peripheries

In the moment: reaching out to gay men online

July 11th, 2008 | by User Image

roger |

In the moment is an innovative series of “webisodes”, short online dramas formatted for the Internet. Set in West Hollywood In the moment aims at reaching gay men and at providing a portal for discussion about safe sex and relationships.

The idea is original and the advocates behind the project should be praised for having identified the Internet both as today’s most growing means of communication for gay men and as the best medium to reach them. Unfortunately, the result rather come as a miss and fails to engage with the real issues behind unsafe sex.

Find more videos like this on In The Moment

These short videos might work in some parts of West Hollywood and might appeal to some sections of the MSM landscape, but it is doubtful that they would have much appeal in the general MSM population or somewhere else. The length of the programme makes it difficult to feel close to or to identify with the protagonists and despite being described in the LA Times as a “racy Web show” it comes up as very much sanitised if only compared to the British Queer as Folk.

Then there is the problem of the message. What are these webisodes about? Unsafe sex? Consensual unsafe sex (episode 1)? Alcohol, drug and other time waster (epidose 2)?

Watching the webisodes there is little suggestion why one should use condoms with his partner or why one was not using condoms with his partner in the first place. Likewise, there is little indication as to why drugs or alcohol before having sex are not a good idea (assuming they are not). As to looking for sex online, with the exception of being a huge waste of time, what’s wrong with that?

The facilitated discussions following each episode bring together a bunch of nice guys who probably don’t face the issues raised by the programme or have been able to deal with them.The evangelism of their armchair discussion makes the whole debate rather fake. But the answer to the question above can be found in the survey that comes with the show and asks:

After watching In the Moment…

I am more likely to talk with my partner about using a condom when we fuck.
I will party less (or not at all,)? with drugs or alcohol before having sex.
I am less likely to look for sex online.

Too subtle to be efficient. Let’s get real. If “fear [...] is no longer selling as a prevention tactic” as wrote Scott Gold from the Los Angeles Times, hinting at potentially risky behaviours ain’t going to work when other messages are failing after 20 years of hammering.

The video is of good enough quality, the length is about right, the cast is acceptable, though the attempt to make it as multicultural as possible certainly does not reflect the reality. But the producer and director should have taken advantage of the freedom given by the internet and be much bolder! They should have made their message clearer and to the point. A message that can be sum up by one of the comment in the discussion forum:

It is amazing how much one moment

of silence
of inaction
of pleasure

can change your life significantly

[be aware]

The project, though heading in the right direction, fails to tell anything about the significant changes in the life of an HIV-positive person. A possible reason behind that is that nowadays, and at least in developed countries where the epidemic is resurgent, there is not much significant changes in someone life for quite some time and that’s the hardest misguided morale comfort to fight.

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