Social Media: Making Your Movies More Like Pooky’s since 2009

We live in an electronic age, where information may even be irrelevant if it’s not part of the social network:  to wit, blogs.  Why read a newspaper or a magazine when you can surf the internet for the latest pop culture ramblings from someone you don’t know from a can of paint?*  Today, a new collaboration from Spot411 and Fox Home Entertainment makes it possible to add social media feeling that’s been missing from all your DVDs.

Introducing FoxPop,  an application that connects the movie your watching with social network commentary about said movie.  Let’s say you’re watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on your computer and decide to log into FoxPop.  The part of the app powered by Spot411 will provide you with minute details about the movie – actors, writers, score, set decorations – based on what part of the film you’re watching.  The social networking technology “reads” the movie dialogue and will give you comments that your Facebook or MySpace friends have made at precisely the same point in the movie!  What’s more, you can watch the same movie at the same time with “friends” across the world and make commentary to each other.  Isn’t that great?

Actually, I’ve been doing it for years, since the Spot411 technology is the virtual version of seeing a movie in a Black neighborhood.  You know what I’m talking about.  Go to any Magic Johnson theater across the country and you’ll get all the commentary you ever wanted.  If you saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at the theater on the corner of Crenshaw and Martin Luther King, people were probably talking about Taraji P. Henson like this, once her name appeared on the credits:

“Wasn’t she in that Common video? I thought they got married.”

“Right, right. (sings) ‘Before you lock my love away..’ That was the joint!”

“Naw, Common is with Serena Williams now.”

“Common, that’s MY husband.”

(from the back of theater) “Yo, shut the fuck up…the movie ’bout to start.”

See, there’s no need for fancy computer applications and Web 2.0 to give you the movie-going experience that African-Americans have had for years.  We tend to talk a lot during the movie:  not just disruptive chatter, but the kind of talking that enhances the onscreen action and contributes to the overall enjoyment of the film.  Okay, any Black audience will have loud shouts of “kill ‘em” and “now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout”, and “oh no he didn’t”.  Well, maybe not that last one anytime post-1998.  But inter-movie conversation is one of the things I love most about my people, and the conversation isn’t necessarily limited to the folks who accompanied you to the theater.  Say, for instance, you’re watching The Dark Knight, one of the Fox films with which you can use the new FoxPop technology.  There’s a scene in the movie where the Joker pits a ferry full of commuters against one full of prisoners, assuming that they’ll destroy each other.  Following is some commentary you’re likely to hear from the “peanut gallery”:

“Yo, that’s messed up.  Tight-asses gonna smoke the prisoners.”

“Wait up, that’s Debo.  With the tattoos.”

“Oh yeah, from Friday.  I love that movie.”

“You got knocked the fuck out!” (laughter)

“Debo gonna bitch-slap the warden.  Go for yours!”

“This shit is crazy.  I would just jump out the boat.”

(Applause and cheering when “Debo” throws the detonator out of the window)

“That’s right, Debo, you did the right thing.”

See what I mean?  Useful information linking an actor to other films, unexpected humor, and enhancement of a dramatic scene crucial to the film’s plot.  You don’t really have to know that “Debo” played a character called “The Tattooed Prisoner” in the movie, or that the actor’s real name is Tommy “Tiny” Lister.   Those are facts that you can Google later if you choose.  And I’m sorry, but the kind of people who shout things out in the middle of a movie are usually so brazen and funny that nobody cares about the interruption.  Some people in my network are not as entertaining, and allowing their comments all over my movie screen might just make me end our relationship.

So in social networking, as in pop culture, Black folks are ahead of the curve.  I wish I’d known that when a White woman “shushed” me during a viewing of Lethal Weapon 3:  I could have billed her for the interactive movie feature.

*Editor’s Note:  You should, of course, continue to read this blog, comment on this blog, and forward posts from this blog to all of your friends and colleagues.  It’s really smart and funny, and you can learn all about the reader’s credentials on the “about” page.