[LEMONS] 5.07.2002
On The Blind Date Blog...
I've been captivated by the Blind Date Blog. It has melodrama. It has action. It has Jezra mumbling his way towards immunity and infamy.The game is in the (already) classic Survivor/Big Brother vein. Each week, readers vote for their favorite candidate. The contestant with the most votes receives immunity the next week. The two with the least get voted off. Essentially, it's Big Brother, but they all live in different houses and the last two standing go on a blind date. Simple, eh?
But the blind date portion of the game is really just gravy. It's a trick for the end, a hook. Meaningless. The contestants aren't really interacting with the members of the opposite sex, and there is virtually no "dating" going on whatsoever. Instead, the men are all talking about the men, while the women are all talking about, well, the men too. But mostly, folks are talking about themselves. Aside from some initial flirting, it's all been me, me, me.
And that's probably a good strategy for remaining in the game.
The story thusfar has centered around a few things: A) Ezra's swinging-dick bravado B) The drama between Jonathan and Jesse and C) Helen Jane's witty prose. And as a result, everyone has been talking about Ezra, Jonathan and Jessie. And that's why (unless someone else pulls out of the third-party gossip chatter) Jnathan will probably win immunity this week. Although everyone sees to think he's an ass, he's an ass that's getting *talked* about. And that's all that matters on the Electronet.
When I was interviewing Stephen Marshall of GNN, he was talking about the difficulty of rising above the "din and spectacle" of the Web. He said that in order to do so, you had to "come with better shit." It's simple, but true.
The Web is all about what's intersting; what can make that 9-5 bearable. (As opposed to TV which just has to be bearable on its own. It has nothing to rise above) And like them or not, Ezra and Jonathan are interesting. For that reason, people will vote to keep them on. And in the end, I suspect that the winners, male and female, will both be loudmouths. It's going to take an asshole to win.
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