Get College Credit For Being Famous Online

from the and-what-did-you-major-in? dept

Fri, Dec 21st 2007 7:34pm — Mike Masnick

It's certainly no secret that in an age of changing business models for content creators, that understanding the nature of online marketing is important. Huge industries have grown up around online marketing, viral marketing and word of mouth marketing. But, when it gets right down to the core, it's about figuring out ways to get attention -- and it appears that one college professor is imparting that message quite clearly to his students in a class where the entire goal is for students to become famous online. It apparently doesn't matter how they become famous, but their grades depend on it. The class, at Parsons The New School for Design, has 15 students, all vying to be more famous than one another. What's amusing is that, as the semester wound down and more subtle means of becoming internet famous were proving ineffective, many in the class resorted to the old short-term standby: posting videos of scantily-clad women on blogs and using suggestive titles. You can check out the class blog to judge for yourself how famous the students have become.

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Filed Under: college, credit, online fame

22 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2007 @ 8:18pm

It seems as though the fact that they were all trying to be famous was the biggest contribution to their fame. Funny, that.
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Gunnar, 21 Dec 2007 @ 8:23pm

But that won't help them win, as they all get the same attention when they're the focus of the story.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2007 @ 9:04pm

"It apparently doesn't matter how they become famous"

Create Goatse 2 and get a degree!

...nevermind.
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listen_to_blogs, 21 Dec 2007 @ 10:12pm

How do you quantify how famous you are online?
When it comes to grading, how does the instructor decide if student 'X' is more famous than 'Y' online? Is it the google page rank?

How do you measure someone's credibility/popularity online? Is it he number of facebook/myspace/linked in connecions?

Mike , would you like to share your thoughts on this?
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Anthony, 21 Dec 2007 @ 10:41pm

Very biased to females
His female students would become far more famous putting nude photos of themselves online than the men in his class will. Not very fair.
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Lucretious, 22 Dec 2007 @ 4:44am

ahh the joys of Art school.......
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Chris, 22 Dec 2007 @ 5:40am

I hope this doesn't motivate someone to do something drastic like kill another person.
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Orin, 22 Dec 2007 @ 7:27am

School of Design?
For this being a school of design the website is the worst design I have seen.
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Avy, 22 Dec 2007 @ 7:32am

Re: Very biased to females
Well... not entirely.
The male students could have porn sites, too. They could even open it up to the gay market.

Just because they're girls doesn't mean anyone wants to see them naked :-p
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Urza, 22 Dec 2007 @ 10:10am

Re: Re: Very biased to females
Well yes, but as he said, the girls would be more famous posting nude pics than the guys. The market for female porn is much larger than the market for male porn.
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Reason, 22 Dec 2007 @ 11:21am

Re:
... or the competition, Columbine-style...
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2007 @ 8:01pm

All they need to do is make the next Numa Numa or All Your Base.
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Search* Engines WEB, 22 Dec 2007 @ 11:16pm

LOL:
Talk about becoming famous online (a-hem)
and this was not even intended.

It just sort of happened
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Iron Man, 23 Dec 2007 @ 11:31am

2 Girls 1 Cup...did they get college credit?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2007 @ 1:19pm

Re: How do you quantify how famous you are online?
The number of unique pageviews...
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Tonya, 23 Dec 2007 @ 10:40pm

Wow, I am not sure I would like to be graded for my online presence, which you can't control.
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TheDock22, 24 Dec 2007 @ 7:20am

Re: Very biased to females
His female students would become far more famous putting nude photos of themselves online than the men in his class will. Not very fair.

Not really, the guy could have a blog where he is with a different girl every post.

But I highly doubt anyone would resort to that since all your classmates and professor would be looking at your assignment...
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jen_chan, writer surefirewealth.com, 24 Dec 2007 @ 5:43pm

What's the point?
In all honesty, I think this is a weird way of motivating students to get good grades. The 15 students who are trying to outdo each other by being famous on-line, are they even learning something significant in the process?
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2007 @ 9:03pm

Yeah.

They learn the art of marketing. Learning how to become famous online is a very valuable skill if you want earn lot of money on the internet.

This is something I don't have even though I got dugg, got on slashdot, stumbleuponed and got linked by semi-popular blogs. They actually bring me lot of traffic. I just happen to be damn lucky to have well connected people who like my wiki.

If I actually have skills in marketing, I would earn more money and traffic...
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Shun, 25 Dec 2007 @ 12:26am

This is easy
For YouTube, there is this phenomenon called "thumbnail cheating". Be sure to include a picture of a scantily clad woman (famous actress will do) somewhere in your clip, then use a picture of the "hottie" as the tumbnail. Million hits, easy.
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JS Beckerist, 25 Dec 2007 @ 5:41am

Re:
...oooh I hate you for even thinking...

Just so long as you don't say this same thing on Slashdot, the whole "ooh let's post first for attention" or now this new myminicity thing is really annoying!

on a lighter note, Merry Christmas! :-)
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search engine, 6 Feb 2008 @ 12:57pm

Re: Very biased to females
he said, the girls would be more famous posting nude pics than the guys. I highly doubt anyone would resort to that since all your classmates
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