Pilot: The culture has caught up with us.
In 2017, The Femmebots were ahead of their time. In 2023, AI and ChatGPT are mainstream. Now what?
Just when Jezebel and Bitch walked out of your life, The Femmebots are back in this mock feminist humor zine curated by Mel Feliciano.
A long, long time ago, before #MeToo and the 2020 BLM protests awakened corporate board rooms to their unconscious biases, The Femmebots made an attempt to infiltrate the ¡ZEITGEIST! with animations and videos about women of color working in tech that never "went viral" because they were…
“¡Ahead of their T-I-M-E!”
In other words, by 2019 our mad scientist/alchemist Dr. Nutmeg, creator and mastermind behind The Femmebots, burned out trying to teach the algorithms to generate the kind of data she needed to convince the powers-that-be in Miami, DC, NY, London, Prague, and Brazil that The Femmebots could entertain and educate the humans for the impending shakedown.
It’s 2023, and ChatGPT is here, y’all. The bots are all the talk in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Now that the culture has finally caught up with us, it’s time to get back to work.
That’s right! Dr. Nutz is back at the FACTory, and she wants to “start a conversation” with YOU because YOU are a leader in your field. As a guest on her virtual reality show TURING TEST, she will ask you questions like:
What do you think of the status of humans in the U.S. in 2023?
What do you think of the push for more WOMEN working IN TECH and further segmenting us into LATINAS in tech or BLACK GIRLS in tech, et al?
Did AI take your job? Or are YOU the AI?
Is CAPITALISM KILLING AMERICA???
(that one was for melodramatic effect)
Old-Fashioned Call to Action: Please email Dr. Nutmeg’s assistant. Let her know you’re interested in being a guest and we can schedule a Zoom for the 2024 calendar.
Click on the video above to see a prototype of Dr. Nutz interviewing GenZBot and diagnosing her with “Lobster Syndrome.”
Created by Mel Feliciano, RunwayML, D-ID, Tic Bowen, Tara McPherson (w/o her permission!), and Jonathan Jarrett; with storylines inspired by the Latinas in Data, Gilda Alvarez, Val.Java, the Grace Hopper 2023 Women in Tech Conference, and the #LatinasinTech on TikTok who are up to 28 million views (¡haz clic below!).
Local News
You’re still scrolling? OK. The Femmebots are now based in Orlando, Fla, so check out this roundup of news and musings by local writing comadres Desiree, Sarah, and Mary. Some of the coverage is recent, and some are nuggets from the past.
Trends
Latinas in Tech Has 28 Million Views on TikTok!
by Dr. Nutmeg
Like Columbus “discovered” the lands we now call Latin America, last week, during Hispanic Heritage Month and the launch of the Latinas in Tech Central Florida, I “discovered” that TikTok is bursting with views of #LatinasinTech.
Justice
Lawsuit over historic Hungerford land in Eatonville can continue, judge rules
by Desiree Stennett for the Orlando Sentinel
“Eatonville is a precious part of our country’s history. We believe that residents, not the Orange County Public School Board, are best able to determine how our land should be used.”
Activism
Freedom Hangs Like Heaven Over Everyone
by Sarah Aslan
“I could not focus on reading Harry Potter because there was a genocide happening outside my door.”
Podcast: Between Mama & M.E.
Self Love Is BS: Mama, Do You Hear Me?
by Mary & Jane
In this episode Mama and M.E. talk about the joys, pain and politics of love. M.E. shares about her journey with PCOS and navigating Black girlhood as a darkskin child. Mama shares her experience being raised by beauty queens and being one of the tallest girls in town.
You’re still scrolling? OK. Here’s the writing I’ve been working on this year, plus some background info about me below…
Autofiction
Model Ricans: A Wattpad Novel
by Mel Feliciano
A Nuyorican teen reluctantly transforms into a Mickey Rican with the help of her best friend, her family, and a little bit of brujeria.
Fiction
The Nine Lives of Maria La Gata (in developmental edit)
by Mel Feliciano
A struggling single mother lives nine lives on her path to becoming a notorious rum runner during Prohibition in Puerto Rico.
Who Am I?
I’m Melanie Feliciano. I am a writer with a tech background and a surrealist sense of humor (which incidentally won me a Sunshine State Humor Award in 2006 for my Devil’s Advocate Column in the Biscayne Times).
Why am I the person to fill the hole in feminist journalism?
I’m not. But before launching The Femmebots at Art Basel in Miami in 2008, I had the opportunity to interview for the editor position at Latina Magazine, sooo I must be somewhat qualified to write about and promote women who are filling all kinds of holes and gaps in places that need to diversify their POVs.
How Do I Get Paid?
Eh. Good question. Part of my interview process for Latina Magazine was to deconstruct an issue and put it back together. I did the thing I KNEW would disqualify me for the job: I moved all the advertising to the back of the magazine.
Blame it on my years spent as managing editor of nonprofit YouthOutlook.org at New America Media in San Francisco and scrappy Biscayne Times in Miami. I am a journalist who detests advertising. In other words, I’m an activist and socialist with a splash of capitalist tendencies, sooo…long story longer: to pay the bills I’ve been working as a tech consultant to two nonprofits in DC and a socially responsible business based in Hawaii, pero now the universe is literally shifting me away from that work and directing me back to this project so now I’m here on Substack!
Why Am I Doing This?
After taking a long ride on my “economic cycle,” past the cemetery where my abuela and two abuelos are buried, I realized I am doing this for them cuz they sacrificed a lot to get me and all 8,000 of my primos on the mainland.
But I also rode around the neighborhood where I grew up, and realized it’s my Dad that inspired all my feminist rants. Yeah. I got classic Daddy Issues and he’s a classic “machista” although he doesn’t think he is (they never do). No disrespect, Dad, I love you, and I hope to make you laugh, too. xo
I’m also doing this for my mom, my sisters, my Tias, my sobrinas and my hijastra.
If Jezebel and Bitch aren’t fighting for our rights, who is?
What are the Metrics for Success?
It would be cool to see The Femmebots Season 3 episodes featured in small theaters like the Enzian in Orlando where I was featured in 2023 as a Femmebot in "The Killer Robots: Robotica Destructiva!”
I also see the project as a path to teaching animation using AI tools at the Melrose Center in downtown Orlando, supported by AnitaB.org while promoting the Latinas in Data workshops. Maria, I can hear you telling me to send a new application to SXSW. OK! OK! I will! :)
Anyways, I’ve been on and off with this project for so many years, changed its purpose, location, and cast 3 million times, and I just wanna say thanks to everyone who supported the 2017 Kickstarter, and to anyone who ever got involved when I first started conceptualizing the project in 2007 before launching at Art Basel in 2009.
How Did Season 3 Evolve?
After four years being back in my hometown Orlando, getting married to Tic Bowen(!), starting Georgic Media LLC with him, working with Career Tia Maria Ibañez to get UrbanAlliance.org to the first page of search engines for “paid high school internships” (hello, try it), subscribing to Moz and SEMRush, learning GA4, Google Tag Manager, building new data visualizations for clients NASHP.org and NaturalInvestments.com, optimizing blog posts without making them look robot-generated, pitching the Super Invisible Latinas in Data to SXSW EDU, reconnecting with Jonathan Jarrett from AU film school to create a new fleet of AI-generated Femmebots, attending #GH23 and learning how to search and replace biases for they/them and other pronouns, meeting Isabel Custer at Miami Film Lab, "discovering” #LatinasinTech is trending on TikTok, becoming an official LatinasinTech.org mentor, Dr. Katka Nutmeg is back from the digital underground!