INFLUENCE

Autistic children love Minecraft as much as anyone, but they're often bullied by other kids on multiplayer servers. When software developer and dad Stuart Duncan learned of this, he set out to create a private, safe Minecraft server exclusively for autistic kids and their families. The moment he shared it, he got 300 emails from parents who desperately wanted in,Today, Autcraft has a community of 15,000 kids with autism and their parents, and Stuart quit his job to run the server fulltime and meet the needs of his players. He shares how the server changed the lives of kids and parents, Autcraft's accessibility features that Minecraft has implemented into its game for all players, and why social scientists study the server for autism research.Learn more about Autcraft and support Stuart's efforts on Patreon: https://www.autcraft.com/https://www.patreon.com/autcraft/postsSupport 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lindsey is on vacation this week, so Alli and Matt check the newspaper to see if there's anything going on in the good ol' USA this past week (Spoiler alert: There was!).We also discuss the philosophical pros and cons of a more "decentralized" Web, and Alli pooped in a hole somewhere in Utah (good luck, Geocachers!).Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

r/Place is a blank canvas on Reddit. Every five minutes, you can add one pixel of any color. The result is thousands of Redditors working together (or against each other!) to carve out a visual space for their community, country, sports team, favorite video game, or a co-operative pixelated Mona Lisa.This fascinating social experiment has been conducted twice on Reddit, but also has roots in a similar gambit from 2005 called "The Million Dollar Homepage," where pixels were sold to any person (or brand) with enough cash to make a statement on this early Web billboard.Alli and Lindsey speak with Jay Hoffman, who documents this and many other Internet phenomena in his "History of the Web" newsletter. They discuss the extraordinary artwork created on this collaborative free-for-all, and why it never devolved into madness, thanks to a variety of self-policing communities.Read Jay's issue and subscribe to his fantastic newsletter here: https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/the-power-of-the-pixel/Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alli reports in from a Furry convention and Lindsey caught a bad case of "Ass Pee" from Mexico, so all-told a pretty average episode of 2G1P.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Stephen Wilhite, the creator of the .GIF image, died last month at the age of 74, millions on the Internet shared their favorite (and earliest-known) looping animations in honor of the influential computer scientist. But how did this highly compressed CompuServe image format from 1987 become the ubiquitous communication method bursting from all of our smartphone keyboards?Nearly all the coverage of Wilhite's death links back to one interview from 2012. Fernando Alfonso, III, a reporter at The Daily Dot (fine publisher of this very podcast!) tracked down the reclusive Wilhite to discuss the legacy of the .GIF, and why it became so pivotal in the maturation of the Web. Alfonso (now a supervising editor at NPR) explains why .GIFs were invented, why they blossomed with artists of the early Web, how hard it was to make them in the early aughts, and whether we should expect the .GIF to survive the next 10 years.Read Fernando's piece from 2012: https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/gif-history-steve-wilhite-olia-lialina-interview/Follow Fernando: https://twitter.com/fernalfonsoSupport 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we learn more about Alli's TikTok strategy, dissect the Oscars' "Slap Heard 'Round the World," and the civilian Ukrainian hackers fighting back from Cyberspace.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Secret spy messages are "hiding" in the airwaves all around us. It may sound like another Internet conspiracy theory, but this one is the real deal. Shortwave radio transmissions are among the most reliable ways for military, government, and intelligence agencies to exchange information. And every day for the last 40 years, one shortwave radio station called UVB-76 has been broadcasting static, beeping patterns, and cryptic Russian messages to ... someone. The contents of the messages are unknown — they are re-encrypted regularly. Anyone can listen, but only the intended recipient(s) can decode them. But that doesn't stop a thriving community of online listeners who stream these stations for the entire Internet to hear, in the hopes of finding patterns or clues.Alli and Lindsey speak with ZapdoZ, a YouTube streamer who also moderates a large Discord server devoted to cataloging the cryptic messages of this Russian military shortwave transmission. He explains the difference between Numbers Stations (for spies) and Military Stations (for armed forces), why streamers use spectral analysis to "look" at the sound, and how chatter on these stations may have hinted at the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, remember Tumblr? It was the most popular blogging platform on the Internet...until it wasn't. But the communities that formed there have had a lasting impact on social media, notably the passionate fandoms that exploded in the mid-2010sAlli and Lindsey speak with Elena Cavender, culture fellow at Mashable, who recently wrote the piece "Remembering Tumblr's strangest, most formative communities." It's a nostalgic look back at the single-serve "Fuckyeah" culture that celebrated everything from movie posters to history crushes, and everything in-between: Fanfiction, study communities, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Sherlock, One Direction, serial killers, and even the legacy of destructive content like pro-anorexia blogs.Elena walks us through the heyday of Tumblr (and its rapid demise), and how those communities inform today's Internet.Read her piece: https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-best-communities-nostalgiaSupport 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is one of our favorite 2G1Ps of all time! We'll be back next week with some very cool new episodes.--Original Show Notes: March 15, 2021--The cult steampunk adventure book series "Ships of the Northern Fleet" has inspired a TV show, graphic novels, and even a breakfast cereal. But the influential show has fallen off the pop culture radar in recent years. That is until a TikToker named Mister Nickel brought a flood of nostalgia back to the Internet to reunite the rabid fan community.Alli and Jen talk with Mister Nickel and the one and only Catie Osborn, the actor best known for playing Annie on "Ships" for multiple seasons (before the character's controversial death!). Nickel and Osborn share why "Ships" fandom is so special, and everything that's gone down since its viral resurgence on TikTok.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet publicly on her hit TV show in 1997, it rocked the media. Her popular sitcom received parental warnings and ratings declined until it was cancelled the following year. Many wondered if Ellen, who was at the peak of her comedy game, would ever work again. We all know how that story played out. But for the LGBTQ+ community at the time, Ellen's "I'm gay" moment was monumental, and open the floodgates for representation in mainstream media. Meanwhile, as the World Wide Web was taking shape, many in the gay and lesbian community began to find each other online. AfterEllen.com became a hugely important Web forum and review site for people coming to terms with their sexuality in a media landscape that was still hostile to them.Alli and Lindsey speak with Sarah Warn, the founder of After Ellen, about how the LGBTQ+ community found a voice online before the days of Google and modern social media.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices