Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Steam Powered Giraffe’s Rabbit transition
Steampunk character’s upgrade mirrors creator
Steam Powered Giraffe: transitioning members, unchanging fanbase.
“I had a brand and a character that looks very different from the character I portray now,” says Isabella Bennett, who plays Rabbit, one of the musical steampunk robots in Steam Powered Giraffe. The band character transitioned from male to female in 2014, mirroring Bennett’s real-life transition. “It was a big change and, honestly, one for the better, I think, ‘cause I’m in a better place and it hasn’t hurt our [online popularity] numbers at all. Rolling Stone did an article [on singer Laura Jane Grace, who also transitioned publicly] that was floating around at the time. It made it easier, seeing other trans people out and about on the internet, doing, like, video blogs saying, ‘Hey, I’m out here, this is what I did,’ and eventually I think it just kind of cracked through my egg and I was able to hatch, finally.”
The character of Rabbit often broke down and malfunctioned, requiring upgrades and parts reflected with makeup and costume revisions. It’s easy to draw a parallel between Bennett’s pre-transition struggles and Rabbit’s, but the role-playing universe created by SPG goes beyond such armchair observations. Aside from playing multiple instruments, portraying the band’s Giraffe puppet on stage, and doing humorous MST3K-style film commentary on Instagram, Bennett writes most of the lore for the band and illustrates comic books that spin the band’s steampunk backstory. The comment sections online and in print reveal an emotional connection to SPG fans that made the transition celebratory.
“It makes sense that we have a supportive and progressively minded fanbase, because it’s what our whole thing is. Wholesomeness and feeling kind of like an outsider and telling people that it’s okay to be different, it’s okay to be yourself. Hang on to that hope, hang on to your heart, and never let that deviate, because the world needs some good-hearted people.”
Here's something you might be interested in.
Steam Powered Giraffe’s Rabbit transition
Steampunk character’s upgrade mirrors creator
Steam Powered Giraffe’s Rabbit transition
Steampunk character’s upgrade mirrors creator
Steam Powered Giraffe: transitioning members, unchanging fanbase.
“I had a brand and a character that looks very different from the character I portray now,” says Isabella Bennett, who plays Rabbit, one of the musical steampunk robots in Steam Powered Giraffe. The band character transitioned from male to female in 2014, mirroring Bennett’s real-life transition. “It was a big change and, honestly, one for the better, I think, ‘cause I’m in a better place and it hasn’t hurt our [online popularity] numbers at all. Rolling Stone did an article [on singer Laura Jane Grace, who also transitioned publicly] that was floating around at the time. It made it easier, seeing other trans people out and about on the internet, doing, like, video blogs saying, ‘Hey, I’m out here, this is what I did,’ and eventually I think it just kind of cracked through my egg and I was able to hatch, finally.”
The character of Rabbit often broke down and malfunctioned, requiring upgrades and parts reflected with makeup and costume revisions. It’s easy to draw a parallel between Bennett’s pre-transition struggles and Rabbit’s, but the role-playing universe created by SPG goes beyond such armchair observations. Aside from playing multiple instruments, portraying the band’s Giraffe puppet on stage, and doing humorous MST3K-style film commentary on Instagram, Bennett writes most of the lore for the band and illustrates comic books that spin the band’s steampunk backstory. The comment sections online and in print reveal an emotional connection to SPG fans that made the transition celebratory.
“It makes sense that we have a supportive and progressively minded fanbase, because it’s what our whole thing is. Wholesomeness and feeling kind of like an outsider and telling people that it’s okay to be different, it’s okay to be yourself. Hang on to that hope, hang on to your heart, and never let that deviate, because the world needs some good-hearted people.”
Comments