‘Lurk More’: An Interview with the Founders of ROFLCon

Abstract

Editor’s Note What follows is an interview between the co-editors of this issue, Laine Nooney and Laura Portwood-Stacer, and two of the founders of ROFLCon, Tim Hwang and Christina Xu. Many of this issue’s themes are echoed in Xu and Hwang’s account of the emergence of ROFLCon: people with shared sensibilities just wanting to hang out in shared space; amateur content creation giving way to commercialism; ambivalence in the face of ‘mainstreamed’ internet culture; and ongoing negotiations with anonymity, pseudonymity, and fame. Additionally, Hwang and Xu were adamant in pointing out the heterogeneity of ‘internet culture’ and the impossibility of defining such a phenomenon. Their words caution academics and other chroniclers about the difficulties of understanding and faithfully representing all the constituencies involved in cultural phenomena on the internet. Additionally, we were struck by the sense of humor running through Tim and Christina’s stories – as you read, please imagine the words accompanied by an ironic tone and copious laughter from all parties. If there is a significant takeaway from our conversation, and indeed from ROFLCon at large, it would be that behind every meme there stand many, many people in all their complexity – creating, consuming, sharing, and bringing the LOLs.