The Danger of XXX Twitter Followers
In my announcement of this week’s Geek Force Five roster, I wrote of a “a mild obsession with people making adult film.” In the comments section of that post, Jeremy Couturier teased me about this, saying that my comment essentially meant “addicted...to...porn.” We had a laugh, but the the truth is that I’m not really as obsessed with the movies themselves as I am with the people making them.
This all stems from a decision I made about a character in my novel a long time ago. The novel, as you may or may not know, tells the story of an extended family trying to piece itself back together a decade after an event that they only half-jokingly refer to as The Great Schism. The book’s still in a work-in-progress of course, so many things continue to change, but one of the things that’s stayed constant throughout most of the five years I’ve been writing it is this: one of the main characters, a 10 year old girl at the time of the Schism, has gone on, in the ensuing decade, to a career in adult film.
That isn’t true of the character anymore, but it was true for a very long time. And one of the decisions I made when deciding to write the story of a porn star was to avoid telling the story of a stereotype, of a cliché. It’s easy enough to tell the story of a sexually-abused girl from a broken home who turns to adult film work because there’s no other choice. It’s much harder to tell the compelling story of a young woman with a past not all that different from your own who decides on a career in porn for other reasons. Even if you get the character to a point that you feel confident is convincing and real, you then have to work against the preconceived notions of your readers. You believe in what you’re selling, but will they buy it? It’s hard to say, very hard.
So, you have to do research. You have to read, read, read, and then read some more. For the character’s early days as a stripper, I read Lily Burana’s Strip City and Diablo Cody’s Candy Girl. To get an idea about what might make a regular girl have sex for money, I read Rae Meadows’s Calling Out. And when it came to accurately documenting the character’s transition into making XXX features, I leaned heavily on what I learned from Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, and on The Other Hollywood by Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osborne. I read every interview I could find online, too. But all of that still wasn’t enough. In the end, I decided that the character as I’d written her in every other chapter of the book wouldn’t end up doing adult films. She just wouldn’t.
But then, along came Twitter. And along came Violet Blue’s exhaustive list of sex tweeters. And suddenly, I was following the exploits of a half-dozen women working in the industry, reading their brief 140-character blurbs about life as a porn star. And it was enthralling. I had been right all along: these were real people, with real stories, and no two stories were the same. I found myself confused. Maybe I should try writing my character as a porn star one more time, using what I’d learned on Twitter to help flesh out that part of her (pun absolutely intended).
Again, in the end, I decided that she would not move beyond stripping during the course of the novel. But I kept following the exploits of Nikki Benz and Belladonna and Jessica Drake, figuring that, even though the character won’t be an adult film star this time around, maybe she will be next time, and that maybe it was a good idea to keep doing research, to keep interacting.
But now I find myself wondering: is this interest too dangerous an interest to have? I’m a father, a husband, a office staffer, and a professor. Perhaps, at least publicly, I shouldn’t have anything to do with people working in the industry, even if it is for research. I don’t know. I do worry about it, though. There is a part of me, the part that’s watched every damn video Gary Vaynerchuk’s ever put out, who says, “You have to be who you are,” and “This is the age of transparency, man!” But there is another part of me that wonders if people will take things the wrong way.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about porn stars embracing Twitter. On March 22, Nikki Benz noticed that I’d written about her and posted links to my site on her blog and in her Twitter stream. My traffic tripled that day. Among the visitors was Vicky Vette [Link NSFW], who e-mailed me to talk Star Trek, to share with me the I *heart* Geeks photo I’ve included above, and to propose a potential interview (we’re still working on that). It was excellent to receive so much attention, and I’d like to believe that at least part of that attention was paid by people who, like me, understand that these women are real people, doing a real job, and who deserve real respect. But, you never know. Maybe writing a post like this is a dangerous proposition, too. Maybe I’ll be seen as link-baiting, or this, or that, or the other thing.
I guess, in the end, you just don’t worry about it. Because if other people don’t get it, then fuck ‘em. Right? Right.
Saved by Kelly Kapowski and Jessie Spano
Since Lisa Turtle did nothing for me, the question of who to crush on when Saved by the Bell was on always came down to Kelly vs. Jessie (although I liked Tori of “The Tori Paradox” fame more than either of them, and liked the two girls from The College Years even more than her). Both of them were cute. But both of them also seemed like the kind of girls who were completely unobtainable. Kelly was too cute, the kind of cute that eventually turns into hot, and, if you were a geek, you just knew she was out of your league. Jessie, on the other hand, was too smart, and too friendly. She was the kind of girl I would have been friends with in high school (though only at the end, since I didn’t come out of my shell until then), and who I would have then developed a crush for, a crush I would only confess by means of a creepy letter that would eventually cause her to stop talking to me altogether (I never meant them to be creepy—they just turned out that way) .
So, yeah, I kinda didn’t know who to pick. But then Elizabeth Berkley went and did Showgirls, with that whole “I’m having a seizure” sex scene in the pool, and I was in love. Nothing that Tiffani Amber did could possible top that.
How about you guys (and gals)? Were you a Kelly person or a Jessie person? And did you or did you not find the Jessie Spano Caffeine Pill Freakout to be absolutely riveting television?
NIN App for the iPhone - Do We Really Need It?
There is a Nine Inch Nails application coming to the iPhone this month, and Wired has an interview up where Trent Reznor and Rob Sheridan talk up the app. Included alongside the text-based interview is a video walkthrough hosted by Digg’s Kevin Rose. The gist of the app is that it’ll give you mobile-optimized access to nin.com, as well as a Twitter-like interface called Nearby for interacting with fellow NIN fanatics in your area. I think the idea there is to be able to find like-minded geeks in the crowd at shows you attend, and so on.
It all sounds very cool to me, but let me just play Devil’s advocate for a second. Do we really need a fucking computer application in order to meet new people who are at the same event that we are?!? If we’re all at a Nine Inch Nails show, then we all presumably have at least one thing to talk about, don’t we? Whatever happened to just striking up a conversation with the person next to you? Is that illegal now? Must this type of interaction always take place through a computer, or a cell-phone?
Okay, glad I got that out of my system. Now, where is that app?
Geek Force Utterz #130 - Benjamin Linus
For today’s episode of Geek Force Utterz, I offer up a quick morning-after reaction to last night’s episode of Lost, “Dead is Dead”. Listen in via the embed above, or by visiting Utterli.com.
Saved by Zack Morris and A.C. Slater
Before the debut of his version of Late Night on NBC, I was never a big fan of Jimmy Fallon. But the dude has had some killer ideas, so far. And the best, in my opinion, was the idea he raised at the end of March alongside special guest Dennis Haskins: a Saved by the Bell reunion.
Dude, if you grew up in the late 80s and early 90s and you didn’t watch this show, then I want to hear from you. Saved by the Bell was a flippin’ institution. And yes, I was pretty obsessed with it.
As I sit here and try to figure out who my favorite character was though, I am having a hard time. I’m a geek, so I’m supposed to identify most with Samuel “Screech” Powers, but, while Dustin Diamond’s character did amuse me, I never liked him as much as I liked Zack and Slater. I knew that I’d never be Zack or Slater (and that I didn’t really want to be either of them) but they, y’know, felt more like actual characters and less like cartoons.
Okay, that last part was bullshit. I’m just making stuff up now. But, seriously: I did identify more with the two dudes who I would never be like than the dweeb that I was probably similar to in more ways than I’d ever want to admit. Why is that? I don’t really know.
Maybe it had something to do with Zack and Slater being like the two sides of my conflicted soul, one half always trying too hard to be cool and coming off like an asshole, and the other half playing it super-cool and seeming super-cool in the process.
Uhm, yeah… so, uh… who were your favorite characters on Saved by the Bell? What was your favorite episode?
Next: Kelly Kapowski and Jessie Spano
Move Over Gamers: Graphic Designers Duke It Out in Boston at the 2009 Cut&Paste Tournament
Just about everything can be a competitive sport if you try hard enough. From throwing tree trunks and pumpkins to gamer tournaments, if you’ve got two people willing to compete for prizes doing the same thing, baby, you’ve got a competition. Why should design and motion animation be an exception? The answer is: it isn’t. Plus, with over 120 colleges in the Boston area alone, up-and-coming young hipster graduates of the many design schools that populate the city have became a common sight, like pigeons on statues. But despite their ubiquity, the tools and techniques of the common graphic designer (i.e., designatus simulacrum) remain more or less unknown to people who don’t get why font jokes are funny. Even though the results of their work are everywhere—from packaging and advertising to the instructions on an airplane seat emergency card, many people have absolutely no idea how designers do what they do.
2009 GF5 Tournament Round 5: The Beatles vs. Apple
Here it is, a battle for the ages, a real-life conflict renewed in the quest for Geek Force supremacy! For years, Apple Computer, Inc. battled Apple Corps, Ltd. over trademark disputes and such, putting at odds the world’s greatest band and what was once (and might yet again be) the world’s greatest computer company. In 2007, that dispute was finally resolved. But the Beatles have continued to stick it to Apple, opting to release their music digitally for the first time as part of a Rock Band video game package, as opposed to releasing it through through Apple’s iTunes Store.
In terms of contributions to geekdom, Apple seems the clear winner here—the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iTunes Store—but in terms of contributions to the public at large, the Fab Four most definitely come out on top. Hundreds of years from now, when computers as we know them are thing of the past, our descendants will still be singing the songs of the Beatles. Right? But, then again, how are we going to get to where we’re going without the technological advances that companies like Apple, and companies trying to take down Apple, are providing?
It’s time to vote, folks! Do it now, and do it as many times as you’d like before 10 pm EDT on Thursday, April 9.
73% (8)
27% (3)2009 GF5 Tournament Round 5: Batman vs. Star Wars
Batman is perhaps the most popular comic book hero of our times. The popular and critical success of The Dark Knight proved that. But I think it’s easy to forget that Batman has staying power. He didn’t just pop up out of nowhere to capture our imagination. The dude has been around since 1939, when Bob Kane and Bill Finger first brought him to life. So, it’s not like his success is a fluke. Bats has been here before, and he almost certainly will be here again.
Star Wars, it can easily be argued, has staying power of its own. It’s been over thirty years since the release of the original film and yet, despite the widespread derision of nearly every Star Wars narrative brought to the screen in the past ten years, the phenomenon is still going strong. There is such love for that original trilogy of films that its hard to imagine them ever entirely leaving the cultural zeitgeist. You might say that this is the real accomplishment, to have stuck around despite years of suck (though the person doing the cross-examining need only point to Batman & Robin to prove what humiliation the Dark Knight can survive).
So, Fivers, it’s up to you. Vote now, and vote as many times as you’d like before Thursday at 10 pm EDT. And tell you friends, too! Let’s make the turnout for this matchup a big one.
38% (5)
62% (8)Geek Force Utterz #129 - Novel Thoughts
After taking a couple of days off, I’m back with an all-new episode of Geek Force Utterz. Today’s installment is all about how I think the business of publishing fiction is changing, and about how I think the industry should be changing. Listen in via the embed above, or by visiting Utterli.com.
2009 GF5 Tournament Round 4 Winners
And then, my friends, there were four. The top seeds in each bracket came out on top, and our Final Four is now set. Batman will take on Star Wars, the Beatles will take on Apple, and then the winners of those two matchups will compete for the right to be called Geek Force Champion. I guess this means it’s probably time to decide what the heck the winner wins, huh?
Stay tuned! Voting for these two stellar matchups begins tomorrow (Wednesday) and runs through Thursday evening.
