Culture

Culture

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
college, credit, online fame



Get College Credit For Being Famous Online

from the and-what-did-you-major-in? dept

It's certainly no secret that in an age of changing business models for content creators, that understanding the nature of online marketing is important. Huge industries have grown up around online marketing, viral marketing and word of mouth marketing. But, when it gets right down to the core, it's about figuring out ways to get attention -- and it appears that one college professor is imparting that message quite clearly to his students in a class where the entire goal is for students to become famous online. It apparently doesn't matter how they become famous, but their grades depend on it. The class, at Parsons The New School for Design, has 15 students, all vying to be more famous than one another. What's amusing is that, as the semester wound down and more subtle means of becoming internet famous were proving ineffective, many in the class resorted to the old short-term standby: posting videos of scantily-clad women on blogs and using suggestive titles. You can check out the class blog to judge for yourself how famous the students have become.

22 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. Dec 21st, 2007 @ 8:18pm
    by Anonymous Coward

    It seems as though the fact that they were all trying to be famous was the biggest contribution to their fame. Funny, that.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Dec 21st, 2007 @ 8:23pm
    by Gunnar

    But that won't help them win, as they all get the same attention when they're the focus of the story.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Dec 21st, 2007 @ 9:04pm
    by Anonymous Coward

    "It apparently doesn't matter how they become famous"

    Create Goatse 2 and get a degree!

    ...nevermind.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Dec 21st, 2007 @ 10:12pm

    How do you quantify how famous you are online?

    When it comes to grading, how does the instructor decide if student 'X' is more famous than 'Y' online? Is it the google page rank?

    How do you measure someone's credibility/popularity online? Is it he number of facebook/myspace/linked in connecions?

    Mike , would you like to share your thoughts on this?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Dec 21st, 2007 @ 10:41pm

    Very biased to females

    by Anthony

    His female students would become far more famous putting nude photos of themselves online than the men in his class will. Not very fair.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  6. Dec 22nd, 2007 @ 4:44am
    by Lucretious

    ahh the joys of Art school.......

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  7. Dec 22nd, 2007 @ 5:40am
    by Chris

    I hope this doesn't motivate someone to do something drastic like kill another person.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  8. Dec 22nd, 2007 @ 7:27am

    School of Design?

    by Orin

    For this being a school of design the website is the worst design I have seen.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  9. Dec 22nd, 2007 @ 7:32am

    Re: Very biased to females

    by Avy

    Well... not entirely.
    The male students could have porn sites, too. They could even open it up to the gay market.

    Just because they're girls doesn't mean anyone wants to see them naked :-p

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  10. Dec 22nd, 2007 @ 10:10am

    Re: Re: Very biased to females

    by Urza

    Well yes, but as he said, the girls would be more famous posting nude pics than the guys. The market for female porn is much larger than the market for male porn.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  11. Dec 22nd, 2007 @ 11:21am

    Re:

    by Reason

    ... or the competition, Columbine-style...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  12. Dec 22nd, 2007 @ 8:01pm
    by Anonymous Coward

    All they need to do is make the next Numa Numa or All Your Base.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  13. Dec 22nd, 2007 @ 11:16pm

    LOL:
    Talk about becoming famous online (a-hem)
    and this was not even intended.

    It just sort of happened

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  14. Dec 23rd, 2007 @ 11:31am
    by Iron Man

    2 Girls 1 Cup...did they get college credit?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  15. Dec 23rd, 2007 @ 1:19pm

    Re: How do you quantify how famous you are online?

    by Anonymous Coward

    The number of unique pageviews...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  16. Dec 23rd, 2007 @ 10:40pm

    Wow, I am not sure I would like to be graded for my online presence, which you can't control.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  17. Dec 24th, 2007 @ 7:20am

    Re: Very biased to females

    by TheDock22

    His female students would become far more famous putting nude photos of themselves online than the men in his class will. Not very fair.

    Not really, the guy could have a blog where he is with a different girl every post.

    But I highly doubt anyone would resort to that since all your classmates and professor would be looking at your assignment...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  18. Dec 24th, 2007 @ 5:43pm

    What's the point?

    In all honesty, I think this is a weird way of motivating students to get good grades. The 15 students who are trying to outdo each other by being famous on-line, are they even learning something significant in the process?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  19. Dec 24th, 2007 @ 9:03pm
    by Anonymous Coward

    Yeah.

    They learn the art of marketing. Learning how to become famous online is a very valuable skill if you want earn lot of money on the internet.

    This is something I don't have even though I got dugg, got on slashdot, stumbleuponed and got linked by semi-popular blogs. They actually bring me lot of traffic. I just happen to be damn lucky to have well connected people who like my wiki.

    If I actually have skills in marketing, I would earn more money and traffic...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  20. Dec 25th, 2007 @ 12:26am

    This is easy

    by Shun

    For YouTube, there is this phenomenon called "thumbnail cheating". Be sure to include a picture of a scantily clad woman (famous actress will do) somewhere in your clip, then use a picture of the "hottie" as the tumbnail. Million hits, easy.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  21. Dec 25th, 2007 @ 5:41am

    Re:

    ...oooh I hate you for even thinking...

    Just so long as you don't say this same thing on Slashdot, the whole "ooh let's post first for attention" or now this new myminicity thing is really annoying!

    on a lighter note, Merry Christmas! :-)

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  22. Feb 6th, 2008 @ 12:57pm

    Re: Very biased to females

    he said, the girls would be more famous posting nude pics than the guys. I highly doubt anyone would resort to that since all your classmates

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..
Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

And now, a word from our Sponsors..
Related Stories
Close
E-mail It