"WikiTV"

Good article in the NYT about the outing of Lonelygirl, and how the whole drama might just be the dawning of a new narrative art from.

Come on, something good has to come of this.

Just like that, Lonelygirl’s tale goes from Web-based melodrama or viral-­marketing trickery toward something like a brand-new art form. It’s the birth of WikiTV: a television show created by a broad community of participants and built not of sequential, hour-long episodes, but of two-­minute interconnected parcels. The story line is both linear (will Daniel get the girl?) and expansive (enter the Mirrored Cowboy!), and anyone can join in. I, for example, could don a tuxedo and eye patch, and post a video claiming that the Cowboy’s a double agent. Then someone could post a video refuting me, now known as the Dapper Pirate.

Comments

[Asi]

indeed. It is just the begining but YouTube is about to significantly revolutionise our consumption of content and entertainment. Lonelygirl is a fine example for participatory entertainment, where we are able co-create a neverending melodramas - fictitious (lonelygirl) or documentry (garietric1927 - soon to be revealed as a stunt as well?). Similar to blogversations but in video form. That can't be a bad thing!

A.

[Dino]

Do you suspect that geriatric might be a stunt? I do. I did from the start (honest!).

Same thing with lonelygirl, had a feeling from the beginning, say, the first 50,000 views or something, that it was staged. Of course, it's easy to say that now. Who is going to believe me?!

[karl long]

Lonelygirl15 was hardly wikitv, in fact what gave it away was the way the story unfolded without any reaction to the furor around it. People were calling it fake from the begining, and yet lonely girl never responded.

As for Geriatric1927 I will bet my last dollar he is for real.

[Dino]

Karl, you're on for the geriatric bet! Will send you my PayPal info in a minute.

How do you define wikitv? If the many comments, characters and drama surrounding the lonelygirl project don't count, what does? Just curious. Please respond before I win the geriatric bet, too.