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At Launch Party, Post-Rap Genius Shows How to Annotate Anything on the Web

The startup formerly known as Rap Genius thinks the internet should have more layers.
The MoMA PS1 VW Performance Dome where the Genius Live Annotation took place (Image: Kari Paul/Motherboard)

Dozens of onlookers crowded into MoMA PS1 on Friday to watch what was presumably the first ever live internet annotation battle held inside a geodesic dome in Queens.

The event was the latest step in the evolution of Genius, formerly known as Rap Genius; a website that began in 2009 as a place for fans to decipher rap lyrics, but hopes to become a way to "annotate the world."

Its rebranding began in July 2014, when the startup raised $40 million in funding, dropped "rap" from its name and announced its expansion into a wider variety of online content, including poetry, news articles, and historical texts.

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Friday's event marked the unveiling of the beta version of the Genius technology to the general public. The platform essentially provides an annotation layer on top of any web page that can be accessed by using a plug in, or by adding "genius.it" in front of any URL.

The inside of the dome before the event took place. The vinyl installation on the floor is from a billboard announcing the relaunch. (Image: Kari Paul/Motherboard)

The beta reveal was in collaboration with the opening of Simon Denny: The Innovator's Dilemma, an exhibit at PS1 by a Berlin-based artist whose work surrounds themes of innovation, startups, and, "the new media economy."

"We thought this was the perfect event to showcase this because Simon's work is all about innovation on the internet," Genius CEO and co-founder Tom Lehman told Motherboard. "Honestly, this is in some sense about innovating and pushing the web forward, but it's also kind of going back to the early days of the web too. The original web browsers were supposed to include annotation, we are trying to go back and figure out what the web would have been like if that had been fulfilled."

A panel of annotators sat on stage in the dome, each adding images, gifs, and commentary to articles and other text chosen by Denny about innovation, including a Wikipedia page on the future and a Harvard Business Review article called, "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave." They worked from their own laptops using the new Genius annotation platform, which is in beta, as a VJ clicked through the pages and displayed the annotations on a large projector screen.

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An image of the Wikipedia page annotated at Friday's event. (Image: Screengrab)

"The internet, with this product, is your canvas for creating whatever your mark is on the layer of annotation that is going to be on every document and on every webpage," Lehman said. "You can go a very exegetical route, you can try to explain what's going on, you can just get a little more creative or imagistic."

Participants in the battle included Lehman himself, as well as Sean Monahan of K-HOLE, the trend forecasting perhaps best-known for coining the term "normcore;" artist Nightcoregirl, artist Ryder Ripps; and Calvin Waterman, creative director of skate apparel brand MOOD NYC. Various employees of Genius swapped in and out of the panel throughout the night, including Emily Segal, a co-founder of K-HOLE who was hired as the creative director of Genius in December.

Annotators sit on stage at Friday's event (Image: Kari Paul/Motherboard)

Segal said she came on board to help Genius show the world "they are so much more than rap." The expansion and move to be taken more seriously are complex. Genius has been called "the most clownish startup in the tech boom," catching flack for bizarre and sexist comments from one of the co-founders (he has since been ousted), and the use of manipulative "growth hacking" SEO tactics.

Even the basic premise of the site, a service founded by three white dudes to explain rap and hip hop lyrics, does not sit well with many.

But Genius wants to shake at least some of that reputation, making big hires and launching eye-catching collaborations with intellectuals and artists to make it happen.

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The author Junot Díaz once annotated an excerpt from his award-winning novel The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on Genius. Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin has been adding annotations to songs by artists he has worked with, including Kanye West, Jay Z, and Johnny Cash. In January, well-known music critic Sasha Frere-Jones made waves with his decision to leave the New Yorker to serve as the site's executive editor. In February, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon annotated Kendrick Lamar's lyrics for "The Blacker the Berry." This week, Eminem posted more than 40 annotations on Genius, of his music and others'.

"It's all about maintaining the original spirit and irreverence," Segal said of the site's new brand. "The coolest thing about Genius is that it's a Wikipedia style knowledge project that has its roots in hip hop, and I think that's basically the most contemporary thing you can be."

At one point in the night, the panelists annotated a blog post on TechCrunch by Ben Horowitz, whose firm is a major investor in Genius. Called "The Struggle," the post is about adversity faced by entrepreneurs. The panelists infiltrated it with Yoda memes, NSFW photos, and YouTube videos alongside insightful comments and links to academic papers.

Article on TechCrunch by Ben Horowitz, as annotated by participants in Friday's event. (Image: Screengrab)

In many ways, the mishmash of comments encapsulate the journey of Genius from a rogue rap lyric site to a means to "annotate everything." According to Segal, the company is working to hold onto that nuance as it changes.

"I think that we can create something that millions and millions of people use, but it can still be interesting and contradictory; complicated sometimes and simple other times, and funny and irreverent," Segal said. "Trying to figure out how to negotiate that is the most challenging part.