Word: wilkinson
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...contrary, becoming famous is the main point of Wilkinson's class, organized through Parsons The New School for Design in New York City. All semester long his students have monitored their own progress, fully aware that a piece of Internet-scouring software, not their teacher, will be issuing the final grades. And as the 15 students regularly check the class's blog for the latest rankings, Wilkinson has structured his curriculum to give them tips on how to get - and stay - famous in this increasingly saturated virtual world...
...Actually, we don't call it being online famous; we call it 'famo,'" says Wilkinson, who conceived the "Internet Famous" course along with friends and semi-famo digital artists James Powderly and Evan Roth. The trio came up with the idea after realizing that their online strategies for distributing and promoting their own art would one day become essential tools for emerging 21st century artists trying to break through the static...
...both Wilkinson and his students, the "Internet Famous" course marks something of an educational, and technological, experiment. In essence, they are attempting to quantify fame on the Internet by developing a matrix that simultaneously measures the number of eyeballs, the amount of attention, the caliber of the social network, and a variety of other factors. The goal of it all? To help students learn how to use, and even manipulate, the new set of rules guiding online commerce...
...this particular December evening, Wilkinson is astounded by what he sees - something of a finals crunch among his famo-seekers. Having failed at "legitimate fame," he says, many students are desperate for anything to generate traffic and get a last-minute bump to influence their grades. One popular tactic: posting short videos of scantily-clad women, all bearing suggestive titles...
...Wilkinson goes around the class, asking people to show what digital art they've made over the last week, it's clear these tawdry music videos are the hit of the day. One student reveals that his short video has generated 13,000 views in only a few days. "Wow, talk about selling out," Wilkinson marvels. "I thought you weren't going to stoop that low...but you can't deny the numbers. Look at those page views; that's amazing...