Our longtime contributor and multi-talented friend Tanya Virodova has been keeping even more busy than usual, thanks to her relatively new role as the Managing Editor of Geekquality, a lively collaborative blog venture she co-founded in late 2011 with several other bad-ass, beautiful people.

Tanya tells us that the idea for Geekquality emerged last year when several of the founding editors met for the first time at the first annual Geek Girl Con in Seattle, Washington. Since that time, they’ve been steadily building/ramping up their online presence. Nowadays, the Geekquality venture is a thriving example of diverse collaborative writing and online community-building.

With staff members hailing from both the West and East coasts of the United States –all geeks and vocal participants in online communities and united by a “love/hate relationship with geeky media”– Geekquality, in addition to celebrating examples of inclusivity and diversity in geek culture, addresses its writers’ mutual, ever-growing dissatisfaction with a frequent lack of intersectionality and diversity both in current geek media and in many fandom communities. This from a group statement emailed to Coilhouse by their editorial team:

“Being a nerd isn’t really so much a choice as it is a facet of your person. How you live, consume, and interpret your experience, however, most certainly is a matter of informed choice. All of us have been disappointed to find that often, analysis that challenges beloved content and creators is dismissed as unproductive and overly negative, when it’s actually critically important. The geek is indeed inheriting the earth, and it’s up to geeks to make sure our influence is not a negative and exclusive one.”

“Talking about video games, comic books, TV shows, movies, etc and pointing out flaws in writing or casting, accuracy in representation of unique perspectives, and general discussion of what could be done better sometimes are met with an arms crossed, head-shaking refusal to admit that some pop culture thing we love can also be flawed. While we are all united by our geekdom, there can still be more inclusion from lenses of feminism, sex and gender, race, ability, and various cultural perspectives.”

Jodie Landon LOLZ!

“Some of our favorite posts to date have been a tribute to Jodie Landon of Daria and a look at intersectionality in feminism, a break down on race in fantasy media, a perspective on Hollywood whitewashing trends, and a wonderfully inspiring post about Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. We run several recurring features– Lois Payne’s new series taking a look at the psyche of the revenge film, for instance. We’ve also been very blessed by great guest contributors who continue to send us inspiring, clever posts. And we love our fun, excited posts celebrating other fans, like Tanya’s most recent interview with the authors of the Game of Thrones companion cookbook.”

Filthy nerd humor abounds at Geekquality.

The Geekquality team also does a podcast about once a month– “a way for us to chatter away on different topics: bad girls in cinema, geek and nerd representation in the media, costuming, etc.” And! Next month, almost exactly year after they first met, most of their staff will be presenting a panel at Geek Girl Con in Seattle. (Any of our Pacific Northwest readers heading out for that? Report back, for sure!) Their hope is that Geekquality will continue to grow and provide the space for honest discussion and critique of geeky media, particularly for the voices who have previously been silenced.

In the coming months, Coilhouse will be cross-posting some Geekquality pieces that we think may be of interest to much of our own readership. Thankeee, gorgeous Geek Squad, and big ups from your sister blog. GO GIT ‘EM!

Geekquality banner by Kiri Moth

Posted by Meredith Yayanos on July 5th, 2012
Filed under Testing your faith