Campus Party[pt], a huge yearly meeting of the Internet-kin taking place in Spain[es] for more than 10 years now, finally had its first Brazilian edition in the week of February 10th, in São Paulo. More than three thousand bloggers, gamers, modders, free-software and free-culture activists, robot-loving, digital-camera-totting, soda-guzzling and/or healthy/junkie food devouring people and other diverse kinds of geeks, as well as some people and journalists curious to see them, flocked to the Biennial Pavilion at Ibirapuera Park, connected their laptops/desktops (if they brought one) to the impressive 5 gigabit connection offered by a big local telecom and got together to do whatever they liked to do. Campuseros waiting – almost – in line outside the pavilion for their time to come inside and look for their places in the camping and the worktables (photo by Pattoli) Campusero in his tent, posing with his laptop. Those who did not bring their own computers to the event had a very hard time getting access to the impressive 5.5gigabit connection brought by Telefonica. (photo by campuspartybr) But the modders and the gamers never had any problem bringing their incredible machines (photo by patricianardelli) That was Campus Party Brasil 2008, or at least that was a way to describe it. But Sergio Amadeu[pt], one of the event's Brazilian coordinators, free-software hardcore activist and a social scientist, who happens to be a blogger too, had a different way to describe it[pt]: “O que é o Campus Party? Podemos dizer é um encontro presencial das comunidades que habitam a Internet. É um espaço incomum onde comunidades, que dificilmente estariam juntas, reuniram-se nesta semana para trocar idéias, fazer novos amigos e conhecer os avanços das tecnologias. O mais interessante é que neste Campus Party Brasil, conseguimos reunir entretenimento com aprendizagem em uma programação com mais de trezentos conteúdos. Trata-se de um momento típico da cibercultura, pós-industrial. As pessoas estão se divertindo enquanto ensinam, aprendem e compartilham conhecimento.” “What is the Campus Party? We can say it's a real-world meeting of the internet-bound communities. It's an unusual place where communities that would hardly meet face to face could get together to share ideas, make new friends and acknowledge new technological advancements. The most interesting is that in this Campus Party Brasil we managed to join entertainment and learning in a grid of activities with more than three hundred different contents. It's a typical cyberculture moment, post-industrial. People are having fun as they teach, learn and share knowledge.” Besides, Ariel Foina, who happens to be a social scientist studying the Internet and a blogger, too, had even another “interface” with the event[pt]: “[…]tudo parece uma salada de multiculturalismo, um simulacro de diversidade legitimosa. Na abertura tivemos um “robo” que fala português com sotaque, um músico que depois transvirou-se em ministro, uma mesa que tem sons e cores, e uma bateria de escola de samba como plumas-pra-espanhol-ver na cabeça. Deixando de ser antropologo e voltando a ser sociologo… Cheguei à conclusão que o evento todo é uma grande navegação-em-carne-e-osso na internet. Se alguém tinha alguma duvida de que a rede era feita por pessoas, agora não tem mais. E assim como na Internet, o fenômeno mais marcante do evento é o ruido no canal de comunicação. Qualquer canal… se parar pra conversar com alguem, se parar pra ouvir uma palestra, vai haver barulhos e ruídos e etc ao fundo, todo o tempo e o tempo todo.” “[…] everything looks like a big multicultural mixture, a simulacrum of legitimistic diversity. In the opening ceremony we had a robot that speaks Portuguese with a funny accent, a musician that later transmogrified in a state minister, a table with sounds and colors and the drummers core of a ‘samba-school’ with feathers and adornments to catch Spanish hearts in their heads. Leaving behind the anthropologist in me and going back to the sociologist… I've come to the conclusion that the whole event is a huge real-life-websurfing. If someone doubted the web was made of people, this doubt can stand no more. As in the Internet, the most impressive phenomena in the event is the noise at the communication channel. Every channel… if you stop to talk with someone, if you stand to listen to a talk, there will be rumble and noise and such things in the background, all the time.” But Ariel ends his post with a complaint (or maybe a call to action): “me resta perguntar: depois de censurarem o YouTube no backbone, ilegalizarem o P2P, censurarem a venda do CS..