The Web has the EQ of a Tween
Twitter, PerezHilton, Facebook, Webkinz, Swivel.
The web is awash in shallow experience. Not bad, just shallow. I was thinking today about what kind person the web (as a whole) reminded me of most.
Sometimes it’s a vixen, filled with lust, avarice and a dangerous curve behind every patent leather fascia. Occasionally it feels a bit more like a pleated-front khaki’d, thirty something, non-descript, investment banker/vc guy with a geeky pedigree and strange vacation habits.
But mostly, the web reminds me of a 12 year old girl. Not just any 12 year old, but the kind parodied in Mean Girls, Heathers or Legally Blonde (before the transformative montage). I know, the characters in those movies are 16(ish) - but we’ve just gone through a period of intense maturity inflation, and 12 *is* the new 16.
What I mean to say is that our web experiences today are shallow, self-referential and absolutely detached/cold. Consider Twitter for a second. Not to take anything away from it, but can you really call sending a one sentence statement about the current state of your kimchi fermentation ‘communication’? Are we reaching out and touching someone? You don’t even get to really respond: “Oh, my kimchi’s doing great - glad to hear yours is too”. And, even though you can respond, you rarely do - because the Twittttt is not an actual invitation for discourse - it’s a statement. It’s socratic instead of somatic. Similar things can be said about Facebook. Are the people we connect with there really “friends”? To be fair, some of them certainly are (especially the ones made without meeting on the site) - and I’m sure Facebook exposes whole new modalities for interaction, but does it move your friendships forward? You know, even “Knocked Up” moved my relationship forward (the subject of another, more personal post I’m sure)…so why can’t Facebook?
I’m genuinely surprised when pundits and researchers are themselves surprised to find that the bonds between Facebook (or MySpace or Hi5 or Friendster) friends are not as strong as in real life. Really? You don’t say. Poking someone, biting them or even…dare I say it…Super Poking them is not the same as sharing an experience, a moment or a laugh. In short, the web experience of today lacks emotion - and without that essential aspect of our humanity, it misses something.
You see, I want to feel: Happiness, Sadness, Excitement, Elation, Disappointment, Anything. I crave human contact and the (inter)personal growth the comes from it. But the last time I shared a real, transformative emotional experience with someone, it was in person. And so it was the time before that. And the time before that.
This is one of the myriad of web issues we’re trying to fix with rmbr. Oh, Chris and I are driven people to be sure. 
We don’t just want to make a great photo game experience for everyone, we also want to make the web pop with shared emotion and growth. It’s a tall order, to be sure. But we know that when we combine the raw emotional power of photos with meshed social networks and really personal tools for interaction (such as our doodling or multi-player gaming areas), we can transcend the banal limits of the web, and really get people to emote, share and grow together.
So, Heather…let’s get this emotive show on the road. The rmbr beta is just around the corner.