Rumpelstiltskin Sites

Charlie, Nate, and I went to the ITP winter show last night. Charlie was talking about one of the projects, a game, where the player stands on a 4' x 8' stage and responds to instructions on a screen such as, "run in place" or some other gesture. To the player, it's a game with rewards for tasks, etc. What the player doesn't realize is that the gestures they are performing are not random but have a narrative sequence, specifically the story "Rumplestiltskin." Anyone watching the game (on a different screen) sees a performance of Rumplestiltskin in pantomime. This sounds like a (bad) metaphor for a lot of sites - a user thinks they are connecting with friends, but actually they're just driving page views and advertising revenue.

"Hey, have you seen backstabbr.com?"

"Yeah, total Rumpelstiltskin site."