Save My Authenticity!

A curious bit of personal history came to mind after I read Rachel Clarke's blog post about an online game (SaveMyHusband.com) which is based on a fake kidnapping. Rachel picked up on my 'We Were Framed' post in which I explain how we use 'frames' to distinguish the real from the fake. She also summarized the reactions that many people have had to fake User Generated Content in the following three ways:

• OMG! it's all a marketing scam to get our names and addresses or find out something else about us.
• OMG! how dare they fictionalise kidnapping when it's going on all around us.
• OMG! i thought it was all real and now I hate them for making me believe it

In my earlier post I had stated that the lack of apparent frames around fake User Generated Content (or in this case a fake 'news story') leaves many of us very uncomfortable, if not downright angry, at having fallen for an illusion of authenticity. As Rachel's three responses suggest, there is much debate going on about not only the ethics of this practice but also the strange 'user experiences' that we might have when we encounter it. A significant number of people are fooled by what their senses initially tell them when they encounter fake UGC, whereas an equally significant number seem to spot the deception fairly quickly.

Now, about that personal history. When I was An Angry Young Man I painted an Angry Young Picture on a large construction fence.

It wasn't graffiti, it was part of an art competition to decorate the hoarding around a very, loud construction site. With a deafening background of pneumatic drills and dynamite blasts, I plastered this onto the wall:

So why did I think of that old painting? Well because in the upper left corner there is this:

It is an arm apparently smashing through the board and ripping down the frame of the picture. The painting appears to be tearing apart its own frame.

A frame is not just a piece of wood around a painting - is a perceptual tool. It represents a boundary between form and content. In psychological terms, it's a way of turning a subjective experience into an objective understanding.

We need frames in order to cope. Frames neutralize dangers that may lurk within the realm of the unknown. When something is unframed - whether it be an uncaged tiger or a chunk of reality that we can't understand - it is not surprising that many of us grow uncomfortable.

Artists have a history of making us uncomfortable. They push the envelope and sometimes they break through the framework of the status quo and provoke us to reassess much of what we know. They see such discomfort as a way for both Self and Society to grow. They also practice this as a way to relieve their own inner tensions about these matters.

What interests me about User Generated Content is that it suggests that more and more people are becoming artists in various ways. I believe they are finding ways to relieve their inner tensions around Society, Self and Identity by becoming more actively creative in their lives. With the combination of affordable production tools and the global network of available communication channels, people are increasingly making some sort of creative statements about their own experiences of the world. It is an open field of expression, framed primarily by sheer authenticity.

But when commercial interests parachute in and talk to us in a simulated language of grassroots User Generated Content, they run the risk of tearing apart the frame of authenticity through which we generally look at UGC.

Of course companies have the right to market their products but they have to find a way to play nicely - or else they will destroy the very environment that they are trying to move into. I believe that this can be done if some sort of aesthetic frame or framing system can be devised to appropriately mark their commercial content (and intent) within our profoundly open and free communication environment.

Let's not forget that the creative geniuses behind even fake UGC are also artists. Call me wildly optimistic but I trust that the creative folks on either side of the fence will evolve something that will work for both sets of interests.

It is the deep human need to find authenticity that has smashed through the walls of traditional media. We have to resolve the confusion over what is real and what is dangerously fake if we are to preserve and grow this world wide phenomenon of authentic User Generated Content.