[arg_discuss] Deception and what it means to be Real

[Brian Clark]

> My apologies in advance for not having anything provocative to say on the

> topic. I'm hoping Mr. Clark can pick up some of the slack.


You're completely slacking, Monello. I'm managing to hold three completely
different opinions at the same time over here.


>From an audience perspective, teh Internets aren't to be believed! They are

filled with lies! Those things that aren't outright hoaxes or lies might
include their variants: political spin, advertising deception and hidden
agendas! You have been forewarned: anything that touches the Internet has
that potential as well. Or: what Markus said.


>From a community of creators perspective, I keeping thinking how all this

storm of discussion misses the simplest solution. Where this particular case
failed was having no "guardrail" -- that's all they needed, one marker
somewhere that you could bump against. Hundreds of solutions to that
problem: at GMD, we typically use the "don't hide the ownership of the
domain name" guardrail -- someone eventually checks the domain registration,
and then ends up at our site and for the savvy the jig is up on any
perceived deception. Tons of other solutions for that, though, some more
subtle (think "This is My Milwaukee") and some less subtle (think "Dark
Knight").

Personally, as a creator, I'm not ready to give up on "well intentioned
deception" as a tool in my toolbox (deception is the step-sister of surprise
when handled carefully, like it were radioactive.) At the TARP ARG panel
craziness at SXSW, there was one poor lady there from the government who was
clearly expecting the panel to be what it said it was (but she didn't seem
upset with us once she experienced it.) Others might have had looser
expectations but still get agitated by the hecklers and protestors (not
realizing we brought them with us and they were part of the experience). One
woman ran from the room when we showed her picture on the screen and "the
police" asked her to step forward. A huge range of reactions regarding
expectation and deception just in that one room for an hour.

Monello further slacked in not pointing out that this is the classic problem
of "turning the tip" (to use the sideshow phrase for it): how do you turn
the audience you just deceived by making them feel a part of the secret
instead of the butt of a joke at their expense. Conceivably, one could "turn
the tip" without having to use a guardrail, but guardrails require less
nuance. "Martin Aggett" both failed to have a guardrail, and then failed to
turn the tip. "Hoax" is a pejorative phrase for "fiction" that implies you
never intended to turn the tip: you thought you'd "get away with it" and
"pull one over their eyes". 

"Martin" giving up the deception as an apology might be interpreted as not
trying to turn the tip, but having a story about how he intended to.

Those stories never end well.

Have a great weekend ... mere weeks until ARG-Fest!



Brian