Fabricated FAQs about the first Web-to-broadcast TV show
I’m not sure if I’m ready for Quarterlife. Is it safe?
It may take many years to know for sure. But early research suggests that Quarterlife may be both completely empty of redeeming social value and habit-forming. It therefore has many precedents in popular culture, and should accordingly be approached with only mild caution and an open mind.
Can I combine Quarterlife with other medications?
Possibly, but talk to your doctor first.
So, what the hell is Quarterlife, anyway?
Quarterlife is a television series conceived by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick (the same duo who created and produced thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, and Once and Again). It was first broadcast in cyberspace, then broadcast very briefly on NBC and Bravo.
The series concerns several pretty and variously angsty twentysomethings, one of whom narrates her quotidian adventures and vlogs them on a Web site called Quarterlife—which actually exists and is a social networking site all about the show Quarterlife.
“Quarterlife” is also a kind of breakdown—like a midlife crisis, but at age 25. Also, presumably, half of the time needed for half of the atoms in a radioactive substance to disintegrate.
Oh, I get it. I think.
Don’t overthink it.
Wow, so Quarterlife is not just a show, but a place in cyberspace?
Oh, yes. Here, from his article in Slate, are Herskovitz’s own words: “For a growing number of people, the show and the Web site had come to represent an environment they couldn’t find anywhere else, that supported their dreams and addressed their fears, and in which they could recognize their truest selves. Nowhere on the quarterlife site do you encounter the meanness that now permeates ‘comments’ sections all over the Internet. Discussions are honest, sometimes tough, but never cynical.”
Sounds nice. Like something you’d read on a wine label.
You make a good point. Anyway, bottom line: Both the characters and the show itself are highly self-conscious.
So why is it such a “phenomenon”?
Because journalists say so, which of course is the reason for everything. There has been some question, among people who actually care about such things, of whether the Internet would ruin TV, either by choking off its revenue stream in the same way file-sharing has with the music industry, or just by choking off the attention span and quality standards of an entire generation.
Sorry, what?
Right. When the Writers Guild of America strike sent TV networks scrambling to the clearinghouse that is the Internet in search of cheap scraps of material, Quarterlife was one of those scraps. Then, when NBC premiered the show in February, it scored a 1.3 rating/4 share in adults 18-49 and 3.1 million viewers overall.
Um, OK. And what do these mind-numbing statistics mean?
In TV-ratings terms, total f’ing disaster. They yanked it immediately. What’s weird, though, is that this turn of events doesn’t necessarily spell doom for the program. As Herskovitz has pointed out, “Quarterlife has actually been a hit on the Internet, the third most successful scripted show ever.” Meaning it got a lot of “views.” He also said it “never should have been a network show. It’s too specific.”
Wait, so what were the first two most successful scripted shows on the Internet?
Roommates and Prom Queen.
Classics!
Oh yes, right up there with The Bob Newhart Show and The Wire.
And that Youtube video of the laughing Swedish baby.
Yes, yes. Him too.
Man, I could just forward that clip to my friends and family for hours.
Oh, totally.
So Quarterlife is like that?
Different tone. And not quite as structurally economical. It’s about a group of twentysomethings coming of age, remember. Dylan’s boss at the magazine steals her creative ideas; Danny’s boss at the car dealership treats him like a gofer; Lisa gets kicked out of the band and cries in the shower; Debra has anxiety attacks; Jed sorta hooks up with what’s-her-name; and so on.
I find your use of the term “twentysomethings” annoying.
That’s reasonable. But the name Quarterlife is sort of annoying in the same way, and it is, after all, the brainchild of the guy behind thirtysomething.
Well, OK, so it got cancelled from actual TV. Does that mean the show is over?
It did later have a full-season broadcast on Bravo, for what that’s worth. But look, the very notions of “TV” and “shows” are so 20th century, anyway. Now you can watch programs in short, commercial-free snippets on your iPod or dance around with your Nintendo Wii or play your online roles in World of Warcraft, or what have you. It’s all user-interactive multi-platform entertainment-media experiences nowadays. And if you steer over to Quarterlife.com, you’ll see Quarterlife Beta, a self-described “community for artists, thinkers, do-ers.” You’ll also hear series star Bitsy Tulloch describe it as “a place for creative people who want to change the world–or just figure out their own lives.”
Wow, that doesn’t mean anything at all, does it?
Not a thing. However, you’ll also hear Ms. Tulloch invite your participation in the next “season” of the Quarterlife program: “Be a part of the first user-generated TV show in history,” she says. Quarterlife.com. Create your life.”
Hang on. It sounds more like you’d be creating only 25% of your life.
Yes, but who has the attention span nowadays to create an entire life?
So what should I take away from this conversation about Quarterlife?
That motion-picture entertainment always has been about providing intersections between fantasy and reality, and open-source TV already has shown both promise and profitability. Online fan feedback has been at least potentially viable as a creative tool since the producers of Xena: Warrior Princess hired a writer of Xena fan fiction to script two actual episodes.
Now we have Web 2.0, an alleged confluence of trends in technology and Web design intended to make the Internet more of a virtual community, which so far is mostly just about theoretical social networking and content for content’s sake and new ways of marketing nothing but the idea of marketing. It’s still a carnival, but with more sophisticated technology and a slightly different spin. There is also what Herskowitz identified as “the most interesting question to emerge from the whole ‘quarterlife’ experiment: How do we define success in a media world so fragmented that the same project can be a triumph in one arena and a failure in another?”
That’s only a mildly interesting question, actually, which says something about the experiment. But yes, people watch differently online than they do on TV. A lot of them watching still doesn’t necessarily mean that what they’re watching is good. There are a lot of f’ing people in the world. Anyway, success remains as it always was: relative. What’s different now is that, if you’ve got a show to put on, it doesn’t matter whether it’ll play in Peoria. Somewhere there’s a place where it belongs in cyberspace.
In truth, much bloviating still needs to be done about the deeper and shallower meanings of self-referential popular culture, the fluid definitions of success, the subtle distinctions between manufactured celebrity and DIY celebrity, and the ubiquity of generic, demographically calculated journalistic platitudes.
Hey, this narrator, played by Bitsie Tulloch. Is she like that Lonely Girl girl?
Sort of, yes. She was in Lonelygirl15, actually, as a guest star. Yeah, OK, it’s true, all this Gen-Y Internet shit is pretty much the same.
Is she hot?
Would you be reading a magazine article about all of this nonsense otherwise?
