In the summer of 2024, a peculiar phenomenon began bubbling up through the sludge of YouTube recommendations and TikTok’s “For You” page. A grainy, hyper-saturated thumbnail of a woman who looked almost like Bridgit Mendler—the beloved Disney Channel star turned singer-songwriter, and now unlikely rocket scientist and CEO—promised a “leaked sex tape.” Another claimed she had announced a surprise world tour. A third, perhaps most cruelly, featured an AI-generated audio clip of her “sobbing” about a failed return to music.