Online Voyeurism Goes Textual With The Leila Texts

Overheard in New York meets Found magazine for cellphones at The Leila Texts, a blog about misfired texts and the woman who receives them.

After getting a new cellphone from Verizon, Leila Sales (pictured) began receiving strange texts from all over the United States. Thanks to a technological glitch in her carrier's network, she gets dozens of messages intended for other "Leilas" in the Verizon network.

Here's an excerpt from The Leila Texts, about a message Sales received Sunday:

You're a prostitute.
from a 978 phone number, Sunday, March 2, 12:55 AM

I
was out with my friend Clare when I received this text message. Clare was like, "Oh my God, let me respond, please." So she texted back (on her own phone), "No, YOU are a prostitute."

978 then texted Clare back with something like, "No, you are."

Clare said, "Uh... this is a little weird."

I was like, "Yeah, welcome to the Leila Texts."

Rather than clog up her phone's memory, Sales started the blog to preserve and record all her text mementos along with biting, often hilarious, commentary about the unintended soundtrack the random texts play in her life.

"I find it so interesting," she told Brooklyn Based, an online newsletter. "It’s totally worth whatever it costs me to get a text message."

"When you send a text message on the Verizon network, you can address your text by choosing a name out of your contact list, or you can address it by typing in a phone number. You can also type in a name. And if you type in L-E-I-L-A, then -- bizarrely -- your text will come to me," Sales said.

Photo courtesy Brooklyn Based

[via BuzzFeed and Brooklyn Based]

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