How would you like to be known by the title of “Geek Culture Guru”? For Corellon Kopczynski (the name his parents gave him), it’s a dream come true.
Why wouldn’t someone who was named after a Dungeons & Dragons god deserve anything less than a career in full-fledged geekdom? The 22-year-old is the new official Geek Culture Guru of Burlingham Books in New York, and he says, “I think that title was laid out for me long before I had the option.”
He was interviewed at his new workplace, where he was happy to report: “Geek culture has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been involved in trading card games, video games, and thinks of that nature. I like to consider myself informed, at least.”
His new employer hopes to tap into Kopczynski’s incredible knowledge of all things geek in order to bring in new business.
Bridging cultures
“I have a lot of friends and family that are invested into this culture. The hope is to draw all of those people together.” Of course, this isn’t the first time he’s been thrust into such a leadership position, but it is the first time he’s getting paid for it.
His first task is to manage the Commander League for the Magic: The Gathering card game. It’s a new eight-week league that’s held Saturdays at 10 a.m. on location. Burlingham has long hosted Magic players, but a league is an entirely new venture.
To shake things up, it’s targeted toward all levels and designed to draw in some newbies. “We want to stifle the idea that we’re all hardcore nerds. We don’t want to come in and rick-roll these kids and say, ‘Oh, we win. GG’ (gamer speak for good game),” Kopczynski says.
The goal isn’t to win, but to reach key goals set according to your level of skill and achievement. If those goals are reached, players get rewards. Those with the most points at the end of two months get a prize.
A perfect match
The assistant manager of Burlingham, Guiseppe Gentile, got the idea from a Pokemon league, but knew he needed more help. “I learned pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to spearhead this and have it become the thing that we wanted it to become, because I’m just too busy and have too many other things to do.”
Getting such an ambitious project underway will probably take as much effort as replacing a roof or monetizing a blog.
So that’s where Kopczynski stepped in. Gentile says of the new employee, “We actually wanted to become a bigger place for Magic and have it become an event. I just couldn’t get it together myself, so we actually approached CJ to see if he wanted to do it, because he’s really knowledgeable.”
As every geek knows, knowledge really is power (especially when there’s a paycheck involved!).