When it comes to conventions, I try to never go to anything just once. It’s amazing how the vibe of an event can change in just one year. Case in point: Sakura Matsuri. Last year I was shivering in a sweatshirt within a markedly smaller than usual crowd. This year, I could barely navigate the sea of people, and it was so gorgeous and warm that I got a sunburn!

Highlights included delicious taiyaki, getting a “Very Good” fortune from the Shinto booth, and the amazing shirt pictured below. When I dashed over to take his picture, he told me he had gotten the shirt custom made. The back—you guessed it—says, “And it’s only one dollar.”

As usual, my favorite part of Sakura Matsuri was watching the Anime USA Cosplay Fashion Show. Even though I volunteer for AUSA, I have no part in planning the show (all I do is send out the newsletter announcement the week before), so it’s always a surprise to me. And every year, I think, “How did we FIND these people?”

This year we had much larger J-Pop stage and a larger audience to go with it. (Watch last year’s show here.) Aspiring voice actor Mario Bueno emceed the show, and I was really impressed by his professionalism—even when his mic died, he kept going.

And here are the winners posing with the AUSA sign. Zelda won first place—two free nights at the hotel for Anime USA 2012.

Were you at Sakura Matsuri this year? What were your highlights?

After my profile on Jackie Lee last week, both of us got a lot of feedback. When it was positive, it was fantastic because it affirmed that the Magic: The Gathering community is moving forward. When it was negative, it was fantastic because people were talking.

Most people sent me feedback on Twitter since that’s where I spend the majority of my waking hours, but I did get one encouraging email from a supporter who asked me to forward it to Jackie. When I sent it along, Jackie replied:

“It’s interesting, because even though the article is about me and I’ve gotten many responses like this, I continue to feel like it’s not about me at all! It’s really about a shared experience.”

It’s true. It’s a story that could resonate with anyone—not just other women or other Magic players—who’s ever felt unwelcome.

Just as Jackie’s story is a shared experience, in a different way, so was the one I wrote. As I said myself on Untapped Cast, I don’t keep up with the Magic community enough to be an authority. Instead, I relied on the knowledge of two guides, Bill Boulden (@ThaGatherin) and Chris Mascioli (@dieplstks), to suggest sources and offer two perspectives on the state of Magic today. Neither of them are quoted in the story, but their contributions are just as essential.

I mention Bill and Chris because I want to convey how much reporting goes into a story before it’s published. A reporter I admire once told me he only puts about 10 percent of his reporting into a story. (For me, I’d say it’s more like 25 percent for a profile like Jackie’s, but 50 percent or more for the three quick news stories I publish on the Daily Dot every day.) On a similar note, when I was a source for the Washington Post’s story on anime fans, I was a guide to Josh duLac, but not quoted.

One final insider note: I actually considered spiking this story. Not because Jackie’s story isn’t incredible, but because I was worried a story about a minority player in a somewhat obscure game wouldn’t resonate with a wider audience. Then, I worried that a story simplified for non-players would be too watered down to resonate with Magic players. Luckily, my editor urged me on, even though he wasn’t sure whether Magic was a card game, board game, or video game. Also luckily, I was wrong on both counts.

The reception of Jackie’s story has got me excited to write more about developments in other niche groups and fandoms. If you think I should write about a phenomenon in your community next, I’d love to hear about it.

Photo by Wizards of the Coast.

EDIT: On the advice of Susannah Breslin, I tweeted Tara Tiger Brown about the story. I may not agree with Brown’s article, but I just feel awful for her now. She wrote this article for no compensation at all. The reward, she says, is “knowing who [her] friends really are,” but in my opinion, that’s no adequate payment for the trolling she now faces. 

In my opinion, this article is the divisive sort of argument that harms the geek community. However, according to Brown, it’s not link bait but a message she truly believes. For that reason alone, I can’t write it off completely.

As a geek and a girl on the Internet, there’s no way I could have missed today’s drama over Tara Tiger Brown’s Forbes post: “Dear Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away.”

While there have been some great responses to come out of this—my favorites have been Team Valkyrie and Leigh Alexander‘s rebuttals—I don’t think anyone’s touching on what’s really going on here.

This is the Internet, and Brown needs hits. Today, I learned that geek feminists are no more immune to geek-rage link bait than self-described angry fanboys.

As some people who’ve been reading for a while know, I’ve got a very slight connection to Forbes blogging—thanks to Susannah Breslin, whom I regard as a mentor, I’ve gotten the chance to try it myself. And one thing I know from Susannah is that Forbes bloggers get paid by the hit.

In her recent post about how to be successful without really trying, Susannah encourages bloggers to go for the lowest common denominator, the stuff that is guaranteed to get clicks:

When you blog for dollars, which is what many of us do here at Forbes—that is, our page views dictate our paycheck—you pay a great deal of attention to what works and what doesn’t.

What works for me? Tits and porn.

Forbes’ Chief Product Officer Lewis DVorkin confirms that this is how Forbes bloggers are paid:

It’s a simple deal: there is a flat monthly fee, a bonus for hitting certain unique visitor targets, and a fee per unique user after bonus targets are achieved.

In other words, raging at Brown is playing right into her hands. If people keep linking her article, she’ll reach her unique visitor target and won’t have to put out another blog post for the rest of the month. Think of it like paid vacation.

I’m exaggerating a little here. Forbes blogging doesn’t pay enough for it to be Brown’s full time job, or at least that’s my guess since Susannah, who regularly gets tons of hits, often blogs about her other freelance positions. Speaking of which, Susannah is a blogger who constantly pushes people’s buttons—and she only encourages them to come back for more. Insisting that Brown’s credibility or readership is lost after one controversial article wouldn’t be reasonable.

If you really need to rage, there are plenty of examples all around us about the ways female geeks get shafted in our own fandoms. We’re confronted with sexism and geek elitism at every turn already. You don’t need to read a sensationalist article that’s been crafted to garner your clicks in order to figure that out.