On Geek Privilege

[Baresark]

I find a lot of this particular blog a bit off pace, to be honest. At the end of the day, power and privilege is not ever afforded to individuals within a culture, only groups within a culture. What happens in the group environment (which universally tends toward extremes) is that the primary members of those groups (ie. nerds and geeks are, by and large, white male individuals, at least at first this was the primary group) become the stereotype that the group identifies with. So of course you see the group as a whole finding that as the archetype and anything that does not fit into that archetype is up for criticism of some sort. People will always identify with a given set of individuals who are the primary and most powerful members of a group.

Also, love how racism makes it's way into the conversation. Racism is definitely a thing that happens and in some areas it's rampant and in some places it's non-existent. That is the world we live in, it's definitely terrible. But... I have noticed that things identified as racism are not always actually racism. There is such a thing as implicit egotism. I have met maybe 2 non-white people (I'm from NJ, we are super diverse here) in my life that fit into the whole nerd/geek "culture" (used very loosely). I can't blame any non-white for not wanting to be a member of that group as there exists an environment that they may not be comfortable in due to implicit egotism. It's one of those things that are ingrained into our very biology and the fact that people are pack animals. My point in this that bringing up "white male" as being a primary group identifier and by extension one of the problems with the "culture" because it's obviously racist is probably not the case in most instances.

Let's talk about sexism. Sexism is an issue. But it typically is not an issue with a lot of people. A minority of members of any groups that are male-centric will be truly sexist, heinous, deserving to punched in the gut, sexist. The issue is that stupid people are not afraid to give their stupid opinion. And they are stupidly proud of it on many occasions. Because some idiots cat call cosplayers doesn't not make the entire group of people who identify with them actually sexist. I have seen very few occasions where that happens and the surrounding audience is not generally disgusted by the display. I bring this up simply because small numbers of individuals cannot be controlled by anyone unless they are doing something illegal. Cat calling a girl or make rude comments is not illegal or punishable by any means other than social outcasting. That leads to them forming an even smaller more extreme group, unfortunately.

Lets discuss sex as a prize. Sex will always be a prize because of biology. The human brain may say, "I'm getting laid! WOO HOO!" The Biology sees it as a way showing worthiness to spread genetic material. No matter how much more "advanced" we are as a species or society or social group... we will always be slave to Biology. And yes, this is completely independent of the knowledge that you may be using contraception, it's deeper than that. Reproduction using genetic material is how all biological life on Earth does it, humans cannot be an exception to that rule (it's impossible as it turns out).

That said, my belief is that most individual men do not see sex this way. If we did we could not have female friends. We could not work next to women without having some sort of contempt towards them or seeing them as inferior in some way.. yet everyone I work with is fine with the women we work next too. My boss is a woman and we have nothing but respect for her. I am in a wonderful relationship. My friends are married to wonderful women who we all respect and love. My point is simply that sex as a prize, while it does exist, is not indicative of a social problem that any but a small minority of men suffer from. Also, in the interest of equality, sex as a prize tends to be a two way street. I have known women in the past who saw sex as a prize. But just like the men with this issue are not in my social circles, neither are the women.

TL;DR - The issues tend to be due to overall group mentality. Some people are terrible that are completely guilty of the things stated in this opinion piece. But most people do not. Groups will always tend towards extremes, leading to group fracturing into smaller groups. As an example, I love videogames (clearly, I'm here aren't I?), but that is the sole thing I have in common with many who come to this site. We have that in common, we can talk about that, everyone is happy. But moral opinion pieces such as this just rub me the wrong way. We should all try to fix a problem when we see it, the issue is that I mostly don't see the problem that is discussed here. At any Comicon I have been to, I have never seen any cosplayer objectified as a sex prize. I have never seen any individual excommunicated or looked down on because they don't fit the rest of the groups race/sex/ethnic background. The issue for me is that Bob loves to say, "Look at what this group does... you are part of the group? Look at what you are doing!" Only, I don't identify with any group in particular so much as a group identifies with me. I don't like video games and comic books because the group likes it, I just like them. They aren't perfect, like anything with immense growth potential, they have a lot of problems and things to figure out.

The belief is that since I like these things, I am part of that group, and I am guilty of what the overall group is doing. Only, I'm technically part of many groups (like everyone). I prioritize fitness and health in my life. I will universally skip playing games in favor of going to the gym. I am working on my deadlift and am almost at the 500 lbs mark. Does that make me "meat head"? I would say yes, or at very least a "bro", which is universally despised by geek/nerd "culture" despite the similarities. But then my second biggest priority in life as an adult male is education. I read books almost exclusively about science, I subscribe to both Scientific American and their Mind publication. I read books on psychology, physics, biology, geology... you name it. So I must fit back into the "nerd/geek" culture, only the overlap with other groups that they are definitively against is ridiculous. And in all of this I manage to not be racist, sexist, over privileged, or even disagreeable with the people I put myself around.

Edit: Bad rant, sorry. I didn't know I put so much, I'm that guy this time around I guess.

 

[Muspelheim]

I feel that geek culture and the overarching nerd collective is nothing but the usual tribal bullshit. There are some effect from the intellectual roots, but it all goes out of the window as soon as a favourable position (that has become "they way it should be" over time) is contested.

As always, be very, very, very careful about rocking the boat. This one in particular.

 

[Gigano]

Well, this whole "privilege" thing is meaningless to begin with, in that it's not possible to ascertain any individual or individual situation by. Each and every individual would at various times and places hold contextual advantages in some regards, while being disadvantaged in others. To know(/speculate) that members of some group have(n't got) some sort of "privilege" tell us nothing on their individual circumstances; which furthermore change between the situations they seek out or find themselves in.

This is called "reality", and whilst one may whine all one wants about some people preferring to share their candy only with other people than oneself, such does not really entitle one to be fed their candy.

Anyway, if you're part of some nerdy community dedicated to breed centipedes with more legs, then chances are your subculture is pretty powerless and without mainstream representation. Is it unfair that centibreed culture is absent representation?

Of course not; as with all other subcultures, it's of interest to no one but the participants in it. Most problems come from when mainstream society do pay attention, like major media channels discovering GTA, or multiple government's unwholesome obsession with persecuting men who kiss other men.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Bit confused over this.

Is this about privilege people who happen to be geeks have, or about privilege people have from being geeks?

The first is fairly obviously an issue, same as Gay Male Privilege (which is just male privilege which male gay people have). Very basic intersectionality there.

The latter...not seeing it.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

By that notion that a drop of poison can kill an elephant, and your point is fair, Murder still happens, what because we haven't stopped it outright, we must tolerate it?

The fact that Oppression and acceptance into the geek and nerd culture is actually a ridiculously uncommon thing does not mean we don't do anything about it.

Think about this for a second. I disagree with Bob's point of view, some may disagree with mine, we still accept that we are all part of this geek and nerd culture. We aren't saying "You aren't in my group!"

This is not a group that oppresses or tries to keep people turned off from the idea, it happens extremely rarely, and when it does happen, and I've seen it first hand at conventions so don't go telling me it doesn't, many of us will all but lynch an offender that we view as having done wrong. We in fact do the opposite of tolerating that kind of crap.

Saying because we haven't stopped it entirely must mean we tolerate it, may as well be damning us eternally. Because circumstances of such occurrence will always take place. We can't stop it entirely, and we won't always see it/won't always stand up when we see it because not all have that courage to do so.

But many of us do.

If we want to talk about poison killing an elephant we can apply that to all of humanity. Quit damning one group because it fits a particular political agenda, when said culture has worked hard to go out of their way to not tolerate that shit.

Look at Bob. Look at his reputation. Does he tolerate it? Has he made efforts to stop it? Or is it because it still happens, he is still tolerant of it because he is in that group.

Much like the Gay community in the opening part of his post. The problem is a problem, yes, but our problem is at a point where we can almost say there will always be a few bad eggs, and we can't stop them all. We have been doing things about this, not just recently, but for decades.

Like I said, if you want to say one bad person can paint the entire community red, your part of the problem. You can say that about all of humanity, and all we can do is what we can, when we can, when it happens. No more no less.

We haven't managed to stop murder since time began, that doesn't mean we as human being are all murderers or tolerant of it. Nor can we always stop it. But we make efforts when and where we can. Which is what this community already does, and acting like we need to improve, when he offered not even a mention of how we improve it suggests we are already at the point where we are doing a lot already.

I was more referring to the quote's fact that Bob assumes that a majority of the community is toxic when it's actually just a small amount. I made no comment about whether to tolerate it or not and I personally believe that we actually need to double down the efforts against these types of people with more drastic measures.

 

[PuckFuppet]

In direct response to the above. I am/was a nerd in school. This did lead to "bullying". I did get over it and move on. I don't see why an individuals experience should inform the motives on an entire group. There is no clear "all people in blue experience this and all people in yellow experience that" line when it comes to how you developed as a person during the major formative years of your life. Creating that line as a kind of "self-righteous because of my angst" card whenever you need it seems facetious at best.

Bob, I disagree with you using the glorious Babylon 5 as your touchstone here, you are hearby expelled for the Most Priviledgious Order of Geeks. Hand in your card on the way out.

As an aside though, and I seriously want to know, are "attractive" cosplayers serious subject to that much... peer pressure at a convention? Or is this just observation bias, for every twenty instances where it doesn't happen you see and remember the one instance it does.

I ask because, having been to more than a few cons, I've yet to see it in a serious way. I distinctly remember one con in London where someone did a catcall, or something I didn't hear it, and one of his friends honestly punched him right then infront of a stand. Not the most rational reaction, but it certainly set the tone for the con.

As an aside to the "being a nerd is like a racial minority" thing let me hit you with this line "You don't understand, you say you were depressed in school?! Who cares, get over it. I lived through school as a nerd. You don't understand."

Guy delivered it with a straight face too.

 

[Senare]

To be fair, I never once understood the phrase "check your privilege", neither the kind of people its intended for (speaker and target both).

Rational wiki has a good page on the concept of privilege in this context. Check it out <a href=http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Privilege>here. The part about "check your privilege" is in one of the first subsections.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Look, Bob. I was never bullied in high-school, I've always had friends and aside from moving into the world of 'adult friends' i.e. people you like to see but can only see occasionally because of work/relationships/home/obligations, I've never really felt that much of an outsider. In fact it's only in the last couple of years it's really really hit me there are people who DON'T share my admittedly middle class set of experiences.

I don't have that idea that i am some-how an outsider. I've always had like-minded people to talk to. These ideas of the "Shared Geek experience", "Persecution mindset" and "Nice guy culture" are pretty alien to me. To put it differently; nerds have always been accepted for a large sub-section of my generation. We didn't feel like nerds because it was never really brought up.

Maybe it's more of an extension of not having the same cultural touch-stones as the US does (or as horrible state school system). There is a very British tradition of eccentricity and the lording of the maverick that dates back to the Victorians. Maybe it's also a extension of the traditional class system where a good education and intelligence were seen as evidence of being of higher status or that technically minded people have been lauded as an extension of British greatness for decades.

Hell the 1980s saw a massive boom in the bedroom coder and cheap personal, programmable computers. Even at that time being 15 and coding a videogame was actually something pretty cool to do. British culture just isn't as afraid of intelligence as classic American culture was.

Yeah I certainly agree (Australian here) with what you are saying. I copped a bit of flak in my youth for my geekiness and I am in Bob's cohort, but it seems to me that things have really changed. Geek is mainstream, geek isn't always white male anymore. Geek and nerd culture is very Asian now and woman are heavily into it (perhaps as an escape from the banal cultures or subcultures). I tutor a range of high school students, and these kids are lucky, geekiness doesn't lead to much in the way of bullying, it is normalised. Kids play video games, gone are the days of weird kids play video games. I have been very happy with what I have been seeing across the geek countries (anime, dnd, board game, pc, ps) and it isn't just young white males playing anymore. The US, is in many ways messed up, and geeks copped a lot of grief there, for in a country supposedly committed to individualism, the individuals have always taken a thorough beating for being individualistic.

Other places are a geek paradise. I am in Melbourne, and it is a fantastic time to be a geek (wish I didn't have to work so much). My rpg group is mostly female, I game online and locally with people of many different races and now, with geeks of many different ages (some are getting into their 40s and 50s now, but a new wave of geek 15 year olds are also here contributing). The geek games then become about having fun and sharing interests. There isn't much time for early Geek American culture of dudes being dicks to everyone different.

Honestly, chatting to a group of young nerds (of quite varied racial backgrounds--one is from Nepal) about what they have been playing and making some suggestions they try the old classics or the less mainstream games of the latest indie boom, makes me tremendously happy. Things are looking up Bob, not down.

 

[wulf3n]

To be fair, I never once understood the phrase "check your privilege", neither the kind of people its intended for (speaker and target both).

Rational wiki has a good page on the concept of privilege in this context. Check it out <a href=http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Privilege>here. The part about "check your privilege" is in one of the first subsections.

If that's representative of the quality of the rest of the site then it's not worth the paper it's printed on.

The idea of "group privilege" is one of the most moronic things I've ever heard. It feels like a parody given the level of hypocrisy having "Rational" in the name of the website, among other things.

Sure everyone holds some privileges another does not, but this notion that there exists a checklist of privileges that a group supposedly has is insulting, doubly so given that they're perpetuated by people who should know better than to stereotype based on arbitrary criteria.

 

[PuckFuppet]

Looking at the comments this is apparently leaning towards being more of an explicitly American thing, at least the experience of it that Bob is describing.

Generationally I'm not sure where I stand compared to the rest of you, 1987 onwards, but my experience has been... well the following. In public school, and mostly between the age of 10-16, I was one of a very small group of people who I would describe as nerdy. We played trading card games, gameboys and I was the token tabletop RPG nut. Most people didn't mind us and we mostly didn't mind them, what bullying may have occurred had nothing to do with my hobbies as I was a 270lbs kid and there was plenty more to say about that than there was about something like Pokemon which few of them would have known much about anyway. I developed a decently thick skin and learned to mock back just as hard but some of it may have gotten to me, the one time it got out of hand I kept telling myself that I'll "do something about it" a good few times until eventually I hit the guy and we flailed wildly trying to hit each other for about two minutes before some teachers pulled us apart. They then did a much better job at beating the shit out of us for starting a fight but that is neither here nor there.

"Geeks" or "nerds" weren't marginalised, mostly because I think from a purely cultural point of view no one cared. I didn't feel victimised, mostly because I didn't choose to as I didn't feel the need to actually care what some other kid thought about me. Did I like it? No, but no one does. I don't see how people think that being stuck in a confined space with about a hundred other random people your age with potentially very little in common was ever going to work out to be sunshine and happiness. That was an all boys school run by a combination of underpaid teachers and monks too, hardly a beacon of social reform.

Moving away from the school image for a moment, geek culture here (Ireland) seems to be a completely different beast. It is only racially homogeneous because... Ireland, it is certainly not biased towards one gender or the other. Sure there are a few ignorant twats who would do the "catcall" thing, but you get those in every group. I was at a con just a week ago where I sat down, in a room filled with tabletop/MTG/Halo/whatever else nerds, and at least half the room was female. There were people of all ages, I ran a Dragon Age RPG game with a bunch of 40+ people from Germany, and the con was even getting slightly more racially diverse. But again, Ireland.

I honestly don't see how my school experience was bad, outright at least. I know people who'd fit the "jock" description and came away from school far more damaged than I could rightly imagine.

tl;dr: "Geek privilege" may be broadly the result of a specific experience, exclusive to certain social systems. But it certainly isn't a phrase which encompasses the "geek culture" as a whole.

As a community i think many of us would be VERY quick to distance ourselves from the more 'Euphoric' side of things if you know what i mean.

Could you elaborate?

 

[Mysnomer]

Well, I'm only allowed to give constructive criticism on these forums, but I find that I can't. That's like asking for child rearing tips when your baby has major congenital birth defects. The best advice I could have given you would be to not have had the child in the first place. When content is tarnished, guiding criticism will improve the next iteration. When the source of the content, the core worldview of the writer is flawed, no amount of constructive commentary will help them. Especially when it is driven by a powerful motivator like guilt, and when the societal trend is to feed that guilt.

Spoiler: As to privilege:

Sure, the last bit spirals off, but the first part is most certainly truth. Don't feel guilty because you're better off.

For a dissection of how stupid privilege can be when you let it become the conversation, look up "InternetAristocrat" on Youtube.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Think about this for a second. I disagree with Bob's point of view, some may disagree with mine, we still accept that we are all part of this geek and nerd culture.

I don't. I'm a huge nerd. Singular.

I don't like the "culture" and I do not like being co-opted as part of something I am not interested in being a part of. There are plenty of nerds out there doing their own nerdy thing, without belonging to it as any kind of social group. Why is it that you feel the need to make me belong to your culture?

I'm a bit odd, I guess, because I feel this way about culture in general. Culture is mostly a destructive, discriminating force, that has started wars and cost countless lives. Which is why I hesitate at most cultural ideas and memes.

 

[Baghram]

Am I the only one that read all of this without even understanding what he is talking about? Generally I'm quick on the uptake but this time the entire article just made me go: 'What the fuck am I reading? What does he want to point out, what does he want to solve and how does he want to solve it?'

And I'm still wondering exactly that. Let's see if I got this right. Geek guys got marginalised decades ago so now they use that marginalisation to play the victim and justify bad behaviour of their own and this needs to stop?

Well, duh. Yes it needs to stop, because that's obviously not okay. Did that need 3 pages of a lot of high strung words to be said?

What am I missing here?

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I don't know if I can take someone seriously when they are inspired by a column that conjures up a concept like Gay Male Privilege. I mean, are you out of your mind?

It seems pretty reasonable to me. There are plenty of gay men who do exhibit tendencies of social privilege, that they are able to break social boundaries while others are not.

I mean, I'm no expert, but my guess is that gay guys are probably a little bit annoyed at straight women in their bars because the gay guys are not at the bar to meet female friends, and those ladies are taking up space that could be taken up by attractive men.

I've been to plenty of gay bars as a straight man, along with straight women, gay women and gay guys, and it's never been a problem. It's kind of insulting to suggest that "they" can't stand diversity in their social gatherings.

Turn it on its head. Would men in "straight bars" be justified in complaining about the presence of gay men or lesbians infringing on their space? If anything, other straight men being in a bar is often seen as competition.

... or the women who want to show up and be welcomed anywhere and everywhere?

What the hell? That sounds a lot like a chip on your shoulder, and could be viewed even less charitably than that. How dare these women want to go to places to have fun?

And part of enjoying the geek stuff has always been that it was not mainstream.

That sounds more like hipsters than geeks to me.

As someone with non-mainstream tastes, I would have loved more people being into the same thing. I didn't get off on the exclusivity of it at all.

Those people don't necessarily have a love for the team itself, but for winning, so they jump on the bandwagon, which really annoys the fans who were following the team when they were losing.

That sounds just as superficial as the bandwagon-jumpers.

Or again, hipsters who are upset that the band they liked when it was obscure, suddenly becomes cool. If you really like the music/sport/hobby, then why is it a bad thing when other people do to? What are you trying to achieve by wanting it to be exclusive?

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Bob seems to gloss over the period in our lives where being a nerd hurts us, when we're in school. The psychological (and occasionally physical) scars that nerds leave school with can continue on for decades afterwards. This is what makes nerds feel marginalized. Having Bob tell them, "Hey, relax, the movies coming out right now totally cater to you!" doesn't make up for the wedgies, beatings, and relentless taunting.

I think Bob's objection is not that nerds haven't been traumatised, but that some people's solution to that seems to be to use their new-found privilege against others in exclusionary and insulting ways.

In what way does insulting women who are interested in nerdy things a solution to the trauma you went through? Parts of "geek culture" seem to embrace revenge-fantasy against people who had nothing to do with the trauma involved. If you suffered from trauma, seek counselling, or deal with it in whatever way works for you. As long as that's not taking it out on other people.

Honest question:

What would make up for all the beatings and taunting for you?

 

[Gary Thompson]

Look, Bob. I was never bullied in high-school, I've always had friends and aside from moving into the world of 'adult friends' i.e. people you like to see but can only see occasionally because of work/relationships/home/obligations, I've never really felt that much of an outsider. In fact it's only in the last couple of years it's really really hit me there are people who DON'T share my admittedly middle class set of experiences.

I don't have that idea that i am some-how an outsider. I've always had like-minded people to talk to. These ideas of the "Shared Geek experience", "Persecution mindset" and "Nice guy culture" are pretty alien to me. To put it differently; nerds have always been accepted for a large sub-section of my generation. We didn't feel like nerds because it was never really brought up.

Maybe it's more of an extension of not having the same cultural touch-stones as the US does (or as horrible state school system). There is a very British tradition of eccentricity and the lording of the maverick that dates back to the Victorians. Maybe it's also a extension of the traditional class system where a good education and intelligence were seen as evidence of being of higher status or that technically minded people have been lauded as an extension of British greatness for decades.

Hell the 1980s saw a massive boom in the bedroom coder and cheap personal, programmable computers. Even at that time being 15 and coding a videogame was actually something pretty cool to do. British culture just isn't as afraid of intelligence as classic American culture was.

I will attest that in my experiences in American high school were not very well conducive to "know it all" types (me being one of them) and eccentricities.

People will laugh with you, but they wont really like you for it (unless they were the pot heads, who were my friends, because they were kinda weird and entertaining), it's mostly we had to either act like we didn't care or be disruptive.

Do people in the UK really like eccentric people? I know British TV has quite a few eccentric characters, which was why I always liked it.

 

[Baghram]

Well, duh. Yes it needs to stop, because that's obviously not okay. Did that need 3 pages of a lot of high strung words to be said?

Yes. Judging by the reaction here, it needs way more than 3 pages. It needs more like 1000.

What am I missing here?

What you're missing is that nearly every time there is a case of geek groups bullying someone who lacks privilege, members of the geek community invariably build a shildburhs around the bully and insist not only are they not a bully, but that they can't be a bully and that anyone who finds fault with them must be the actual bully. We can't have discussions about when members of the geek community act less than morally because every time we try, someone tries to derail it with appeals false victimhood. I mean, Sarkeesian anyone? People are still making up lies to discredit her without bothering to address any of her actual ideas.

And that's why Bob needed 3 pages. Because the message isn't getting through.

But do you think this article will change those people's minds? I think this is dying out on it's own without us having to actively deal with it because 'geeks' simply aren't as marginalised anymore. So they can't or have no reason to play the victim. Just let the 'geek groups' that persist in this sort of behaviour die out on their own.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Okay you're right. Nobody's feelings are justified except women who feel that they are unwelcome in places or subcultures.

Eh, what? Who exactly are you talking about?

You really aren't making a lot of sense here. Literally, I'm not sure what you are talking about.

I didn't mention anything about the justification of people's feelings, and I'm not sure who these women are that you seem to have a problem with.

 

[Phanixis]

I wasn't even aware there was such a thing as "Geek Privilege" or that Geeks as a group ever demanded special treatment, especially as I would be hard pressed to consider Geeks some sort of homogeneous group with common needs and demands. They are just people that are considered somewhat strange or weird because of social skills, hobbies, interest, etc. I think treating them as a minority group is a mistake, as they are really just a random collection of people. Then again, I find the whole dividing people into black/white/male/female/gay/straight/christian/atheist/etc and fussing over who gets what privileges and who is screwing who repulsive and contemptible to begin with, so I am hardly eager to invent another minority group.

Besides, almost everything discussed here seems to deal with Hollywood's dramatized depiction of geeks, which is likely to be about as accurate as their depiction of anything else. The problem Bob is pointing out is likely just the poor characterization of geeky characters by writers, and not the attitudes of some non-existent geek minority group.

 

[Dexter S. Bateman]

The fact that the 'geek world' still almost collectively hyperventilates whenever any sort of female or feminist issues raised in relation to geek culture demonstrates why such an article is relevant and, frankly, needed. It's not just about the outright loonies harassing Anita Sarkeesian - it's about all the ones who spread the rumours, and went out of their way to discredit her in an ad hominem fashion; it's about the fact that for some reason there's a huge number of geeks who feel threatened when people want to take away or merely criticise their 'right' to ogle booth babes; it's the diseased and viral notions of the nice guy/friend zone that plague these communities and fora; it's the fact that women criticising geek culture for being male-centric are made out to desire nothing more than the complete reformation of geek culture into a Sex and the City knockoff where Samantha wears glasses; it's the peddling of sexist stereotypes as memes and punchlines unto themselves. And all of that is just a part of when dealing with geek culture's attitudes toward women. The culture's even more prohibitive towards the concerns of other minorities, primarily for the reason that they're not even able to get on the wider agenda most of the time.