Ethan Zuckerman to Keynote @ ROFLCon II

At ROFLCon, we’ve been blessed with having a fair number of ridiculously awesome scholars of the internet to round out and spice up our usual mix of the web famous and geek-notables. Researchers who are breaking some new ground, and slicing-and-dicing the questions of culture and the web in some mind-blowing ways. All that, and they’re really nice people to hang out with, to boot.

Today, I’m pumped to announce in that vein that Ethan Zuckerman — fellow at the Berkman Center, co-founder of Global Voices, all-around genius (see e.g. his latest post on the Wu Tang Clan), and a founder of Tripod (no, really) — will be attending and keynoting at ROFLCon II! He’s been looking into the world of imaginary cosmopolitanism, which leads to a wild discussion of the frontmen of Journey and an unexpected dive into the Nigerian Prince scam.

It’s amazing stuff. I’ve updated the guest list accordingly.

 photo courtesy whiteafrican, CC BY

Texts From Last Night @ ROFLCon II

So, Columbus Day this week. You’d probably think of it as a vacation day for most conference staffs around the country — but we did not rest! Workaholics prevail.

In any case, feeling awesome that we’re able to kick off the announcements this week with another win of a guest confirmation: glad to announce that Lauren Leto and Benjamin Bator, the masterminds behind embarassment/ridiculousness archivers Texts from Last Night, will be attending ROFLCon II! Very solid times.

They’ll be repping it up, talking about their experiences in piloting the site to its current domination of the space (competing only, perhaps, with FMyLife), and generally how it’s been building their empire of nonsequiturs, sex and postsecret-esque confession.

Three Wolf Moon Repping at teh ROFLCon

Good news, everyone!

To play you off on your weekend, glad to report another breakthrough on the front lines of the guest invitation department. After a few e-mail interchanges, we’re extremely happy to announce that Michael McGloin, the art director and owner of The Mountain (better known to the internet as “that company responsible for the Three Wolf Moon shirt“) has confirmed that he’ll be attending ROFLCon II! He’ll be speaking generally about the experience of being ambushed by the internet, and all the adventures — and misadventures — that implies.

Better yet — in a huge stroke of luck, he’s also got the contact deets for Antonia (who originally created the design), and Brian (responsible for the first review), so we’re currently en route get them as featured guests for the event as well. Fingers crossed.

We’re expecting from here on in that if we get Keyboard Cat, and the designer of the Three Keyboard Cat Moon shirt, the internet will pretty much implode. We’ll have more for you, dear readers, as the news breaks.

David After Dentist Confirmed: Is This Real Life?

Ridiculously pumped: my mind is blown, but absolutely huge announcement coming down the pipe today that we have officially confirmed David — and his father David DeVore — of David After Dentist fame, to attend and speak at ROFLCon II next April!

They’ll be there, talking about the meme, its endless (and nearly instantaneous) remixes, and what they’ve been up to with David After Dentist since that fateful day in February, so long ago. In other words, it’s going to kick ass.

Good times. As promised, the guest invites have been steaming away, and we’ll be rolling out with some similarly big guest confirmations daily through the rest of this week. Stay tuned, campers.