Social Media Adaptation
5:27 PM
Artists' Statement:
The creation of our project involved a very large detour. The idea was simple
enough, adapt Jane Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice to Facebook. The social
network is the perfect venue for such a relationship driven story. The entire
book focuses on social interaction, social status, and relationships, which is what
Facebook is all about.
Our method was ambitious; we would create real Facebook accounts for the main
characters and re-create the narrative following the order of events from the
book. We met together in the computer lab and each opened up three or four
different web browsers on our respective computers. When we had a list of all the
most important events to cover, we began to create events, add friends, and post
comments and status updates. All of the characters were friends with Jane Austen,
and we were tracking the story via her home feed. We created the Netherfield ball
event, invited guests, accepted invitations, commented afterward, etc. Then the
unthinkable happened. Facebook began to shut us down! Our accounts were logged
out automatically and we were unable to log back in. We received messages that we
were in violation of Facebook policy by having and using multiple accounts. So our
elaborate and fun project suddenly got wiped out. Oh, internet!
Ironically, the only somewhat important thing we have ever tried to do on Facebook
is the only thing we ever were not permitted to do on Facebook. The social network
has managed to hurt us academically not only by facilitating excessive time-wasting,
but now by figuratively “eating our homework!” We invested hours of time to create
the accounts (and accompanying email addresses), and actually perform the story
live, only to have it all taken away in an instant.
We resorted to plan “B”, which was the website ‘thewallmachine.com’, to create a
fake Facebook wall. This was not the way we wanted to tell the story because it is
much more flat and linear than we wanted our presentation to be. Real Facebook
accounts would have provided layers of profiles to explore. Anchored by Jane
Austen’s home feed, one click could link viewers to the other profiles, events, etc.
As it is, our project is a nice re-telling, but not the social media experience we had
originally hoped for.
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