The 2014 Geekie Awards. What can I say that wasn’t said (more graphically) in the Twitch chat? The award show aired live last night at 9 p.m. (EDT) / 6 p.m. (PDT) in Los Angeles and on Twitch.tv. Even though it is in its sophomore year, the show featured microphone issues, awkward transitions, and a questionably drunk Grant Imahara. It was my hope today to write about the amazing work displayed on the show by the nominees and about the excitement of a growing geek community; however, the Geekie Awards showed the dark side of growing corporate treatment of geek culture.
Before I break down some of the issues, I want to focus on the bright spots of the Geekie Awards. If the show is able to make it to a third year, the genuine moments are the ones to strive for. Gale Anne Hurd’s speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award highlighted the economic and cultural impact that geeks and nerds have on the world right now. Hurd quoted Wikipedia (yep) and other resources that cite the billions of dollars geeks wield in the marketplace as well as our unique ability to adapt to the way in which society is rapidly changing due to and evolving with technology. It is our strengths that will allow us to inherit the world and build it in our image, one that is hopefully more accepting, more creative, and plain old more fun.
Another bright spot involved presenting the Geek of the Year Award to LeVar Burton. We’ve already sung his praises after the Reading Rainbow Kickstarter became one of the most successful grassroots funding campaigns ever, and yet there will never be too many accolades that can be heaped on LeVar. He led the crowd in singing part of the Reading Rainbow theme song. This guest and a few others lent the show its only shreds of credibility.
Then LeVar had to accept a Gibson guitar, one of the first of many reminders throughout the rest of the night how much this show was bought and paid for.
If you visit the Geekie Awards website (http://www.thegeekieawards.com/) and scroll to the bottom, you’ll see a list of sponsors a mile long. Some are legitimate geek interests: Stan Lee’s Pow! Entertainment, Dark Horse Comics, and WowWee of Robosapien fame, among others. Yet there is an even longer list including Gibson, Pizza Hut, and Mountain Dew that bored us with their commercial breaks. Honestly, I don’t care about corporate sponsors. They are a necessary evil to get many neat things sponsored, and geeks do consume massive amounts of junk food. One of the many issues of the show was the way in which the writers and producers of the Geekies let the messages of the sponsors overshadow the other themes of the evening—celebration, inclusiveness, geekiness.
In the pre-show commentary, one of the writers of the show admitted that last year they had problems balancing the comedy and the heartfelt moments in the script. I don’t know what they did to try to improve because it felt like they were desperate to make jokes, especially at the end as the ship was rapidly sinking. If the show was truly about showcasing independent creators, filmmakers, artists, and more, then heartfelt moments and actual descriptions and videos would have been more effective than stale jokes and presenters who could also have second lives as porn stars.
I would love to see the Geekies improve and become a fun way to introduce indie artists to broader audiences. But with writing and producing of such poor quality, it may never have the chance to redeem itself.
Before I break down some of the issues, I want to focus on the bright spots of the Geekie Awards. If the show is able to make it to a third year, the genuine moments are the ones to strive for. Gale Anne Hurd’s speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award highlighted the economic and cultural impact that geeks and nerds have on the world right now. Hurd quoted Wikipedia (yep) and other resources that cite the billions of dollars geeks wield in the marketplace as well as our unique ability to adapt to the way in which society is rapidly changing due to and evolving with technology. It is our strengths that will allow us to inherit the world and build it in our image, one that is hopefully more accepting, more creative, and plain old more fun.
Another bright spot involved presenting the Geek of the Year Award to LeVar Burton. We’ve already sung his praises after the Reading Rainbow Kickstarter became one of the most successful grassroots funding campaigns ever, and yet there will never be too many accolades that can be heaped on LeVar. He led the crowd in singing part of the Reading Rainbow theme song. This guest and a few others lent the show its only shreds of credibility.
Then LeVar had to accept a Gibson guitar, one of the first of many reminders throughout the rest of the night how much this show was bought and paid for.
If you visit the Geekie Awards website (http://www.thegeekieawards.com/) and scroll to the bottom, you’ll see a list of sponsors a mile long. Some are legitimate geek interests: Stan Lee’s Pow! Entertainment, Dark Horse Comics, and WowWee of Robosapien fame, among others. Yet there is an even longer list including Gibson, Pizza Hut, and Mountain Dew that bored us with their commercial breaks. Honestly, I don’t care about corporate sponsors. They are a necessary evil to get many neat things sponsored, and geeks do consume massive amounts of junk food. One of the many issues of the show was the way in which the writers and producers of the Geekies let the messages of the sponsors overshadow the other themes of the evening—celebration, inclusiveness, geekiness.
In the pre-show commentary, one of the writers of the show admitted that last year they had problems balancing the comedy and the heartfelt moments in the script. I don’t know what they did to try to improve because it felt like they were desperate to make jokes, especially at the end as the ship was rapidly sinking. If the show was truly about showcasing independent creators, filmmakers, artists, and more, then heartfelt moments and actual descriptions and videos would have been more effective than stale jokes and presenters who could also have second lives as porn stars.
I would love to see the Geekies improve and become a fun way to introduce indie artists to broader audiences. But with writing and producing of such poor quality, it may never have the chance to redeem itself.