BONUS SERIES: Levittown Episode 1 | Me... But Not Me

Olivia Carville (0:00)

This series explores sexualized imagery involving minors and violence. Please take care when listening.

Can we start from the beginning? How did this all start for you?

Kayla (0:24)

So I can go back into it. I remember somehow all these pictures from my Instagram, my VSCO, were all on this website. There was one picture of me in a bathing suit. Well, it was me in a bathing suit in one of my friend's backyards, and I didn't have a bathing suit on anymore.

And it was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts.

It was just boobs and body parts, completely nude. That looked so much like my own body. There were so many different pictures from my social media on, essentially, a porn website. I was just trying to figure out exactly, like, where is this coming from? Like, how are they finding my stuff? I didn't let people follow me that I didn't know, so it was always in the back of my head, like, oh, it's someone that I know. But how do you find out who that someone is when you know so many people from school, soccer, all these things?

Olivia Carville (2:07)

Did you ever have any suspicions as to who it was back then?

Kayla (2:12)

No.

Not at all. It was always like, why is this happening? Who is this?

Olivia Carville (2:39)

Kayla was 20 years old and living at home with her parents, in a town that was once the picture of the American dream. A Long Island suburb, called Levittown. We're driving around Levittown. A lot of white picket fences, a lot of American flags.

It has the feel of going back in time.

SPEAKER_3 (3:03)

This is Levittown, one of the most remarkable housing developments ever conceived.

Olivia Carville (3:08)

It's the kind of America that makes you think of the 1950s. Cookie cutter, single family houses.

Like someone hit Control-C on the ideal suburban house and then pasted it over and over, on street after street.

SPEAKER_3 (3:27)

The idea that came to a man named Bill Levitt was this. Why not apply to the building of houses the same principles that have brought other American industries to their unaccelled peaks of efficiency and service?

Olivia Carville (3:37)

Levittown was built for veterans returning from World War II as the picture of white suburbia, perfect houses, manicured lawns.

SPEAKER_3 (3:47)

Dotted here and there throughout the huge area are shopping centers where every type of product or service is readily available. Shoe stores, five and dimes, department stores.

Olivia Carville (4:02)

Today we often talk about the future as digital. Algorithms and codes is the architecture of our lives. But back then, Levittown was the imagined future. It just feels like quite suburban and safe. You know, it feels like the kind of place that nothing really happens around here. And yet underneath the facade of perfect order, it's here I found a story unfolding of a group of women faced with a new reality none of them wanted. A technological reality spinning out of control. It's like this is not the setting for a horror movie, and that's exactly what played out. But this isn't your average horror story. The kind where a group of teens are hunted down until there's only one left standing. In this story, they flipped the script, band together and fight back, alongside some unexpected global allies, forcing law enforcement and tech companies to sit up and take notice.

From iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope, this is Levittown. I'm Olivia Carville.

Over the summer, our producer, Julia Nutter and I made the drive out to Long Island to meet Kayla at her family home.

I can hear music.

Kayla (6:05)

Hey, Kayla.

Olivia Carville (6:06)

How are you?

Kayla (6:06)

It's so nice to see you again.

Julia Nutter (6:08)

It's good, nice to see you too.

SPEAKER_6 (6:09)

How are you feeling?

Kayla (6:10)

I'm good.

Julia Nutter (6:11)

Let me just do a quick levels check.

Kayla (6:13)

Oh, do you want me to put the bird in another room?

SPEAKER_6 (6:15)

I didn't even hear the bird.

Kayla (6:16)

Oh my god, the bird.

Olivia Carville (6:18)

Kayla's like a firecracker. She's small but loud with brightly coloured hair.

Every time I've seen her, her hair is a different colour. She's covered in tattoos and piercings.

Julia Nutter (6:32)

What kind of bird is that?

Kayla (6:33)

A parakeet. So he likes to talk to himself a lot.

Olivia Carville (6:40)

Do you feel comfortable showing us where you were when you discovered the website, when you were showing it?

Kayla (6:46)

Yeah. It's a little messy.