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The personal story revolution cannot be televised
by J. Betty Ray
One of the coolest (and, not coincidentally, the most
terrifying) aspects of the Web is that it lets you pour out your soul to
millions of other souls — and have them do the same in return. |
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Derek Powazek is a Web designer and writer who creates intimate online
environments with the express purpose of engendering this kind of
soul-baring. Kvetch!, his most recent
endeavor, is a rant repository providing a series of subjects about which
visitors are encouraged to "let it out, baby" — it's a great spot to
fire off a crabby one-liner about whatever's stuck in your craw.
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Kvetch! is a good way to let out steam, but Powazek's the fray is one of the most riveting sites
on the Web. It's a moody, atmospheric environment full of intimate stories,
each one designed with an intuitive awareness of the narrative nuances
that are simply impossible to express in more linear, time-based media.
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"When I started fray ["fray" and "the fray" are both correct names for the site], everyone in the industry was talking about ADVERTISING and HOURLY NEWS UPDATES — all this stuff I already get on TV and radio," says Powazek, who has worked as production manager at Hotwired and was a producer at the short-lived community-building experiment at Electric Minds. "They were ignoring what the Web's really good at, which is connecting people, letting them tell their stories and getting them involved in the experience. You just can't do that in other media."
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Indeed, the genius of the fray is how it harnesses the intrinsic strengths
of the Web in all its paradoxical glory — the fray is intimate,
public, personal, dreamy, dark, honest, and community-created. As you read
these writings, you're privy to the storytellers' innermost dreams, horrors,
obsessions, joys, and fears. A tryst with this kind of confessional space
is incredibly conducive to spilling your own guts — you just can't
immerse yourself in these stories and images without some sort of
self-reflection. And as if that weren't enough, each story ends with a confrontational question and a forum to respond, as in: "How have YOU been reckless?" or "What was YOUR first experience with pornography like?" or (after a story about an abortion) "When have YOU crumbled?"
I spoke with Powazek from his San Francisco apartment about what it is about
the Web that compels him to sit in front of his computer for 16 to 20 hours
a day amid the spilt guts of total strangers. |
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Tripod: Have you always been a storyteller? |
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Powazek: I've always been into it. When I was in high school, I bought
myself an acoustic guitar and did a lot of songwriting. I still do a lot of
that. I have always thought — and this is my trade secret — that fray stories are a lot like songs.
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Tripod: What do you mean? |
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Powazek: In a song you're being emotional and personal — and in the
GOOD songs, you're telling a story. And at the end of a REALLY good song,
you end up singing along. That's what the posting area is about. It's like
at a party when someone tells a cool story about something that happened to them, and every single person in the room kinda takes their turn saying, "Oh, well, the last time I got a parking ticket..." or, "Oh, the other day..." Everybody has a story on almost every subject. |
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Tripod: Are these stories taken from people that have submitted stories
to fray or do you solicit them from people you know? |
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Powazek: Sometimes I solicit. Most of them just come through the submission page on the Web site. It's always a couple-month-long process of working with the writer and getting them to edit their writing. I act like an editor, basically. A lot of stories I send back and say, "I really like this story, but I'd like you to rewrite this part and focus on that." You know, (laughs) be an annoying editor. |
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