Noted film critic Roger Ebert died a couple days ago on April 4, 2013. He’s probably best known for his TV show Siskel and Ebert with their thumbs up or down movie reviews and their sometimes funny bickering. For me, Ebert was also one of the first people who showed me how powerful the Internet could be.
Years before the Web, Ebert had a very active message board on CompuServe – an online community that even preceded America Online (AOL). He posted his reviews there and invited people to discuss movie topics with him. He deftly handled arguments – even in the early days of online community, we had haters and flamers – and he never failed to use the power of moderation to bring silly, pointless arguments to an end.
Ebert had declared that the Toronto Film Festival was one of his favorites because Toronto wasn’t so star-struck nor industry-ridden at the time. It was a film festival for people who love film, plain and simple. I messaged Ebert that I was in Toronto and told him that I’d be happy to recommend any restaurant to him. To my delight, he responded. He wanted to know about vegetarian restaurants because he was trying vegetarianism to address a number of health issues. I sent him a list, starting with Chinese restaurants and then expanding to a number of restaurants in The Beaches area. He was very pleased and went to a couple, even making his way into The Beaches to have a look around.
I guess because I have a memorable first name, Ebert occasionally messaged me privately in response to a couple of my posts. He was intrigued by the “Talk about Actors” folders I was moderating and building for Christian Bale. Ebert did not like any of Christian’s early works, but he was fascinated by the growing active and vocal audience I was cultivating. Within the space of a year (this must have been 1991), Christian was the most talked about actor on CompuServe and AOL. From Ebert’s point of view, here was an obscure British actor with an unremarkable body of work, so he wanted to know why was there the interest in Bale.
Simple. I responded to Ebert. I’m following your example and interacting with the online people. They have questions? I answer them. They want to know more? I supply them with details. When the audience realizes that this is an active actor’s forum, they start to flock and congregate. This was exactly the lessons I learned from watching Ebert’s movie review community on CompuServe.
Ebert’s online model got me very interested in the possibilities of using the Internet to promote actors and movies. He also fanned my own love of movies, and I was happy to contribute to Ebert’s book Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary.
I remember after I moved to Los Angeles, I posted a public question to Ebert, asking him how he liked vegetarianism. To my surprise, I was flamed by angry people all thinking I was insulting Ebert’s weight. (Ahhh, the danger of the Internet.) By the next day, Ebert had posted a reply that I was an “old online friend” and that I was kindly inquiring about his health. Period. End of argument. I was impressed with his fast reply because it showed that he was still very active online, reading his audience’s every word.
Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman 