Correspondence between me and Michael Grovers
By Michael Grover 1
Correspondence between me and Michael Grovers
By Michael Grover
_ Contents 1
Introduction
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Michaelgrovers.com
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Meet the Groverlord
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Animating the Groverlord
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The Groverlord on Facebook
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My engagement in the group
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My most powerful adversary
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The first annual meeting
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Utter failure
Introduction On a fine day in winter, I, Michael Grover, decided to Google my name. As one does. What I found terrified me. There is an ocean of Michael Grovers in the world. What I thought was my name and my name alone in fact belongs to hundreds. Most disturbing of all is that I am not the only Michael Grover that is a graphic designer. After this discovery, I resolved to use what I learned at the Rhode Island School of Design to stage a hostile takeover of the name Michael Grover. To that end, I founded the National Committee of Michael Grovers (NCoMG). I made the NCoMG real by creating a website, a Facebook group, a LinkedIn group, and staging a meeting of Michael Grovers in Providence Rhode Island. This book documents my correspondence with other Michael Grovers, where I invite them to engage in a greater community of like-named individuals, with varying levels of success.
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Michaelgrovers.com If it doesn’t exist on the web, it doesn’t exist. This in mind, I made a simple website for the National Committee of Michael Grovers to give it legitimacy. So I could send a link to this website to a Michael Grover and they would see that yes, the NCoMG exists and is not a joke.
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Meet the Groverlord Creating the National Committee of Michael Grovers begs the question: Who would be its leader? Of course for practical purposes the leader needed to be me, but why should such a young Michael Grover be its leader? How can I, a Michael Grover with a vendetta against all those that share my name, be a fair and just leader? It became clear that I in my current identity could not be a leader to the Michael Grovers. But what if I could use my skills to manufacture a leader? So I created The Groverlord. The Groverlord’s face is an average of the faces of over forty different Michael Grovers using images from Google. The Groverlord is every Michael Grover. He is impartial, ageless, and wise beyond measure. He knows what is best for Michael Grovers because he is all of them combined. The Groverlord would be the mask I wear as I contact the Michael Grovers of the world and rally them to join the National Convention of Michael Grovers.
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A selection of Michael Grovers that were averaged into the face of the Groverlord.
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“ We are the perfect combination of the multitude of Michael Grovers across the world.�
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Animating the Groverlord To bring the Groverlord to life, I employed the miraculous face swapping technology of Snapchat. I printed out a picture of the Groverlord and swapped my face with it, allowing me to animate the Groverlord’s face with a surprising range of facial expression. An interesting side effect of this process is that it traps my actual face on the piece of paper. As if by some dark ritual, I temporarily imprison my real identity in an inanimate vessel, while the Groverlord possesses my body. My face often appears to watch the Groverlord in fear and awe.
Me and the Groverlord 11
The Groverlord on Facebook I chose Facebook to be the primary way to contact other Michael Grovers. Most of the correspondence took place over Facebook chat, status updates, and comments thereof.
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First contact with other Michael Grovers
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A shining endorsement from Michael Grover
I put his testimonial on michaelgrovers.com
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Outreach efforts
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In addition to Facebook I used LinkedIn to contact Michael Grovers.
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My engagement in the group In order to have greater control of the narrative and create discussion among the Michael Grovers, I started talking to them using my real Facebook profile. I pretended to be another confused Michael Grover with no knowledge of what this group is about. Some of the other Michael Grovers opened up to me and we chatted about or jobs.
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My most powerful adversary The domain Michaelgrover.com is owned by Michael Grover, a “Bilingual (Spanish/English), Los Angeles-based technology and media marketing professional.” Naturally, I want this domain for myself and was disappointed to see that it is taken. This particular Michael Grover my most powerful adversary. Making him a part of the National Committee of Michael Grovers was critical, so I though I’d use a personal touch to contact him. I called him over the phone to tell him about the NCoMG. This is the transcript: Ring, ring, ring Michael Grover: Hello? Me: Hi is this Michael Grover? Michael Grover: This is. Me: Uh let me introduce myself, my name is also Michael Grover. And I’m the head of the National Committee of Michael Grovers, and I wanted to let you know we’re having a little meeting on May 14th in Providence Rhode Island if you wanted to come. Michael Grover: Uh, no thanks. Me: No? Well if you want to check out some information, we have our website: michaelgrovers (with an “s” at the end) dot com, where you can find our Facebook page. Michael Grover: Um, okay thanks. Me: Alright. Have a good day, Michael. Bye. After the call, I followed up with Michael in an email. After that, he requested to join the National Committee of Michael Grovers. My outreach was a success!
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The First Annual Meeting My goal for bringing together the Michael Grovers was for it to culminate in the first ever meeting of multiple people with the same first and last name.
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Opening video transcript: Groverlord: We would like to welcome you to the First Annual Meeting of the National Committee of Michael Grovers. We would like to give an especially warm welcome to all of the Michael Grovers that attended this meeting. Thank you for coming such a long way to little old Providence just to meet people who have the name that is the same as yours. It’s really a beautiful thing that we could all come together and cherish our name and celebrate it’s commonality and each of our uniqueness despite our similar names. Now let me introduce myself, I am the Groverlord. I am the perfect combination of all of you. My face is the average of every one of your faces. Forty faces into one. Now that’s enough about me, I must introduce your host, Michael Grover. Please give him a warm welcome!
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Michael Grover
There can only be one
Form to change name FROM Michael Grover 40
Two name change forms. One is for Michael Grovers to change their name to something else, the other is for non-Michael-Grovers to change their name to Michael Grover, and join the brotherhood. This is a small way that I can take ownership of the name. I can remove Michael Grovers that I deem unworthy by compelling them to change their name. Conversely I can invite non Michael Grovers that I find worthy of the name to change their name to Michael Grover. Eventually only the worthy ones will have the name Michael Grover.
There can never be enough Michael Grover
Form to change name TO Michael Grover 41
Space mockup
Event poster Projection of the Groverlord
non-Michael-Grovers seating
Michael Grovers seating
Host position 2
Michael Grovers this way Host position 1 non mgs
Welcome table
mgs name change form
name tags
info pamphlet
sharpee
guest book
name tags
po t Ev en
er st
po
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6 MORE 2’x8’ ALUMINUM TABLES 35 TUCK CHAIRS ON DOLLY
en Ev
st er
Non-Michael Grovers this way
video of Groverlord intro, then looping animation of Groverlord observing and makign comments
FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD
THE PLAN: 12:30-1:10: Seating and discussion 1:10-1:20: Groverlord and host introduction 1:20-1:30: Playing of video and audio messages from absent Michael Grovers 1:30Standing, eating, schmoozing
EXHIBIT SUPPORT STORAGE/POST-IT NOTES
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Utter failure Not surprisingly, no Michael Grovers attended the meeting. This caused the Groverlord to doubt the whole idea of bringing together all of the Michael Grovers.
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