That one part of Geek culture you never got into

Ilia Rumpere

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Gizmo1990 said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
Snip.
First and foremost I avoid series in general. If your story can go on for 3 to 15 entries, I'm not interested.

The first book was lauded as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Philip Marlowe", and Joss Whedon doesn't cut it for me. His brand of humor of "every character is sarcastic and speaks with the deadpan sensibility of a teenage girl" is too infantile for me and has been played out thousands of times. And "Wizard P.I." sounds like one of those badass concoctions Americans love to toss around half-joking, half-serious, like "robot ninja" or "zombie pirate". I can enjoy such frivolities on webcomic-level, but even Dr. McNinja and Axe Cop ended up boring me with their lolwut. And why waste my time with something I don't respect or won't commit to on any profound level? I'm not saying I WILL NEVER READ A DRESDEN BOOK, but I will always have something better to read at hand, so it's very unlikely.
*Facepalm*

Well, it's not young adult fiction, for one thing (while not "Lolita," it's just not a juvie), and whoever's described them to you is taking the worst route possible. It's more film noir meets World of Darkness, and its humor is more noir parody deadpan than Buffy's Valley Girl nonsense. While I wouldn't suggest it to you, as there's enough humor to put you off, I detest Buffy for its superficialities and still enjoy Dresden Files.

You can still dislike it for many reasons. I simply believe that's an inaccurate description.

My contribution to the topic: anime. I find its tropes cloying, its dialogue sub-par, its characters either overdesigned or underdesigned, its characterization inconsistent, its dénouements often dissatisfying, its humor invasive and tone-breaking, and its obsession with prodigies vexing. I have never seen a genre's (or whatever you want to call anime) bad habits corrupt its offerings so thoroughly. Be it mecha or science fiction melodrama, these terrible qualities always coalesce for me.

Oh, Doctor Who and Game of Thrones. Whatever. Anime's gotten me in far more trouble.
 

bartholen_v1legacy

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MMOs and card games like Magic the Gathering are perhaps the most prevalent ones. The former because I have little enough social life as is, and the latter got sealed once I heard from a friend that it can be more expensive than Games Workshop tabletop games and they always seemed to be the ultimate "nerdy" thing to get into, even for a nerd like me. Also (apologies to MTG players) the average weight of the player base I've seen in person doesn't exactly make associating myself with them an enticing prospect.
 

Sigmund Av Volsung

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Dec 11, 2009
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Horror and Anime & Manga.

I'm slowly breaking into the latter, but I'm not that into scary movies. Gory movies with loads of stupidity sure, but not something created or designed to scare me since an anxiety attack can do the same thing.
 

Zen Bard

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Sep 16, 2012
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Manga and Anime. I just can't stand the art style (those big-eyed, thin-lipped faces!) in the books and the shrieky, over dramatic storytelling in the cartoons.

Although, I liked Cowboy Beebop because it was sophisticated and had a very solid science fiction story.

And I appreciated the concept behind Death Note.

Okay...I liked Ghost in the Shell too.

And Akira.

But that's where I draw the line!
 

EeveeElectro

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Tabletop gaming, Star Wars, GoT, LOTR. I read tons of comics but no manga, I think I'm too stupid to process the right to left reading.
Most things I haven't gotten into out of laziness. I haven't seen the 6th Star Wars film or any of the LOTR films bar the first one. Haven't read the books either but I want to. I have a a bit of spare time I just *shrugs*.
 

Izanagi009_v1legacy

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Ihateregistering1 said:
Izanagi009 said:
Huh, anime seems to be a popular choice for this topic

If people need help, just ask me or any of the anime fans and we can introduce you to some shows.
It's funny because this is a trend I've noticed that is almost exclusive to anime. Whenever people say "well I don't like Star Trek", or "I don't like kung-fu movies", people rarely say "oh well you just need to watch this episode" or "watch this movie, then you'll love it!".

But for some reason, whenever people say they don't like anime, anime fans almost always respond with "well let me help you, you should watch this one, then you'll like it.". Can't I just not like something without you trying to convince me that I should just watch this and then I'll like it?
mostly because I am still defenseive of anime after the stupid jokes I heard in high school about "anime is porn" and the like.

I figure that having people watch more anime would dispel the jokes and help the media be recognized on the same level as television
 

moostar

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Card trading. I just don't have the time, and patience for. Plus, college is already eating away all of my money so what is the point

of investing in items that cost an arm and leg for anyway.
 

StriderShinryu

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Izanagi009 said:
Ihateregistering1 said:
Izanagi009 said:
Huh, anime seems to be a popular choice for this topic

If people need help, just ask me or any of the anime fans and we can introduce you to some shows.
It's funny because this is a trend I've noticed that is almost exclusive to anime. Whenever people say "well I don't like Star Trek", or "I don't like kung-fu movies", people rarely say "oh well you just need to watch this episode" or "watch this movie, then you'll love it!".

But for some reason, whenever people say they don't like anime, anime fans almost always respond with "well let me help you, you should watch this one, then you'll like it.". Can't I just not like something without you trying to convince me that I should just watch this and then I'll like it?
mostly because I am still defenseive of anime after the stupid jokes I heard in high school about "anime is porn" and the like.

I figure that having people watch more anime would dispel the jokes and help the media be recognized on the same level as television
I think it's also because anime is such a big thing. To me, as an anime fan, when I hear someone say "I don't like anime" I generally find that akin to them saying "I don't like movies and television." It's not nearly as limiting as someone who says "I don't like a specific franchise of movies" or "I don't like a specific genre of movies" because anime can literally be any type of movie or TV show in any genre. Of course, if someone doesn't like animated things, don't like the visual style, don't like the commonly Japanese viewpoint, etc. then that's different. Most people who "don't like anime," however, are just basing it off of seeing one thing they didn't like or even just a stereotype they hold without having seen any at all. Faced with that, it's understandable that an anime fan would believe that they might like it if they just expanded their horizons a little (and, least of all, when you're a fan of something it's just natural to want others to at least see what you see in that something).
 

Ilia Rumpere

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StriderShinryu said:
Izanagi009 said:
Ihateregistering1 said:
Izanagi009 said:
Snip.
I think it's also because anime is such a big thing. To me, as an anime fan, when I hear someone say "I don't like anime" I generally find that akin to them saying "I don't like movies and television." It's not nearly as limiting as someone who says "I don't like a specific franchise of movies" or "I don't like a specific genre of movies" because anime can literally be any type of movie or TV show in any genre. Of course, if someone doesn't like animated things, don't like the visual style, don't like the commonly Japanese viewpoint, etc. then that's different. Most people who "don't like anime," however, are just basing it off of seeing one thing they didn't like or even just a stereotype they hold without having seen any at all. Faced with that, it's understandable that an anime fan would believe that they might like it if they just expanded their horizons a little (and, least of all, when you're a fan of something it's just natural to want others to at least see what you see in that something).
I went to an anime club for a year, then tried to find material that I like on my own. In both ventures, I failed. Others would often censure me for judging series by a sample of ten episodes. My opinion? Content is not food: it's not a waste if you don't finish what's on your plate. Like food, better quality in the second half doesn't make the bad quality of the first half less evident.

There is probably something out there in anime that I would like. At the same time, it's undeniable that the audience and market forces of a medium/genre/whatever can inculcate bad patterns. Sato Dai, for instance, pointed out that anime's fans tend to process media in terms of archetypes and TV Tropes-esque pattern matching. In turn, that fosters a reliance on shorthand and archetypes in the stories themselves.

Of course, we can disagree on what those patterns are. I don't object to difference of opinion, merely to the idea that one can't take issue with an entire medium. Mediums are creative environments and incubate certain priorities (which they can nevertheless break sometimes), and someone can criticize those. Granted, speaking persuasively about an entire medium would call for a horizontal analysis, wherein multiple shows are examined in parallel.

Argumentum ad genus, or argument against the species/genre, should be mentioned here. Sometimes people's complaints are unfairly leveled against the genre's core properties rather than an unhealthy fad within the genre. If someone whines about a period piece because "it feels like a history lesson" or "has too many foreign words," they can be safely ignored. If someone says, "Biopics overly rely on stock footage," then that might be worth something.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Ilia Rumpere said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
Gizmo1990 said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
Snip.
First and foremost I avoid series in general. If your story can go on for 3 to 15 entries, I'm not interested.

The first book was lauded as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Philip Marlowe", and Joss Whedon doesn't cut it for me. His brand of humor of "every character is sarcastic and speaks with the deadpan sensibility of a teenage girl" is too infantile for me and has been played out thousands of times. And "Wizard P.I." sounds like one of those badass concoctions Americans love to toss around half-joking, half-serious, like "robot ninja" or "zombie pirate". I can enjoy such frivolities on webcomic-level, but even Dr. McNinja and Axe Cop ended up boring me with their lolwut. And why waste my time with something I don't respect or won't commit to on any profound level? I'm not saying I WILL NEVER READ A DRESDEN BOOK, but I will always have something better to read at hand, so it's very unlikely.
*Facepalm*

Well, it's not young adult fiction, for one thing (while not "Lolita," it's just not a juvie), and whoever's described them to you is taking the worst route possible.
I'm just quoting from the book's cover.
Literally the one line that the editors decided best sold & described the book for them.

 

Ilia Rumpere

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Sure, they can say that, and I don't blame you for making a judgment based on that. Then again, I never blamed you in the first place. I thought it was a poor description and a disservice, not that you were somehow responsible for it.

Book publishers can make bad decisions when marketing the book. One wrote a foreword in a brand-new novel essentially saying, "I think you'll agree that this is a very special book." Brand new book. I think you'll agree that's a hell of an albatross.

Edit: Found it. It was worse, and it was the blurb:

We don?t want to tell you what happens in this book. It is a truly special story and we don?t want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it so we will just say this: this is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice. Two years later, they meet again ? the story starts there ? Once you have read it, you?ll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don?t tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds.
 

Belaam

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The misogyny and elitism.

Maybe it's that geek culture is dominant now, so many of the bandwagon personalities have jumped on board and are bringing the same bullying b.s. they used to bring to high school sports. Or that the added variety has led to people fiercely defending "their" interests from intrusions by people not like them. I don't know.

But I definitely feel that there was more of an ability when I was in high school for the guy constantly playing Tetris on the game boy, the goth Vampire the Masquerade girl, the PnPRPGers, the middle school girl who'd beaten Baldur's Gate over a dozen times, the comic fans and so on to just be friends without freaking out over whether they gamed on a SNES, Commedore 64, or $5,000 "IBM Compatible" desktop, thought the new light saber was a mess, or had some views on how the games they played could be improved.

Perhaps because there were few of us, we were more likely to seek common ground than differences. It feels like there is a built in need to be defensive now: "Sure, I play GTA, but I do wish there would be a female protagonist. Sure, I play Clash of Clans, but only on the toilet or in the drive through line. Sure, I like FPSes, but I don't call you gay if you kill me and I don't think women should make me a sammich. Sure, I have a Wii, but it's mostly for my kids." And so on and so forth.

And easily the worst part of 21st century geek culture.
 

McElroy

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I've become such a paddler in the mainstream nowadays. In general the geekiest thing about me is my always-on hunt for pop culture trivia from news, forums like this, reviews, and wikipedia plot summaries. A couple of things stand out though: I watch LoL LCS almost as much as I play the game itself, I follow quite a lot of sports (just not national leagues very much), and for some reason: Ponies. Hot damn those ponies caught me off-guard. Though during the third season my attitude got mostly cynical and super sarcastic about the whole thing. Simply knowing that there's a fifty-something-year-old dude writing fanfics to other fanfics in which he makes the originally bittersweet, ambiguous ending into a happy one that he prefers takes half of the fun out of it (true story).

Okay, OT now: Tabletop RPGs because my lack of patience (same with chess) and the fact that shit needs a game master (can't trust him). Buying stuff/merch not because you really want it in your shelf, but because you want to support whatever-the-heck it may be. Fan products in general (licensed or not) unless you really care for the artistic effort in it. And of course "geeking out" over practically anything, which is something I think I've simply grown out of.

However, we sometimes need those obsessed fans. The people at TeamFourStar are way more into DBZ than I could be into ANYTHING (probably), but without them we wouldn't have DBZ Abridged. I might've become hopelessly cynical, but I'm not recommending it (cynicism), at least not to everybody. Or maybe it's a phase I'll grow out of yet again.

Oh yeah, one I'd like to put on this list is "hating" any entertainment piece/series, but that would be a bigass lie.

hybridial said:
If we're talking specific things, far too many to list. I'm the kind of guy who likes some anime but hates far more of it. I like sci fi but hate Star Wars, thinks 2001 A Space Odyssey was a chore to sit through and think Dr Who is dumb. The more I go on the more I will draw ire from all corners :p
Heh, I guess you already said it yourself, but that kind of... selective appreciation must simply make you a killer at parties! That is, before everyone stops talking with you. Though out of those three I'd agree on the two latter ones.
 

SonOfVoorhees

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Never get football geeks. Any sports really where they learn years worth of knowledge of player line ups, goals scored and matches outcomes.
 

Vault101

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Johnny Novgorod said:
The first book was lauded as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Philip Marlowe", and Joss Whedon doesn't cut it for me. His brand of humor of "every character is sarcastic and speaks with the deadpan sensibility of a teenage girl" is too infantile for me and has been played out thousands of times. And "Wizard P.I." sounds like one of those badass concoctions Americans love to toss around half-joking, half-serious, like "robot ninja" or "zombie pirate". I can enjoy such frivolities on webcomic-level, but even Dr. McNinja and Axe Cop ended up boring me with their lolwut. And why waste my time with something I don't respect or won't commit to on any profound level? I'm not saying I WILL NEVER READ A DRESDEN BOOK, but I will always have something better to read at hand, so it's very unlikely.
I'll read as many "silly" books as I like...as long as they aren't specifically YA, adults can have their light reads too..in fact I wonder if anything "fun" automatically has to go under "YA" in todays reading climate...what with YA being the most popular "genre" (even if its kind of a big umbrella hard to pin down)

also I think to be "YA" it has to have a protagonist that's within the age range (also the writing style is often easyer to digest)

but yeah I kind of agree in that I get irritated if I feel a book is trying too hard to appeal to the "RAAANDOOOM!!" factor Bourne from internet culture,

because once you get down to it anyone can have a RAAAAAANDOOOOM idea, but ideas are incredibly cheap, you have to be able to execute them well



so yeah, I wanna know the premise, a little about the characters...but don't fucking think your "genre blender" BS is making me want to read the damn thing, I mean I still might read it if I'm interested (except zombies/vampires/werewolfs are out)
 

Ishal

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Vault101 said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
The first book was lauded as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Philip Marlowe", and Joss Whedon doesn't cut it for me. His brand of humor of "every character is sarcastic and speaks with the deadpan sensibility of a teenage girl" is too infantile for me and has been played out thousands of times. And "Wizard P.I." sounds like one of those badass concoctions Americans love to toss around half-joking, half-serious, like "robot ninja" or "zombie pirate". I can enjoy such frivolities on webcomic-level, but even Dr. McNinja and Axe Cop ended up boring me with their lolwut. And why waste my time with something I don't respect or won't commit to on any profound level? I'm not saying I WILL NEVER READ A DRESDEN BOOK, but I will always have something better to read at hand, so it's very unlikely.
I'll read as many "silly" books as I like...as long as they aren't specifically YA, adults can have their light reads too..in fact I wonder if anything "fun" automatically has to go under "YA" in todays reading climate...what with YA being the most popular "genre" (even if its kind of a big umbrella hard to pin down)

also I think to be "YA" it has to have a protagonist that's within the age range (also the writing style is often easyer to digest)

but yeah I kind of agree in that I get irritated if I feel a book is trying too hard to appeal to the "RAAANDOOOM!!" factor Bourne from internet culture,

because once you get down to it anyone can have a RAAAAAANDOOOOM idea, but ideas are incredibly cheap, you have to be able to execute them well



so yeah, I wanna know the premise, a little about the characters...but don't fucking think your "genre blender" BS is making me want to read the damn thing, I mean I still might read it if I'm interested (except zombies/vampires/werewolfs are out)
What is YA? What does that stand for and what does it say about the books subject matter?
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
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Ishal said:
What is YA? What does that stand for and what does it say about the books subject matter?
YA= Young Adult, lit for 12-18 year olds

with the explosion of books like, Harry Potter, (and more importantly) Twilight, Hunger games and the various similarities its basically one of the more popular genre umbrellas with (now) its own set of "genre clichés" like being in first person, a romance ect

and the fact that more adults than ever are reading what is thought of to be "YA" I'm begging to wonder if there's this misconception that YA just means "light genre fic"
 

Ishal

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Vault101 said:
Ishal said:
What is YA? What does that stand for and what does it say about the books subject matter?
YA= Young Adult, lit for 12-18 year olds

with the explosion of books like, Harry Potter, (and more importantly) Twilight, Hunger games and the various similarities its basically one of the more popular genre umbrellas with (now) its own set of "genre clichés" like being in first person, a romance ect

and the fact that more adults than ever are reading what is thought of to be "YA" I'm begging to wonder if there's this misconception that YA just means "light genre fic"
I thought that's what it meant, but yeah that's strange.

I think there's a certain appeal to media that's being shown to younger audiences these days. I don't know if there's certain tropes or key things they look for, but it seems like people are enjoying that stuff more and more.

MLP, Disney movies like Frozen, YA novels and their film adaptations.

I tend to think it has something to do with franchises and sequels that over saturate the "adult" spectrum of entertainment. The stuff that's supposed to be 18+. I know that's one of the draws of MLP for me. Watching that is a bit of a break from the other more depressing stuff I watch. It's different. Sometimes that's good.