Jessie James speaks out on my new novel

Storytelling in multiple mediums

A lot of what I've learned here has enriched the work I do for my business. But one thing that hasn't crossed over yet is multi-platform storytelling. Over the years, the evolving story that began on this blog has crossed over into social networks, comics, videos, 100 word stories, single frame stories, and participation in virtual panels and presentations. This didn't arise as a conscious attempt at spreading my brand (God forbid). It was mostly me messing around in new mediums that piqued my interest. Most of what I do requires only the most basic technical skill, so as an advocate of amateur creativity, I also hoped to encourage others to give some of these tools and mediums a try.

Speaking of me, the "me" that goes under the pseudonym Botgirl is these days mostly an extension of my RL self, rather than the fictional character I originally created. She was an artificial intelligence who woke up in Second Life without any memory of her past. I'd love to bring her back one day. I have an outline of a book length work I hope to actualize at some point.

For now, I've been playing around with a new character who arose while testing Plotagon, an animation platform I've mentioned quite a bit recently. What started as a video character, is now interacting on Twitter, has her own blog and is now appearing in what will probably be an ongoing comic series. Here's the first page, which begins after the surprise twist at the end of the first video story arc.

The Age of the Amateur

When I take the time to think about it, I am awed by the way technology has empowered amateur creativity. Just a few of decades ago, the ability to craft a creative work and share it with a large number of people was limited to a handful of professionals and media companies. Today, anyone with a smart phone, tablet or computer can create anything from a short video on Snapchat to a full blown animated work with Plotagon, and share it instantly worldwide with a few taps or clicks.

Whether a work is viewed by a few dozen or a few million, the ease of creation and sharing has motivated millions of people to creative expression they wouldn't otherwise have realized. The widespread activity of continuous creative expression is in the process of producing a psychological and cultural shift of historic proportion, the impact of which will only reveal itself over decades. The ubiquitous use of smartphones and social sharing is subtly shifting humanity to what can fairly labeled as psychological cyborgs, because neurologically, the tools we commonly used are experienced as being part of our own bodies.

The continued evolution of creative mobile technologies will eventually result in a renaissance of imaginative expression that will expand from our personal lives and popular media to just about every segment of the business world. Like the strength and endurance we build working out is carried into our lives outside the gym, the exercise of our creativity in living rooms and coffee houses carries over into our working lives. On a personal level, the last five years of personal creative work has certainly revolutionized my own professional work.

That said, throw away all of my world-change speculation and the Age of the Amateur is still amazing. Beyond the shear joy of creativity, it gives the average Joe and Jane access to experiences that were once the sole domain of professional authors and artists. Although the quality of the works we create may pale in comparison, the psychological insight and growth we experience is equivalent.

I am continuously surprised and delighted by the doors new platforms open for creative expression. Beyond music, my tech-fueled creative life was born in 2008 with my introduction to both Second Life and the iPhone. Second Life allowed me to free my imagination from the constraints of the physical world and my wallet name identity. The iPhone freed me to create and share, with increasingly sophisticated tools, at any time and in any place.

This is still being realized through my latest amateur project, the Life With Jess video series. For instance, I didn't see this new huge plot twist coming. I woke up yesterday morning and there it was. Like it had been planned from the start. So Life With Jess Episode 17 turns out to be the concluding video in the first story arc and sets up a whole new life for my favorite little narcissist.

And They Give Second Life Crap About Sordid Sex?

I'm going to recap a bit, so if you've been following the story here, you can skip to the second paragraph. I've been playing around with a new project for the past month or so. It started with a couple of videos I created with Plotagon. I kinda fell in love with Jessie James, the main character, and ended up creating what is now a series of fifteen videos and a supporting blog and Twitter account. As the plot developed, Jessie signed up her arch nemesis, Lizzie, to Seeking Arrangements, a RL site that connects wealthy men with girls who want to be supported financially. As mentioned last week, I signed Lizzie up on the actual site so I could get a screenshot to use on the blog.

The Sugar Daddy story line started out being played for laughs. I thought it was an exaggerated caricature of what were certainly isolated relationships. But an email from Seeking Arrangements brought home that what's going on is not much different than a line of prostitutes standing in front of visitors to a brothel. This is an un-retouched screenshot from the email.

I'm about as liberal as they come when it comes to sexual choices. And there's nothing inherently wrong about a woman trading sex and companionship for money. And vice versa. But I can't ignore the history of patriarchy and financial inequality that supports this particular sex trade that hooks up young girls and old men. The flesh and blood daughters of these Sugar Daddies get to go to top colleges on free rides from their biological parents. The girls who turn to sites like Seeking Arrangement have to trade their bodies for tuition money from Sugar Daddies.

Yeah, I know that every Sugar Baby isn't a poor college girl with a heart of gold, and that some Sugar Daddies are just lonely men who can't otherwise find companionship. But this email seems to indicate that it's basically a meat market. So people can make fun of Second Life all they want for furry fetishes and gender-swapping cheaters, but it's nothing compared to what goes on in RL. Not even close.

Seeking Arrangements

Life is stranger than fiction. In the course of putting together a new episode of Life with Jess, I created an account on SeekingArrangments.com,  a site where hot young women can establish Sugar Daddy relationships, trading company and sexual services for cash and gifts. I needed a screenshot for the video, so I set up an account for "That bitch Lizzie."

Given the user name, the image and her description as "The Fictional Girl of Your Dreams," I figured the account wouldn't generate must interest from roving Sugar Daddies. To my surprise, I started getting inquiries within a few minutes: Invites to view private photos, private mail and loads of profile views.

I was a little tempted to turn this into performance art and do a little Catfishing. But I made the ethical decision to just take the screenshot and cancel the account. But guess what? They won't let me delete the account for ten days.

Oh well. I tried, right? If you want to follow the ever more bizarre story of Life with Jess, you can follow her on Twitter and bookmark her new website.

Life with Jess 05 - Social Media Report

You can view the entire Life with Jess series here.

Life with Jess 04 - The Kinsey Scale

In episode 4 of Life with Jess, a lecture on the Kinsey scale inspires Jessie to perform an ethically-challenged scientific experiment on poor Samir.

Life with Jess Trailer

The Life with Jess project has been taking on a life of it's own. Here's a trailer for what is so far a three episode micro-sitcom series.

Life with Jess: Social Media Safety

You can view the rest of the Life with Jess series on here.

Fatties Eating Fast Food

After playing around with the new version of Plotagon, one of the characters began speaking to me and I decided to make a few videos featuring her. Jess is a self-absorbed teenager who is whip-smart, but cluelessly amoral and narcissistic. This episode has her facing off with the principal about an offensive video she posted on YouTube.