Culture Blues

Pop Culture Ambassador: Enter the Slinger

The delicious layers of academia.

As the internet’s lone correspondent at the Pop Culture Association’s annual conference, I’d like to begin this post by apologizing for not being able to check in as often as I’d originally planned. There have been unforeseen demands on my time ever since I emerged as a dark horse candidate for PCA President. Let this be a lesson to stuffy academic organizations everywhere – don’t hand out blank ballots if you don’t want me to take a bunch and write myself in over and over.

Anyway, so far the experience has been about what I’d expected. Small groups gathering in windowless rooms to discuss niche topics. An average presentation probably plays to about a dozen people – although I’ve seen crowds both significantly larger and smaller, and there are at least a thousand people in attendance. The worst presenters (I’ll get to the single most awful below) typically read a boring-ass paper with a weak-ass thesis and throw in a dash of colorful-ass Power Point so the audience has something to focus their zone out on. The best presenters play excerpts of Nas songs really, really loud. Most presenters don’t mind if you show up to their lecture about halfway through, but the sound of hearts breaking is audible if you leave early (I’ve been doing a lot of that).

It’s a strange place this academia – one that I’m surprised anyone would want to visit, much less take up residence in. I’ve yet to figure out exactly why someone would want to present at one of these conferences, although there’s been a lot of talk about publication in academic journals and whatnot. I guess the old school academics that run this thing, in spite of a crowd I’ve found to be surprisingly young, are still under the impression that this is the best way to exchange ideas. Thanks – but I’ll stick with my internet. I don’t need any citations or bibliographies up in this bitch.

With all that said, and because I’m off to give a speech to members of the PCA regarding my ascendance to President (it will be much like the speech I gave in High School when I was running for Vice President – lots of fart noises), I’ll leave you with some random, totally uncoordinated thoughts.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED:

-The word “paradigm” is to the world of academics what the word “proactive” is to the world of business.

Yeah, you're transmedia alright.

-Transmedia storytelling: I picked that little gem up at a panel on adaptations. You see, adaptations are no longer as simple as turning a book into a movie. They’re becoming less about fidelity to the source and more about a story evolving over multiple mediums. Take, for instance, The Matrix: it’s a trilogy of increasingly bad movies that also spawned those trippy animated films, a series of graphic novels, and video games.  Each is, in their own way, an adaptation from the original source material, but they also lend an element to the larger tapestry of The Matrix universe. From comic book movies to hugely successful properties like Twilight (blech), this is the way entertainment is moving. Think about Twilight – the novel, the movies, and finally the fan fiction. Yes – fan fiction, allowing obsessed prepubescents to participate in the transmedia experience.

-Mentioning Twilight fan fiction is the easiest way to make me leave a room.

-Me Media Generation:  I’ve heard this one thrown around a few times. It appears to be what the bitter scholarly set are calling the current generation of students behind their backs (we’re talking kids born in the late eighties and early nineties, not you doctorate chasing losers that are my age.) It’s derived from that generation’s active involvement in creating media (think Youtube) and their feeling of entitlement toward celebrities and fame.

-Facebook is the same as World of Warcraft:  I liked this one egghead’s observation about how Facebook is just another form of roleplaying. Think about it:  you choose what pictures go up (your avatar), you create a new self through status updates, etc. You’re all phonies, basically.

-Perhaps my most important and stimulating find so far didn’t take place at the PCA Conference but during my exploration of St Louis. The Culture Blues intern, under strict orders to find us the finest in local cuisine, discovered a St Louis delicacy known as The Slinger. Are you aware of this beautiful god damn monstrosity? Being from Rochester (home of the Garbage Plate), I’m almost ashamed I wasn’t aware of this brilliant entry into the stacked foods Hall of Fame. The breakfast version (pictured above) of the Slinger I had was: two biscuits (split), with two eggs any style (I went for over easy), topped with sausage and bacon (chopped), as well as hash browns, all smothered with chili, which is in turn covered by a layer of country gravy, and finally garnished with shredded cheddar cheese and fried onion strands. Yes, I put that in my body and no, I don’t regret it. Also, here's an awesome blog from a St Louis native trying to track down the city's best Slinger.

I'm serious, Rap Snacks. Send us some free shit.

-Also in the food competition, running a close second to The Slinger, are Rap Snacks. We found these bad boys at a local 7-11, and while they only had Romeo’s “Bar-B-Quin with my Honey Chips,” I’m going to be on the lookout the rest of the time we’re here for Yung Joc’s “Sweet & Hot Cheese Curls.” You know, the lovely Interstate Bait/Zotes people (who make an excellent product, by the way) just sent the Culture Blues office some free stuff – Rap Snacks, if you’re reading, hook us up. We’d be willing to do a whole week of content brought to you by Rap Snacks. We'll sell out. For junk food.

-Finally, I’m going to use this final note as a place to let off a little steam on the absolute worst presenter here at the conference. I wanted to call him out by name, really shame this gentleman as he seems like a self-Googler, but my conscience has gotten the better of me. So I’ll just rant. First of all, thank you for tricking me into attending a panel on video games where no video games were actually discussed. The dude that was supposed to discuss Resident Evil? He didn’t show up. So now you have some extra time to discuss your paper on the Nintendo DS video game based on James Patterson’s The Women’s Murder Club. Seriously? That’s your topic? Oh wait – it isn’t your topic? Whew – you pop culture pranksters really had me going for a second the- wait, what? Your actual lecture, all 30 minutes of it, is on the intellectual difficulties and procedural roadblocks inherent when trying to publish a critical paper on the Nintendo DS video game based on James Patterson’s The Women’s Murder Club? And I’m going to sit through the entire thing because it’s the first presentation I’ve been to and I feel guilty about leaving? Shame on you, sir. That’s pop culture torture.

Well, I’m off to a presentation called “Dying, Fucking, Camping” that I hope is about Friday the 13^th. Wish me luck!

-The Pop Culture Ambassador, Country of Culture Blues