Shannon Slaughter
art 314 digital studio: Artist Response 8
In my first artist response for this class, I discussed the quirky website www.mouchette.org. The site at first glanced appeared to be a simple page created by a 13 year old name Mouchette but as the viewer progressed through the pages, this identity crumbles and the visitor wonders who is the true author of the page.
The site “Black People Love Us” works in a similar manner. It includes pictures and text that confuse the viewer on the true identity of the site creator and even the site’s purpose. “Black People Love Us” (which will now be referred in the rest of this article as BPLU) is humorous and completely politically incorrect. The site is divided in 7 parts. In each part you explore the lives of Sally and Johnny and their Black friends. The site gives different testimonials on why Sally and Johnny are their friends and how these two understand certain aspects of their lives. The pictures can seem awkward at times but nonetheless entertaining.
Like Mouchette, BPLU looks out of date but becomes timeless because of it’s interactivity. Visitors can still post to the site expressing their opinions of the page. These posting vary from appraisal, condemnation, or absolute confusion. The site also provides a link to an email address. Whether or not the webmaster will email them back is unknown. Furthermore in the section, “stuff our friends care about” is a list of different site that include, the million man march, Nation of Islam, and the United Negro College Fund.
BPLU is a very unique site. It may seem out of date, and politically incorrect but that is what makes the site works. I would not want to change it any way.
Thursday, March 26, 2009