Aaron Sagers

Aaron Sagers

Sagers at the 25th anniversary luncheon for the film Eight Men Out in Manhattan.
Born Orlando, Florida, United States
Education Attended New York University
Occupation presenter, entertainment journalism, pundit, political commentator, online journalism
Years active 2004–present
Title Television personality and presenter
Website
Official website

Aaron Sagers[1] is an American television presenter/personality, entertainment journalist, and expert of geek culture and paranormal media.[2] He is also a syndicated columnist, author, zombie pundit, and founder of ParanormalPopCulture.com,[3] a website which covers paranormal topics in popular culture, and is also a semi-regular guest on the popular paranormal radio show Darkness Radio.

Background

Aaron Sagers was raised in Orlando, Florida, as the youngest Catholic son of five siblings, three older brothers and one older sister. He attended Saint Margaret Mary school in Winter Park Florida before graduating to Bishop Moore High School. He then transferred to Tift County High School in Tifton Georgia before attending Flagler College in Saint Augustine Florida for his undergraduate degree. In 2002 he attended New York University to study journalism for his master of arts, where he graduated in 2004.

Quotes

"The battle between who we are, who we want to be, and what we end up showing others is ongoing"

Career

Sagers is currently a writer for MTV Geek, CNN and is the host and co-executive producer for Paranormal Paparazzi on the Travel Channel.[4] He has appeared with Zak Bagans (who serves as Executive Producer on Paranormal Paparazzi) as a celebrity guest judge on the Travel Channel show Paranormal Challenge,[5] worked with Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures as a lecturer at paranormal tourism events, and has appeared as a guest on Coast to Coast AM.

Sagers began his career in travel journalism with Budget Travel[6][7] and MSNBC and working freelance before eventually accepting a position with the Tribune Company. His work has appeared in publications such as the Chicago Tribune,[8] The Baltimore Sun,[9] The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, Orlando Weekly,[10] The Morning Call[11] and Playboy.[12] He began writing for the CNN website in 2011, and appeared on camera in March 2012.[13] He has contributed to the BBC, Huffington Post Live, Playboy Radio, Sirius XM Radio and began contributing to MTV in 2013.

He has been a contributing author for Lonely Planet travel guides for Costa Rica, ABC-CLIO[14] reference guide on pirates in pop culture, and the H.W. Wilson Company[15] reference guide on the paranormal. Sagers was also a guest editor for the TAPS Magazine,[16] the magazine for the Syfy channel's Ghost Hunters, in March/April and May/June 2011. His book Paranormal Pop Culture: Notes from the Entertainment of the Unexplained was released in 2012.

Sagers began ParanormalPopCulture.com in 2009 to cover "all forms of paranormal popular culture in mass media - and to have fun while doing it" without "proving or debunking the existence of anything beyond the entertainment factor."[17] He takes credit for coining the phrase "paranormal pop culture" and has said in interviews he was motivated to create the site after writing multiple well-received articles[18] on paranormal television, but also because of his childhood fascination of ghost stories around the campfire, monsters, and zombies. His main goal is to examine the "cross section of mainstream pop culture and the paranormal."[19] He has interviewed a variety of celebrities on both paranormal and mainstream topics, including Dan Aykroyd,[20] Clive Owen,[21] Matt Smith,[22] Kevin Smith, Rob Zombie,[23] Stan Lee, George A. Romero,[24] Robert Kirkman and Max Brooks,[25] the cast of Being Human,[26] Mike Mignola, and Bruce Campbell.[27] His work has been featured in Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter.[28]

He remains active as a geek culture expert and columnist (of the weekly syndicated "Pop Pundit"[29] column) and generalist features writer on entertainment topics that range from The Office[30] to character profiles[10] and celebrity profiles such as Anthony Bourdain.[31]

Aside from the paranormal, he has an expertise on Doctor Who, Star Wars, Apocalypse cultures and comic book culture. He has his love for nerd culture and paranormal media both emerged from growing up as a child of the eighties, and saw Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies not as separate from paranormal genre but as all connected. That was also combined with his love of the pop culture from his parents' and generations, such as The Twilight Zone.

"I'm a child of the '80s, so I've always been enamored with this stuff," Sagers told The Hollywood Reporter. "I was raised on Steven Spielberg, Stephen King and John Carpenter. I'm a skeptical believer, but I just love exploring why our culture is so fascinated with all of this."

Host and moderator

Sagers (right) emceeing a panel discussion with Wil Wheaton at the 2013 Wizard World New York Experience in Manhattan.

Sagers also contributes as an entertainment pundit to several outlets, including ABC, Playboy Radio, and TAPS Magazine Radio on CNY Talk Radio.[32] He gives lectures on various topics connected to paranormal pop culture, zombies, Doctor Who and apocalypse at conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con, Wizard World, Dragon Con and New York Comic Con.

Sagers has appeared as a moderator or panelist alongside the cast of Being Human at 2013's San Diego Comic-Con and Monster Mania in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He has also hosted cast panels with Syfy's Defiance (Grant Bowler, Jaime Murray, Stephanie Leonidas), Warehouse 13 (Eddie McClintock, Aaron Ashmore) and Smallville. He has conducted one-on-one panel conversations with Michael Shannon, Norman Reedus, Robert Rodriguez, Zachary Quinto, Jon Bernthal, Danny Glover, Ray Park and more. He has been hired as a primary host and moderator for Parafest 2013 and Scare-a-con.

References

  1. ↑ "Meet Our Staff". ParanormalPopCulture. Retrieved 2011-07-13.
  2. ↑ Sagers, Aaron (August 31, 2011). "Nerds and hipsters: The yin and yang of American subcultures". CNN.
  3. ↑ Sagers, Aaron. "About ParanormalPopCulture.com: A little about us". Paranormal Pop Culture. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  4. ↑ Kondolojy, Amanda (August 1, 2012). "Travel Channel Gets in the Halloween Spirit with 'Weekends to Die For'". TV By the Numbers.
  5. ↑ Morning Call
  6. ↑ Budget Travel
  7. ↑ Budget Travel
  8. ↑ Chicago Tribune
  9. ↑ Baltimore Sun
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Orlando Weekly
  11. ↑ Morning Call
  12. ↑ Playboy.com
  13. ↑ 'Run For Your Live'" CNN. April 7, 2012
  14. ↑ ABC-CLIO
  15. ↑ H.W. Wilson
  16. ↑ TAPS ParaMagazine
  17. ↑ ParanormalPopCulture.com
  18. ↑ Providence Journal
  19. ↑ Huth, Kelly (June 24, 2011). "Aaron Sagers, former Lehigh Valley writer, to appear on 'Paranormal Challenge' on Travel Channel". The Express-Times
  20. ↑ PopMatters
  21. ↑ CNN.com
  22. ↑
  23. ↑ Sagers, Aaron (June 1, 2010). "Rob Zombie: Heavy metal musician, film buff ... and superbeast?". ParanormalPopCulture.com.
  24. ↑ Sagers, Aaron (August 1, 2010). "Master of the Dead: George A. Romero on a life directing slow zombies in a genre that won’t die". ParanormalPopCulture.com.
  25. ↑ Sagers, Aaron (January 15, 2011). "Generation Z: Zombie superstars Kirkman and Brooks living up among the undead". ParanormalPopCulture.com.
  26. ↑ Sagers, Aaron (April 8, 2011). "Syfy's 'Being Human' stars on striving for the normal within paranormal". ParanormalPopCulture.com
  27. ↑ (dead link). The Sacramento Bee. Retrieved October 17, 2012.
  28. ↑
  29. ↑ Bellingham Herald
  30. ↑ Dunder Mifflin
  31. ↑ Sagers, Aaron (August 25, 2008). "Punk-rock chef". Times Record News.
  32. ↑ TAPS ParaMagazine Radio

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aaron Sagers.