If you're reading this and you're the kind of video gamer or nerd media consumer that is passionately dedicated to their piece of nerd turf, be it world of warcraft raiding, tabletop roleoplaying games, gaming on one of the major videogame console platforms (XBox 360, PS 3, Wii), hardcore PC gamer, fan of Moe, Mecha or mostly any other form of anime, big into House, Harry Potter or Lost, or otherwise BLAZINGLY, BURNINGLY PASSIONATE about your particular thing, then you will mosty likely hate this blog.
You see, I'm the apathetic, average, casual consumer of most nerd media. I'm the guy who plays halfwway through both KOTOR 1 and 2, who levelled only 1 toon in WOW to 80 (but on Ravenholdt, a PVP server, before I moved to Kirin Tor because I found a guild as casual as I was), the one who has only watched selected episodes of Full Metal Alchemist or Naruto Shippuden, and who can only name a few of the main cast members of Bleach. I get bored and disgusted with games that are too easy or too hard. If a printed book, movie or video game fails to capture my interested in the first 5 episodes/20% of game play/100 pages/5 comic issues, then into the trash bin it goes. I have as much attention as a mayfly.
I am the middle, zero point marketing demographic that media creators aim out. I'm the guy whom they make video games for, as opposed to the hard cores who are rabidly dedicated to their respective franchises. I'm the poltroon who drags down the common denominator of everything you like. I'm also the guy who those devs and marketers can't in a million years understand.
If you're a hardcore, you hate me.
I'm the guy who buys the game at launch but then doesn't buy the 2nd and 3rd installment. I'm the guy who buys the first DVD but then passes on the rest. Why? Because it sucked. It was made lousy, it was unimaginative, it had low quality production values, it wasn't up to snuff. My lazyness and apathetic nature makes me the ultimate sloth like snob. If you're a producer that is lazy with me, I shall be lazy and fickle with you.
The purpose of this blog, then, is to serve a few purposes -
- To call media makers, be they game developers, comic creators or film producers on their bullshit. I'll be reviewing crap that I come across, and I will describe, in an utterly subjective and non-professional way, why I don't like it. If it is good, I will give it praise that it deserves.
- To make commentary on the current media landscape. I dig advertising, culture jamming, copywriting, and promotion, and how this relates to Nerd Media. I'm interested in how Nerd Media exists as a subculture and how, like all subcultures, it is being monetized, and what this means for both the subculture variation in question and the larger US media culture which absorbs and uses it.
- To make commentary on the fan side of various subcultures, be it Harry Potter, Giant Robots, Cosplay, Griefer and Goon subculture in video games, /b/tards and Anon, and other things which capture my interest. Since I am a social media deconstructor of the Frankfurt School, I love applying the conflicting throughts of pessimist Adorno and the optimistic ideas of Habermas to current media and nerd culture. Go go critical theory!
- Throughout this all, I make no claim that I am any sort of "expert". I'm just a guy who occupies his own unique space in the world, so I give my own unique view.
So, watch this space. First up - WOW Patch 4.0, and what it means to lazy, casual nerds.
