If like me you love reading, hearing and seeing good storytelling and experiencing moments of your life with other storytellers then you will most likely love Cowbird. Originally set up by Jonathan Harris, the creator of We Feel Fine and his team, Cowbird is an online storytelling community and public library of human experiences.
The idea behind Cowbird is to tell short location tagged stories using a mixture of text, photos and sound. These stories are often the personal and deep experiences of the storyteller and are spread through the network by fellow storytellers, giving you a real sense of community and understanding.
I was lucky enough to be invited to Cowbird a little over a year ago now by my good friend Leilani Holmes and though I haven’t taken part as much as I had originally planned it did give me a valuable outlet while dealing with difficult situations in my life. The community who read and passed on my stories each provided support in their own way. In my experience Cowbird is similar to how I’d imagine an interactive diary. People share their experience and thoughts much in the same way as they would in a diary, however this diary replies to you through the network of storytellers loving a story or sharing it with others.
The stories people share via this network may be something small that affected them in various ways both good and bad, or a large issue that has an impact on us all such as earthquakes, wars, or huge protests. These stories are collected in “sagas” were each individual story helps build an overarching story of humanity, allowing for a very personal insight into big themes. Due to the different types of media involved in these stories (text, image and sound) it is easy for almost anyone to engage themselves with one and choose how much they get involved. If text isn’t your thing then listening to the sounds around where a photo was taken can give you a bigger understanding on the story. Equally if you choose not to take part in listening or admiring the photograph there is still plenty for you to enjoy. Could this style of communication be just what the post-literate society is looking for?
Either way it would be great to see, hear and experience more stories from those of you who like to share.
