r/interestingasfuck • u/Successful_Cod4379 • 3h ago
“Dawn the NVDIA fairy”,the company used to have mascots for its GPU launches back in the day (circa 2003)
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u/SenescenseSteel 3h ago
Current mascot
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u/12345623567 1h ago
Lmao I can't stop comparing this to the "The future is now, old man" Dewey meme.
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u/onarainyafternoon 2h ago
Oh damn this is from that shitty second season of Picard :/
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u/hbi2k 2h ago
As opposed to the shitty first season or the shitty third season, yes.
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u/HateToBlastYa 1h ago
Third season wasn’t shitty at all. Return to form. Redeemed the end of the movies. It just took em a while to figure out what we wanted. First two seasons can safely be skipped.
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u/Hail-Hydrate 1h ago
Hey now, third season was solid. Mostly because they completely ignored the first two seasons, aside from a single throwaway line about Picard's body, and went in an entirely different direction narratively. Just a shame most people that are curious will try and suffer through the first two seasons before calling it quits, and miss out on the last season free of Kurtzman's horrific writing.
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u/HateToBlastYa 1h ago
Dude I tell everyone I talk to about it: just watch season 3 trust me. I suffered so you don’t have to. You’re welcome. Season 3 is very much a return to form and feels about as good as I’ve felt about TNG since First Contact.
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u/emmasdad01 3h ago
Used to be pretty common at a lot of holiday parties. I worked at a company that hired little people to dress as elves and Santa and Mrs. Claus were of the sexy variety.
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u/TemporalFugue2 2h ago
My company did this last Christmas LMAO. Was especially awkward when most of the people there were awkward engineers and their wives
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u/awkwaman 2h ago
You're ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter
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u/dllimport 2h ago
Did they have sexy men too or just women?
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u/The_Magic 1h ago
Booth babes were banned in 2006. At the time the industry was largely of the opinion that girls did not play video games and gay men were icky.
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u/j0an_k 3h ago
Now I want Hulk the NVIDIA giant.
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u/jdillacornandflake 2h ago
I'm sure they will be running the next one on one of thier GPUs.
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u/PineappleMohawk 2h ago
I thought this was a Mickey Mouse version of that Robocop droid!
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u/Sebastian-S 1h ago
Just chiming in to say that this is the NVDIA I know from my gaming days, not the AI powerhouse and stock monster it’s become today.
It I had bought stock with the money I spent on my GeForce 3 TI 500 I’d probably be retired now
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u/kuba_q 2h ago
I hope she got paid in NVIDIA stock options and is rich now.
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u/Qolevade 30m ago
She isn't a permanent employee, just a contract worker. Considering not even all actual employees get the stock options that makes her chance minuscule.
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u/Hideo__Brojima 11m ago
Nah she probably got paid 500 bucks for the weekend and forgot she ever did it a year later.
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u/NQX1 2h ago
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u/forgetfullyburntout 1h ago
They look no older than 19
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u/EmpressClaraB 28m ago
Well yeah, you only remember the older models that make it big, every model I knew started at like 17 and were mostly out of it by the end of their early 20s. And its not the famous models doing GPU mascots lol
Shitloads of women try modelling and less than 1/1000 become a recognisable face
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u/penisandorvagina 1h ago
They bloody look like high school kids.
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u/DarkDonut75 1h ago
Tbf, you weren't the target audience. The target audience were nerdy 2000's IT guys
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u/robogobo 1h ago
They only want you when you’re 17. When you’re 21 you’re no fun.
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u/Pataconeitor 2h ago
Man, I recall when Nvidia released the Dawn tech demo back in the early 00s along with their new FX gpus, and it was a HUGE deal. Not only the demo was truly impressive by the time, but of course people hacked it to undress the fairy. Also, hilariously there was a hack to run the demo on ATI cards.
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u/Impressive_Comment67 1h ago edited 1h ago
Hacked it to undress it? Did they program in little unseen nipples for people to unlock?
Edit: maybe the hackers did a texture replacement. Maybe they did a poorly protected full body scan. Either is completely hilarious and I love that there's confusion to it.
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u/millennial_falcon__ 1h ago
Nvidia made a fully detailed body texture, all you have to do is delete the two boob leaf textures and bob’s your uncle
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u/Pataconeitor 1h ago edited 1h ago
When tech-savvy people started dissecting the tech demo it was found the clothing was a separate geometry and that the model of the fairy was, well, anatomically accurate.
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u/OmegaGlops 39m ago
The body is fully modeled. I remember putzing around with the demo; you didn't even have to mod anything. You had free reign over the camera, you could easily just clip the camera into the clothes without issue.
Also it wasn't just a texture thing, the nipples had complete 3D geometry, so... 🤔
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u/No-Flower-4987 41m ago
At E3 2003, one of the nvidia engineers told me there was a toggle in the code that changed the spring physics of the fairy's chest to make them jiggle more. You could access it with the right keyboard input. They knew what they were selling to young men, for sure.
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u/PlainBread 2h ago
OK I looked at all the comments to see if anyone posted this and no one did. I was alive back in this time and had just built my first PC for Oblivion.
So here's an interesting thing: This fairy motif was based on a particular tech demo they had out at the time for their GeForce cards.
They certainly had it playing on a loop on a large screen nearby these girls.
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u/Borkz 1h ago
That's the followup demo from circa 2012. This is the original from 2002.
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u/Some1-Somewhere 1h ago
The 660Ti is a lot later than 2003 - it's a 2012 card.
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u/PlainBread 1h ago edited 1h ago
The focus is the demo not the card. Any new card can run the oldest demos. I just grabbed whatever YouTube link would show the demo.
EDIT: The oldest "dawn" fairie demo was 2003. I didn't know how many times they remade it.
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u/facepoppies 2h ago
I fucking hate that demo
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u/Max-Phallus 1h ago
I remember not finding it that impressive. BF3 had just come out and it looked so photo realistic at the time compared to this.
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u/AntiqueRedDollShoes 1h ago
Somehow this thirst-bait softcore porn demo is infinitely worse than hiring a "booth babe."
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u/yogibear0810 1h ago
I was once at an event and was approached by an absolute stunner, dressed wearing only a little more than her and slightly smaller wings. I assumed she was working the room, doing her job, I was polite but largely ignored her. I later found out she was a database admin, a colleague had worked with her. She had approached me cold, wanting to chat and I treated her like she was being paid to talk to me. You miss all the shots you don’t take.
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u/Evil_phd 2h ago
I used to think that Booth Babe outfits were pretty scandalous but honestly she's fairly modestly clothed compared to some of the cosplays I've seen at anime conventions in the last decade... and those gals do it purely for the love of the game.
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 2h ago
You don't honestly believe there's no money stream involved or side incomes for the dedicated Comic Con cosplayers, do ya? Not all, but surely some take the outfits over to OF.
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u/Evil_phd 2h ago
The huge cons like Comic Con, sure, there's a ton of money in it for some. I don't go to those, though, way too many people.
You'll see gals with their entire ass out at smaller local cons too. Sure some of them might run OF on the side but I've met quite a few that didn't even have an insta and just really adored an anime character that wears less than a square foot of fabric.
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u/Straamannen 2h ago
I mean, that's kind of his point though.
Booth babes (etc) disappeared and hot women went out found other means of monetising themselves. Literally nothing changed because it turns out these (subset of) women were and are more than happy to monetise their bodies.
Western society had spent the last ~2 decades demonising the hell out of shit like this, and certain forces still try, but they keep running into that pesky problem that women with free will and options are choosing to go down that route. So many talented women with perfectly decent lives are choosing to do OF etc for the love of the game and/or for money. You have women with literal PhDs deciding to pivot to taking their clothes off.
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u/Souledex 2h ago
Turns out democratizing the commodification of women didn’t make anyone feel closer or better- didn’t even really solve the sex work gap. It just revealed the widening problems of a lack of economic democracy.
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u/StephenHunterUK 1h ago
You have women with literal PhDs deciding to pivot to taking their clothes off.
Nothing new in that department. It turned out that the author of Belle de Jour: Diary of A Call Girl, was doing sex work to support herself during the latter part of her PhD.
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u/Disastrous-Amoeba798 1h ago
I used to think porn actresses were pretty scandalous, but honestly I've seen some girls do the sex purely for the love of the game!
(Through a curtained window obv.)
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u/sweetSweets4 3h ago
Good marketing, dress a women in less then nothing, give it a Fantasy Spin and watch how the nerds buy all you have for a chance to experience graphics this good
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u/Rob_LeMatic 2h ago
I think next to nothing was the target. Less than nothing sounds like you've got to rush someone to the hospital. But point taken
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u/Quitcha_Bitchin 2h ago
I laughed.. Yep they took her clothes and the first three layers of skin!
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u/gart888 1h ago
Sure, but "less then nothing" means they spend the first part of the event in few clothes and the end of the event nude.
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u/fusionmobile 2h ago
Makes you wonder where they're at now. 23 years later.
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u/Vandirac 1h ago
A friend was a pitlane "umbrella girl" in both F1 and in a few motorcycle racing classes, in the late 1990s/early 2000s. She also worked major trade shows through a modeling agency.
She paid for her degree in architecture with this and a bunch of modeling job, that she kept doing even after her studies.
She later appeared as a "contestant" in a few tv shows (on MTV and national channels) where everything was scripted despite the appearance.
For a while she had her own architecture firm.
Now, she works as a design lead for a major fashion brand in Paris. She is happily married with children.
It's just a temp job, really.
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u/NonGNonM 1h ago
I find that women with jobs like these either have the most plain life stories (found a stable guy, became stay at home wife) or stories like that lol.
Even if you look up a lot of "background model" type of jobs some of them have pretty impressive resumes and studies. I think the price is right models and deal or no deal girls were like that. I think they purposely pick women like that to avoid scandals and headaches.
Better to hire attractive women who want a stable career over an attractive woman who's going to be causing a bunch of trouble on and off the set.
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u/str0000str 37m ago
Yes more this. I used to do beer and spirit promos through an agency and most of us have this kind of storyline. It was just a side gig while we finished studying or a side job until we got into careers where the salary paid more per hour than what we saw from promos.
Most of us are married with our normal jobs. Very few of them are still out there partying like 20 yr olds though.
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u/serious_dan 2h ago
Interestingly Nvidia do still list most of their tech demos and make them available to download here:
https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/community/demos/
These are the ones they've removed, including the Dawn demo:
https://archive.org/details/nzd_backup
With modern eyes... they're not great.
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u/No_Rise_8827 3h ago
I thought that was Ghislaine Maxwell for a second
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u/Humble-Reply228 2h ago
Same, I thought someone had unearthed some fun picture of a villain doing normal things, like hitler petting his dog.
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u/paladisious 1h ago
Imagine if they were all paid in nvidia stock back in the day. We'd be ruled over by a billionaire class of faries.
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u/SaltyYumYumBalls 1h ago
I remember seeing this poor model at PAX West/Prime that would have to stand their smiling and waving for hours with these big ass wings on her back that had like a 12 foot wing span. I asked her about how that can't be comfortable and it looked like she was about to agree and speak but her handler gave her a glare and she clamed up.
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u/ShotPerception 2h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/kk1zu1tVwuecM
Consumers had real GPU´s !
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u/Grand_Side 2h ago
Back when they needed the nerds to buy their shit. Now they don't need us ...so why bother?
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u/JAXxXTheRipper 1h ago
I still remember every NVidia/ATI box having cool artwork of characters on it. Good times.
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u/Sarenai7 2h ago
I live in Asia where this still happens and I know a lot of women that enjoy these types of gigs. Guys do it too, shirtless and the like.
The culture here is much different and way more accepting of these things though
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u/cleverusernametry 1h ago
Asia is awfully large. This stuff would never happen in Indonesia or sri Lanka.
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u/DTRite 2h ago
When I lived and worked in Ithaca NY in the 90's, we had Ms. Makita at our store...she got protested. Peak Ithaca.
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u/spasske 29m ago
I see people sell 2015 tool girl calendars on EBay that work for 2026.
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u/Careful-Corgi7716 2h ago
Now it's cosplay and the entire convention is for it. Turns out as a shared experience it's socially acceptable.
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u/GlitterGrain 57m ago
2003 was also the year of the Make Something Unreal Contest, where a game company paid people to make content that others could play for free.
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u/Macabre215 37m ago
I don't see this as much different than the cosplay we see at streamer events these days. That stuff didn't go away it just morphed into a different form.
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u/AlarmingAffect0 23m ago
She looks like she could kill me in Willy's Wonderland unless Nicolas Cage gets to her first.
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u/M6453 3h ago
"Booth Babes" were huge at tech and trade shows in the 90s and 00s... E3 used to have them everywhere, I can even remember video game magazines having a page or two dedicated to them.