Last night I watched a movie called Henry Fool. I had never heard of it before and only stumbled upon it when looking up upcoming Fay Grim (which is a sequel). At first it “only” seemed like a (well done) character drama, but then it really gripped me. And it contains a cultural snapshot of the perception of the internet as a word-of-mouth engine in the 90ies. Here is how.

Simon Grim is a garbage man living with his sister Fay and his sick mother. He becomes friends with their new neighbour Henry Fool, a witty and well-read, but not very talented self proclaimed novelist and ex-con. Henry opens the world of literature to Simon who starts writing a very long and controversial poem. Together they hang out at the local convenience store and put up little snippets of Simon’s writing. He soon gains a following (of mainly young women). Henry pushes Simon to get his poem published, but Simon gets rejected by all the publishing houses he turns to. One day, Henry hears that it is possible to download and publish content on the internet and asks Fay to put the poem on the net.

One link leads to another, and a few weeks later Simon’s poem isn’t just all over the internet, it affects people so deeply that it’s influence is spilling over into the mainstream media. One analyst on TV says “This is outrageous! Measures must be taken. Have we debased our culture to such an extent that a garbage man with a head full of sick ideas is legitimately referred to as a poet? And where the filth he spews can be accessed by a child at the computer?”

Simon then lands a contract with one of the publishers that rejected him before. He gained popularity through a non-traditional medium without a publicity budget, which then lead to his work being picked up by mainstream media. And that brought him the legitimacy needed to be recognized as a “real” poet.

Even though this is fiction, it still reflects a lot of the ideas of the internet in the 90ies. It was outrageous that anyone could publish something and then be recognized as “someone” without having gone through the weeding process of traditional media.

Today, this perception is still here, but it is widely being recognized that user generated content has value. Consensus seems to be that even though there is a lot of rubbish out there, free or cheap access to tools for content creation is also bringing forth a lot of talent that might have remained hidden without new media.

It was a good feeling to realize once more how the times have changed already, and an even better feeling to take part of the transformation process right now.

P.S. I will not tell the entire movie. Go and rent it. It’s a good watch.