“Revenge Against 100 Years of Broadcast”
Friday, April 25th, 2008
The first day of ROFLcon is done. My highlight: meeting Leslie Hall, 100%, for sure. Doesn’t get much hotter than that! But seriously, she’s great, and Kate got to have an amazing chat with her (I missed out because I was visiting my friend Diana, but tomorrow, we’re hoping to interview Leslie’s mom!!)
The interesting thing about ROFLcon is that no one can really put there finger on what it is just yet. It’s a joke that’s gone too far, but at the same time, there’s some really, really deep stuff coming out, and ultimately, memes/internet celebrities are becoming a really important force in our culture, so figuring ‘it’ out is actually really important. David Weinberger (video to come, I promise–the Internet in this hotel is crap), made some really interesting points in his keynote about the future of fame… Wow, my brain is starting to die a bit (time to go to the lol concert!)… The title quote, “revenge against 100 years of broadcast” was his reflection on the insanity that’s happening today, and in an interview later in the day (this is where the video-to-come comes in… watch for an update), he made some great points about the very different nature of an accessible, grassroots fame vs. the old-school constructed form of Hollywood fame.
The moral of the story is that we can all be microcelebrities. Or really, that we will all be microcelebrities, and that everyone with a blog or a flickr account or who shares video on youtube is famous to someone, whether or not we know it, and that long tail of fame is pretty much what we’re celebrating here at roflcon.
Update: In case there was any doubt, Web 2.0 is over. Thanks for making it official, Valley Wag.