FeliciaQuest, Ditto’s Journey to meet an Internet Icon at PAX East

As I have said before – this year for PAX East I really had one goal, one purpose in mind for the day, and that was to see, meet, and possibly talk to Felicia Day.  Sure, there were many big name folks there for meet and greets, but I am a huge fan of Felicia Day, not only because she’s a fun, quirky actress, but because she has been a pioneer in social media and taking web content to the next level.  ‘The Guild’, her web show about a bunch of gamers, was one of the very first to start being taken seriously by ‘old school’ media, and of course she had a starring role in ‘Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog’, which also revolutionized the way people think about internet media and distribution.

Ditto trying to meet Felicia Day

As a blogger and, more importantly, a video content creator, I follow Felicia and others like her to see what’s new and where this is all headed.  Felicia’s new YouTube channel, Geek & Sundry, is a great example of the next generation of internet content – a full channel lineup of high quality, on-demand original programming that is made for geeks, by geeks – try doing that on ABC or Fox.  On second thought.. please don’t.  I just game myself a shiver.

So when I heard that Felicia was going to be at PAX East giving Q&As and signing autographs, I knew that had to be my #1 goal.  I figured best case, I would wait in like for half a day, say hello, and she’d smile politely, maybe ruffle my fur, and sign a quick autograph; ‘Dear Ditto, love your channel, keep up the great work for Fabricated American’s Everywhere’…  Best case scenario, she’d hire me to add my own unique, Fabricated American spin on Geek & Sundry…  A Monster can dream, can’t he?

We showed up a bit early for the Q&A, but not NEARLY Early enough – there were throngs of people surrounding the XBox Live stage area, and when Felicia came out I could barely see her, and we couldn’t hear her at all.  I kept trying to get a look, but Ditto is very short, and people are very tall, so it wasn’t working.  Finally, Miss Narrator agreed to put me on her shoulders – OK, I bribed her with a stuffed dinosaur – and I finally saw Felicia standing there talking.

Felicia Day doing Q&A - the crowds were pretty big.

Of course, a furry orange monster poking out high above the crowd is bound to draw a little attention, and Felicia actually stopped the Q& A when she saw me, parted the crowd between us a little bit, and said that I was the same color as her shoes!  She even held up a foot and showed everyone that, indeed, her shoes were a very Ditto-like orange color.  Totally true story.  It was a brief brush with celebrity that I would treasure forever, or at least until the next time I had pie…

After the Q&A, Felicia sat to play a bit of Mass Effect 3 for the crowd.  I’m unsure why, as I still couldn’t hear anything, but at least the crowd dispersed a little and I was able to get up closer to get a better view and make my well planned pitch to her for my ideas for a Fabricated American show on Geek & Sundry.  She would have loved it…  I also started looking for where the autograph line was – the people were kind of surrounding the area in a throng, there wasn’t any real organization to it.

Ditto very close to Felicia Day - she's about to say Hi to me!

The gaming session was over and they started setting up for autographs, and that’s when disaster struck (OK, maybe not a ‘Disaster’, more like a minor disappointment.  I mean, nobody lost a limb or a house or anything…) – we were told that the only people able to line up and get autographs had to have special blue tickets that were apparently handed out much earlier – possibly some time in March, I’m not sure, as we were there plenty early.  I tried to secure one of the prized artifacts for myself, but it was no use.  Felicia was really nice and came to talk to a few people at the rope as the line started forming, and she did say hello to me – we didn’t have the video camera running, unfortunately, but that’s OK, it was still a brief brush with Felicia Day, and made me happy.

Felicia Day DID at least say Hi to Ditto. She was very nice.

After the brief brush with Internet celebrity, Miss Narrator and I headed out deeper onto the show floor and really enjoyed the rest of the day, as you can see from all the other photos and videos and interviews.  It was a great day, and I thank you for coming and sharing in all the fun we had!