The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

I'm convinced. Hank Green is a genius. 

When Hank first announced his side-project, a modern adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as a YouTube video blog, my first reaction was, "Oh, that's cute." Loyal nerdfighter that I am, I subscribed to Lizzie Bennet's fictional YouTube channel and occasionally took six or seven minutes out of my week to watch Ashley Clements as Lizzie rant about her silly parents, her sister, her grad school, and this jerk she met at a wedding called William Darcy. 

It was fun. It was cool. It was new. And it soon became a fully-fledged fandom, with all the trappings of yet another collective obsession belonging to thousands and thousands of bored internet-lurkers. People like me -- young, outspoken, and always looking for something new. 

Now, I'm not as intense of an internetter as some. I'm afraid of twitter and tumblr, and I'm only slowly acclimating to such big forces of the virtual world as Reddit and Imgur. But I follow YouTube religiously. I Facebook. I even Pinterest from time to time, and obviously I have a blog. So I'm not ignorant of these things. Maybe just a little late to the party, but I'm getting there. 

Still, this project, LBD, took me by surprise. As the story progressed, I became more and more engrossed, and so did the rest of the internet. The geniuses behind the project branched out into other areas, giving their characters fictitious twitters and tumblr accounts, facebook pages, company websites and email addresses. Other characters began to vlog, including Lydia, Charlotte, and Darcy's sister. These actors took on alternate identities almost as real as their own, in the virtual world at least. Now you could be browsing around on Pinterest and come across some of Jane Bennet's fashion pictures or Lydia Bennet's not-so-sound partying advice. 

It's all amazingly three-dimensional, a story experience unlike anything the world has ever seen, to be overly dramatic. The extremely broad fan-base experiences the misadventures of the Bennet sisters in real-time, in real-life detail. And yes, there are some campy bits, like the fake demonstrations of "Pemberly Digital's new video-chatting technology" that are obviously contrived, but the scope of the project is so huge that things like that are added bonuses rather than unconvincing plot complicators. 

I fully expect to see more of these in the future, a whole new genre of internet storytelling. And I welcome it, giving life to these old stories, making them relevant to young people today who may love or hate them. This is the future! Huzzah! 

Anyway, go watch them if you haven't already. Start from the beginning. 

www.lizziebennet.com

Happy 2013!

My family and I hailed the New Year at our lakehouse on Lake Fork. It was wet and cold, but we celebrated the occasion with confetti fights...

Sparklers and fireworks...

And potato canons...

(video proof:)

I have spent the day or two since hangin' with my boyfriend

And shopping with the money my wonderful grandparents gave me for Christmas!

 I feel very proud of myself, too, because with 150 bucks I bought five dresses, a cardigan, three pairs of tights, and some red heels, and I have money left over to go to the movies tomorrow. Yay for Plato's Closet and Ross! I despise shopping, but clothes make me happy. :3

Oh, and I also (finally) got my car washed and took this trippy picture of soap. I'm pretty sure this is what space looks like. 

Yeah, basically.

Lastly, all of you should watch this video of thirteen interesting (but totally unrelated) tidbits in honor of 2013. 

PS - I have the book mentioned here (Sex on the Moon by Ben Mezrich) and it is definitely worth reading if anyone's interested. :)

Life Update

So not much of the "exciting" variety has been happening the last couple of weeks. Mostly studying and Netflix and half-price sushi. But here are just a couple of things because I haven't posted in forever.

The guys played possibly their best show at one of the most awesome Open Ranges yet. 

I went to see my mom's beautiful new pedestrian bridge open up to get the students to the stadium, which was pretty awesome.

\

I explored the tailgating labyrinth with all of these people (AKA, basically every frat boy and sorority girl at UNT). 

And I got to watch the nationally televised football game from the (incredibly nice) President's box, even though I only stayed for about 90 seconds of the action playing. 

 

And finally, I got to watch George Watsky perform his famous spoken-word poetry on his tour, which was seriously incredible. I was also impressed by the spoken-word talent here at UNT. Such a cool art form.  

Watching Watsky, it really hit me what kinds of things my generation is doing for culture. Thirty years ago, a twenty-two-year-old kid like George Watsky (who's an Emerson College grad, by the way) wouldn't get the chance to travel around for a living, performing original poetry for college students and getting paid for doing it. But because of the Internet, because of the sheer power of YouTube, this kid--and many others like him--are exposed to millions and millions of people, opening up a whole mine of new audiences with an inexhaustible hunger for new art, new words, new opinions and perspectives. Maybe one in a thousand people like spoken word poetry. Maybe that's not enough to give it a location-specific home. But today, location is irrelevant. Our networks connect us instantly with everyone in America--in the whole world--who share our tastes, which gives small-time artists a chance they never would have had in any other time. 

I just think that's so cool.