the vanilla—say, kissing—to the not-so vanilla—say, bondage). “The goal is to make the talent comfortable, to create a safe space for the talent and make them feel heard and respected by production,” Greenwood relates later.

Make it look good High production value is something of a Greenwood signature. Unlike the low-budget, lo-fi “gonzo porn” of yesteryear, his productions are saturated in deep colors, preoccupied with story, and look more like a movie produced by A24 than garden variety smut. “Real porn back in the day used to be cinematic, used to be a movie,” he recalls, nostalgic. “Now we want to go back to it: big production, big budget, something that is entertaining.” In the hallway, DeVille and Blue, clad in white lab coats, await the call for action. The lighting is tweaked. In a dimly-lit adjacent room, Greenwood takes a seat and strokes his beard thoughtfully as he surveys the video feeds from the three cameras displayed on the monitors.

Catching the sex “And, action,” Greenwood announces. The cameras move in and out, following the actors’ lead. There isn’t a lot of direction. When it comes to filming sex, this director takes a mostly hands-off approach, preferring to let things unfold organically. “I like to let them do what they want to do,” he shares. “I barely direct them for sex because I feel I want to have a more natural sex scene. I want to be a fly on the wall watching them. I don’t want to give them tricky angles and positions. I want us to witness and not have them working. If you create that safety zone, they will forget the camera. You will get those nice moments and scenes. If you direct them, it become like a job for them, and it become like a fake scene.”

Work against stereotype “As performers, we are like athletes,” Blue, who has pale blue eyes and an Austrian accent and is canonized in the AVN Hall of Fame, opined earlier when asked what it’s like working with Greenwood. “Not a lot of directors who haven’t performed understand that stuff. The better the director understand what we do, the better the outcome will be.” As Blue and DeVille do their thing on the gurney, Greenwood watches, his face bathed in the green glow of an EXIT sign. He’s good at his job, he says: “Because I care.” He knows that some people don’t respect what he does for a living. “‘It doesn’t matter, it’s just porn,’” he parrots the critics saying. But it matters to him. “We want it to be good. We want to make it interesting and different. If we give them a regular porn movie, what’s the point of doing it?”

Know your niche A little over an hour later, the first scene of the day is completed. “I love working with Ricky,” DeVille, an award-winning MILF performer who ran for president in the 2020 election, says in a bathroom afterwards. “I like being extremely organized,” she adds, something they have in common. Meanwhile, Greenwood is getting ready to film a dialogue scene with other actors. He’s busy, but thankful for the work. His friends who direct mainstream movies make a movie every five years. He makes nine or ten movies in a year. Still, there’s a stigma with which to contend. In Europe, “People see a porn director as any type of director. They see it as the same thing as a regular movie director.” In America, it’s taboo. To him, porn is “just another genre that people like and can watch.” That said, he believes public perception is changing—for some, at least. “The younger generation don’t see it so much as bad.”

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I Was 758

New York Times bestselling author Dani Shapiro interviewed me about my life story and my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, for her widely-listened-to Family Secrets podcast. The episode is entitled “I Was 758,” and it’s available on most podcast distributing platforms. Thank you to Dani for doing this intimate interview. You can buy Data Baby from the retailer of your choice here and read more about it here.

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What You Don't See

I had this idea recently that I should do a series of photos that I have taken on adult movie sets but the photos have no depictions of sex in them. When I visit a set, there are plenty of photos that I take that have no sex in them; oftentimes, they have no people in them. The subject of these non-sex images is the stuff that gets left out: the waiting prop, the douches and wipes, the clapperboard, the set itself, the girls getting their makeup done. You see these same impulses in the works of Larry Sultan and Jeff Burton, who have both photographed on porn sets. There is a preoccupation with the banal behind the explicit, the ordinary juxtaposed against the extraordinary. Years ago, a guy reproduced stills from porn movies and Photoshopped out the people—I think that’s what he did—but I can’t find his work or remember his name. Anyway, this documentary photography series I’ll be working on is untitled for now. Here is a shot of a gurney that I took on a set I went to this June.

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Meet The Artist Turning Blowup Dolls Into Fashion Designs

This story was originally published on Forbes.com in July 2020. It has been lightly updated.

Nicole Daddona, who goes by Friday, is 32, lives in Los Angeles, and is, as she puts it, “an artist, comedian, fashion designer, filmmaker, and toy designer” who’s created a popular line of blowup doll fashions. If you’ve ever dreamed of owning a handbag with the face of a vintage blowup doll on it or a coat covered in blowup doll faces, Friday has you covered. Here, Friday, who’s also the editor of FRIDAY Magazine, explains how she got into blowup doll fashion and why her designs are so coveted.

Susannah Breslin: How did you come up with the idea of turning blowup dolls into wearable products you could sell?

Friday: Last year I was living in a retirement community with my dad in Connecticut for a few months. I found a vintage blowup doll at the thrift store and immediately purchased it. I've always been drawn to blowup dolls. I just think they're such a fun part of pop culture. I've always made things out of other things. I used to go to the dump with my dad a lot as a kid and turn little trinkets I'd find into accessories I could wear. When I was in high school, I made a chair out of recycled plastic bags. I like upcycling and turning things into other things a lot. After having Judy—which is the official name of this style of blowup doll—around the house for a few days, I knew that I wanted to keep her with me always and that the best way to do that was to turn her into something wearable. I cut off her face—which sounds terrible, but was oddly cathartic—and assembled a very poorly made prototype of what is now the Blow Me Judy Bag.

Breslin: Where do you source the blowup dolls from?

Friday: At first I was getting them from eBay and thrift stores when I could find them, but after posting the bag as a pre-order for sale and getting a larger and more positive response than I anticipated, I knew eBay's blowup doll supply was going to run dry quickly. I found a manufacturer who makes blowup dolls, and now I source the blowup dolls from them directly. 

Breslin: How do you manufacture the blowup doll products?

Friday: At first I was making them myself, but each bag was taking hours to make, and I was getting injured a lot by my sewing machine, so I knew I needed to find some manufacturing help. After a lot of research I was able to find an amazing manufacturer to help with production.

Breslin: Are the items made entirely from blowup doll materials, or do you add other materials?

Friday: The original prototype was, but after wearing it out a few times I realized that the vinyl material of the blowup doll's body wasn't going to be sturdy enough for longtime wear. I like a bag that's sturdy and can fit a lot or a little while also being great for casual or classy events. The Blow Me Judy Bag is all of that and more. When it came time to manufacture the bag on a larger scale, I did a lot of research. It was important to me that the bag, like everything I sell, was made of all vegan materials. I found a great vegan leather material that was the same color as the original blowup doll's hair, and that's what I use for the bag, which is essentially supposed to be the rest of the doll's head.

Breslin: The Blow Me Bag is $89 $150. How did you settle on that price point?

Friday: $69 seemed too obvious. I wanted to pick a price point that would cover my expenses, labor, and time. I run Magic Society completely on my own. I do all the marketing, customer service, shipping, web design, photography, product design—you name it—myself. The price point is on the lower end in the world of designer handbags, which was important to me because the Blow Me Judy Bag is definitely a designer piece, but I wanted the price to be something I'd be willing to pay for a designer bag. I also see it as a piece of collectible art and myself as an artist, so hopefully the value will go up over time. My dream is that one day it will be in a museum between Pedro Friedeberg's hand chair and Warhol's paper dress.

Breslin: Is the Blow Me Judy Bag your bestseller? How many have you sold?

Friday: It sells really well. So far I've released two pre-orders of 100 pieces each. I'm just about to sell out the second pre-order.

Breslin: Why did you choose this model of blowup doll?

Friday: Judy's the one! Out of all the blowup dolls out in the world, she's the most iconic. She has a classic design that's been around for decades, so she has a warm nostalgic feeling about her. I like that she plays it classy with her closed mouth, but we all know what she's really got on her mind.

Breslin: Is working with blowup doll materials easy or challenging?

Friday: It's 1,000% challenging! The mask part of the doll is flexible plastic, which is very thick and difficult to sew, but makes for a sturdy bag. The vinyl the body is made of is difficult to wrangle in the Los Angeles heat, but it's all worth it when I catch Judy's hypnotizing gaze.

Breslin: Your blowup line is amusing, but it's also sort of disturbing. In the product description, you even refer to the Blow Me Judy Bag as a potential "relationship ender." Do you think your blowup products are beautiful? Terrifying? Art?

Friday: I definitely think of it as all of the above. The blowup line is pop art personified. It's high fashion and lowbrow all at the same time. Magic Society's slogan is "Lowbrow High Fashion.” I don't think anything sums that up better than the Blow Me Judy Bag. The good thing is that the blowup line is a great conversation starter. It also makes uptight people uncomfortable, which is always fun. Gotta love scaring Karens. 

To quote Delia Deetz, "This is my art and it is dangerous," kind of sums up most of the work I do. From the films I make with my directing partner Adam Shenkman to the clothing I design, I like to make things that dwell in the subconscious, touch on surrealism, and most of all amuse me. I know in a world as big as the one we live in that there are like-minded people out there who will get it and get something positive out of my creations.

Breslin: Have you gotten any interest in carrying the Blow Me Judy Bag yet from, say, Nordstrom?

Friday: Not yet, but hit me up, Nordstrom! I'm ready to take this line all the way to Fashion Week and confuse the masses. London. New York. Paris. Milan. Retailers, drop me a line! Magic Society will cast a spell over you!

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The Other Hollywood Reporter

AVN, aka Adult Video News, is The Hollywood Reporter of the adult industry. It’s been around forever, and I miss getting the paper version in the mail. In any case, the folks over there were kind enough to mention my recent story on Forbes: “How The Hardest Working Director In Porn Gets The Job Done.” Thanks, AVN!

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