This article must have slipped by me during one of the times when I let my Wired subscription lapse, because I’d like to think I would remember it. The reaction in class seemed to be mostly (or at least most vocally, anyway) that this girl embodied everything wrong with our internet culture today.
I absolutely couldn’t disagree more. Sure, in sleuthing around her sites and various other contributions, she doesn’t strike me as the most relevant to my interests and lifestyle, but I have to give her credit for accomplishing what she set out to do. In doing so, she highlights one of the best things about the internet. It’s the best tool for taking control of the spotlight and putting it on the 99.9% of us who are not positioned well in the entertainment industry. Numerous times the narcissist in me has considered what it would be like be internet-famous and how easy it would be to do so. Julia Allison provides a great how-to, but it certainly isn’t the only way.
No one has to see Allison; the internet is just as democratic as the tv remote or the radio dial. If you don’t like her or what she contributes, don’t click through to her spaces and don’t post about her. See, the real take-away is that internet denizens love pointless – passionate, but pointless – outrage. Everyone has to snark about what everyone else is doing. In retrospect, I can’t easily recall any digital conversation I’ve been a part of that didn’t eventually tailspin into a flame war or fight over the soapbox. It’s always been true that we care far too much about what others like that we don’t than what we ourselves like. The formula is simple. I contribute to Website of Interest A, which coincidentally happens to align as polar opposite to Website of Interest B. WI B’s trolls come in and troll WI A, and of course the tribe assembles and we begin jumping and shouting and slamming our palms on the ground until the WI B intruders back off. Then a couple of our WI A trolls decide to retaliate and the process repeats for all of time. Think of any inverse relationship to cast as WI A and WI B: Conservatives/Liberals, Coke/Pepsi, Ford/Chevrolet, Mac/PC, Digg/Reddit, Believers/Non-Believers, or Star Trek/Star Wars. All the brouhaha amounts to nothing because opinions are never changed on either side. This will keep happening forever because it’s been happening forever. Web 2.0 is just the latest example and Julia Allison was smart enough to see how to make it work for her.
Oh, and since she probably does frequent searches for her name on blogs: Hi, Julia!
I agree with you. Julia Allison (hey grrrrl!) is just a good example of the power the Internet gives to individuals. To some extent, it doesn't matter why she is an Internet celebrity. It's more important that she can be. And because the Internet is organized around these binary groups you've described, it's easy to find your audience and rise to the top. Celebrity seems more attainable on the Internet than in traditional media.
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