Gawker Does SF
By John DeNardo |
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at
8:44 pm
The long-awaited science fiction blog from the Gawker Media empire is ginally here and it’s called io9.
Io9 is edited by Annalee Newitz (of Wired and Popular Science fame) and says this about io9:
“We don’t see it as a niche entertainment site. We see it as a pop culture site. So much of our mainstream culture is now talked about and thought about in science-fictional terms. I think that’s why people like William Gibson and Brian Aldiss are saying there’s no more science fiction because we are now living in the future. The present is thinking of itself in science-fictional terms. You get things like George Bush taking stem cell policy from reading parts of Brave New World. That’s part of what we are playing with. We are living in world that now thinks of itself in terms of sci-fi and in terms of the future.”
Posts so far range from the snarky (Six Reasons Why Star Trek Should Stay Dead) to the interesting (Post-Apocalyptic Movie Chart) to the…err…helpful (How To Sh*t In Space).
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At first glance, it seems more like a sf freakshow for outsiders than an actual link grab for actual geeks. Is “science fiction dilettante” a demographic now?
This is what Gawker Media does, they take a subject, add some, or a lot, of snark, throw in some sexual or scatological references and call it a post.
It’s hard to tell how serious they take the subject because of the above. They do have some SF content, see their top 10 anticipated reads for 2008, but they can’t help but to take shots at SF and it’s fans.
I’m on the fence, but if it becomes like Kotaku (their video game blog), I will stop reading.
I will not read it simply since I really don’t enjoy Kotaku and while I can understand the desire to read the snark – I have little patience for it.