We’re not going to start this post with any “New Year, New Pod” nicety. We’re almost a week into 2022 and Geek History Lesson is already growing in ways we were not expecting. 2020 (two years ago!), was meant to be a huge year for the podcast. We had a bunch of things plans, a bunch of goals. Like everyone we had to adjust and keep adjusting in the interim. When the pandemic began there was so much discourse around whether or not there was going to be enough “content” in the world.
If you are reading this and have never listened to Geek History Lesson - welcome! - and here is a great short-form primer on what the show is!
Enough entertainment to consume for the two weeks we were all told we’d be stuck inside.
There’s something about the idea of “content” (with the quotation marks you can hear in your head how it’s supposed to sound), is it mechanizes what you do. It removes it from the realm of being art and settles it into something closer to mass production.
Creators we both work with and aspire to work with seemed to grapple with this contrast as 2020 rolled into 2021. Geek History Lesson celebrated its seventh year last year and it didn’t exactly feel like the lucky number we often think of seven as being. Toward the end of 2021 it left a “are we already going into our eighth year?” sensation hanging in the studio.
For the better part of the past two years we’ve been watching the release of No Time to Die get pushed back again and again and again and again until it finally released on October 8th, 2021. Waaay back when it was supposed to be releasing we started prepping out JAMES BOND FILM series and spent subsequent years releasing them:
Which led us to culminate in the discussion of Is James Bond Still Relevant? with Danielle Price. These episodes were accidentally a long-form series reflecting how we interact with James Bond as a franchise and an entity.
“Necessity if the mother of invention.”
In an effort to best use our pre-recorded episode and serve the ever-shifting release date this series sprang to life the way it did and garnered incredible feedback. As we’ve spent time reflecting on the podcast in recent years - and amidst a swirl of positive feedback - we’re going to be integrating the notion of a long-form series in 2022! Movies like The Batman, Aquaman 2, Wakanda Forever, Thor: Love & Thunder have inspired us to include series which will be ongoing from month-to-month featuring character highlights, discussion episodes, and more!
((if you’re not a Super Friend you may want to consider it this year because we are introducing videos which will tie directly into Geek History Lesson!))
photo cred: Cameron Rice Photography
One of the best things about making podcasts is they go directly from our Jawiin computer, through the internet, to your device of choice. From the beginning our listeners (“Students”), and patrons (“Super Friends”), have helped shape who we are as hosts and what we do. You have taken Geek History Lesson from being a tiny baby project we recorded in a closet because we couldn’t afford proper sound proofing to something we have done LIVE on stage across the US, a platform we’ve been able to have Kevin Smith come on.
In spite of our best laid plans halting and evolving, in spite of an ever shuffling schedule (*shakes fist at the Morbius episode being pushed back*), we are so excited about 2022 and 8 years of Geek History Lesson. Our wishes for the show include all collaborators and supporters in good health, bring all these new promising mediums under the GHL banner, and bring more long-shot pipe-dream talent to the Mind University to share their brilliance with you.
Our psychic powers are not as well-honed as Raven, so your Professors are taking big swings this year with no idea of what things are going to look like twelve months from now. Reaching more geeks all over the world is all we want to do.
