The Company Therapist (dot.com)

Some of us have long argued that culture isn't being destroyed in cyberspace, but is actually being reborn here. Many journalists, politicians and educators still haven't grasped this, perhaps because they rarely visit or report on sites like The Company Therapist. The public still often thinks of the Net in terms of thievery, retailing, pornography, and hacking and cracking, but the arts are rapidly moving online, sometimes in quite revolutionary ways. This hi-tech story-telling experiment, which turns storytelling upside down and uses hypertext to create a collaborative narrative, is a terrific case in point.

When the employees of a fictional San Francisco tech company need psychiatric help -- a not-unheard-of phenomenon out there -- they turn to their fictional Company Therapist, Dr. Charles Balis. I've used the word "fictional" twice because after a few visits to the site, readers quickly forget that this isn't a real shrink working with the stressed-out employees of a real company.

Balis, who completed his psychiatric residency at Columbia Presbyterian in New York City, headed west to set up his own practice, we learn. A shrewd and conservative businessmen, he contracted with CalaCare, Inc., an HMO, and agreed to spend more than half his time providing mental health counseling for Silicon Impressions, Inc., a huge hardware and software firm.

On the site, the stories of Dr. Balis' work unfold through his files, written collaboratively by "patients" who visit the site and create identities. We see transcripts of therapy sessions, phone conversations, personnel records -- even doodles. Over time, the continuing stories of Dr. Balis' patients, their psychological problems and dramas, allow the kind of character development normally associated with well-crafted novels, but not with websites.

The stories are almost shockingly realistic and compelling. We get drawn into them, often forgetting that they aren't quite real. Or are they? Some of the created characters -- patients Helen Gregory, Decker Jenkins -- are so contemporary and recognizable that they surely must reflect, at least in part, the lives of their creators.

The site sees itself not only as entertainment but as an educational vehicle to help writers polish their work -- an idea with broad applicability for other professions, from medicine to the law to other arts.

According to Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology, a book edited by Stephen Wilson where I first learned of the site, a company called Pipsqueak Productions devised this hyperfictional environment as the perfect vehicle for collaborative fictional storytelling in cyberspace. Very original move. A therapist's office is a font of narrative, a great device for collecting different stories, honing different voices, full of interesting characters with evolving problems and case histories, able to draw on telephone calls and office transcripts, a place to discuss theories of treatment. Balis's world -- the pressured, constantly changing world of hi-tech - emerges vividly. Updated daily, The Company Therapist provides nearly two years of well-organized, easily accessible stories, doctor's notes and other materials. Since it's written by its collective audience rather than a single author or the site's creators, the range of tales and voices is fascinating.

Every contributor retains a recognizable style, yet is still able to move the collective narrative forward. In fact, many stories are moving forward at once, relating both to "work" and the personal lives of the patients, each told in an idiosyncratic voice and representing the challenges of a different life, yet collectively, painting a vivid portrait of a culture. This site is unique on the Web, both for its originality and quality of design, strong testimony to the notion online, technology and art are fusing to create things that are as new as they are exciting.

Comments

Interesting

[fruey]

The collaborative nature of Internet is, in the case of 99% of /. readers, clearly something that is important in today's business.

Those people who don't "get it" will eventually, as long as their business is one that is clearly in need of Internet.

Here in Africa, Internet is very expensive, but HUGE amounts of development money are spent connecting people, because Education and Development can only be improved by having access to the wonderful resources made available on the net.

The Americans have already got it. These virtual company psychiatrists are all very well, but the point is that this is stage two or three of the process, not stage one.

I'm all for content like this, but frankly what I am really interested in is information for development, learning, self improvement. It's only the developed world that have gone on from the "obvious" that is net and are spending time with such frivolity.

New Media, New Works

[cporter]

Someone... somewhere... observed that the development of new 'works'* - the creation of whole new genres, real paradigm shifts, progresses in stages:
- The new medium becomes available.
- Artists create works in the new medium that mimic works in the old medium, learning in the process.
- Artists move on to new ideas in the new medium, launching a whole new class of art or fiction.

This can be illustrated by the examples of photography, film, television, etc, for all of history. It kind of disappoints me that people are using the web to imitate television, books, newspapers, etc, instead of doing more with the medium. Maybe we're still just getting there.

A good, if dated, book on the subject of creativity and possibilities on the net (especially concerning non-linear narrative) is Hamlet on the Holodeck by Janey Murray.

* (referring to artistic works, but I think it applies to other types as well. programming?)

Is it Art? Is it even worth your time?

[AlaskanUnderachiever]

I don't know art, but I do know a bit about writing and I really can't say I like the site at all. If this is an example of the web "opening up" and "exploring new frontiers" then I am afraid we have a LONG way to go. This strikes me as more of the mindless self indulgence of a bored post grad than work of any worth. I see this sort of trite crap every day and I am NOT impressed. (and before you flame, yes I did read through the site). There are plenty of other sites out there for writing development, and most of them are a bit more low on the "hopelessly unemployable and overeducated" scale.

Re:Getting hits to the website?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's just a Web site review, no more and no less. Lighten up. Somehow I suspect that if the exact same port had been written by someone other than Jon Katz, you would have nothing to say. All you Katz-haters out there: if you don't like the guy's stories, don't read them.

Translation from Katz-speak

[mbrubeck]

If this story were written by anyone other than Jon Katz:

Some of us have long argued that culture isn't being destroyed in cyberspace, but is actually being reborn here.

Hi there.

Many journalists, politicians and educators still haven't grasped this,

I was bored today...

perhaps because they rarely visit or report on sites like The Company Therapist.

...but I found this nifty web page.

The public still often thinks of the Net in terms of thievery, retailing, pornography, and hacking and cracking,

I showed it to my co-workers, but they didn't seem interested.

but the arts are rapidly moving online, sometimes in quite revolutionary ways.

But they're a bunch of losers anyways.

This hi-tech story-telling experiment, which turns storytelling upside down and uses hypertext to create a collaborative narrative, is a terrific case in point.

I mean, this site is like, SO COOL.

katzism

[I Want GNU!]

The stories are almost shockingly realistic and compelling. We get drawn into them, often forgetting that they aren't quite real. Or are they?

This reminds me of The Matrix. I watched the movie and often forgot that it wasn't quite real. Or is it??

Re:katzism

[Dr Caleb]

it wasn't quite real. Or is it??

Depends...did you eat the red pill or the blue pill?

Re:Getting hits to the website?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Oops. "Post," not "port," above. My bad.

Hmmm....

[bloggins02]

Why is Mr. Katz starting to sound suspiciously like Ron Popeil?

The Desperate Search for Meaning

[ChaoticCoyote]

Jon, I'm not one of your usual critics, but it's articles of this type that have driven me away from Slahsdot in recent months...

Why do you feel this desperate need to prove the importance of the web?

Belief that the web is "creating culture" is as silly as those who accuse the web of "destroying culture". The web is part of a culture, and it is socially significant -- but in the end, the hubris that brought on the "dot bomb" boom is going to deflate those who have high aspirations for the "significance" of the web as a cultural engine.

Oh, I once believed that the web would be a force for social change, providing an outlet for all the lost voices in the wilderness, uplifting the masses, and providing the masses with information about critical issues. In truth, the web did (and does) not create culture -- it reflects the culture it is embedded in. Having a universal, uncensored forum didn't suddenly make poeple want to listen to issue they'd ignored -- they kept right on ignoring those issues, and the web accomplished little or nothing in terms of enlightenment.

The web is a powerful tool and a useful resource, but it won't remake humanity or redfine society as a whole. Such change require real human interactions...

Re:The Desperate Search for Meaning

[pyrrho]

the web didn't remake or begin to remake culture in the way your expectations idealized. But it is remaking culture. No, it's not a new compelling medium to enlighten people and make them interested in things that they had ignored, things that bore them.

It makes people interested in things they are already interested in. It puts them in contact with information and groups of people they don't have access too. It's small influence (like the force of gravity is small) is that, slowly but surely, you realize, if you think of an interesting question, you can find interesting answers. It's the most passive thing imaginable. There is nothing more boring than expecting the net to entertain you... but come up with a good question, or think about an old hobby you dropped in the past, or ask yourself, "I wonder what Pitcairn is like" and you will find it the Most Entertaining thing.

I believe that elightenment comes from awakening the hunger for knowledge, and the net awakens that. Like all human change, it will look slow to us individuals.

Oh yeah, the other thing it, it's changed the culture, and you just don't notice because the culture has already normalized the change.

Re:Everytime I see the word "Therapist"

[Brownstar]

You should probably see a shrink about that. Something from your childhood, maybe?

Katz spinning his wheels

[electroniceric]

While I hesitate to jump on the bandwagon of people who like to abuse Jon Katz for sport, articles like this do make it seem like he's spinning his wheels.

I have not read through Katz's earlier work at Wired, when he might have been accountable to an editor, but certainly most of his essays here are the sort of vague, grandiose pontification that any proper college writing teacher should cull out of a student. I recall being endlessly frustrated in college by the idea of having to write 4 pages about 5 lines of some piece of literature, but upon leaving school, I discovered that people are much more interested in what you can say cogently about a small point
than hearing you sketch sweeping paint-by-number landscapes you can't possibly hope to fill in.

In short, Katz, your ideas are moderately interesting but very overstated, and by focussing them into sharper points about tighter subjects, you'd make them interesting to read. I wish you luck tightening your writing.

Re:Katz spinning his wheels

[mvdwege]

I hope you get to read this, but I had a short email exchange with Jon on this very subject, and he admits that not being concise enough is a weakness in his style.

This is hardly something he only admits in private. He also admitted in the Slashdot Interview he did.

I think nicely and politely pointing out the mistakes he makes (like you just did) is more conducive to Jon working on his flaws than all the random flaming that goes on here.

Mart

Re:Katz spinning his wheels

[electroniceric]

What you say is totally true, and I should also volunteer that Jon writes much more than I could hope to, and in much more public places.
And certainly the kind of feedback that people post here is much less focused than the writing they're complaining about, so posting here takes guts.

If you read this, best of luck, JonKatz.

Katz is caught in a time warp

[Enoch Root]

It's funny. Every time I see a Katz article, I think of how cutting-edge and revolutionary his statements on online culture and multimedia revolution would be... If he had written them in 1992.

So the Internet is being used to create art? Wow! Fancy the thought! :)

Re:Definately a neat Idea

[lblack]

Yes. Sophie's World. An excellent introduction to philosophy for those that are so inclined. Required reading for all of my cousins, nieces, etc., upon attaining the age of 14.

Very puzzle/riddle/mystery-based, and it holds the attention of teenagers quite well on account of that.

l

Something.

[lblack]

I used to MUSH. I played Star Wars MUSHes, as well as a few generic cyberpunk and feudal ones.

Some of these MUSHes had little bits coded so that players could post logs of role-playing. These coded objects tended to exist in OOC (out of character space). Some carried meta-data about the role-playing, and most were text-searchable, at the very minimum.

New players were encouraged to read over these "classic" role-playing sections, and in this way could understand how good role-playing worked (Wizards/Admins controlled content submission), and contextualize their own character at the same time.

This would be, oh, about 10 years ago. Maybe a bit more. Some of those scenes carried some quite incredibly well written dialogue. Characters evolved constantly, their relationships changed. Much moreso than the patients involved on the Therapist.

On this site reviewed by Katz, the only axis is the "therapist", with some occasional links between patients (but not many, no no). This drags it an order of complexity below the MUSHes and what-not that I was playing well in advance of big fancy terms like "colloborative thematic fiction-based website".

If this is the best you can come up with for new and neat ideas on the internet, Katz, I'm afraid you missed the boat by about a decade. The interface may not have been so pretty, but it was all there, already.

People who understood a bit about the subculture wrote articles, back then, about MUSHing as a method of interactive, continually evolving fiction.

That was back when it was a new and interesting idea.

-leem

uncompelled

[blamanj]

The stories are almost shockingly realistic and compelling.

Maybe I just hit the lemons, but neither adjective applied to what I read. If you want compelling, experimental short fiction, by a true master, may I suggest Donald Barthelme.

Sorry, it's not hypertext, or cyber-anything, but it is great literature.

Frank Grimes

[crumbz]

Hi! I'm Homer Simpson! I'm a complete idiot! I can do anything I want to and get away with it! I live in a mansion and eat lobster 'cuz I'm Homer Simpson!

or

Hi! I'm John Katz! I'm a complete idiot! I sit around all day and surf the web looking for stuff! I can publish inane crap on Slashdot 'cuz I'm an idiot!

Not really culture

[NineNine]

This isn't really culture. It's a self-centered rehashing of more dot-com lemmings' experiences and thoughts about their pitiful jobs. It's a meeting place of people who have no lives outside of their jobs, and need someone else to rehash their miserable lives (jobs) with. Perhaps the people involved with this project would be happier if they just turned off the computer, both at home and work.

Re:Jon?

[nickynicky9doors]

The essence of reasoning is maintaining the right to contradict oneself.

Says more about them that him

[ynotds]

For all too many people in this world, hate remains the greatest motivator, so the tiny proportion of SlashDotters who have learnt to hate Jon become much more motivated to attack him and post more aggressively than however many there might be who enjoy his writings, to say nothing of the multitudes who either don't care or who just treat his writings on their merits.

I guess I should at least come clean and admit that finding Jon writing for /. turned me into a regular here, so substantive reasons others might have for hating him aren't reasons I relate to.

To me the even bigger question is why those who are so loud in their hatred don't apply the tools Slash has available to exclude Jon's articles from their view?

Surely they cannot claim technical ineptitude.

More seriously, the one thing that slightly worries me about the persistent attacks is that it is a measure of the reluctance of too many narrowly productive people to admit that a wider world view might have any relevance to them.

These might be representative of the kind of people you could hire to develop truly evil technologies without them giving the outcomes a second thought.

I somehow doubt that anybody who respects what Jon brings to SlashDot is going to be a party to things that might do the world substantial harm.