Fan To Pro - The Blog of Professional Geekery

The "Geeking" of Oscar

This year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made a change to its traditional Oscar procedure - instead of five films competing for Best Picture, a full 10 would be up for the big prize. This was done to boost ratings by ensuring that more crowd-pleasers could be nominated along with the grim, low-grossing dramas that have become the ceremony's recent bread and butter.

The result was the most geek-friendly Best Picture lineup yet. Of the 10 nominees, almost half can be said to be at least somewhat geeky films.

The iPad Geeksplosion

So, the iPad arrived in a fury of media attention, debate over the product's merits (there were a few people who said they expected more from it) and snickering over its name. It will inevitably be closely followed by other tablets of both the Android and Windows varieties.

This was more than a big product launch - it was a geeksplosion, because this thing is going to touch every corner of the geekonomy. Here's a rundown on how it's going to affect most of the major industries we cover:

The G-Word

David Anderegg, a professor of psychology at Bennington College in Vermont, is a champion of the geek. His book, "Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them" examines the roots of the stereotype (he believes it is an outgrowth of American anti-intellectualism, and puts the blame for launching the idea of the brainiac as social outcast square on Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow") and how it does damage to kids who are forced to hide their true personalities and interests to fit into society.

He definitely sounds like the kind of person we fan-to-pro types want on our side - except in recent statements made in the New York Times, Anderegg takes things a step too far. He advocates banning the words "nerd" and "geek," because he says they are epithets equivalent to racial slurs.

Now, the word "geek" can be ugly when misapplied. But a slur? Hardly.

Frustration Friday - Trending to Stupid

I'm a news junkie.  I'm also a geek, which means that I'm used to getting my news from some blogs, aggregators, and sources that are pretty informed.  You know what I mean of course - you're a fanboy, fangirl, geek, nerd, otaku, what have you.  We THRIVE on information.

Which is why I'm getting a bit tired of the news cycles of the geekosphere.  You know, where you can predict to the quarter - if not the MONTH - what the big story will be, who will be up, who will be down.  Those times where every few months this company is big - and the next few months they're in trouble.  Those times when the news "discovers" something they discovered a few months ago.

It's getting old, people.

Properties, Media, Loyalty

So, yes, there will be a Risk movie.  And a Monopoly movie.  There's the failed attempt at Thundercats that looked actually cool, but films as we've seen are really working to create effort-free Multimedia synergy.  Or to put it more crassly - grab a name, slap a film on it, profit from the free publicity and associations.

I am sure people will see the aforementioned films and others out of various reasons, from buying the publicity to morbid curiosity.  Some may even make money or provide interesting experiments (the Monopoly film may do so).  However, I think those behind the films are missing something.

Namely, a longer-term plan that builds interest, community, and long-term involvement.

Frustration Friday: Geekiness is Mainstream, get over it

And it's time for Frustration Friday, a nice, relaxing rant where I look at annoying things in the geekonomy, the fan-to-pro world, and more.

Let's talk the idea of mainstream and geeky things.

It happened.

It's over.

Geekiness WON.

Welcome to The Everything Wars

Bonnie and I write on video wars, text wars, audio wars, book wars.  I'm starting to think that we may have this wrong.  Not that we're wrong about there being a LOT of competition over standards, delivery methods, media, etc.  I think we're not looking at it from a big enough picture.

We've seen Google announce an OS aimed at Netbooks.  Microsoft suddenly announces Office for Web really isn't as far away as it seemed.  Amazon is working on text deployment (Kindle of course), which conflicts with Barnes and Noble, and also runs on the iPhone.  The iPhone now has to cope with Android (Google), but Verizon is also getting in on the phone app store act.  EVERYONE is busy with some kind of video, while Hulu finally explains why PS3 people got locked out for awhile, and Netflix is scrambling to work with Microsoft.  Microsoft as we noted, is tussling with Google, so who knows what's next.

We don't have video wars.  Or audio wars.  Or text wars.

In the technical side of the Geekonomy we've now got the EVERYTHING wars.  Everyone at some point seems to be butting heads with everyone else in the technology and media side of things.  I'd say we've got unprecedented conflicts, changes, and just plain weirdness coming our way for at least two years.

The Future of Publishing

After reading this article on Michael Stackpoole's ideas about where fiction is going, my usual speculation urges came to the forefront.  I began to wonder what might a viable model be for publishing internet fiction that would go around the big publishers, or at least let one build a reputation and an audience.

Understand of course I am NOT a professional writer (I've been published professionally, which is no where near the same).  This is pure geek theory, so take it as you will, and make sure that grain of salt has friends.

So, here goes - what I see as a viable model for fiction publishing in the future.

Stealth Skill-Building

We’ve often said that your fandom connections help you pick up skills that you can translate into success in the job market. A lot of them are obvious – working on anime music videos can be a doorway into the booming world of streaming video, that is.

But some of them aren’t so apparent at first. You may be doing something you think only pertains to fandom – and then get an “aha” moment and realize you’ve picked up something useful elsewhere.

Geek Chic And You

So according to CNN, geek is now chic. They're having a huge influence on shaping technology and pop culture, shows with prominent geek characters like "Chuck" and "The Big Bang Theory" are on prime time TV, and, well, there's that little J.J. Abrams movie coming out this weekend . . .

I'm going to say the same thing to this that I said to the Canadian Ministry of Education's theory that learning software as part of a hobby makes you valuable on the job market: You're just now discovering this?