Blog: Working The Algorithm

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Later this week I am off to LEEDS to do a talk at Leeds Arts University about MY WORK. This came about because I advertised myself on a DATA mailing list a couple of months ago as someone who could talk about That Sort Of Thing and then got asked by the lovely people at Leeds Arts to go and do so, discussing the research process that took me from doing a PhD to the BOOK to the SHOW and indeed BEYOND. I was, obviously, utterly flipping DELIGHTED to say "YES PLEASE!"

I have thus been beavering away on my SLIDES for the past couple of weeks, working out what I need to say, and this has been a v v interesting experience. Obviously I think ANYTHING to do with me and my ouvre is objectively fascinating, but diving into it like this has been GRATE, as it's reminded me of all sorts of fun things that have happened along the way. My first go at the slides was basically an edited version of the SHOW, but then I realised that what they wanted was the STORY of how I got there, not necessarily an in-depth description of the methodologies, and my BRANE has been gradually catching up with this - yesterday, for instance, it reminded me that I did a whole work-in-progress show and then went to see Mr D Munro for DRAMATURGY, and that those might be something to mentione along the way!

A big part of the talk is going to be about the underlying purpose to get my name out there and into the ALGORITHM, so that when the films come out anyone searching for "Doctor Doom Expert" will find ME, so I thought it'd be a good idea to do a progress report on how all that's going. To my ENORMOUS DELIGHT I discovered that it's going REALLY WELL, and that if you do do a google for "Doctor Doom Expert" then my Radio Times article is (currently) the SIXTH thing that comes up! HOORAH!

Even more excitingly I discovered that this article - particularly my prediction that the "glitchy numbers" in the current trailers are counting down to a FULL trailer to be shown during the Super Bowl - has been quoted in a number of OTHER news outlets, notably Yahoo! News and - best of all - THE WEEK. This is EXACTLY what I was after, so I was RUDDY DELIGHTED to see that it had actually worked.

But there was even MORE excitement to come - as I was putting the slides together I thought "hang on, a high Google ranking is very 2010s isn't it? Surely these days THE KIDS are just asking AI?" I knew that if you just put "Doctor Doom Expert" into Google the AI starts telling you things that Doom is an expert IN, but if you do it properly like wot THE KIDZ do and ASK it an actual question like "Who is an expert on doctor doom?" then what do you think happens?

I'll tell you what happens - it says IT IS ME! HOORAH! And also ZANG! Getting THAT to happen has been a huge part of the POINT of doing all this, especially in these days of People Using AI, so I did a little WHOOP of JOY to see that it had actually WORKED! It turns out that getting the phrase "Doctor Doom Expert" onto lots of webpages again and again works just the same as putting "International Rock Star" into my press releases does, and the MACHINES believe it.

Now all we need is for Robert Downey Jr to ask the SAME question and it will be HO! for HOLLYWOOD and some Doom Chat around the pool. Bobby! CALL ME!

posted 26/1/2026 by MJ Hibbett

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