Greetings, denizens of io9! I'm Rob Bricken, a new Senior Editor here (I'm the one on the right, for the record). You may or may not know me as the former editor of ToplessRobot.com, which you may or may not have read, and which you may or may not have liked. If you did like it and/or me - hey, thanks.
To those people who have no clue who I am or what the hell I'm doing here, let me tell you what I'm bringing to io9, namely: covering nerd news with a critical eye honed by my 10 years as a professional nerd; reporting on all acts of nerdery, from the impressive to the romantic to the terrifying and shameful; and reminding you all that in this remarkable time, when movies based on comic superheroes rule the box office, genre TV dominates the airwaves and nerdiness is considered mainstream, "cool" or even "chic", that there is a dark corner to nerd-dom that will never be mainstream, and that we forget at our peril. I'll remind you of this inescapable dark side to geek culture by posting and making fun of the worst erotic fan fiction I can find in my weekly "Fan Fiction Friday" column. There's nothing that helps quell the excitement that we're getting new Superman, Thor, Iron Man, Avengers, Spider-Man, Wolverine and Star Wars movies like a story where Jabba the Hutt forces Princess Leia to have sex with Optimus Prime.
I imagine some of you folks are worried that I might bring io9's level of discourse down. This is not true. I will simply expand io9's level of discourse in a downward direction. I'll bring you news of the geek basics, things like toys, comics, cartoons, cosplay, and assorted fan nonsense. If my past work is any indication, I will do this with a great deal of profanity, typos and mean-spiritedness. Obviously, this isn't going to be everyone's cup of Slurm, but I promise you this:
• Whatever my opinion, I will never begrudge anyone their own.
• While I tend to be a pessimist, I will actually keep an open mind on pretty much everything but Michael Bay's eternal shittiness.
• When I get things wrong, I will own it.
If you want to get a hold of me, whether you have questions, tips, possible FFF entries, or pre-emptive hate mail, you can contact me at rob@io9.com. I look forward to entertaining/enraging/enlightening/infuriating you!