So in my free time outside of Twitter I experiment a little bit with telling stories online, experimenting with what we can do with new digital tools. And in my job at Twitter, I actually spent a little bit of time working with authors and storytellers as well, helping to expand out the bounds of what people are experimenting with. And I want to talk through some examples today of things that people have done that I think are really fascinating using flexible identity and anonymity on the web and blurring the lines between fact and fiction.
我在推特以外的閒暇時間 會做一點實驗 關於線上說故事的實驗 看看新的數位工具能怎麼用 我在推特工作的時候 其實也會花一點時間 與作家和說書人合作 幫忙拓展 實驗領域的界限 我今天想要談談幾個例子 別人已經做過的例子 我覺得真的很棒 靈活利用網路身分與匿名 模糊現實與虛構的界線
But I want to start and go back to the 1930s. Long before a little thing called Twitter, radio brought us broadcasts and connected millions of people to single points of broadcast. And from those single points emanated stories. Some of them were familiar stories. Some of them were new stories. And for a while they were familiar formats, but then radio began to evolve its own unique formats specific to that medium. Think about episodes that happened live on radio.
回溯至1930年代開始講起 遠在推特誕生之前 無線電為人們帶來了廣播 連結數百萬人 到單一幾個廣播站 從這幾個廣播站發送許多故事給大家聽 有些是耳熟能詳的故事 有些是從沒聽過的故事 有一陣子說故事的形式都差不多 但是廣播開始發展出它獨有的 獨特形式 特別適合傳播訊息 想想看現場廣播劇
Combining the live play and the serialization of written fiction, you get this new format. And the reason why I bring up radio is that I think radio is a great example of how a new medium defines new formats which then define new stories.
結合了現場演出 與一系列的小說 新的形式油然而生 我會提到廣播 是因為我認為 廣播是一個絕佳例子 看新媒體是如何 為新形式定義 之後新形式再界定新故事
And of course, today, we have an entirely new medium to play with, which is this online world. This is the map of verified users on Twitter and the connections between them. There are thousands upon thousands of them. Every single one of these points is its own broadcaster. We've gone to this world of many to many, where access to the tools is the only barrier to broadcasting. And I think that we should start to see wildly new formats emerge as people learn how to tell stories in this new medium. I actually believe that we are in a wide open frontier for creative experimentation, if you will, that we've explored and begun to settle this wild land of the Internet and are now just getting ready to start to build structures on it, and those structures are the new formats of storytelling that the Internet will allow us to create.
當然我們今天運用的 是全新的媒體 那就是線上世界 這是推特認證用戶 及用戶彼此連結關係的圖示 可以看到成千上萬的連結 這些小點中 每一個單點 都是一間專屬的廣播電台 我們已進入多點對多點的世界 工具的使用是廣播的唯一門檻 我認為我們會開始看到 嶄新的形式就出現了 當人們學會在新媒體環境說故事 事實上 我相信我們的創作實驗 還有很大的開拓空間 如果你願意的話 我們已經完成探索 開始安頓在 無邊無際的網路世界 現在才剛剛準備 開始在上面開始蓋建築物 這些建築物就是說故事的新形式 就是由藉由網際網路我們才能辦到的方式
I believe this starts with an evolution of existing methods. The short story, for example, people are saying that the short story is experiencing a renaissance of sorts thanks to e-readers, digital marketplaces. One writer, Hugh Howey, experimented with short stories on Amazon by releasing one very short story called "Wool." And he actually says that he didn't intend for "Wool" to become a series, but that the audience loved the first story so much they demanded more, and so he gave them more. He gave them "Wool 2," which was a little bit longer than the first one, "Wool 3," which was even longer, culminating in "Wool 5," which was a 60,000-word novel. I think Howey was able to do all of this because he had the quick feedback system of e-books. He was able to write and publish in relatively short order. There was no mediator between him and the audience. It was just him directly connected with his audience and building on the feedback and enthusiasm that they were giving him. So this whole project was an experiment. It started with the one short story, and I think the experimentation actually became a part of Howey's format. And that's something that this medium enabled, was experimentation being a part of the format itself.
我認為這種形式是由 現存方法的進化開始 舉短篇小說為例 有人說短篇小說 正經歷像文藝復興的變革 這歸功於電子書、閱讀器和數位市場 有位作家Hugh Howey在亞馬遜網站 用短篇小說進行實驗 藉由發表了極短篇故事《羊毛》 事實上 他表示當初確實無意 將《羊毛》寫成系列作品 但是讀者非常喜歡這第一篇故事 還想繼續看下去 於是作者就繼續創作回應讀者期待 他寫了《羊毛二》 故事比第一集長一點 《羊毛三》又更長些 《羊毛五》是最後一篇故事 這是六萬字的系列小說 我認為Howey能發表整個系列 是因為電子書的快速反饋系統 他能夠創作與出版 以相當快的速度 他和讀者沒有隔著中間人 他直接和讀者互動 建立讀者給予他的 反饋和熱情之上 因此整個計劃是一項實驗 這篇故事是起源於一篇短篇小說 事實上我認為這項實驗變成 Howey創作形式的一部分 藉由網路媒體 讓實驗成為它本身形式的一部分
This is a short story by the author Jennifer Egan called "Black Box." It was originally written specifically with Twitter in mind. Egan convinced The New Yorker to start a New Yorker fiction account from which they could tweet all of these lines that she created. Now Twitter, of course, has a 140-character limit. Egan mocked that up just writing manually in this storyboard sketchbook, used the physical space constraints of those storyboard squares to write each individual tweet, and those tweets ended up becoming over 600 of them that were serialized by The New Yorker. Every night, at 8 p.m., you could tune in to a short story from The New Yorker's fiction account. I think that's pretty exciting: tune-in literary fiction. The experience of Egan's story, of course, like anything on Twitter, there were multiple ways to experience it. You could scroll back through it, but interestingly, if you were watching it live, there was this suspense that built because the actual tweets, you had no control over when you would read them. They were coming at a pretty regular clip, but as the story was building, normally, as a reader, you control how fast you move through a text, but in this case, The New Yorker did, and they were sending you bit by bit by bit, and you had this suspense of waiting for the next line.
這篇是由珍妮佛.伊根創作的短篇小說 叫做《黑盒子》 原本就是 專為推特而寫的 伊根說服《紐約客》 建立一個《紐約客》小說專用帳戶 以便他們可以在推特發表 她創作的文句 當然推特有140字的字數限制 Egan為了模擬這種限制 就親自在手寫本上書寫 利用實質上手寫本 有限的空間 寫出每條推文 那些推文最後變成 超過600條連載刊登在《紐約客》上 每天晚上八點鐘 你可以線上觀看 由《紐約客》小說帳戶推出的短篇小說 我認為非常令人興奮: 收看文學小說 當然 欣賞Egan的小說 就像推特上的其他東西一樣 有許多方式能夠欣賞 你可以滾動捲軸慢慢看 但有趣的是 如果你線上觀看 會有緩衝的情況發生 因為實際推特發文 你在閱讀的時候 你無法控制 雖然發文的步調很有規律 但是隨著情節發展 讀者通常可以調整自己的閱讀速度 但就這個例子而言 《紐約客》的作法是 一點一點的發給你 你等待下一行出現時,就會有懸念
Another great example of fiction and the short story on Twitter, Elliott Holt is an author who wrote a story called "Evidence." It began with this tweet: "On November 28 at 10:13 p.m., a woman identified as Miranda Brown, 44, of Brooklyn, fell to her death from the roof of a Manhattan hotel." It begins in Elliott's voice, but then Elliott's voice recedes, and we hear the voices of Elsa, Margot and Simon, characters that Elliott created on Twitter specifically to tell this story, a story from multiple perspectives leading up to this moment at 10:13 p.m. when this woman falls to her death. These three characters brought an authentic vision from multiple perspectives. One reviewer called Elliott's story "Twitter fiction done right," because she did. She captured that voice and she had multiple characters and it happened in real time. Interestingly, though, it wasn't just Twitter as a distribution mechanism. It was also Twitter as a production mechanism. Elliott told me later she wrote the whole thing with her thumbs. She laid on the couch and just went back and forth between different characters tweeting out each line, line by line. I think that this kind of spontaneous creation of what was coming out of the characters' voices really lent an authenticity to the characters themselves, but also to this format that she had created of multiple perspectives in a single story on Twitter.
推特上的小說和短篇小說 還有一個很好的例子 就是《證據》的作者艾略特‧霍特 《證據》的第一個推文:「11月28日 晚上10點13分 經人指認 一位名叫米蘭達‧布朗的女性 44歲 來自布魯克林區 從曼哈頓飯店頂樓 墜樓身亡 一開始是艾略特的聲音 但隨後艾略特的聲音逐漸淡出 我們聽到艾爾莎、瑪格、西蒙的聲音 都是艾略特在推特上虛構的角色 專門為說這個故事而設定的 這個故事有多重觀點 一直在為晚上10:13分鋪陳 這個時間點就是 這個女人墜樓身亡的時候 這三個角色帶來真實的視角 從多重觀點 一位評論家艾略特t的故事稱做是 「最佳推特小說」 的確如此 她那種聲音 故事中有多重角色 時間也是同部在進行 然而有趣的是 推特不僅是發行的管道 也是一種創作的機制 艾略特後來告訴我 故事完全是用拇指寫出來的 她躺在沙發上 不斷轉換心態 在不同角色之間 一行接一行地發推文 我認為以各個角色聲音 所說出的話的這種即興創作 不但讓角色有真實感 這種創作形式也同樣具有真實感 這種行式就是她在推特上單一故事裡 所創作的多重觀點
As you begin to play with flexible identity online, it gets even more interesting as you start to interact with the real world. Things like Invisible Obama or the famous "binders full of women" that came up during the 2012 election cycle, or even the fan fiction universe of "West Wing" Twitter in which you have all of these accounts for every single one of the characters in "The West Wing," including the bird that taps at Josh Lyman's window in one single episode. (Laughter)
你開始靈活運用網路身份時 會變得更有趣 同時你開始與真實世界有所互動 例如「隱形歐巴馬」 或是著名的「裝滿女性人才的檔案夾」 這些都是在2012年選舉期間出現的 或甚至同人小說《白宮風雲》的人物 在推特上你都可以找到 《白宮風雲》每個人物角色的帳戶 包括那隻啄喬許·賴曼窗戶的鳥也有 牠只在一集出現過(笑聲)
All of these are rapid iterations on a theme. They are creative people experimenting with the bounds of what is possible in this medium. You look at something like "West Wing" Twitter, in which you have these fictional characters that engage with the real world. They comment on politics, they cry out against the evils of Congress. Keep in mind, they're all Democrats. And they engage with the real world. They respond to it. So once you take flexible identity, anonymity, engagement with the real world, and you move beyond simple homage or parody and you put these tools to work in telling a story, that's when things get really interesting.
所有這些元素在同一主題上不斷重複 他們都很有創造力 實驗網路媒體的潛力有多大 看看《白宮風雲》之類的推特 在這些推特帳號上 你可以看到虛構的人物 正與現實社會互動 他們評論時政 他們大聲批判國會的不當作為 別忘了他們都是民主黨 他們會與真實世界互動 他們也會回應 所以你一旦靈活運用網路身分 匿名以及參與真實世界 就超越了只是致敬或諷刺模仿 運用這些工具說故事 事情就會變得非常有趣
So during the Chicago mayoral election there was a parody account. It was Mayor Emanuel. It gave you everything you wanted from Rahm Emanuel, particularly in the expletive department. This foul-mouthed account followed the daily activities of the race, providing commentary as it went. It followed all of the natural tropes of a good, solid Twitter parody account, but then started to get weird. And as it progressed, it moved from this commentary to a multi-week, real-time science fiction epic in which your protagonist, Rahm Emanuel, engages in multi-dimensional travel on election day, which is -- it didn't actually happen. I double checked the newspapers.
在芝加哥市長選舉期間 有一組假名人的帳號 掛著市長以馬內利的名字 你想知道市長的大小事都在這裡 尤其是言辭粗魯的一面 這個發文用詞都很粗俗的帳號 都會追踪每天的競選活動 提出評論 運用了自然的比喻 這是一個優質的推特假名人帳號 但是事情之後開始變得詭異 這個帳戶漸漸從政治評論 變成長達數週的即時科幻史詩故事 故事主角拉姆·伊曼紐爾 在選舉當日踏上多空間之旅 事實上並沒有這回事 我仔細看過好幾份報紙
And then, very interestingly, it came to an end. This is something that doesn't usually happen with a Twitter parody account. It ended, a true narrative conclusion. And so the author, Dan Sinker, who was a journalist, who was completely anonymous this whole time, I think Dan -- it made a lot of sense for him to turn this into a book, because it was a narrative format in the end, and I think that turning it into a book is representative of this idea that he had created something new that needed to be translated into previous formats.
然後很有趣的是,整件事就戛然而止 這種事情通常不會發生 在推特的假名人帳戶上 說完了 故事結束 這名作者丹·辛克是一位記者 他在這段期間完全匿名 我認為丹得到很多靈感 將其轉化出來出了一本書 因為故事結尾是以敘述的形式結束 而我認為將其出書 做為代表他創造出新形式的概念 而這種新形式需要被轉換成舊有的形式
One of my favorite examples of something that's happening on Twitter right now, actually, is the very absurdist Crimer Show. Crimer Show tells the story of a supercriminal and a hapless detective that face off in this exceptionally strange lingo, with all of the tropes of a television show. Crimer Show's creator has said that it is a parody of a popular type of show in the U.K., but, man, is it weird. And there are all these times where Crimer, the supercriminal, does all of these TV things. He's always taking off his sunglasses or turning to the camera, but these things just happen in text. I think borrowing all of these tropes from television and additionally presenting each Crimer Show as an episode, spelled E-P-P-A-S-O-D, "eppasod," presenting them as episodes really, it creates something new. There is a new "eppasod" of Crimer Show on Twitter pretty much every day, and they're archived that way. And I think this is an interesting experiment in format. Something totally new has been created here out of parodying something on television.
我最喜歡的例子之一 正在推特上演 就是場荒謬的「歹徒秀」 「歹徒秀」講述的是 一位超級惡棍和一位倒霉偵探的故事 以非常奇怪難懂的語言開場 還用所有電視劇會出現的譬喻方式 「歹徒秀」的創作者曾說過 那是一種在英國相當受歡迎諷刺時政的戲劇 但是也夠奇怪了 歹徒(超級惡棍)經常 做出那些你常常在電視都看得到的橋段 他常拿下太陽眼鏡 或是轉向鏡頭 但這些都是以文字描述 我認為引用這麼多電視元素 再加演每次「歹徒秀」 做成一集(episode拼成eppasod) 將這些影片以影集的形式呈現 就創造出一種新的形態 新的「歹徒秀」 在推特幾乎每天推出 全劇也是以影集的方式存檔 我認為這種有趣的形式實驗 從諷刺模仿電視劇 衍生了一種全新的形式
I think in nonfiction real-time storytelling, there are a lot of really excellent examples as well. RealTimeWWII is an account that documents what was happening on this day 60 years ago in exceptional detail, as if you were reading the news reports from that day. And the author Teju Cole has done a lot of experimentation with putting a literary twist on events of the news. In this particular case, he's talking about drone strikes. I think that in both of these examples, you're beginning to see ways in which people are telling stories with nonfiction content that can be built into new types of fictional storytelling.
我認為在非小說類即時說故事方面 也有很多極佳的例子 「即時二戰」帳戶 記述60年前的今天發生的事件 描述極為詳細 宛如閱讀當天的新聞 作者泰居.柯爾 做了很多嘗試 將文學的手法 放入新聞事件 這裡他談到無人航空器攻擊行動 我認為從這些例子 可以開始看到 人們利用真實題材說故事 可以建立 說小說的新形式
So with real-time storytelling, blurring the lines between fact and fiction, the real world and the digital world, flexible identity, anonymity, these are all tools that we have accessible to us, and I think that they're just the building blocks. They are the bits that we use to create the structures, the frames, that then become our settlements on this wide open frontier for creative experimentation.
以說即時故事 模糊現實和虛構的界限 現實世界和數位世界 靈活的身分和匿名 都是我們可以運用的工具 我認為這都是基礎材料 都是數位的位元 我們用以創造結構和框架 之後會變成我們安身立命的地方 在這創作實驗的廣闊全新領域
Thank you.
謝謝
(Applause)
(掌聲)