Texts From Last Night, The Morning After
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TFLN creators Lauren Leto and Ben Bator
Dirty texting has been in the news a lot lately. From Tiger Woods to the parade of teenage sexting stories, the media can't get enough sexy texts.
Texts From Last Night, in case you don't know, posts text messages that users submit, allegedly from the night before. Most involve drunken debauchery and dirty sex, although some merely focus on one or the other.
To wit:
(604): She didn't know my name but she knew I was Canadian so she just called me Canada. It sounded like the national anthem when we were fucking.
And:
(720): o shit let me call u back theres a hamburger in my pocket
(The number represents the area code from where the text originated, everything else is strictly confidential.)
Many of the others are quite offensive. One of the most infamous, according to the site's creators, involves bodily fluids and The Lion King.
Lauren Leto and Ben Bator are both from Detroit, home of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, himself a famous sexter. They met as undergraduates at Michigan State University. Lauren went on to law school there. Ben was about to join her.
Texts From Last Night began as a simple text blog, shortly after the Kilpatrick scandal broke, in February 2009. At first, it was mostly their friends' texts. In April, Lauren's then-boyfriend did a redesign. Within a week, the site had a million hits.
The first e-mail they got about a book deal came as Lauren was studying for finals. Ben was sitting by a pool on the first hot day of the year.
"There's no way this is real," he thought.
And then he got three more. Within two days, they had seven.
Now the book is out, published by Penguin's Gotham Books, which has also brought us such blog-adaptations as The Truth About Chuck Norris and I Can Haz Cheezburger?
Why should people pay good money for something they can get for free online?
"There's graphs, there's timelines, there's flow charts," said Lauren. "There's tons of texts that never made it on to the site that were like...too funny."
There's also an NPR reference that they'd previously deemed too high brow for the website.
It looks like the book tour is off to a bit of a rough start. Only about two dozen people showed up to stop No. 2, an event tuesday at USC, including Ben's girlfriend, who sat quietly in the audience laughing and, occasionally, texting.
No matter. Texts From Last Night could be coming soon to a television set near you- there's also a pilot in the works. About fictional characters.
Needless to say, Lauren isn't going back to law school any time soon, and Ben just isn't going.
"Has there ever been anything so outrageous that you just couldn't put in the book?" a student asked.
Lauren and Ben whispered to each other.
"Just tell it," said Ben.
"I'm so embarrassed saying this," said Lauren. "My line is I won't post stuff about, um..." she paused, searching for the right words. "When people fart," she said, looking down, touching the bridge of her nose, "after having anal intercourse."
Chuckles from the audience.
"Cause I think that that is so gross," she said. "But if they're really funny..."
