Notions

After reading this website, Web 2.0 Storytelling, the emergence of a new genre, I had to think about storytelling for a second. Thinking back, I've really always thought storytelling was more of a verbal process a mother does with her child before she goes to sleep; more intimate. Telling a story just strikes me as childlike.

But Web 2.0 has taken this image of storytelling and twisted it into something almost completely opposite. Instead of the intimate closeness you would feel to your mother before bedtime, Web 2.0 expands the notion of storytelling into basically more than any of us can imagine or write about.

For instance, I've learned that stories don't necessarily need an ending. It seems that with Web 2.0 once person can take a picture and then a different person can comment on it and then a different person will comment on that comment and then a different person will make a whole new comment. So it really is like a never ending story with people giving feedback and opinions all the time.

The one thing that struck me really, was not the websites with the virtual, almost interactive, multimedia storytelling like this one, but was actually taking into consideration that tweets can turn into stories and giving a classic book author a facebook page and considering that a story of him.

But I looked at these sites and I really do agree with the thought that, yes, Shakespeare facebook and Alice in Wonderland tweets may be a legitimate story in someone else's eyes; most definitely not a traditional one but from what I've seen these sites and multimedia things do include all the ingredients to be a story, minus the ending sometimes (but really you should always anticipate one, it just may not be there anytime soon).


Personally though, think that this type of storytelling is a little on the line though. Having a Shakespeare facebook is hard to believe as storytelling because one; it has limitations including that it was photoshoped so the story doesn't really have a beginning. two; there isn't a substantial plot or some sort of writing device that draws you in. Honestly I just think it's too "on the surface" meaning it doesn't have enough punch or plot to make me want to keep reading.

That's the whole point of reading a book or hearing a story; so you get into it and want to know what happens. But really, I don't care what happens to facebook Shakespeare.

I think my final opinion comes down to believing that multimedia and digital storytelling over the web counts, commenting on multimedia and digital storytelling counts too. Multiple authors count. But writing a personal page to a dead playwright is more like creating a personal sim, you'll just make them do inconsequential things, not preplaning some ultimate destruction or something to make the plot interesting. Same goes for the Alice In Wonderland tweets. I find them slightly more engaging but I feel like they are too sporadic to really give you any substance.

That's what I want in storytelling; substance, something for my brain to grab onto and kn aw on a little bit. This is why I liked the mini virtual storytelling. They were short, sweet, and engaging.

So to wrap it up, I found it an interesting theory, in my opinion, that some of those sites could count as storytelling but like I said, it was very interesting to take a look at it like that. It really didn't change my notion of storytelling dramatically. I still think bedtime stories are the ultimate storytelling. But what pushed my narrow minded idea of storytelling outward was thinking about a virtual short story mini movie or something that ended before it ended and then a huge amount of people commented to make their own ending. Now that would be cool, I would consider that the storytelling they were describing that in the a new genre page. It's on the web, it is surrounded by an active participating community, and it has many authors and multiple interesting endings that would engage my attention. As for anything else, I think it's just slightly too outside the box to be considered storytelling.