Be a guest

    Season 2 · Episode 12

    Geek Culture, Podcast Foundations & Constructive Criticism

    ZADAN with Jason Patrick Gallit

    · 2:15:54

    The conversation

    Jason Patrick Gallit, who goes by JPG, calls himself a pop culture critic and geek educator, a label that grew out of student teaching, where he used comic books and Dungeons and Dragons dice statistics to teach. He explains how Geek Say What started in 2010 as a way for two friends to earn college extra credit and grew into a network led by Ready Set Geek. He also tells why he switched to his initials after struggling to be taken seriously as an Asian man in geek culture.

    The rest is a long, loose conversation between two fans. JPG defends The Last Jedi, argues that Justice League deserved constructive criticism rather than bashing, and holds up the new DuckTales as nostalgia done well. He shares podcasting benchmarks, his mother's memories of postwar Philippines, and the year he won a Pokemon card championship in Orange County. ZADAN talks MMOs, microtransactions and a game idea built around rewriting history, and JPG closes with advice to take small steps every day.

    Topics, with timestamps

    Pick a time to start listening right there.

    1. Pop culture critic, geek educator and comics in class
    2. Geek Say What started as college extra credit
    3. Comic books and geek culture's push for change
    4. A female Doctor and the 2016 Ghostbusters
    5. Loving The Last Jedi and the fan backlash
    6. The 140 download benchmark and starter gear
    7. Why Jason started going by JPG
    8. Keeping a relationship off air until the engagement
    9. A mother from the Philippines and catching lobster
    10. Cole, Justice League and criticizing constructively
    11. Reboots, nostalgia and why DuckTales works
    12. From Pokemon card champion to MMO completionist
    13. Open-world PvP, toxicity and cooperative board games
    14. A history-rewriting game and advice on first steps

    Worth hearing

    • JPG chose the word critic on purpose, since audiences test claims of knowledge but give opinions more benefit of the doubt.
    • According to JPG, a podcast episode that reaches 140 downloads in a month is doing better than 90 percent of podcasts.
    • When speaking requests went unanswered and people at conventions kept assuming Cole was in charge, Jason began introducing himself as JPG, and Alex sometimes took off her wedding ring before walking into a room.
    • JPG and Alex met in a theater class in 2008 and never mentioned on air that they were dating until they got engaged.
    • For couples who work together, he suggests asking whether a request is coming from the spouse or from the professional, which in his house means Jason or JPG.
    • He argues that criticism should be constructive, because simply calling a film like Justice League bad dismisses the work of everyone who made it.
    • His advice to someone just starting out is to crawl before you walk and take small steps toward the goal every day.

    ZADAN's original episode notes

    Jason Patrick Gallit aka JPG is a Pop Culture Critic and Geek Educator across his podcast, Ready Set Geek, and public speaking platforms. He utilizes his student teaching experience and degree to put his passions out into the world and help educate through his areas of expertise - Geek Culture.

    In this episode JPG and I talk about the unintentional beginnings to his podcast and his educational background and training that is a huge foundation to his art form. We go into movies that were out at the time and some to come, we talk about recasting and rebooting original series, cross-platform communication and eliminating friction across platforms, giving constructive criticism and admitting when you're wrong and so many other awesome topics; so without further ado I give you, Jason Patrick Gallit aka JPG.