Senior Frolic
James Decker
Make a choice: News, Shopping, Health, Workplace, Insurance, Food
& Beverage, Retirement. No? How about: Ingenuity, Another Time,
Fauna/Flora, Locomotion,
Arts, Medley, Words. Which of these two menus is better suited to
human interests? That's easy, the one created by a human. In contrast
to the first list of menu options from Next50, the categories used
to organize Senior Frolic are the result and record of a real live
person. As if it were difficult for commercial site designers to understand
what appeals and repels their users, the modestly unnamed Web master
at Senior Frolic makes it clear right up front: "This site will
NOT provide medical sources, relevant political and sociological information
or advice on how to lead a more productive life in the 'GOLDEN YEARS.'"
I heaved a sigh of relief.
Senior Frolic represents an interesting phenomenon that commercial
and design theory experts seem so far to have overlooked. The interests
of an individual may leave trails suitable as maps for the interests
of another individual. These maps are not the comprehensive Road Atlas
variety and this may be why major commercial producers overlook the
kind of content they lead to. No, these maps are idiosyncratic. They
filter information along lines of very specific interests. The destination
of these maps is not two clicks and your wallet, it's the way to Jeanette
MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and away from movies.com. For a Pepsi generation
and for the producers who domesticate them, there may be an initial
unease at visiting, or even being seen visiting non-commercial sites.
Not so for older and wiser viewers. There's some chance that a lot
of us will get there one day, and when we do, hopefully there will
be content that makes us think, groan, and get angry instead of just
official sites
commemorating the culture that used to make us cool. I know, it's
hard to imagine the The Amazing Story of Kudzu (www.cptr.ua.edu/kudzu/)
having more to offer than the latest gossip on Lisa Kudrow, but you
can do things with Kudzu. Senior Frolic is not too old to make prank
phone calls either. The link to http://www.payphone-project.com
shows you how to ring the pay phone at the Vatican or at the Eiffel
Tower. Never conducted your own congressional investigation? Fire
it up at www.opensecrets.org/diykit.
As I write this, I'm finding it hard to remember whether and when
I'm referring to seniors, to myself, or to my imaginary reader. That
hasn't happened at any commercial sites for Seniors I've visited so
far.
So many commercial sites underestimate the range of interests, the
variety of experiences, the vices and virtues, or the strangeness
of humor older people possess. If Senior Frolic is any indication,
it is of grave concern to know where the politicians have been buried
(http://www.politicalgraveyard.com).
It is always funny to see slapstick (http://www.uno.edu/~drcom/Slapstick/)
and never boring to see current movie trailers (http://www.apple.com/trailers/index.html).
An eye must be kept on freaks of nature (http://vzone.virgin.net/brian.goodwin/thylacine.htm)
and that includes scientists (http://www.madsci.org/).
Arabic Calligraphy is top ten (http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/7001/)
Unwrapping mummies is better than knitting (http://www.uke.uni-hamburg.de/institute/imdm/idv/forschung/mumie/index.en.html)
Artificial Intelligence is cooler, especially when little kids explain
it (http://library.thinkquest.org/2705/).
And the next vacation may be to an abandoned nuclear missile silo
(http://triggur.org/silo/silo.html)
Throughout Senior Frolic, it may seem possible to detect a predilection
for the congenial, the surprising, and the home made. It may seem
profitable to interpret these as an expanded senior demographic, to
build from these varied interests new pigeonholes; but as producers,
educators, and senior wannabes, it could just as easily see be a call
to emerge from our own.