<editorsnote>Hi, I'm Jen Friel, and we here at TNTML examine the lives of nerds outside of the basements and into the social media, and dating world. We have over 75 peeps that write about their life in real time. (Real nerds, real time, real deal.) Sit back, relax, and enjoy some of the stories!!</editorsnote>
BAHHHHHHH!!!! Still just kinda in lah. Slept for like 18 hours. It's just sort of hitting me in stages. There's just still too much going on, its like I expected this kinda stuff to hit as I got older, but dude - I'm 25. Not now. Part of me really wants to document what I'm feeling, albeit without revealing the person involved as they asked to not be posted on.
But this is like a big thing in life. I'm kind of oddly conflicted. I just can't do it myself. This is when having a production team would be like total awesome applesauce. Is it sick and twisted that everything that I experience, I just try to figure out a way to document? I think its a new art form, but then again - I'm also pretty twisted.
Talked to my brother for an hour last night. That was pretty good. We hadn't spoken in months ... I missed him terribly. His poor girlfriend, I called her at first just to kinda be like, hey really need to talk to my brother. And I just lost it. Like total, blubbery chick couldn't speak a word type lost it. Certain people's voices have a way of just touching you. All it took was for her to say hello - and I was a goner.
Been watching a lot of Netflix. Beetlejuice, Dexter, Californication, Groundhog Day, its amazing how much TV i have been missing out on while working. Part of me still wants to just be curled up in a little ball, but yes - I have showered and am up and going. Today is my last day of relaxation. Tomorrow is game time before this thing that I have Monday. Work keeps me going, work has always kept me going. Fortunately, we have a very big week coming up.
Just feeling incredibly sad. Not really looking to talk about it, just trying to figure out a way to co-exist from a safe distance. Thanks to everyone so much for the love and support. You guys really are my saving grace.
I can't stand it when people ask me "what's up" or "whats new?" I operate as a lifecaster, I literally publish everything that I do. It creates this odd social dynamic that I am still trying to figure out how to deal with. Let me preface this however by saying that contrary to what I grew up hearing, I do not believe the world revolves around me. Quite the opposite. However, I do see the analytics on this site. Mama didn't raise no fool.
That being said, I get one of two things.
The "oh wow, had no idea" reaction of, wow I just read that on TNTML - but I am not really ready to admit to you that I read your site and already knew that ... or the "yep, totally read about it," cool and confident response.
I prefer the second. Dude, if we're friends IRL and you have me somewhere in your social network, chances are good - you know what I'm up to. Don't lie, it doesn't mean you're stalking me ... I tweet, facebook update, and foursquare checkin like its my job, because it is! Furthermore, if you're a new character in my life, ie. reaching out via OKCupid, or some other insane in the membrane new person ... please for the love of all things holy don't belittle what I do, or ask how "the web thing" is going. Its the quickest way to never hear from me again.
I take what I do incredibly seriously. I am still figuring this out - but if we hang out IRL, and you read this site, tell me!!! I'd like to thank you. It also makes it incredibly less awkward for me when I can read your face and know that I know that you're reading this site, and you're not telling me. I think that's weird. Like your mom. No wait, not your mom ... like your brother's cousin's facial mole that has that weird hair growing from it like the dude from Mannequin 2: On the Move. Yeah ... you're like that.
Okey dokey raviokey ... I just finished watching "We Live in Public" *cue @gomiso checkin*
I've been trying to explain this notion of lifecasting to the uber big wiggie people with money - and a few of them have seen this film, and keep asking me what the difference is. Having not see it, I wasn't able to really comment ... but HOLY CRAP that guy is insane!!!!!!!!!! Definitely a visionary, as he foresaw the whole fascination of social media and the notion of broadcasting your life ... but come on!!! A gun range, and drugs, and THAT many people!!?!?!
Okay okay ... here's a bit of the back story per wiki:
The film details the experiences of "the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of,"[1]Josh Harris. The dot.com millionaire founded Pseudo.com, the first Internet television network during the infamous tech boom of the late '90s. After achieving prominence amongst the Silicon Valley set, Harris became interested in controversial human experiments which tested the effects of media and technology on the development of personal identity. Ondi Timoner documented the major business-related moments of Harris's life for more than a decade, setting the tone for her documentary of the virtual world and its supposed control of human lives.[1]
Among Harris' experiments touched on in the film is the art project "Quiet: We Live in Public," an Orwellian, Big Brother type concept developed in the late '90s which placed more than 100 artists in a human terrarium under New York City, with myriad webcams following and capturing every move the artists made.[2] The pièce de résistance was a Japanese-style capsule hotel outfitted with cameras in every pod, and screens that allowed each occupant to monitor the other pods[3] installed in the basement by artist Jeff Gompertz.[4]
The film's website describes how, "With Quiet, Harris proved how, in the not-so-distant future of life online, we will willingly trade our privacy for the connection and recognition we all deeply desire. Through his experiments, including another six-month stint living under 24-hour live surveillance online which led him to mental collapse, he demonstrated the price we will all pay for living in public."
"He climbs into the TV set and he becomes the rat in his own experiment at this point, and the results don't turn out very well for him[5]," says Timoner of the six month period Harris broadcast his life in his NYC loft live online. "He really takes the only relationship that he's ever had that was close and intimate and beaches it on 30 motion-controlled surveillance cameras and 66 invasive microphones. I mean his girlfriend who signed on to it thinking it would be fun and cool, and that they were living a fast and crazy Internet life, she ended up leaving him. She just couldn't be intimate in public. And I think that's an important lesson; the Internet, as wonderful as it is, is not an intimate medium. It's just not. If you want to keep something intimate and if you want to keep something sacred, you probably shouldn't post it."
Kind of gives you a good idea of what I'm talking about if you haven't seen it ... and here's a vid:
Alrite, now I feel like we are more on the same page. But let's break a few things down here ... this guy is bat shit crazy. I know I have my moments of insanity, but I also did some really rad soul searching (thanks good ol' buddha!), and have very honestly never been more "solid" for lack of a better word in my entire life. I know my shit, and drugs, alcohol, whatever - dude, I even gave up caffeine to see what organic awesomeness was like. Josh Harris, I am DEFINITELLYYYY NOTT!!!!!!!! I think as far as the medium is concerned, yes he was without a doubt onto something - but his timing was off. In 1999, when he started his experiment, we were not at the same tipping point we are now with the online medium. It was still reserved for the nerds in the basement, and the creepers jerking off on yahoo chat. To say it is night and day is an understatement. Both the actual technology was not ready, as broadband was not readily available until 2005, and the end user ... the people who were supposed to be the ones broadcasting their lives, were not comfortable in cyber space. It was just off, off, off, off, off. Timing was SOOO friggen off.
Broadcasting video 24/7 does not work. I tried it on LiveVideo - I was PhotoJeNic on that site. It's not very interesting. What I do is across all the workable elements of social media. From where I go, thanks to FourSquare - I can checkin, and the end user at home watching ... can see a map of where I am, even a menu. Whatever they want. I can tweet while I am there, and even twitpic what is around me. Should I choose to actually go live with video content, I can via UStream, and enhance the quality of the feed via an Owle Bubo. This is on lock - it's there ... and anyone can do it. But it CANT CANT CANT CANT CANT be done 24/7. Just doesn't work. There are times that I need a break, I need to breathe - but I am also 25, single, with not a single attachment to anything material in all of the world. I've created a weird environment where I can control variables better, and do it all myself. He had SOO many people involved with his experiment, and its something that wouldn't translate in social media. We want the engagement, and following that many people - just wouldn't work. The audience interacts with me directly. I answer every email, every tweet, every anything from anyone. No bullshit, no "people" doing it for me ... it's all real, and organic.
Josh was definitely on to something with his experiment, but again - right place, right time, right frame of mind.
I'm currently driving an Audi S5 back from Dallas to California on the Unapologetically Awesome Spring/ Summer 2010 Tour, and DUDEESSS!!! Can I just say driving one of these stick is WAYYYYYY different than the Fiesta?!?! For reals ... I thought learning stick was learning stick ... oh HELLLSSSSS nawwww!!!! This car scares me with its mighty, mighty, power!!!
BAHHHHH!!!!!!! It goes so friggen FAST!!! And dudes, there's even a SIXTH gear!!! SIX!!! I didn't even know cars went up that high!!!
My phone didn't get reception at all throughout the entire state of Oklahoma ... but I did take some pretty rad shots today ...
BUG JUICE!!!!!!!!!
Anywhoooo, the AC is epicly failing in the Audi ... SOOOO I'm taking a little cat nap now, since it's 100 plus in the desert, I'm going to just haul ass tonight to make it to the grand canyon in as cool of weather as possible. So, uh, yeah! Good times, nerds!!! W00t! W00t!!!! Can't WAIIITTTTTTT to walk across the glass skybridge!! OMG looks like SOO much fun!! Check it out!
Friday, October 22, 2010 at 4:00PM
Randombling: A 5 minute long unedited random stream of consciousness produced by a nerd for nerds.
I take what I do incredibly seriously. I am still figuring this out - but if we hang out IRL, and you read this site, tell me!!! I'd like to thank you. It also makes it incredibly less awkward for me when I can read your face and know that I know that you're reading this site, and you're not telling me. I think that's weird. Like your mom. No wait, not your mom ... like your brother's cousin's facial mole that has that weird hair growing from it like the dude from Mannequin 2: On the Move. Yeah ... you're like that.
