I mentioned at the top of the month that I would be applying for the Geek & Sundry Vlogs channel on YouTube. Felicia Day's second channel just for vlogs had a talent search going on to fill out 10 slots on their schedule. They wanted vloggers who were really passionate about a topic. Naturally, I chose genre entertainment. Or, as I dubbed it for this series pitch, pulp culture. Slipstream is all about how horror, sci-fi, and fantasy interact across entertainment media. I've actually put up two episodes already, but only the first one is part of the application process.
Starting today at 1PM EST, you can visit my Geek & Sundry vlog page, watch the first episode of Slipstream, vote for it once a day, and (most important of all) leave feedback.
The votes are going to determine who is on the leaderboard for the 30 vloggers moving on to the next round. However, the leaderboard alone does not determine the finalists. The Geek & Sundry staff is going to pay a lot of attention to feedback left below the videos. The quality of feedback will make or break the submissions. UPDATE: Feedback needs to be left on the YouTube video itself, not the G&S webpage. Comment on the video here.
That's where you come in. If you like the concept for the vlog, like me on camera, like my viewpoint/writing/voice, leave a comment on the page. This part of the talent search is basically a test of how people respond to the different vloggers.
So what does being part of the Geek & Sundry Vlogs channel do? A lot. For starters, it allows me to have a wider audience to share my pulp culture media criticism. That's always been a huge part of my mission as a writer. I want to help raise the level of discourse for horror, sci-fi-, and fantasy so that they're not just fringe subjects left to small press, specialty blogs, and conventions. I love that aspect of the culture, but there are great genre properties across all the fields of entertainment that are still defined by category, not substance. Not all sci-fi, horror, and fantasy will appeal to everyone, but a good portion of it isn't even given a chance.
Second, the Geek & Sundry Vlogs channel is dedicated to developing new talent. Felicia Day is going to mentor the ten chosen vloggers. They're going to get a stipend for running their series on the Vlogs channel. The current vloggers even received new mics to improve the quality of their set-up. Feedback, opportunities, and a little extra cash can go a long way in improving Sketchy Details.
Third, I want to bring on extra writers but I don't want to be one of those "it's for the exposure, no pay" editors. I want to bring on writers when I can afford to pay pro rates for their media criticism. Every extra gig brings me one step closer to this goal. Just the traffic generated from being able to link Sketchy Details to the Geek & Sundry Vlogs channel will be a huge boost.
So that's why I need your help. Visit my vlogger page at Geek & Sundry, watch the video, vote once a day, and leave feedback. Share the link with your friends and ask them to do the same. There is a lot of competition in the talent search and even a few other people treading the same topic territory. I'm confident that we can make this happen. I'm continuing Slipstream and other video projects either way.
Here's the first episode:
And the second: