It’s with bittersweet jealousy and joy I link this. Basically Rocketboom has a site where it explains internet memes, under the header of “The Rocketboom Institute of Internet Studies.”
Internet Meme Database | Know Your Meme.
This is a great site. It looks like they add one video a month or so, their research is flawless. They really knock it out of the park. Stuff like this always makes me bite my lip when I see it, and wait for them to fuck up some tiny detail, and immediately write them off. But no, they kill it.
Here’s the problem: I had come up with basically an identical concept more then two years ago.
http://internetsciencefoundation.org/
I shared the idea with Aaron and we developed it quite a bit, coming up with a ton of ideas, even shot two videos, one where I interviewed the famous cosplayer Adella, and another where we did a test of what happens to an anime convention after prolonged exposure to me dressed as Rick Astley, right in the height of the Rickrolling phenomenon.
The main crux of the idea was indeed to create a somewhat humerus but nonetheless accurate resource for people of all walks of life to turn to to have someone ‘explain the internet’ to them. Something broad enough that my mom could watch and understand, but also ‘internet’ enough so that younger or more critical internetters would get something out of it.
Seeing this is both a bit disheartening, and inspiring. I say it a lot, especially when these things happen, a good idea is a good idea for a reason. I’m really bummed because I would have liked to have worked on that idea, at the very least just casually and do things up, but real life of course gets in the way and the idea got shelved.
At the very least, I’m very happy Rocketboom is doing it and not someone else. They know their stuff, and are doing a great job with it. They even did the subtle ideas we had had, about putting pictures and ‘inside jokes’ in the background of the photos. Aaron and I have embroidered lab coats, Dr. Thomas Mannino, Internet Scientist, etc. That’s what struck me the most I think, haha.
Regardless, the idea is still on the table. Obviously we’ll have to tweak it if we want to actually go through with it, but it’s still do-able. There’s plenty of room for internet scientists on the internet. We had some other, additional ideas related, and it’s going to be hard to not look like copycats but at the very least I’m just always reaffirmed when I see stuff like this happen:
Ideas I have are good, look what happens when people actually make them happen!