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I can has net access! We're in Yokohama, finally. It's 9:09pm local time and we're heading up to bed before too long. This is a lot of conventions in not a lot of days, but it's good. Here're my thoughts on PAX!
Picosummary: Penny Arcade Expo is full of the best kind of insanity.
Tycho posted this morning that he couldn't really figure out how to describe it himself, and I don't really know how to either. I mean, sure, uber-l33t gaming exhibition space, several tracks of programming, free gaming (PC and console), the DS beanchair lounge, all that, but none of that gets to it at all. What it's about is the happy chaos that ensues when 30,000 tech-savvy geeks take over a convention centre for three days. That's how you get "all hail ball," which is really just a crowd waiting for something else entertaining itself in a giant room with an inflatable globe or ten, but becomes a lot more fun than that for no clear reason whatsoever, with chanting - ALL HAIL BALL!, FREE BALL! (my contribution when somebody tried to keep one), BALL IS DEAD - LONG LIVE BALL! (mourning over one that got punctured and deflated). It's about a mythology being written about a plastic ball in five minutes for the hell of it. It's about Wil Wheaton running around wearing a "SCIENCE: it works, bitches" t-shirt and everybody knowing what that is. It's an overawed Jonathan Coulton in concert, a bit terrified to be in front of holy crap that many people, reacting to the "Re: Your Brains" singalong line ("ALL WE WANT TO DO IS EAT YOUR BRAINS!") with "okay, okay, that's a little too good," because, apparently, crowds of geeks can kinda sing. Who knew? It's about watching two teams of Omeganauts play and sing their way through Radiohead's "Weirdo" as the warmup act, and having that work. It's about some jackass in a car trying to bully his way through both a red light and a thick crosswalk of pedestrians (crossing with the light) being denied and being stuck there, in the intersection, looking like the complete jerk he is, and having me - me! do the point-and-"HA ha!" as he's called out for once in his life. It's about hearing the line "We're not unreasonable - I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes" responded to with "I will!" from some random person in the crowd, making Coulton almost lose his place. It's about seeing worldbuilding so very very cool that it makes me go, "okay, maybe I do want a 360, just for Bioshock." It's "Okay, this song is about math" triggering an explosion of cheering, and relaying jokes via the stage from one part of the audience to another, and that actually being a good idea. It's about jogging-speed queues snaked through two rooms as people get armbands for special events and having people scream "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!!!" and make a game out of it instead of standing around and bitching. It's about Coulton telling the boom camera to take it back a little bit, the boom camera going off to pout, him calling it back, apologising, and when he says "You know I love you," having the camera nod "yes." It's about having too many pictochat sessions running simultaneously for the DS hardware to keep up for long, except when it can, and when it can, having floating overlapping circles of four extra layers of conversation and interaction and drawing - I now want that interface on every chat programme in the world - going on invisibly around you on top of the meatspace, and about hopping in and out of those, and knowing that 50 feet over, there's a whole nother set of stacked invisible words bubbling effervescently through the air at the same time. It's about Gabe and Tycho walking out on stage at opening ceremonies with lasers and fanfare and smoke machines, saying, "okay, everybody should do this once in their lives," and when a random attendee asks "Can you help a brother out?" saying yes, resetting the stage, and letting him do it. And it's about everyone else there knowing enough not to screw it up by asking a second time for themselves.
It's not particularly about geeks having a culture. Geeks have culture; that's not at all new. But maybe it's about geeks having a participatory culture, a culture where you do stuff, and where coming up with something clever is instantly rewarded. But you have to be both smart and quick. I don't have any better an idea of how to describe it, as a whole, than Tycho or Gabe, in the end - but I do know that I had the first case of post-con depression I've had in years. Maybe I don't know really what it was, but I know one thing: it was that good. And honestly? That's kind of neat.
Picosummary: Penny Arcade Expo is full of the best kind of insanity.
Tycho posted this morning that he couldn't really figure out how to describe it himself, and I don't really know how to either. I mean, sure, uber-l33t gaming exhibition space, several tracks of programming, free gaming (PC and console), the DS beanchair lounge, all that, but none of that gets to it at all. What it's about is the happy chaos that ensues when 30,000 tech-savvy geeks take over a convention centre for three days. That's how you get "all hail ball," which is really just a crowd waiting for something else entertaining itself in a giant room with an inflatable globe or ten, but becomes a lot more fun than that for no clear reason whatsoever, with chanting - ALL HAIL BALL!, FREE BALL! (my contribution when somebody tried to keep one), BALL IS DEAD - LONG LIVE BALL! (mourning over one that got punctured and deflated). It's about a mythology being written about a plastic ball in five minutes for the hell of it. It's about Wil Wheaton running around wearing a "SCIENCE: it works, bitches" t-shirt and everybody knowing what that is. It's an overawed Jonathan Coulton in concert, a bit terrified to be in front of holy crap that many people, reacting to the "Re: Your Brains" singalong line ("ALL WE WANT TO DO IS EAT YOUR BRAINS!") with "okay, okay, that's a little too good," because, apparently, crowds of geeks can kinda sing. Who knew? It's about watching two teams of Omeganauts play and sing their way through Radiohead's "Weirdo" as the warmup act, and having that work. It's about some jackass in a car trying to bully his way through both a red light and a thick crosswalk of pedestrians (crossing with the light) being denied and being stuck there, in the intersection, looking like the complete jerk he is, and having me - me! do the point-and-"HA ha!" as he's called out for once in his life. It's about hearing the line "We're not unreasonable - I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes" responded to with "I will!" from some random person in the crowd, making Coulton almost lose his place. It's about seeing worldbuilding so very very cool that it makes me go, "okay, maybe I do want a 360, just for Bioshock." It's "Okay, this song is about math" triggering an explosion of cheering, and relaying jokes via the stage from one part of the audience to another, and that actually being a good idea. It's about jogging-speed queues snaked through two rooms as people get armbands for special events and having people scream "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!!!" and make a game out of it instead of standing around and bitching. It's about Coulton telling the boom camera to take it back a little bit, the boom camera going off to pout, him calling it back, apologising, and when he says "You know I love you," having the camera nod "yes." It's about having too many pictochat sessions running simultaneously for the DS hardware to keep up for long, except when it can, and when it can, having floating overlapping circles of four extra layers of conversation and interaction and drawing - I now want that interface on every chat programme in the world - going on invisibly around you on top of the meatspace, and about hopping in and out of those, and knowing that 50 feet over, there's a whole nother set of stacked invisible words bubbling effervescently through the air at the same time. It's about Gabe and Tycho walking out on stage at opening ceremonies with lasers and fanfare and smoke machines, saying, "okay, everybody should do this once in their lives," and when a random attendee asks "Can you help a brother out?" saying yes, resetting the stage, and letting him do it. And it's about everyone else there knowing enough not to screw it up by asking a second time for themselves.
It's not particularly about geeks having a culture. Geeks have culture; that's not at all new. But maybe it's about geeks having a participatory culture, a culture where you do stuff, and where coming up with something clever is instantly rewarded. But you have to be both smart and quick. I don't have any better an idea of how to describe it, as a whole, than Tycho or Gabe, in the end - but I do know that I had the first case of post-con depression I've had in years. Maybe I don't know really what it was, but I know one thing: it was that good. And honestly? That's kind of neat.
