Siffy (Syfy)
I consume a lot of media. The amount of this has only increased as I've begun to watch television (read Hulu) with any regularity. I'm catching up on the years of shows I missed--both as a child without a television connected to anything but a beta player, then as someone without cable, then as someone without a tv at all. I've come to know how specific directors and producers, writers and actors, generally function. I've also come to learn about Networks.
And I've come to know about Syfy.
I remember when Dad got a real job. His first real job. I mean, he'd worked my whole life, but at some point he started making money. It was kind of cool. I missed a lot of these details as a kid--I didn't know what was going on--but I remember the day he built the satellite dish. It was ridiculous. Large, awkward, and made of old parts, but he built it and programmed it himself and he was so proud of what he'd done. He wanted to give us as normal a family life as he could and, at the time, that meant a television and some sort of service for it. When he got a raise, he ordered the first cable channel we ever had in our home: Showtime.
You see, my dad built a satellite dish. My dad built and programmed a satellite dish. He is what you might call a huge nerd. He got Showtime because it was going to premier Stargate: SG-1 and he really wanted to watch it. For, literally, years we watched it every Sunday on Showtime. When it moved to Friday nights on SciFi, our routine changed. For starters, we started watching SciFi. SciFridays were a pretty big deal in the house. We'd all lie around on my parents' bed and watch the Friday night schedule. Dad would make popcorn and cover it with weird health-food oils that I still put on things today when I feel lonely. He liked to grind up sea-salt and use whatever in the spice cabinet looked good at the time.
I grew up, in parts, with SciFi.
My family's always been pretty unified. We have a lot in common with one another. We talk often. We read the same books and we'd pass authors around the house. We also had traditions. Everytime SciFi did a Twilight Zone Marathon, we'd watch it in its entirety. My mom isn't really a nerd, but she loves the Twilight Zone. It meant a lot to her to be able to share something like that with us. We scrolled through the Other Limits and would recite the opening together. Mom would shake her head in mock-disapproval as Dad and I would get excited about the newest bad SciFi channel movie. Peter couldn't believe us, but somehow usually ended up watching it anyway. Whenever someone said "D'argo" in Farscape, Mom would repeat his name with her best, and quite awful, impressions.
Socially, the SciFi channel has been a rallying point. It didn't change. When I first moved to Pitt, I made friends with Stargate fans. My floor had a group meeting where we seriously discussed ordering the SciFi Channel for the year. (It would have cost extra.) We made friends outside the building, downloaded, and had parents tape episodes so we didn't miss things.
I'm used to losing things from my childhood. One walk down South Street is a pretty clear indicator of this. I'm still distraught by the change from SciFi to Syfy.
Here's why I think they did it: BSG was a hit. There's no way to deny that. Regular people watched BSG. Eureka blew people's minds. It was quirky, fun, predictable in the right kind of ways. No one expected that. Yeah, SciFi produced more flops than fliers, but they found some real winning ideas out there and turned them into winners. I have no clue how this happened. They wanted to keep these people, these "mundanes," as some Fen are so insistent on calling them, so they thought to themselves "How can we make this channel more inclusive? More accessible?"
This is a great idea, let's make the channel accessible! Except, it is accessible. As accessible as it's going to be without changing the programing.
The SciFi channel always had a bit of an identity crisis thing going on. The late night infomercials and wrestling confused a lot of people. There was definitely some overlap of viewership--the wrestling stars at Comic Cons prove this. It generally had a feeling that, for the most part, it was run by people who didn't watch it.
What was great about the name The SciFi Channel was, in my opinion, the scIFi adverts. You know, the ones focused around the idea of "what if?" The second greatest is that it knew what it was doing. I have a friend who complains about Boston Chicken changing their name to Boston Market--the latter tells you nothing about what they sell, the former being precise: they sell chicken. Scifi shows scifi. Siffy, well, fuck knows what's on siffy. They're alienating their fan base. The people who supported them through the years when things looked rough, the people who watched their shows every week, the people who bought products from their advertisers because they supported Science Fiction are the ones who are losing here. I don't think many people are going to stop watching their shows, but I feel as though some suit just gave me the finger.
So, to you Mr. Suit Giving Me the Finger, I say this:
Don't try and change who I am so I can be a more desirable person and, through that somehow, a more desirable consumer. Look at how the status quo has changed. Being a geek is nerdy, scifi is geeky, but the perception that it's a bad thing is something perpetuated by you and the media who creates these fictional worlds where geeks are looked down upon. For one time, I prefer reality. In reality, being a geek is just like being anything else. No one cares anymore. In reality, everyone likes a little science fiction in their lives. Look at Spiderman, look at Batman, look at Star Trek, Lost. Science fiction can sell.
Keep your siffy.
FY,
M.
P.S. Using "y"s instead of "i"s stopped being cool in 9th grade.
And I've come to know about Syfy.
I remember when Dad got a real job. His first real job. I mean, he'd worked my whole life, but at some point he started making money. It was kind of cool. I missed a lot of these details as a kid--I didn't know what was going on--but I remember the day he built the satellite dish. It was ridiculous. Large, awkward, and made of old parts, but he built it and programmed it himself and he was so proud of what he'd done. He wanted to give us as normal a family life as he could and, at the time, that meant a television and some sort of service for it. When he got a raise, he ordered the first cable channel we ever had in our home: Showtime.
You see, my dad built a satellite dish. My dad built and programmed a satellite dish. He is what you might call a huge nerd. He got Showtime because it was going to premier Stargate: SG-1 and he really wanted to watch it. For, literally, years we watched it every Sunday on Showtime. When it moved to Friday nights on SciFi, our routine changed. For starters, we started watching SciFi. SciFridays were a pretty big deal in the house. We'd all lie around on my parents' bed and watch the Friday night schedule. Dad would make popcorn and cover it with weird health-food oils that I still put on things today when I feel lonely. He liked to grind up sea-salt and use whatever in the spice cabinet looked good at the time.
I grew up, in parts, with SciFi.
My family's always been pretty unified. We have a lot in common with one another. We talk often. We read the same books and we'd pass authors around the house. We also had traditions. Everytime SciFi did a Twilight Zone Marathon, we'd watch it in its entirety. My mom isn't really a nerd, but she loves the Twilight Zone. It meant a lot to her to be able to share something like that with us. We scrolled through the Other Limits and would recite the opening together. Mom would shake her head in mock-disapproval as Dad and I would get excited about the newest bad SciFi channel movie. Peter couldn't believe us, but somehow usually ended up watching it anyway. Whenever someone said "D'argo" in Farscape, Mom would repeat his name with her best, and quite awful, impressions.
Socially, the SciFi channel has been a rallying point. It didn't change. When I first moved to Pitt, I made friends with Stargate fans. My floor had a group meeting where we seriously discussed ordering the SciFi Channel for the year. (It would have cost extra.) We made friends outside the building, downloaded, and had parents tape episodes so we didn't miss things.
I'm used to losing things from my childhood. One walk down South Street is a pretty clear indicator of this. I'm still distraught by the change from SciFi to Syfy.
Here's why I think they did it: BSG was a hit. There's no way to deny that. Regular people watched BSG. Eureka blew people's minds. It was quirky, fun, predictable in the right kind of ways. No one expected that. Yeah, SciFi produced more flops than fliers, but they found some real winning ideas out there and turned them into winners. I have no clue how this happened. They wanted to keep these people, these "mundanes," as some Fen are so insistent on calling them, so they thought to themselves "How can we make this channel more inclusive? More accessible?"
This is a great idea, let's make the channel accessible! Except, it is accessible. As accessible as it's going to be without changing the programing.
The SciFi channel always had a bit of an identity crisis thing going on. The late night infomercials and wrestling confused a lot of people. There was definitely some overlap of viewership--the wrestling stars at Comic Cons prove this. It generally had a feeling that, for the most part, it was run by people who didn't watch it.
What was great about the name The SciFi Channel was, in my opinion, the scIFi adverts. You know, the ones focused around the idea of "what if?" The second greatest is that it knew what it was doing. I have a friend who complains about Boston Chicken changing their name to Boston Market--the latter tells you nothing about what they sell, the former being precise: they sell chicken. Scifi shows scifi. Siffy, well, fuck knows what's on siffy. They're alienating their fan base. The people who supported them through the years when things looked rough, the people who watched their shows every week, the people who bought products from their advertisers because they supported Science Fiction are the ones who are losing here. I don't think many people are going to stop watching their shows, but I feel as though some suit just gave me the finger.
So, to you Mr. Suit Giving Me the Finger, I say this:
Don't try and change who I am so I can be a more desirable person and, through that somehow, a more desirable consumer. Look at how the status quo has changed. Being a geek is nerdy, scifi is geeky, but the perception that it's a bad thing is something perpetuated by you and the media who creates these fictional worlds where geeks are looked down upon. For one time, I prefer reality. In reality, being a geek is just like being anything else. No one cares anymore. In reality, everyone likes a little science fiction in their lives. Look at Spiderman, look at Batman, look at Star Trek, Lost. Science fiction can sell.
Keep your siffy.
FY,
M.
P.S. Using "y"s instead of "i"s stopped being cool in 9th grade.