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For two days, Internet fanatics converged on the MIT campus, in the hopes of catching the micro-celebrities of a medium in which, in the words of musician Momus, “everyone is famous for 15 people.”
ROFLCon is a convention about the intricacies of the Internet meme. Memes – pronounced “meems,” is a term devised by Richard Dawkins in his book, “The Selfish Gene,” to describe the ways in which Darwinian theories of evolution could apply to human culture. Today, a meme is what we call funny pictures of cats that say “OH HAI.”
In the days of broadcast television and films, celebrity was scarce, explained David Weinberger, a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center, in his keynote speech. “It was all about alienation.”
Now, technology is “taking revenge on 100 years of broadcast” by emphasizing the imperfections of homemade media. “Perfection is the enemy of credibility,” Weinberger explained. “We’re ceasing to believe that which is too perfect. There’s got to be a problem somewhere.”
Which is what brings us to Tron Guy. Jay Maynard is a 47-year-old man from Minnesota. He is also a fan of Tron. While planning to attend a science fiction conference, Maynard used his LiveJournal to share plans for an elaborate costume made of spandex with glowing pieces of armor powered by 10 AA batteries and a Nine-Volt.
“I know I need to lose about 40 pounds and I know this costume isn’t flattering,” Maynard said. Nonetheless, when pictures of him wearing the suit showed up on the Internet, “My life turned upside-down in a matter of hours.”
Not all of it was pretty – darker, more cynical communities like Somethingawful.com were brutal; at the same time, Maynard started getting requests from morning-show DJs who would bring him on as a guest to mock him, which he called the worst experiences he’s ever had.
Eventually, Maynard ended up on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” for a total of 15 appearances. While the butt of jokes on mainstream television, Maynard said the people who talk to him or read his blog get it on a different level.
“Your mechanism of saying, ‘this is who I am, f— you’ It’s awesome,” said one audience member.
Maynard is an unlikely celebrity in a broadcast world. But then, so are people like Kyle MacDonald, who traded up from a red paperclip until he was able to purchase a house in rural Canada. While there are some celebrities who are born from the Internet – Tila Tequila comes to mind – there are fewer who can make it last without traditional media backing them. Tequila’s self-promoted CD, for example, sold significantly fewer copies than she expected. It serves as a warning to anyone who uses the net in a conscious effort to make money or fame.
“People on the Internet are remarkably adept at spotting bulls—,” said Maynard.
While many are tempted to explain the spread of ideas on the Internet as a product of new technology, the idea of the Internet meme is fundamentally the same as the way jokes get told. As a result, studying the way jokes get told on the Internet allows for a simplified model to earn insight into how technology changes the way we communicate.
“Internet humor is localized humor,” said Alice Marwick, a Ph.D student at New York University, who spoke on the subject of “Microcelebrities.” On the internet – like any other culture – fame is given to people who possess the traits culture most wants to possess: Maynard standing up for himself makes him an Internet folk here; so does the intelligent wit of someone like Ryan North (Dinosaur Comic Guy) or Randall Monroe (XKCD Guy).
With the Internet capable of supporting a limitless supply of subcultures, it’s only natural that it can give us an explosion of Web celebrities, with its own definition of “famous” stretching to include people no one has ever really heard of, for something they made while bored at work.
Web sites:
roflcon.org
tronguy.net
oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com
qwantz.com
xkcd.com
