What Is AVOutput?
My god. What isn’t AVOutput? Let me, Stephen Lawrence, be your Sherpa on this deeply spiritual journey into the depths of this untold story. (Untold because no one has ever asked or shown any interest.) Normally as a rule, I wouldn’t do this, but to explain the what of AVOutput, I’ll have to start at the beginning. The year is 2008 (or 2007). AVOutput started out when I challenged a room full of once and future roommates to come up with a name for a geek/nerd/dork website. While doing only what twenty-somethings can do, namely chugging down pizza, beer, refried beans, chicken, BBQ, whiskey, and sour candy, we dirtied up a white board with a series of names. Its been so long, there is really no way to remember some of the names, but you can be sure one was AVInput. After a empty-can throwing voting session that almost certainly erupted in an impromptu session of shit talking Guilty Gear tournament, we landed on AVOutput.
Shortly after coming up the idea of starting such a useless endeavour, we actually decided to produce something. We tried to get a website up and running, but that was easier said then done. Then we got our first (and only) big break. A gig at the Screw Attack gaming convention in Dallas Fort Worth. We weedled our way into getting our own hour long panel without having any experience in anything. I think they just needed to pad the time and fill the schedule. I can’t even remember if we presented anything to them other than the title of our panel. In good-faith ignorance, we decided the best way to get people to our panel was to create the most inflammatory title we could think of: “Why Guys Don’t Care What Girls Think About Video Games?” Again, we really just wanted to fill out a room of undefined size (20 chairs? 200 chairs?). It was always meant to be a bait and switch. We weren’t sure if the audience would be for or against us. Maybe this idea was more of a “playful ignorance” than “good-faith”, but it did exactly what it was meant to do. We filled out the room. Then we did what all of our entire highschool career prepared us for; we put on a PowerPoint presentation. It was filled with jokes that skirted the point, created by people who thought they were naturally clever, and ultimately came to a conclusion that was ultimately unsatisfying for the audience. It was like the perfect Monty Python sketch that nobody remembers. Thank god it was not recorded (I hope), and it now sleeps only in the memories of those who participated. It was a poor gig, but that went unsung in the moment. It felt like a natural wind that would carry us to the next step.
That is not what happened. Unfortunately, school, life, and future careers scattered us and our ideas. But the domain name still slept with me, so I kept the idea that was alive. Over the years its mostly been a Tumblr blog, but from time to time, I got a hair and would revive the concept in an effort to push my next big agenda. The last big push was a series of YouTube and Twitch concepts that never really caught fire with an audience, but for me, that was never the point. It was just an outlet to be creative. An excuse to work with friends, some of whom I have known since daycare. And while I always thought AVOutput needed to be something more to exist, I have come to the realization that it doesn’t need to be anything more than what makes people happy.
What is AVOUtput? AVOuput is the still burning spirit of those who didn’t, but still want to do. AVOutput is a collective creative spirit of people that come together to simply be around each other while reminiscing about Pokemon Gen 1 and how we can’t slam hotdogs anymore (but are going to try anyway). AVOutput is a nerd/dork/geek culture commentary site facade as an outlet for my desire to be creative and make my friends laugh. If you aren’t one of my friends, I hope you still can enjoy what we create here. Thanks for reading, watching, and listening.