Oct
21

A Case Study in AWESOME: The Venture Bros.

Sometimes, AWESOME simply defies description. Sometimes, the best emotional explosions and reactions to AWESOME are unexpected. Sometimes, it just happens. You can’t explain it. You can’t predict it. You can’t model it.

It just works.

Such is the case of The Venture Brothers.

GO, TEAM VENTURE!

GO, TEAM VENTURE!

The Venture Bros. premiered to Cartoon Network‘s Adult Swim time block in 2003. Over the course of its 3 seasons (currently in its 4th), the cartoon exemplified an unabashed and unadulterated love of classic genre staples – from depictions of a drug-addled grown up Johnny Quest to a Fantastic Four amalgam voiced by Stephen Colbert. However, each and every episode attacked and murdered genre expectations. The comedic timing of this sharply dialogued show arose not from the stale trappings of one-off jokes or sarcastic parodies of real life, but from the adoration and respect of the humor inherent in the show’s inspirational material. Jackson Publick, along with his showrunning cohort Doc Hammer, has even said that despite the rolling hilarity, the show is ultimately about failure… and how we can find humor in it.

Now, if this hasn’t convinced you to check this wondrous show out on DVD yet… GOOD. What??? Now, I’m discouraging you from checking out this sexy sin of AWESOME? Well, that’s part of the beauty of The Venture Bros’ AWESOMENESS.

The Ventures’ audience grew slowly, almost dismally over the past six years. Indeed, the producers have only just now begun their 4th season. That’s what’s brilliant about the show’s appeal: You have to self-select in to get the joke.

What I mean by that is that The Venture Bros is something of a private club. Part of what has made the show such a phenomenon is its use of the genre culture as marketing. In season 3, for example, Doc Hammer announced a special weekly gig where hardcore fans of the show could order exclusive T-shirts based on each episode, but only for a limited time. These shirts became hot commodities even amongst non-fans, and they drew in larger numbers to the show. Why? Because everyone who discovered the show not only liked the content (and let’s be honest, the content fucking RULES YOUR FACE), but they also liked being in on something exclusive. Something… underground.

This sense of exclusive insider knowledge perpetuated the AWESOMENESS of the show. Granted, there is a level of geektitude and nerdosity built into many Venture Bros fans. As a fan myself, I value that niche fandom too much to let the hoi polloi in on it. Except y’all. Y’all are OK.

One you get in on the inside joke, it’s something you can never come back from. The AWESOME inherent in The Venture Bros makes you a fan for life. You can’t help but ask when the next season is due out, or be mildly curious about the live action dress-up the show’s creators performed on the season 1 DVD, or wonder why the hell you keep coming back to watching stuff like THIS despite its mind-shatteringly weirdness:

I’ll tell you why.

Because it’s AWESOME.

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Oct
01

The Awesomeness Manifesto – Worthy of the Title?

Short answer: Pretty much.

Umair Haque over at HarvardBusiness.org beat me to the punch with his Manifesto on Awesomeness. Now, on the whole, I like Umair’s writing. He’s crazy. I mean, look at this guy:

Aaagghhhhh!!!!
Aaagghhhhh!!!!

Dude looks like he’s got so much rumbling around in his brain, rays of badassness might come flying out of his peepers.

Umair argues that the days of innovation are over. Innovation, in Umair’s estimation, is old hat and not inherently COOL ENOUGH to continue to be that shining beacon in the distance that we should all be striving for. Instead, we should be yearning for AWESOMENESS, which he describes thusly:

Awesomeness happens when thick — real, meaningful — value is created by people who love what they do, added to insanely great stuff, and multiplied by communities who are delighted and inspired because they are authentically better off. [Emphasis mine.]

Putting all the other stuff aside, I want to hone in on the two things I highlighted above: love and insanely great stuff. Umair is right on the money in describing something that is AWESOME as something that has been born of love. It is often someone’s passion that produces anything of remarkable import.

From such love, insanely great stuff can come. I think this needs no further explanation. Plenty of other 21st century troubadour poets have said as much more eloquently than I.

Love + insanely great stuff = AWESOME. I can get behind that.

There is a GREAT conversation happening in the comments section of Umair’s post in which I highly encourage everyone to go participate. While I dig the guts of Umair’s manifesto, I still think he’s missed some things. Furthermore, many commenters – including quite a few bean-counting, butt-headed, bitch-assed defenders of Ye Olde Way Of Doing Things – have attacked him, pointing out his assertions’ naivety and the mere GALL – GALL, I tell you – that Umair would use such a silly word like “awesomeness” to replace the sacred golden cow of Innovation.

Umair, like a true son of the Social Media Masses, responded that The Awesomeness Manifesto is open source. That means, YOU can go edit it. Don’t like the concept? FIX IT. Think of a better pillar of Awesomeness that Umair missed? GET IN THERE.

What would NOT be AWESOME, but in fact be kinda LAME, would be if you just said something stupid about it in the comments (mine or Umair’s) and pretended to care. ;)