The Truman Project: “VidShare” as a Tool
The Truman Project created a tool called “VidShare“, which allows users to completely immerse themselves into the social media simulation community by being able to interact with videos and comments posted by others.
VidShare uses minimal personal information to create the user a username. It prompts the user to pick a generic avatar, an animal, and offers up three interests (Education, Health and Lifestyle, or Science and Technology) to put the user into a community fitting their interests.
VidShare is a useful tool for the researchers of the Truman Project because it makes the simulation as realistic as possible while also being controlled by the researchers. Users are able to feel like they are using a real social media platform without having to give up personal information.
VidShare is the type of tool that could be used in Digital Humanities. VidShare is the sharing of videos and comments that encourages interaction between users. Videos and comments are digital artifacts and they can be studied.