Internet Megastars Invade Cambridge This Weekend
Who’da thunk? Yet another convention inspired by geeks is heading the Hub’s way, thanks to the collaboration of enterprising academics at brainy MIT and stately Harvard.
This one, dear readers, is called ROFLCon, and if your mind doesn’t instantly translate the first four letters to their long form, it’s highly probable you won’t care what the event is. To be kind to those not in the know, the abbreviation ROFL means “Rolling on the floor laughing” in acronym-crazy, ultra/annoyingly cutesy Internet speak.
This Friday and Saturday, April 25 and 26, the inaugural edition of ROFLCon will take place at MIT upon the arrival of a slew of Internet celebrities familiar to tech-savvy people who spend endless hours toiling and/or wasting time online.
You may have heard of Christian Lander or his immensely popular fad blog Stuff White People Like. He’ll be there during a talk called “From WordPress to The New York Times.”
Numerous other interesting discussions on the schedule have names such as “Surviving Internet Fame,” “You Can Get Paid for This?: Making Some Bucks,” “The Fabulous Life of Microcelebrities,” and “Kid, We’re Going to Make You a Star.”
The titles are self-explanatory: the two-day conference is all about learning how to rise to the top of Internet culture — whether for fame or money or both — and celebrating the lucky few pioneers who already have. As the event’s website succinctly states, “Mix up a bunch of super famous internet memes, some brainy academics, a big audience, dump them in Cambridge, MA and you’ve got ROFLCon.”
The bad news? Registration for ROFLCon is already closed due to great interest and space limitations. The good news? Now you know about the event, so you can stay up-to-date at the ROFLCon website to learn ahead of time when the next conference is scheduled.
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