The early internet was chaos—a digital Wild West with no rules, no boundaries, and no protection. It was a breeding ground for predators, a place where manipulation could flourish unseen. Millennials were the first generation to grow up online, left to navigate this unregulated landscape with no roadmap. We were told to look out for the creepy man in the van, but no one warned us about what happens when the man doesn’t need a van—when he’s behind a screen, building trust in ways no one knew to look for.

In this episode of Back From the Borderline, I share my personal story of walking the edge of the music industry’s darkest realities—an experience that mirrors the cultural reckoning sparked by recent allegations against Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jay-Z. These stories aren’t isolated. They reflect how systemic power, celebrity worship, and the internet combined to create a perfect storm, leaving young people vulnerable in ways we’re only now beginning to understand.

We’ll unravel how a culture that glamorized power and silence enabled these dynamics to thrive. It wasn’t just the internet or the industry—wider society had no problem with the way young women were sexualized and exploited, shrugging it off as the price of ambition or desire. Our parents may not have seen the full scope of what was happening, but the culture around them did—and stayed quiet. Now, decades later, the same generation that told us to stay silent is feigning outrage over the very scripts they helped normalize.

This is a story about more than individual predators. It’s about systems designed to protect the powerful and the cultural blind spots that let exploitation flourish in plain sight. It’s also about how those systems are starting to crack. The same internet that once made us easy prey is now a tool for exposing the rot, amplifying survivors’ voices, and shining light on the shadows that have lingered too long.

There’s no neat resolution here. But if anything, this conversation is a reminder: We were set up to believe nothing was wrong, and waking up to that is the first step toward reclaiming what was taken from us.

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