The Internet’s First Main Character? (Transcript)

MUSIC IN

KURT:
I do wanna tell you. I, um, you know, I initially had some cold feet about talking to you.

DYLAN:
Your cold feet are not only um, uh, seen, acknowledged, but welcome here.

KURT:
Okay perfect.

DYLAN:
I’m talking to Kurt Volk. He’s a graphic designer. He’s a dad. He’s a husband. And Kurt is also a Star Wars fan, who camped out on the streets of Hollywood all so that he could be one of the very first people to see Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

KURT:
It's a very silly, silly, silly thing. The whole thing is very silly.

MUSIC OUT

DYLAN:
If you can believe it, my producer found Kurt through archival photos. Which means that this is actually kind of like the opening of Titanic...

SFX: SEAGULLS & WAVES

MUSIC IN

...When they discover the portrait of young Rose, and then we, the audience, meet older Rose who narrates what it was like in her past, on the “ship of dreams.”

MUSIC & SFX OUT

Except, Kurt’s “ship of dreams” is a stretch of pavement in Los Angeles.

KURT:
Okay so this is April, May 1999. Um, on the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
In the photo we found we see two people sitting under a tent. But this is not your standard camping tent. Ok? This tent looks like a fully functioning office. It’s stocked with boxes of altoids and bottles of water. It’s daytime. And in the background, there’s Kurt, typing at a desktop computer. Just your regular, run of the mill, outdoor desktop computer.

KURT:
They had organized along with the city somehow to tap into a phone line. So that was a dial-up modem. And so you know, that was our kind of window into whatever was actually happening online in the lead up to the film, um, was really through this janky little desktop setup there, yeah.

DYLAN:
(laughs)

MUSIC OUT

KURT:
And, I mean. You know, we were out there for a month and a half.

DYLAN:
That’s right. You heard that correctly. Kurt and other devoted Star Wars fans camped out for over a month.

KURT:
I was nine when Return of The Jedi came out. I kind of grew up with these movies.

DYLAN:
For Kurt, Star Wars was a beloved, formative thing that existed firmly in his past. And then, in the 90s, rumors started to swirl about a new batch of Star Wars movies.

MUSIC IN

Lo and behold, the rumors were proven true. In the Fall of 1998, a trailer was released. And fans were so eager to catch the first glimpse of this highly anticipated movie that they bought tickets to other movies that they had absolutely no intention to watch just so they could see the Phantom Menace trailer.

Fans like Kurt.

MUSIC OUT

KURT:
We went to go see Meet Joe Black, um, and left after the trailer.

DYLAN:
(laughs)

KURT:
The trailer was, was, uh, everything. I completely flipped out. I still think that trailer is just a work of art. I was on board, yes. Very on board.

DYLAN:
(laughs)

That trailer came out in November of 1998 and a few months later, Kurt’s friend Chris heard about fans lining up outside a movie theater in Hollywood. Kurt was 25 at the time. He was working odd jobs in Chicago and he thought to himself “what do I have to lose?”

KURT:
It felt like a, a kind of a transition point for me in my life. Like, I had, I had become an adult. I'd gone through college. I paid taxes. I was this, you know, grownup. And you know, the last time a Star Wars movie had come out, I was nine years old. And I remember having this overwhelming feeling of curiosity of whether or not I would be able to go back to feeling the way I did when I was nine, when I was 25. And that was a big draw for me.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
So Kurt and his friend Chris, they pack up a car, and they drive to Los Angeles, where they meet all sorts of Star Wars fans. For Kurt, this was totally new.

KURT:
I didn't really know people that were into this stuff? Like, I didn't know people that liked what I liked. And you know, I think that ‘99, 2000 is this very interesting inflection point because it's, it's around that time that, like, geek culture, fan culture sort of starts to make that transition into, like, mainstream culture.

MUSIC OUT

DYLAN:
And this inflection point can be credited, in large part, to the internet.

SFX: Dial-up modem & AOL Man Saying “Welcome. You’ve Got Mail!”

More on that later in this episode and, you know, throughout the entire show. For now, let’s get back to our friend Kurt who was essentially living outside a movie theater surrounded by other Star Wars superfans.

KURT:
You know, it's not easy. It's like sleeping on a sidewalk for a month and a half and, you know, we would go across the street to the, um, the Roosevelt Hotel and like, you know, wash out our armpits in the, uh…

DYLAN:
(laughs)

KURT:
… in the hotel sink in the lobby and stuff.

DYLAN:
This crew formed a community. And they connected with each other. Permanently.

KURT:
So while we are all in line we had the idea, like 30 of us, that we were like, “you know, what we should do is we should all get matching tattoos...

DYLAN:
(laughs)

KURT:
… while we’re in line!” And so somebody went down the street to a tattoo parlor on Hollywood Boulevard and they, they made like a package deal. They're like, “anybody that walks in can get a tattoo, the same tattoo…

DYLAN:
Yeah

KURT:
… and it'll be like, it was like 20 bucks or something.” And so the symbol that everybody, like, gravitated toward was the symbol of the Naboo. It was this, um, the symbol that was on a lot of like the Queen Amidala…

DYLAN:
Uh-huh

KURT:
… packaging. And like on her doll and stuff. And this is it.

DYLAN:
Now at this point in our interview Kurt holds up his right wrist to show me what is, indeed, the symbol of the Naboo.

Oh!

KURT:
I dunno if you can see that.

DYLAN:
Oh my God, I can.

KURT:
And so everybody that was in line, or a lot of the people in line all got that matching tattoo. So now when, when people at the grocery store, they're like, “is that like a fleur de lis or something?” I'm like, “no, it's actually the, um, symbol of the Naboo…

DYLAN:
(laughs)

KURT:
… from the Star Fighter. Do you remember?”

DYLAN:
(laughs)

This line, and the people in it, became something of a novelty attraction.

KURT:
So people would just stop by and like, leave stuff. Like, we would get like a thousand power bars, or, like, a 25-foot Subway sandwich or something like that would just show up. And, because it was getting a lot of press. I mean, Gary Coleman showed up at one point. I don't know. Weird Al was there? It was, it was very, it was, it was very --

DYLAN:
-- It's like a circus, a six week circus.

KURT:
It was a six week circus. Yeah.

DYLAN:
The circus reached a natural conclusion when release day arrived. The night before, Kurt and his crew of tattooed line denizens began to assemble at the doors of Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

KURT:
I think we started lining up around like 9:00 PM or something like that, and then, um, rolled into the theater at midnight.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
The lights went down in the theater. Kurt, and hundreds of other Star Wars fans finally got to see the movie they’d been waiting for, for so long….

MUSIC OUT

KURT:
Um, whatever the movie was trying to do, it did not connect with me. So I left the theater feeling extremely depressed. I really felt like it was something in me. I did not see that really as like a shortcoming of the movie as much as like, I felt like something in me had grown cold to this type of, like, storytelling and that I had kind of, um, grown up and like that was like, something I was incapable of connecting with anymore.

DYLAN:
But while Kurt focused inward, wondering if he had lost a part of himself...

THEME IN

...some others looked out to identify the culprit that “ruined” their beloved film franchise.

KURT:
The whole, like, negative reaction was like, the reason I didn't wanna talk to you. And the way that he was mistreated and the way that that character was, was like maligned and stuff. That whole thing, like, makes me so sad.

DYLAN:
The character that Kurt is referring to is one that is beloved by some, and reviled by others. A character whose debut in The Phantom Menace represented a milestone in cinematic visual effects. A character who sparked a backlash so severe that it had profound psychological effects on the actor who played him.

A character named Jar Jar Binks.

Welcome to The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks. I’m Dylan Marron. Thanks for being here.

THEME OUT

[AD BREAK]

Whatever the name “Jar Jar Binks” means to you—I suspect you don’t know the whole story.

MUSIC IN

To quote the indelible catchphrase of MTV’s iconic docuseries Diary:

MUSIC OUT

“You think you know. But you have no idea.”

DYLAN:
Um, when I say Jar Jar Binks, what comes to mind for you?

FRIEND 1:
(laughs) Oh God, so many things. You know, kind of being like sort of a minstrel character and all of that stuff.

FRIEND 2:
I loved Jar Jar Binks and I think if I were to watch the movie now or show my future kid the movie, I would still love Jar Jar Binks.

FRIEND 3:
Growing up I gravitated towards Jar Jar Binks.

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm.

FRIEND 3:
And my dad was like, “that is a nasty character. Why would you like him?”

DYLAN:
“Nasty character”?

FRIEND 3:
“Nasty” is not his words. He was like, “that is like the silliest character and I hate him.”

FRIEND 4:
I unironically loved Jar Jar Binks when I was 9 years old. Until I realized other kids did not like him.

FRIEND 5:
Ridiculous pandering. A little too childish for Star Wars.

FRIEND 6:
(laughs) I think Jar Jar Binks was a socially questionable, stereotypical character that was perfect for a child audience.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
As you may have gathered from this beautiful collage of reactions from my family and friends, the name “Jar Jar Binks” functions as a Rorschach test.

MUSIC OUT

Over the course of the next six episodes...

MUSIC IN

...we’re going to explore why this fictional character drew such a strong response from the most ardent Star Wars fans and casual moviegoers alike. We’re going to dig into how that response went “viral”—at a time when the word “viral” was more commonly used to describe a medical condition than a pop culture trend. And we’re going to see how something that sounds like an ironic novelty story, actually has some profound implications for our current era. And yeah from time to time, I’m gonna be using pretentious phrases like “profound implications.” Deal with it.

MUSIC OUT

And now, we have arrived at the part where I should tell you what brought me to this story:

I am Jar Jar Binks.

Just kidding.

I spent five years making a podcast called Conversations with People Who Hate Me.

MUSIC IN

Which is… I mean, well, it’s actually exactly what it sounds like: I called up some of the people who had written hate messages to me online, I recorded those calls—with their consent, of course—and I turned those recordings into a podcast.

So if someone called me an “idiot,” or a “moron,” or one of the various gay slurs the English language has to offer, I’d call them up to chat. It wasn’t about shaming them, but instead, it was about genuinely fostering a connection. While still making sure to use that connection as a foundation to explore our conflict head-on.

MUSIC OUT

DYLAN:
At the very end you said that “being gay is a sin.” Why did you want me to hear that?

JOSH:
Like I said, I was angry. I was– humans tend to type and say things out of anger that they wouldn’t normally say. So I was basically, unfortunately, trying to hurt you.

DYLAN:
Mmm

JOSH:
And it came back and bit me in the butt.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
As the project continued, I expanded the show. No longer only speaking to my own detractors, I stepped into the moderator role, and connected strangers to each other.

DYLAN:
Colleen, you’re on the line and you’re on the line with Amanda.

AMANDA:
Hi, Colleen.

COLLEEN:
Oh, hi Amanda!

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
Those also started going well.

TYLER:
I just want to say thanks. You're the first transgender marine I've ever met in my life.

MADDIE:
Oh, awesome. And thank you so much for coming on here and letting me share my story, too.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
And through dozens of conversations, I found some patterns.

DYLAN:
You tagged me in this post, did you want me to see it?

GUEST 1:
(laughing) I honestly didn’t think that you would!

DYLAN:
Did you think that I would read the message?

GUEST 2:
No, your video probably had a bunch of comments on it.

PERSON 4:
I really use Twitter as shouting into the void kind of thing. But it’s like “oh it’s not the void.” The void has human emotions also, as it turns out. There are people in there.

MUSIC OUT / MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
Over and over again, it was apparent that my guests had forgotten that an actual human was gonna see their message or comment. Because the internet makes it particularly easy to forget that we’re interacting with actual human people, and not a grainy profile picture. Or an anonymized username.

MUSIC OUT

And yeah yeah yeah, I get it. That’s, like, Internet 101. But just because it’s an obvious point, doesn’t mean it’s one that we’ve successfully internalized.

We are dehumanized online, and this dehumanization makes it much harder to empathize with each other. And therefore, easier to hate each other, and be hated in return.

While making Conversations with People Who Hate Me I became fascinated by the concept of “The Internet’s Main Character.”

SFX: DEEPER, MORE DRAMATIC REPEAT OF “THE INTERNET’S MAIN CHARACTER”

If you couldn’t tell, that was just me using my hands to cup them around my mouth. Anyway, okay moving on:

The term was coined in January of 2019 by Twitter user maplecocaine who wrote, “Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it.”

What has always stood out to me about the Internet’s Main Character is that they are often forged out of apolitical moments of friction online. Meaning: they’re typically reviled, not for an ideological transgression, but instead some goofy misstep that is perceived as “cringe.”

But the response to this central figure is essentially a form of acceptable bullying: The swarm of jokes at their expense are often funny, which help us laugh it off as the entertainment of That Day On The Internet—but it’s hardly ever entertaining to the person at the bottom of the pile-on.

Now shame is not new. But social media accelerates this pile on at a terrifying speed.

MUSIC IN

If Conversations with People Who Hate Me taught me that online negativity was borne out of the way we dehumanize each other online, then the idea of the Internet’s Main Character is a perfect illustration of this lesson: it’s even right in the name.

They’re regarded as a character and not a human being. And I don’t think there’s a story that better encapsulates this than the story of Jar Jar Binks.

MUSIC OUT

Now, I had long been familiar with the vague shapes of what happened: I knew that the character was widely criticized, that his name was a punchline. But I didn’t understand how such a pile-on happened years before social media as we know it was even invented.

MUSIC IN

So I started digging into the story, and the deeper I got, I realized that this was much bigger and more significant than run-of-the-mill internet beef.

Was Jar Jar Binks the internet’s first main character?

MUSIC OUT

More in just a minute.

[AD BREAK]

DYLAN:
So let me explain Jar Jar Binks to those of you who aren’t familiar. Jar Jar Binks is a Gungan, a mostly underwater species that lives on the planet Naboo. He’s bipedal, amphibious, with long elephant-like ears. And he becomes the sidekick to Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn.

Now I do realize that as I said all of that, that probably made you more confused. Um, okay, let's try this. Here is someone who I guarantee knows less about Star Wars than you do: My mom.

GLENN:
Can you hear me?

DYLAN:
Yeah! Hi.

GLENN:
Hi! Whatcha gonna show me?

DYLAN:
Okay, well I have an opening question for you.

GLENN:
Okay.

DYLAN:
Would you say you are well versed in the Star Wars universe?

GLENN:
Totally not. (both laugh) Totally not.

DYLAN:
That’s an official no.

GLENN:
Official no.

DYLAN:
Ok great. I’m going to share my screen with you, and I want you to tell me who this is.

GLENN:
Ok.

DYLAN:
Alright who is this?

GLENN:
Is this Jar Jar Binks? (laughs)

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
Yeah.

GLENN:
Oh you’re kidding! That’s what Jar Jar looks like?

DYLAN:
How would you describe this being?

GLENN:
Well, there’s something kind of touching about him. It’s those doleful eyes, I think. And he’s got this little snout of a mouth. He’s got this plaintive look on his face, so he’s endearing in a way. He’s a weird as hell guy but he’s endearing.

MUSIC OUT

DYLAN:
“Weird as hell guy, but endearing.” Me in middle school or Jar Jar Binks? You decide.

Ok glad we did that exercise, but I am fully aware you all have Google and know how to use it.

But you know what you don’t have? You don’t have my producer Amy. And honestly… thank god. Because you would all become way too powerful.

AMY:
Hello!

DYLAN:
Hi!

Amy has lured me onto a Zoom call so that she can share her research about how Jar Jar, Star Wars and the internet itself were written about in the late 90s.

AMY:
May 1999, Portland Press Herald, but this was an AP article, so this one I saw kind of got syndicated in a lot of places. But, uh, the headline is called “A Force on the ‘Net.” “Net” with a—

DYLAN:
Apostrophe net!

AMY:
(laughs)

DYLAN:
Wow!

Oh the sweet, sweet nineties. When the word “net” was slang. And also specific enough to describe "A Place"? Articles like these are helpful reminders of the distance between traditional media and the web. I mean, this is a print article and it is literally about the fact that Star Wars fan websites exist. And, helpfully, it lists them.

AMY:
I want you to read number five.
.
DYLAN:
(reading) “www.theforce.net. This Houston-based site is generally considered one of the best fan and news sites for Star Wars junkies.” Do you know more about theforce.net?

AMY:
So I did some digging,

DYLAN:
Uh oh!

AMY:
And I was able to find what the website looked like April 27th, 1999.

SFX: HARP

DYLAN:
Thanks to The WayBack Machine, Amy and I have stepped into a portal,

MUSIC IN

and are looking at TheForce.net as it was right before The Phantom Menace premiered.

AMY:
So, very cheesy banner…

DYLAN:
Wow!

AMY:
With…

DYLAN:
(gasps excitedly)

AMY:
I can’t make out what characters those are.

You guys, these pixels are so enormous you can practically count them. Amy clicks to another page she found on the same website.

AMY:
So this is still TheForce.net. This is from May 8, 1999. And they have character pages for each of the characters. And who did I find?!

MUSIC OUT

DYLAN:
Ok if you don't know the answer to this, sweetie, you have not been listening to this episode. Amy found, say it with me now, Jar Jar Binks.

So, on this character page there are already character quotes and screenshots. Presumably all from the trailers that have been released? It’s actually not totally clear. Anyway, on this Jar Jar Binks page…

AMY:
If I can zoom in a little bit here…

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
We find a bunch of early details that fans have collected on the character—both unofficial and official.

AMY:
People associated with the film are giving interviews. So one interview– in issue 13 of the Star Wars Galaxy Magazine. Rick McCallum, who's the producer, he says, “My favorite character in episode one is an amazing new character [...] which will eventually require computer animation and post-production work. [...] He's a wonderful sidekick. He's discovered by Liam Neeson's character, and he becomes a part of the Jedi entourage. [...] He plays a seriously major role in the story. He'll be in the film for an hour.”

DYLAN:
The producer, Rick McCallum, is basically trying to describe to fans what a motion capture performance is? And honestly, maybe I should too?

MUSIC OUT

Because in case I haven’t already made this clear: Jar Jar Binks is a CGI character that was actually played—on set—by a human actor. And then that performance was then used as a base for the animation.

Now, today we’re much more accustomed to this, right? We know, for example, that there are real actors playing characters in the Avatar movies. We know that Paul Bettany plays Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But this was a really novel idea for the late 90s. It even predated Andy Serkis’ debut as Gollum and Smegol in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

But let’s be real: this is such a highly anticipated film that fans aren’t just gonna settle for official statements from the film’s producer. They’re gonna want inside dirt too.

MUSIC IN

AMY:
And then there's a section called “Spy Reports”

DYLAN:
(gasps)

AMY:
That's all people with some sort of knowledge. This is as far back as 1998. They're getting these early reports about Jar Jar.

DYLAN:
Oh wow!

AMY:
And so then this was an unnamed source from July 7th, 1998. “How can I describe Jar Jar? He's a Gungan, a race of alien…”

DYLAN:
For being written ten months ahead of the movie’s release, this comment contains a pretty accurate physical description of Jar Jar Binks. But what’s really interesting to me is what this insider says at the end of their Spy Report.

AMY:
“...he's also the thing that's going to make this film more like Jedi than Empire. More kid’s film than adult.”

MUSIC OUT

DYLAN:
Identifying Jar Jar as not only a bumbling character but the culprit that transforms the movie into a quote-unquote “kid’s film” is interesting because that became one of the central complaints about the character.

AMY:
So there's so many details about Jar Jar out there.

DYLAN:
Yeah.

AMY:
And so if you're a fan and you're on these websites, you already are starting to form an opinion.

DYLAN:
The take, as we can see, was already starting to form…

AMY:
And they have this screenshot. Do you recognize what this is from?

DYLAN:
I—it must be from_Vanity Fair._ I know that font.

AMY:
So…

DYLAN:
Wow!

AMY:
This was the cover of Vanity Fair in February of ‘99.

DYLAN:
Amid all this speculation, the cast of the new movie appears on the cover of_Vanity Fair._ Back when being visible on a magazine stand was, like, an enormous deal.

In this photo, the four main cast members are all assembled in the Tunisian desert. So we have a camera, we have lighting equipment. The vibe is very behind-the-scenes: actors, still in costume, and they’re just hangin’ out between takes. So we’ve got Liam Neeson, we’ve got Natalie Portman. And then Ewan McGregor's just off to the side. And behind them, is Jar Jar Binks.

No, not the actor who played Jar Jar, but the digital rendering of the character.

It’s a photo that’s half realism and half fantasy, right? On the one hand you have these flesh-and-blood actors who you know and love. And on the other hand you have a CGI alien.

MUSIC IN

Maybe it’s because I know where this story goes, but it feels like all of the elements of a perfect storm are beginning to form.

For one thing, fans are communicating on centralized internet forums. And traditional media is directing more people to those spaces. And on those centralized internet forums, an anonymous Spy Report has identified Jar Jar Binks as the reason the movie will be a kids movie.

And then, as we saw in the Vanity Fair cover photo Jar Jar is being visually sold to audiences not as a character played by an actor, but a character devoid of any connection to a real person.

Which makes it harder to empathize with him.

And much easier to hate.

SFX: MODEM

PERSON 1:
Liked the movie, hated Jar Jar.

PERSON 2:
He was more of a technology demonstration than a character.

PERSON 3:
He is very annoying. When my friend and I saw the movie we didn’t see the whole thing because we were too busy throwing popcorn at him on the screen.

PERSON 5:
jarjarsucks.com

PERSON 6:
jarjarmustdie.com

PERSON 4:
I hate Jar Jar because he pretty much sums up everything that was wrong with episode 1.

PERSON 7:
Jar Jar absolutely ruined the movie for me.

PERSON 9:
burninhelljarjar.com

PERSON 8:
Please, hurt him plenty.

PERSON 10:
If Jar Jar Binks were drowning, I would throw him a stone.

MUSIC OUT

The thing about many of the characters we encounter—both in films and online—is that behind them is a real human being.

AHMED:
Alright. My name is Ahmed Best. I am, uh, a son. I'm a husband, I'm a father. I am an educator. I am a writer. I'm a director. I am an actor.

DYLAN:
You are very famous for playing a very, uh, culturally significant role in the zeitgeist.

AHMED:
Yes, that's very true.

DYLAN:
What is that role?

AHMED:
Um, I played Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars — in the Star Wars Prequels. The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and_in Revenge of the Sith._

DYLAN:
Coming up on The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks…

AHMED:
For anyone Black in this country to choose to be an artist takes an insurmountable amount of courage.

ROB:
It's a tall task to put a, an animated character into a live action movie next to Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman. For our audience members, there's a little lizard voice in the back going, “is it real? Is it real? Do I believe in it? Am I engaged in it?”

AISHA:
Oftentimes when Black characters are accepted in narrative spaces, it is often to serve as the clown.

ADAM:
In 1999 when I watched Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, I hated Jar Jar so much that I made The Jar Jar Hate Page.

ETHAN:
I think there is the possibility that The Phantom Menace is a singularity of some sort.

AHMED:
You know, Star Wars is this thing that can like, really take over your life.

MUSIC OUT

THEME IN

DYLAN:
The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks is a part of the TED Audio Collective. It’s produced by Amy Gaines McQuade, Jacob Smith, and me, Dylan Marron. Our editors are Banban Cheng and Michelle Quint. Additional editing by Jimmy Gutierrez and Alejandra Salazar. Production support from Roxanne Hai Lash. Mastering by Ben Tolliday, who also made our theme with help from Jason Gambrell. Additional production help from Nisha Venkat. Fact checking by Kate Williams with Julia Dickerson. Special thanks to Gretta Cohn and Dan O'Donnell.

THEME OUT