Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #566: Vidcon 2018

Episode Date: August 24, 2018

For the last three years, my daughter Rachel and I have attended Vidcon, a convention dedicated to YouTube video stars. This podcast is the story of this year's trip and all the things I learned from it.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. I dropped my son off at camp. Okay, so recently my eldest daughter Rachel and I went to VidCon. So for those that are regular blog listeners, or podcast listeners, sorry, you will know that I've done this twice before and I made two podcasts. So every year for the last three years we've gone. This year was no different. So I'm going to talk all about going to VidCon and what I learned at VidCon. So the big difference this year from previous years, well first off,

for those that don't know what VidCon is, I think the vid stands for video. It's all about sort of the YouTube videos and such. My daughter's always been really fascinated with that, and she is going to go to school to study communications. So anyway, this year, for the first time, there's three different levels that you can be, and each level has its own programming that goes with it. So you can be a community member, you can be a creator, or you can be industry. So you can be a community member, you can be a creator, or you can be industry. The past two years we had been community, but this year we updated to creator,

which cost a little more and also just opened us up to a bunch of other panels and things that we didn't have access to before. And as someone who is a creator, it was interesting. A lot of the talks were quite interesting. So I'm going to talk through sort of all the stuff we did and then some of my takeaways and how maybe some of the things I learned at VidCon might actually affect my design of magic. So, okay, so let's get started. So the event was we showed up on Wednesday night to register and the event was Thursday, Friday, Saturday,

and we left on Sunday. So I'm going to walk through what we did each day and kind of what we learned. So Wednesday night is just sign-up night. My daughter and I have a tradition of going to get crab

at Joe's Crab Shack, which we did. But Wednesday is just for signing up. So what had happened since last year is, so this event takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center,

literally next door to Walt Disney World. Not world, Walt Disney Land. Disneyland and what was it called, the other one? California Adventures. Anyway, so we stayed right nearby

and since last year they built a whole new building. When we were here last year, they were in the process of building the new building and this year it was there. So a lot of the events took place in the new building, such as registration, which required us to, we thought we knew where registration was because it had been the same place the last couple of years, but they moved it. Okay, so on Thursday, so the first panel we went to, which was one of the new panels we had access to,

was called the Psychology How Adolescents Consume Media. So this was really interesting. So what they did is they had a professor who kind of studies adolescents and talks about how media interacts with them and how they interact with media. And it was really interesting for me, as somebody who, I mean,

obviously magic is more than just adolescents. We, there's a lot, is more than just adolescence. There's a lot, our audience spans lots of ages, but adolescence is one of our audience members. So it was very interesting talking about sort of where adolescents are at. And one of the coolest things about it was her explaining that, you know, kind of how when I grew up, my adolescence is just very different than a current adolescence. Now, I have adolescent kids, so some of this is something I can observe.

But the world they've grown up in, you know, the internet has always existed. You know, it's not like something that they've seen come to fruition. Like in my youth, obviously there was no internet. And the way you interconnected with people was very different. And one of the things they said that was really interesting is that one of the things is a lot of the lessons that teens, you know, like teens are very, very influenced by the people who make materials, and that one of the things they look for is a sense of realness, a rawness, if you will, and that teens are very, very influenced by the stuff they consume.

And so what they said is, they said a couple things. One is they talked about how you have to be careful that if you're producing stuff for adolescents, there's a responsibility for you because the data they were looking at is they were saying that the video that they consume can have a bigger impact on them than their teachers, at times, and their parents, that really has a large influence. So A, there's a responsibility for people making material for adolescents.

And B, the core element of it is that they want to believe that you are talking honestly to them and that if they felt talked down to or they feel if you're misleading them, that adolescents will switch very quickly between things. That they become very faithful to things that mean something to them, that they're, you know, that adolescents will switch very quickly between things, that they become very faithful to things that mean something to them, but they'll switch between things. And so she was talking a lot about the means by which you deal with adolescents and understanding how they consume media is realizing that they're looking for stuff that connects to them and their lives, and they want to find people

that sort of speak to issues they care about. And so one of the interesting things for me is, you know, magic is an entertainment vehicle, right? Magic is something people do for fun. And so a lot of the reasons that I have people follow me is because they like the game and they want to learn more about the game. But one of the things that I try to do while talking about the game is also introduce other elements to things.

I like to believe that in my social media, I try to sort of introduce concepts that, you know, the importance of diversity or the importance of polite discourse or the importance of sort of understanding that there are different people from you that think different things and that's not wrong. You know, there's a lot of themes that keep coming up in my work and stuff. And a lot of what I try to do is I want people, and not just adolescents, but anybody who listens to understand sort of the role and the importance of that. And so this talk was really interesting and really reinforced. I think a lot of the things they were saying I kind of inherently knew, but it was nice to hear it, and especially from an expert that that's what they deal with. Okay, the next thing

we did is we went to a creator network for college students. This one I mostly sat back, let Rachel do her thing. It was interesting of just to observe and watch from sort of from afar. Like I said, they do a bunch of these sort of networking things where people just get together and they can talk. This one was a college student once. Obviously, everyone there was younger. Interestingly, Rachel went to two creator networks, and that's the two times that I got recognized at the convention.

And normally, this is the kind of convention where the average, you know, the core audience is like teenage girls, which is, I mean, not that zero teenage girls play magic, but not a lot. So this is not, you know, the previous weekend I had been at Grand Prix Vegas where I couldn't walk two feet without signing an autograph. This was a much different thing. Usually, how much I get recognized is what's the overlap between the thing I'm at and magic. And this one, pretty low. I'm not going to say it's zero. at and magic. And this one, pretty low. I'm not going to say it's zero,

but it was interesting in that the two times I met somebody were in networking sessions where people were networking. Anyway. Okay, so after this we went to the Expo Hall. So the Expo Hall was very interesting. It was a little bit bigger this year. Basically

they have a lot of brands that are very interesting in talking to this demographic. And be aware that VidCon skews young. Skews female, skews young. When I say teenage girls are the number one audience, I'm not exaggerating. I mean, Rachel, for example, is starting to get on the

a little bit on the older end. She's 18. And the average, you know, when we first started going, she was 16. And even then, probably the average age was a smidgen younger than her. But now she's getting a little bit older. Now, the interesting thing is she's really interested in communications. And like a lot of what she wants to study, this is sort of dead on her in her area.

So I think the reason she was really interested in going to a lot of the creator panels was getting more of thought of not just, like previously we'd gone to and we'd watch the people that make the content listen to them and this year was not just about listening to people who make the content but listening to people make the kind to talk about how they make the content so that was very interesting but anyway in the hall there's all sorts of different activities the big thing about VidCon is they want you to go on social media and show what they're doing. So they're trying to make a large social media presence. So it's very much about providing cool visuals so you can shoot pictures

and fun opportunities so you can do videos. So there's just a lot of different things. Like World of Dance had what they call a silent disco where you put on a headset and you dance, but only you can hear the music. Although then they played the music later, so I'm not sure why they did that. And it's all over. There's games there, and makeup and clothing, and candy brands. And Nerf had the giant—remember we talked about Hascon.

Nerf set up the giant arena where you shoot people. They had this blow-up area that was like 80 different blow-up things all put together for the largest ever blow-up area. You could try out for things. Rachel auditioned for a couple different things. Anyway, all sorts of stuff. Expo Hall is kind of cool. Oh, and I had a chance. Expo Hall is kind of cool.

Oh, and I had a chance. My daughters, Rachel and Sarah, are very into a group called Studio C. And I had mentioned that on my blog, or on my Twitter, I think. And one of the members of Studio C, a guy named Adam, Adam Berg, is a big fan of Magic, plays Magic.

And so we had connected with him. We had actually Skyped with him. And anyway, Adam was there. So Rachel and I had a chance to meet him. And Stacey had actually Skyped with him. And anyway, Adam was there. So Rachel and I had a chance to meet him and Stacey is someone else from Studio C. So anyway, that was fun. We did that while we were in the hall. Then we went to see a talk called Boss Women Who Kick Ass.

It was about female video stars. I didn't write it down on the internet. I remember what Colleen, Miranda Sings. Colleen, I'm blanking on her last name. But what Colleen, Miranda Sings, Colleen, I'm blanking on her last name, but the one who plays Miranda Sings was there, my daughter, my younger daughter,

really likes her. A lot of these stars I'm talking about, you might not know who, if you're not familiar with this scene, some of you probably are, some of you are not.

But anyway, it was really interesting sort of talking about, this panel was talking about kind of what is it like to be a woman and do this and a female perspective and sort of what, you know, what exactly, what are the challenges and, you know, how exactly do you, you know, what is the uniqueness to being a woman in this space doing this kind of stuff?

One of the things Rachel was very fascinated by, and you can see as we go to different panels, was she loves watching different groups and how they represent themselves. And so we went to a lot of panels that were talking about, okay, I am this. How do I represent this within it? As you will see. So the next one we went to was a panel called We're Here, talking about marginalized identities. And so this panel talked a lot about a bunch of different identities, some trans identities,

different LGBTQ stuff. Well, I guess trans is part of LGBTQ. Anyway, the most interesting thing about this panel was at one point, somebody on stage said, I'm just curious, are there any white, straight, cis men in the audience? And I raised my hand, and I was the only one in the whole audience, so I was the token white, straight, cis man in that audience. But this

panel was all about talking about sort of what it's like to sort of be someone that's not normally seen. And the interesting thing about this panel is one of the things we talk a lot about is about diversity and the importance of letting people see themselves in the game. And this was really interesting because one of the things that came up a lot during this panel was that a lot of them started doing content because they had never seen anybody do that content. They had never seen that representation. And one of the interesting things is they asked them about what entertainment they like and a lot of them would say oh this show that finally did this thing and I'd never seen that before and that really what meant something to me it was really reaffirming a lot of the themes that we talk about when we talk about diversity in the game of the importance

of someone being able to see themselves and that when you're used to seeing yourselves when it's something that you get all the time, you don't really understand the value of it because you take it for granted. But it was really interesting listening to these people talk because it really sort of hammered that home. And the last thing we did on Thursday is we went and saw Love, Simon,

which is, they said it was the first movie, mainstream movie ever, with a gay protagonist. I mean, maybe that is true. I kind of want to believe that's not true, that there were other gay main characters. But it definitely was. It was a love story in a very typical high school sort of way,

but with a gay main character. And it was very interesting. If you haven't seen the film, it's really cute. Rachel had actually seen it already, wanted to see it again. And it was, the atmosphere there was really interesting. So anyway, we did that Thursday night. Okay, Friday. So Friday, Rachel, first thing we did is we went and signed up.

She wanted to audition for MTV. So there was a bunch of opportunities to audition. And I think Rachel likes the auditioning process itself. It's just sort of fun to do. I don't think Rachel had any illusion that she was going to get hired by MTV. But she really liked the opportunity to try out. Okay, then we went and saw Bo Burnham Talks 8th Grade with Grace Helbig. So Bo Burnham is a comedian, one of Rachel's favorite comedians.

And I like him too and he had made a film called 8th Grade the main character is a 13 year old girl in the last week of 8th grade which really spoke to me because my daughter Sarah literally just graduated from 8th grade so I have a

teenage daughter who literally a week ago was in the last week of eighth grade. So Grace Helbig, for those that don't know, is one of the YouTube stars that's been on YouTube probably one of the longest. And one of the things is there's lots of churn on YouTube, and she's one of the more constant that's been on for a while and still on. And Bo Burnham himself had started on YouTube and had done a lot of early comedy on YouTube and then transitioned from that

into doing comedy specials and stuff. Anyway, he is very funny. He's a comedian, obviously, and he talked a lot about the film and the making of the film, and the film very much talks a lot about, you know, sort of teenagers today and the world they live in

and how the media landscape is just part of their lives and how that impacts them and how it affects how they think about themselves. So anyway, it was a nice dovetie into the adolescent psychology one. And I mean, the whole thing was very entertaining and he talked a lot about the creative process and sort of why exactly did he make this movie and anyway it was really interesting and it was fun.

It was very entertaining. So then we went down to the floor and Rachel auditioned for MTV. Then we went to another creator networking this time fandom creators. So last time it had been college students. So people that are more interested in different types of fandom. Rachel is fascinated by fandoms and by sort of communities.

One of the things she might end up doing is sort of monitoring or running a community. She's very interested in how communities are formed. So this was something that she was interested in. This was the second time I got recognized. The two fandom networkings, or the two networkings, the one that I got recognized in. Okay, next we did podcasting. We'll do it live.

So I was excited to go to this one because I podcast. So this actually, although it says podcast in the title, was a little bit more about live streaming than it was about podcasting. Now, we do do live streaming. Every Thursday now, Blake has been doing live streaming,

and I was on the first one. But it is something that I was intrigued by, and this was a real technical talk. It was talking about sort of the kind of equipment you need and what do you need to do it. He really was pushing live podcasting. One of the interesting things about the way social media works is they really prefer video to audio. So I'm old school in here doing an audio podcast.

So there's a lot of push to do more video and live streaming, not just with audio, but live streaming with video itself. And most of the sites actually are set up to do live streaming of video, but not set up to do live streaming of audio. Now, I'm driving a car while I do this, so I'm not sure video is the way to go. But anyway, and as someone who messes up all the time and says things I'm not supposed to say, I'm not sure live is, I mean, I don't mind doing live streaming,

but it's a much, it's a lot harder. Doing 30 minutes on, you know, 500 topics when it would be live would be a lot more difficult. Although you probably would learn more that you shouldn't learn. Okay, next after that was a panel on coming out. Talking about sort of different experiences. One of the things that's really interesting is the idea of people revealing something about themselves like one of the things that I've always sort of had a balance is how much how much do I reveal about my personal life versus you know like how much is private how much is public uh that is

something um that I've thought a lot about I mean clearly you know I'm going on vacation with my daughter and I'm making a podcast out of it. And I've had Rachel on the show. And, you know, I've had my mother and my father on the show. So, I mean, there's a certain amount of personalizing that goes on. I'm a big believer that people identify with people, not ideas. And so, you know, I do know that part of doing this is bringing forth personality. I feel like you guys have a general sense of who I am, and I clearly share a lot of things with you.

I don't share everything with you. But I share a lot, and trying to understand where the lines get drawn and stuff. This panel talked a lot about sort of when you share and when you don't, and when you're ready. And anyway, I actually got a lot. For a panel that I would not expect walking in that I would get as much of, I thought it was a really interesting panel. Okay, after that was a panel called How to Analyze Media,

put on by people that make a show called Wisecrack. Or that's a channel. But one of the things they do is they do a lot of media analysis. We'll take a movie, and they're really big on philosophy. So a lot of times they'll break down movies and talk about what philosophy is the movie examining and stuff like that. But anyway, it was very interesting talking about how to analyze things. And as somebody who likes to analyze, it was really interesting to talk about sort of how you do that and what are the tools to do that. And a lot of the tools they talked about how they could use to do their work,

I realized were tools that I could use in my work. And they talked a lot, for example, about the importance of themes and how you have to ride your theme through. Anybody listening to me, I'm really big on theme, meaning, you know, my podcast has a theme, my article has a theme. I don't tend to just meander. I tend to, like, today I'm talking about this thing. And normally the thing they also say is not only do you have to have a theme, I don't tend to just meander. I tend to like, today I'm talking about this thing. And normally the thing they also say is, not only do you have to have a theme, but you

have to understand what's your vantage point and what are you trying to say. And that theme and that message need to weave all the way through what you're doing. Like today, for example, I'm talking sort of about, I'm a creator and that one of my jobs as a creator is to constantly be improving. I'm constantly iterating. And part of it is doing it. Part of it is getting feedback. But part of it is doing things like this.

Going and actually get some training and talking to experts. So this was really interesting. And it was kind of fun because I got a lot of insight to hear some stuff. I would not go to VidCon on my own. It's not something necessarily I would do by myself. But going with my daughter has become a fun bonding experience. It's our third year doing it. Anyway, it was very interesting.

And then we went to downtown Disney for that night. We went to, there's a restaurant we like there called Naples. It's an Italian restaurant. And so it turns out that downtown Disney is not so far away from where the Anaheim Convention Center is. So we walked to downtown Disney. Okay, now so far away from where the Anaheim Convention Center is. So we walked to Downtown Disney. Okay, now we get to Saturday. Okay, so the first panel we went to Saturday was a panel called Laugh It Up.

It was about people that did comedy online on YouTube and stuff. As somebody who obviously has a background in comedy, it was a lot of fun. I mean, the best part about asking comedians what they do is not only do you get interesting insight into comedy, but they're funny because they're comedians.

So it was a pretty fun panel. And it was... One of the things that I'm always thinking about is how much comedy to weave into what I do. My former life, I was doing comedy. And now, I'm not really doing comedy. But I like to find opportunities and places to put comedy in.

I don't really do all that much comedy in my stuff, but I do a little bit. And I like to definitely feel like I have at least a light tone at times and I can make fun of myself when need be. But anyway, that was definitely an interesting panel. Then we saw some more of the Expo Hall. And then we went to another comedy panel. This one called Girls Just Want to Make Funny. And this one was about female comedians. So it was similar.

So this one, they talked a little bit about not just doing comedy, but what it's like for a female to do comedy. One of the truisms in the industry is there's a lot of resistance to female comedians. I mean, little by little, those barriers have been broken down. But there's still a lot that exists. There are definitely people on Hollywood who are like, women can't be funny.

And, like, that's for sure not true. But there's a lot of sexism built in. And they're talking a little bit about sort of how being a woman in comedy, what does it mean? And just talking a lot about their experiences and things they've interacted with.

And they talked a bit about some of the biases they'd run up against. And it was actually very interesting. We then went to a cosplay contest. So cosplay,

for those who don't know, is when you dress up like characters from some, usually a property you like of some kind, movies, cosplay, for those who don't know, is when you dress up like characters from some, usually a property you like of some kind. Movies, books, TV. Usually for cosplay, it's got to be something that tends to have some visual element to it so that you can see the costume and copy it. So, most of the time, like, of this thing, there was some video games, some anime, some TV shows, some movies.

The winner was a character from, like, Mercy, I think, from Overwatch. Second place was from a video game, but I didn't know the video game. And third was from an anime. But anyway, in a cosplay contest, they got a bunch of sort of celebrity judges, which are you two stars.

And then the people walked by, and they asked who they were and who they were playing, and the audience, each person posed for the audience, and then they picked three winners, and the winners got prizes and stuff. And so it's fun. Magic has a very healthy cosplaying community, so it's always interesting seeing cosplay beyond just magic.

One of these days, maybe I'll do a podcasting on cosplaying. If I can script together 30 minutes on cosplaying. I myself do not do cosplaying, but I definitely interacted with a lot of cosplayers. Okay, then we went to nerding out creators in fandom. So this was all about creating kind of nerdy, geeky content.

And it was talking to people who made stuff that was sort of geared toward, you know, really directed fandoms. And the people they were talking to weren't focused on a single fandom, but were kind of people who focused on a bunch of different fandoms. But it definitely is...

And it was everything from music to video games to movies to TV shows to toys. You know, it was a whole sort of swath of stuff. And the neat thing about this talk was talking about how do you embrace fandomness?

Which obviously speaks to me quite a bit. And one of the things they talked about, which this part I got, but was how you kind of have to be true to your fandom and understand what they want and that being unabashedly excited for your thing. Now, obviously, I do not have a problem being unabashedly excited.

But they talked about how the thing that really draws the fans in is the fans see that you share their passion for it. And so one of the things, I mean, I've always tried to do this. And if you cannot see my passion for magic, you are not looking. But I obviously am very, very passionate. I love magic. I love design.

I mean, all the things I talk about on this podcast are things that I truly, really do care about. And so it was interesting seeing other people talk about other fandoms and how they cover it that made me sort of look a little bit and say, oh, that was really interesting and that was kind of neat.

So I definitely enjoyed getting a chance to see somebody else sort of talk about it. I thought that was pretty cool. Then the final event on Saturday night, because Saturday's the last day,

is we went to see Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which was the new Mamma Mia! film, the sequel, that's not out for like a month. So we got to see a sneak preview of it. I'm a big ABBA fan, although people know that, but so I've, not only have I seen the original movie Mamma Mia!, but

Rachel and I, who go see plays together, went and saw a professional production of Mamma Mia! at Fifth Avenue here in Seattle. It was very good. And so, I mean, I know Abba music. I'm a fan of Mamma Mia. So it was fun to see. And it's also fun to see things a little bit early.

So, like, you know, no one had seen it. I'm not sure whether there had ever been any other screenings, but there was a super, super early screening. So it was really cool, and it was fun, and I enjoyed it, and there's a lot of Abbasong sung. So anyway, I'm almost to work. So really what I want to say is my trip to VidCon this year was a little bit different in the sense that because we chose the creator track, I got a lot more insight into people who make the video content and sort of the

secrets behind how they make it. And what I found, which was really interesting to me, be it that I mostly, I don't do a lot of video, I do a little bit, but mostly I'm doing audio and written stuff, a lot of social media. But how similar what they were doing to what I was doing, that it was really interesting to me how often what they say doing to what I was doing, that it was really interesting to me how often what they say spoke directly to me. I felt like

I'm going wherever Rachel's going, so I'm just sort of, you know, Rachel's picking the panels, but it was interesting to me how many panels were, like, very on the money for things that I do and that how much I kind of learned. Like, really, I went along to tag along with Rachel, but I found that it was very informative,

and I learned a lot of things from all the different stuff we had went and saw. So, I was, this is probably the most, the VidCon that I learned the most from in some ways, because I was starting to get real technical behind-the-scenes stuff, and that was really interesting. But anyway, I am now at work. So, because I left, I dropped my son off at camp, normally when I stop at home,

I tell him I'm a little shorter than normal. That's why, because I'm starting from camp. So this summer, we'll have a little more camp podcasts. In general, I try to get them close to 30 minutes. We're at 28, so we're pretty close. But anyway, for those who have never been to VidCon, it is a fun show, especially if you enjoy the video tube stuff. And it's always fun.

I love seeing other people in other environments. You know, it's fun watching my daughter in her environment and seeing how she interacts. It's fun watching the audience and watching how they interact. And seeing people who are really into something different. Like when I interact with magic players, I'm people that are really into magic. And that's its own thing. like when I interact with magic players I'm people that are really into magic and that's it's own thing but it's kind of neat to sort of

step back and see other people in other areas of interest and how you know how the people that produce content for them how do they do it and how do they interact with their fans and stuff like that so I find that super interesting but anyway I'm now parked so we all know what that means this is the end of my drive to work

so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic I'll see you guys next time