Mashable, the site devoted to coverage of the social-media industry, posted a cool report about SplashCast, a widget that adds revolutionary commenting capabilities to offerings from Hulu and other online video providers. It’s easy to add a comment to the discussion thread on, say, a YouTube page, but SplashCast, or “Social TV,” as they call it, is different.

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This is a weekly column written by Annie Howell and Lisa Robinson, two filmmakers and film professors who are wondering where modern storytelling is heading.

I’ve been thinking about the number of people who are streaming their lives as open stories over the web. All these personal narratives are unfolding by short sentences or photos or blog entries on sites like YouTube, Facebook and Flickr. How does this proliferation of millions of bite-size stories affect the way we generally experience, understand and create story and our life?

Big questions. I surely don’t have all the answers but let’s look at “geriatric1927” on YouTube. It’s Peter Oakley, a pensioner from England, who made his debut in 2006 and has since become a major YouTube star with more than 47,000 regular subscribers. His first video, book ended with blues music, has been viewed about 3 million times! In looking through his stuff I was taken by the fact that so many YouTubers respond to his posts, either in writing or with video, creating an endless chain letter of intertwined personal stories riffing around a theme.

For example if you look at his post Response to Cookalong the Geriatric Way, you’ll see that he is actually responding to Gordon Ramsey’s Cookalong Challenge (a chef and TV personality with a YouTube channel). Peter’s “geriatric” approach to cooking primarily involves a bit of humor, a glass of wine and a microwave. Also this video inspired responses of its own… including Cooking with Jon – a young man making a strange looking desert out of 3 packaged ingredients.

I wonder if part of our fascination with these tiny (sometimes mundane) episodes of people doing what they do is not about what’s actually there… but what’s missing. Suspense is created by the sheer shortness of it… and as we ponder why today’s photo on Flickr is melancholy and yesterday’s was goofily happy, we anticipate what might come next. I’ve been talking about suspense a lot in one of my classes and reminding my students that suspense fuels stories, whether thrillers, romantic comedies or documentaries. As long as we wonder what will happen next, we are engaged… we are imagining… and in a sense we are participating, even collaborating, with the story. This is addictive whether on the level of a Hitchcock masterpiece or perhaps even in the trickle of updates on a Facebook page.

And what about the truly collaborative open stories? Will we see more of these in the future? One that I love just by the sheer variety of people and their creative ingenuity is Google’s Collaborative Video… a true video chain letter (complete with envelope) passed through impossible time and space…. over high peaks, underwater, through people’s heads and more. I know it was a promotional stunt but… watch it below.

-LR

Image: NASA

On its 39th anniversary, Earth Day still feels vital to me, but I know that some of you out there think that its time has passed. Every day should be Earth Day, you say. Choosing just one, single day to say you care about the planet we call home — what good is that?

The first Earth Day came at the end of a decade in which social activism drove this nation’s political agenda. Moved by a desire to create that better world, we got together to fight for change the only way a large group of like-minded people could: we laced up our shoes and walked side-by-side. When you have to get together in person, well, you obviously need a specific day to meet up. And that day turned out to be Wednesday, April 29, 1970.

Some of us who fought for this country’s first environmental protections make the mistake of assuming that because young people today are less likely to be found marching down the National Mall as the shopping mall, that they must not care as deeply as we did when we were young. But apathy has not replaced idealism. Idealism just looks a little different these days.

This generation uses new tools to express itself and influence political decisions. They connect with one another in more ways than we could have imagined back in 1970: blogs, email petitions, YouTube videos, Twitter and Facebook. They’re finding new ways to express their political views, and they do it every second of every day.

Lately, I’ve come around to their way of thinking. I’m still standing up for environmental protections for the places I hold dear, but like so many of today’s new activists, I’ve hung up my marching boots and taken to the blogosphere. You’ll find me expressing my views at the Huffington Post, NRDC’s Greenlight, and Sundance Channel.

So what good is Earth Day? It’s a day that reminds us to take a stand every day and fight for the places we hold dear. So today, pause for a moment and take full advantage of the unprecedented array of tools we have for connecting with others and expressing our views. Speak up on Facebook, or Twitter, or go one step further and join me at NRDC’s Greenlight. In today’s world, you’re a reporter too. Stand up for the people, creatures, and lands that inspire you to protect the environment. Reach out and tell the world about what’s happening in the places you hold dear. Make your voices heard.

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