Why was American society more conformist and prejudiced against geek culture in the 2000s?

[AstroCadet69]

I remember back in 2015 there was a comment on a video for a Johnny Cash song that stated “Seems like a game f*gs play” after a E3 2015 trailer that revealed Mass Effect Andromeda used a Johnny Cash song.

I didn’t know if they were referring to the original trilogy or Andromeda.

Andromeda did turn out to be more cringy though. The Andromeda characters felt more like college students than hardened soldiers, mercenaries, and intellectual scientists of the original trilogy.

I’ll admit when I first saw ME1 it looked a bit too cartoony for my tastes but I’d never say anything like that.

Then one day I got tired of CoD and picked up a cheap copy of ME1 from a local GameStop after a friend begged me to play it.

Since then narrative based games have my preference. ME OT, To The Moon, Valiant Hearts, etc.

I ain’t going back to CoD ever again.

I don’t know why I had that prejudice against sci fi in the first place.

Perhaps American society before the 2010s conditioned people to conform.

Society definitely seems more open to geek culture nowadays.

I hope that ignoramus is enjoying Baldur's Gate 3 and/or Starfield right now.

 

[gorfias]

I remember back in 2015 there was a comment on a video for a Johnny Cash song that stated “Seems like a game f*gs play” after a E3 2015 trailer that revealed Mass Effect Andromeda used a Johnny Cash song.

I didn’t know if they were referring to the original trilogy or Andromeda.

Andromeda did turn out to be more cringy though. The Andromeda characters felt more like college students than hardened soldiers, mercenaries, and intellectual scientists of the original trilogy.

I’ll admit when I first saw ME1 it looked a bit too cartoony for my tastes but I’d never say anything like that.

Then one day I got tired of CoD and picked up a cheap copy of ME1 from a local GameStop after a friend begged me to play it.

Since then narrative based games have my preference. ME OT, To The Moon, Valiant Hearts, etc.

I ain’t going back to CoD ever again.

I don’t know why I had that prejudice against sci fi in the first place.

Perhaps American society before the 2010s conditioned people to conform.

Society definitely seems more open to geek culture nowadays.

I hope that ignoramus is enjoying Baldur's Gate 3 and/or Starfield right now.

Because us nerds and geeks took over the modern world. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos come to mind.
And others in the modern world have things in common with us.
Sports Jocks obsess over minutia, just like your Star Trek nerd that has the star date of every episode memorized.
Games can have a focus on building nations, armies and economies.
And, this may be a bad thing, not for me, but especially with the advent of the Wii, more and more people can join us in ever more accessible gaming. (Every game should have a super easy mode and cheats available for off line gaming, and a hard mode for those that want the challenge).

 

[Hawki]

Andromeda did turn out to be more cringy though. The Andromeda characters felt more like college students than hardened soldiers, mercenaries, and intellectual scientists of the original trilogy.

I'm not fond of Andromeda, but that's almost certainly intentional. The Andromeda Expedition is explicitly a civilian-run operation. Ryder's a pathfinder (scientist/soldier), non-military. The Tempest is without weapons. There's no military force in the Initiative sans the APEX teams, and they're more of a militia.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Tribalism. "At least we're not (insert name of lower-rung group here)."

Fantasy football is just a role-playing game featuring real people.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Idk, I remember World of Warcraft being pretty fucking mainstream in like 2005, at least where I lived. I can think of few things that are more nerdy. I was in high school at the time, and even all of the popular guys in class would be talking about what their guild did the night before.

Comic book movies were also already huge by the 2000s. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man had come out in 2002, Iron Man came out in 2008.

The Lord of the Rings was the biggest movie franchise in the world during the early 2000s.

The Matrix had come out in 1999.

Anime was hitting the mainstream in the US because of Toonami.

Geek culture was doing fine in the mainstream.

 

[Baffle]

Idk, I remember World of Warcraft being pretty fucking mainstream in like 2005, at least where I lived. I can think of few things that are more nerdy.

Everquest.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Idk, I remember World of Warcraft being pretty fucking mainstream in like 2005, at least where I lived. I can think of few things that are more nerdy. I was in high school at the time, and even all of the popular guys in class would be talking about what their guild did the night before.

Comic book movies were also already huge by the 2000s. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man had come out in 2002, Iron Man came out in 2008.

The Lord of the Rings was the biggest movie franchise in the world during the early 2000s.

The Matrix had come out in 1999.

Anime was hitting the mainstream in the US because of Toonami.

Geek culture was doing fine in the mainstream.

Ah, but Geek culture was (and to an extent, still is), based on the idea that geeks are small niche group that everyone else makes fun of. It's still the 80s, Satanic Panic is in full swing, and Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons has just released the Pulling Report. The oppression of Geeks can only be countered by aggressively gatekeeping people that don't don't look geeky enough. Women will say they like geeky things, not because any women ever do, but because they want to get geek cred from a group nobody likes...somehow.

That this isn't remotely true is of no consequence.

 

[Absent]

Purely generational. Geekery, little dragons and videogames were kid stuff, kids grew up to become people, kid stuff became people stuff.

 

[Gordon_4]

I'm not fond of Andromeda, but that's almost certainly intentional. The Andromeda Expedition is explicitly a civilian-run operation. Ryder's a pathfinder (scientist/soldier), non-military. The Tempest is without weapons. There's no military force in the Initiative sans the APEX teams, and they're more of a militia.

Both Ryder siblings, and a fair few other party members, have service in the Alliance in their backstory, but I think it was just their standard enlistment contract period (5 years or something) after which they took honourable discharges and went on their way. It’s essentially there to explain their aptitude at the various tasks they perform as Pathfinder. And undoubtedly their dear old dad - a genuine N7 - helped them with drill and other shit to keep their skills sharp.

But no, neither were cut from the same cloth as Shepard or Ash and Kaiden.

 

[Satinavian]

Can't say much of American culture specifically, but from my experience, the 90s where where Geek culture was still niche and people tried to hide their geeky hobbies and interests or shared them only with friends/confidents, while the 00s where where it became mainstream and something you would e.g. admit doing when searching for talking points at a party.

In the 90s, video games were seen as toys. Something for children. Young adults using them were seen as childish and as doing something they should grow out off. Adults generally didn't play them because they had not been exposed to them when they were young and never picked them up later. Comic/manga/whatever were also seen as only for children and something you would leave behind when starting with real books. That is not surprising as that market was utterly dominated by licensed Disney stuff about the various Ducks and the Mouse etc. Hundred of books strangely never released in English or the US, probably because it seemed unfeasable to compete with superheroes there. Anyway, ehen people said Comic, the audience imagined Donald Duck. TTRPGs were made and distributed by toy companies and sold in toy stores.

But culture is different. E.g. Comic Books never took off here at all. Satanic panic was during Cold war and never happened on the Soviet side. Several geeky hobbies seemingly associated with males in the US never have been so here. Which influenced how this whole gatekeeping nonsense played out, specifically hardly at all. Anime in TV were shown in different years than in the US, some way earlier, others way later. Also very different localisation etc. Language barriers always meant segregated fandoms across borders.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Everquest.

Ah, yes. I remember when WoW first came out, and talking to friends at college who were all "I'm a hardcore raider, we raid two whole hours every night". And laughing in their faces, as I asked what the class comps were of their beachhead teams, how many aid stations and evac points they set up, how many groups they sent on patrols, how many clerics they used for their complete heal rotations, and what their wipe prevention/evac strategies were.

Blew their precious little minds that raids could take days of nonstop activity, involving literally hundreds of people to lock down entire zones the size of which would put the Barrens to shame, while the A-team alone went and fought bosses.

Then I told 'em about Kerafyrm...and the story of the events leading up to Kerafyrm's awakening on the server I guided on (one of the Zeks, IYKYK). Specifically, about how the typical Ragefire clusterfuck and ninja loot devolved into a literal world war between the two biggest guilds on the server, escalating despite multiple servers' worth of GM's and guides directly intervening 24/7 and handing out warnings like candy, until one of the two guilds woke Kerafyrm for use as a living WMD to disrupt the other's Veeshan's Peak raid.

 

[Gordon_4]

Ah, yes. I remember when WoW first came out, and talking to friends at college who were all "I'm a hardcore raider, we raid two whole hours every night". And laughing in their faces, as I asked what the class comps were of their beachhead teams, how many aid stations and evac points they set up, how many groups they sent on patrols, how many clerics they used for their complete heal rotations, and what their wipe prevention/evac strategies were.

Blew their precious little minds that raids could take days of nonstop activity, involving literally hundreds of people to lock down entire zones the size of which would put the Barrens to shame, while the A-team alone went and fought bosses.

Then I told 'em about Kerafyrm...and the story of the events leading up to Kerafyrm's awakening on the server I guided on (one of the Zeks, IYKYK). Specifically, about how the typical Ragefire clusterfuck and ninja loot devolved into a literal world war between the two biggest guilds on the server, escalating despite multiple servers' worth of GM's and guides directly intervening 24/7 and handing out warnings like candy, until one of the two guilds woke Kerafyrm for use as a living WMD to disrupt the other's Veeshan's Peak raid.

You know, I’m not going to lie, that really sounds like a whole lot of fucking work that I’m glad I didn’t have to do when I played WoW. I have only so many hours in my time on this planet and macro level planning worthy of Operation Overlord isn’t my idea of fun. Although WoW’s many players definitely need to square with the fact that its popularity came from it not being Everquest level of nuts and stop being shitheads.

 

[Baffle]

You know, I’m not going to lie, that really sounds like a whole lot of fucking work that I’m glad I didn’t have to do when I played WoW. I have only so many hours in my time on this planet and macro level planning worthy of Operation Overlord isn’t my idea of fun. Although WoW’s many players definitely need to square with the fact that its popularity came from it not being Everquest level of nuts and stop being shitheads.

Yeah I never got to raid level on Everquest, but even playing normally was a terrible grind, especially for solo/duo players. WoW was very much easy-mode (which made it more enjoyable). Looking back I don't know why I played either to be honest; I played both far past the point they were actually fun for me (WoW more so because I did raid there and playing became more like an obligation).

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah I never got to raid level on Everquest, but even playing normally was a terrible grind, especially for solo/duo players. WoW was very much easy-mode (which made it more enjoyable). Looking back I don't know why I played either to be honest; I played both far past the point they were actually fun for me (WoW more so because I did raid there and playing became more like an obligation).

 

[Baffle]

Basically that, but replace Horrific Cleave with Decurse or Cleanse or whatever it was paladins were allowed to do in WoW raids, and bring the recast time down to just constant, all the time.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Yeah I never got to raid level on Everquest, but even playing normally was a terrible grind, especially for solo/duo players.

Well, there's your problem. Don't forget EQ was a different game for a different mindset. Long travel times, long camp respawns, and fairly specific group comp needs meant you spent a lot of time socializing in game. Solo/duo grinding was boring, specifically because of low downtimes and little socialization.

You actually got to learn who was working your current zones, their classes and levels, their attitudes, and their skillsets -- you had to. Conversely, by the time you were mid-level you were developing a server reputation, which was critical for finding groups and progressing. It all worked together that, by the time you were 50, you already had a sizable coterie of fellow players (and were probably in a guild) and could find a party fairly easy most of the time...so long as your rep was good.

In the meantime, there were plenty of activities not related to grinding for experience. You had to research your own spells past 30, you needed to scout zones or get information from other players, you could party up and set up aid stations for lower levels, and the entire economy was based on items that predominantly dropped from mobs -- so players of any level could feasibly enter the economy, and start making contacts with higher-leveled players almost always happy to drop a buff or two or hand down some weapons or armor that, to them, was vendor trash, but to a lower level could well have been BiS.

Hell, I spent an entire week once on my dorf rogue waiting for my turn at the Mask of Deception, sneaking food and drink through Upper Guk to resupply the higher levels in exchange for money. One time I even saved a party of 40-45 players from a wipe, because I'd gotten shaman raid buffs on my way in and was able to tank the train long enough for them to zone out. It was a great time, and by the time I was through I had a couple dozen high levels on my friends list who returned the favor by kitting me out with woven shadow gear and...whatever the name of that pickaxe was, which was the best rogue weapon at the time on account of that ridiculous damage value.

Shamans, druids, and chanters didn't even need to farm loot for sale or engage in crafting. Players paid good money for shaman stat/resist buffs, SoW/regens, and the clarity line. Wizards got their teleports and gates, and evac; necros were always in demand for corpse summons and the few, incredibly powerful, buffs at their disposal.

 

[Baffle]

Well, there's your problem. Don't forget EQ was a different game for a different mindset. Long travel times, long camp respawns, and fairly specific group comp needs meant you spent a lot of time socializing in game. Solo/duo grinding was boring, specifically because of low downtimes and little socialization.

You actually got to learn who was working your current zones, their classes and levels, their attitudes, and their skillsets -- you had to. Conversely, by the time you were mid-level you were developing a server reputation, which was critical for finding groups and progressing. It all worked together that, by the time you were 50, you already had a sizable coterie of fellow players (and were probably in a guild) and could find a party fairly easy most of the time...so long as your rep was good.

In the meantime, there were plenty of activities not related to grinding for experience. You had to research your own spells past 30, you needed to scout zones or get information from other players, you could party up and set up aid stations for lower levels, and the entire economy was based on items that predominantly dropped from mobs -- so players of any level could feasibly enter the economy, and start making contacts with higher-leveled players almost always happy to drop a buff or two or hand down some weapons or armor that, to them, was vendor trash, but to a lower level could well have been BiS.

Hell, I spent an entire week once on my dorf rogue waiting for my turn at the Mask of Deception, sneaking food and drink through Upper Guk to resupply the higher levels in exchange for money. One time I even saved a party of 40-45 players from a wipe, because I'd gotten shaman raid buffs on my way in and was able to tank the train long enough for them to zone out. It was a great time, and by the time I was through I had a couple dozen high levels on my friends list who returned the favor by kitting me out with woven shadow gear and...whatever the name of that pickaxe was, which was the best rogue weapon at the time on account of that ridiculous damage value.

Shamans, druids, and chanters didn't even need to farm loot for sale or engage in crafting. Players paid good money for shaman stat/resist buffs, SoW/regens, and the clarity line. Wizards got their teleports and gates, and evac; necros were always in demand for corpse summons and the few, incredibly powerful, buffs at their disposal.

I think I capped out at around level 50 (paladin) around LDoN (so well below the level cap of the time) and ended up bouncing up and down a level or so in that territory for ages. I only really stopped playing once WoW came out. There's only so much HQ Lion Skin you can hunt for.

 

[Silvanus]

And laughing in their faces, as I asked what the class comps were of their beachhead teams [...]

Did everyone clap?

 

[Eacaraxe]

I think I capped out at around level 50 (paladin) around LDoN (so well below the level cap of the time) and ended up bouncing up and down a level or so in that territory for ages. I only really stopped playing once WoW came out. There's only so much HQ Lion Skin you can hunt for.

Yeah, the low 50's were rough levels for paladins at that time. CoM, Mistmoore, and LGuk experience dropped off, there was a drought of open-world undead that could be fear kited. That left Fear, Chardok, and Old Sebilis for experience if I remember right, and those were tough zones to PuG.

It certainly didn't help around that time was when Afrasiabi and Kaplan were at the peak of their bullshit, bullying SoE to nerf paladins and SK's constantly, and nerfing nigh-impossible raid and attunement puzzles only solvable by...reading quest text. We all knew Kaplan was complete clownshit after Ssra, but the piece de resistance was the PoTB fiasco. We used to openly make fun of both of 'em, and how comically inept and living testaments to the Dunning-Kruger effect they were, in guide/GM chat and the forums.

Pretty much says everything the game only started to improve after their public meltdowns, getting hired on by Blizzard, and taking their trash guilds with them on the way out.