GeekSugar

Quarterlife . . . May Not Have a Life

GeekSugar — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:10:14 -0800

Look, I'm great at suspending my disbelief for TV shows - I am an avid Lost viewer, after all. But the portrayal of the Internet and blogging in new show Quarterlife is just too much.

I was so excited when I heard that this show (which I'd never watched on MySpaceTV before) would feature the main character as a blogger - a lot of people have personal blogs nowadays, and I was hoping the show could explore the impact of a female blogger who blogs about her friends and personal life. Sadly, the show opens with the terrible line "Why do we blog? We blog to exist." Really?! What does that even mean? Dylan Krieger - the main character and blogger - has a MacBook. Our similarities end there.

For what I think about Dylan and the hilarious Internet portrayal, read more.

Dylan is a self-absorbed, insecure voyeur who watched one too many episodes of My So-Called Life as a teenager and now suffers from tortured artist syndrome. Not a starving artist, of course, because Dylan is obviously a college grad from a nice, rich suburb. Her problems are as annoying as she is: She's upset that, as a recent graduate who's landed an amazing job as an editorial associate at a magazine, one of the ideas she spouted off in a (very common) moment of self-righteousness has been stolen by another employee. Dylan also suffers from "I'm a writer" syndrome (you know, where she can't stop saying it aloud so everyone knows how much better than them she is) and the illness in which one is convinced other people are not worthwhile unless they're artists.

Now, let's discuss the blogging. Dylan uses a MySpace-like profile on the not-so-fictional Quarterlife social network (which they dismiss as being "in beta," like that matters anymore). From her profile, she takes a video of herself and makes a video blog. I hate the word "vlog," but was anyone else annoyed that they never brought the term up? It also killed me when they said things like, "Are you upset that I blogged you?" At one point, one character says "You have my face all over the frickin' net!" Since when is it called the 'net? Since that Sandra Bullock movie came out?

And what about this weird importance they seem to place on blogging? All of Dylan's friends are very impressed that she has a blog on a social network site at a time when everyone and their mother has a personal blog. They are also very upset that she's saying personal things about them on her "blog" - what, do they think she's getting picked up on digg?

This show has tons of cred - as far as TV goes, Buzz reported that these are the producers of My So-Called Life (and the writing team includes Devon Gummersall, aka Brian Krakow), and as far as geekery goes (Macs and Final Cut Pro, oh my!), this show should have been a shoe-in to my TiVo schedule. Bitsie Tulloch, who plays Dylan, was even a cast member on Internet sensation lonelygirl15!

I'm really disappointed with this first episode, but I'm no quitter. I also remember the terrible pilots of some of my other favorite shows, so I'll give this a chance to find itself. And hopefully the writers will find themselves in front of a browser in 2008, figuring out "the 'net" for today's audience.

Are You Sick of New Social Networking Sites Yet?

GeekSugar — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:27:38 -0800

Buzz reported yesterday that Quarterlife is making its TV debut (it first premiered on MySpaceTV) on NBC. Quarterlife, whose own life started as an ABC pilot but was dropped and then run by its producers online, is a show about a group of struggling young people fronted by a twenty-something female blogger. To promote the new NBC show, a Quarterlife social networking site has launched.

This social network is set up like your FaceBook and MySpace pages, but it's designed to appeal to your twenty-something, misunderstood creative angst. Annoyed yet? I mean, I give it up to the producers trying to find a niche, but do we really need a new social networking site? Do you dislike that FaceBook and MySpace are so general and are you craving new social networking sites that appeal to different aspects of your life?
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Texts From Last Night to Be Made Into a TV Show

GeekSugar — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:47:04 -0700

One of my favorite websites is Texts From Last Night, which compiles all of your hilarious, regrettable, embarrassing, and TMI texts from, well, the night before (that is after you or someone else submits them). The site is so popular it not only has its own BlackBerry app, but it's coming to the boob tube. That's right, a TFLN show will be written by Steve Holland and produced by Sony TV and Happy Madison and will air on the Fox network.

Primarily, the show will focus on post-college twenty-somethings that are trying to figure out their lives, with texting and crazy events from the night before taking center stage. It sounds like Dawson's Creek meets My So-Called Life after they've graduated from college and hit their quarter-life crises.

Do You Have a Blog?

GeekSugar — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:00:11 -0800

Blogging platform Tumblr has just introduced some new features for its users, and I think it may have edged out Blogger as my favorite blogging tool (though WordPress and TypePad are pretty great, too). Though I don't have a blogging account on either site, I follow many blogs on those platforms and really marvel at their ease of use.

Anyway, it got me thinking: Do you blog? And if you do, is it about a certain subject or is it a more personal journal? Shout it out and tell me what platform you use, what you like about it and your addy if you want. I promise not to be as critical of it as I was about Dylan Krieger's Quarterlife blog!
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