Tammy Oler

Life, Long

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:00:00 -0800

So a couple of my articles from recent years have found second homes in educational texts:

Making Geek Chic is here:

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/Catalog/product/signsoflifeintheusa-seventhedition-maasik

Ladies Camp Rock is here:

http://www.mypearsonstore.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0205211216

I don't know that I'm supposed to admit this, but I'm delighted on a million levels that my essays about tech crafting and Wizard Rock might be used in college or high school classes. It's the same feeling I have when I've come across my work on horror movies included in a college syllabus.

I started a PhD program at the age of 23 and left it two years later for a giant list of reasons. I spent years afterwards feeling like a Big Failure, and when that feeling subsided, it was replaced with a feeling that graduate school was going to be the Big Unfinished Business (BUB) of my life. I moped around a lot in my own head, wondering if my inner academic had any reconcilable place in my life.

Right before I left Berkeley, I had a conversation with a wonderful professor who didn't start down her career path in academia until she was in her thirties. She had sort of a meteoric rise to the tenure track, but she was super down-to-earth. When I shared with her that I was leaving Berkeley, all sweaty palms and barfynervous about letting her down, she told me two things. The first was that there was more than one way to be a part of the conversation -- why not be an independent scholar or writer? The second was, simply, "Life is long." At the time, I didn't believe the first thing and I didn't understand the second.

More than a decade later, I totally understand the first thing and I'm starting -- really starting -- to believe the second.

Most of my energy these days is devoted to the great and sprawling craziness that is running StellarEngine. It seems like we're growing busier (I mean both of those things) every day. I don't make much room for writing. But it's here. It ebbs right now, and that's fine, because gone is the BUB. I've realized: I'm just getting started.

Life is long. The past six months should probably make me feel that life is actually short: I lost my last living grandparent last fall, a woman who was a fierce mentor to me, and then I watched my mother and my partner spent time in the hospital battling through a lot of health issues. But here we are. We're in it, and we're in it together, and it's so important to celebrate the moments when we feel utterly awesometastic because we've got a long way to go and no matter where we are, we're probably still just getting started.

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Sometimes I Draw Junk

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:17:51 -0800

Some cartoons I've drawn recently.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Talk Talk in Colorado Springs

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:11:08 -0700

I'm heading back to my hometown in a few days to get social with the AdFed in Colorado Springs. The details on my talk:

Listen Twice, Speak Once: Insider Tips for Building a Smarter Social Media Strategy

Thursday, 9/22/11

11:30am - 1:00pm

RSVP: AAFColoradoSprings.com

https://www.aafcoloradosprings.com/page.asp?id=14&name=Registration+Form

There will be stories, strategy, infographics and internet cats. Also, this marks the first time my head has appeared on a direct mail postcard. Noted.

Hope to see you there, Colorado friends!

(For those of you playing the Facebook F8 livestream drinking game that day, I'll catch up with you later.)

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Life's Rich Content

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 17:48:51 -0700

My friend Ian recently blogged about the Internet dust-up over Alyssa Bereznak's Gizmodo post that eviscerated a man she dated who happened to be a world champion at Magic: The Gathering. The whole ensuing Internet drama strikes me as a quintessential moment of the Internet serpent eating its own tail: blogger sees an opportunity to create what she might reckon is funny and harmless content from a recent life experience, and other bloggers see that content as actually unfunny and harmful and use the opportunity to create (funny/unfunny, harmful/unharmful) content that takes her down. And here I am, creating content about all of that content. Her piece totally sucked and it was mean-spirited and dumb, but so are a lot of the responses. And in the midst of all of this are the measured and more interesting analyses -- among them Ian's, who writes, "This woman's crime isn't that she's mean-spirited, or that she doesn't "get" gamers. Her crime is a failure of imagination, a failure to sense greatness. Diving into someone's else's passions, no matter how weird they might seem, never fails to stoke your own." Yes. I mean, YES. And there lies some of the very wonder if the Internet, the liberating quality of fandom (even for the inaugurated) and the discomfort that Magic: The Gathering obsessives creates in the likes of Alyssa Bereznak. What if, at the end of the day, you started to worry that the very things you're passionate about don't mean a thing at all? The eccentric communities, they reflect that fear back at us in a way that's difficult to articulate. Except to make fun of it.

But here's the thing: I do have some compassion for Alyssa Bereznak. If your job is to create content all the time, and especially if your job is to create content all the time for Gawker, your life is basically all content: every story, every person you meet, every story you overhear, every person someone else you know just met, everything you see and do and watch. It's all content.

All content, all the time.

I lived a bit of this when I was doing a lot of freelancing for entertainment and media blogs. Every movie I watched was a potential post. Every movie trailer I watched was a potential post. Every joke I made about some bit of industry gossip with a friend was a potential post. There was so much opportunity: I could potentially write about and get paid for posts about everything around me: movies, music, books, industry news, celebrities, etc. But what a drag. I began to see everything as potential work, a potential pitch, a funny thing I could write about. No doubt, this is a good problem to have, but it's also a deeply weird place to be. When you make a living creating content, it's hard to stop. There were days when I just wanted to actually enjoy something I was experiencing, but it was hard because I was trying to find the angle. I felt agitated a lot. It was hard to switch off the content part of my brain and just experience.

Of course, it's true that discretion is the better part of valor. Bereznak is clearly lacking some of that. And I'm lucky that I was never working for an outlet that was so relentless in its quest for shareable content bubbling with commentary snark that I felt reduced to being seriously mean. That's not who I am. But I understand the pull. I feel it now, as even as most of my time is taken up with the business. I identify, curate, and catalog little bits and pieces of conversations, pop culture and memories into potential ideas for social content relevant to clients. Professional hazard, I guess.

Social content. Oftentimes, it feels so disposable. Sometimes, the pieces blow up. But mostly: it aggregates. We leave cached trails of the stuff we put out there online. It's so easy to forget that we can do a lot of harm -- but it's equally easy to forget that we can do the good stuff, too. Why is the good stuff so much harder?

I want to honor the shareable experiences of my life and inspire you, too. With discretion. Always with discretion.

I picked pears at an orchard upstate this weekend. Here is a piece of content that made me so happy and I hope it makes you happy, too. One beautiful pear.

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Android's Bionic Woman: Women Rule

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:25:00 -0700

Check out the Droid Bionic teaser:

Wow. Could this be any more different than the Droid "Pretty" commercial from a few years ago? Remember that one, which dissed the iPhone as a digitally clueless Barbie phone?

Even as Android has been gobbling up marketshare in cell phones, they've kind of been striking out with women the past few years. Have you heard rumors that the HTC Bliss is going to be the first Android phone targeted specifically for women? Early reports said that it might feature shopping/calorie-counting apps and something bizarre called an "indicator charm," which all seems like fairly clueless digital thinking to me. But nothing has been confirmed just yet.

For my money, this teaser points out a couple of interesting things:

- Droid and other device makers are trying to find some way to market power to women without alienating men

- Bad-ass female action stars are increasingly becoming a bankable property across all media -- it doesn't seem like a coincidence to me that the actress in this commercial looks like a cross between Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman

- Fighting robots are always awesome

It will be interesting to see how this commercial campaign plays out -- and how Droid's sales figures reflect it.

Thanks to E. for sending the spot my way. "It's not a fembot!" he said. Indeed.

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Brooklyn, America

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:46:27 -0700

Last week I made the trek to Coney Island with friends for a Brooklyn Cyclones game. We grabbed pizzas from Totonnos, ate slices near the Jackie Robinson memorial, and drank beer together under the stadium awning while rain and lightning shut down the game for over an hour.

I love Coney Island. I don't love it, too. It takes an hour to get out there, and there's never a G train to connect to on the way home. It's loud and sandy, and all the food is terrible for you. There's all these new rides out there. But it takes an hour to get there, and if you ride the Q train you get to see really interesting platforms and views. And the beach is full of characters, and Nathan's cheese fries are delicious. And there's new stuff out there. It's all good and bad and everything in between.

I moved to Brooklyn just about four years ago. It's an amazing transition, moving to New York. Things and people feel superbright, like neon flashing signs of New York Importance, for a long, long time after you move in. It's exhilarating, and also exhausting. I was feeling a little worn out from all the awesomeness of New York a few weeks after I moved, and that's when E. took me to my first Brooklyn Cyclones game. We sat in the stands, burning our faces off because we forgot sunscreen, and I ate a pretzel and looked at the great mass of Brooklynites cheering on their minor league team and I thought, "Yeah, this is home."

Brooklyn, America. I love it now more than I did then, even more than I ever could have imagined.

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Weekly Talkies: Dragons Go After Hours and make the Tabloids

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:00:01 -0700

So, hey, here's a round-up of the flicks I saw this past week.

Tabloid

I know that a chief criticism of this film is that Errol Morris just isn't serious enough about it, and that he indulges too much in the very tabloid pleasures that he's ostensibly exploring. But I think that's a bit unwarranted. No doubt, it was really enjoyable to experience Errol Morris inhabiting a tabloid narrative, delivering up the very thrills he ought to be (and we ought to be) suspicious of. But it was thought-provoking to reflect on my varied reactions as the crazy, conflicting details of Joyce McKinney's tabloid odyssey unfolded -- and I think that's very much the point. And Spirit Booger. That's the point, too.

How To Train Your Dragon

I'll admit, I was not into the idea of this film when I first heard about it. But now that I've seen it on DVD, I'm feeling all DANGIT that I didn't see it in 3D at the theatre. The flying sequences are super joyous, even in a 2D rendering, and I can only imagine how great they were with that extra D. I guess that's what you get when you hire Roger Deakins to be your visual consultant... But, alas, there's a lot more than zippy flying sequences to love here, namely a wonderfully imagined dragon sidekick named Toothless, and a big sincere message about friendship and trust that's delivered in smart and sweet ways. What can I say? I'm a softie. And also a big fan of any movie that can make Gerard Butler's (even animated) presence palatable.

After Hours

Now that I've been in New York for four years, it just seemed right to revisit one of my favorite Scorsese movies. It's a real treat, not only to see that cast (Whoah, Will Patton! Whoah, Linda Fiorentino! Whoah, Terri Garr/Catherine O'Hara! Whoah, Bronson Pinchot?) but also because it's kind of a marvel to see Tribeca back when it looked more like Bushwick than Tribeca. This film captures the paranoid-but-exhilarating essence of every semi-secret little party I've ever been to in a not-supposed-to-be-a-loft building in Brooklyn. So awesome.

My prediction: it's just a matter of time before we start to see Plaster of Paris bagel & cream cheese paperweights start to appear at the Renegade Craft Fair. Mark it down.

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Blogthink: Making & Selling Independent Theatre

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:38:22 -0700

Here's my friend Sean asking the question "Why?" about NY independent theatre. It's a good blogthinky piece, and my friends who are busy in all sorts of artistic labors and loves will find a lot to relate to here about the pursuit of something that motivates you to GO. And here's Sean with a follow-up: his thoughts on selling. "So be honest. And be loud about it." Amen.

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August Days

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 05:53:00 -0700

Late summer days always make me think of things I haven't done: kites I haven't flown, beaches I haven't been to, lazy lemonade days that probably don't exist (but I want them anyway). The weight of this list makes me forget that I've eaten tacos on the West Coast twice in the past month, and marveled at fireflies in Georgia, and laughed with friends by the side of a bonfire over the 4th of July. I always want to soak up the most of what's here and now in the sunny times. But late summer lets me admit some relief. The shade feels good, and I look forward to not seeing everyone's bra straps all the time. When my bike gets a flat tire, the G train is a giant metal inchworm. But its cool air feels so nice.

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A Tale of Two Chompys

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:36:00 -0700

Check out my friend Seth Shelden putting his lawyering skills on display in this Washington City Paper post about Chompie/Chompy the Shark, the inflatable mascot for Discovery's Shark Week. At issue is a blogger who named the shark Chompy during its original installation, who's now miffed that Discovery has taken to calling it Chompie. He contends that it's a misspelling (and that he's not getting any credit). Anyhow, Seth busts out some trademark law on this issue, and makes what I think is an increasingly important point about trademark in our digital world: "Trademark law isn't interested in protecting creativity; it's interested in ensuring that consumers aren't confused about the source of a good or a service."

If the law were interested in protecting creativity or, for that matter, good taste, this blogger should surely get some credit for his superior spelling. Take it from a Tammy-with-a-y (not a Tammy-with-an-ie): the 'y' is always better.

(via: Washington City Paper)

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Attack the Blog

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:18:00 -0700

Attack the Block slayed me with some serious awesomess: it's entertaining from beginning to end, it has a sharp script and a pack of dynamic young actors that bring it to life without making it seem like work (mad props especially to John Boyega and Alex Esmail), and it surfaces a variety of real issues (racism, classism, what it means to be part of a block) with a very deft touch. I can't help but think that John Carpenter would love this film.

Go see it. It's a movie that makes you feel glad you just plunked down 15 bucks to see it.

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