Jared Shurin's Blog, page 10
June 29, 2018
"This may literally be the worst marketing campaign of all time."
No, seriously.
This week's newsletter focuses on a 10 year, $10b failure, and how, in its shadow, some have still managed to succeed.
June 25, 2018
NWG Innovation Festival
I'm a guest at the upcoming NWG Innovation Festival in Newcastle. The Festival is a unique event: a week-long series of hack days, with teams trying to solve a dozen different societal and environmental problems. That's a lot, but there's even more around the edges - speakers (hi!), school programmes, panels, workshops and much more.
I'll be working with the team from Explain to answer: 'how to build advocacy with communities and customers?':
Market research experts Explain Market Research will be heading up the sprint team looking at how companies and business from across the world build fan bases and what they can do to turn customers into fans. How do you change ���likes' into loyalty and turn sales into supporters, Explain will lead the way.
A great challenge, and I'm delighted to be participating as planner and a shameless fanboy. I'll be speaking on Tuesday (10th) about fandoms and fan culture. Tickets and details here. (And some recent thoughts on loyalty here.)
June 22, 2018
Tentacles and terror
New newsletter:
What Lovecraft lacked, and still lacks, in popular success, he makes up for in fan loyalty. There's an entire ecosystem that exists with the singular and self-reinforcing purpose of keeping Lovecraft important. There's a lot to be questioned about this, including: 'Is Lovecraft actually important?' But, to me, what's more interesting is the why. Why is it so important that Lovecraft is important?
When Supernatural Horror in Literature meets Terror Management Theory! Subscribe.
March 30, 2018
Pornokitsch: The Exit Interview
Jared: Hello, Anne.
Thank you for attending your contractually mandated exit interview. Everything we discuss today will be kept confidential [shared on the internet] and anonymous [you will be named throughout]. We'll be using the contents of this discussion to ensure that our working conditions are optimal and our processes are as strong as possible [we're hoping you drop some juicy bits of gossip].
So let's get started, shall we? How long have you been at... Porno...quiche? Is that how yo...
Where's Pornokitsch?
...well, not here any more.
We'll be keeping the Pornokitsch Facebook page ticking along - it has a surprisingly buzzy community and is a good way of sharing nifty links. We'll see how long that goes.
Anne's on a social media hiatus, but, when she's not, she can otherwise can be found at @thefingersofgod.
Jared has a newsletter set up. How exactly this manifests itself,... who knows? He's also still lurking about on Twitter at @straycarnivore.
You can find our regulars and guests online at:
...March 29, 2018
The Rose of the Prophet by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
This is it, y'all. The entire Pornokitsch legacy, resting on one final review. There's no guarantee that I'll ever have a platform like this again. Worse: these last words need to be worthy of the ten years of effort that went into building said platform. These words will represent the entire body of my work: now and forever. Terrifying.
And yet, that's not true, is it?
It is very easy to empathise with that kind of pressure ��� but it is also utter madness. Approximately 80% of our traffic...
March 28, 2018
Fiction: 'Underground' by Archie Black
Some days it seems like the only thing she can remember about her day is the commute - day in and day out, Tooting to Kennington, change to the Bank branch, change at Bank, Central Line to Chancery Lane and then the reverse, over and over, yesterday and today and tomorrow forever.
Some days she sits, when she can get a seat, and realises she can hardly remember the day before: the emails sent, the emails received, the emails responded to. Breakfast - an apple and a coffee from Pret, the same...
March 27, 2018
Zach Galligan is coming to save us.
Zach Galligan is coming to save us. Not the Galligan you know, or don���t know, as the case may be. Not a Galligan at all, not really, but infinite worlds with infinite incarnations are confusing enough without quibbling over a name, without searching for the seam on the hero���s mask. Let him be Galligan, then, for it can be no other���there���s no mistaking those boyish good lucks, that charming smile, the glint of pure goodness that flashes in his eye���and the monsters that forever surro...
Thoughts on Various Things
My Thoughts on Radio Plays I Didn���t Listen to
The Jewels of Kali - Illustrious Acquaintance believed I shouldn���t listen to this because why listen to something that you know is going to be racist bananas on a cracker and just general bananas on a cracker also. WHY NOT LISTEN TO IT THO? Anyway, then we were like, white people always seem to have a thing for Kali, no? Then we felt bad for saying ���white people��� in ���that way���. Then Illustrious Acquaintance thought I should listen to...
March 26, 2018
Fiction: 'Four Imaginary Reviews' by Adam Roberts
Cristina Algarotti, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday (Howells 2018), 292pp
The main character in Algarotti���s new novel is an artificial intelligence, a consciousness spun out of a cat���s-cradle of linked supercomputers (some on earth, some in orbit, one on the moon), called Lah R��d 7040qb, known as Lala by its developers. The opening chapters are all told from the point of view of Lala: how s/he comes into awareness, his/her friendships with Lance and Kuoh (his/her favourites amongst t...
