How A College Student Turned a Blog Project Into a Massive, Web-Based Community
Imagine you are a college sophomore, sitting in a digital media class where you’ve just been assigned a semester-long project of creating a blog and maintaining it with content specific to a topic that you are interested in, such as sports, fashion or DIY-projects. You probably fill the blog up with content good enough to get you a passing grade, you pass the class, and you never touch the blog again. End of story. Except for Geeks of Color founder, Dorian Parks, who continued the story and turned an interest of his into a passion.
Parks, a 21-year-old Digital Media Innovation major at Texas State University, found himself sitting in coiski co-founder Jon Zmikly’s Fundamentals of Digital/Online Media class during his sophomore year when he was assigned a blog to create and maintain throughout the semester.
Parks pondered on whether or not he should choose the topic that he found interesting, knowing that the topic he wanted might not be something people perceived as “cool.” However, that topic would eventually become his passion.
“I was trying to choose the topic for my blog, and I just wanted to do something I wouldn’t get bored with,” Parks said. “I thought comics and superheroes would be good, but growing up in school, especially being black, other kids would make fun of you because it wasn’t cool.”
Upon starting his blog, Parks decided that being “cool” wasn’t something he aimed to do.
“I decided that being cool didn’t matter,” Parks said. “In college, nobody cares about being cool, and I decided superheroes was going to be the topic I blogged about.”
Throughout the semester, Parks created fan casts, penned movie reviews, wrote articles and even created YouTube videos about upcoming comic book films. His content eventually earned him an “A” in the class. After the semester ended, Parks decided to keep creating YouTube videos.
“The last assignment in the class was to make a YouTube video, so I made one and continued making videos after the class,” Parks said. “I started to gain some followers off of the videos and realized that there isn’t many people of color who do these types of things.”
This would shape the beginnings of Geeks of Color.
“Me and my friend, Brandon Sooknanan, started the Geeks of Color Twitter account with the intention of promoting these new comic book shows and movies with casts of people of color, such as Marvel’s Luke Cage,” Parks said. “We didn’t expect it to get as big as it is today, so now our main goal is to spread positivity and bring awareness to diversity in the film industry.”
Using that positivity, Parks wants to continue to make Geeks of Color an inclusive space for people from all walks of life to come together and enjoy, discuss, and educate themselves on what most people would consider, right now, the golden age of comic book movies.
“I think being a ‘geek’ is pretty dope,” Parks said. “Many people have a negative connotation when it comes to the word ‘geek,’ but with the family and community we’ve built, some of the people I’ve interacted with are the coolest people I’ve ever met.
One of the inspirations behind Geeks of Color was another popular Twitter account, @BlackGirlNerds.
“Jamie Broadnax, the person behind BlackGirlNerds, really took us under her wing and showed us how to be active and spread positivity on Twitter,” Parks said. “A lot of her followers support our page and vice versa.”
The two accounts have actually collaborated for live-tweeting events, most recently with Marvel’s Luke Cage series on Netflix.
“Live-tweeting the Luke Cage show was actually a really cool thing we did,” Parks said. “We interacted with our followers a whole bunch and even got it to be a trending topic for a few days.”
Once the Twitter account started to produce a following, Parks realized it was time to move forward with Geeks of Color.
“I figured I should start a blog for Geeks of Color since I recently did one in class and more people could contribute and follow us on a blog platform,” Parks said. “It was a blog for a while, and then I decided I didn’t want to see the ‘.wordpress.com’ in my bio anymore so I bought the domain.”
Parks quickly realized they would need more content to keep their ever-growing audience satisfied.
“Originally, it was only Brandon and I but, it got to the point where we recognized we couldn’t maintain the site by ourselves,” Parks said. “We decided to tweet out an application and we got an overwhelming response from people who wanted to be a part of the site. We now have a staff of 14 that includes writers, social media admins, video editors, and designers who reside all over the world.”
After launching on January 1, 2016, the Geeks of Colors Twitter account now boasts an impressive following of 22,000 and Parks, or Agent Dorian as most people know him online, has gained some prominence amongst the comic book community.
“My first comic-con was in Dallas, and it was quite surreal,” Parks said. “When I went, I wasn’t expecting anyone to know who I was, but it was crazy getting stopped by people, asking if I was Dorian from Geeks of Color.”
Parks was even recognized by Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D actress, Chloe Bennett, at a Dallas comic-con.
Chloe Bennet talking about the possibilities of Kamala Khan appearing on Agents of Shield. pic.twitter.com/ikGpFuXGEb
— Geeks Of Color (@GeeksOfColor) September 7, 2016
Parks credits the social media strategy of the Geeks of Color Twitter account for the recognition.
“I noticed when we interacted more with our followers and they realized they were a part of the page, and without them we are really nothing, is when we really started growing,” Parks said. “When we started sharing, retweeting, and replying to our followers that’s when we really took off.”
Since gaining such a strong following, preeminent hopes are what Parks has for his website.
“I see Geeks of Color becoming the premier site for comic book content and pop culture.” Parks said. “I want writers, videographers, editors, and designers ready immediately in a big office in California. At first, I never thought it would be like this, but since seeing the amount of support and the following we have, I thought, ‘Why settle here?’ I’m going to keep aiming for what I believe in. In the first year, we’ve developed such a strong following and fan base that the sky has become the limit and it’s cool to see that people appreciate us.”
