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April 25, 2008
Live from Cambridge it's ROFLCon

After a should-have-been-expected traffic delay and inevitable parking chaos I’m on the ground at ROFLCon 2008! HELLO CAMBRIDGE!

A beautiful day in Cambridge and we’ve got a room full of geeks, nerds, smartasses and a few geniuses all inside a slightly darkened room.

My best guess is there are more than 250 people here, but that’s a rough estimate – so don’t hold me to it later on.

Also happy to see a decent amount of media here, including at least one guy from BBC Radio.

A high energy crowd, but excited in a good way, like just being in the room is making them smarter, better or funnier. I get the feeling anyone could walk up to a stranger, introduce themselves and start a long conversation.

Spotted so far: The Tron Guy and a walking, furry Firefox, who is not in flames.

David Weinberger just wrapped up his keynote speech about what Fame on the Web means to all of us and what it means to mainstream media and popular culture. Weinberger is the author of “Everything is Miscellaneous.”
Weinberger took the crowd on a web tour of some of the more popular memes and videos of recent years, linking them together on how they relate to us, make us feel and make us react.
What makes Internet fame, celebrity and notoriety different and special, Weinberger says, is that it reflects us because it is us. It’s weird, funny, imperfect and sometimes moving.
“Fame is becoming ours, we’re making it our own,” he said.

As I write this a panel discussion is taking place on the strange rise to fame (and modest profit) from the likes of Ian Spector (Chuck Norris Facts), Andy Ochiltree (JibJab), Andrew Baron of (Rocketboom) and Joe Mathlete (Joe Mathlete Explains Marmaduke and Kyle Macdonald of (One Red Paperclip).

You can also follow things as they happen over at the ROFLCon site.

Keep checking in and don’t forget the Twitter feed.

Also I've got a Flickr stream of ROFLCon up.

Posted by at 01:18 PM

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Comments

Starting to feel like this conference is all about forcing the word memes into popular lexicon, it's all over blogs and twitter right now.

Also I am jealous that you all are seeing The Firefox.

Posted by ac
April 25, 2008 02:29 PM

I've never heard of ROFLcon until today! There are so many awesome guests! Dinosaur Comics? Homestar Runner? Martin Seargent? AHHH I WANT TO BE THERE SO BAD!

Posted by Dylan
April 25, 2008 03:45 PM

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Justin is a former newspaper intern and has the scar tissue to prove it. Justin has been a staff writer for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram since 2003, and in 2004 began writing a weekly column in the Monday Magazine.

If he had to pick a label, the column would fall under "youth culture," covering everything from high school dance etiquette, dealing with college debt, the resurgence of Roller Derby and Portland's one-of-a-kind music scene. This of course has not stopped him from answering letters to Santa Claus or writing about his experience riding shotgun in a drift car.

Justin is an export from the Midwest. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri and is originally from Minnesota. He enjoys bacon, cheap beer, redheads, Burt Reynolds jokes and wondering what the soundtrack to his life would sound like.

When he grows up he wants to be an international art thief. Or Captain America.

Until then he'll be bringing you dispatches about "the young people" and what they do.





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