Writer, Agilist, Elder Geek
(After reading "Starstruck" I began asking can geeks/progeeks be celebrities. This was actually a fun speculation, and I wanted to write it up).
So, my progeeks and profanes and protaku, can we working nerds, technophiles, and geekonomists be celebrities? Can we breathe the same air of awesomeness that the truly famous do, can we confuse paparazzi with our "Let the Wookie Win" T-shirts? In short, can we be beloved and admired and followed?
The answer is literally, yes, no, and maybe.
Few discussions of business start with the words "So, I was watching Godzilla: Final Wars" but this is going to be one of them.
So, I was watching "Godzilla: Final Wars", which was a giant festival of Kaiju-on-film (plus a lot else) done before the Godzilla movies took a hiatus. In it, among many, many other famous monsters, was a parody of the American Godzilla. Let us say this "Zilla" was not well treated in the movie, and it made me think about how the American Godzilla film frankly didn't get what Godzilla is about – and what that means for adaption of foreign material and ideas.
The American Godzilla treated the monster as having no personality – it was essentially a natural disaster. The Godzilla films (and most Kaiju films, really) have creatures with personality. Yes they're highly destructive, but they're highly destructive characters. The American film didn't get that.
Adapting foreign films, shows, and ideas to American media – or indeed adapting media from one culture to another – has one large risk well-illustrated by this film.
The risk of Not Getting It.
Self-publishing. Webcomics. Game design tools. Art programs.
Give yourself an hour and you can find the tools to let most anyone with some skill be a media creator. You can make books, games, etc. that you could never dream of years ago, and get them to a waiting audience.
Now of course you know I've been a bit cynical that this explosion of tools will also mean a creative renaissance, a kind of "Production Revolution" of media. My own research, my own experience, has been very informative, so let me put it straight:
All these tools may mean that there's a chance for more people to get out their dream comic/video/game/book/movie and so on. But there are still many barriers to their chances to do this. These are not barriers of distribution or technology (which are changing). These are personal barriers.