Kaffeine Buzz
reviews independent and foreign films,
in addition to reporting the latest buzz behind
Colorado's film festivals.
We Live in Public (Ondi
Timoner)
I’m sure you’ve heard the term, “one’s
own worst enemy.”
The documentary, “We Live In Public,”
is an insightful, entertaining, and at times,
heartbreaking story of the life of Josh
Harris, a recognized Internet visionary
from the Silicon Alley set in the ‘90s predicted
where the net was going before it happened. This
was a decade before people even imagine the worldwide
popularity of Facebook and Twitter.
Directed by Ondi Timoner (director
of “Dig,” founder of Interloper films,
and the only director to win a Sundance grand
jury award twice in the festival's history), “We
Live In Public” goes back to the birth of
the Internet when this technology was REALLY
introduced into the consumer and business channels,
and the part Harris played in its innovation (the
Internet's "official" lifetime is going
into its 40th year).
The tagline for the film, "the greatest
Internet pioneer you've never heard of,”
is quite appropriate. I may have been one of a
handful of people watching the film that was familiar
with the part he played in turning the Web business
world into an online and offline frat party.
“We Live in Public” gives one a peek
into what took place during the beginning years
of the Internet, a piece of history of what to
do, but especially, what NOT to do. It also follows
not only how the Web evolved, both in technology
and within business models (or lack thereof),
but how this unique individual transformed in
the process.
You see, back in the ‘90s, Harris was inventing
ways for people to be social on the net in ways
they never imagined. But Timoner goes back even
further to time when Harris first came to New
York in the ‘80s.
He was a visionary even then. Harris was looking
ahead while working for a data research company.
He knew he could do better, and did so by starting
Jupiter Communications, which focused on Internet
usage analytics, competing with the likes of the
Gartner Group and other market analytic firms.
When people put their money where their mouth
is and there’s a payoff, they’re king.
Harris was king. People began to pay attention
to what he was saying, most of which kept going
to the heart of the Internet: that all we do,
who we talk to, what we say, what we post, is
a part of the public domain for everyone to see.
He also knew that this data would be of value
to many companies, thus the reason for Jupiter’s
success.
That position on the throne enabled him to become
one of the hot startup boys. One of the hotshots
that got spreads in Silicon Alley magazine, along
with new, cool loft space layouts featuring designer
office furniture and New York City views. Quite
the way to spend VC money…indeed.
Harris didn’t have to go the VC, begging-for-money
route (that came later), since Jupiter went public.
With some 10 million in IPO money (some report
20 million, others report $80 mill, so who the
hell knows) he was living large, throwing big
tech parties and launching Pseudo.com in 1993,
one of the first Webcasters to emerge.
The film’s footage captures these moments,
made possible through Harris’ own camera
efforts and that of the filmmaker Timoner, who
met him at one of his parties, which replaced
geek fests with cool-kid raves, complete with
models sitting on the laps of nerds playing Doom.
“Get used to it,” Harris proclaims.
And they did.
This was east coast version of the Internet boom,
the bookend to what was taking place in San Francisco
and Silicon Valley, at the Industry Standard rooftop
gatherings, Razorfish parties, and shindigs thrown
at Bimbo’s where more booty business then
monetary business was taking place. I’m
speaking from experience here.
Even though most people at that time used dial-up
to access online video, watching a jerky, small
screen size at around 300 x 300 pixels, Pseudo.com
was a hit. There were music shows for every genre,
that were in a way replacing the anti-music video,
boring-as-dirt content that MTV was quickly becoming.
Young people were running around, expanding their
creative juices to create content for his online
version of television (what we greatly depend
on today, right?). Harris was now not just the
king, he was the damn high court.
The king was also spending those millions, but
unlike Jupiter, the monetary side of things at
Pseudo.com relied solely on advertising. Hard
to know how much.
Harris was also showing a different side of himself
beyond his obsession with Gilligan’s Island
(the show that was essentially, his babysitter
growing up). He began to wear a clown costume
out in public, and this persona started to come
out a lot more often than his staff would have
liked.
As the smoke, literally and figuratively, started
to clear and VCs no longer felt like shoveling
money into a burning fire, reality started to
set in. That’s when the bubble popped.
It was right at that time that Harris decided
to turn a basement space into a human experiment
he called “Quiet.” It was anything
but, promoting and encouraging all of the seven
deadly sins and more.
The next millennium was upon us. A perfect time
to for Harris to spend even more money as if “it's
sand through the fingers of time” on setting
up video cameras in every crevice of the bunker
and have dozens of people file in to have every
second of their life—bathroom breaks, showers
and sex included—available on each channel
for all to see. Endless food, drink, drugs, and
guns (yes, there was a gun range) were available
for all. Free of charge.
As Wired reported, the “guests” were
comprised of, “SoHo painters and poseurs,
gallery owners, the Silicon Alley set, media hounds
and media whores, Eurotrash, rappers, ravers,
and even a smattering of local politicians converged
at a huge, defunct textile factory near City Hall.”
Again, the cameras were on the cameras and the
people all the way.
This was one of the more compelling moments in
the film, where people were expressive and free,
as if the Woodstock days were brought back to
life, but in the end became leeches, showing the
darker side of the human psyche, wanting more
and more. And when you mix endless paraphernalia
with paranoia, you can only imagine what happened.
It didn’t help that Giuliani was in office,
so I’m sure you can guess how he used is
moral fist.
At the end of the process, even though the film
shows how Harris had an obvious issue with relationships
of any kind, he found love. But he couldn’t
let go of his addiction to the net and being visible
to thousands.
So he created his own personal bunker experiment,
weliveinpublic.com, setting up cameras throughout
his loft to capture every moment of his relationship
with his girlfriend, including cameras not just
in the bathroom but in the toilet (probably appealing
to all the feces fetish people out there…yuck),
along with the conversations he had in the bathroom
with his banker. The pressure of losing his money
seemed to unravel his ability to cope with himself
and in his relationship, and it looked like he
was losing his mind as well.
The party was over for everyone, including Silicon
Alley. New York Times reported on the magazine’s
demise, interviewing its publisher, Jason McCabe
Calacanis in October of 2001. '''The story's over,'
Mr. Calacanis said. 'You can't have a magazine
about unemployed people. You can't have a magazine
about people who are taking time off.' Josh Harris,
whose face appeared on the magazine's cover before
his company, Pseudo, closed down, is growing apples
in upstate New York. ''
After taking trading the streets of NYC for apple
fields, Harris tried to make it once more after
the Internet industry healed itself a bit and
as social media companies like MySpace.com became
the new hot commodity. But by then, no one knew
of his vision years earlier that we no longer
live in private. No one cared that he was the
first to really put people’s lives on the
Web, the first to introduce the Web as a social
medium.
While Harris’ clown character was pretty
creepy, you get the impression Harris was always
in character. He recognized and took advantage
of the desire the average person has to be a superstar
by being in front of any camera, (YouTube.com
is further evidence of that), even if they’re
humiliated in the process, probably because it
was something he desired. Instead of watching
the T.V. screen as a boy, as a man, he wanted
to be Gilligan and be adored by all. But sitcoms
are fleeting.
The timing of the documentary is interesting,
considering how social media’s popularity
is growing by leaps and bounds while many are
concerned with the privacy of those in the playground.
Having cameras document his every move worked
out for Harris (his own, others, and the decade
Timoner spent gathering thousands of hours film),
considering the amount of footage available that
made this documentary possible.
The term “monetization” is a popular
one at this year’s SXSW as people all discuss
how Twitter is eventually going to make money.
No one really talked about that in the ‘90s.
They were too busy going to IPO after three months
to become millionaires on paper. Having sat in
a number of VC meetings on Sand Hill Road, I,
along with my friend and business partner at the
time, were the bitches in room flipping to the
end of the business plan looking for the part
where the company started making money.
This is a great film for those of us who went
through the first Internet boom and lived to talk
about it, and for those that didn’t, you’re
able experience a part of the Web’s history
in only 90 minutes. Highly recommended either
way.
In the business world you often see those who
are idea people, and then there are those people
who take an idea and make it happen over the long
term. Make it work to last longer than a flame.
Harris was, is an idea guy. He was crowdsourcing
before the term was the twinkle in anyone’s
eye. Who’s to say he won’t be back
at some point.
