Nerd Is a Universal Language
- Thread starter Greg Tito
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Get along on the internet?! What madness is this!? I think you need to mass produce whatever you're smoking XD
Actually I wonder how many people who hate each other on this site would geek-out together if they met IRL. I guess the Expo showed how geeks are far more agreeable when they're face-to-face.
Actually I wonder how many people who hate each other on this site would geek-out together if they met IRL. I guess the Expo showed how geeks are far more agreeable when they're face-to-face.
Hear, hear. This is actually one of the big things I really love about comic book conventions: the fact that I can pretty much pick a person at random, walk up to them, start talking, and be reasonably certain that we'll have a lot in common. It's so utterly different from normal life, where strangers on the bus are generally ignored at best, and certainly never enthusiastically spoken to, and it's one of the things that make conventions so fun for me.
A cynic might say they're only more agreeable because they have shed the veil of anonymity.Fappy said:
Tito's article kinda bothers me; I for one do not particularly enjoy being talked at by people just because they happen to enjoy one or two of the same hobbies.
I actually agree with him on almost every point, it's a view I share that we should all be more accepting of each other. Not worldwide, just us, Escapists, geeks, nerds. Doesn't matter where you're from, we share one thing in common and we should be embracing it.
Also... I really miss D&D... oh wait! BGEE is playable in 45 minutes! Wooo
Also... I really miss D&D... oh wait! BGEE is playable in 45 minutes! Wooo
I totally get where you are coming from. Nerds can be weird and annoying, but I don't think Tito expects everyone to become best pals just because we share common interests. I think the point is that we should focus more on the positive aspects of our common interests, otherwise we may overlook those we'd call friends under different circumstances. That's the way I interpreted it anyway.JEBWrench said:
I think the internet has some chemical compound that multiplies the amount of testosterone and pure rage that a person has in their body by 1000 times.Fappy said:
OT: I'm not so sure how well I would mix in, to be honest. I love games, for sure, and I know a lot about them. But I hardly ever watch television or new movies, I don't read comics, I don't watch Anime, I don't play D&D or other assorted P&P RPGs, etc.
I can nerd out about the television/movies I do watch, and I guess I do know a very miniscule amount about the most well-known parts of Marvel-canon, but the only things I can really go all out on with full thrusters are video games or music (and nobody likes most of the music I listen to).
Vitriol is the renewable fuel resource that keeps online communities powered.Fappy said:
Your interpretation is fair; I was just rubbed the wrong way. Especially the "our people" line. It seems to imply more pigeonholing, which I kinda thought that article was advocating against.
But you could bond with people over a mutual love of Shrek, or any one of the things you do like; no matter what, there are going to be people who want to talk to you about it and have good time doing so.shrekfan246 said:
Or there is my default when meeting nerds I don't know: get them to talk about their fandom. There is literally just about nothing a person likes to do more than to talk about something they are passionate about. I just nod and smile, and pretty soon they think we're friends, and then we can be friends.
absolutely. i remember at games day (Games workshop's big convention for their warhammer boardgame franchises), while just waiting in line to get some forgeworld stuff i just started a conversation with a group of people, and then some guys on the other side of the barrier (it was one of those zigzag ones) joined in, and we were all just geeking out about how super cool the forgeworld sculpts were, discussing army builds and tactics, fun paint projects and models we had seen, and all that good stuff.Anachronism said:
Conventions are just the best for finding others who speak your dialect of nerd, and having a damn fine time talking about it.
So much better of a thing to focus on.
We have so many things that bring us together rather than make us hate each other. Freedom is worth sticking up for. Rather than being bound to every little preference and taking it upon yourself to force everyone else to agree with.
We have so many things that bring us together rather than make us hate each other. Freedom is worth sticking up for. Rather than being bound to every little preference and taking it upon yourself to force everyone else to agree with.
I actually agree about most of this, from the perspective that the Internet and globalization are really awesome this way, and how these subcultures practically turn into full cultures accross the word.
On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of that "always love and tolerate each other above everything else" rhetoric. The internet is awesome precisely because it lets me cherry pick the people who like the same things as me and connect with them, not because it obliges me to connect with an arbitarily decided group of so-called "nerds".
This is not a church, or a nation, where I would make some forced "All are welcome" statement or I am a bigot for hating people who are different. The best thing about nerds is how weirdly unique they can be, how different we are together from everyone else. This is what makes them "my people", not some hard rule about how all speculative fiction, new media, and/or Japanese media, are inherently nerdy just because, and I must treat them as the in-group.
On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of that "always love and tolerate each other above everything else" rhetoric. The internet is awesome precisely because it lets me cherry pick the people who like the same things as me and connect with them, not because it obliges me to connect with an arbitarily decided group of so-called "nerds".
This is not a church, or a nation, where I would make some forced "All are welcome" statement or I am a bigot for hating people who are different. The best thing about nerds is how weirdly unique they can be, how different we are together from everyone else. This is what makes them "my people", not some hard rule about how all speculative fiction, new media, and/or Japanese media, are inherently nerdy just because, and I must treat them as the in-group.
On the reverse side I find it almost impossibly difficult to talk to "regular" people. For instance when I first went to college, all the guys on my dorm floor talked more or less about two things: sports and super models. Sports, okay, but I did not know that it was thing for guys to opnely talk about how hot they thought various supermodels were.
While I agree with points made in your article, Mr. Tito, and have been saying much the same for quite some time now, I fear most of it will either fall on deaf ears or, hypocritically, be agreed upon and thusly ignored.
In fact, I'd wager that this very thread will devolve into an argument; likely on the very things you brought up; within three pages. By that point I'm almost certain at least two people will start arguing over EA, Activision, Steam, Valve, Mass Effect, Bioware, Half-Life, Call of Duty, or some other such thing.
I sincerely hope not, of course. I'd love to be proven wrong in my assumption.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to peruse the new forum posts and attempt to skim past all the angry, hate threads
In fact, I'd wager that this very thread will devolve into an argument; likely on the very things you brought up; within three pages. By that point I'm almost certain at least two people will start arguing over EA, Activision, Steam, Valve, Mass Effect, Bioware, Half-Life, Call of Duty, or some other such thing.
I sincerely hope not, of course. I'd love to be proven wrong in my assumption.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to peruse the new forum posts and attempt to skim past all the angry, hate threads
Not to get too off-topic, but I think they're talking about different types of "globalization." The "anti-globalization" protesters are mostly protesting global exploitation - where the ultra-wealthy corporations can feed on countries and cultures around the world world, but offer nothing back in return. It's basically a movement against pillaging the Earth's resources to make a few people rich.Greg Tito said:
It's interesting to note that the "anti-globalization" folk are usually also strong proponents of refugee rights - the right of humans to travel the world without borders. About a decade ago, I was involved with these kinds of movements, and I constantly disagreed with the way it was framed as "anti-globalization" - because it caused the exact kind of confusion demonstrated here - equating global economic exploitation with social/cultural globalization.
The other side of the coin, is that the multi-national companies, the ones who exploit resources regardless of borders, are the same ones who support things like region codes, and exclusive distribution rights into certain geographical "markets." They also tend to be the ones who like to keep people confined to their codified geographic regions.
So, there are so many contradictions that make this such a loaded term. If these company are supporting a globalist agenda so they can exploit resources, then they should also support free competition among geographical markets, but they don't. They want to outlaw selling retail goods from one country to another, while at the same time, outsourcing everything to the cheapest country possible. We have a global internet that dissolves borders, yet they want to keep us penned into these increasingly artificial regional markets.
