Exhibitionism exasperated

Tonite my friend Scott coordinated a Justin.tv get together at Zeigeist, in San Francisco.

I watched some of it on the Justin website. Had thought to go- though while professionally very intrigued with the whole justin.tv “experiment,” on a personal level I think it’s completely stupid. And- Sundays in my world are for listening to records, cooking anything that goes well with lots of garlic and wine, folding laundry- anything and everything unassociated with the Internet. Call me crazy- I need it, I suppose, or I will go crazy.

Anyhoo- I tune-in while checking email between loads of laundry- and the Zeitgeist party is instead an intimate table of 4-5 people in The Orbit Room (for some reason, Zeitgeist wouldn’t allow the camera). I see Scott playing ringleader off in the distance, and Melissa Gira seated to Justin’s left. As I’m completing a note to my dad I tab-back to the Justin screen… hearing a flurry of giggles coming from it… and Melissa is inhaling Justin’s face. Now- a couple of hours later- I’m listening to the audiocast while writing this, and the guys are making the biggest to-do of “the kiss,” while driving around San Francisco in their car.

Justin got kissed by a woman who is transitioning from a career as a dancer, to one as a blogger- but not with a whole lot of focus. Sex this, sex that- sex… so what’s your point?. A woman who just happened to have the balls to do something exhibitionistic- forgetting of course, that she’s probably the most warmed-up to exhibitionism person of everyone Justin has encountered in the last 5 days. Perspective: Justin, you were kissed by a stripper! And, it’s just a freakin’ kiss on camera! Are we forgetting the massive cottage-industry of live-feed amateur porn- and while nothing below the waistline was shown, how is this any different than that… other than it was for free?

One of the guys in the car (none of them can remember her name) says: “She’s educating sex workers how to use cell phones to document police brutality… … she puts it on her website for lots of dudes to jerk off to.” I have no idea what the middle statement between the ellipsis was- there’s this weird distortion-fuzz every few minutes in the live-feed, and that’s where it happened this last time around.

I’m iritated right now… because justin.tv is devolving into this underground big to-do, and it seems to be little more than the dumb leading the dumber, the desperate leading the more desperate, the fame-hungry feeding the fame-starved. And, Melissa isn’t dumb. Somehow, I doubt Justin is, too.

I admit- I am intrigued by the idea of a company offering what Justin is doing as a service in a B2B capacity- which I heard in passing, has been stated as the business-model of the company Justin works with (comprised of Justin, and the 3 guys in tow with him most of the time). But what is being accomplished, other than standard msm”Jackass” like antics, when the stage is set for all exhibitionists to collide online, in an incredibly over-hyped way… as the whole Justin.tv project seems to be evolving?

Listening to the audiocast as I finish writing this, Justin says: “I feel like I was raped- in a good way.” They keep referencing Melissa as “That Girl,”as they try to look-up Flickr photos of screen-caps documenting the moment. Really, really sad.