We Live in Public delves into the revolutionary impact of the Internet on human interactions, as experienced by visionary Internet pioneer Josh Harris. Once hailed as the godfather of New York City's downtown Internet scene during the 90s—famous for his extravagant parties and groundbreaking innovations in chat and streaming audio—Harris now finds himself somewhat of a forgotten figure. His wild experiments with the Internet and how media is consumed pushed the limits too far, leading to his exclusion from the narrative of tech history.
Documented by award-winning filmmaker Ondi Timoner, who has followed Harris's journey for over a decade, the film chronicles his evolution from a puppet master to someone who became a puppet himself, capturing his rise to riches and subsequent downfall. Timoner's goal is to portray Josh Harris as a modern-day cautionary tale, one that forces us to reflect on the implications of our growing reliance on media and technology for living, working, and loving.
The narrative tracks the ascent and decline of a man who, as far back as the early '90s, predicted an existence dominated by online interactions, where individuals voluntarily share intimate details of their lives as fame and significance become readily available—only to find themselves ensnared in virtual confines. Harris envisioned platforms resembling today's social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube and created the early companies that would serve as their forerunners. As he insightfully remarked, > "The first guy gets the arrow, the second guy gets the castle."
Harris, who founded the first Internet market research company (Jupiter Communications) and the first Internet television network (Pseudo.com), candidly shared with his brother the drive behind his ventures: "I have to do this, or someone else will." At a time when broadband access was minimal—less than 1% of the population—his launch of Pseudo was bold, prioritizing innovation over attainment. Known as the "Warhol of the Web," Harris has wrestled with his vision of a future where technology molds human interaction and shapes personal identities.
At the emotional core of the film lies Harris's transformation into a media casualty. Growing up as the youngest of seven and frequently neglected, he found solace in the world of television, which he describes as comprising his formative years. After several successful endeavors during the dot-com boom, he sought to compensate for his lonely childhood by inviting people and cameras into his life, ultimately crafting his own reality.
While the strategies that once vaulted him to fame ultimately propelled him into decline, Harris continued to position himself at the center of an impending reality where public living became the norm. He constructed an underground bunker in NYC at the dawn of the millennium, where over 100 individuals cohabited in a meticulously controlled environment—complete with their own surveillance cameras—subjecting themselves to intense psychological experiences like artillery training and mock interrogations. This venture was famously shut down by FEMA on New Year's Day 2000, after which Harris pushed the boundaries even further.
Reinventing the experiment, he rigged his loft with 32 motion-sensitive cameras, offering an unfiltered glimpse into his life alongside his girlfriend, Tanya. Their broadcast, weliveinpublic.com, aimed to showcase their lives in real-time for six continuous months, including their hopes to conceive in front of an audience. However, the initiative backfired; the chatters exerted influence over Harris's world, leading to a disintegration of his relationship and mental stability. After enduring this invasive lifestyle and suffering further losses from the dot-com crash, Harris retreated to an apple farm in upstate New York for five years, seeking solace away from the overwhelming media spotlight that had consumed him.
During this period of exile, Harris's foresight about digital networking began to materialize in platforms like Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook, which would redefine social interaction. When he returned to the tech landscape with his new project, Operator 11, a platform for online streaming where users could showcase their content, he discovered that YouTube had already dominated the market with its simple concept of "broadcast yourself."
Having depleted his resources on Operator 11 and left financially vulnerable, Harris disappeared to Ethiopia as the world around him, a world he had brilliantly forecasted, began to accelerate into an era that he had once imagined. Directed by Ondi Timoner, the film offers an immersive exploration of the personal saga of Josh Harris since his peak in 1999. Much like Timoner's prior works, DIG! and JOIN US, We Live In Public draws viewers deep into a fascinating reality that would otherwise remain hidden. Through an engaging blend of vérité footage and dramatic narrative, the film captures over a decade of rich personal history and offers a visceral journey into a time when technology had yet to dominate our lives, illustrating how we are only beginning to witness the effects of this digital transformation as Harris warns us—we are merely seeing "the smoke on the horizon."
