Here’s my rough notes, though once the video gets put online I’d really recommend watching this one, of all the panels I’ve seen so far. The questions she raised were really the ones I hoped the conference would address.

(I’ll try to come back later and update with links to the videos, as well as clean up my typos, misspellings, etc – and add some links where appropriate).

[Update: Alice has blogged that she will post her notes as well if people are interested.]

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I went to SXSW earlier this year to talk about social status and elitism in web 2.0. But no one wanted to talk about that. Everyone wanted to talk about celebrities.

Status embodies values – tells us what’s important. Fame gives you a kind of power, and also demonstrates a certain amount of value.

[Britney, with shaved head - fame is not a solution to everything.]

Our culture is suffused with the desire to become famous – celebrity means success, and is the ultimate reward.

What is it about daily life which makes people so desperately want to be famous?

Limited opportunities, vacuity of suburban teen existence. The myth of individualism and meritocracy – small town girl who struggles for years and becomes an overnight success story – back to Horatio Algier.

Then there is the reality of VH1 behind the scenes. This myth has an ideological function. Stars are just like us, or at least they were, which means that it could happen to us. Why is this ideological? Celebrity is not democratic. We can’t all have the same success if we only work hard. It serves to mask the celebrity system and how it operates.

Pseudo-celebs – Paris et al. Reality tv stars, who are celebrities for the sake of celebrities – if they didn’t exist, the tabloids would have had to create them. Paparazzi photos as proof of digital stardom. This trickles down – facebook profiles and myspace photos become the local version of paparazzi shots. We emulate them.

Neal Gabler, Jodi Dean – celebrity culture, publicity culture. We prize social skills that emphasize performance. Capital, service-oriented economy has adopted the cultural logic of celebrity, in which recognition is its own reward. Terri Senft – Camgirls: Webcams, LiveJournals and the Personal as Political in the age of the Global Brand, coming out this summer – microcelebrity.

Microcelebrities respond to fans, know their fans – so in some ways it breaks down the spectator relationship of traditional fandom – closer to an equality relationship. Magibon – staring into the camera. Acting like an anime / manga character. YouTube vs IRL. When Magibon was revealed to be just another socially awkward teenager from the US, she got harshly critiqued.

In the 70s and 80s the inner wrappings of fame started to come unravelled – exposing the machinations of the celebrity culture. Daniel Boorstein. The culture behind the machine is now entirely visible – even foregrounded. [Think of the Kathy Griffin show - my example, not Warwick's - Griffin foregrounds her own attempts to remain semi-famous]

Internet celebs appear more “authentic” – [pace Weinberger just yesterday]. But the backlash is strong when these authentic celebs get revealed as also constructed. (Magibon story).

Is internet celebrity any more honest, authentic, or real, than other kinds of celebrity?

Creating a taxonomy of internet fame – heroes, stars, celebrities.

Internet famous is not the same for Mike Arrington as it is for Suicide Girls.

1. Careerist Promoters – maintain an online presence in order to further their offline careers.

2. Creative promotors – Scoble, Ze Frank.

3. Self-promoters – scene queens of buzznet. Using the logic of micro-celebrity to get the spoils of traditional celebrity

4. Reluctant celebs – those who have it thrust upon them. (Star wars kid, numa numa).

If we think that celebrity is democratic, we really want to believe that internet celebrity is democratic.

Certainly internet fame has enabled people to distribute creative content without mass media support, but it is also very ephemeral, and also very based on validation by big media.

But look at who really owns these sites – internet celebs are deeply enmeshed in a consolidated corporate system. And often those who bubble up fit a certain profile.

Does internet celebrity question or validate the status quo and the values of dominant mainstream society?

It can be very racist, sexist, homophobic, classist.

Internet celebrity rarely does anything to upset or critique mainstream values.

What about the specific subculture of roflcon

Being famous to fifteen people (citation?)

There are multiple cultures on view here – lots of different kinds of subcultures each with their own sets of values, ways of being, ways of seeing. Crafters vs tech pundits.

Microcelebrity exists, by definition, in a very small community.

Tila Tequila’s failed single, failure to make Rick Astley the 8th inning song for the mets.

Internet celebrity does not translate across all worlds.

IC does use the cultural logic of capitalism, but in a different way – not outside it, but using it in new ways.

Last theory – cultural of narcissism, hollow, superficial, echo chamber.

Internet Celebrity and celebration – injecting a critical voice into a conference which has been more purely about celebration.

If this is the culture we’re building, let’s make it mean something.

You can stay inside the humor, enjoy the meme, and celebrate the cultural profusion – which is pretty much what day one of ROFLCon was all about – or you can try to set a context, understand what is going on in the humor, and analyze what the memes tell us about the culture(s) from which they originate, the culture(s) in which they succeed or fail, flourish or thrive, or even about the nature of cultural transmission itself.

The hope of ROFLCon, for me, was always that it would bring together these two modes: bringing academic, critical analysis into the same space with Tron guy, the Mozilla fox, Cheez, and other meme-originating microcelebrities:

Mix up a bunch of super famous internet memes, some brainy academics, a big audience, dump them in Cambridge, MA and you’ve got ROFLCon.

Day one essentially was devoid of the analysis and critique part. Weinberger’s intro did provide some context and implied a potential critique (the motivation behind some kinds of cultural meme spreading being hateful, condescending, patronizing, etc), the panels on LOLCats and the mis-titled “Pwning for the good of mankind” got stuck inside the memes.

While the LOLCat panel was well moderated, and interesting, the level of analysis stopped at speculations about what “cat people” are like. The panel:

PANEL: LOLCATS: I CAN HAZ CASE STUDY?: How do you see the development of the LOLCat? What do you think people will think of the LOLCat when they look back in 30 years? (Room 34-101)

Moderator: Alexis Ohanian
Panelists: “Cheez” (I Can Has Cheezburger), Martin Grondin (LOLCat Bible), Ryan and Arija (LOLSecretz), Stephen Granades (LOLTrek), Adam Lindsay (LOLCode)

Lots of wonderful sites I love – LOLCode and the LOLCat Bible in particular are creative take offs on the original ICHC.

During the Pwning for Mankind panel:

PWNING FOR GOOD OF MANKIND: How did you start doing what you do? What motivated you to use internet culture against established forces? What allowed you to mobilize attention against the non-internet world? Did it happen unintentionally? (Room 34-101)

Moderator: Lana Swartz, Comparative Media Studies, MIT

Panelists: Dino Ignacio (Bert Is Evil), Leslie Hall (Gem Sweater), Justine Ezarik (iJustine), Ji Lee (Bubble Project), Eric Schoenborn (ACLU)

Unforunately, the only real evidence of social critique was provided by the ACLU representative who brought up net neutrality and the daily battles against censorship, political repression, and the elimination of privacy on which folks like the ACLU and the EFF focus. (Ok, maybe the Bubble Project’s agenda to limit outdoor advertising is a social critique, but it was only briefly discussed). I don’ really know the Gem Sweaters project, but she never broke character or tried to explain what it might be about, other than getting people to wear gem sweaters.

I think Tron guy’s funny too, and I am a tremendous fan of LOLCats, LOLDogs, and every other manifestation of the LOL meme. But I came to a conference not to just surf the web and laugh about the absurd, creative, wonderful, insipid, profound, politically repugnant, progressive, mess that is humor on the web.

I’m hoping day two will restore the balance a bit. Based on the schedule, there’s some good reason to hope. (Not that only formal academics can do critical analysis, but they’re more likely to have those chops than, say, iJustine or the Million Dollar Web Page guy.