***

The Rumpus: Hi, are you there?

Megan Boyle: Hi Nick, yes, I’m here, just getting situated hold on one second… sorry.

Rumpus: Oh good. I’m rusty at this. I just poured, spilled, some wine that was a gift, hold on.

Boyle: Oh, damn. Red or white?

Rumpus: Red but it was cheap. It’s okay. Are you in Brooklyn?

Boyle: I’m in Manhattan in Think Coffee by NYU trying to counteract loud music via loudly playing quiet music on earphones. Where are you?

Rumpus: We just had a big thunderstorm here in Ann Arbor and I think that contributed to the wine spilling. Thanks for doing this.

Boyle: Thunderstorm contributing to wine spilling sounds interesting. Barometric pressure wine interactions…no problem (re doing interview). I liked reading the ones you sent me. I usually type without caps, should I upper-case things?

Rumpus: This is a silly question but can you send me a copy of this afterwards in case I mess up saving it? Oh yes, lowercase is fine. Do you want to go to Wikipedia and I’ll go there too and you can click on random article and tell me where it takes you then I’ll go there. It may take a few seconds, that’s okay. (And I’ll clean up typos, etc and make minor edits before this appears.)

Boyle: Sure. Do you think people ever purposefully select random articles they think are more interesting/have more to say about? (Just wondering.) (I won’t do that.)

Rumpus: I’ve thought about that myself and that’s the part of human nature I like.

Boyle: Yeah… think I like that too. Seems endearing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Football_League_1924%E2%80%9325

Boyle: Damn.

Rumpus: Is it 1924-25?

Boyle: Yes. Trying do discern whether their team names are towns or just like, phrases of the day. “ayr united.” The way the teams are listed reminds me of little league or some forgotten little league team somehow garnering a Wikipedia page. Team 12 in ‘Scottish league division three’ is named ‘Dykehead.’

Rumpus: So of that first list, division one, which of those names strikes you? I like “Motherwell” and “Aberdeen” but only because, I think, of the grunge, riot grrrl, Nirvana connection. But ‘Dykekead’ — this is my new favorite team name.

Boyle: I think I like ‘Bo-ness’ because it sounds like a sweet name for a rapper, and ‘Stenhousemuir’ because it sounds like the result of someone trying to insult someone and remember the name of a dinosaur at the same time. ‘Dykehead’ seems great. Their coach probably had a time machine.

Rumpus: Yes, and ‘Raith Rovers’ sounds like someone trying to say something else while holding the tip of their tongue.

Boyle: The name ‘Mid-annandale’ sounds like they weren’t even trying…like, no wonder they placed 15^th.

Rumpus: I think “Patrick Thistle” was a name Ian Fleming rejected for a villain in one of his James Bond novels. Actually this whole list is a weird poem.

Boyle: ‘Raith Rovers’ also sounds like someone’s first death metal cover band.

Rumpus: Do you want to click on another?

Boyle: Sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_County_Championship

Boyle: Jesus. It must be UK sports night at Wikipedia random article generating headquarters. Instinctually felt like clicking another one for diversity.

Rumpus: Let’s skip it, we make the rules!

Boyle: Yeah we do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_%282008_film%29

Boyle: Sweet. Didn’t know this movie existed. Title seems controversial. Immediately pictured it would be a documentary-like series of short interviews of diverse opinions on ‘blackness’… seems like, no… the main character’s name is ‘black’ and he’s black it seems.

Rumpus: It looks like it wasn’t released theatrically in the US.

Boyle: Must be some kind of tour video. Interpol tour video (jk). Plot sounds kind of formulaic. Feel like most copies must be in French ‘discount bins’ now.

Rumpus: The synopsis is almost like a Marxist tract. The last line about how it’s ‘peppered with comedy and mysticism’ is worrisome. The word ‘mysticism’ is like a warning…

Boyle: Seems like they were obviously trying to get in on the success of the ‘three colors’ trilogy. On a side note, for some reason I think the word ‘mercenaries’ is really funny…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-waste_village

Rumpus: This one is strange. I need a second. Since when did ‘Hi-Fi’ become obsolete? Do you have a turntable?

Boyle: I do. I don’t use it much anymore but used to a lot… crackly record noise…

‘The opportunity to cheaply dispose of these substances forms the economic incentive behind the exporting of E-waste to countries such as China, India, and some African nations which have little or no environment checks and control. This export creates a global E-waste village.’ Seems really terrible.

Rumpus: They still use the word ‘First World’ which is strange and anachronistic because it’s not the First world, far from it.

Boyle: The ‘electric waste by country’ section looks unfinished, maybe intentionally/out of shame like the wiki page is perpetuating the shittiness of what it’s describing just by existing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Lorestan

Rumpus: My God.

Boyle: I laughed when I clicked on that… seems… like perhaps the most obscure wiki page, like its author and us are the only people who have ever seen it. Wikipedia itself might not be aware of its existence.

Rumpus: Do the numbers 31 or 41 mean anything to you?

Boyle: My initial thought was they’re prime numbers.

Rumpus: For the love of God, Megan. Click on one of the cities and I’ll follow you.

Boyle: I clicked ‘Dorood.’

Rumpus: I’m following you there…

Boyle: Follow me to Dorood.

Rumpus: I feel like I know so little…

Boyle: Me too.

Rumpus: There are over 100,000 people there, and I don’t know any of their names.

Boyle: I’m down to do a few more articles, if you are.

Rumpus: Let’s do it.

Boyle: I just resisted temptation to click ‘Portuguese Wikipedia’ and surprise you by only speaking Portuguese for the remainder of the chat… however, I landed on “Luke Hamlin.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Hamlin

Rumpus: Buenas figaros spieta andula.

Boyle: Obrigao lisbon.

Rumpus: “Luke Hamlin.” What’s strange about his name is that “Luke Skywalker” was played by Mark Hamill.

Boyle: I thought that too. Seems strategic, on his part. Oh wait, no, he was born in 1904. “Nicknamed ‘Hot Potato’”…the bolded ‘hot potato’ is really funny.

Rumpus: Okay: speaking of Star Wars. If you were to make a sci-fi movie… well, would you ever consider making a sci-fi movie?

Boyle: Yes, I would consider that. I’m intrigued by sci-fi things/feel like a lot of my thoughts naturally veer towards sci-fi-like things.

Rumpus: Like the world is just, sometimes, a little bit off?

Boyle: Yes, definitely. I think I always feel ‘a little bit off,’ maybe or assume I am, just out of not ever being able to viscerally experience another person’s reality so ideas about different realities seem interesting. The world seems mysterious. Do you like sci-fi?

Rumpus: You know, it’s very strange having you type, knowing you are somewhere. What you say about experiencing another person’s reality, maybe that’s why writing and making movies is so imperative. I love sci-fi, like Alien and Moon and The Descent, which is I guess isn’t really sci-fi.

Boyle: I agree. I think whenever I gchat with a person I almost unavoidably mentally picture their surroundings (like I feel like you’re in a leather chair in the corner of your living room and there is a large window in front of you and a porch and it’s raining). Yeah, I think that’s why I like writing and making movies. That’s it, definitely, actually the fundamental thing. I saw Moon recently and really liked it.

Rumpus: Moon is good. I only found out after I watched it that it was directed by David Bowie’s son and then I thought that makes sense, because the movie is about identity changing (“Changes”) and he gets so pale like Bowie the Pale King. Sorry, this is the geeky film prof.

Boyle: It’s probably actually his attempt at a biopic about David Bowie’s ‘true life’ before he returned to earth.

Rumpus: Or a metaphor for what a rock star or any celebrity goes through: changing into something, a version of themselves that they only partially recognize.

Boyle: Seems like that can apply to non-celebrities also. Like altering your persona based on your surroundings/audience in addition to more long-term personal changes. Running around being clones of ourselves.

Rumpus: I really like that idea of being clones of ourselves. It’s something I think you and Tao brought to light in the Bebe Zeva movie. Because while Bebe was “Bebe” she was also someone else, and especially in that scene near the end in the pool, where she seemed most unguarded and afraid. That scene was genius and very touching. It was, honestly, hard to watch but in a good way. It was almost as if she was on the edge of something, some decision. I’m wondering, were you aware of this or did this just happen sort of fast and naturally?

Boyle: It happened mostly fast/naturally but I had been aware of the shift in group dynamic since returning to the hotel (“since returning to the hotel” is like a cliffhanger…) and how we were talking in the hot tub seemed like a quiet, distracted almost ‘mirages’ of the high energy conversations from earlier…There was an awareness that each of us were probably aware of that and I was wondering what Bebe was thinking a lot, thinking she may have been having personal conflicts with Travis that she might want to keep private, but we were filming a documentary about her. At that point in the night I think all of us were subtly aware of things ending but unsure of how the ending would happen.

Rumpus: And that tension really shows up beautifully in the film. Do you want to go to one more?

Boyle: Yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauna_Foundation

Boyle: ‘Fauna foundation.’

Rumpus: What is it with Canada and chimps?

Boyle: The combination of the notification that the article is “an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it” and last sentence “it is the first sanctuary to accept chimpanzees with HIV.”

Rumpus: “150 acre farm”? Is that significant?

Boyle: Hm, seems like average farm acreage. Seems like Canada should be able to do ‘way better.’ However. I feel like there must be so much land in Canada… somehow…

Rumpus: And so much mercy…

Boyle: Just pictured Canada as the ‘hair’ of the earth, like it actually ‘rolls down’ onto Russia.

Rumpus: Okay… the lights are dimming.

Boyle: Enjoy the storm. Thank you Nick. This was fun.

Rumpus: It was great talking with you, thank you for your creativity.

Megan Boyle lives in Baltimore, co-founded MDMAfilms, has been published by Muumuu House, Thought Catalog, Vice, 3:AM, Pop Serial, and has a Twitter account. Her debut poetry collection, “selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express exployee,” is forthcoming from Muumuu House on November 15, 2011.

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“…a film like Bebe Zeva is a window not into Zeva or Boyle or Lin or even the mumblecore movement, but rather into a particular and exciting moment in the history of cinema, when the motion picture camera’s liberation from its traditional form and shape becomes, slyly, the very subject of cinema itself.”

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The documentary opens in the lobby of Bebe Zeva’s condominium. Tao Lin asks: “Why’d you move into this thing?” For the next 88 minutes, they carry the laptop from Zeva’s condo, to Tao Lin and Megan Boyle’s hotel room at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino, to the Miracle Mile Shops, (where Bebe shoplifts a Bebe purse), another casino, and finally the movie ends in a hot tub. Tao Lin is shirtless. Zeva is wearing an EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD shirt.

As they travel around Las Vegas, Tao Lin and Megan Boyle feed her vegan ice cream, whipped cream, a cookie, diet coke, Kombucha, candy — she’s eating or drinking in basically every scene. Zeva says, “everyone who has an internet presence binge eats,” but that she doesn’t drink alcohol or do drugs. Tao Lin and Megan Boyle ask her funny questions:

Q: What are your thoughts on eating?
A: I concentrate on the cuteness of what I’m eating.

Q: Would you rather eat one pound of steamed shrimp every day at 11AM or get a Windows 95 chest tattoo?
A: Oh, I would get the Windows 95 chest tattoo even if that wasn’t a question.

At some point, Zeva says: “I understand that life is bleak and you can either kill yourself or donate yourself to social commentary. I’m just a brand. I’m just shit. All of my content regarding my personality is available.”  After the screening, Tao Lin told the audience, “She seems like a genuis to me.”

Zeva is endearing, but often I didn’t know what she was talking about. (Before the movie started, I overheard someone at the screening use the expression “mad gayface.” I thought it was funny, but I didn’t know what it meant. I had to Google it. In some ways, this moment set the tone for an entire evening of partial-recognition.) For instance, Zeva tries on a dress at Urban Outfitters and says it is “post-ironically matronly.” On her Twitter this week she said: “I officially declare it post-ironically chic to wear Misfits t-shirts.”

What is post-ironic? Is Bebe Zeva joking? I asked Megan Boyle to help.

***

The Rumpus: What is post-ironic?

Megan Boyle: This seems hard to explain. I’ll give an example. Around 2004, wearing large glasses and mustaches seemed funny and cutting-edge to an artsy/intelligent/hipster counter-culture of young people, probably because of growing up surrounded by family members who considered wearing mustaches and funny-looking large glasses to be simple, boring, normal facts of life. When juxtaposed on the body of an attractive young person, the deadpan “large glasses” aesthetic created an appealing sense of irony and caused people to make friends and either overtly or subtly influence them to wear similar things. Urban Outfitters noticed what was happening and started selling clothes that family members with large glasses would wear, if those family members were in their sexual prime and wanted to make friends. This clothing style became hugely popular because of the sense of humor, authenticity, and shared experience it suggested. It made people seem both inclusive and approachable. Individuals. Then there were a lot of individuals wearing the same thing because they shopped at a store that made it possible for a lot of people to be individuals together. Post-irony, the way Bebe uses it, is the new “identity canvas” for a person overexposed to the first wave of ironic personal expression.

Rumpus: Is Bebe Zeva’s age (17) important to the documentary? Did you feel a responsibility to present her in a positive light?

Boyle: Bebe seems different than other people to me, but I don’t think that has much to do with her being 17. A documentary about any person with the kind of existential intelligence I see Bebe as having would be equally compelling to me. I think I only started considering her age when it came to editing, knowing that presenting certain scenes which made me think she was spontaneous and funny (shoplifting, humping the plant) could be perceived as exploitative. Tao and I wanted to make sure Bebe’s family would feel okay with it, so we showed a version of the film to Bebe’s sister and mom, who noticed the shoplifting scene was cut and said it might be funny to include.

Rumpus: At the beginning of the documentary, we see you and Tao meeting Bebe Zeva for the first time. It was the first time you’d met, as Zeva calls it, “physically.” Up to that point, Zeva only existed online for you or Tao Lin. Aren’t people so different in real life than we are online? Does it matter? Were you excited to document this moment of “physical” meeting?

Boyle: People can be different in real life than online, though I think it’s always possible to predict certain “real life” behaviors by observing how a person presents him/herself on the internet. For instance, I could infer from Bebe’s online presence that she probably wouldn’t have a really deep voice and want to ask me questions about horse racing. I felt excited to document the moment of “physically” meeting, but maybe only in an abstract sense at the time. My thought activity before meeting was split between the expectations created from discussing the night’s plans with Tao, the image I had of Bebe, feeling excited about what we were doing, and trying to quiet my awareness of the camera/environment/social anxiety so I could focus on ensuring Bebe would have fun and feel comfortable.

Rumpus: Bebe Zeva says, “Everyone can be described by whether they use haha or LOL. I say hehe. I don’t think I could ever say hahaha.” This is a funny moment, but what does it mean?

Boyle: The sound of laughter seems highly personal and futile to transcribe in universal way, and I think Bebe knows this. Not only does “hahaha” hardly mimic the sound of a person laughing, it indicates a lack of awareness of the advancement of “LOL.” I think Bebe either finds “hehe” appealing because it is more phonetically delicate than “LOL” or “hahaha” or because it seems like a word that has been created to say “I see that you’ve said something clever. If we were standing next to each other I would vocally or non-verbally communicate this to you, but we both know we’re not standing next to each other, so here is this funny little place-holder.”

Rumpus: During the Q&A you said, “We thought, no one has filmed a person like her.” What do you mean “like her?”

Boyle: Someone who has found existence, internet culture, and herself in the midst of all of it intriguing enough to form an image/brand that has made her relatively internet-famous. Someone home-schooled in Las Vegas. Someone with over 900 unanswered Formspring.me questions. Someone able to generate extended sarcastic commentary about her surroundings. Someone who likes salt & vinegar potato chips.

Rumpus: So much of the movie is talking about Twitter, Formspring, Stat Counter vs. Google Analytics, Windows 95-chest tattoo. Zeva says the grossest image is when “when people apply too much sharpness.” You ask her a lot of questions about her family and school, but the conversation often returns to life online. It seems like the most fun thing for Bebe Zeva to talk about “physically” is what’s happening online. Is this part of what you set out to document?

Boyle: I didn’t set out to document that, no. The questions about “real life” seemed to generate sometimes emotionally reflective, but mostly concrete/direct answers from Bebe, because I think there is a finiteness about the physical world that feels separate from the world of the internet. I’ve spent a huge portion of my life looking at the internet and I can only offer a vague explanation of how it works or what it is, exactly. There is something mysterious about that. We learn the laws of physics whether we consciously know them or not just from existing in bodies on a planet. There isn’t anything like that for the internet. Maybe Bebe “physicalizes” what happens online because of the larger variety of possibilities within that world. It seems a little more interesting than “real life,” maybe, because of that.

Rumpus: Bebe Zeva says, “Nautical creatures are not alt. It’s too easy to turn into a gimmick — like narwals — it’s entry level.” What is entry-level? Bebe Zeva says she invented the term “lifer?” Is that ironic? Is it condescending to call someone a lifer?

Boyle: “Entry-level alt” is a phrase that appears a lot on hipsterrunnoff.com to describe someone who primarily identified with mainstream culture but was recently exposed to “alt”/hipster culture. This blog post explains it pretty well: http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2008/08/proud-grin-entry-level-alt.html. In the film, Bebe defines a “lifer” as a “mainstreamer who loves life, God, and playing softball and writes about it on Facebook.” I don’t think the word “lifer” is ironic because it describes something Bebe perceives earnestly. If I believed I was innately superior to someone who played softball and updated their Facebook status a lot, it wouldn’t matter if I called them a “lifer” or “Caucasian” or “Michelle” — I would condescend to them.

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