Geek Speak: Perhaps you’ve heard rumblings that “nerdic” is the fastest growing language (from Wired, Gizmodo, the Telegraph, or Daily Mail). This “geek speak” includes terms coined specifically for conversation about internet and technology, like mash-up, rickroll, Wimax, and so on. Such terms are being added to the Oxford English Dictionary more rapidly than any other category of terms.

As far as I can tell, the newspaper stories on this essentially amount to regurgitating the press release, even including the part where it claims that this is a real language that can support entire conversations and that will unite Europe. The blogs recognize that this is not a real language (and Gizmodo even calls out the retailer behind the press release for this), which kind of provides a funny example of websites actually providing more critical and careful news coverage than print sources.

For another angle on geek lingo (which I have yet to check out fully myself), check out this article about leetspeak in the Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society. That link goes to the abstract, but it’s also available as a free PDF. (Thanks to Cabral for the tip!)

The Geek Defense: Perhaps you’ve read about Hans Reiser, the computer programmer who is being tried under suspicion that he murdered his wife. Wired had a big write-up about his story a short while back. Since reading that, I came across a Washington Post article which paints this in an unexpected light: The suspect’s seeming paranoia and bizarre activities—such as carrying around tons of cash and removing his cell phone battery—are geeky eccentricities, not evidence of guilt. The Post article suggests that Silicon Valley may be the only place where Reiser might find a jury of his peers, where his “actions appear fairly reasonable, at least to people who spend much more time with computer code than with other humans.”

I can imagine cases where this kind of defense might actually make some sense—not just for geeks, but the concept that some people have a quirky psychology that might be hard for your average person to interpret as anything but the slip-ups of a lunatic. Nevertheless, I wonder if it’s problematic for a court to attribute “quirky psychology” with “spend[ing] much more time with computer code”—as if being solitary is one thing, but being a solitary programmer makes you a cyborg or something. I’m no expert on criminal law, though, so I’ll leave the interpretation of this specific case to those who are.

Prom Night, Take 2: Church clued me in to Geek Prom. As the site explains, “For those who were too geeky to attend their high school prom, it’s a chance to finally be accepted. For those who were too cool to properly enjoy their high school prom, it’s an opportunity to finally let that inner-geek out.” Sounds potentially pretty inclusive—anyone been who can report what it’s like? The photos on the site and other sources indicate that lots of attendees really ham it up, dressing as unfashionably as possible.

Following Up on Black Nerds: You might remember Raafi Rivero’s post about black nerds from awhile back (which I discussed here). Well, Michael Hastings-Black clued me in to Raafi’s follow-up post, featuring a video of the SEO Rapper neatly illustrating a point that some readers originally struggled with:

The thrust of the piece remains vital — that because of our more democratized communication tools we are beginning to see a more accurate depiction of black america. Mainly because, you know, that media is actually being created by, ahem, black people. But all of these things are articulated more succinctly by the SEO Rapper above, whose seamless integration of the swagger required of an MC with the pedantry of the digerati is too smooth for hypertext.

The Flip Side: I refer here not to parallel dimensions within mirrors, but to what it must be like to be a non-geek in a geek-dominated environment. As one student newspaper writer explains, that’s what it’s like to not know anything about Star Trek at Case Western Reserve (the alma mater of two of my most lovably geeky friends here in Philly). “You’re not a real nerd!” others exclaim of this physics major, as she similarly admits no interest in Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, or other sci-fi staples.

It’s an amusing little piece, but reading between the lines a wee bit (as I am inexorably compelled to do), I am fascinated by the implication that “real nerds” can’t just be good at science; they have to watch the classics. Compare this to the “real geeks” who, every time there’s a geek typology printed up somewhere, exclaim that we must reclaim the days when being a geek meant building your own computers.

Drunken Vader vs. Jedi Congregants: I suppose this BBC article about a drunk guy in a makeshift Darth Vader costume assaulting self-identified Jedis is played pretty straight by the reporter—but I kind of get a sense that the implication is, “Which is weirder, a guy dressing like Vader and assaulting people, or the fact that there is actually a reasonably large and active religion of Jedi adherents?” Gizmodo seems to think that the latter is more deserving of punishment—further evidence, perhaps, that the most ruthless critics of geeks nowadays may just be other geeks.

Film Geeks and Geeky Films: Ethan Gilsdorf write an article for the Boston Globe about the Independent Film Festival of Boston, seen through the lens of geek culture. As the second paragraph proclaims, “if the Independent Film Festival of Boston has a cri de coeur this year, it’s ‘Geeks unite!’” And: “‘Geek culture is the thing that drives popular culture,’ said Nancy Campbell, an IFFBoston managing director. ‘Anyone who’s ever been a geek knows at some point the mainstream co-opts it.’”

Films at the festival touched upon topics such as Wizard rock, Bigfoot, virtual world and RPGs, nerdcore hip-hop, Harlan Ellison, and more. (Not mentioned in the article: Natural Causes may have had the first “naked Wii” scene outside of internet porn.) The article includes some behind-the-scenes notes for some films, like the comment that some gamers didn’t want to participate in Second Skin because of fear of stigma.

Incidentally, the end of the article notes that its writer, Ethan Gilsdorf, is writing a book titled Escape Artists: Travels Through the Worlds of Role Playing Freaks, Online Gaming Geeks, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms.

Geek Ghetto vs. Nerd Power: And finally, Scott Brown offers a sort of rebuttal to Ben Nugent’s American Nerd in this month’s Wired. I have yet to read Ben’s book, but as Scott describes it, the conclusion is essentially that “nerd chic” is “just a fad,” while “‘real’ nerds are still out there [...] furtive, defensive, [...] all of them stubbornly unassimilated.” But no, Scott argues, nerds have made such a mark on our culture at large that we’re now the mainstream, and the mainstream is now us.

My take on this is that neither of these viewpoints is wrong, and they’re not really mutually exclusive. But, for many of us, one of these points can certainly feel more “right” than the other.

The focus in this piece is on how the internet has enabled culture to develop in niches, where people can feel comfortable about reveling in the things they might have otherwise hidden. As one interviewee notes, “Until I launched my company in January, I always kept this part of my life—Internet, humor, in the closet. […] I had no real purpose except to meet kindred spirits.”

It’s more for non-geek audiences, so there won’t be many surprises here for most of you readers. I will say, though, that I found it more respectful than many other newspaper convention pieces (which have a nasty habit of sounding patronizing about the attendees).

Also consider checking out The Weekly Dig‘s ROFLCon-themed issue, available for download online, complete with headlines written in LOLcat/AOL-speak. If nothing else, you may find it kind of funny to see articles that ostensibly have nothing to do with geek culture get so thoroughly web-ified.

Make:Philly: Philadelphia, PA. This Sunday, Make:Philly will be doing an intro to NES video graphics. The Maker Challenge will involve hacking a NES ROM to alter its graphics. It hurts my soul to know that I will miss this. Tune in to Geekadelphia to find out how it goes if you can’t make it, either.

Geek Week: Utica, NY. Church emails me to let me know that this is “Geek Week” at SUNYIT. Lots of gaming, science-fiction, and rocket-building will ensue.

“The idea is to bring people together to enjoy the things they’re passionate about,” Brenda Dow, alumni and advancement services officer, said in a news release.
“Everyone has a hobby or a pastime they engage in to the point of ‘geekiness,’ whether it’s technology, sci-fi movies, gaming or something else.”

Arisia 2008: Boston, MA. In Boston, this weekend hosts Arisia, which happens to be the first science-fiction convention I ever attended. The panel I most regret having to miss this year is titled, “What am I? A fan? A geek? A nerd?” Check it out Sunday at 7:00:

What is a geek? A nerd? A fan? A hardcore fan? Which one are you? What does it mean, and should you even care? Discuss how labels affect fandom and what can be done to benefit from or break down the structures that distinguish us.

MIT Mystery Hunt: Cambridge, MA. My time, however, will be spent at the MIT Mystery Hunt, which I have been meaning to (and unable to) attend in person for several years in a row. Depending on where I get a job after I graduate this year, I figure it may be my last chance to attend it for awhile (or at all), and my last chance to get in some time at MIT before I finish the dissertation.

I am also remiss in my blogging duties as of late, thanks to all my recent travels and other work duties. In the coming days/weeks, anyway, expect some updates and photos from the last Make:Philly, Nerd Nite Boston, the Consumer Electronics Show, and the Mystery Hunt.

Somewhere near the life-size toy Halo guns and the “Air Guitar Hero” booth, a woman gasped with delight upon seeing the box under my arm. “Where did you get this?” she asked. She seemed East Asian, somewhere between her late 20s and mid 30s.

I explained which room the toys were at, and said there were probably many left, based on how fast they were being taken. “Are you a collector?” I asked.

“No,” she said, still smiling, “I have a three-year-old who would love this, though.”

Though they are both comparably large conventions that look pretty similar from the show floor, the Consumer Electronics Show is very different from Comic Con International. This was my favorite example illustrating this point, but it’s certainly not the most extreme example. I’ll be writing about this (and some other recent research excursions) once I get back home to Philadelphia this week. In the meantime, go check out the still ongoing conversation about geek music which I blogged about the other day. I just realized there’s a whole second page (and maybe more) of posts which I completely missed, so I need to return to that soon, too.

Comics Activism in the University Library: Comixology offers the first part in a series on how one university librarian (whose job is not to build up the comics collection) rallies support among faculty to build up the library’s comics collection.

Geek Activism in the City Streets: Yahoo News reports on an effort to rename one city’s 42nd street after the late Douglas Adams. The motivating party behind this campaign is an online geek community (blog, forum, store) I was previously unaware of, Geek in the City.

Ugly Activism in Buenos Aires: A BBC article recounts the tale of Gonzalo Otalora, Argentine writer of Feo (“Ugly”) and semi-ironic “campaigner” for the rights and recognition of ugly people.

His book, Feo (Ugly), has just been republished and is selling well. On the inside cover is a picture of Gonzalo as a youth. It is not a pretty sight.

“I was a child with thick glasses, spots and braces,” he said. “The kids made fun of me at school.

“Later the girls rejected me in the discos. And then when I was looking for work, I felt so ugly and insecure that I was rejected again and left without a job.

“The great challenge in my life has been to stop being the school nerd—and thanks to my humour and bravery I’ve managed to overcome all that.”

That the focus here is on looks more so than braininess or interests may speak directly to regional differences in how ‘nerd’ is defined. Buenos Aires is particularly known (or residents think of it as being known) for its “beautiful” people.

Evolution of the Nerd: Z. passes on a link from Australia’s The Age which proclaims that Geeks Rule, OK. The article goes on to describe a variety of subgroups of geeks, and why geeks at large are now “the dominant force in popular culture.

All I Want For Christmas: Popular Science polled tech luminaries and internet celebrities while compiling its “ultimate for-geeks, by-geeks gift list.” Individuals polled include Jonathan Coulton, Jimmy Wales, Fake Steve Jobs, Wil Wheaton, Xeni Jardin, and others.

Usted es un Nerd Enorme: A sepulcher in new video game Uncharted contains a message in Spanish that reads:

If you are reading this grave, you’re a huge nerd. Please get a life and a girlfriend.

Kotaku crossed out part of the original response (which had sarcastically lambasted whoever thought that reading Spanish was nerdy), probably because comments that follow the post suggest that most readers found it more funny than offensive.

Virtual World Research, The Sequel: Slashdot notes that Edward Castronova’s Shakespearean virtual world, Arden, didn’t really work out as planned—there simply wasn’t enough interest from players. Now in the works: Arden II. The gaming/economics researcher reflected:

You need puzzles and monsters, or people won’t want to play … Since what I really need is a world with lots of players in it for me to run experiments on, I decided I needed a completely different approach.

I find his approach interesting, and I do think that online games could offer some fertile ground for research in economics, but I’d be nervous about extrapolating too much more about social/psychological research more broadly from behavior in a virtual world. Aside from that, my biggest concern is that experimentally manipulating the conditions between different servers of the same game would simply encourage people to jump ship to a new server, which would wreak havoc on your data. Still, I wish this project the best, and I’d be interested to see whether this yields any results on whether interpersonal behavior within virtual worlds maps well onto behavior in person vs. other online contexts.

The Ups and Downs of Transmedia Storytelling: Comics may represent the place where Hollywood goes for new ideas, but it also seems like the medium may represent the place where fan favorites go to die. Ever since Joss announced that Buffy would be seeing a canonic “season” in comics form—and, shortly thereafter, that Veronica Mars might also be resuscitated in this way—I have been particularly interested in how others might use comics to continue franchises that face major economic barriers in other media. Now, Slashdot reports that Joss Whedon’s Firefly franchise will be coming to comics—but ironically, that’s the format that fans may be least interested in seeing. This doesn’t surprise me too much; after all, Firefly was great largely because of its cast.

Net Linguistics: Nelson suggests some unusual emoticons from games, and follows up with some notes on the evolution of the <3 (“heart”) emoticon (latter link via Boing Boing). The <4 emoticon seems like a pretty classic example of how programmer thinking might influence linguistics, sort of a visual/textual equivalent of “love++.”

On a related note, Geek Gestalt notes that Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is “w00t.” I’m not sure whether this is a sign that l33tspeak has moved into popular usage or whether this is an event that would actually encourage such a move, but it seemed noteworthy whatever the case.

Cons as Vacation Spots: MSN City Guides offers suggestions for a bunch of “geek getaways” based on different interests. It’s not entirely comprehensive or accurate (E for All was not bigger than PAX, despite high expectations), but it certainly does read more like a travel guide than the typical newspaper approach of marveling, year after year, that people are dressed up so funny-like and are drinking more than expected.

Don’t Watch Snakes on a Plane Alone: Slashdot refers us to a study suggesting that enjoying movies is contagious. The post quotes one researcher:

By mimicking expressions, people catch each other’s moods leading to a shared emotional experience. That feels good to people and they attribute that good feeling to the quality of the movie.

This is a different interpretation from what I expected. Personally, I’ll watch television alone, but I always wait for company to watch a movie. This article suggests that people give the movie credit for emotions that are actually cued by other people; I always thought of it more in terms of magnifying what I enjoy about a movie by being able to share it with people I care about, adding a new dimension to what is in the movie alone.

Games Teach You Useful Skills: A 12-year-old swedish boy outsmarted an elk, saving himself and his sister based on behavior learned in World of Warcraft (link via Boing Boing). I kind of liked the story better when I thought he had been attacked by a moose, but either way it’s pretty weird and impressive.

On the Music Front: Z. (via Church) refers us to an interesting article in Medill Reports about nerdcore. I was glad to see one of these articles finally address where Deltron 3030 fits into this (one of my favorite sci-fi-oriented albums, which is kind of outside the nerdcore scene but not quite popular enough to be “mainstream” either). Also, here’s an SF Weekly article (also via Z.) by someone who everyone seems to agree simply doesn’t get it. And finally, check out this New York Times article about this weekend’s second annual Blip Festival for chiptune music, which notes:

At the Blip Festival nerdiness is proudly displayed: Last year one man came dressed as a piece from the game Tetris. There’s also free beer and a fair amount of dancing — or at least fist-pumping and joystick thrashing — in the audience and among the performers.

I wish I could’ve made it there for the weekend, but alas, there is much left to do. Incidentally, this is hosted by the same venue as the Come Out and Play Festival, another geeky/artsy event I managed to attend last year.

If You Thought “A Series of Tubes” Was Bad: The new “non-geeks don’t get it” point of mockery is Universal Music CEO Doug Morris’s admission that the record industry dropped the ball on digital music and was simply too ignorant to hire capable technologists. The most amusing take on this I’ve seen so far comes from HijiNKS ENSUE (“geek comic”). The comments that follow the blog post remind us, of course, that there are indeed people over the age of 50 who are quite competent with technology. It’s really just the ones in positions of power who seem vilified for not getting it.

Randall Munroe, Geek Psychologist: I’ve been seeing a lot of articles about xkcd lately, including interviews with creator Randall Munroe. Wired’s interview struck me as most interesting. It suggests that Randall has tapped into geek psychology and even helped to encourage changing it, simultaneously celebrating how we over-calculate our lives and encouraging us to take some chances.

Geek Politics: I haven’t seen what I would call universal geeky political values (probably because no such thing exists), but I do often see geeks approaching political issues in proudly geeky ways. Consider, for example, EcoGeek, which blends a love for technology and whatnot for a love of baby seals. Check out a recent post on Greenpeace vs. Nintendo, for example. Meanwhile, though Newsweek suggests “How to Get the Geek Vote,” there’s a decently wide range between how Barack Obama would do that vs. how Ron Paul would do that, so far as I can tell.

Nuance in the Game Violence Debate: Henry Jenkins has a great post up about why you should see Moral Kombat, the new documentary by Spencer Halpin about the video game violence debate. I’m very much looking forward to the documentary itself (even though Spencer unwittingly stole the title for a paper I took too long to submit for publication!). In the meantime, I appreciate Henry’s post for pointing out that the media violence debate is so frequently reduced to “games cause violence”/”no they don’t” that we lose so much of the nuance of what research has actually shown. Some of what I have written on this topic may make me sound like an enemy of researchers who conduct media violence research, but people on every side of the debate often agree more than we disagree when you get right down to what we think would be good parenting or good research. Where we often disagree, of course, is in what we think should be done with that research in terms of public policy.

The Men and Women in Black: The Escapist has a nice little piece up on the community of Penny Arcade Expo volunteers, the Enforcers.

The Final Stage of the Grieving Process: Slashdot commenters discuss the question, when did Star Wars jump the shark?”

Managing Our Hyperreal Lives: A couple links from Slashdot and CNET point us to some interesting food for thought on balancing and integrating our on- and offline lives. First, should we be giving employers our online nicknames in addition to our real names? And second, what do you do when real people with virtual identities pass away? More specifically, what should the role of Second Life publisher Linden Lab be in memorializing a famous SL citizen, now passed away? Some called for an official day of memorial announced by Linden Lab, while others argued that SL residents should handle a memorial on their own—treating Linden Lab more like a watchmaker god than an official governing body. (I just noticed that Linden Lab has taken sort of a middle ground on this, declaring a memorial day for all deceased SL’ers and donating real estate to be used for services.

Also, I should note that that second article is from CNET’s “Geek Gestalt” column by Daniel Terdiman. Daniel explains that he’s been writing about geeky stuff for awhile now, but they’re just now getting around to overtly calling it geeky.

Webcomics and Community Service: Comixtalk has a series up (part 1, part 2, and part 3) about how webcomics creators can do comics-oriented community service projects—both as a genuine act that reflects well on the webcomics community, and also as “a move towards greater real world visibility.” Part of the reason I’m making note of this is that I did a paper on “comics activism” that I need to update and revise for publication.

Cream of the Comics Criticism Crop: The Guardian blog offers suggestions for the best of the comics blogosphere. Part of the reason I’m making note of this is that I’m working on a paper about blogging as a form of internet-based research to supplement the forum-based research I see so often, and I figured this quote might come in handy when discussing audiences: “avoid the forums, where the anonymous pedants make Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons look like Edmund Wilson.”

Scott Pilgrim Appeals to Nerds, Fags (but in a good way): Nerds Gone Wild reviews Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together. Everyone seems to love these books (and I count myself among them.) What fascinated me about this review, though, was its use of the terms “indie fag” and “indie-arts-fag” as separate but equal groups to “comic nerds” (and both, as I’m reading it, groups you should be happy to be a part of).

A Trip Through Comic Con Visual History: Mary in Comic Con Land is a blog posting photos from many years of Comic Con. It’s a neat resource, giving a sense of how things have changed with the con over the years.

Reading Comics Online: Tod Allen discusses the new digital distribution systems for print comics, touching upon subscription models and technical limitations. And on a related note, Sean Kleefeld suggests why the formal elements of digital comics favor short strips over long books. It’s an interesting argument—but the post was guaranteed a link by being the first blog where I’ve actually seen the writer’s geek code so prominently displayed.

Whew, that helped clean up my browser. I’ll be back again soon for something a little more commentary-oriented.

On Comics: Chris Ware’s introduction to The Best American Comics 2007 (via the Comics Reporter, I’m pretty sure). I found it interesting because I’ve written quite a bit on comic creators’ fears and concerns about the development of the medium and the industry; Chris Ware has been one of the most outspoken of those I’ve quoted, including a statement in one radio interview years back in which he suggests that the very visual language of comics is better suited to telling jokes than telling more meaningful stories, and so must be reinvented. In the introduction linked here, he’s a little more optimistic about how comics are doing nowadays, and implies that taking a less narrative approach to comics may have succeeded in reinventing that language.

On Webcomics: Also via the Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon responds quite ably to an angry letter that his site focuses on comics No One Reads to the exclusion of webcomics which are supposed to be The Future. (The letter-writer insists that he doesn’t just mean gaming comics and manga rip-offs, and the fact that he needs to reassure this speaks pretty well to some of Tom’s points about webcomics.)

On Nerds, by Way of Comics: As long as I’m cannibalizing all my content from Tom today, I should note that he also links to an article in the Edmonton Journal proclaiming that nerds now rule. Many many choice quotes here, including:

In the eyes of many, the comic-book-loving sci-fi fan is a nacho-cheese-scented, bespectacled oddity sporting mismatched socks, greasy hair and pasty skin.

But “nerds” are no longer the stereotypical archetype they once were.

They now walk and live amongst us – doing everything from hanging out at the pub to playing sports, running for political office to designing the gadgets we use and, of course, producing the movies and TV shows we’re most likely to enjoy. [...]

Popular culture is playing an important role in legitimizing “nerd culture.” Comic books and sci-fi are now regularly turned into movies (X-Men, Hellboy) or co-opted into TV shows (Lost, Heroes), and the once-nerdly subject matter seems to be gaining popularity.

“Geek is cool now,” says Elizabeth Vail, 21, “lieutenant commander” at the U of A’s Science-Fiction Club: Subspace 6-20. “We’re not persecuted anymore.”

“I think most people who don’t know what we actually do would still label us as nerds,” says “captain” Josh Rehm, 23. “It’s sort of a bubble with holes in it – people can see what we do. But I think there is still a stigma attached to it because ‘sci-fi club’ is in our name. Automatically, sci-fi equals ‘nerds’ or equals ‘geeks.’ “

You get the idea. Mostly I just wanted to make note of it because a reviewer recently told me my paper about geek culture needs more proof that the popular image of geeks/nerds is changing.

On Missed Opportunities: Thanks to Hipster Please for referring me to the site for Geek.kon, a geek convention held last weekend in Madison. The site includes a photo gallery and links to press coverage, including a CNN story. Not that I could’ve gone, really, but I am bummed I didn’t know about it until after.

On Other Opportunities: Following Geek.kon, I will console myself with the hope that I can catch Nerdnite in Boston in November on a “non-science night” by popular demand. (They may still need volunteers to present, so feel free to send an email to nerdnite {at} nerdnite {dot} com if you feel like doing so. Check out here for an earlier post on the event.)

On Gamers and Nerds in the Media: And finally, consider a couple quick links from Kotaku on how NBC uses ‘gamer’ as shorthand for ‘nerd’ and CNN treats games as a danger for kids. Games are defended as being intended for adults by Newsweek‘s N’Gai Croal, who further expounds on this in a post on “The problem (and the danger) of the continued infantilization of video games” (part 1).

On Games as Narrative: Oh, and one more thing, added just after I published the post: The New York Times has an editorial up about how Halo 3—and Bioshock, for that matter—have not delivered gaming to cultural and artistic relevance as much as some gamers seem to believe. Speaking as a lover of narrative games myself, I sadly and wholeheartedly agree. I’ll try to get around to finishing my post on Bioshock sometime to help explain this, and sooner or later I’ll also be finishing up a paper (now submitted to a conference as an abstract) on how death acts as a narrative disruption in games.

Reflections on Comic Con: David Glanzer, director of marketing and public relations for the huge pop culture festival known as Comic Con, has given a couple interviews with The Comics Reporter‘s Tom Spurgeon and Comic Book Resources‘s Jonah Weiland. Apparently the show saw 125,000 this year. I believe it, especially considering how much waiting in line has become a standard feature of the weekend. Some people I spoke with waited in line for hours in the hopes of seeing the trailer for the next Batman movie (i.e., waited in line for a commercial) at the DC panel, but it was not shown. Anyway, there’s a lot of business-oriented stuff in those interviews (which some of you may find more engaging than others), but also some interesting stuff about how conventions function within geek culture, such as when Tom asks about the con’s role to “consummate (in the g-rated sense) on-line friendships,” which leads to increased space for clubs. Actually, even more space seemed needed for that this year, I think; the Browncoats’ (Firefly/Serenity fans’) meeting seemed filled to capacity with regulars, so I had to meet folks through other means, chatting with some fellow Browncoat-curious attendees standing outside.

The Vibe of PAX: Mike (“Gabe”) at Penny Arcade reflects on how the vibe of PAX is so different from other conventions because it really feels by and for the gamers themselves. Having been to PAX three times, this actually sounds pretty accurate and not just touchy-feely, self-congratulatory stuff. While the con hosts plenty of panels and the obligatory exhibitors’ room, much of the space simply hosts tables with tabletop games going, beanbag chairs seating handheld gamers, and TVs and computers for console and PC gamers. People are just there to have fun with friends and strangers, participating in the hobby that brought them all there in the first place. Plus, Mike and Jerry go out of their way to make the visitors feel like they’re the ones in charge, allowing people to come onstage to fulfill silly requests, and fielding every personal question (except who would win in a fight between ninjas and pirates). My first year there (before I was officially there for research), they even let my friend Tony take a photo of my friend Kai pretending to lick Jerry’s head. “You were a good sport about that,” I told him, to which he replied, “I am here for your amusement.” He wandered off, presumably to do something more official. Now that is dedication to your fans.

Update (again): Mike also posts links to PAX desktop wallpapers made by PA designer Kiko. As of now, some of the links seem to not be working, but I expect that will be fixed. (Yes: see the Flickr set on PAX culture in particular. This is fairly representative of what it looks like from the convention floor: a huge line, colorful shirts, and DS’s aplenty.) For now, you can still see a good pic of a giant crowd holding aloft their phones and DS’s—the PAX equivalent of holding up a lighter at a concert.

As for PAX itself: Sometimes this event seems like it’s actively gunning for Comic Con as geekiest event in the nation. While people affectionately refer to Comic Con as “Nerd Prom,” “Nerd Vegas,” or just “Dorkfest,” that comes more from the attendees than from the official party line of the con, so to speak. At PAX, however, high-profile people onstage (including the organizers themselves, keynote speaker Wil Wheaton, and musician Jonathan Coulton) frequently refer back to their geeky status, how this is the geekiest event ever, and so on. Plus, while PAX attendees on average may look less bizarre to non-geeks thanks to the relative lack of cosplayers, I think you see a higher percentage people at this con in geeky/nerdy joke shirts. (I took photos of some of these this weekend, including nice shots of a fellow in a “Nerds Unite” tee from Nerd NYC and a fellow in a “Nerdfighters” tee from Brotherhood 2.0.) Perhaps PAX seems more vocally geeky because it’s a higher concentration of narrow interests; Comic Con is much larger (114,000+ vs. 30,000 or so attendees), plus broader in scope and appeal.

Penny Arcade’s creators have been vocal about not really caring if they appeal to the “mainstream,” how they’re happy to cater to hardcore gamers. This stands in contrast to a comic convention that’s not really about comics for many attendees. Other hobbies show up unofficially at PAX, but when one audience member asked in a Q&A with the organizers whether other webcomics would ever be more officially included (because, after all, Penny Arcade is a webcomic), Mike and Jerry (a.k.a. Gabe and Tycho) seemed somewhat unsure of how to respond. (I think the final answer was that some other gaming-specific webcomics creators might already be attending, and they’d love to have more, but I could swear I heard Mike utter something about not being part of “that community.”)

I have plenty more thoughts and notes I’d like to relate, but I should probably get a move on here. If you’re one of the friendly people I chatted with at PAX, thanks for stopping by the blog, and please feel free to comment about PAX, nerd conventions, or whatever else makes you happy.

I’m fascinated to see now that Penny Arcade has made an “All hail BALL” t-shirt, announced the week before PAX 2008. This strikes me as a fairly brilliant merchandising/marketing technique. The only ones who will really be interested are those who have fond memories of the ball at last year’s PAX, which drastically limits the market for such a product. That’s okay, though: PA has its own venue where their most fervent fans are sure to appear, and some of those people seemed intent on getting the ball somehow included in the annals of PA history. The reference will be completely opaque to outsiders, so the shirt basically functions like a secret handshake with other fans. And, as I realized at Comic Con this year, some people buy fannish and geeky apparel just to wear at other cons—as a button on one person’s backpack said, “Being a fan means never having to ask, ‘Where would I wear that?’” When I go to PAX next weekend, I’ll be surprised if I don’t see dozens of people wearing this shirt.

This move really helps characterize Penny Arcade as an outfit that takes its cues from its own fans, while still doing projects in their own style. Kudos, too, for having the restraint to let the subject lie dormant awhile and suddenly announce the shirt the week before the next con.