CYBERVILLE
CYBERVILLE
Clicks, Culture, and
the Creation of an Online Town
an Interview with
Stacy Horn
Dateline:
CYBERVILLE is an excellent read. I couldn't put it down, except once or twice to log onto my computer. It's different from most cyberbooks, in that it's all a first-person account of Stacy Horn's adventures putting together a virtual community called EchoNYC. It's not abstract theoretical jargon based on the projected behavior of anonymous consumers. It's about real life on the internet, the real people that hang out there, one community some of them built and how it grows.
The book is refreshingly honest, amusing, and dense. It really brings home the experience that this particular group of people have shared for the past seven years. This gets a bit overwhelming at times, as does life. The author and founder of EchoNYC, Stacy Horn, is an atypical New Media biz-whiz. She really cares about "the echoids" as she calls them, has stuffed bills to her subscribers with toys, and agonizes over the fair and right thing to do. She doesn't claim to have all the answers as the internet industry flails about trying to find a business model that yields a revenue.
I had the opportunity to interview her via e-mail and this is what she had to say:
Who did you write the book for?
I admit it, I had visions of bestseller in my head. I did my best to write it so that anyone -- from people who have never been online before to
people who have been on for years -- could read it. But everybody says that, don't they?
Have you had any feedback from readers who have no idea what or why Echo exists?
Yes. So far so good but it's early yet. Plenty of time left for 'What the Hell are you talking about' mail to start pouring in. The best remark I got so far went something along the lines of, "I thought the people online were just a bunch of computer-geek-social misfit-losers, but I guess that's not true."
Do you read? What? Watch TV?
I read and watch tv a lot. Some books I've recently finished: The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, (Lynch) The Caveman's Valentine, (Dawes Green) I'm re-reading Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell. Other books I've read more than once: Midnight's Children, (Rushdie) 100 Years of Solitude, (Garcia-Marquez) War and Peace, (Tolstoy) A Sense of Reality, (Greene) Mildred Pierce, (Cain) Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, (Mitford) Beloved (Morrison) everything by Shirley Jackson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Faulkner, (so far, have only read three) and Flannery O'Conner.
Favorite tv shows: Seinfeld, ER, South Park, The X Files, Northern Exposure, American Gothic, Newsradio, Doby-tv (although she seems to have disappeared -- this is a public access show) The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Pop Up Video, King of the Hill, oh God, please check the tv guide before calling me.
What's great about drumming and how did you get into it?
I would give up everything I do *like that* if I could drum fulltime. In the early 80's I was sitting on a street corner in the West Village watching the Halloween Parade go by -- this was when it was a small neighborhood thing and you could sit and watch it from a corner. A pack of drummers marched up. I was immediately possessed. I stood, started dancing and I danced alongside them for the rest of the parade. Every year it was the same and every year I swore I would join them. Took me about fifteen years but I finally did it. I've drummed in the last two Halloween Parades with the Manhattan Samba Group. We also play every Saturday night at SOB's (plug, plug).
Do you think there is a way for advertisers or marketers to make money through this virtual medium?
If they use it like everyone else, yes. It isn't a matter of advertising to the virtual audience, or creating a great web page. It's being part of this social discourse, not manipulating it. It's all really very simple (not easy, simple) but people who want to or have spent millions don't apppreciate the little -- and crucial -- things. Like nuance.
How do you keep a balance?
Sometimes I have to get out of the city or I'll kill someone. When it gets to the point where I want to shout, "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP," it's time for a walk. It's the same online. You need a break. You need breaks from work, your family, your friends, and you need to take breaks from your virtual community.
Do you ever read what people post in the Men Only or Under 30 conferences?
Nope. Never. But if someone offers to tell me I don't say, "Oh you shouldn't." I listen. Eagerly. I'm half-kidding. If it's something I shouldn't be hearing I do say "I don't want to know." If it doesn't feel especially sensitive I listen.
Tell us about your fiction adventures.
I've started another novel. I had half-finished a proposal for a pop culture book about death and it had chapters like "Write Your Own Suicide Note." (I planned to ask a range of people to imagine their own suicide and compose their last words.) My agent and editor hated the idea. I thought fuck it, I'll write about death anyway, I'll just be subversive about it. So I'm writing a love story. But it's really a death story.
What do you teach in your class?
My favorite assignment that I give them: at the beginning of the semester I tell them to pick a topic that they are genuinely interested in *because* I have them start a conversation on that subject everywhere online I can think of. Then we look at how the conversations went in each place.
What are some non-fiction books that you think everyone should read?
How We Die (Nuland) Shot in the Heart (Gilmore)
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