Baby Thinks Magazines are Broken iPads
Clay Shirky tells the story of a four-year-old girl who expects all screens to come with a mouse. I have a three-year-old godson who expects all shows to be replayable. This one-year-old baby expects all magazines to be tablets.
The next generation has no tolerance for media you can’t control. To them, passive media consumption is an alien concept.
Alodia’s Fantasy: Geek Girl in Charge
One of the keys to a geek idol’s appeal is her uniqueness. People don’t want to see her as just another pretty face, just another cookie-cutter starlet. People want to see what’s going on inside that crazy, quirky, geeky mind of hers. That’s why Japanese cosplay idol Shoko Nakagawa is the blog queen of Japan: people actually want to witness her geeky antics online.
Too many mainstream producers can’t comprehend that. Too many mainstream producers neither understand nor tolerate a geek idol’s geekiness. Too many mainstream producers try to take a geek idol and turn her into something safe, something kosher, something their limited imaginations can handle. It happened to Shoko early in her career, when she was initially cast as just another bikini idol.
Avoiding the Starlet Trap
“Acting like everyone else is boring. If I just can stay true to myself, I know I can do anything.” — Haruhi Suzumiya, Bouken Desho Desho? (English version by Cristina Vee).
By and large, cosplay goddess Alodia Gosiengfiao has managed to avoid the cookie-cutter starlet trap. Her hosting gig with Animax highlights her anime geekiness, even letting her blog about it on Animax’s site. Her endorsement deal with the Japanese online game TinierMe gave her gamer geekiness full expression, even letting her design a completely original game character from scratch. Her ad campaign with Globe Telecom focuses completely on her cosplay geekiness, successfully highlighting that a girl who posts a lot of cosplay pictures could use Globe’s broadband service.
If people want to see a geek idol’s geekiness, then why not give her geekiness full expression? Why not give her complete creative control?
That’s exactly the idea behind Alodia’s new show. Click here to continue reading “Alodia’s Fantasy: Geek Girl in Charge”…
