WEBSERIES: Husbands and the Kickstarter Revolution

Have you seen Husbands? It’s a charming comedic webseries from Jane Espenson and Brad Bell (who co-stars in it as well), about a comedian and a sports star who, while celebrating gay marriage equality in a fictional, gay-friendly version of the US, get drunk and then married unexpectedly. While an enjoyable series, this post isn’t really about Husbands.  It’s [...]

PIRACY AND MEDIA: Let’s Take It Personally

The issue of piracy in media is overwhelming, with practically everyone lining up on each side of the argument. Some say that piracy is destroying the industry, while others are saying that it’s not having nearly the effect it seems to. The thing is, there’s been plenty of top-down approaches to fixing the problem, many [...]

PERSONAL: Social Media Flurry

Have recently been working to create a decent social media presence lately. It seems to be a key component in creating an online persona beyond the blog. I’ve been Tweeting both at rjlackie, my personal Twitter account, and signal_tv, the account for The Signal. I’ve also been setting up more social media profiles, like at [...]

Derivative Works IV: Taking Back the Culture

In previous Derivative Works pieces, I’ve written about how the stigmas regarding fanfiction are inaccurate, and how derivative works can use a majority-centric work to create a space for a minority. In that last essay, I wrote about how cover songs can ‘queer’ a mainstream song, giving queer voices a way to access a song [...]

MEDIA: Sites We Should Have in Canada

Tell me if this is a familiar issue for you: you encounter a website and think, wow, that’s amazing, and decide you’d like to participate – only to discover it doesn’t offer its services in Canada. A lot of really popular websites develop in the U.S. and, sadly, have no Canadian arm or equivalent to [...]

INTERNET: On Online Identity

Tonight, I discovered a longtime online friend was a fraud who falsified photos, details about his identity, and plagiarised scripts in order to ingratiate himself into a writing community I was a part of. The biggest question, after the confusion and hurt settled, was “Why?”.