Geeks Got Your Back (Backup Ribbon Project)

We have taken another great leap into the wild and wooly world of crowdfunding and have set up a GoFundMe campaign. We are hoping to raise $500 for a start to help cover the costs of ribbons, cards, stickers, and postage. If you also want ribbons, cards, and stickers, please drop us an email.

And…this is the part where we indulge in shameless begging to get y’all to share the link among your friends, family, coworkers, postman, or anybody else you know who might be interested in helping us make the geek community just a bit niftier for everybody.

Insert big, pleading puppy-eyes here (Dammit, there should be some sort of html code to make that happen)!

Ready. Set. GOFUNDME!!

Goodness, it has been a while, hasn’t it? Oh, so much to talk about…

First — if you are planning to be at Gallifrey One over President’s Weekend, Backup Ribbons, cards, and stickers WILL be there. Ask around among those wearing Ribbons.

Second — Because our current stock of Backup Ribbons has all been sent to Gallifrey One, we are currently out. A re-order has been placed, and we expect them to land sometime next week.

Third (and somewhat related to Thing the Second) — We are now gently rattling the donation can to help us cover the costs for Backup Ribbons. You can donate directly via Paypal by clicking the handy button on the right-hand column. As we are an army of 2.5, we have minimal overhead, so all of your donations go directly to covering printing costs for ribbons, cards, and stickers. Suggested donation is $10.

And there you have your three good things, all in one update!

During our fabulous return to Geek Girl Con (more on that later!), we went to a panel about the Unicorn Files project, hosted by a lovely lady we had met the previous year. The concept is to feature female geeks and tell their stories, in an effort to show that there really is no such thing as a Fake Geek Girl.

We went up afterward to say hello, and were greeted with an enthusiastic “You ARE participating? Right???” So after much hemming and hawwing, and several pictures in which we looked like a constipated yak (we really HATE having our picture taken), this was the end result.

We are thrilled to be part of this project and strongly encourage any other female geeks out there to participate. Because yes, we are REAL geek girls, not unicorns!

We have accomplished so much with this project, some of which was beyond our wildest expectations. We got the Wil Wheaton Okie-Dokie Stamp of Approval. We got to help craft an anti-harassment policy for the second biggest Comic-Con in the country. We’ve been interviewed on the radio not once, but twice. Every bit of it has been wonderful.

But there has always been something missing — something we wanted to accomplish, but were not able to. Until now. We will be doing our Geeks Got Your Back panel at our “home con,” LosCon, over Thanksgiving weekend.

It has always made us a bit sad that we could get cons in other cities excited and enthusiastic about what we are trying to do, but we couldn’t get anywhere at home. And when fans elsewhere stared at us in disbelief, we had to explain that in many ways, those who ran LosCon were dinosaurs who refused anything that was new-fangled or had not become a tradition (meaning that it had been done at least three times previously).

This year, however, thanks to the monumental efforts of some of the younger fans, the wheels 0f progress are slowly grinding forward. And we are excited to be part of that progress.

We hope to see those wheels turning just a little bit faster with each successive con.

OK, we can now talk about the Sooper Sekrit Projekt of which we were part. The Mary Sue put out a call for participants to help New York Comic-Con craft a new anti-harassment policy. We were asked to participate. An hour of squinting at a teeny-tiny Skype text screen later, and we had hammered out the beginnings of a policy. Well, now it has been let loose into the world. The Mary Sue has a nice write-up of the final policy.

Back in the early days of the Backup Ribbon Project, we felt as though nobody else cared about creating inclusive and safe geek spaces. The fannish culture in our hometown reinforced this feeling.

Getting from there to where we are now has been scary and gratifying all at the same time. And none of it would have happened without you guys. Taking ribbons. Retweeting. Facebook sharing. Talking about the Project.

So we would like to thank all of you. We are (and probably will continue to be) gobsmacked at what our crazy little “what if…” idea has done.  Every time we think that the Project has run its course, something bigger and better comes along.

Who knows what’s next?

First off, we now have an actual TIME AND LOCATION for our “Geeks Got Your Back” panel at GeekGirlCon. We are scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 12 at 10 am. Look for the short, busty chick with the Gamora hair carrying a box festooned with Keep Calm and Backup stickers in one hand and a large coffee with four shots of espresso in the other. I will be sharing the stage with our fabulous Social Media Wench, Danicia, and the lovely Wolfcat (you may remember her from last year in her formal Hawkeye gown). We will have ribbons, cards and stickers! Second, in case you missed our guest spot on Krypton Radio’s Event Horizon, the entire podcast is now available online.  Scroll down until you find Episode 71. Do check out some of Krypton Radio’s other nifty SF-oriented programming while you are at it. It’s sci-fi for your wi-fi! Third, we are practically bursting at the seams to share with you the details of our Sooper Sekrit Projekt with The Mary Sue, but it may have to wait a day or two, so be patient. More nifty stuff coming your way SOON!

Well, tomorrow morning, actually. We will be participating in a telecon with Jill Pantozzi of The Mary Sue, along with several other people as part of a joint effort to help New York Comic-Con revamp its anti-harassment policy. As you may well imagine, we are very excited to be asked to participate in this.

We will say it again — we could not have come this far without the support of everyone who took ribbons, shared our blog entries, retweeted us, friended or followed us, or simply sent us messages of encouragement (and an occasional ass-kicking when we needed it). What started as a half-baked, crazy idea has taken on a life of its own. Every time we think that this can’t go any further, it somehow does. And we thank all of you for it.

WE LOVE YA, MAN!!!

First off, our fine friends over at Krypton Radio will be airing our interview Saturday, Aug. 23 at 9 pm. We will be chatting about harassment and con culture in the wake of recent events at San Diego Comic-Con. Come to think of it, you should just listen to Krypton Radio regardless, as they do all sorts of nifty SF/geek oriented shows.

In other news, our friends over at The Mary Sue are partnering with New York Comic-Con to draft an anti-harassment policy. They are currently taking nominees to help them with this undertaking. We have been nominated and should hear by Sunday the 24th if we made the cut. We’ve spent the last several years bitching about what is wrong with harassment at cons. So now, we get a chance to put our money where our admittedly loud mouths are.

Really quickly — we are going to once again be featured on an upcoming edition of The Event Horizon, courtesy of the fabulous people at Krypton Radio (it’s sci-fi for your wi-fi). We will let you know once we know the air date/time so that you can all tune into the dulcet tones of us discussing harassment, con safety, and how we as geeks can all be just a little more excellent to each other.

We have in a fresh batch of Backup ribbons, complete with that new ribbon smell! These have arrived just in time for your late summer/early fall cons. Follow these simple directions to get some of your very own.

IMPORTANT INFO: If you want ribbons for any events over Labor Day weekend,  please specify this in your email so we can get you a fast pass to the front of the queue. The cutoff for ordering ribbons for Labor Day events is August 25, so that they will get to you in time.

We always welcome pics of you with your ribbons at events! We may even run another flash challenge like we did for Phoenix Comic-con.