Bonus ROFLs: Dino Ignacio (Bert Is Evil)

After his panel on “Pwning For The Good of Mankind,” I asked Bert Is Evil creator Dino Ignacio a few more questions…

Geoffrey: I’m not going to ask you any more questions about your secret, unfortunate encounter with the CIA, but did you ever have any interactions with Sesame Workshop?

Dino: The closest interaction would be the open letter they sent about the whole thing. They never contacted me directly, but I think they were cool about it. In the open letter, they asked the mirrors of the site to shut down, because they knew my site was down. They were very polite — I received no threat from them at all.

G: Your site was popular very early on. Do you consider yourself a grandfather to the meme movement?

D: If there’s a grandfather, I would say it was Mr. T Ate My Balls. That’s one of my biggest influences. That, and the Spam Cam.

G: Do you feel a “class of ‘96″ camaraderie with those memes?

D: Maybe, because we were all pre-celebrity status. I’m with that group, I guess. Back when a million hits meant something! <Laughs>

G: Can you tell me about what you’re doing for EA?

D: I’m working on Dead Space — it’s a survival, shooter game. I’m doing the user interface for the game. With a small team of people, we’re doing all the holograms and signs.

Evan White To Host YouTube Celebrity Panel

Some of you may have already noticed this on our schedule, and it’s been long in the making — but I’m happy to announce today that we’ve firmed everything up and Evan White, Internet PR Man, will be hosting a panel discussion on the development and monetization of the YouTube celebrity and the role that the site has played in generating their noteriety.

Guests will include celebrity commentator Michael Buckley (from the blockbuster YouTube series) What the Buck, lifecaster Justine Ezarik, and comedy duo Rhett and Link.

For the bountiful Wikipedia information about these folks, see here, here, and, uh, here.

Sweeeeeet.

Jay Maynard to Speak on Surviving Internet Fame

Once in awhile, an awesome opportunity comes along that you just have to take.

Over here at the ROFLCon team we’ve been trading e-mails back and forth with Jay Maynard (“The Tron Guy”) who became internet famous after his picture got Slashdotted back in 2004. Three years pretty much makes Jay an elder statesman of modern memehood, and so we were happy enough to get him there at the conference.

So imagine our general awesomeness when he agreed to give an unmoderated talk (following in the footsteps of Jason Scott, Kevin Driscoll, and Anonymous)  about his personal experiences in involuntary celebrity in the throes of the web and on surviving internet fame. Should be a pretty solid talk. Stay tuned…

Kevin Driscoll to Speak on Dance Crazes, History and Development of Soulja Boy

Kevin Driscoll, team collaborator and grad student with the Comparative Media Studies Department, will be participating as a speaker at ROFLCon!

He’ll be giving an unmoderated talk on the history and development of Soulja Boy, and viral dance crazes more generally. Kevin’s been closely tracking that particular meme through the digital space (along with some other members of the ROFLCon Team), and in fact produced one himself (which, pricelessly, features Richard Stallman performing the dance). Should be pretty badass.