Vic Sage Bids a Retro Farewell

Shea Mathis, Vic Sage, and Rob O’Hara

Vic Sage — blogger, podcaster, and one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet — announced his retirement from the retro scene this week, bringing an end to multiple podcasts and his website, Pop Culture Retrorama.

I met Vic through the Retroist’s website, Retroist.com. In the beginning, all the articles and podcasts that appeared on Retroist.com were created by a single person (The Retroist). Over time, a handful of like-minded individuals were invited to share their own nostalgic-themed content on the site. Vic was one of the earliest contributors to the Retroist that I remember seeing, and his articles were some of the site’s best. Vic was as prolific as his love for nostalgia was genuine. He cranked out content at a furious pace, posting new articles on the Retroist site almost every day. Some days, he posted two or three.

I was part of the second wave of writers to join the Retroist’s writing staff, and it wasn’t until I committed to contributing two posts a week to the site that I realized just how much work Vic was putting into the site. When writing about nostalgia — especially articles with a personal connection, the type Vic wrote — it feels like you are serving a little piece of yourself to every visitor, as if you were a cake. It’s not enough to say, “well, Rubik’s Cubes were a thing.” People want personal memories. They want to read about the time you peeled all the stickers off your Rubik’s Cube and replaced them in order to solve the cube, only to lose one of the stickers in the process, or the time you went to the World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee and saw the world’s largest Rubik’s Cube. Or that 40 years after receiving your first Rubik’s Cube, your son is competing in Rubik’s Cube competitions. It’s those personal connections that turn a dry Wikipedia article into a something with a sense of connection, something Vic never failed to deliver. For me, writing that many articles in such a short amount of time left me feeling emotionally drained.

Vic, on the other hand, never seemed to run out of slices of cake to serve visitors. There are people who know a lot about a few things, and people who know a little about a lot of things. Vic knows a lot about a lot of things, so his posts were never limited to a single category. Vic’s depth of knowledge of any single topic he’s interested in — say, comic books — would be impressive on its own, but he doesn’t just know about comic books. He knows about video games, and arcade games, and vintage toys, and old radio shows, and 80s cartoons, and vintage television shows. And somehow on top of all that, he knows more about movies than all of those other things combined. And I want to stress that I’m not just talking about facts here; I’m talking about knowledge. Mention an old television show and he’ll suggest three similar ones you might like. Ask him about a scene from an 80s film and he’s liable to tell you about the time he and his dad saw it at the local drive-in. He’s not just a nostalgic fact-spewing robot; he can have conversations about any of this stuff.

In 2012 Vic’s childhood friend Shea Mathis opened Arkadia Retrocade, a classic 80s arcade in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I have visited the arcade many times, and I gotta tell you, Arkadia gives Disney a run for their money on that whole “happiest place on earth” thing. For several years, Vic volunteered his time by working shifts at the arcade. That’s where I first met Vic in person and learned that for as knowledgeable and nice and passionate as Vic seems online, he is all those things — and more — in real life.

Here’s a story I have to share. At the arcade, Vic established a tradition of serving up cups of Great Bluedini Kool-Aid each year at midnight on New Year’s Eve to make toasts. He could have chosen strawberry, or cherry, or grape, or any other flavor easily available on store shelves, but no — Vic Sage picked Great Bluedini, a color-changing flavor of Kool-Aid that was discontinued in the early 90s (along with Sharkleberry Fin, Purplesaurus Rex, and a few others). Kool-Aid brought back Great Bluedini for a limited run in 2014, but Vic insists on acquiring and using original packets from the late 80s/early 90s. The only place to buy Great Bluedini Kool-Aid these days is eBay, where a single packet will set you back $30. One. Packet. On New Year’s Eve, Vic makes five gallons of Great Bluedini. Nobody asks him to do this. As far as I know, nobody helps him pay for it. It’s possible many of the people there don’t know they are standing next to the region’s most expensive Igloo cooler full of Kool-Aid. I was there one New Year’s Eve as Vic was frantically serving expired Kool-Aid to those who had gathered at the arcade to ring in the new year. I have never seen a prouder smile than the one on Vic’s face as several dozen people, basked in the light of arcade games, drank cups of Great Bluedini while ringing in the new year.

Vic Sage preparing Great Bluedini

After contributing segments to many Retroist podcasts over the years, Vic spread his wings and began creating his own shows. On Saturday Frights, Vic talked about horror movies, television shows, and even soundtracks. On Diary of an Arcade Employee, Vic spoke in depth about the arcade games he encountered at Arkadia. After launching his own website, Pop Culture Retrorama, he started a podcast for that, too. The avalanche of content Vic created for the Retroist’s website was a preview of what he would go on to produce.

If you want to know a little bit more about Vic, check out the interview Sean Johnson did with him. This heartfelt conversation offers a peak behind Vic’s public persona, including several stories about his childhood and where his love of movies came from. It’s a great listen.

Over the past few weeks Vic has publicly shared that he is changing jobs, which contributed to his decision to hang up his blogging and podcasting hats. There’s more to it than that, but I’ll let Vic tell you about it himself. It’s a bittersweet message from the man himself that covers everything from writing while juggling multiple jobs to the pain of creating content only to struggle with getting the word out to his audience. It’s a problem many of us have experienced, but for a guy who has published more than 6,000 articles and 300 podcasts, it has to be particularly heartbreaking.

Vic, I raise a virtual cup of Great Bluedini in your honor. Thanks for more than a decade’s worth of content and, more importantly, friendship. I’ve enjoyed all our conversations, both electronic and in person, and wish you the best in your new endeavor.

And, should the itch return and you decide to once again begin serving cake, I’ll be in line for the first slice.