Flickr Set of all my photos from the event
On May 13th 2011, at 7:30pm an unknown number of participants across the Internet invited unwitting suitors to meet fictional dates in New York’s Times Square — in some sort of prank-meets-sociology experiment on the Internet and loneliness. As a part of my continuing work defining the kinds of things we’re interested in covering at the Daily Dot, I was there to report on the event.
So what happened, exactly?
After spending part of my Friday night at the Forever Alone Involuntary Flashmob for the Daily Dot — a flashmob being a swarm of people created by inviting many people via the Internet to one physical location, in this case, unwittingly — I find myself unable to explain what reallyhappened. As a journalist, the biggest question I left the event with was, “Just who trolled whom?”
The honest victims
For certain, there were a few honest victims. Of those, most appeared and spoke like non-natives. None of them were terribly interested in going on record (shocking?). At points it felt like I was dressing up pretend to ape Dateline NBC; To Catch a 4chan Victim — the one honest guy who did talk to me at length was “Tom.” A nice, unassuming and good humored man, who I would estimate to be around 25, Tom said he’d been notified by OkCupid that he was the potential victim of a ‘prankster’. “Right from the start it sounded strange”, adding, “I didn’t have anything else to do so I figured, why not have a laugh?”
A good sport, Tom summed it up by saying he’s played pranks on the Internet before, so he wasn’t very offended. I wonder how offended he would have been had he not been tipped by OkCupid that “this user who you’ve been messaging with seems to be an amateur prankster.”
If nothing else, OkCupid deserves a nice thank you note for letting at least one potential suitor down easy.
Community Reactions
The most popular post on Reddit in follow up to the evening was disappointingly inaccurate, and I can say that as an unwitting example of the event’s success That’s me, 10 photos down in black and white with the wool suit jacket on. I’m speaking with two others who turned out to be covering the event for various media. All of us were aware of — in fact there to witness — the event. As a self-documented prank — and judging from the lack of follow on interest from the communities involved — Forever Alone wasn’t as much of a flashmob as it was a flashflop.
The balance of the crowd on scene
The remainder of the folks I spoke with were either media — there to cover the anticipated ‘carnage’ with varying degrees of respect — or members of the comunities responsible. One rather dapper supposed victim who spoke with me on camera eventually admitted to his involvement in 4chan/anonymous. “Keats” began by trying to explain that he was duped by an OkCupid user named “Nezbi” — he’s also seen in picture #2 here.
Another person seen in the pictures circulated on Reddit was “motorcycle guy”, a self-admitted Reddit “troll” who showed up just for the specatcle. I was somewhat surprised when he told me his Reddit username on camera, but the rest of the interview seemed to sum up his motivation; he just enjoys making a scene.
The final interview I did was, in a way, the most interesting. A girl who wouldn’t give her name but calls herself a “femanon” (the somewhat misogynistically used term for a female member of anonymous) and her university friend, a shy guy named Travis. She explains how Travis was the impetus for their participation. I think we often assume Internet trolls and lulz-seekers are under 16 or over 30, and living in mom’s basement while failing to live up to their own potential. These two seem to contridict the assumtions, so much so that you might wonder, “Who really are the trolls on the web?”
Her enjoyment at the prank was obvious, to which I asked her “Do you have no shame?” — her answer, “Everything is for the lulz.”
Who punked whom? The real flashmob were the media
Getting anyone to pay attention to a press release in the super-competitive media world is uncomprehensibly difficult for all but the most elite event organizers. If anything is impressive about the prowess of 4chan, anonymous or Reddit, it’s the ability to get the attention of a small subset of Internet media.
I hustled in from Brooklyn to Times Square on a Friday evening to be there, and so did many of my media compatriots. Know Your Meme,Buzzfeed, Vice and The New York Observer were all in attendence, and at some points there were definitely more cameras than unwitting Forever Alone victims.
Far more than a few unwitting lonely guys it was pretty obvious to me that Forever Alone succeeded in capturing the hearts, minds and sadistic shaudenfrude of a disproportinate number of Internet watchers. And, don’t you think that’s what the loose-knit organizers wanted?