Your thoughts on... Nerd/Geek culture of today.

[Erttheking]

Snip

The second the echo chamber is broken, geeks and nerds get very hostile towards each other. PC vs console, liking a game vs not liking a game, the general toxicity of online multiplayer that has come to utterly dominate chat, to the point where you pretty much never hear someone talking that isn't an asshole, especially in MOBA games, the hostility to someone who can't keep up with your skill level, the snobishness of people who win at hard games (I love Dark Souls but the Git Gud people need to fuck off. Put in a pause button and an easy mode. Mainly because it's a good idea but their reactions would be hilarious. The Darkest Dungeon forums for a long time were filled with people bitching about options to make the game more manageable too) the fact that casual is still considered an insult, the hostility towards mobile gamers, and all of this is without bringing politics into the discussion, which is where things get really freaking nasty.

Do I think the majority of geeks and nerds are dicks to each other? Majority? Not sure, no solid numbers. Enough to make the culture heavily dominated by assholes? Damn straight.

 

[circularlogic88]

Do I think the majority of geeks and nerds are dicks to each other? Majority? Not sure, no solid numbers. Enough to make the culture heavily dominated by assholes? Damn straight.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the culture is heavily dominated by assholes, more so the vocal minority just happens to draw the most attention and focus of everyone else. And to the rest of the community's credit they will often dismiss them or denounce them, but then we go back to the whole echo chamber thing.

 

[RaikuFA]

I'm gonna copy and paste what I said in that ghostbusters article.

I hate to admit it but nerd culture needs to tune it down big time. I remember back in 2011-2012 I was getting harassed for... not liking what others liked. Whether it be JRPGs, manga or Nintendo I would get hate mail nearly every day for it. Even my friends growing up were like that. Just trying to play a fighter or a MOBA got me death threats for being new. There are times where I wish the community would die off or get a huge shift because despite it supposed to be "those people who accept the rejects" I have yet to see it or experience it.

 

[circularlogic88]

I'm gonna copy and paste what I said in that ghostbusters article.

I hate to admit it but nerd culture needs to tune it down big time. I remember back in 2011-2012 I was getting harassed for... not liking what others liked. Whether it be JRPGs, manga or Nintendo I would get hate mail nearly every day for it. Even my friends growing up were like that. Just trying to play a fighter or a MOBA got me death threats for being new. There are times where I wish the community would die off or get a huge shift because despite it supposed to be "those people who accept the rejects" I have yet to see it or experience it.

That kind of behavior has taught me to not have a strong opinion on anything, much less to voice it or invest myself too heavily in something I like.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

There's nothing wrong with Geek Culture.

What is happening has nothing to do with Geeks and Nerds Exclusively.

What everyone is picking up on is happening to Human Society as a whole.

We live on a planet where the predominate emotion is anger. I'm not being heard enough. I'm not being respected enough. I'm tired of hearing other people. I'm tired of always having to try to respect others. I didn't get enough from life and others. I'm tired and done of giving stuff to anyone. My beliefs are right. Your beliefs mark you as inferior to me.

Very few has patience for the different. No one wants to sacrifice any more, because they feel like they've done it their whole lives. Everyone has a chip on their shoulder, and those chips double exponentially when they go out into the world and find OTHERS have chips on their shoulders.

It's like "How DARE anyone else have the audacity to be upset? Only I and people who are likeminded to me or who are physically and socially similar to me has had any real problems. Who the hell could anyone ever suffered like we did?!"

Take that sentence and apply it to the asshole Trump Supporters, People who hate America, Americans who hate others, Atheists who hate Theists, Theists who hate Atheists, SJW, Men's Right Activist, Geeks, Feminists, Minorities, The Majority, Rich, Poor, The Glorious PC Master Race, Consolers, People who can't eat cereal soggy, People who put toilet paper in front, Those who put it in the back (giggity).

Once you strip down their 'reasons' and get to their feelings, you will find a variant of the sentence.

 

[circularlogic88]

There's nothing wrong with Geek Culture.

What is happening has nothing to do with Geeks and Nerds Exclusively.

What everyone is picking up on is happening to Human Society as a whole.

We live on a planet where the predominate emotion is anger. I'm not being heard enough. I'm not being respected enough. I'm tired of hearing other people. I'm tired of always having to try to respect others. I didn't get enough from life and others. I'm tired and done of giving stuff to anyone. My beliefs are right. Your beliefs mark you as inferior to me.

Very few has patience for the different. No one wants to sacrifice any more, because they feel like they've done it their whole lives. Everyone has a chip on their shoulder, and those chips double exponentially when they go out into the world and find OTHERS have chips on their shoulders.

It's like "How DARE anyone else have the audacity to be upset? Only I and people who are likeminded to me or who are physically and socially similar to me has had any real problems. Who the hell could anyone ever suffered like we did?!"

Take that sentence and apply it to the asshole Trump Supporters, People who hate America, Americans who hate others, Atheists who hate Theists, Theists who hate Atheists, SJW, Men's Right Activist, Geeks, Feminists, Minorities, The Majority, Rich, Poor, The Glorious PC Master Race, Consolers, People who can't eat cereal soggy, People who put toilet paper in front, Those who put it in the back (giggity).

Once you strip down their 'reasons' and get to their feelings, you will find a variant of the sentence.

I wonder how strongly people's opinions and convictions would be voiced if they couldn't hide behind the anonymity of the internet.

 

[RaikuFA]

I'm gonna copy and paste what I said in that ghostbusters article.

I hate to admit it but nerd culture needs to tune it down big time. I remember back in 2011-2012 I was getting harassed for... not liking what others liked. Whether it be JRPGs, manga or Nintendo I would get hate mail nearly every day for it. Even my friends growing up were like that. Just trying to play a fighter or a MOBA got me death threats for being new. There are times where I wish the community would die off or get a huge shift because despite it supposed to be "those people who accept the rejects" I have yet to see it or experience it.

That kind of behavior has taught me to not have a strong opinion on anything, much less to voice it or invest myself too heavily in something I like.

Exactly. And it disgusts me.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Well, if the thread is anything to go by, Geek Culture is quite self deprecating if not self absorbed.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

It is good to see it become more mainstream in the present. Though with any culture/sub-culture, there will be those who despise what mainstream brings, considering themselves "true" nerds. But this is all about identity. People feel obliged to label themselves into a group to define who they are in simple terms. But it is never simple. Perhaps with this particular culture being tied to internet communication and anonymity, it allows some with psychological bones to pick to release their rage without fear of repercussions. They can wallow in their own passions with as much self righteousness as they can. Now if people would only meet face to face, perhaps these problems would be far less prominent. I don't even know if i would class as a geek/nerd anyhow, kinda used to be a lot smarter ((and shunned, purely my own fault for being a quiet weirdo with no actual sense of anchored home. Moving around a lot growing up has seen that i have been bullied and been a bully, without realising it at the time, both of which i'm ashamed of, moreso for being the bully as that will affect others in ways i cannot imagine. There isn't a part of me that doesn't wish it could take it back. Troubled family life must have taken its toll on the child psyche, despicably)) but life happened and just have to deal with it i guess. Sort of float between identities now, lost.
Double digressing, as with any culture, you get the good and the bad eggs. People are people, their chosen identity does not prove how lovely a person they are. But i do avoid certain trivial topics that appear to attract some very passionate types, for the sake of dwindling sanity. The circular strawman arguments about word definitions are huge wastes of valuable time.

I would love people to be more inclusive with their collection of hobbies, it being dismissed as a "guy's" thing, really rustles my jimmies. And the folk who buy into that narrative and hound/doubt any female who dares to enjoy (or claim to, in gatekeepers eyes) the same pass-time, speaks volumes of much larger issues in society. I have female friends who game, some like games i do not like, some hate games i love, and that's cool because it's still a shared hobby where we are aware of our differences and reasoning. I await the day this hobby can be considered unisex. Still patiently waiting.

 

[circularlogic88]

I'm gonna copy and paste what I said in that ghostbusters article.

I hate to admit it but nerd culture needs to tune it down big time. I remember back in 2011-2012 I was getting harassed for... not liking what others liked. Whether it be JRPGs, manga or Nintendo I would get hate mail nearly every day for it. Even my friends growing up were like that. Just trying to play a fighter or a MOBA got me death threats for being new. There are times where I wish the community would die off or get a huge shift because despite it supposed to be "those people who accept the rejects" I have yet to see it or experience it.

That kind of behavior has taught me to not have a strong opinion on anything, much less to voice it or invest myself too heavily in something I like.

Exactly. And it disgusts me.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Too much gatekeeping and slapfighting over shitty politics. Too many people chomping at the bit to pick a fight over changing something/keeping it the same/being 'progressive'. Too many martyrs, who bear their suffering like a cross and decry anyone who wasn't bullied (ironically becoming bullies themselves). There's almost a cultural identity of being the 'misanthropic outcast', which just doesn't gel with the AAA-mainstream form all the geeky things have become.

Still, plenty of lovely people in Geek Culture. Just wish everyone would pull their heads out of their arse and not get so hung up on how people identify themselves, or act like you just knifed 'em in the bellend because you dare to have the opinion of 'why can't Batman be gay?'.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I wonder how strongly people's opinions and convictions would be voiced if they couldn't hide behind the anonymity of the internet.

I think they'd express them quite emphatically. As that's what they are doing.

The problem with people is that most of us are not heroes. We would never go out and do something that would put us out there and alone. No one wants to challenge the world alone.

But with the internet, we are not alone. There's a dark corner for us all, with enough people posting to make us feel that our small minded opinions must be the TRUE way the world should be because I found other people across the country thinking the same thoughts!

And we'll find more, and more. Some who don't really believe yet, but we can take every misery they have and twist it so they can see the truth of our words.

And then we'll elect our demagogue and try to change the world for the better, in our way of thinking. And we'll point out the New Satan as a galvanizer for what is wrong with our world.

How many literally millions of people can not form their own argument without saying "This Personality Has said this, so it has to be true".

In the Geek culture... Hell, in this thread, there were Demagogues and Galavanizers mentioned.

The anonymity has provided a safe haven for likeminded thought, which supplants individual thought nowadays. And it takes root in our hearts. The Anonymity of the internet has grown one singular, cancerous thought that's spreading like a plague in too many minds;

"Everyone thinks the way I do, I just have the balls to say it."

So they'll speak out, knowing in their hearts that all who surround them must think like they do ("I mean, others simply MUST. If I get one thousand likes on my inane twitter feed, there HAS to be so many other people who will agree if they just heard my logic"). And then they'll speak louder because they need to awake the Sheeple.

 

[madwarper]

I wonder how strongly people's opinions and convictions would be voiced if they couldn't hide behind the anonymity of the internet.

I'm beginning to reject the idea that this has to do with any anonymity of the internet, but rather the fact that we're not all in the same room, having the same conversation at the same time.

I mean, this all had its origins in friends sitting around a table, on a couch, or at a LAN party, etc. While trash talk was still prominent, we could immediately read the temperature of the room, and see how our comments affected the others. And, if we went too far, there was reprisal with consequences, such as being admonished or even ejected from the group.

However, with the internet, we don't immediately see how our words affect others, so without that sense of empathy, leads to escalation that goes far beyond toxic. Furthermore, with the numerous amount of communities, being ejected from one is far less consequential than it had when the one playgroup in your town stopped talking to you.

TL,DR: The internet killed the superego. So, the id runs amuck.

 

[circularlogic88]

TL,DR: The internet killed the superego. So, the id runs amuck.

I'm totally making those two statements into band names.

 

[Zen Bard]

The Geek Community is fine. It's just loud.

And yeah, much of that has to do with the anonymity of the internet.

But that shouldn't surprise anyone. The computer has always been the main instrument of Geek Culture. And no one could have predicted from looking at that first Commodore 64 (with a whole 64 K of RAM!) how powerful and mainstream computers would become.

Except us nerds. We grew up with them. We helped create the internet. And we're really, REALLY fucking good at using it.

So when we want to mobilize and vocalize, we use the internet. Arguments that used to be held in private among friends ("DC vs Marvel"!"PCs vs Consoles"!"FPS vs "RPG"!) now spill out over the interwebs for EVERYONE to see and participate. And they get ridiculously heated.

But it's the same with any other community. You're just not going to find thousands and thousands of forums dedicated to why the Ravens are better than the Giants (they're not) or why Metal is better than Hip Hop (it is).

Geek Culture is in its mid-thirties now. It's at that stage in life where it has to decide who it wants to be now. It doesn't want to lose that fun, reckless spirit it had in college. But it knows it needs to grow up and contribute more to society. Good, honest dialogue like this will help.

 

[inmunitas]

I don't think a "nerd/geek culture" exists, the idea seems to be based around the stereotypical American high school with it's distinct social groups you see in film/TV/etc.

 

[Fox12]

It's filled with the absolute worst shit lords imaginable. The kinds of bullying assholes who treat everybody else like shit, and yet dilude themselves into thinking they're victims. They never want to take responsibility for their behavior, and when someone call them out on it, they think they're being mistreated.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I think they have too much powers these days (Overwatch Tracer pose and the recent Ghostbuster Director are a few recent examples). They think they have the powers to moved the world around them if they complain/ whinned alot. Ok most of the time, the whinning is all for nothing (e.g. when some fanboys spoiler The Force Awaken for making the EU irrelevent) but none the less, it still badly portary the geek and fanboys.

Granted I still prefer to what it is now (well ideally the period when it was acceptable/ good to be a geek/ nerd) compared to what it was in the past. Back to when it was perfectly fine to shunned the geek and nerds and brawns was where is was at!

 

[Ogoid]

Hmmm, I wonder what the people of the Escapist, self-declared voice of the video-gaming generation and bastion of all things geeky have to say about nerd/geek culture!

*Sees majority of comments deploring what a rancid, filth-encrusted hellhole of disgusting subhuman scum nerd/geek culture is, desperately in need of destruction*

....

....

....


Huh.

*Looks at sports culture, where people are physically beaten to death for having the wrong coloured shirt*

Mostly this, but also this:

I don't think a "nerd/geek culture" exists, the idea seems to be based around the stereotypical American high school with it's distinct social groups you see in film/TV/etc.

I've played videogames, played card games and pen-and-paper RPGs, read/watched fantasy/sci-fi novels/films/shows my entire life because I enjoy them. I'm entirely unsold on the notion that I belong to some sort of "culture" because of it.