Love Storming Bebe Zeva

Courtesy of Steve Roggenbuck

              Love Storming is when you care about someone very much. Telling them “I care about you” doesn’t always cut it. Sometimes it takes a village. A village can be hard to assemble in real life, so you have to go to the internet. What you then do is tag a picture with roughly 50 or more people. Once this is done, you feel the love of roughly 10,000 or so comments existing as a broken up narrative. But this number only increases, if slower than before, never stopping to think why it exists, but simply being a part of the Facebook experience. It is in fact a living breathing internet organism, feeding off the participants’ wit and verve. 

                Steve Roggenbuck may be the genius of our interconnected generation. Without any sort of external help, he’s managed to become a force to be reckoned with on and offline. Twitter feeds, Facebook, Blogging, Chapbooks, he does it all with an enthusiasm which is contagious. I don’t know how he does it, but unlike many other writers, he invites participation. Most of his work and projects function only with outside participation. Plus, he adds a sense of humor and mischief that so many other writers lack. In case that wasn’t enough, he has confidence like you wouldn’t believe. Follow me on Twitter; Follow me on Facebook takes on a new importance with his work. 

                Bebe Zeva ended up being the love stormed person this week. Using a single photo of her, Steve then proceeded to tag about 35 people. Of course, this being Facebook, there’s really no limit to how many people can continuously post on the same picture, over and over again. Choosing Bebe was a wise decision as it is impossible to dislike her. If you don’t like her, it may be a problem you have, not a problem she has. There’s a reason Tao Lin and Megan Boyle made a documentary about her that I covered in extensive detail on this very site, or why they opened up a Kombucha bottle before giving it to her. MDMA Films might consider her documentary to be their ‘crown jewel’ of their ever-increasing collection of DVD releases. 

                The picture was simple. A screenshot, literally the most basic of internet skills was employed of Steve adding Bebe as a friend on Facebook. This was nothing too unusual for either participant, as they are both online personalities. Next came the tricky part. How can you tag the kind of people who will take an idea and run with it especially an idea as absurd as constantly commenting on a Facebook picture and transforming it into a full-fledged conversation, if not actual chat room? Can those people do online improvisation if required? 

Walt Whitman once said “For great poetry, there must be great audiences.” Picking your audience is probably one of the most important things you can do once you try to create such an epic experience. Not like this was the first time such a thing had been done, apparently there had been tens of thousands of comments on pictures and statuses before. Steve’s goal differed in that he consciously want this to be a memorable, enjoyable experience that could have participants leave and enter while keeping up the velocity of the comments. Getting a group of people diverse enough to comment during the Earth’s full rotation meant people outside of the US, in the UK, in New Zealand, and countless other countries in other time zones.

                “Feel the Inspiration” is the name of Steve’s Tumblr, but the chat felt more like “Feel the Love” as the project progressed. A natural flow of a chat room emerged, with Bebe even joining the conversation time to time. In fact, Bebe said she’ll be posting up an article on “Thought Catalog” about the entire enjoyable experience. Hover around Thought Catalog for when her version of the events comes out.  Megan Boyle stopped by to say hi as well, along with the older Rachel Zeva. While a few characters came and went, a hardcore group of people emerged to keep things going. Steve served as a director of the event, calling it an “anti-shitstorm” and “meta-chat thread”. 

                How did the love exactly spread? Over the course of the chat, everyone made new friends, thus continuing the original intention of Steve adding Bebe as a friend. I met new people, added 17 friends on Facebook as the love storm progressed. People swam in and out of different ideas. Sometimes it would be about finding a new soundtrack by putting up a youtube clip. Having music play in the background makes staring at a computer screen with a near-religious devotion that much easier. 

Focus turned to the giant thread itself, with people excited about who got which thousandth post (I was lucky enough to get four thousand, Louise Joy got the pivotal number of ten thousand, allegedly the cut-off point, but it continued after that with toe holes, a topic introduced by one half of the blogging crew “Philolzophy”). People even created youtube clips based on the excitement created by such a small articulate part of the internet, this moving clip being just one of many examples (thank you Jim Rowley!). One happy marriage came out of this intense experience. We wondered whether the thread could get a MacArthur genius grant, end world hunger, usher in an era of peace, win a Nobel Prize for Literature (beating Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’), or get some sweet blog coverage. At least the last topic was almost guaranteed. In case the thread wins a MacArthur genius grant, the thread will be able to focus on that novel it’s always wanted to write. 

                Summarizing such an epic thread is impossible. Can I summarize a living, breathing thread? Figuring that out is like summarizing someone’s future. I will avoid making light of this important event on the internet, in the confines of internet poetry. Internet poetry has never seen anything so great; I’m moved to tears by this event. Visit it here, keep it going strong, and see the genius behind such an event which comes along as often as Hayley’s Comet. Think of it as the Woodstock of Flarf, the Boykittens Family, or, how I put it:

               

Courtesy of Je Sk

“This is the most important comment thread I’ve ever participated in.”

MDMA Films: Bebe Zeva Premiere!

                Finally, it happened: Bebe Zeva came to New York City. Tao and Megan Lin had eagerly waited for this very week. All the kindness Bebe bestowed upon those young rapscallions could finally be reciprocated. New York prepared for her arrival by having some of the best weather it has had since October. So says the weather man, but I don’t always believe what he says. 

                The sun shone brightly on the fortuitous day of March 20, 2011. For on this day, everything changed. My faith in MDMA Films would be affirmed, despite the constant reminders of Tao and Megan Lin doing drugs together. Bebe Zeva’s documentary would be arriving, nay, premiering in my beloved Apple; the biggest Apple on the east coast (originally planted by Johnny Appleseed so many centuries ago, when he arrived in America with the Vikings).

                Hurriedly I got on the subway to see this film for myself. Sitting across from me was some bland couple, a boring couple. Together this couple inspired countless numbers of Americans to avoid relationships for fears of seeming sad and disappointed. These two talked about the plague of “Tosh.0” or, how they referred to it as, ‘that funny show’. I sat in my seat; mortified fans of the show not only existed in real life, but were in my very subway car. So many things popped into my head to tell them, all of them positively profane and vulgar. I wanted to dissect the premise of that vile, rotten, pathetic, egregious error of a show to these not-so-fine individuals. I’m a reasonable sloth though.  Instead, I looked up and waited for my stop. Better things were coming my way.

                 Bebe, in case you missed my previous posts, is fashion blogger from Nevada. Unlike most bloggers, she actually knows what she’s talking about, a doubling refreshing prospect in this mega-blog universe. You can visit her site here. In the documentary, she spends a day with Tao and Megan as they explore Las Vegas together. The documentary is funny since they are such low-key people in a city as silly as Las Vegas. 

                All of them had a blast in the big city. According to various online photographs, they explored parts of Brooklyn. Parts of Brooklyn I actually know and visit, though I didn’t bump into them. I was busy with this excellent bakery in Greenpoint which had the best poppy seed bread I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. Literally, tears rolling down my face good. 

                I approached the Soho House with something approaching caution. Some of the people in this building I had written about on here. I breathed deeply. Perhaps after this I might end up no longer being able to write about them again. Would seeing them and meeting them forever change my perception of them. Part of me wanted to remain hidden, away from view in the comfortable confines of the internet. I could support them from afar, offering auxiliary support. Maybe that would be easier than interacting in real life with people whose work I admired. 

                To learn more about Bebe Zeva, please purchase her DVD out now on the fine MDMA Films. It is wonderful. Support a wonderful Fashion blogger. Support the fantastic Tao and Megan Lin. Have a great day.

MDMA Films: Bebe Zeva Preview 2

               Usually a movie doesn’t get a second trailer. The first one ought to be enough. MDMA Films is no ordinary company. How many film companies decide an entire movie will feature the actors doing drugs the entire time, real drugs, not faking some response. I’ll tell you: precious few. Actors wait until after the filming has ended before acting in such a manner. Just ask Charlie Sheen, ask him how hot that’s working out for him.

                Bebe Zeva comes out March 20^th, 2011. Tao and Megan Lin tend to every one of Bebe’s needs, and not needs. Feeding her ice cream, using positive re-enforcement when she does a good job, it seems they are getting in touch with their kind selves. Playlists apparently seem to be a specialty of hers, a gift not all people are granted. I’m glad they came out with this second trailer, which upon first viewing seems pointless (names of people are tightly edited together) but actually makes quite a bit of sense.

                Names pass by, whirling in your mind. References are edited to become only references, perhaps a nod to our culture of constant referencing of other pieces of information. Sure, this did exist before the internet, like political satire, but I feel a lot of information has become ‘ghetto-ized’ meaning people can better and more effectively live inside their own interests with no interaction whatsoever of anything else. For examples, just see how writers cater to a particular crowd, TV caters to a crowd, and music you can hide yourself away in forever. Though I am partial to Tao Lin's work, so I guess I do this to some degree.

Writers are mentioned besides Tao, Travis McFarland in particular. Carles of Hipster Runoff is mentioned multiple times. Whether or not this is deliberate or a conscious decision on her part is unclear. Editing it in that way shows how she originally started her online career at his infinitely ironic website. 

                Honestly, I get the impression Bebe would’ve been internet famous no matter who she met first, whether it was Carles or some other, possibly nicer blogger. Tao appear to be a far kinder person towards her than Hipster Runoff’s master ever was. Even though Carles is funny and provides occasional insight, keep in mind writers aren’t all kind. William S. Burroughs shot his wife in the head and neglected his son. Despite his failings, he managed to produce some fantastic work. Clearly Carles isn’t this bad, but his treatment of those he features on his blog show a certain callous mean streak. He wants you to ‘get vulnerable’ with him since that’s the easiest way he can break you down. Tao, on the other hand, is the natural friend of Bebe helping her along by doing legitimate work on her documentary. Critics of Tao’s books state his writing allows for a reader’s interpretation, it doesn’t enforce a particular emotion or way it wants you to feel. MDMA Films works in this interpretative vein. 

                All of MDMA Film’s other films lack multiple trailers. Watching this kind of trailer, with all its references, shows off exactly a specific type of culture. Each mention suggests a particular kind of haute indie taste, the kind that I obviously am more than partial to, I embrace it. References take up a larger and larger portion of our lives, allowing for people to sort of create their own universe where they can interact with others.                

                I’m not sure how many more trailers these guys are going to put out for Bebe. However many they are, they are worth it. She deserves it.