Who is Justin.tv?

I don’t know if you’re watching Justin.tv, but I am. How can you turn away? It’s not that anything is happening. But that’s the point. It’s the exact nothingness of it that draws you in. It’s the anticipation of what might happen that keeps you watching. And watching. And watching. Hence the latest internet craze: lifecasting.

Lifecasting is living vicariously through someone. Watching that person’s life pass moment by moment and having the ability to give input by sending online messages. Whether it’s the first morning yawn or the last goodnight kiss – lifecasting gives you everything. And then it gives you a say. “Yawn again.” One more yawn. “Now walk to your bathroom.” She doesn’t move. Well it doesn’t always work. But it’s a whole lot more interactive than what’s come before. Lifecasting adds the key element of interactive communication.

Oh, and did I mention mobility? You move through the day with your “lifecaster” as he or she wears portable electronic devices that let you come along for the ride. This has allowed lifecasters to take us to amazing places like Japan, Ground Zero, New York Fashion Week, and the Halo 3 Launch. Lifecasters have traveled across America, launched music careers and developed new technology for, what, other than, lifecasting.

But lifecasting has become “a craze.” And just as Justin Kan, the founder of Justin.tv, wanted it, his big rollout has made lifecasting as mainstream as MTV. Meaning the forum is now overwrought with players. Yes, we still have some lifecasters who are doing interesting things – but how do you find them amidst the 3200 broadcasting accounts on Justin.tv. Anyone with a computer, webcam, microphone, and internet connection can lifecast. But do we want to watch just anyone? Where is the filter?

There is no filter. And that’s why we get stuck reading the messages of awful oglers who use the chat rooms to spout useless crap, or fill the forums with debates about whether the lifecaster is paying attention or not – things that are completely boring and useless and bring nothing to the table. And because there’s no filter, the people we end up watching, the people whose lives we’re supposed to be living vicariously through… well, quite frankly, they’re boring. I’m tired of being a girl sitting at a table staring at a computer screen. Or being a guy talking to the camera about music.

So what was, in the beginning, a fascinating way of playing puppetmaster, is now a truly awful spectacle of Generation Y laziness. We watch people sit around and do nothing.

Now that lifecasting has gone mainstream, now that every Tom, Dick or Harry can hook up to his computer and broadcast live while watching the news, will lifecasting last? Of course it will. Any method of connecting people has staying power. People like to bond with one another. Whether it be vicariously, voyeuristically or vociferously. Whichever the case people want people. They want to see them. They want to talk to them. They want to write to them. They want to connect with them. They want to feel like they are with them. I would only hope that we can figure out a way for the cream to rise to the top as it would be beneficial if the kind of people we choose to bond over would be better role models than the ones that we’re currently watching.