@jeffreykoval has written a very flattering piece that covers my virtual appearance at the LHFF, which I very much enjoyed, so it’s satisfying to know the attendees got a lot out of it. I’ve included the intro here, but I encourage you to visit @jeffreykoval‘s blog and enjoy the other posts as well.
in the footsteps of giants
Years ago, in the early days of our work on the Monolith, I had begun extensively researching ARGs, having only vaguely heard the term when I was younger. I’ve talked about it before, but there was a sort of chicken and the egg situation when we really started to get the project rolling. I knew “what” an ARG was, but never had the words. Growing up, I participated in I Love Bees and thought the concept was incredible, but didn’t have the terminology for it. Obviously, the allure of making media that felt “real” was always there from the beginning of the project, but a few deep-dives around 2010 brought everything into a new perspective.
Especially when I realized that the godfather of all alternate reality games was set in our own New Jersey.Joseph Matheny created what would become known as Ong’s Hat in the late 80s and it flourished into the early days of the accessible Internet. He was an OG, working on projects that pioneered the commercial aspect of it, while also tuning into what made it wonderful and punk rock, too. He deemed the work an “interdisciplinary art experiment” and acknowledges that the more popular terms would become the ARG and transmedia we know today.
When we had first started our project, two works most clearly inspired me (and us) to produce the Monolith the way we did, heaving the “audience participation” onto the path that ultimately unfurled. Those were Ong’s Hat and (obviously) House of Leaves. I would be remiss to omit my love for the Series of Unfortunate Events that consumed my attention when I was a kid, as well.
All of that is to say, it’s an incredibly small world out there, and when I was partly assisting in the development of the 2025 LHFF, there was a focus on Internet storytelling, in addition to the staple of independent production. Every year, there was a guest (or two, or three) that we really wanted to feature, and with this year’s focus on Internet storytelling, I thought it might be worth a shot to reach out to that godfather himself.
And he warmly responded.