Purefold's Family Tree

In case you haven’t heard, Ag8 teamed of up with Ridley Scott to launch Purefold. As I describe it, Purefold is a platform for collecting crowdsourced stories that will be curated into a larger story by Hollywood directors and writers.

It’s a bold idea. So bold that much of the chatter revolves around the issue of “how.” How will they aggregate the stories? How will they manage the information and fan conversations? How will they manage the egos? How will…

But there’s another interesting question: “where.” Where does Purefold come from?

This is a question of lineage as every new idea builds on a past idea. And, as I see it, Purefold is the newborn child in a family tree dating back to the Bible.

The Bible, as far as I know, is the first crowdsourced story. Throughout early Christianity, no “Bible” existed. In its place, many individuals wrote and circulated their own stories of Jesus and other Christian characters – some tales becoming very popular. The Church, seeing disagreements among these works, decided to compile an official book recounting the story of Christianity. Rather than writing it themselves, they cherry picked from the pool of stories circulating in the public. The Bible, therefore, is one story, written by many authors, curated by the Church.

In the ancestry of Purefold is also the story of Santa Claus. St. Nicholas, a 4^th century bishop, kicks off this myth when he tosses a sack of gold through a window – by chance landing in a stocking by the fire – to help free a girl being sold into slavery. As this story spread, children would hang stockings in the hope of St. Nick’s continued generosity. The chimney enters the legend when tales emerge of St. Nick throwing gold down a chimney if windows were locked. Clement Moore’s “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” added the plump physique, bearded face, jolly attitude and eight-reindeered sleigh. George P. Webster’s "Santa Claus and His Works" gave Santa a North Pole home. Coca-Cola popularized Thomas Nast’s image of Santa Claus. But unlike the Bible, the story of Santa is a “free-range story” as creative minds continue extending the story: Elf, The Santa Clause, Robot Santa, Norad Santa Tracker and Santa Gets Canadian Citizenship.

More recent in Purefold’s lineage are Star Wars fan fiction and Star Trek fan fiction. Like the authors behind Christian and Clausian stories, fan fiction authors offer subplots and new elements to a preexisting storyline. But where they depart, I think, is that fan fiction fused crowdsourced storytelling with transmedia storytelling. Fans use text, film, novels, animation and machinima to tell their stories.

In 2006, a duo of Californians birthed what is arguably one of Purefold’s immediate family members: LonelyGirl15. This production departed from past crowdsourcing conventions in many ways. Most noticeably, it didn’t mythologize a real person or extend a preexisting story line. Its was original from the start. In a more subtle departure, LonelyGirl15 broke the third wall. Bree, the series protagonist, replied to people’s videos and comments while the series’ writers eavesdropped on online fan conversations and worked fan ideas into the storyline. As Wired notes, “When viewers suggested that he [Daniel] had a crush on Bree, they [the writers] changed the story line to include a romance.” Thus, by breaking the third wall, LonleyGirl15 achieved something fascinating: it became a living thing. Christopher Vogler, author of The Writers Journey, believes “that stories are somehow alive, conscious, and responsive to human emotions and wishes.” LonelyGirl15 confirms his belief. It was conscious. It was responsive. It was alive.

Last year, Penguin Publishing introduced another immediate family member. Penguin sought to answer the question, “Can a collective create a believable fictional voice?” The experiment, called A Million Penguins, invited anyone to come to a wiki and add to an “in-progress” novel. Around 1500 people contributed. Regardless if the end story was a success or not, it was an important step for crowdsourced storytelling: absence of the curator. All efforts before, even fan fiction, had had some level of a curator ensuring the quality of the completed “product”. A Million Penguins challenged this assumed need.

And since Purefold comes from this genealogy, we might say its shares genetic traits with its ancestors:

1. The Curator Gene
   The Church curated the story of Christianity. Free Scott will curate a large portion of Purefold.
2. The Free-Range Gene
    Santa Clause is a “free-range story” which has and will forever evolve. Purefold has no limits on where the story can go or become.
3. The Transmedia Gene
   Fan fiction authors used Transmedia techniques to help share their story. Purefold will make use of RSS feeds, film, Youtube, Twitter, Blogs, etc.
4. The Turing Gene
   Due to LonelyGirl15’s ability to be conscious of and respond to people’s comments and wishes, many thought this fictional character was real. While Purefold will take place two years in the future thus eliminating any question of its reality, it will still nonetheless be conscious of and respond to people’s emotions, wishes and conversations.

Purefold, for me at least, becomes most interesting when you think of it in its family context. In it, you begin to see that, at its heart, Purefold is an old idea. But, in its expression, it’s a new idea: one that incorporates the strengths of its ancestors and operates on a scale and at a speed that humbles all other attempts at crowdsourced storytelling.

Which is why the question of “how” is such a good one. ;)