[Ads-l] "cybercad" article - help?

Thu Aug 29 17:58:59 UTC 2024

Relatedly, there’s at least one reference to a “cybercreep” by 1994:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/1994/10/28/computer-superhighway-can-give-you-the-creeps/

Computer superhighway can give you the creeps

Baltimore Sun
https://www.baltimoresun.com › 1994/10/28 › computer...
 <https://www.baltimoresun.com/1994/10/28/computer-superhighway-can-give-you-the-creeps/>
Oct 28, 1994 — The cybercreep, as she described him, is a person who uses his computer and phone to connect to commercial on-line message services…

[The article itself is behind the Baltimore Sun’s paywall.]

LH

> On Aug 29, 2024, at 1:28 PM, Nancy Friedman <wordworking at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Jesse. I found two 1999 WaPo references to the cybercad story but
> nothing from 1993 in the WaPo archives.
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/invitational/invit990725.htm
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/talk/navigator/990318.htm?itid=sr_7_0d5a2085-6102-493e-b1b6-33f2d3350fb8
> 
> Nancy Friedman
> Chief Wordworker
> web: wordworking.com <http://www.wordworking.com>
> substack https://fritinancy.substack.com/
> Medium <https://medium.com/@wordworking>
> 
> tel 510 652-4159
> cel 510 304-3953
> bluesky/mastodon/instagram  Fritinancy
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 10:13 AM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
> 
>> Oops, didn't see that you'd already posted this.
>> 
>> On Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 01:12:30PM -0400, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>>> No, this is a description, not a title. Time Magazine ran an article
>> about this incident a week later, on 19 July 1993, titled "Heartbreak In
>> Cyberspace", but this didn't even use the term _cybercad_.
>>> 
>>> https://time.com/archive/6723534/heartbreak-in-cyberspace/
>>> 
>>> It seems pretty clear that the term's currency stems from its use as the
>> (literal) last word of the big WaPo article of the week before, which is
>> what brought the incident to national prominence.
>>> 
>>> Jesse Sheidlower
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 10:00:16AM -0700, Nancy Friedman wrote:
>>>> This is from "Net.Wars" by Wendy M. Grossman (1997, NYU Press):
>>>> 
>> https://opensquare.nyupress.org/open-square-reader/cloud-reader/epub_content/9781479812905/ops/xhtml/24_Notes.xhtml#rfn8_16
>>>> 
>>>>>> The second, written up at the time (the summer of 1993) in *Time*
>>>> magazine,16
>>>> <
>> https://opensquare.nyupress.org/open-square-reader/cloud-reader/epub_content/9781479812905/ops/xhtml/24_Notes.xhtml#rfn8_16
>>> 
>>>> concerned
>>>> a “cybercad” who ardently pursued several women on the WELL,
>> apparently at
>>>> the same time, into face-to-face (or, as the WELL likes to call them,
>> F2F)
>>>> encounters of the most intimate kind, then dumped them unceremoniously.
>>>> Retiring to the private women-only conference to miserate and
>> discovering
>>>> they had company, the women decided to out him publicly as a warning to
>>>> others. The man in question eventually said he had thought the rules
>> were
>>>> “different in cyberspace”17
>>>> <
>> https://opensquare.nyupress.org/open-square-reader/cloud-reader/epub_content/9781479812905/ops/xhtml/24_Notes.xhtml#rfn8_17
>>> 
>>>> —a
>>>> clear case of someone’s being unable to find the boundary between
>>>> cyberspace and real life. He may have *met* these women in cyberspace,
>> but
>>>> the rest of the relationships took place in the physical world. It
>> seems to
>>>> me it ought to be pretty clear that the moment you pick up that
>> telephone
>>>> to direct-dial, you’ve changed jurisdictions. Such a case doesn’t mean
>> you
>>>> shouldn’t meet people online or give them your home phone number; but
>> it
>>>> does mean you should exercise the same caution you would with someone
>> you
>>>> met casually in a bar. The women on the WELL acknowledged this with
>> great
>>>> disappointment and a sense of betrayal: they had believed online was
>>>> safe—the other side of expecting the rules to be different in
>> cyberspace.<<
>>>> 
>>>> (The footnote is not helpful!)
>>>> 
>>>> And this is from a footnote in "City of Bits," published by MIT Press
>> in
>>>> 1995:
>>>> 
>>>>>> Then, in summer 1993, the news media reported widely on "The Case of
>> the
>>>> Cybercad" on the WELL (a popular Bay Area online conferencing system).
>>>> After he teleromanced several women at the same time (without telling
>> them
>>>> of the others), the women tumbled to his deceptive game and publicly
>>>> denounced him in a WELL conference space.<<
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Nancy Friedman
>>>> Chief Wordworker
>>>> web: wordworking.com <http://www.wordworking.com>
>>>> substack https://fritinancy.substack.com/
>>>> Medium <https://medium.com/@wordworking>
>>>> 
>>>> tel 510 652-4159
>>>> cel 510 304-3953
>>>> bluesky/mastodon/instagram  Fritinancy
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 9:49 AM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com>
>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> What are the references to this supposed article that you've found?
>>>>> 
>>>>> There was indeed a widely reported incident in the summer of 1993
>>>>> involving a man who behaved caddishly on The WELL, but it's not
>> clear to me
>>>>> that there was actually an article in Time _called_ "The Case of the
>>>>> Cybercad"; I've just seen this as a description of the incident.
>>>>> 
>>>>> A main article about the incident was by Jonathan Schwartz on page
>> A1 of
>>>>> the Washington Post of 11 July 1993; it was titled "On-Line
>> Lothario's
>>>>> Antics Prompt Debate on Cyber-Age Ethics", and the last line, quoting
>>>>> "Lizabeth", one of the person's targets: "I don't think he's
>> anything more
>>>>> than I've called him, which is a cyber-cad."
>>>>> 
>>>>> Jesse Sheidlower
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 09:33:21AM -0700, Nancy Friedman wrote:
>>>>>> I'm researching the term "cybercad" (a man who takes advantage of
>> women
>>>>>> online) and am looking for an article published in *Time *magazine
>> in the
>>>>>> summer of 1993 headlined (possibly) "The Case of the Cybercad."
>> I've
>>>>> found
>>>>>> references to it but can't find the article itself in *Time*'s
>> archives
>>>>> or
>>>>>> the Internet Archive.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Any ideas? Or any other antedating of "cybercad"?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Nancy Friedman
>>>>>> Chief Wordworker
>>>>>> web: wordworking.com <http://www.wordworking.com>
>>>>>> substack https://fritinancy.substack.com/
>>>>>> Medium <https://medium.com/@wordworking>
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> tel 510 652-4159
>>>>>> cel 510 304-3953
>>>>>> bluesky/mastodon/instagram  Fritinancy
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>> 
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>> 
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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