There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative.

I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

I have some sad news to share.

Shafika Hudson, whose work basically created the field of study on how to mobilize against bad actors on social media.

When she created the hashtag, Your Slip is Showing in 2014, tragically passed away last week.

Now, we talk a lot about how the work of making internet spaces safer for everyone

often falls on black women like Shafika, and it's often tough, thankless, ignored, and sometimes

even dangerous. Even though Shafika's work changed the way we think about the internet, she did it all

unpaid. She died crowdfunding for health care costs. Shafika wanted people

to know the realities of long COVID. Last year, she tweeted, when long COVID effects kill me,

sooner than later, I need y'all to recognize and say loudly what it was, adding, this won't

be considered a massive crime against humanity until we're all gone.

Just tell them I thought and tried. This very podcast and this work would never exist,

if not for Shafika, a funny, fierce cat lady who made the internet just a better place to show up on,

who built an entire school of thought

out of necessity that made the internet

safer and better for all of us.

She was one of the very first interviews

I ever did for There Are No Girls on the Internet

back in 2020 when we first launched.

And in honor of her brilliant, beautiful life cut short,

let's hear from her again.

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