Talking 'bout my generation

Yeah, I know I promised you Sunday at FatE. Some of what I have to say about Sunday is appearing in the next Storylines, so I'll not repeat myself. Later on in the day I may have been tired and emotional, and that doesn't make for a great recounting. Fred Versonnen was great, Gito Davies was exemplary. There were stories of leaving. The end.

What I want to write about, instead, are some of my thoughts on the recent explosion of personal storytelling. I'm experimenting with Cybermouth right now, and this is born out of a conversation there. Here we go:

Cat used the phrase first. I quote her here out of context, with respect and with playful good humour that I hope comes across.

"a lot of the fizzy new stuff is pandering to the 'me' generation, as in 'Okay everyone, now I want you all to listen to ME telling a story about something that happened to ME because that will make ME feel really great!"

And that got ME thinking. Perhaps because I'm a (reasonably) young geek, and as such pretty firmly affiliated with the "me" generation. Perhaps because I've spent all morning in court, and I now need something to muse about that doesn't involve little old ladies losing their homes. What follows, in the true spirit of the "me" generation, are a few of my thoughts dressed up as an essay that might be of interest.

Let's give this some context; In the early 90's a small community appeared on the internet of people who kept and shared their journal entries online. They didn't know each other. What brought them together was simply sharing their lives with each other. The idea was revolutionary, but I bet the content wasn't. Since then we've seen innovation that makes it easier and easier for people to post their little life stories online, in audio podcasts, in video blogs on youtube, in (heaven forgive me for using the expression.) 'tweets' on their 'twitter feed' and in text blog entries.

At every step there's been a rush of people eager for the opportunity to be heard and excited to share their stories.

I don't really tell personal stories. I'm not very good at it. I've not lead a particularly exciting life, so it's easier for me to wheel out the adventures of Gawain and Gilgamesh and let that material dance. Part of it, I suspect, is that I don't have a profound sense of my own identity. It's difficult and embarrassing for me to look at the events in my life and say which moments were meaningful, how the events of my past shape the person I am today. I would feel awkward saying something like "I was a boy and he was a man who was a stranger. But he wrote me letters about Lego men from a grotty bedsit in Weston-super-Mare, and I was caught up in those pages when I first fell in love with my step-father."

(In my limited experience of American storytelling it strikes me that they're miles ahead of us in terms of engaging with personal stories. I draw no conclusions about the difference in psyche. Well, none that I share publicly.)

The "me" generation is here. It has never been easier to keep up with the coffee drinking habits of your friends from college than it is now. And whilst I don't hold my breath for my next dose of facebook lolz, I bet I'm not alone in feeling more strongly connected to my cousins, my distant relations, my old friends than I was before I realised how easily joined we all were by the internet.

What does this have to do with storytelling? Well let's start by saying that there are people who have mastered in the art of telling personal stories, and in drawing them out of people. If the "me" generation has its pioneers then we find them in the likes of John Peel. In people who realise that there's a craft to a good "me" story.

A lot of the tales in the recent waves of "me" storytelling are self indulgent. The vast majority of them are not great storytelling. People are excited. They have every right to be. People aren't performing, they're building and celebrating in a sense of community. I expect that excitement to continue and I suspect those communities will endure. And whilst I doubt that we'll ever see the end of journal entries about how-I-ran-out-of-coffee-and-then-had-a-wacky-journey-to-the-office, I think we are going to see a more refined taste emerging in the next few years.

I have friends who were part of the original online journal community and I doubt any of them look back at what they were doing as great art. But human beings are not without inherent critical abilities. This ocean of excited life sharing will serve to make people realise that some folk can tell a tale and make it more interesting than others. The lesson? That there's a craft to telling good personal stories.

And that's of paramount importance to we who tell traditional stories.

When I saw Dovie Thomason perform at FatE earlier this year she framed her stories in the events of her own life. Ira Glass would have been in awe of her rhythmic "my J-O-B job, my nine-to-five job, my pay-the-rent job." I haven't seen her in fifteen years, maybe as a child I just didn't appreciate those techniques, or maybe she's adjusted to suit the change in the times. But it works. Oh, how it works.

It's a niche and a weird thing that we do, and it's a battle sometimes to make people realise that this is a valid art form and that good storytellers are skilled and practiced artists. The "me" generation are giving storytelling exposure, they are whetting the ears of the masses and they are showing us how to reach around the world. They are learning the same skills that we must, and it won't hurt us to learn the techniques they've got as well.

Discuss.