Last weekend, the Metro Conventon Centre in Toronto was overrun with geeks of all stripes.  It’s Fan Expo time, a celebration of all things collectible.  Comics, Sci-Fi, Anime, Horror, anything people might go bonkers over in pop culture has a home here.

Toronto bloggers invaded the Expo with Michael Nus, Lauren O’Nizzle, and myself posting coverage of the event.

My video:

Lauren O’Nizzle’s video:

Michael Nus’ coverage, in which he teaches us about the costumes at the convention (click to check it out!):

Let’s do it again next year!!!!

iJustine laid down the challenge, and I have answered the call.

Here is the image from my submitted assignment above…

LYRICS:
There’s a brand new thing, it’s shiny and true
It’s Social Media and that’s what’s new
(Talk to everyone around the world
And hope to hell someone’s listening)

Now I got friends and I got kin
But here I was by myself again
I thought I was alone, but then I found
This thing called Social Media going down
(Never be lonesome again
There’s always a few million people to talk to)

If you get enough people to follow you back
There’s fame & riches at the end of the track
So you follow me and I’ll follow you
And maybe we’ll get on TV a time or two!
(You get a million followers, you can pretty much write your own ticket after that
But you don’t get it if you care how many followers you’ve got)

I don’t know but I once thunk
There’s nothing in the world like more free junk
Might have to get a job to pay for a new spot
To put all the awesome free swag I got
(The free drinks are nice
They don’t take up any room in my suitcase!)

I don’t know but I’ve been told
The girls want a purse made out of gold
You get enough from a PR company for free
You’ll be like them folks on MTV!
(Internetting is like meditating
It’s more important than ever to be careful what you wish for)

Ev’ryone I meet’s got a brand new car
But I’m walkin’. Guess I ain’t goin’ too far!
People flyin’ here & there for free
While I’m gettin’ around by TTC
(I swear in my tweets. I dont’ represent anyone’s brand well
And now I’ve gotta pay for my flight like everyone else)

We talk ev’ry day but I don’t see you much
At least we’ve got the means to be in touch
My followers are up and my Klout score’s high
I wonder how many it takes to get by…
(I don’t do it for the money
But it’s hard not to think about the money when you’ve got five dollars in your pocket and you’re deciding between eating or riding the subway

* * *

The Making of
Talkin’ Social Media Blues

The first time anyone saw TALKIN’ SOCIAL MEDIA BLUES was when I screened it for a small group of Twitter peeps as an impromptu party to celebrate my 100th day in a row of Daily V-Loggin’:

But an bringing an idea like this from inception to materialization is no party. I got the idea for the song, wrote it straight away, and recorded it the next morning. Here is the Daily Video Blog entry from when I was working on the beat in which I explain how I came up with the idea:

Two days later, I shared footage of the recording of the song as well as brought you with me for the car ride the very first time anyone heard the song:

I got into some deep thinking about consumer culture the day that I went to make the signs for this video:

I shot the video on my own in an afternoon in five locations around town that I had scoped out. I was very clear with myself that I was trying to do something reminiscent of DONT LOOK BACK…

And then the day that I was editing the video, I got really heavy about being an artist:

This video was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. If you are a Social Media enthusiast, I hope you think it’s funny.

Subscribe to my Youtube channels – seanward for my Daily V-Loggin’, and TheSeanWardShow for my comedy videos

Check out this video from techvibes.com in which they interview me about vlogging, Toronto, networking, and keeping a daily schedule.

And below, watch my vlog from the day that this interview took place!  See in their interview when I’m all “I’m vlogging you right now”??  Now see that vlog!!

What are you doing next weekend?

Well if you know what’s happening, you’ll go with me down to Toronto’s historic Distillery District for the Lexus Live event.  Thanks to our peeps at NotableTV.com for the heads up on this notable Toronto event.

This event takes over the Distillery District from Friday to Sunday. Check it out:

• Get in and try out the new Lexus CT 200h (first dedicated hybrid in the luxury compact class), and get a look at the Lexus Targa GS 450h race car
• Live radio broadcasting on-site – ChumFM/Virgin
• Most exciting for me, a free music mini-festival performances by The Stills (Friday 7:00-8:00pm), Lily Frost (Sat 12:00-1:00pm), The Midway State (Sat 5:00pm-6:00pm), and Paper Lions (Sun 3:00-4:00pm)

What’s that I heard?  Free music?  Complimentary refreshments?  Try out next year’s hottest car?  Sounds good to me!

I’ll be there vlogging on the Friday and either the Saturday or Sunday.  Follow me on Twitter to stay in touch.

For full details, check out the event page on NotableTV.com

In preparation for the Coke Zero Fans First game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators on September 21, The Leafs dropped by a mens’ league game and announced that they would be recruiting one player to be a Leaf for a day. This player is going to get the all-star treatment: dinner with the team, feature interview on LeafsTV, and he may even get to take the ice during the game.

Watch my video of the event above!

After watching the documentary film DEEP WATER, I was compelled to create my own artistic retelling of the 1968 race to be the first man to perform a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the globe by sea.

Watch the video above for the story, and then enjoy a closer look at the drawings from the video below…

Harvey Pekar was an influential underground comic book creator who paved the way for a lot of what I was able to do with comics from 2002-2007.  His stories were taken straight from real life.  He looked at the comic book as the finished work of art, not any one page or story in it.  He didn’t want to do strips in the newspaper, nor was he able to give you anything less than the ugly truth about everything.

When I was making semi-autobiographical comic books and trying to get a publisher to distribute them, one of the comments I got from them was “we want to see more than just stories about your life”.  I would ask “what about what Harvey Pekar does?”

Maybe I just wasn’t as good as him.

The movie based on Pekar’s art and life – American Splendor, named for the title of his comic book series – is a modern classic and a groundbreaking work that chops up the boundaries between comics and movies in ways that no other comics adaptation has yet attempted.

Our friends Sadie May Crash have got a new name.  the Ruby Spirit is what’s happening now.

I recently made an avant-garde concert film of their performance at the El Mocambo in Toronto.

A Portrait of THE RUBY SPIRIT in Performance

.

I also included footage from this performance in the video in which I announced that I would be returning as host of the 2010 Toronto Independent Music Awards

Be the band’s friend – facebook.com/wearetherubyspirit

This past weekend, Toronto was overrun by the North by Northeast music festival and conference. This year was the biggest and best ever with a headlining performance by Iggy & The Stooges that shut down one of the city’s major downtown intersections, and the inaugural edition of the Interactive portion of the festival.

Here is my footage of four days of the festival.

Day One

On Day One of the fest, I got to chat with Andrew Baron (founder of the smash hit online video series Rocketboom) and with Jason Theodor (an advertising executive who had some really insightful things to say about creativity).

Day Two

On Day Two, I got some face time with the Festival’s headlining speaker, Ze Frank as well as some (not-so) serious face time with Erin Bury.

Day Three

On Day Three, the MuchMusic building was the epicentre of a massive blackout that affected many of the venues hosting festival concerts. Preparations for the MMVAs continued, the Muchmusic building apparently running on its own generators, illuminating the darkness of the rest of the neighborhood.

Day Four

On the final day of the festival, headliners Iggy & The Stooges played to a massive crowd in Dundas Square, with one of the city’s most major intersections closed to traffic. The free show went off without incident and the festival closed with a bang.

these videos were produced and edited by me as part of my Daily Vlog

Subscribe to my Youtube channel for a new video every single day

photographed by Zaira Gaudio

special thanks to Bite TV

What was your favorite thing that you saw at this year’s North by Northeast?