Dopp Juice Archive

I have to hang my head in shame here. I didn’t find out about the Lonelygirl15 story until a few weeks ago (at the Web 2.2 Conference), and I didn’t actually watch any of it until today. Yes, I’ve been living under a rock. But maybe I’m not the only one. So if you, too, have been living under a rock as far as hip internet obsessions go, let me get you up to speed. There’s a popular website called YouTube, where people can post videos. Some people use it to blog via video. Some video blogs become popular and have lots of readers. Still with me? Good. This is where it gets interesting. A couple of creative filmmakers staged a fictional video blog about a 16-year-old homeschooled girl with strict parents who are involved in a strange religion. The blog follows her relationship with a guy, her rebellion against her parents, and a strange turn of events that leaves her homeless. And because having the video blog is part of her rebellion, the millions of youtube viewers are intimately involved in her dramatic story. And they think it’s real, because no one called it fiction. Well, not for awhile at least. Eventually rumors leaked out and the creators and actors were exposed. Her community felt enraged and betrayed. The rest of the web was fascinated. At the Web 2.2 Conference we had a facilitated discussion on the topic of trust on the web. Were Lonelygirl15’s creators wrong to do this? Yes and no. They did knowingly betray the trust of an audience. But video blogging is also a new medium, and its standards are still in their early evolution. If it had been a specifically art or creative performance website, there wouldn’t have been a problem. If you say “this is true” in a known fiction setting, there’s an understanding of ambiguity, and no one will hate you if it turns out to be fiction. What are our responsibilities to people’s assumptions? Where is it okay to push known boundaries? Is it okay to mess with people for the sake of art? What about for the sake of advertising (which lonelygirl15 was thankfully not)? Does this example open the door for more blatant challenges of our assumptions, or did it cross too far over the line?The outrage from this “scandal” exposes a weak spot in our internet culture — we want to believe we know what’s going on, even though this is all new territory with lots of unexplored areas. We fear ambiguity, and we fear being exposed for our ignorance, even though both are unavoidable. So if you, like me, missed the boat on the Lonelygirl15 obsession, I encourage you to check it out now and draw your own conclusions about the controversy. You can also learn a lot by reading the comments below each post, and watching how they evolved from trust to accusation.

• The First Video Blog Post
• The Whole List of Blog Posts (jump to the end and work backwards to view them in order)
• Wikipedia Coverage including a plot synopsis and overview of what actually happened.

Personally? I think the whole thing is pretty neat.

Yeah, I know, we’re all email experts by now. But the thing is, we all do it differently because it’s still a fairly new communication medium. Here’s one team’s attempt at defining “the rules.” http://www.itsecurity.com/features/99-email-security-tips-112006/I think they do a particularly good job with the Etiquette section. Thou shalt not send emails when angry…

I’m chilling out in the Blogger Lounge at the Web2point2 rogue unconference at the Microsoft center in downtown San Francisco… wishing you were here. And here’s your cue to demand an explanation: What’s this about Web 2.2? When did we move up from Web 2.0? Did we ever even figure out what Web 2.0 means? Is anything actually happening on the web or are we just drowning in new-tool pastel ajax overload? The answer is here. Look to the man with the jeans, t-shirt, and fancy suit coat ringing the tibetan meditation bells to signal the end of a five minute conversation you’re having with a complete stranger about what you’re most passionate about in life. It’s a gimmick.Look to the super-cute t-shirt they gave me, that looks like a Windows error message with an old-school time bomb on it. It reads: Web 2.0 has crashed, please upgrade to Web 2.2. Click OK to continue.Dude. Gimmick. Look to the registration price: $32.95, which is in total mockery of the big fancy O’Reilly Web 2.0 Conference going on simultaneously in this very city for the low, low price of $3,200.It’s all a gimmick. Look to all the new tools based on business models that have existed for hundreds of years, but are now dressed up in a drag-and-drop interfaces and use Trebuchet MS font.Let’s face it. The whole internet is just a gimmick. But I love every pixel of it. So why haven’t I been blogging much lately, you might ask? Truth be told, I’ve been existing in the so-called real world these days. I’ve taken a break from obsessive monitor-staring and am paying new attention to things like… eating… and sleeping… and (dun dun DUN!) moving my body. To top it off, I’ve been engaging in social situations where I can actually see and touch the individual I’m communicating with. I tell you, it’s amazing, the opportunities that exist when you turn off your computer. I feel like an toddler discovering she has knees. And that’s exactly why I’m here, at the Web 2.2 Gimmick Extravaganza. Their motto is: The Point is (still) the People. I think we, in the tech industry, are chronically guilty of forgetting that the internet exists for people. Not vice versa. We often think that if we build a cool tool, people will come for it. And then we’re disappointed when they don’t. That’s what this conference is about: remembering why we’re here.And if it takes a handful of elaborate gimmicks to remind us that we exist outside of bandwidth, so be it. Gimmick on. The internet is a gimmick. People are not. Remember: You have knees.TAGGED! web22(p.s. Cheers to Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells for pulling this incredible mishmash of tech geek collaboration off without a hitch!)