Storytelling in Social Media

TEDx Seattle Interview with Elan Lee, Founder of Fourth Wall Studios

by Braden Kelley

I had the opportunity to interview Elan Lee, Founder and Chief Designer at Fourth Wall Studios, at TEDx Seattle recently. In this video Elan talks about the future of storytelling and the importance of storytelling to conveying information to others about your new ideas or innovations.





Some of you may be familiar with Elan Lee's work on the alternate reality game "Year Zero" for the promotion of Nine Inch Nail's "Year Zero" album. This project won a Cannes Lion Grand Prix award and a Clio Award (Bronze). Here is an excerpt from the "Promotion" section of the "Year Zero" album's Wikipedia entry:

In an interview with Kerrang! magazine, Reznor hinted that the album was "part of a bigger picture of a number of things I'm working on".[3] In February 2007 fans discovered that a new Nine Inch Nails tour t-shirt contained highlighted letters that spelled out the words "I am trying to believe".[2] This phrase was registered as a website URL, and soon several related websites were also discovered in the IP range, all describing a dystopian vision of the fictional "year 0000".[2] It was later reported that 42 Entertainment had created these websites to promote Year Zero as part of an alternate reality game.[8]

The Year Zero story takes place in the United States in the year 2022; or "Year 0" according to the American government, being the year that America was reborn. The United States has suffered several major terrorist attacks, and in response the government has seized absolute control on the country and reverted to a Christian fundamentalist theocracy. The government maintains control of the populace through institutions such as the Bureau of Morality and the First Evangelical Church of Plano, as well as increased surveillance and the secret drugging of tap water with a mild sedative. In response to the increasing oppression of the government, several corporate, government, and subversive websites were transported back in time to the present by a group of scientists working clandestinely against the authoritarian government. The websites-from-the-future were sent to the year 2007 to warn the American people of the impending dystopian future and to prevent it from ever forming in the first place.[9]

The Year Zero game consisted of series of websites, phone numbers, e-mails, videos, MP3s, murals, and other media that expanded upon the fictional storyline of the album. Each new piece of media contained various hints and clues to discover the next, relying on fan participation to discover each new facet of the expanding game. Rolling Stone described the fan involvement in this promotion as the "marketing team's dream".[10] Reznor, however, argued that "marketing" was an inaccurate description of the game, and that it was "not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record - it IS the art form".[11]

This gives you a good idea of the type of storytelling that Elan Lee does. For more of the story about how the "Year Zero" game played out, see the rest of the "Promotion" section of the Wikipedia entry on the album.

I would love to hear your thoughts about how storytelling will evolve as an art form as the internet and mobile devices gain new capabilities. Sound off in the comments!


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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.