How on earth he's even allowed to moderate this forum after making such sweeping insulting and inflammatory statements, just beggars belief.Josh123914 said:
Your thoughts on... Nerd/Geek culture of today.
- Thread starter Parasondox
- Start date
That'd be a strong argument if he had specifically mentioned the Escapst. He didn't. So...Supernova1138 said:
speaking in broad terms, aa community that will start the verbal equivalent of thermonuclear war over things that shouldn't matter but curl up like a porqupine made of vibranium whenever someone asks potentially important questions about the politics and/or ethics depicted in famous and/or popular works.
The "nerd/geek culture" of today... isn't.
See, what the words basically mean is a certain lack of social graces, combined with an intense preoccupation with a number of niche interests. Really we're talking about the higher functioning parts of the autism spectrum. And when it comes to popular culture, this frequently means people who have a real need for structure in their fantasies. That's their comfort zone in a world that frequently appears chaotic and arbitrary. Hence the importance of "canonicity" of story elements, and the inflexibility when it comes to messing with it. "Nerds/geeks" crave consistency instead of "fresh new takes" because they're not good at adapting on the fly. That's why they're those things in the first place. And that's why the relationship between the "core" (longtime, not "just a-phase") fans of things like superhero comics and their producers is inescapably fraught.
Meanwhile, the whole notion of "nerd/geek culture" is that of a socially self-aware playing with "geeky" elements. It's "I'm such a BIG NERD I had a cartoon character tattooed on my ass, LOL!" And such awareness is of course the hallmark of the ironic posture. It's a lower tier of cool for those who didn't make it to impeccably hip: hip-sterism. That's the domain of socialites like "Queen of Geeks, Felicia Day!" "But why is she the Queen? What has she made that was so great?" "Dude, she's like totally hip to what's cool in teh geek scene, so we all must love her! AND she hangs out with Wesley from Star Trek!" "But everybody always hated Wesley..." "Shut up, dudemeister is a GEEK ICON, he can totally laugh about himself!"
And that's the major internal contradiction in this alleged "nerd/geek culture". It's dominated by socially adept hipsters who have learned to ironically embrace "geeky" signifiers, building "fandoms" predicated on sociability. And these hipsters have zero empathy, in fact a burning contempt, for the authentically dysfunctional "nerds" who sincerely cling to their favorite pop culture products for comfort. "Like, how GAUCHE is taking this shit SERIOUSLY, man?" This is in fact much of what this very thread is saying. "Nerd/geek culture is cool, except for all the TOXIC nerds who give it a bad name!"
Well, that "toxicity" is largely a backlash of marginalized (yes) people with limited social skills to what amounts to a highly disrespectful takeover of all their favorite things by fickle trendies. Of course, even the OG "geeks" don't OWN these cultural forms. But if the substance of the new "nerd/geek" culture is to deliberately target the real nerds/geeks by appropriating what they helped build and "subverting its tropes" as a Grand Stand against their supposedly "exclusionary entitlement", it doesn't take a genius Social Scientist to understand why it might appear riven with hostilities great and small. The culturally sensitive thing is to Build Moar, Misappropriate Less. Or simply deign to treat this Lower Class of "dumpster fire" folks with some respect, even if they cramp your style with their uncouth enthusiasms.
See, what the words basically mean is a certain lack of social graces, combined with an intense preoccupation with a number of niche interests. Really we're talking about the higher functioning parts of the autism spectrum. And when it comes to popular culture, this frequently means people who have a real need for structure in their fantasies. That's their comfort zone in a world that frequently appears chaotic and arbitrary. Hence the importance of "canonicity" of story elements, and the inflexibility when it comes to messing with it. "Nerds/geeks" crave consistency instead of "fresh new takes" because they're not good at adapting on the fly. That's why they're those things in the first place. And that's why the relationship between the "core" (longtime, not "just a-phase") fans of things like superhero comics and their producers is inescapably fraught.
Meanwhile, the whole notion of "nerd/geek culture" is that of a socially self-aware playing with "geeky" elements. It's "I'm such a BIG NERD I had a cartoon character tattooed on my ass, LOL!" And such awareness is of course the hallmark of the ironic posture. It's a lower tier of cool for those who didn't make it to impeccably hip: hip-sterism. That's the domain of socialites like "Queen of Geeks, Felicia Day!" "But why is she the Queen? What has she made that was so great?" "Dude, she's like totally hip to what's cool in teh geek scene, so we all must love her! AND she hangs out with Wesley from Star Trek!" "But everybody always hated Wesley..." "Shut up, dudemeister is a GEEK ICON, he can totally laugh about himself!"
And that's the major internal contradiction in this alleged "nerd/geek culture". It's dominated by socially adept hipsters who have learned to ironically embrace "geeky" signifiers, building "fandoms" predicated on sociability. And these hipsters have zero empathy, in fact a burning contempt, for the authentically dysfunctional "nerds" who sincerely cling to their favorite pop culture products for comfort. "Like, how GAUCHE is taking this shit SERIOUSLY, man?" This is in fact much of what this very thread is saying. "Nerd/geek culture is cool, except for all the TOXIC nerds who give it a bad name!"
Well, that "toxicity" is largely a backlash of marginalized (yes) people with limited social skills to what amounts to a highly disrespectful takeover of all their favorite things by fickle trendies. Of course, even the OG "geeks" don't OWN these cultural forms. But if the substance of the new "nerd/geek" culture is to deliberately target the real nerds/geeks by appropriating what they helped build and "subverting its tropes" as a Grand Stand against their supposedly "exclusionary entitlement", it doesn't take a genius Social Scientist to understand why it might appear riven with hostilities great and small. The culturally sensitive thing is to Build Moar, Misappropriate Less. Or simply deign to treat this Lower Class of "dumpster fire" folks with some respect, even if they cramp your style with their uncouth enthusiasms.
Locking the thread because you disagree with what others have said? Yeah, that's not gonna happen. I am also surprised at the response because I thought it was going to be a lighter affair but I was wrong. I wouldn't lock it though. People have the right to express their thoughts on the matter. It's why I created this thread.Smilomaniac said:
Man, if someone was to waltz in here unknowing of this community they might think nerd/geek culture slaughtered some users whole family and burned their house down. Ironically it's the same people who tell people to chill about getting hate boners for things. Neat!
I don't give a shit about it. I honestly don't even know really what it is anymore. Are all of us part of it by posting here in online forums? I can't give an honest opinion on it really cause you know, no idea what it even is.
I don't give a shit about it. I honestly don't even know really what it is anymore. Are all of us part of it by posting here in online forums? I can't give an honest opinion on it really cause you know, no idea what it even is.
It is sad that this needs to be said. Compounded with:Smilomaniac said:
For all the people who are bashing the culture, how about trying to inject something positive into it and try turning the "toxicity" into understanding? There has clearly been a huge dose of new people into this culture over the last 10 years. If comics were truly as popular as people pretend Marvel would not have been fighting bankruptcy so bad that they would sell off the movie rights of their most lucrative properties just to keep afloat.StatusNil said:
To step into nerd culture just to berate those who are in it seems really pretentious and no doubt means you are probably a major source of negativity and thereby toxicity in the community. Culture isn't static and is susceptible to change. If you think something is wrong, try making positive changes in that direction instead of negative attacks at the culture as a whole. Essentially "Be what you want to see", isnt that what super heroes teach anyways? Don't give into negativity. (the dark side
) As well, accpet that you are in a culture with many people that don't have the best social skills and see if you can help put a positive influence in that direction for everyone's benefit. Saying that the culture should die isn't going to win anybody anything, including you. Being a part of something good is better than shouting at something as though it is beneath you.
A summation so good that I'm going to quote in its entirety just for posterity.StatusNil said:
I don't even know what I could possibly add to this, aside from including the damage that The Big Bang Theory and its clear contempt for intelligence has had on the rise of "lol such a nerd xD".
I think you may have misread StatusNil's comment, because your response seems to be one that would be for a comment taking the exact opposite stance of what he said.Zenja said:
I don't see how taking issue with the fact many faux-nerds are openly hostile towards nerds is a problem, and I don't see how being positive about a problem helps fix that problem when only one sides wants the problem solved, and it's not the side with the numerical advantage. Or at least the mobilization advantage, since we don't really know what the numbers are due to one group being highly sociable while the other is anything but.
As for the OP: my thoughts are that going mainstream has been the best and worst thing to ever happen to it.
It's the best thing that ever happened in that we're seeing more big budget productions on both the big and small screen catering to stories and genre that appeal to nerds and geeks.
It's the worst thing that ever happened because nerds and geeks are now having properties that are important to the culture (and it is a culture by any metric outside of those that constitute nationhood) and are being changed, often to the point of being unrecognisable, by people who either don't like the properties, don't care for them, or don't understand them. Abram's Trek and Wars as well as the DCEU are the norm, not the MCU.
Personally I'm unsure if this can even be resolved at this point. One group that doesn't like the sudden changes that are happening (often to the detriment of the works in question) and another that wants to kick the first group out of the house they built, it's not a particularly easy thing to resolve as neither would really have an interest in dealing with the other.
It is neat, isn't it? I especially love those that one minute act offended by someone's choice to stereotype, and the next minute will proceed to stereotype.Elfgore said:
"How dare you say are all ! Ugh. You're just as bad as those gamers/geeks/nerds/etc."
I swear, it's the fuckin' 80s again...
And for the record: The nerds AND the jocks were shitty people in that film. Much like today...
It was the other way around where I grew up.RedDeadFred said:
I'm seeing a lot of the old sentiment that we should be nice to the old, rude, exclusionary geeks because they suffered!!
No. A previous history of suffering is certainly unfortunate, but it does not excuse awful behaviour. I would suggest therapy for those people who are still struggling with things that happened years ago in school. Therapy is helpful. I'm not even trying to be a *****, here.
Geek culture was never your safe space, so getting defensive about it being 'invaded' by people who were always there is just ridiculous. (Especially considering the majority of geek culture's attitude towards safe spaces to begin with).
No. A previous history of suffering is certainly unfortunate, but it does not excuse awful behaviour. I would suggest therapy for those people who are still struggling with things that happened years ago in school. Therapy is helpful. I'm not even trying to be a *****, here.
Geek culture was never your safe space, so getting defensive about it being 'invaded' by people who were always there is just ridiculous. (Especially considering the majority of geek culture's attitude towards safe spaces to begin with).
The problem isn't geek culture, the problem is the internet as the primary medium of geek culture and all the behavioural problems that stem from anonymity.
I've been involved in geek culture for twenty-five years, and my RL experiences of it have never been anything other than fun and inclusive, so I don't believe the problem is with geekdom itself.
I've been involved in geek culture for twenty-five years, and my RL experiences of it have never been anything other than fun and inclusive, so I don't believe the problem is with geekdom itself.
If this thread is any indication, not two people can agree on what constitutes 'awful behavior'. If that Ghostbusters thread is another indication, mere disagreement constitutes 'awful behavior' for some.Phasmal said:
Wait, what? A subculture formed by people to discuss things and hang out with people with interest in these same things and away from other subcultures that marginalize them for talking about said things is not a 'safe space'?Phasmal said:
I don't even share the notion that subcultures can be invaded, but that flat-out makes no sense. Especially when you go out of your way to make this absolutely baseless assertion:
Leaving aside the pitfall of this major generalization that is about as nuanced as the soundtrack to elephant-on-dinosaur porn, whatever of said attitude exists is because of the notion that some people invade the culture and then try to appropriate it; a point that you yourself disregarded altogether.
The anonymity certainly plays a part in it, but I'd argue it's the nature of the Internet (and modern society) that's the real issue. Everything moves too fast, which lends to reactionary cultures all over the place. This isn't a problem with geek culture, it's the nature of online interaction in the information age, where we consume far too much of it in as little time as possible and just comment on it at the speed of sound, before moving on to the next thing.Bilious Green said:
Well, I'm not those people. People are allowed to disagree. I, like everyone, have my own definition of 'awful behaviour', but rest assured simple disagreements don't fall under that. (Unless it's something like 'I disagree that [X group] are people')Stewie Plisken said:
No, it's not. Not in the way people have been treating it as one. I've had people excuse guys being dicks to me for being female because, according to those people, I'm an interloper in this 'safe space'. That is the kind of safe space that nerd culture is not.Stewie Plisken said:
That's the kind of bullshit I'm talking about. I have no issue with people being happy and feeling safe within geek culture, I have an issue when they try to use that as a stick to beat others with.
When you're talking about an entire culture, yeah, I'm gonna be generalising. I don't need to #notallgeeks every sentence.Stewie Plisken said:
I'm of the belief that some cultures can be appropriated. Nerd culture cannot be. If you disagree, fine. I'm not really in the mood to have a big back-and-forth, but yeah. Agree to disagree.
Well, I used to think of it as a sort broad hobbyist community akin to the model railway crowd - the domain of tinkerers. Now whenever I hear the word culture in relation to geeks or nerds I instead imagine the kind of culture you scrape off a yogurt lid after a week behind the heater at a public school and is instead full of people wound tighter than knock-off Swiss clocks.
I don't want it to go away or die, I want it to chill the fuck out.
I don't want it to go away or die, I want it to chill the fuck out.
I was actually agreeing with StatusNil and speaking to anyone that thinks that nerd/geek culture should die. Being positive helps because this is a community, not a war. Exclusion is what is causing the friction. Exclusion because you aren't a "real" nerd, or exclusion because you exhibit social ineptitude. It isn't a war, the fact is we are all here because we have all found it fun to enjoy the same media.Zontar said:
This isn't a numbers war or a popularity contest, it is equal parts cultural study and psychology. Being inclusive has no drawbacks for either side but it does require the effort of seeking understanding and tolerance. Judgement is not a valuable tool here but some are quick to use it on both sides of StatusNil's coin.
If we can all coexist well together, we get cool movies, comics, and games as rewards as the budgets for such things will increase and the quality will go up. If we bicker and try to tear each other down, there is nothing positive. Actually, if that is your intention, I don't know if you actually know what it is like to be part of nerd/geek culture. I don't know why you would want to attack something you love so much unless you value it less than you admit.
Considering I've never been much part of any other subculture (and even saying I'm "part of the geek culture" is stretching it), I can't say how much this is a problem in, say, wrestling or sports fandoms, but IMO the core of the problem is this:
Nerd culture is a culture that thrives on passion. Collect more comics, more video games, more merchandise. Look, have you got this super exclusive 25th anniversary 7-disc bluray of that one movie you like? Get that too! Have you been to E3 this year? What about Gamescom, PAX, Quakecon etc.? The more passionate the fans, the more lucrative the business will be, as more media, merchandise and stuff can be marketed for them. It's a seemingly win-win situation: geeks get more of what they want, and businesses thrive. But this passion has a dark side, and its name is fanboyism. In a world of forums, user groups, subreddits and other closed groups of like-minded individuals it's easy to find oneself in an echo chamber. A place where everyone agrees with everyone within that particular system, and feeds each others' beliefs that yes, Nintendo IS indeed the best at everything, that Marvel IS indeed the absolute pinnacle of comic books movies from here to eternity, video games ARE in fact the highest form of art and so on. When this bubble bursts, or the individual steps out of the echo chamber, full of confidence in that their stances and beliefs are right, the feeling when someone calls Nintendo a pile of hacks recycling the same formula for decades on end can provoke a senseless reaction, leading to ad hominems, harassment, twitter feuds and other petty shit. Hence why so many people say geek culture is full of assholes.
As many have said, it's not fundamentally a geek problem, but a human problem. It's just that geek culture might reinforce those harmful aspects of humanity more strongly than other subcultures: at least in sports you do get to see the other teams' supporters and you do get to see your team lose. On the internet however, it's much too easy to just shut that stuff out.
Nerd culture is a culture that thrives on passion. Collect more comics, more video games, more merchandise. Look, have you got this super exclusive 25th anniversary 7-disc bluray of that one movie you like? Get that too! Have you been to E3 this year? What about Gamescom, PAX, Quakecon etc.? The more passionate the fans, the more lucrative the business will be, as more media, merchandise and stuff can be marketed for them. It's a seemingly win-win situation: geeks get more of what they want, and businesses thrive. But this passion has a dark side, and its name is fanboyism. In a world of forums, user groups, subreddits and other closed groups of like-minded individuals it's easy to find oneself in an echo chamber. A place where everyone agrees with everyone within that particular system, and feeds each others' beliefs that yes, Nintendo IS indeed the best at everything, that Marvel IS indeed the absolute pinnacle of comic books movies from here to eternity, video games ARE in fact the highest form of art and so on. When this bubble bursts, or the individual steps out of the echo chamber, full of confidence in that their stances and beliefs are right, the feeling when someone calls Nintendo a pile of hacks recycling the same formula for decades on end can provoke a senseless reaction, leading to ad hominems, harassment, twitter feuds and other petty shit. Hence why so many people say geek culture is full of assholes.
As many have said, it's not fundamentally a geek problem, but a human problem. It's just that geek culture might reinforce those harmful aspects of humanity more strongly than other subcultures: at least in sports you do get to see the other teams' supporters and you do get to see your team lose. On the internet however, it's much too easy to just shut that stuff out.
This thread shows the same sentiment that led to those Gamers are Dead articles - Geeks are selfish and savage losers with terrible social skills and a history of being bullied. Luckily there is a more enlightened, empathic and progressive elite, who can lead the way to a more civilised geek culture. Any resistance is a sign of bigotry and intolerance, as the geeks should be grateful for the chance to be educated and made better.
It's all just class warfare and people feeling uncomfortable about sharing hobbies with people they feel are inferior.
It's all just class warfare and people feeling uncomfortable about sharing hobbies with people they feel are inferior.