Over the Holidays, BitChikka asked me how I got interested in blockchain technology, and what I’m looking forward to in 2019. Here’s what I think.

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Congratulations to cosplay goddess Alodia Gosiengfiao on becoming the first cosplayer in history to reach one million fans! To commemorate this historic milestone in geek culture, here’s an image of Alodia styled as the movie poster from The Social Network, the film that reveals the origins of Facebook.

You can easily imagine Alodia as the Mark Zuckerberg of cosplay. Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Similarly, Alodia’s influence gives cosplayers the power to share their creativity with wider audiences. She makes the cosplay world more open and connected. You don’t get to one million fans without revolutionizing cosplay.

(Original photo by Ashley Gosiengfiao.)

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Clay Shirky tells the story of a four-year-old girl who expects all screens to come with a mouse. I have a three-year-old godson who expects all shows to be replayable. This one-year-old baby expects all magazines to be tablets.

The next generation has no tolerance for media you can’t control. To them, passive media consumption is an alien concept.

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One of the keys to a geek idol’s appeal is her uniqueness. People don’t want to see her as just another pretty face, just another cookie-cutter starlet. People want to see what’s going on inside that crazy, quirky, geeky mind of hers. That’s why Japanese cosplay idol Shoko Nakagawa is the blog queen of Japan: people actually want to witness her geeky antics online.

Too many mainstream producers can’t comprehend that. Too many mainstream producers neither understand nor tolerate a geek idol’s geekiness. Too many mainstream producers try to take a geek idol and turn her into something safe, something kosher, something their limited imaginations can handle. It happened to Shoko early in her career, when she was initially cast as just another bikini idol.

Avoiding the Starlet Trap

“Acting like everyone else is boring. If I just can stay true to myself, I know I can do anything.” — Haruhi Suzumiya, Bouken Desho Desho? (English version by Cristina Vee).

By and large, cosplay goddess Alodia Gosiengfiao has managed to avoid the cookie-cutter starlet trap. Her hosting gig with Animax highlights her anime geekiness, even letting her blog about it on Animax’s site. Her endorsement deal with the Japanese online game TinierMe gave her gamer geekiness full expression, even letting her design a completely original game character from scratch. Her ad campaign with Globe Telecom focuses completely on her cosplay geekiness, successfully highlighting that a girl who posts a lot of cosplay pictures could use Globe’s broadband service.

If people want to see a geek idol’s geekiness, then why not give her geekiness full expression? Why not give her complete creative control?

That’s exactly the idea behind Alodia’s new show.

Alodia’s Fantasy

Flippish, the premiere online video production studio in the Philippines, has teamed up with Alodia to produce Alodia’s Fantasy. The show promises to showcase the best of Filipino cosplay talent.

As the title implies, Alodia has complete creative control over this two-hour special. This won’t be some watered-down mainstream media feature on cosplayers, dumbed down to the lowest common denominator by lazy producers who don’t care enough about these cosplay geeks to do any research about the art and its accompanying culture. This cosplay showcase will spring from the mind of the cosplay goddess herself. This will truly be Alodia’s fantasy.

Reversing the Pattern

Reversing a pattern too often seen in mainstream media, Alodia won’t play some token cosplay geek girl curiosity. Alodia and her fellow cosplayers won’t be forced to serve as sideshow attractions for more mainstream performers. In Alodia’s Fantasy, Alodia and her fellow cosplayers truly take center stage.

Amazing things happen when you unleash your inner geek. Even more amazing things happen when you put the geek in charge. Alodia’s Fantasy premieres on October 22, 8pm Manila time (UTC+8). Register at Flippish to witness a cosplay showcase conceived and produced by a real cosplayer at the top of her game.

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Wherever you find toys, hobbies, and collectibles that invoke fictional characters of any kind, you will find cosplayers. That’s why the Philippine Toys, Hobbies, and Collectibles Convention (ToyCon) serves as an annual index for the growth of Philippine cosplay. At ToyCon 2008, a Filipina cosplayer got behind an autograph table for the first time in history. At ToyCon 2010, five Filipina cosplayers got behind an autograph table.

Rise of the Cosplay Nation

ToyCon 2011 upped the game exponentially, by serving as a filming location for the world’s first full-length live-action movie about cosplay. Cosplay Nation is an international production starring two of the world’s top cosplayers: Alodia Gosiengfiao in the Philippines, and Linda Le in the United States.

Alodia headlined the Cosplay Nation filming at ToyCon 2011, which attracted a crowd of over twenty thousand attendees in and out of costume. The first day of the event saw Alodia don the guise of Mirai Suenaga, the mascot of top otaku culture blogger Danny Choo. The second day saw Alodia enchant the audience as Black Mage Rikku, from the PlayStation 2 role-playing game Final Fantasy X-2. Later in the day, she continued the cosplay fun as Haruhi Suzumiya from the anime series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

The Continuing Final Fantasy

One particular performance at ToyCon 2011 was especially meaningful for Alodia. She had intended to cosplay Black Mage Rikku at the 2003 C3 Convention, the event which first brought her to the public’s attention. In fact, her old online nickname was “blackmage9”. She waited eight years for this performance. Judging from the way Alodia cast her spell upon the audience, it was well worth the wait.

With the filming of Cosplay Nation, ToyCon has expanded beyond its role as an index for the growth of Philippine cosplay. ToyCon now serves as an index for the growth of international cosplay.

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In late March of 2011, Filipina cosplay goddess Alodia Gosiengfiao made a shocking announcement: she was quitting cosplay to become a full-time student. Unsurprisingly, her announcement threw the otaku community into a state of utter chaos.

Today, she actually became full-time student – a fictional one. Alodia cosplays the reality-warping schoolgirl Haruhi Suzumiya from the hit anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Happy April Fools’ Day, everyone.

Endless Alodia

Not so coincidentally, anime cable network Animax Asia is airing the second season of Haruhi on April 6. This season features the legendary Endless Eight arc, which drove Haruhi fans completely nuts. It’s also no coincidence that Alodia’s “retirement” from cosplay was meant to drive her fans completely nuts: Alodia is a brand ambassador for Animax.

Haruhi fans won’t have a hard time seeing the similarities between Alodia and Haruhi. By doing what they enjoy, both young women turn their respective worlds upside-down. By doing what they enjoy, both young women generate massive explosions of data – Alodia on the Web, and Haruhi within the fabric of reality itself.

Social Alodia

By recognizing the parallels and making life imitate art, Animax successfully crafted a social media campaign that generated countless threads across Facebook, Twitter, and the blogosphere — all fueled by genuine and intense emotion. Congratulations to Animax on executing this incredibly clueful stroke of social media marketing genius.

Animax timed Alodia’s big reveal in time for April Fools’ Day, but they could have easily extended the prank all the way to to their Haruhi airdate on April 6. Having April Fools’ Day pass without Alodia returning to cosplay would have driven the fans really insane. With the endless amount of Endless Eight mashups on the Web, I could’ve easily dropped Haruhi references in my Alodia lamentations all week.

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This is a post I never, ever wanted to write.

Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the last decade knows about Alodia Gosiengfiao. Hailed as the cosplay goddess of the Philippines, Alodia has worked long and hard over the last seven years to elevate cosplay from amateur hobby to fine art. Her consistently stunning cosplay character portrayals have made her a darling of the global otaku community.

Thanks to Alodia’s prodigious cosplay talent and authentic geek passion, she’s been tapped to endorse all sorts of products associated with otaku culture: from arcade games to MMORPGs to casual games, from toys to broadband to Pocky. She’s even represented her country in cosplay competitions abroad; in fact, she’s judged cosplay competitions abroad. Alodia is even in talks to appear in the upcoming Warcraft movie.

That’s why the whole otaku community is shocked to hear that Alodia is quitting cosplay.

Death of a Dream

Alodia made her shocking announcement in a video posted to her Facebook page on March 28, 2011. Ironically enough, the video was filmed backstage at a major fan event two days before — where throngs of Alodia faithful offered songs, cake, and well-wishes for her cosplay future. In her video announcement, Alodia says she’s quitting cosplay to become a full-time student.

A celebrity quitting in the middle of her meteoric rise to fame is always shocking news, but Alodia’s announcement becomes especially shocking when you consider her incredible passion for her art. This is the girl who dared to champion a fledgling and flamboyant artform in a country known for its old-fashioned conservative culture. This is the girl who brought cosplay from anime conventions to art galleries. This is the girl who once boldly declared in an interview that “Cosplay is my life.”

Legacy of Alodia

Alodia’s Blue Ocean-ish approach to cosplay, which focused on expanding the cosplay audience rather than fighting other cosplayers for limited audience share, completely transformed the Philippine cosplay industry in less than a decade. Cosplayers have always been able to share their art with each other, but Alodia was one of the first Filipino cosplayers to proactively share her art with wider audiences.

Thanks to Alodia’s influence, the Philippine cosplay industry is now more open and connected than ever. Thanks to Alodia’s influence, Filipino cosplayers now have more professional opportunities than ever before. Thanks to Alodia’s influence, more Filipino cosplay talents have risen to prominence in the last two years than in the ten years before.

In her struggle to share her art, Alodia bravely fought both monocultural elitism from the mainstream and subcultural elitism from her own niche. She triumphed against both to become one of the world’s greatest cosplayers.

Return of the Dark Days

Alodia quitting cosplay brings back painful memories of the early days of Philippine cosplay, when struggling cosplayers would quit under the pressures of surviving in a self-destructively isolationist and oligarchic industry. If we let her go now, we’ll end up repeating the last ten years again.

I feel like Kyon during the Endless Eight arc of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. How can I keep her from walking out that door?

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Marketers and producers, take note: you do not maximize a geek idol by toning down her weirdness to stuff her into some cookie-cutter mainstream mold. That sort of intellectual laziness turns potentially game-changing black swans into commodified poultry. That sort of intellectual laziness would have turned Shoko Nakagawa into just another bikini idol.

The best way to maximize a geek idol is by playing up the very weirdness that makes her unique.

The Relevance of Weirdness

That’s exactly what Globe Telecom does with Filipina cosplay goddess Alodia Gosiengfiao, in the newest ad for their Tattoo mobile broadband service. In this visually stunning advertisement, Globe effectively conveys five of the geeky things that make Alodia unique among Filipina celebrities: (1) her passion for cosplaying multiple characters, (2) the organic online origin of her celebrity status, (3) her ability to constantly churn out compelling online content, (4) her ability to promote her online content, and (5) her online content’s ability to attract ridiculous amounts of Web traffic.

The last four things dovetail perfectly into the need for unlimited mobile broadband service, which is exactly what the ad is selling. Not only does the ad celebrate Alodia’s uniqueness, it also makes her uniqueness relevant to the service. That’s far more creative than sticking a random pretty face next to whatever you’re selling.

Dissonance and Fragmentation

The only thing Globe did wrong with this ad was to replace Alodia’s voice. The inauthentic aural substitution stood out as a jarring contrast to the spot-on visual narrative. Other than that bit of cognitive dissonance, this is one of the most clueful ads I’ve ever seen.

The Internet-powered fragmentation of culture has created an unprecedented variety of nontraditional artists like Alodia. Kudos to Globe on successfully recognizing, conveying, and leveraging Alodia’s uniqueness.

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Japan-based geek culture blogger Danny Choo is living proof that a niche personal blog can become a thriving multimedia empire. With DannyChoo.com as his primary platform, he’s branched out into everything from anime production to book publishing to toy manufacturing. His blog’s mascot is one of the top-selling figurines on Amazon Japan.

Danny even hosts a zany documentary series on Japanese pop culture entitled Culture:Japan. With one whole season aired so far on Tokyo MX TV, Culture:Japan is now set to conquer Southeast Asia through Animax.

I recently got to chat with Danny about Culture:Japan’s content direction as it debuts to non-Japanese audiences. From cosplay girls to ninja training, here’s what Japan’s king of geeks has in store for international viewers.

Mike: What aspects of Japanese culture do you plan to cover on Culture:Japan?

Danny: At the moment, we’re featuring lots of otaku culture, but I want to do more traditional culture as well. For example: introducing more of Japanese history, more places around Japan like Kyoto, Osaka, and Fukuoka, and so on. I really want to show more of this country.

Mike: You’ve mentioned that you’ll be tuning the content of Culture:Japan for countries outside Japan. Does that mean the Animax version will be different from the one aired on Tokyo MX TV?

Danny: No, it will be exactly the same. What I mean by tuning the content is that I need to create a balance, so that the content is interesting for people inside Japan and outside Japan.

Mike: What’s your most memorable Culture:Japan segment so far?

Danny: I think my favorite one so far was in episode two, which was a trip to Edo Wonderland. It’s a few hours’ drive north of Tokyo. It’s a place called Nikko, and it’s like a ninja theme park.

Mike: That’s where you trained as a ninja, right?

Danny: That’s right. I got lots of ninja training. Lots of tradition there, as well.

Danny Choo trains as a ninja.

Mike: As you know, cosplay is a unique part of Japanese culture, and it’s on the rise across Southeast Asia. Are you planning to feature cosplayers on Culture:Japan?

Danny: Of course. When you go and visit an itasha show, which has cars with lots of anime stickers, you meet a lot of cosplayers over there. We featured many, many cosplayers on our AFA special.

Mike: Are there any particular cosplay stars you’d like to interview on Culture:Japan?

Danny: Through the publication of Otacool, which I worked with, I got to meet lots of Japanese cosplayers like Aira. Soon, we’ll be getting together to work on things in the future.

Cosplayers Alodia, Aira, and Kaname appear at Anime Festival Asia 2010 on Culture:Japan.

Mike: Do you have any message for your Filipino fans?

Danny: I’ve been looking for an opportunity to come over to the Philippines. Hopefully next year, there will be an opportunity where I can come and meet many comrades.

Any show that puts cosplayers and ninjas alongside anime cars and traditional Japanese culture definitely deserves a spot on your watch list — especially when it’s hosted by a multimedia supergeek entrepreneur. Watch the first episode Culture:Japan, embedded below.

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Cosplay babes are geek babes. One thing I love about geek babes is that they combine beauty and brains. That’s why almost all popular cosplay babes are self-published Net idols. That’s also why two Filipina cosplayers have been nominated for the Philippine Blog Awards. Alodia Gosiengfiao was nominated for an award in 2009. Now Jerry Polence is nominated for five awards in 2010.

Filipina Cosplayer-Blogger

Jerry is nominated for awards in five categories: Best Hobby and Recreation Blog, Best Blog Design, Top Three Photo Posts, Readers’ Choice, and Bloggers’ Choice. Since 2003, Filipina cosplayers have been blogging their way to recognition as legitimate performance artists. Unlike most bloggers, Jerry can’t just hammer out a hundred words and call it a blog post. She has to make her costume, set up her photoshoot, internalize her character, and get her photos processed — and that’s before she writes a blog post talking about her character and her costume, in a way that nongeeks and nontailors can understand.

For all those reasons and more, Jerry gets my vote to win the awards for Readers’ Choice and Bloggers’ Choice at the 2010 Philippine Blog Awards. You too can support Filipina cosplayers in the blogosphere by voting for Jerry.

How to Vote

Here’s how to vote for Jerry in the Readers’ Choice category:

1. “Like” the Philippine Blog Awards on Facebook.

2. “Like” Jerry’s entry in the Readers’ Choice category.

3. (Optional) Tell your Facebook friends to vote for Jerry, too!

If you have a blog, here’s how to vote for Jerry in the Bloggers’ Choice category:

1. Write a blog post about why Jerry should win the award for Bloggers’ Choice at the Philippine Blog Awards. You can use any blogging platform, self-hosted or otherwise — WordPress, TypePad, ExpressionEngine, Tumblr, LiveJournal, Friendster, Multiply, whatever.

2. Post the URL of your blog post in the comments for the Bloggers’ Choice nominee list.

3. (Optional) Tell your blogger friends to vote for Jerry, too!

Deadline for voting in both categories is 11:59pm on December 11, 2010 Manila time (UTC+8). Vote now!

It’s About Time

Cosplayers work hard to contribute compelling content to the blogosphere, often at great personal expense for very little recognition or reward. If Jerry wins, she would become the first cosplayer in history to win at the Philippine Blog Awards. It’s about time the Philippines’ most creative young geek babes get the recognition they deserve.

(Disclosure: I am Jerry’s manager. I’ve seen firsthand how hard she works to put together every costume, every photoshoot, every portrayal, and every post on her blog — from Animatrix’s Jue to Code Geass’ C.C.)

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