There is no denying Google Earth has a sleek, handsome interface. When I log on to it, a cerulean blue orb pivots along an arc against a pitch-black sky dotted with stars, suggesting a reckoning with vastness. It evokes childlike wonder within me; I feel as if I’m an astronaut orbiting the world. But Google Earth is not a vaccine for everyone’s homesickness. For those of us whose corners of the world are considered “remote” or “uncharted” from an essentialist white, Western perspective, the interface is far from seamless.

Who was Nicky’s brother? Why did he kill himself? Was his story like my own? We all found our space for therapy as listeners in these questions. For representations of suicide to have this deterrent effect, it can be essential that they seem real. But how can it be ethical to seek refuge in a real person’s death? Blurring the provenance to the point of ambiguity, as this call’s digital footprint does, perhaps offers one solution to this problem. The mediating technology itself facilitates an ambiguity that makes this artifact potent.

Say what you will about spambots, but they don’t discriminate. They will message anyone. From one remove, there’s something to appreciate here: If Grindr implicitly promises a kind of inclusive universe in which the sexual playing field is leveled, at least in fantasy, with respect to all the isms otherwise rife in our social landscape, then a bot may be that utopia’s oddly inarticulate emissary.