Co-Option Gets Complicated: The 888 Case Study

     When co-option programs are small and inexpensive to manage, the desire for audience development can quell concerns about mission fit. But what about co-option projects on a grand scale? On August 8, 2008, the Ontario Science Centre (OSC) hosted a meetup for international YouTube users, called 888. 888 was expensive and complex, and its outcomes for the institution were mixed.

     888 emerged as a program idea out of the Ontario Science Centre's very successful forays into online video-sharing. The OSC had a high profile on YouTube and other video-sharing sites, and several of their videos (mostly short, staff-produced excerpts from demonstrations and outside speaker presentations) received tens or hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. The staff member in charge of video production and sharing, Kathy Nicholaichuk, had become deeply involved with the online community of individuals producing popular videos on YouTube, and she suggested that a meetup would be a good way for the OSC to demonstrate its commitment to the YouTube community, and to bring creative, energetic, young videographers to the science centre.

      Nicholaichuk and other YouTube enthusiasts promoted the 888 meetup via YouTube and other social media tools, with many YouTube users creating videos excitedly talking about the Ontario Science Centre before ever setting foot inside. About 460 people showed up for the actual event, a massive party in the science centre, featuring talent shows, play in the exhibits, food and drink, and lots of cameras. While participants came from all over the world, over 75% were local to Toronto or Canadian. About half were under 19, and another quarter were 20-25 years old. More than one-third had never visited the OSC, and the majority attended with friends or family. About 1,000 videos were made at the event, and the OSC received about 2 million impressions from print, radio, and TV coverage. The videos themselves received millions of views and tens of thousands of comments on YouTube.

     These numbers are incredibly positive. The OSC has a commitment to promoting innovation, and like most science centers, struggles to attract older teens and young adults alongside core family and school-age audiences. As associate director of daily experience operations Kevin Von Appen noted, "[Teens] explore technology and they innovate. Those are exactly the kind of skills, attitudes, and behaviors we're trying to grow in our visitors." The 888 meetup clearly portrayed the OSC to young adults and their own social networks of friends and followers as a cool place to hang out and an attractive context for social experiences. 

     And yet the vast majority of videos made and shared from the 888 event were social in nature, focusing solely on participants' excitement at meeting each other, partying, flirting, and hanging out. While several videos did feature or mention the OSC as the location for the social activity, there were only a handful of videos in which 888 participants used exhibits or tried to communicate science in some way. In other words, 460 young people produced 1,000 videos of themselves having a great time at the science centre. And the question is: what is that worth?

     From the participant perspective, the experience was incredibly valuable. Several participants made comments like, "The best time of my life!!... I will never forget it," though this YouTube user is probably referring to the incredible social experience, not the museum itself. The meetup was well-designed to support YouTube users' needs, and they felt fully able to co-opt the venue for their own social and creative purposes.

     From the institutional perspective, the experience was mixed. The OSC spent about $74 (US) per participant to promote and host the event, and they had hoped that more participants would use the meetup as an opportunity to engage with the exhibits and produce videos reflecting experiences that were educational in nature. But the meetup also brought local young adults to the science centre who otherwise weren't visiting, and it may have encouraged some of these Toronto-area YouTube users to see the OSC in a new light. 

     The YouTube users are the kinds of people that the OSC wants to attract with its innovation-focused exhibits and open-ended programs. Like the Experience Music Project's experience with the Sound Off! program, the 888 meetup was a starting point that established the Ontario Science Centre as a relevant and appealing venue for teen and young adult experiences. The trick is to find a way to shift that co-option into more substantive relationships among the YouTube users and the institution.

     Perhaps the most interesting and complex perspective on this is that of the audience for the 888 meetup. The videos from the meetup were viewed by thousands of YouTube users over the weeks and months following the event. While some of the videos, especially those promoting the event before it happened, featured the OSC and its exhibitions prominently, the majority were social in nature, and several were entirely focused on the voices and performances of YouTube celebrities. 

     While savvy audiences who are familiar either with YouTube community culture or the Ontario Science Centre should be able to correctly interpret the videos, many others see what is on the surface: people goofing off and making connections at a party. Everyone is having a good time, and no one is doing anything offensive, but the activities shown in the videos are not representative of typical OSC visitor experiences, nor do they communicate the venue experience well to potential visitors. On one level, this is to be expected; the YouTube users co-opted the museum for their own purposes. But on another level, it's problematic, because large numbers of YouTube spectators continue to be introduced to the OSC online as the venue for a party, not as an educational facility.

     While the OSC team considered the 888 YouTube meetup to be a valuable experiment, they elected not to host a followup 999 meetup in 2009. Kevin Von Appen commented, "Repeating it didn't make sense as a next step. We had entered or engaged with something that was changing really quickly at the right moment in the right way, and we got the results we got. And now it's time to be thoughtful about what comes next.  We're still looking for ways to make it easier, make it local, make it repeatable, make it deeper." As was true for the institutions that managed the Wikipedia Loves Art collaboration, the Ontario Science Centre felt that this participatory project required more institutional resources than they were able to handle, though they are actively seeking other ways to support the kind of young, technologically creative co-opters who came to the 888 event.

(Great experience, well-conveyed in pros and cons. What is the followup in terms of knowing whether any of the 888 participants ever came to OSC again? Recommended it to others? Became members? Were they invited to attend a particular exhibit after that? Was there an exhibit scheduled after this that could take advantage of accessing this new group of potential visitors? How was the list of attendees leveraged beyond 888? Yes, Von Appen noted the need to do the next event with thoughtfulness, but what about mining this event? Rich with potential. Was it left unharvested? Stirring people up without a channel for them to follow is like pouring a bucket of water on a table. Big splash, little beyond that but a temporarily wet table. SB)

Yipes! You finished the longest chapter, Chapter 5! Rock on! How about another animation, this time about art?

Continue to the next chapter, or return to the outline.