If you haven’t heard, the Sci Fi channel has decided to rebrand itself as the Syfy channel.
…
Ok. Really? The Syfy channel? I mean…really?
Their reasoning, you ask?
“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.
Should I be insulted? Should the audience be insulted? Should people who actually enjoy science fiction be insulted that their demographic is still viewed in such a narrow-minded way?
Yeesh.
Here, for your viewing pleasure, are 25 other names they could have used (warning, language):
I see that smyl.
I have heard that Bonnie Hammer spear-headed this. She was also responsible for such similarly-awesome moves as saying that women don’t watch science fiction and cancelling a host of shows like Farscape and Mystery Science Theatre 3000 because she, personally, didn’t get them.
In more amusing news, apparently “syfy” in Polish means a crusty venereal disease.
Wow…I hadn’t heard about this.
I watch sci-fi and I’m a girl…
I’m not insulted, but dumbfounded. I don’t get changing it to that. Looks like they are trying too hard to be cool.
Ha! That’s funny and fantastically arbitrary. Yeah, the SciFi crowd gets a bad rap, and are entirely misunderstood – even my dad and brother who are only mildly geeky and not socially dysfunctional, spend endless hours glued to the SciFi channel. I wonder how much money they spent on the rebranding…