The New River

Journal of Electronic Literature and Digital Art

Info

The Forever Club is an ensemble web comedy using a mash-up of videos, texts, interactive elements, animations, audio, memes, and visual remnants of social media. 

Characters

There are four main characters: Jordan, Cj, Karen, and Gabe. Each episode of the comedy follows their unusual and often surreal misadventures. No matter how strange things get in each episode, and no matter how strained the moments between the characters become, they remain friends. Their life-long friendship is enshrined in The Forever Club

The Series

The main component of the project is the episodes themselves. In addition to the characters’ narrative lines, as revealed through videos, audio clips, landscape backgrounds, visual dialog, and the characters’ constant interactions with their phones, the episodes offer further opportunities for interactivity from the audience. Clicking (or touching) pop-up elements on the page lead to hidden elements. Games, quizzes, questionnaires, polls, write-in functions for the audience, and interactive messages from the Director also appear within the episodes. In addition, fake ads, cut-away gags, and other elements provide layered nuances to the storyline and symbolic resonance for the work. 

This episode in The New River is #6 of The Forever Club: “We Prepare to Die.” In this episode, the friends discover the threat of climate change and prepare for the coming apocalypse. Previous episodes are listed below with brief synopses and their URLs.

Companion Website

A parallel component of the project is the companion website. TheForeverClub.com provides synopses and links to the episodes; biographies of the actors; idiosyncratic notes from the Director about the project (including a number of interactive features); a “FanFeed” for audience comments; and a contact page. This website complements the episodes and offers a fictional backstory to the episodic action and the project’s history.

Specs

The Forever Club is built with HTML5, CSS & JavaScript and is viewable on desktops, laptops, phones, and other devices.

Previous Episodes

The Forever Club website

Episode 1, “The Blank”
Synopsis: Jordan’s sister is missing, and the friends have agreed to find her. But is she missing?

Episode 2, “Let’s Get Drunk!”
Synopsis: The competition is on. The players take their positions. Who will win?

Episodes 3, “Einstein Says”
Synopsis: To see if they are real, and not figments of their own imaginations, the friends test themselves and the world around them

Episode 4, “The Familiarity Principle”
Synopsis: The group takes a dare and goes off social media for a week.

Episode 5, “The Kiss”
Synopsis: Gabe kisses Jordan. But without her permission.