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February 4, 2012

Category: Social Geekery

August 5, 2011

The Faceless Reality Of Geek Heroism

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Social Geekery — Tags: , , , , — 2 Comments
Ultimate Spider-Man and X-Men #41, from Panini...

Image via Wikipedia

I got my attention called to a link posted by someone I follow on Twitter that talks a bit about how the new Ultimate Spider-Man is African-American and Latino, and the bit of a boat-shaking it’s caused in the comics community. Now, admittedly, when it comes to comics I am fairly weak, and really only have fond memories of 75-cent X-Men comics as a youth to provide any real context. But it was interesting to note that no matter what side of the debate people fell on, and no matter how extreme the viewpoints were (from disturbing borderline-racism to purist zealotry, and everything inbetween), that there was nevertheless a concern about the appearance and face that a hero presents. Add to the fact that Peter Parker has been a staple of the comic book industry’s look, and you have the makings of a volatile issue. It’s like a powder keg with a bunch of overeager pyromaniacs surrounding it with matchbooks in hand, with the only thing holding them back from blowing each other up worse than Wile E. Coyote being their own choice.

To someone who deals in, is friends towards, and forms connections with people who don’t immediately show you their face, I don’t know why faithful representation of a hero is such a huge deal. The whole issue with a change in the appearance of a hero – even one as iconic and familiar to geekery as Spider-Man – is one which after a certain point, becomes irrelevant. Not surprisingly, the reason I believe this to be is because of the unbridled optimism I share about heroism in general, and how it inspires us, touches us, and drives us to be more than just a time-clock puncher when it comes to how we spend out lives.

Heroes – including those revered by geeks – come in all colors, shapes, sizes, and appearances. A hero is a person who to others presents a strength and depth of character that causes reverence, respect, and inspiration. When you read about a tragic event or a disaster, the heroes could be firemen, police, the one guy who decides to run back into the burning building to save a family. When you enjoy a favorite piece of media, whether that’s a music, or a book, or a movie, the heroes are either the ones being depicted, or the ones who created the media in the first place. When you’re at work or at home, the heroes are the co-workers who get you out of a jam, or a parent or significant other who gives you love an support when you need it. Heroism is in many ways formless, and therefore faceless.

The facelessness of heroes is all the more apparent among geekery, most importantly in how we interact. How many times have you read or watched something that got you respect, admiration, and good feeling about what was being written or said? How many times have you been primarily concerned with what that looks like as opposed to what you experienced? On the internet, where anonymity is the default and words depict personality, a perceived hero carries no stock appearance, no iconic look, and no standard – yet there are people we consider to be heroic online every day, writing or posting, or creating content that we like.

So if the reason we like heroes is because of their traits, ideas, and creations, and Super Heroes are just heroes with a little something extra that helps them be heroic, why then are people worried about how a hero like Spider-Man looks? You could make an argument for longevity and the fact that “it’s always been that way”, but I challenge you to A)find any comic book hero who hasn’t changed costumes, looks, or style in some manner and B)really think about why you like the hero. Like I said, I have the capacity of a thimble when it comes to my comic book knowhow, but I think that Spider-Man specifically is beloved and seen as heroic primarily for a character that is not mutually exclusive to his face. He’s the geek-turned-superhero, a fictional calling card for the physically weak yet intelligent geek that can only dream of lifting twice their poundage, fighting crime, and scoring the romantic love of someone outside of their league. He uses what he’s been given and acts accordingly, and he carries a whipsmart wit that has been matched by few. Those are the qualities that construct the real face of Spider-Man – not the way he looks, but the way he is. And that goes for heroes everywhere, regardless of race, gender, creed, orientation, or any other surface quality you can judge by.

When you think about that, the only thing that loses face is the idea that our heroes need to look a certain way to be our heroes.

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June 4, 2011

The Podcastastic Geek Community

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Social Geekery — Tags: — Leave a comment

Yeah, I’ll be the first to admit it – I’m a podcast addict.

There’s always that one person you know that owns an mp3 or other such media player that, when you see what they have stored on there, makes your eyes bug out more than a cartoon character seeing the sexy for the first time. Usually it’s the person who makes their media player groan under the weight of near triple digits worth of GB of music, or someone who worships at the fictional altar of one particular artist (I’m looking at you, dude who has the entire Backstreet Boys collection and associated remixes).  I’m that person, except I’m like that with podcasts. It’s a little comical, really – my music collection, or at least the collection I care to carry around with me, is in the single digits for gigs. But my podcast collection is a bit scary, taking up over 85% of my iPod space.

Why is it that I need my podcast fix so bad I’ve copied them to my phone to listen to? Well, there are a couple of legitimate reasons that I can get away with the behavior. One is most certainly work-related. When you work in Community, you tend to want to keep tabs on what the community is doing in terms of fan-created content – and depending on the community (the current one I deal with has at least 15 different podcasts), you get to hear a lot of unique takes on what they feel a podcast should embody. The other is that a talk radio aficionado like myself prefers the soothing sounds of a podcast when on the road, commuting, running errands, and buzzing away at busywork, If anything, podcasts provide material on pretty much any subject you want to hear about but are too lazy to read.

Mostly though, I’m just hooked. A lot of that has to do with the everyman feel of having podcasts. In a world when a lot of people seem like they are only limited to certain media outlets if they want to hear about something, podcasts, along with blogs, have claimed a sphere that contains individuals that mostly have no formal training or aren’t versed in the ways of media generation. You’d think this was a negative, but it actually produces a lot of creative and transparent content that people can identify with. Lots of people probably wouldn’t be able to deal with a news personality like they do their next door neighbor. Podcasters have an opportunity to become that familiar with an audience, and that’s cool. The lack of restraints on the way things are communicated, talked about, and featured means that podcasters can choose to follow a traditional media route to legitimize themselves or decide to use grassroots appeal to make themselves appealing – mostly for free. That’s awesome and interesting to hear about.

Really, though, the reason why I’m a podcast freak is because of the community vibe and feel. You can get so much out of a podcast that you might not expect if you know where to look, and even better,  it’s inspiring and enables you to think about creating your own. Does this mean that every podcast makes it? Some are less popular than others – but that shouldn’t and doesn’t stop many aspiring geeky folk from trying their hand at it and putting themselves out there – which, I think, is a great reason why I try to listen to as many as I can cram into my player.

June 3, 2011

The Silliness Of Cynicipation

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Internet, Social Geekery — Leave a comment

While I took my little break from blogging on the site, there was a bit of a curious trend that I’ve been seeing. Maybe it’s more than likely been around longer and I’ve only noticed it recently, but there sure seems to be a lot of managing expectations among geekery lately. By managing expectations I of course am being completely delicate and using it as a term to describe the crushing angst I’ve seen from folks when they anticipate events, new releases, new tech, and other such geek arts-related media. You know how they call hype anticipation on steroids sometimes? This is sort of the opposite – something I call cynicipation – assuming the worst and expecting to be disappointed.

You’ve all seen the signs. The latest bit of tech, for example, is on the cusp of coming out, and the truly optimistic and excited people are tempered by an Eeyore-like bunch of wry replies that proclaim failure before it starts. The usual preparation for the trials and tribulations of first adopters are magnified tenfold into an assumption that things will crash and burn, that people will gnash their teeth in frustration, and the cynicipators will feel pain they think they know is inevitable. In fact, the only happiness a cynicipator gets is from seeing that they’re even the slightest bit right, and that they were proven to be correct in their gloom train.

You know me, guys and gals – I’m the eternal optimist, and even for someone who is a cynicipator, I get why that might be a worthy and good way of looking at things. After all, when you start out with lower expectations, anything else might seem like a ray of sunshine. The letdown of a hyped person seems to be a much worse scenario than someone who wants a piece of tech, likes a certain game, looks at a specific TV show, and thinks it’s going to drop like a rock. I hear that, and in some cases even understand it. But for me? I’d rather be excited and then perhaps let down or deflated than start off that way. Why? Because at least then I’d have felt elation, even if the feeling is short lived.

I think people who partake in cynicipation may have lost sight of the excitement and rush that expecting a geek sexy thing brings with it. The voracious reading of articles, the excitement shared among friends over text and phone, the final wait to get your hands on it or see it – all of it is an amazing experience that brings us back to being kids, when we’d come down for the holidays and unwrap gifts, or see what was around the corner waiting for us on a birthday or other special day. Even if you do end up inevitably disappointed, who wouldn’t want to feel that way again? I think that there’s a lot of reason to have hardships and trials these days – whether work, personal, or otherwise. Getting your little bit of joy out of that latest video card or new season of sci-fi or amazing game series – I’ll take that any day over the cynicipation that they’ll be bad.

March 5, 2011

The Silly Setup Of Failure

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Social Geekery, TV and Movies — Tags: , — 1 Comment

A trend I tend to see in my travels across the world wide web reading about games and their release is a certain subsection of  geek that’s always piqued my interest. No, I’m not talking about that strange guy who likes to refer to himself in the third person when he posts or that one girl who has to write in pink text every time as it it was breathing. This time, I’m talking about the ones set on ensuring that they are looking for a complete failure when it comes to a game or a show or a movie that is upcoming.

The reason why these folks are so curious to me is because as an optimist, there’s a level of intrigue as to the polar opposite of my outlook on things. What must it be like to be expecting failure all the time, even when it comes to the things that might most likely be a success? For geekery, where there is always something new and interesting around the corner and there’s a high amount of intelligence that suggests it might be decent, it’s even more of a surprise. Sure, there are cynics out there, and there are pessimists, but having a negative outlook on something is different than expecting something to fail. It’s easy to spot these folks too. They make forum threads predicting doom and gloom, blog about how the next best thing isn’t quite as good as sliced bread, and are always quick to insert an oppositional, Eeyore-like shrug into conversations that excitedly talk about what’s coming up.

If I had to take a guess, it would have to be that the people who want to anticipate failure are afraid of the feeling that it gives to them when they see something they like go down the crapper.  Perhaps hurt by having high expectations, a failure-thinker lowers them to the other extreme figuring that when the inevitable success happens, they will be pleasantly surprised.  It’s a sort of defense mechanism against high ideals and immense like for something no matter how popular it is. But why, as a geek, would you allow your self to be disappointed prior to the disappointment having any teeth to it? The thing that I would think is that setting yourself for failure basically means you’re never feeling like something succeeds. You’re denying yourself the anticipation and feeling, and good vibe that can lift a day just by being there. And low expectations that are met are still, in the end, low expectations, no matter how far above the bar they might go.

Not everyone can see a silver lining like me all the time – I can get that and understand it. But I’d also hope to think that not everyone can see just a rain cloud when they look at the sky, either. It’s a sort of grey view of things and a method by which you’re always going to be sad about anything and everything. The elation of success felt when your low standards are met is temporary and only leads to the next thing that you think isn’t going to cut the mustard. It’s just not a good way of thinking. I think that being genuinely excited about something, whether it is a game with great features you like, or a tv show that really seems to speak to you, or a movie that you’ve been waiting to be made is worth feeling a little down if it doesn’t ultimately pan out. At least then, you’d only be temporarily sad, instead of temporarily happy. I’ll take the happy any day.

February 28, 2011

New Geek Toys

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Social Geekery — 1 Comment

Most non-geeks remember getting toys at Christmas as kids and being excited about what they were getting. They’d get up early, try to catch a little bit of Santa if they could, and ultimately end up tearing open a large box that had everything they wanted inside. It’s one of those nostalgic things that sort of persists into your later years when they watch kids of a later generation do the exact same thing.

But for geeks, that feeling never quite fades away with age. Why is that? I think it’s mostly because geek toys sort of don’t know age, or at the very least, evolve with the geek. When I was young, it was Transformers, GIJoes, and toy cars. As I aged it was PDAs, digital cameras, and CD players. Now it’s computers, massive TVs, and video cameras. With every iteration I never really lost the wonderment of cracking open something and seeing the latest and greatest in tech staring back up at me. And even though these too, were things that were outgrown or obsolete (usually within the first two weeks) they were for me a bit of excitement at using and utilizing something new.

For geeks I don’t think it’s just about a toy for toy’s sake. Despite what some people might think about some of the latest devices out there (iPad comes to mind), most geeks are more excited for the fact that they might get use out of their new toys than they are for having the toy itself. A new computer allows for more to be done with regards to projects, businesses, and recreation. A new TV allows for better solution, nicer recording, and some features in HD that make everything seem to pop out a lot better. The list goes on. The practicality of something, the thing that makes anew device useful, is what truly excites and makes a geek go nuts over the best tech toys out there.

But that isn’t to say there isn’t a bit of that child-like idea of having something that no one else has, among geeks with their toys. First generation adopters have always been temporary darlings in the geek community, posting impressions, ideas, thoughts, and unboxing videos galore for others to live vicariously through. The rush of using a new piece of technology sometimes lasts hours and days, as fevered excitement infects others and causes them to potentially jump on the new geek toy bandwagon. I guess in some respects, it’s coming full circle, back to a childhood where the prospect of a toy was sometimes more exciting than the toy itself. Geek tech is no different, and I hope that even among the cynics, that some level of optimism can be preserved for grown up geeks squealing like kids getting their first game console.

February 23, 2011

Kryptonian Traffic

by Frank — Categories: Social Geekery — 2 Comments

As a modern geek, there are very few things that actually give me the sort of fear and dread that you reserve for monsters in your closet while you’re a kid. The thing is, I’ve written many a time about how geekery devices and modern technology happen to overcome even the worst of problems. The post I made about that ridonkulous blizzard that came through my area a few weeks ago proves it.

But being stuck in traffic as the driver is another story entirely, and something which happened to be early this morning.

The main problem with being stuck in traffic is that you’re stripped of your tools, essentially. There I was, hands on the wheel, watching as people crept forward with the speed of a snail stuck in molasses, unable to do anything to alleviate the stress or the fact that despite leaving at the correct time I was most certainly going to be 45 minutes late. Meanwhile, the electronic world was going by me, whizzing by while I was unable to do anything about it. Things were happening on the internets – and I couldn’t get to them. The only real analogy I can attach to my rather silly dilemma is to imagine that you are given your favorite food every day. You can have it whenever you want and in whatever amount you want. Now imagine that they suddenly take that food away, lock it in a dark room down the longest hall in existence, and put you in a line of people that looks like the one you wait for in the DMV, only ten times slower, and you have what I was going through.

Some of you might be asking one of two things as you read this, besides the fact that you’re wondering if I’ve lost my marbles. The first is whether or not I could just text, or call, or do something while driving instead. The thing is, I’m a safe driver for one, and the second is that a hefty fine in my city for being caught talking or texting is a huge deterrent. that, and the embarrassment of being caught doing either of those things while going 5 miles an hour. Worst police chase ever.

The second would be why I wouldn’t just use hands free or voice activation to get my fix. I’m ahead of you on that one. I have a mount in my car, I put my phone on it and I can do things like make it a GPS, map out my stuff, and check my mail. And to make it all legal, all I’d have to do is to use the voice-activation to ensure that both my hands are on the wheel and my eyes are on the road. This would work great, except for the fact that I am convinced that voice systems, while cool and neat, may not be up to par understanding me. When I say “E-mail….Hello, I’m running a little late, I’m sorry” and it comes out as “Hostess, I’m ratcheting a kettle set, time smash ee”, I think that there might be something that could be done to fix that little bit of technology.

Optimist that I am, I eventually got through the traffic and managed to get to work. Was I a bit apprehensive? No doubt I was. I managed to keep myself afloat, however, with a healthy amount of classic radio (which I fooled myself into thinking was an internet podcast) and a bit of thought about how to go about my day (which I fooled myself into thinking was checking my email) and only a tiny bit of road rage (which I fooled myself into thinking would be me driving my car into theirs, Twisted Metal style, and jaunting off to work). I hope no one ever gets in the same situation, but if you do, trust me – there are some ways to deal with not having your geek fix.

February 22, 2011

Something Geekily Different: How I Was Defeated By Self-Checkout

by Frank — Categories: Social Geekery — 2 Comments

Good god, I’m almost late here. Could it be my New Year’s resolution to make 365 posts in a year is in danger? Possibly.

To save this, I suppose I have no choice but to relate what may be a very unfortunate story today.

I was defeated by the grocery self-checkout. Yep, that’s right. I lost to it.

It all started when I got some groceries on the way home. Now, all things aside, I was feeling pretty good about my geekiness. I checked my lists on Remember the Milk, had some instructions emailed to me, and used my phone to keep the whole mess organized while I stumbled around with my cart dropping things into it. I’m pretty good at this, mostly because, like many male geeks, I’m good at following directions. Install a server? No problem, we’ve got steps to follow to ensure it doesn’t become a smoking ruin. Fixing an issue with my remote? No biggie, I’ve got the manual and some troubleshooting I know how to do because of it. Shopping? Not an issue, because I have a list and I figure out what to get to it to the letter. This becomes slightly important later.

After rolling around with what seemed to be 15 minutes, thankfully without running over any elderly people or small children, I got to the checkout line. Now, some normal person would probably not care if they went to self-checkout or the normal person who has trouble scanning at least one item and worries you can’t get outside on your own with a 20 bags of Cheetos. But a geek like me is a different story. We live for the cutting edge of technology – sure, some of the time it’s because we want to feel like the future of the Jetsons and Star Trek is here -, but nevertheless, we’re early and constant adopters for the latest things. This is why self-checkout was more appealing to me than poor Ed at the counter, who appeared to be having a dilemma with a sudden breakout of acne while he seemed to weep over low wages.

Half the problem with self-checkout is the wait. Part of the reason for the wait is more than likely, from your perspective, the fact that the person in front of you failed the aptitude test necessary to operate modern machinery beyond a hammer. They look to be fumbling around, scan their items multiple times by running them across the unforgiving glass pane like crazy people, and generally look more surprised than they should that you must actually pay a machine before you can leave. What I clearly saw from a distance was someone who obviously was the type of person I helped every day with their computer, because they’d clicked on the popup for “Free iPod Nano” and installed a bunch of spyware that gnawed on their machine. I chuckled inwardly as a deer in headlights look appeared on the face of the person in front of me, their face scrunched in concentration as they desperately tried not to drop their eggs and other delicate groceries in an attempt to not be as embarrassing as they looked.

As they departed, I walked up to the self-checkout counter. The cheery female voice directed me to push buttons and scan items. Grinning to myself, I was about to do the people behind me a service by showing them how doing a self-checkout was supposed to work. Efficient. Quick. Not looking dumbfounded.

..except for the fact that the first scan I did of an item totally appeared to mess up the system. It seemed like such a small thing, this bunch of frozen fruit bars that I’d decided to add to my cart at the last minute. But for some reason, my moment of weakness at deviating from the instructed list of items was my downfall. The system appeared to accept the item, but then refused to speak the price. Thinking this odd, I tried to scan the item again. It beeped happily, but did not appear to register at all. Instead, it kicked me to a screen that told me I had to enter the item manually.

No issues. Google had trained me all the tricks when it came to searching for the item to come up. I input FRUIT BARS, then POPSICLES, then FRUIT. Every time, the item would not come up to be named, and would return no results, instead telling me I had to put in the name of the item. Not surprisingly, pushing the random button sequence which came out to be something like AFDFAWRGAE returned no results either.

By now, I’d become aware of the stares that were being directed my way – the ones I had once directed to the person ahead of me. Suddenly, I felt as if I was on stage again during the spelling bee in grade school – the one I lost for spelling the word “successful” wrong, ironically. Pairs of eyes descended on me – all of them, I was convinced, were bearing down on me with the condescending look of people that suspected that I was incapable of operating something mechanical unless it was one of those pencils that dispensed the points that always broke. On a public stage of produce, I was floundering, pushing buttons in a mad dash to find some key combination that would entire give me 30 lives or put me back to the previous screen. Alas, however, all was for naught, as I had to flag down a worker who looked at me as if I had caused the grocery apocalypse with my screwing with the system. Fixing it for me with the same mild, barely-hidden sigh I’d seen come from my own mouth after fixing a silly computer issue, I was allowed to finish my purchases and leave without too much embarrassment.

The lesson learned? Well, aside from probably never buying fruit bars again, it would have to be that even the simplest forms of technology can baffle the smartest  people. It’s certainly one that I take to heart as I work and post every day, and so should all my fellow geeks out there. You never know when a self-checkout, web kiosk, or walkie talkie system might humble your geek cred a little.

February 14, 2011

The Variety Of Geek Love

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Social Geekery — Leave a comment

Geeky folks have it so easy these days. When I was a kid, or even a teenager, I sort of had two modes of Valentine’s Day celebration – either I had someone in my life that I was involved in, or I didn’t. This might not seem like it’s something exclusive to geekery, but to someone like me, who was perhaps of average physical appearance but all the love in the world to give through overpriced chocolate, it’s kind of a big deal. Back then, I didn’t really have very many options open to me though. I was either with someone, in which case I was all about planning a pleasant day, or I was chasing someone, which meant I was all about planning a pleasant day finding an excuse to be with them. As a result some of my Valentine’s ended fairly well, and some ended in a manner that probably reflects the awkwardness of being more into computers and sci-fi than cars and sports teams.

All my swings and misses in the romantic arena aside (though I think I’ve done pretty well for myself), today’s geek has a lot more options open to them. They can, as I did, choose to throw all their caution to the wind and go after the one person in their life that they are within slapping distance of. But they can also pursue someone that they’ve been talking to online or spending time playing a fun game or MMO with. They can use the various tools of social media and casual gaming to shoot a bit of affection over (nothing says love like giving a cow in Farmville, right?). They can maintain a relationship that spans miles and sometimes countries with the magic of video Skype and Ventrilo. And for those not into the whole romantic nonsense of it all, gifts to be given to those who are merely loved ones or close friends are a couple clicks away.

For the geek who is with someone on this day of red hearts and cheesy messages, V-Day has become another time when people can get creative with the way they express their love. From in-game MMO items to electronic greetings to Groupon love-fests and more, the discerning geek has all sorts of ways to tell that special someone that they love them. And even the traditionalist sites that give out flowers and edible goodies have modernized for folks by providing tech-friendly delivery ordering, area breakdown, and even real time  tracking for your gifts.

Either way, today isn’t a day to be cynical or sad. I think we all have someone or another that we either have or want to have be precious to us. I would like to think that we’d all have some way of expressing that friendship and love to these people, and hope that everyone realizes there’s always someone out there that does or can care for you.

February 11, 2011

Hate-preciating The History

by Frank — Categories: Social Geekery, TV and Movies — Leave a comment

There’s probably been one thing or another during a geek’s time that he or she probably potentially disliked about their little subculture’s choice of media. More commonly than not, it is inevitably something hugely popular. Part of this is the fact that some of geekery does tend to just dislike something that gains traction in part because it means you’re marching to a different drummer. Sometimes they might be something as simple as sushi or a particular model of smartphone, or they might be as large and massive as a tv show

Take me for example. I might be  committing a cardinal sin here, but I actually feel a bit meh about what is one of the most celebrated geekery shows ever, Doctor Who. I don’t know what it is, whether it is the over-the-top alien interaction, the campiness I see in some of the storylines, or the oddity of a character that travels through time but can’t change much, but I can’t quite get into it, even after watching all of the new series of episodes.

Now, before I get totally taken to task by my fellow geeks, know that while I’m not quite sure about Doctor Who, the key thing is that I appreciate its place in the history of sci-fi. Even if Doctor Who was completely justified in my sem-dislike of it, I wouldn’t be able to deny that it is one of the longest running sci-fi shows of any kind throughout hsitory. It has spanned a bunch of actors under a story premise that allows this to happen and the show to continue. It has revived interest in British sci-fi and spawned a couple of spinoffs that I actually appreciate (such as Torchwood).

I think more of geekery needs to understand and “hate-preciate” things that they dislike more. Someone may despise a show like Naruto with the heat of a thousand suns but you can’t not see that it is popular among younger geekery for a reason. A show like Star Trek: Voyager might not be in your rolodex of DVDs due to its place in the franchise but you’ll still like it due to the fact that it does carry a nice niche within it.  The list goes on. Not surprisingly, all of this is an example of how this blog can tell you to take even the dislike you feel for something and turn it positive. Trust me – you’ll get into less of a tizzy with your geek-obsessed friends who just happen to like teenage ninjas.

February 10, 2011

The Value Of An MMO Leader’s Masochism

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Social Geekery — Tags: , — Leave a comment

Recently, one of my readers (I do have them!) turned me onto this little gem of a book called “The Guild Leader’s Handbook” on Amazon, which is this little compendium if tips and tricks about being a leader in a group of people towards a mutual digital goal. I have to say, it’s about time that something like this came out in actual print, mostly because I think there are always some tried and true facts about being a guild leader in an MMO that frankly needed to be committed to the written word. I haven’t cracked the book at all, but I do hope that one vital and salient point about what is needed to be a guild leader isn’t missed.

To be a guild leader, you have to be a masochist. And people have to appreciate the positive value of that level of self-punishment.

I was never really a guild leader, but I did climb as high as to be suckered into being a sort of senior officer and a raid leader, which meant such fun tasks as posting raid strategies, using my barely coherent mathematics skills to determine points for our raid/loot system, and listening to people talk my ear off about how the purples needed to be on their toon instead of another’s. The thing is, someone has to do the job, and the job of a leader’s, especially in an MMO’s, is just sometimes as painful as sticking a pair of scissors in your hand and twisting.

Perhaps the worst day I ever had involved:

-Me somehow finding a bug in the raid point software that gave someone hundreds of points and minused a ton of random points from others

-Listening for two hours to 3 people involved in a crazy online love triangle that was affecting our ability to raid

-Having to sit in vent and hearing the unfortunate sound of someone on the raid that had the stomach flu, and

-Misassigning the best warrior weapon in the entire dungeon to a gnome mage.

…but on that day, we killed a raid boss we’d been working on for weeks. Somehow, it made the masochism all worth it. I’d say that the next time you see your guild leader or raid leader, or if you ever pop open the book I linked, make sure you give them a virtual hug and perhaps even some cookies. Trust me – they’ll need them.

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