I'm going to mention this because right now it's soooooo frustrating and I simply can't not talk about it...but I just wrote a whole long blog post and then accidentally deleted it!! And for about 30-45 seconds, I kind of lost it. I hate that everything has to be recorded or it doesn't count. I know what you're thinking, probably that that's a stupid comment. It is kinda stupid because that's how everything works I guess but just know that right now I am struggling ....I could almost feel a tear slowly building... but then it went away. Obviously I am bad at dealing with life when my attempts to do something productive are thwarted. It's just, you know, when you did something you're supposed to do you almost feel proud, but now that's been destroyed... because you get that feeling and then you just know that whatever you type now is only going to be a crappier version of what you originally had...sigh ok enough with that.

I deliberately did not read Jill Walker's essay on Caroline (until 5 minutes ago) because I was hoping that I would have enough time to discover the end on my own. But given that getting to the end apparently takes a minimum of 24 days, and that people would probably talk about the end in class today, I decided to bite the bullet and read Walker's essay.

And I was genuinely surprised at what was going to happen to Caroline-- and especially surprised at my own reaction: I felt worried and sad. But then I asked myself why I should feel concern for someone who doesn't exist. I felt sheepish, like I do when I cry in movies-- like, why should my emotions be so easily manipulable? But then I realized that our culture considers it fairly acceptable to be emotionally affected by the fate of a character in a book-- or even a character in a movie or TV show. So why not an online character, too-- especially one with whom I have communicated with far more than I have ever communicated with a character in a book, movie, or TV show? I guess it just takes time for new media to gain legitimacy in our minds, even when what they're doing has ancient parallels.

It seems like most people are pretty dissatisfied with Caroline. Although I understand the desire for Caroline to seem lifelike, to seem like a person we would actually be friends with, I think that there are other important factors that contribute to the overall quality of an interactive website.

One of these is, I think, overlooked far too often, and it is this: interestingness. I mean, yeah, I don't believe that Caroline and I are actually friends, but I am curious about how she will resolve the tensions in her personal life, and I do look forward to receiving her emails each day, which are full of enjoyable, self-deprecating, and self-conscious banter (better than some of the "real" emails I receive), and I do enjoy poking around the site. The same is not true, for me, with Jemma. She is not very interesting. I don't care about her date. Or studying physics in the UK. But Caroline has a definite personality.

Another first impression to go along with my post on carolineonline (and to dig me out of the blog deficit that I am in. Planet Jemma did not draw me in, but I was not as negative about this one for some reason (suppose I'm more into the cartoons). What was interesting about this one for me (besides the Britishisms, which I miss sorely) was the many different media that this site worked in. The "first person" videos, the quizzes, the emails and the voting (which apparently impacts the story line...) seem to be multiple "hooks" provided to get someone caught up in this story. I got the feeling that this was a rather unproductive shotgun approach that failed to achieve consistency. The surveys that I filled out instantly returned conversational responses, which felt hokey. Also, the video was contrived, complete with cliffhanger. While it lacked the "creepy" vibe of carolineonline, it felt unfinished and commercial in its attempts to pull me in.

I don't know why, but I just have to force myself to be anything more than the tiniest bit interested in the stories at onlinecaroline.com and planetjemma.com. Having to put in my email address already makes me cranky, and thinking about getting emails from these sites makes me realize that I will probably do what I do with all other emails, which is leave them piling up unread for as long as possible while I assure myself I will read them later. I don't know what it is...I'm still trying to figure out my stubborn resistance to it all. Something about getting these standard responses to my interactions with the characters... I don't really want to fill in my personal details and answer quizzes so I can get these limited replies...won't it probably just come down to how much I can mess with the format and try to get unique responses? I haven't read through all of "Kind of Blue" yet, but I'm immediatly more interested in it. Reading something that I can pretend is personal and real is more captivating for me than reading emails that are trying to make you think they're personal and real because, really, all their trying does is make it more obvious that they're not what they're trying to be. Does that make sense? These are my early impressions so who knows, maybe I'll get more drawn into the stories of "Caroline" and "Jemma"...