A creative work on a Web site transcends any type of textual representation in human history.
In print form the text is the text and its characteristics:
- the structure
- the form
- word choice, etc.
- reviewers' comments on the back jacket,
- a foreword by another author
- in some editions perhaps critical essays in an appendix.
The creative work exists as an entity apart from the discussion surrounding it.
This relationship changes on the Internet. Because the Internet makes access to the discussion surrounding a creative work extremely easy, the actual text that a reader encounters is the sum of the visible online discourse.
Physical barriers to the discourse do not exist, allowing the discourse about a work to stand side-by-side to the creative work itself. The ease of availability of the discourse about an online work becomes a vital and new source of information for understanding the creative work itself.
Although readers have always been able to access the discourse surrounding creative works, not until the age of the Internet has real-time discourse been side-by-side in time and space with the text.
It was possible, yes, to sift through academic journals and newspaper reviews searching for mention of a particular article or story.
Once found, the reader has in her possession an exhaustive analysis by a scholar or an opinion piece by a reviewer, from which she could internalize the information and use the authors' arguments to cement an understanding of the work for herself.
But the casual reader was not and is not inclined to behave in this way. Taking the time to find physical copies of the discourse surrounding a text is too arduous an activity for the casual reader.
However on the Internet the discourse surrounding a work ranges in visibility from accessible to inescapable, thus becoming a crucial part of the text and influencing heavily the understanding of the creative work itself.
Examining how literature affects each reader is a nearly impossible endeavor. Everyone reacts differently to a text and generalizing responses across cultural and personal lines can be problematic at best and fallacious at worst.
The Internet, however, is evolving into a suitable starting point for examining reader reactions to a text.
Numerous online forums for readers to express their opinions and preserve them for perpetuity stimulate discussion around creative texts.
And many of these arenas for discussion are far from anonymous; it is possible in some cases to determine exactly who is commenting.
It should be stated here that online reviews are not meant to be viewed as a scientific study of the Internet-connected public's opinion of a work.
The value of these reviews lies not in their validity as a set of data, but rather their worth as easily-accessible information whose proximity adds to the understanding of the creative work by the reader.
The proximity of the conversation surrounding a creative work to the work itself acts as a textual addition that revolutionizes the digital text itself. Three services in particular heavily influence the presentation of the creative text on the Internet:
- StumbleUpon
- Amazon.com
- BarnesandNoble.com
StumbleUpon is toolbar that users install in their Web browser. When they click the “Stumble!” button on the toolbar, StumbleUpon takes them to a site that (according to their algorithm) will most likely match their pre-selected interests.
Once their browser navigates to a specific site, they can give the site a “thumbs up” (“Show me more like this”) or “thumbs down” (“This site's not for me”). Additionally, StumbleUpon also enables commenting for any site submitted to their index.
It is possible to view StumbleUpon user's comments about any site a user has submitted to their index by following the formula http://www.stumbleupon.com/url
Each review contains
- the name of the “stumbler” (a user within the StumbleUpon community)
- their rating of the site (either a green “thumbs up,” a red “thumbs down,” or a neutral rating)
- their comments
- and the time and date
StumbleUpon displays the reviews in reverse chronological order; i.e. the newest review always comes first.
While commenting on other Internet sites can be done without registering with the site, StumbleUpon users publish a basic amount of demographic data to the community.
In the majority of cases a user displays her
- age
- sex
- location
- name
on her profile page. Each reviewer's background and profile page can be viewed by anyone with an Internet connection.
It should be acknowledged here that the majority of people who comment on sites on StumbleUpon have discovered the sites by “stumbling” (clicking the toolbar button to take them to a new site); therefore tuckermax.com has a much greater chance of matching each reviewer’s interests.
The reviews for any (non-sponsored) page on StumbleUpon are generally skewed towards the positive. As could be expected, the StumbleUpon reviews of tuckermax.com are mixed.
Tuckermax.com has received 132 reviews on StumbleUpon as of 4/4/08 (StumbleUpon Reviews). This means that 132 StumbleUpon users deemed it necessary to comment to the rest of the StumbleUpon community about Max's site.
Out of the 132 reviews
- 21 are “thumbs down”
- 4 are neutral
- 107 users gave the site a “thumbs up”
Female and male users alike have given tuckermax.com a positive review.
For example, user yoabbster, an 18-year-old woman from Houston, Texas writes: “he's an asshole but an entertaining asshole” (StumbleUpon Reviews).
User TargetMarket, a 21-year-old man from Fargo, ND says: “I am intensely glad I am not this man, but envy him at the same time. Not so much for the debauchery, but just the fact that he has in fact had these experiences” (StumbleUpon Reviews).
User m2hnj, a 27-year-old woman from Kansas, on the other hand, takes a decidedly antagonistic view of his site (rating it a “thumbs down”): “Although his stories are mildly entertaining, Tucker Max is a nappy ass slut, and any woman who gives up her dignity and sleeps with him deserves the STDs she gets” (StumbleUpon Reviews).
Lovermont, a 20-year-old woman from Vermont, however, says “ha, i'm a girl and even I think it's funny. I have had my own share of escapades, but he one-ups me every time. hahaha. All of these stories are kind of like 'i'm glad im not that stupid fuck' hahah i like” (StumbleUpon Reviews).
StumbleUpon users who come across tuckermax.com have the suite of tools provided by the service at their disposal. With one click on the toolbar they can
- examine what other readers have thought of the site
- choose to view other similar sites online
- even send the page to a friend
Without the physical restraints or cost of a book, in a few seconds a stumbler can send a link to the story to a friend. Worthwhile creative texts thus spread organically through the communication among online users, even those who do not know each other.
A unique feature of StumbleUpon is the community rating capability. The more “thumbs up” a page receives, the more often that site will come up when users with similar interests are “stumbling.”
StumbleUpon passes favorable content among its members with similar interests, fostering the distribution of quality creative texts as determined by the community itself without physical or financial barriers.
The discourse surrounding these texts can be found in one click on the StumbleUpon toolbar.
Never before has information concerning the readers’ responses to a book been so readily available to such a large and diverse audience.
Although sites like StumbleUpon and del.icio.us make it possible to comment on specific Web sites, major online book retailers support reviews of their products on the product pages themselves.
Thanks to the “review” feature on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, it is possible to read reviews by people who have read the book and felt it necessary to comment. Aggregated data about review information figures prominently on the bottom of the product page.
The reviewers are not completely anonymous: the “RealName” feature on Amazon.com takes the reviewer's name from the credit card linked to their account.
As more and more Internet authors receive book deals, the discourse happening on the sites of major book dealers becomes increasingly important.
A reader who follows a link from the Internet author's Web site to an online bookseller comes in direct contact with what others have said about the book. Tucker Max's historic book deal provides an opportunity to examine the discourse surrounding both his Internet and hardcopy creative work.
Tucker Max's collection of short stories I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, some taken from his Web site and some original material, has been reviewed 216 times on Amazon.com.
The average rating is 4.5 stars out of 5 customers gave the book
- 149 five-star ratings
- 30 four-star ratings
- 13 three-star ratings
- 9 two-star ratings
- 15 one-star ratings
Nearly seven out of ten people who took the time to write a review of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell gave it the highest rating possible.
The Customer Review platform on Amazon.com displays the most helpful “favorable” and “critical” review on the product listing page. After each review on the site users have the option to answer the question “Was this review helpful?”
The favorable review and the critical review that receive the most “thumbs up” are shown prominently on the Customer Review page for each book. A customer who needs to research the book before making the purchase can view the most helpful reviews (as determined by the community) to help make an informed decision.
The most helpful positive review (221 out of 285 visitors to the site) for I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell was written by a self-proclaimed former classmate of Max’s who swears to the stories’ authenticity (Amazon).
He comments that even while attending Duke Law School Max was legend. The reviewer, who goes by the name Yossarian says, “I can assure you that the man tells the absolute truth. Even during his tenure at the school he was legend, constantly roiling the gossip networks and cheerfully rendering the rest of us less employable through indirect association with him” (Amazon).
Yossarian goes on to give a glowing review of the book, ending with a small justification of Max's work's worth: “You'll have to wade through a lot of get-drunk-grope-bimbo-fall-down stories to get there, but in the end I hope you appreciate the boundless scope and energy of such activities, as puerile and beer-stained as they individually appear” (Amazon).
This particular review spoke authentically to a personal association with the book’s author, resonating with the online community who elected it the most helpful favorable review.
The most helpful negative review elaborates on the negative aspects of Max’s collection of short stories. Entitled “Funny at first but it gets old,” unregistered reviewer “Dan” says that the type of humor found in I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell was not for him. “He [Max] and the idiots he surrounds himself with think it is incredibly funny when he gets drunk and insults people but I found it immature and boring” (Amazon).
He ends the review with, “Obviously I would not recommend this book as there are more worthwile (sic) ways to spend your time and money” (Amazon). Curiously, Dan chose not to give the book the lowest rating possible, opting instead to rate it two stars out of five.
Another major online bookseller enables product reviews as well. On BarnesandNoble.com, 27 readers took time to write a review of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. It received
- 16 five-star ratings
- 5 four-star ratings
- 1 three-star rating
- 2 two-star ratings
- 3 one-star ratings
The average rating is four stars (Barnes and Noble). Barnes and Noble does not have a “most helpful review” feature like Amazon.com. Instead two random reviews appear at the Overview tab under the product details (Barnes and Noble).
Because the 4- and 5-star ratings outnumber the 1-,2- and 3-star reviews by a margin of 21 to 6, in the majority of cases two favorable reviews appear on the product page.
Thus, the proximity between a creative work and the surrounding discourse fuses the discourse and work together into a new kind of text. Any user can
- read the text
- read other's comments on the text
- express her thoughts about the work within a specific community
This revolution in textual presentation and understanding changes the requisite role of the author. The Internet author must become active in the discussion surrounding his creative work in order to forge an emotional connection with his readership.
When the author participates in the discussion he puts himself on the same level as his readership, forging a personal connection that was impossible to achieve in the pre-Internet days.
The success that Tucker Max has enjoyed is a direct result of his creation of and participation in the discourse surrounding his creative work.
Conclusion
Tucker Max has blazed a trail for previously unknown authors who establish an organic following on the Internet.
He has overturned traditional publishing by
- giving away his work
- building online communities through the participation of his readers
- continuously interacting with readers by taking part in the discourse surrounding his work
Max established a company to take advantage of his success by bringing other underrepresented artists to the fore.
He named the company Rudius Media after the wooden sword given by the Roman emperor to a gladiator upon attainment of his freedom (Rudiusmedia.com). The company’s mission statement is as follows:
[Rudius Media] is a company dedicated to finding, publishing, managing and promoting new and original content by unknown or under-promoted artists and writers. We are an alternative publishing outlet and management firm for those artists and writers who cannot find a voice within the current homogenized corporate entertainment culture, but who don't want to run the gauntlet of the Internet and entertainment business alone. In short: We help artists make art. (Rudiusmedia.com)
Each site on the Rudius Media network of sites has a very large link box containing links to all of the other partner sites on every page. When a reader interested in reading Max's stories goes to tuckermax.com, he immediately sees links to other sites with titles similar to that of the site he is visiting.
Max, through Rudius Media, drives traffic coming to his site to direct visitors to similar artists as he.
Another Internet author worthy of mention is Maddox, author of www.thebestpageintheuniverse
Maddox has recently also leveraged his online following into a book deal: The Alphabet of Manliness. Maddox is an avid comic book fan, and the illustration-laden hardcover contains various definitions of manliness as extrapolated by Maddox himself.
The book debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List, and although exact figures are not known, Tucker Max believes that Maddox will outsell him completely in the print media that he, as well, has overturned (Max Huffington Post).
As more and more users become connected to the Internet and discover the tools available for collaboration, the further a departure from the old media structure we will see.
In the field of creative expression, the availability of the discourse surrounding a creative work will become as important (if not more important) to understand the work than any other aspect of the creative text.
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