Show Notes
Did you play Habbo Hotel or use MSN as a kid? You may be entitled to compensation in the form of therapy. Millennials and older Gen Z were the first generation of children to get completely unfiltered access to the internet, with no supervision and no safeguarding. We were the ‘guinea pig generation’, and it hit girls hardest - predicting the future battles between women and the internet.
In this episode, I talk to the journalist who went undercover as an 11 year old girl on Habbo Hotel for Channel 4 News and blew the child sex abuse scandal wide open, and I record a conversation between me and my friend Kitty as we swap stories from the Wild West of being a teen girl online. Why do so many women joke about it now, and how do you learn to have sex as an adult when your first experiences were exploitative ones?
Guests:
Rachel Seifert
‘Kitty’
TikTok: lilyo.farrell
Instagram: lilyo.farrell
Substack: lilyofarrell
If you’ve been affected by the things discussed in this episode, you can contact The Survivors Trust at thesurvivorstrust.org or for image-based abuse, contact The Revenge Porn Helpline at revengepornhelpline.org.uk
SOURCES:
Online grooming crimes against children increase by 89% in six years, NSPCC (2024)
Demon Internet, Wikipedia (1992)
52% of UK households on line, The Media Leader (2004)
Timeline of social media, Wikipedia
The Evolution of Instant Messaging, Visual Capitalist
Russian teenager behind hot website Chatroulette, AFP (2010)
Social game for teens accused of ‘violent, pornographic’ chat, NBC News (2012)
Should you let your child play in Habbo Hotel?, Channel 4 News (2012)
Virtual Harassment: The Social Experience of 600+ Regular Virtual Reality Users, The Extended Mind (2018)
Facebook’s Metaverse, Center for Countering Digital Hate (2021)
Most deepfakes are porn harassment, not fake news, Vice (2019)
The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny, Laura Bates (2025)
Striptease and cyber sex: my stay at Habbo Hotel, Channel 4 News (2012)
Habbo Hotel – the debate, Channel 4 News (2012)
Online Safety in the UK: Social Media Ban for Under 16s and Other Recent Developments, Global Policy Watch (2026)
‘A lot of it is actually just abuse’: Young people and pornography, Children’s Commissioner for England (2023)
Cyberflashing, epilepsy-trolling and fake news to put online abusers behind bars from today, GOV.UK (2024)
Survivors and campaigners welcome new deepfake law but call on government to go further, End Violence Against Women Coalition (2026)
New EVAW x Refuge report reveals shocking scale of online misogyny and abuse, End Violence Against Women Coalition and Refuge (2026)
Main investor pulls out of Habbo parent company, Channel 4 News (2012)
Roblox Lawsuit: MDL Status, Settlements & Claims, ConsumerNotice.org (2026)
Habbo Hotel Origins is a delightfully strange and chaotic time capsule from the internet of the early 2000s, PC Gamer (2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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