5 ms·

“SKAM,” the Radical Teen Drama That Unfolds One Post at a Time

59 points by wallflower 8y ago

empath75 8y ago
Seems like an updated ARG
- tnecniv 8y ago
  Yeah it's almost more a video game than anything. Reminds me of games like Her Story.
- mintplant 8y ago
  Yeah. It's not nearly as without-precedent as the author claims. Though its predecessors generally offered two-way interaction with their characters as well.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>If a couple got into a fight in school at 12:40 P.M. on a Monday, the clip showed up on the platform at exactly that time, creating the uncanny impression that you were watching something that was actually happening. If the producers posted a clip showing a student getting dressed for a party on a Saturday night, many young viewers would be doing the same thing. >“SKAM Austin” had many hidden layers, and the producers wanted viewers to uncover them all. The characters, some of them played by local teen-agers, all had Instagram accounts, and, like real people’s, the posts offered insights into the characters’ pasts and their hopes for the future. Collectively, the video clips, photographs, and comments imbued the characters with a depth that not even flashbacks provide in conventional TV. Nobody will accuse me of being cultured let alone cultured in teen drama TV/Netflix series but I know attention to detail when I see it.
- josteink 8y ago
  Sure. That’s impressive work. The cynic in me though worries that if a TV show can afford to execute like this, what should we expect/fear from state-run psy-ops?
  - 0x0 8y ago
    Fun fact: The original SKAM is a production by Norwegian state-owned NRK TV and radio.
  - qw 8y ago
    The original Norwegian version of SKAM cost less than a million (USD) to produce an entire season.
qop 8y ago
I don't like social media being used this way. I mean, I don't like social media at all, i only use irc and gnusocial these days, but it seems dishonest and dangerous to use social media as a canvas for fake interactions. Like reality tv in real life. That's not something kids need to be interacting with on social media imo.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Facebook Watch, the platform this is on, is a VOD platform. Serialized entertainment video content on a video-on-demand platform is usually the raison d’etre of the platform.
  - gowld 8y ago
    They also publish the fiction via Instagram.
- GuiA 8y ago
  Your argument could apply to all media that exist: “I don’t like $MEDIUM being used this way. Well I don’t like $MEDIUM at all, but it seems dishonest and dangerous to use $MEDIUM as a canvas for fake interactions” where $MEDIUM can be TV, radio, comic books, etc. That makes it a not so great argument. (your comment is being downvoted, and I am a big fan of giving grey comments insight in why they might be getting downvoted, so that they have information should they wish to improve their HN submissions)
  - qop 8y ago
    Most media isn't interacted with, so no, not really. I don't particularly care what the average HN user thinks of what I post. I post to share my opinion and experience. Most users are twenty-somethings filled with angst and frustration at a world they have no influence over. It wasn't downvoted at first, but now it is. There's a small group of users that follow my posts around and snipe them. It's whatever. HN doesn't really ""moderate"" content unless you're doing thoughtcrime or bringing attention to some of the censorship here. Anyways, Facebook is an interactive medium. It's not the same as TV or movies or music, it intrinsically carries a responsibility to maintain what users are shown. Sort of like a TV channel,and by this I mean the people that determine what is broadcasted. If natgeo suddenly stopped showing educational content and started shoveling drivel, the audience could just leave. (Bad example, since they DO shovel garbage on natgeo now... ) Facebook is not generally understood as an instrument of advertisement the way it really is. The same as google. The veneer of "I can message my friends and see photos of their food" is enough to fool most users. This is especially heinous with kids, since they are much more impressionable and I think that demands an obligation to do what it takes to keep them safe and help them avoid content that is not healthy for them, and also to help them learn to moderate their content towards that same goal. Kids these days aren't as critical of what they consume. Now, there's eons of people complaining about "kids these days", and like everybody else, I never thought I'd be one of those people but I guess it's just societal upkeep to do it. Anyways, kids are not as perceptive as industry veterans when they are being manipulated. It's like New Coke. I've seen the world change and people change WITH the world. The new world seems to be about how much you consume, and not the what or the why of the consumption. Anyways thanks, I guess? Your comment kinda has that snarky "go fuck yourself"-but-in-a-pseudo-friendly tone feel to it. Perfect example of HN's weird echoey self-contained culture.
citizenkeen 8y ago
As a parent of a toddler, the future of keeping up with what they're paying attention to seems exhausting.
- GuiA 8y ago
  Don’t worry, every parent before you has felt the same way :)
- moab 8y ago
  You won't have to worry about it if you get them addicted to books from a young age!
GuiA 8y ago
This is an interesting new medium, built on the foundations laid by a number of media that came before it - social networking, reality tv, soap operas, etc. As always, McLuhan’s 4 questions are helpful in thinking about it: - What does the medium enhance? - What does the medium make obsolete? - What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier? - What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects
wodenokoto 8y ago
"Skam" is also the name of a extraordinarily popular throughout Scandinavia, Norwegian teen show on regular TV. Across the Scandinavian languages, "skam" mean shame. The connection to the Norwegian show, seems to be through the director, but what I'm really wondering is, how does the word "Skam" sound to american audiences? Like scam?
- PMunch 8y ago
  AFAIK the original Skam also featured social media uploads along with the linear TV content. During the week (it was on once a week, and uploaded online at the same time), you were able to follow the characters from the show on Facebook (and probably other social media). While the show itself was quite popular this new way of doing it seems to be what the networks are mostly interested in. And with reason, it was a really popular show because of it.
- dbbk 8y ago
  Yes, it's a remake.
- pikzel 8y ago
  As is mentioned in the article
trophycase 8y ago
Wow. This was essential reading for me. I wasn't aware that Facebook Watch even existed nor that SKAM did and reading this really highlighted how out of touch I am with what kids and teenagers are doing. This sort of media feels like a true paradigm shift and is both extremely interesting and terrifying. Terrifying because the boundary between real and manufactured seems to be rapidly dissapearing, and interesting because it truly is a new form of created media.

59 points by wallflower 8y ago

empath75 8y ago

Seems like an updated ARG

tnecniv 8y ago
Yeah it's almost more a video game than anything. Reminds me of games like Her Story.
mintplant 8y ago
Yeah. It's not nearly as without-precedent as the author claims. Though its predecessors generally offered two-way interaction with their characters as well.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>If a couple got into a fight in school at 12:40 P.M. on a Monday, the clip showed up on the platform at exactly that time, creating the uncanny impression that you were watching something that was actually happening. If the producers posted a clip showing a student getting dressed for a party on a Saturday night, many young viewers would be doing the same thing. >“SKAM Austin” had many hidden layers, and the producers wanted viewers to uncover them all. The characters, some of them played by local teen-agers, all had Instagram accounts, and, like real people’s, the posts offered insights into the characters’ pasts and their hopes for the future. Collectively, the video clips, photographs, and comments imbued the characters with a depth that not even flashbacks provide in conventional TV. Nobody will accuse me of being cultured let alone cultured in teen drama TV/Netflix series but I know attention to detail when I see it.

josteink 8y ago
Sure. That’s impressive work. The cynic in me though worries that if a TV show can afford to execute like this, what should we expect/fear from state-run psy-ops?
- 0x0 8y ago
  Fun fact: The original SKAM is a production by Norwegian state-owned NRK TV and radio.
- qw 8y ago
  The original Norwegian version of SKAM cost less than a million (USD) to produce an entire season.

qop 8y ago

I don't like social media being used this way. I mean, I don't like social media at all, i only use irc and gnusocial these days, but it seems dishonest and dangerous to use social media as a canvas for fake interactions. Like reality tv in real life. That's not something kids need to be interacting with on social media imo.

dragonwriter 8y ago
Facebook Watch, the platform this is on, is a VOD platform. Serialized entertainment video content on a video-on-demand platform is usually the raison d’etre of the platform.
- gowld 8y ago
  They also publish the fiction via Instagram.
GuiA 8y ago
Your argument could apply to all media that exist: “I don’t like $MEDIUM being used this way. Well I don’t like $MEDIUM at all, but it seems dishonest and dangerous to use $MEDIUM as a canvas for fake interactions” where $MEDIUM can be TV, radio, comic books, etc. That makes it a not so great argument. (your comment is being downvoted, and I am a big fan of giving grey comments insight in why they might be getting downvoted, so that they have information should they wish to improve their HN submissions)
- qop 8y ago
  Most media isn't interacted with, so no, not really. I don't particularly care what the average HN user thinks of what I post. I post to share my opinion and experience. Most users are twenty-somethings filled with angst and frustration at a world they have no influence over. It wasn't downvoted at first, but now it is. There's a small group of users that follow my posts around and snipe them. It's whatever. HN doesn't really ""moderate"" content unless you're doing thoughtcrime or bringing attention to some of the censorship here. Anyways, Facebook is an interactive medium. It's not the same as TV or movies or music, it intrinsically carries a responsibility to maintain what users are shown. Sort of like a TV channel,and by this I mean the people that determine what is broadcasted. If natgeo suddenly stopped showing educational content and started shoveling drivel, the audience could just leave. (Bad example, since they DO shovel garbage on natgeo now... ) Facebook is not generally understood as an instrument of advertisement the way it really is. The same as google. The veneer of "I can message my friends and see photos of their food" is enough to fool most users. This is especially heinous with kids, since they are much more impressionable and I think that demands an obligation to do what it takes to keep them safe and help them avoid content that is not healthy for them, and also to help them learn to moderate their content towards that same goal. Kids these days aren't as critical of what they consume. Now, there's eons of people complaining about "kids these days", and like everybody else, I never thought I'd be one of those people but I guess it's just societal upkeep to do it. Anyways, kids are not as perceptive as industry veterans when they are being manipulated. It's like New Coke. I've seen the world change and people change WITH the world. The new world seems to be about how much you consume, and not the what or the why of the consumption. Anyways thanks, I guess? Your comment kinda has that snarky "go fuck yourself"-but-in-a-pseudo-friendly tone feel to it. Perfect example of HN's weird echoey self-contained culture.

citizenkeen 8y ago

As a parent of a toddler, the future of keeping up with what they're paying attention to seems exhausting.

GuiA 8y ago
Don’t worry, every parent before you has felt the same way :)
moab 8y ago
You won't have to worry about it if you get them addicted to books from a young age!

GuiA 8y ago

This is an interesting new medium, built on the foundations laid by a number of media that came before it - social networking, reality tv, soap operas, etc. As always, McLuhan’s 4 questions are helpful in thinking about it: - What does the medium enhance? - What does the medium make obsolete? - What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier? - What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects

wodenokoto 8y ago

"Skam" is also the name of a extraordinarily popular throughout Scandinavia, Norwegian teen show on regular TV. Across the Scandinavian languages, "skam" mean shame. The connection to the Norwegian show, seems to be through the director, but what I'm really wondering is, how does the word "Skam" sound to american audiences? Like scam?

PMunch 8y ago
AFAIK the original Skam also featured social media uploads along with the linear TV content. During the week (it was on once a week, and uploaded online at the same time), you were able to follow the characters from the show on Facebook (and probably other social media). While the show itself was quite popular this new way of doing it seems to be what the networks are mostly interested in. And with reason, it was a really popular show because of it.
dbbk 8y ago
Yes, it's a remake.
pikzel 8y ago
As is mentioned in the article

trophycase 8y ago

Wow. This was essential reading for me. I wasn't aware that Facebook Watch even existed nor that SKAM did and reading this really highlighted how out of touch I am with what kids and teenagers are doing. This sort of media feels like a true paradigm shift and is both extremely interesting and terrifying. Terrifying because the boundary between real and manufactured seems to be rapidly dissapearing, and interesting because it truly is a new form of created media.