World Wide Wut - ROFLCon Raw

I went to ROFLCon 3 at MIT, which turned out to be the finale in this annual trilogy of internet conventions. ROFLCon was the two-day IRL meetup centered around the celebration of the meme as a concept and its related cultures. For once there wasn’t network infrastructure for the people of the internet to hide behind, so this made for a raw, somewhat awkward experience. This is expected when you have a physical congregation of more than a thousand people who share a common affinity for non-verbal communication. I was compelled to attend the convention as an avid participant in the culture. I grew up online because I never felt socially accepted in “real life” circles. For reasons I’ll never fully understand, I’m emotionally invested in rage comics, image macros with Impact font, and . These were my people.

The panels reflected the insights of both incidental celebrities—, the Double Rainbow guy, and Scumbag Steve—and the academics who studied them. Panel highlights this year included “Gifs That Keep on Gifing,” which addressed the evolution of the animated GIF as a form of communication, as well as its legacy. (There was a ton of tension surrounding the pronunciation of the word “gif,” an issue that became the elephant in the room.) “Acamemia” was entirely female, led by students who applied traditional academic disciplines to the study of online behavior, such as trolling. The “LOLitics” and “Metameme” panels focused on discussing the generative nature of the meme, and how the form promotes political and social commentary.

There were other curious people walking around the convention. I noticed a wizard with an upside-down boot on his head. Some random guy walked around  everyone (but actually, if you think about it, he was just rickrolling himself the entire time). Tron guy was the real star of the show. I saw more tweets about “Tron guy’s ass” than the other meme celebrities combined, especially when he decided to spontaneously come out as a Tea Party member during one of the panels. In the evening, the Cheezburger Network paid for a dinner party with the ad revenue they earned from watermarking and re-blogging everyone’s collective content.

Meeting the internet in real life is a strange experience, the weirdest part of which is the self-reflective stuff that happens when you meet other people who make up a collective culture that you're a part of. It’s not so much what the other people from the internet are like as much as it is a question of how this mirrors your own identity.

ROFLCon’s end calls to question the possibility of even holding internet conventions anymore, as the web is growing so quickly and rhizomatically. I was contemplating this thought as I left the auditorium, until I encountered a botched attempt at trolling the general attendance with loud, incessant, atonal noise as it quickly escalated into a physical altercation on the MIT campus. Luckily the  kid intervened and broke up the fight. So maybe some things are better left online. Although going did positively affect my Klout score.

Previously - The State of the Sketchball Internet

More ROFLCon: How I Got Famous on the Internetz

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