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Jazmin Jones knows what she did. “If you’re online, there’s this idea of trolling,” Jones, the director behind Seeking Mavis Beacon, said during a recent panel for her new documentary. “For this project, some things we’re taking incredibly seriously … and other things we’re trolling. We’re trolling this idea of a detective because we’re also, like, ACAB.”
Her trolling, though, was for a good reason. Jones and fellow filmmaker Olivia Mckayla Ross did it in hopes of finding the woman behind Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.
The popular teaching tool was released in 1987 by The Software Toolworks, a video game and software company based in California that produced educational chess, reading, and math games. Mavis, essentially the “mascot” of the game, is a Black woman donned in professional clothes and a slicked-back bun. Though Mavis Beacon was not an actual person, Jones and Ross say that she is one of the first examples of Black representation they witnessed in tech. Seeking Mavis Beacon, which opened in New York City on August 30 and is rolling out to other cities in September, is their attempt to uncover the story behind the face, which appeared on the tool’s packaging and later as part of its interface.
The film shows the duo setting up a detective room, conversing over FaceTime, running up to people on the street, and even tracking down a relative connected to the ever-elusive Mavis. But the journey of their search turned up a different question they didn’t initially expect: What are the impacts of sexism, racism, privacy, and exploitation in a world where you can present yourself any way you want to?
Using shots from computer screens, deep dives through archival footage, and sit-down interviews, the noir-style documentary reveals that Mavis Beacon is actually Renée L’Espérance, a Black model from Haiti who was paid $500 for her likeness with no royalties, despite the program selling millions of copies.
Creating artificial likenesses of people from marginalized groups is not unique to Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Big brands have used these likenesses to generate both notoriety and money without disseminating that success to the real people behind the inspiration.
“Lil Miquela,” an AI-generated music artist with some 2.5 million Instagram followers, appears in commercials for BMW. MSI, which recently partnered with the artificial influencer to promote an OLED monitor, noted on a web page touting the collaboration that Lil’ Miquela has “a rich heritage of half-Brazilian and half-Spanish roots.” The AI bot reportedly makes millions of dollars per year as an influencer. Meanwhile, human BIPOC social media influencers report making up to 67 percent less than white influencers per Instagram post, according to findings released last year by the public relations firm MSL Group.
Another example is Shudu Gram, who, according to her Instagram account, is known as “the world’s first digital supermodel.” Launched in 2017, Shudu is long and lean with very dark skin. She looks even more human than Lil Miquela, but she's not. At a time when Black models still face challenges in the fashion industry, Gram has appeared in Vogue Czechoslovakia, partnered with Sony Pictures, and amassed 239,000 followers on Instagram.
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In a world where anyone can create images of folks of any race, gender, or sexual orientation without having to fully compensate the real people who inspired them, Jones and Ross are working to preserve not only the data behind Mavis Beacon but also the humanity behind the software. On the panel, hosted by Black Girls in Media, Ross stated that the film’s social media has a form where users of Mavis Beacon can share what the game has meant to them, for archival purposes.
“On some level, Olivia and I are trolling ideas of worlds that we never felt safe in or protected by,” Jones said during the panel. “And in other ways, we are honoring this legacy of cyber feminism, historians, and care workers that we are very seriously indebted to.”
