a *real* ROFLCon post-mortem
So. Here I am. Three weeks after ROFLCon actually happened. and I’ve been guilted (or, rather, I guilted myself, after reading some amazing post-conference blog posts from the staff) into writing an actual post about the event, aside from “so, this happened, and it was AWESOME.” though it was awesome.
Back in November (I think - it was, at the very least, mid-fall 2007), I saw a Facebook group appear in a friend’s mini-feed. It was called ROFLCon. Upon clicking the link to the group, my first thought was, “Wow. I HAVE to get involved in this.” These kids, none of whom I knew personally, were planning to bring together all of these crazy internet celebrities to discuss internet culture in an academic context. What could be better?
Over Thanksgiving break that year, still without having met any of the staff except virtually, I started helping out and inviting some of the celebrities to the event. The fact that these people actually responded to me was insane! The people who became famous, and legitimately famous, were really communicating. Personally. With all of us. I was totally invigorated and, in spite of having a thesis to write, job applications to fill out, and various other issues on the plate of life, I threw myself into working to make this happen.
Over the next few months we had meeting after meeting about how we could make it all happen. Issues of venues, costs (who would have thought that a conference would be so expensive?), press restrictions, and panel planning consumed our lives. We were worried about the difficulties of pulling it off, but excited about the possibility that we might be able to.
Only in the springtime did we begin to realize that what we had imagined quite optimistically might actually happen. We could help our guests with travel costs, we could rent space, we could buy merchandise to sell to everyone! Our meetings grew in length and importance (that last point is debatable - every meeting was SO important), and we invested more and more time into logistical planning and philosophical debate about what we truly wanted to come out of this conference, the first of its kind. And we still couldn’t fathom how big it would become.
Months of waiting for late April turned into weeks, and then days. And we were terrified. And excited. And stressed. And overextended beyond belief. We worked into the wee hours of the morning on several occasions, we slept little, and worked moar.
And then it was April 25. We awoke far too early for college students and did hours of work before the first guests started trickling into MIT. And, aside from a few initial hiccups, things started off incredibly smoothly. And kept going smoothly. Soon, the end of the first day came and went, and we were completely invigorated by the overall success of day one.
One of the most amazing qualities of the conference that became clear to us from the beginning was that the physical manifestation of the internet, what we were trying to facilitate, was actually happening. The people we only knew through their weird activities or websites that made them famous were together. In one place. And interacting with each other. The amount of meme-networking that took place, right from the start, was so gratifying. These were people who understood what the others had gone through - going from a nobody to a somebody in less than 10 seconds, for better or worse…
And so day one came to a close. The concert was spectacular, largely due to the efforts of rock star Christina, and we were thrilled and exhausted. Internet bands are actually really, really good!
Day two was the real test of our resolve, because at some points, we were four-tracking the conference events. There was just too much going on to single-track everything, which was both unfortunate and fortunate. It’s hard to cram that many people into one room, and splitting things up allowed people to get closer with the celebrities and to learn about more specific topics that they were interested in. Sacrifices would have to be made regardless of how that worked out logistically.
Anyway - my favorite panel, by far, happened on Saturday. It was the first one, and was a behemoth of a panel - 7 speakers. But it was handled so well, it was incredibly interesting, and the backchan.nl tool - which some of us had been worrying about - was a really great addition to the event, if a bit distracting at times. The panelists were interacting with each other, arguing with each other, building off each others’ points. I couldn’t have imagined it going better or producing more interesting conversations about how culture online turns into something bigger.
And soon, the second day came to a close. And the conference came to a close. I was - and still am - floored by the whole thing. Nothing had gone terribly wrong. People came out of the events happy. We were getting compliments left and right about how well things were run, how interesting the panels were, and how it struck a great balance between education and entertainment. The press coverage was more astounding than we could have ever predicted back in the fall, when we were barely legitimate. The sheer volume of photos on Flickr, the tweets on Twitter, the blog posts, everything - it was so amazing to see that much feedback, and mostly positive feedback at that.
Looking back on the weekend with a slightly more objective frame of mind, I can safely say that we could have done some things better. But we achieved some great things. We - I hope - showed how internet culture can be explored in a legitimate, academic fashion. We brought together a bunch of internet celebrities and introduced many of them to each other. And we pulled off organizing hosting an event with attendance numbering over 800 (OVER 9000!!!!). My refrain for this whole thing is, “We did all that, and we’re just kids.” It’s true - we’re really all just kids at heart, but we can sometimes get our shit together and do cool things.
I’m so grateful to have been a part of the event, primarily because of the other kids - the staff. I feel like I’ve lost an event - as it’s, well, over - but gained a family. To have gotten to know such amazing, competent, hilarious people has truly been a blessing. Though we’re unfortunately spreading out a fair amount after this year (me especially, with this whole Hawaii thing), I remain confident that our virtual interactions will remain frequent and full of love.
So here we are now, wondering what will come next time. What will it look like (side note - I hope it’s just as jankity crank with blackboards behind the panelists with stuff written on them about tumor supressors, because it made everything so much more charming!)? Where will it be? Who will be involved? What will be produced? These are more than rhetorical questions at this point, and we’ll be trying to answer them for real over the next several months as we evaluate what kinds of new things we can do. Whatever happens, we won’t have the same, intense infatuation we had with ROFLCon 2008. You never forget your first time. But we’re certainly going to strive to make a new, amazing something. There’s just too much to talk about. It can’t be a one night stand.
