The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture
May 4, 2022 7:31 AM Subscribe
"In a lot of ways I think this attitude reflects this, now dated, conception of the geek as an oppressed underdog [...] but, at the same time, the actual real world conditions around you reflect the exact opposite of that. So, you not only get this fervent demand for geek stuff to be liked and consumed by everyone but also this notion that a rejection of geek culture is somehow the dominant attitude: "the bully picking on the loser"
Sarah Z chronicles The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture.
Sarah Z chronicles The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture.
Maybe I'm more handsome and charismatic than I think, but even though there's some basic stuff gone mainstream, there's always infinite niches to explore once you get sick of whatever Disney is churning out or the other mega-profitable franchises. Seems somewhat inevitable anyway, if the MCU never happened, I'd still be sick to death of superheroes, they're jus ta stale, predictable, corporate production all around. Wanna be a geek underdog, just talk about how much you don't like whatever Disney is churning out on most social media sites, you too can experience being the underdog among "geeks."
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:59 AM on May 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:59 AM on May 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
No way, GoblinHoney. Criticizing Disney is for right-wing shitlords these days. I can't run the risk of being mistaken for one of them.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:07 AM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:07 AM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
I don't trust Sarah Z since that blowup (which Lindsay Ellis was also involved in) over whether or not there's a group of fans harassing others over their ship art (there is). Also, she was wrong about the Pink Triangle.
posted by subdee at 8:27 AM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by subdee at 8:27 AM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
I grew up too poor to afford a spandex soap opera habit like X-Men, or go to many movies, so I never got into "geek culture"'s consumer side to any extent. I'd read comic books after they made ti to the resale piles and I had a few dollars to spare, but that was it.
So, meh. The only way to mainstream the Marvel Comics Universe is to produce blow-em-up movies that are just 80's style adventure movies with Marvel characters with just the occasional hint in the script that the comic book writers were at times more thoughtful than that. Key word: at times. 90% of everything is crap, and you notice that when you reread comic books after you're 22.
And now if put upon geeks have to find some other things to huddle over, I might have reason to dive in.
posted by ocschwar at 8:48 AM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
So, meh. The only way to mainstream the Marvel Comics Universe is to produce blow-em-up movies that are just 80's style adventure movies with Marvel characters with just the occasional hint in the script that the comic book writers were at times more thoughtful than that. Key word: at times. 90% of everything is crap, and you notice that when you reread comic books after you're 22.
And now if put upon geeks have to find some other things to huddle over, I might have reason to dive in.
posted by ocschwar at 8:48 AM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
The thing that drives me crazy is that "nerd" culture is the dominant media mode, they get spoon fed exactly what they want and they still want more. More content, more respect, more acknowledgement that MCU is art house cinema and not a product by committee to maximize sales.
They won and they still aren't happy
posted by Ferreous at 8:50 AM on May 4, 2022 [46 favorites]
They won and they still aren't happy
posted by Ferreous at 8:50 AM on May 4, 2022 [46 favorites]
I'm a classic nerd and I'm pretty happy that we have so many silly superhero popcorn movies around. This is exactly what I wanted, honestly, and I'm quite satisfied.
Scheduling D&D games is still the hardest thing, though.
posted by Scattercat at 8:54 AM on May 4, 2022 [19 favorites]
Scheduling D&D games is still the hardest thing, though.
posted by Scattercat at 8:54 AM on May 4, 2022 [19 favorites]
Geek culture is huge now, whether it's superhero comics or Dungeons & Dragons. It's gone from a safe space and shibboleth for hopeless social failures to yet another pedestal for good-looking people with charisma. It's not my home anymore.
As a practitioner, I'll say this: there's always serious record collecting.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:58 AM on May 4, 2022 [13 favorites]
As a practitioner, I'll say this: there's always serious record collecting.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:58 AM on May 4, 2022 [13 favorites]
The main problem with the concept behind this video is that expressing this is, itself, not even remotely new. Gamergate, Comicsgate, the whole saga of the Penny Arcade guys (starting with this)--there's a whole history of nerds (particularly straight white men nerds) still acting as if they're getting wedgies in the locker room every day, and taking it out on whoever looks punch-down-able. I like Sarah Z's videos, whether they're going into something that I'm not that familiar with (i.e. the Johnlock Conspiracy) or something that I sort of was, but hadn't experience personally (i.e. DashCon), but "2011-2015" wasn't that long ago, and it's something that happened in culture generally, not in a specific forum or convention.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:59 AM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:59 AM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's gone from a safe space and shibboleth for hopeless social failures to yet another pedestal for good-looking people with charisma. It's not my home anymore.
Sorry, but this is a really shitty attitude that needs to be stomped out. Just because geek culture is popular now doesn't mean that you no longer have a space there, and if you think so, then you have bigger problems, or are engaging in bullshit gatekeeping.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:59 AM on May 4, 2022 [36 favorites]
Sorry, but this is a really shitty attitude that needs to be stomped out. Just because geek culture is popular now doesn't mean that you no longer have a space there, and if you think so, then you have bigger problems, or are engaging in bullshit gatekeeping.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:59 AM on May 4, 2022 [36 favorites]
Yeah, the "pedestal for good-looking people with charisma" thing somehow reminds me of the "fake geek girl" thing. They can't possibly be into the stuff that I like!
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:02 AM on May 4, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:02 AM on May 4, 2022 [17 favorites]
Like a lot of geeks around this time in early 2016, I chimed in with my own thoughts on the Geek Culture discourse, particularly around the Ghostbusters fracas, and I stand by them. There's still a massive, vocal audience of straight white male geeks who see anything that doesn't explicitly cater to them and their desires as wrong, and anyone in the subculture that isn't exactly like them as wrong. Never mind that there have always been girl geeks, geeks of color, and queer geeks.
posted by SansPoint at 9:05 AM on May 4, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 9:05 AM on May 4, 2022 [18 favorites]
A more valid critique is that as nerd culture shit is further commercialized it is presented in ways that highlight conventionally marketable faces though a corporate viewpoint. Think of all the in house produced after shows for big properties where it's just people interviewing actors from the show with nothing but ebullient praise and excitement for the next episode or property in the franchise.
posted by Ferreous at 9:10 AM on May 4, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 9:10 AM on May 4, 2022 [11 favorites]
I have found that when I'm looking for a safe, accepting space within geek culture, I look for the knitters and crocheters. Shitlords don't knit.
posted by rikschell at 9:13 AM on May 4, 2022 [34 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 9:13 AM on May 4, 2022 [34 favorites]
At least geek shitlords mostly don't.
posted by rikschell at 9:21 AM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 9:21 AM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
When I was a kid, I sure wasn't a fan of people talking about their 50s-60s nostalgia, so it's been pretty weird to see the culture industry become so thoroughly focused on things I did enjoy as a kid that Sarah Z can suggest 2019 as an inflection point I didn't notice (so I'm not sure it was more than the end of the specific things she mentioned). Her history seems fine though, and the pull quote makes sense. I like Marvel movies, etc., unironically, and I also hope Gen X geeks like me can have some self-awareness about encouraging / supporting trends outside what we grew up wishing for.
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:25 AM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:25 AM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
90 minutes of YouTube, ouch. In summary, it's a land of contrasts.
I think that the Star Wars EU and the letter-writing protest that kept Star Trek (The Original Series) alive have their roots in kink and non-heterosexual relationships ('slash' is the name taken from Kirk/Spock fanfic over 50 years ago). It was sad when the 'mildly geek' got monetised by Disney buying LucasFilm and Marvel for that sweet merch opportunity which needed them to prune 'canon'. That was an act that itself gave an opportunity for people polarised by insider/outsider thinking to gate-keep and ruin the fun of people they would only cross paths with because both love the same art.
posted by k3ninho at 9:31 AM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think that the Star Wars EU and the letter-writing protest that kept Star Trek (The Original Series) alive have their roots in kink and non-heterosexual relationships ('slash' is the name taken from Kirk/Spock fanfic over 50 years ago). It was sad when the 'mildly geek' got monetised by Disney buying LucasFilm and Marvel for that sweet merch opportunity which needed them to prune 'canon'. That was an act that itself gave an opportunity for people polarised by insider/outsider thinking to gate-keep and ruin the fun of people they would only cross paths with because both love the same art.
posted by k3ninho at 9:31 AM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm always down to listen to Sarah Z talk about a thing, so I listened to this when it came out. It's ... not terrible? But a little weird, as a person who is part of the demographic she's talking about.
I think it's a bit of a blind spot that she didn't touch on the rise and semi-fall of geek webcomics. It's both a microcosm of and only the tip-of-the-iceberg of the "I was bullied, therefore I can't see that I've become the bully" phenomenon that informs so much of shitty online behavior. The Penny Arcade "Dickwolves" debacle wasn't so much an inciting event as it was a public airing of an undercurrent that had been growing for more than a decade (which, on preview having walked away for an hour while writing this, has been brought up -- but really bears repeating).
I feel like there's a deeper look at this that could draw a line straight from late '90s internet geek shit, into /., post-Columbine "tales from the hellmouth", into webcomics, through gamergate, etc, which mostly boil down to: a bunch of mostly straight white dudes turning some legitimate grievances into a personal identity even long since the real grievances were addressed.
Cue "are we the baddies?" but it's guys in shitty PA merch.
p.s. cargo shorts never went out of fashion, I'm not wearing them for you, I'm wearing them for me.
posted by a faithful sock at 9:39 AM on May 4, 2022 [9 favorites]
I think it's a bit of a blind spot that she didn't touch on the rise and semi-fall of geek webcomics. It's both a microcosm of and only the tip-of-the-iceberg of the "I was bullied, therefore I can't see that I've become the bully" phenomenon that informs so much of shitty online behavior. The Penny Arcade "Dickwolves" debacle wasn't so much an inciting event as it was a public airing of an undercurrent that had been growing for more than a decade (which, on preview having walked away for an hour while writing this, has been brought up -- but really bears repeating).
I feel like there's a deeper look at this that could draw a line straight from late '90s internet geek shit, into /., post-Columbine "tales from the hellmouth", into webcomics, through gamergate, etc, which mostly boil down to: a bunch of mostly straight white dudes turning some legitimate grievances into a personal identity even long since the real grievances were addressed.
Cue "are we the baddies?" but it's guys in shitty PA merch.
p.s. cargo shorts never went out of fashion, I'm not wearing them for you, I'm wearing them for me.
posted by a faithful sock at 9:39 AM on May 4, 2022 [9 favorites]
Here's the latest trailer for Neptune Frost. Go see that instead of whatever empty nonsense Disney are pushing in June.
You want action adventure with both heart and head? Go see RRR.
This is beginning to look like a golden age for cinema - just not in the West.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:44 AM on May 4, 2022 [9 favorites]
You want action adventure with both heart and head? Go see RRR.
This is beginning to look like a golden age for cinema - just not in the West.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:44 AM on May 4, 2022 [9 favorites]
a faithful sock: See also the recent thread on the decline of Sinfest.
posted by SansPoint at 9:47 AM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 9:47 AM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
Another weird thing which seems to have been far more mainstreamed over the years is people internalizing they media they consume as a personality which leads to critique of said media to be viewed as a personal attack. MCU stans are some of the worst on this in my experience and I have to assume it's an intentional corporate goal. I've had multiple people get annoyed/incredulous with my refusal to engage with any Disney property in a way that I found bizarre. Repeatedly telling me to check out this one movie or that one movie and getting mad when I kept saying I had no interest in anything Disney made. One person insinuated I was being racist because I wouldn't watch black panther which was fucking wild.
Just galaxy brain shit of "you don't like my media so you don't like me"
posted by Ferreous at 9:50 AM on May 4, 2022 [22 favorites]
Just galaxy brain shit of "you don't like my media so you don't like me"
posted by Ferreous at 9:50 AM on May 4, 2022 [22 favorites]
As a geeky gay with many older gay friends, I see a lot of overlap in the “guys who were bullied / oppressed and can’t understand that they are now bullying / oppressing others” between these communities — plenty of older white gay dudes who are trans-hostile or against BLM at Pride have this mindset.
posted by sixswitch at 9:59 AM on May 4, 2022 [23 favorites]
posted by sixswitch at 9:59 AM on May 4, 2022 [23 favorites]
It feels like two things happened that made geek culture mainstream. One is that an enormous amount of talent and money got thrown at it. When I was a kid, up through the 80s, comic books were definitely for nerds/geeks. They were NOT cool. And the very few superhero movies that would come out reflected that. They were terrible most of the time. Often they were so bad they'd be shelved forever.
The overton window for geek culture has obviously shifted: comic heroes (in their movie/tv form) make more money than anything other than video games. There are racks and racks of manga at every bookstore across the land. It's just accepted that this kind of nerdy thing is okay. Which is fine.
The OTHER thing that happened is not fine: Columbine. Columbine showed the world that if you were an outcast in any way, if you had been picked on by the "cool" kids, you had a way to get back at them. That event changed public education radically: transparent backpacks, metal detectors, shooting drills. All of these things showed that a nerd was a pathetic thing, but a pissed-off nerd with a gun was to be feared. That's power. That's the same kind of power that the jocks, and the cool kids, and the faculty and staff used to pick on the nerds.
And what that did that I don't see a lot of people talking about is how, by normalizing school shootings, they normalized the idea that the nerds could be powerful as well, but only in a mean, threatening way. The nerds got a seat at the table, but only by being worse than the people who they (the nerds) perceived as being bad to them. It feels like there might be a direct line between this and all the rest of the toxic nerd culture, gamergate, etc.
posted by nushustu at 10:21 AM on May 4, 2022 [18 favorites]
The overton window for geek culture has obviously shifted: comic heroes (in their movie/tv form) make more money than anything other than video games. There are racks and racks of manga at every bookstore across the land. It's just accepted that this kind of nerdy thing is okay. Which is fine.
The OTHER thing that happened is not fine: Columbine. Columbine showed the world that if you were an outcast in any way, if you had been picked on by the "cool" kids, you had a way to get back at them. That event changed public education radically: transparent backpacks, metal detectors, shooting drills. All of these things showed that a nerd was a pathetic thing, but a pissed-off nerd with a gun was to be feared. That's power. That's the same kind of power that the jocks, and the cool kids, and the faculty and staff used to pick on the nerds.
And what that did that I don't see a lot of people talking about is how, by normalizing school shootings, they normalized the idea that the nerds could be powerful as well, but only in a mean, threatening way. The nerds got a seat at the table, but only by being worse than the people who they (the nerds) perceived as being bad to them. It feels like there might be a direct line between this and all the rest of the toxic nerd culture, gamergate, etc.
posted by nushustu at 10:21 AM on May 4, 2022 [18 favorites]
I don't understand how liking comic books came to be seen as "geek". When I was in school "the geek class" mostly consisted of kids who didn't have any particular talents (me) so they were ostracized because they weren't hanging out in the band room or hanging out at soccer/tennis/track practice or hanging out at play rehearsal. It's remained weird to me that everything described as "geek culture" is just like, certain media genres.
posted by bleep at 10:21 AM on May 4, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by bleep at 10:21 AM on May 4, 2022 [9 favorites]
As a Gen Xer who was in high school in the early 90s, geek/nerd was coded as kids (mostly male) who liked RPG, sci-fi /fantasy books, and who had a foot in either band or theatre. There was a slight Venn overlap with the goths/hippies/etc but not by much. I was part geek/goth and from what I remember, it was awkward if you were friends with the guys because there was a lot of "friendzone" energy that came with that. I was thrilled to have friends with the same interests, but that also led to a lot of uncomfortable sexualization by those male friends that I was definitely not equipped to deal with at that age.
posted by Kitteh at 10:53 AM on May 4, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 10:53 AM on May 4, 2022 [18 favorites]
As an OG-Xer who attended high school in the early 1970s, I'm compelled to mention that we didn't have geeks, or nerds -- those words came later. The Jews may have had some nebbishes in their midst, but that word wasn't part of the collective vocabulary, either. What we DID have was twerps. And of course, jocks. I know now what they called us: Pukes.
posted by Rash at 11:03 AM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Rash at 11:03 AM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
It's gone from a safe space and shibboleth for hopeless social failures to yet another pedestal for good-looking people with charisma
I'm a good-looking person with charisma* and I've been in geek spaces for decades. I have not, however, typically felt welcome in geek spaces where geek men bond over being hopeless social failures, because those have never been a safe space. Too often, they think their difficulties are my fault or my responsibility to fix, that my presence threatens their exclusive club, or that I'm there to take something away from them - for example, by having a different perspective on the media that they like.
This isn't all geek men who felt like geekdom was a way to bond with other social misfits**, but the feeling that your safe space is being encroached upon is the first step on this road.
The mainstreaming of many of my geek interests (anime, gaming, dnd, fantasy, etc) has made it easier for me to find people with similar interests who are welcoming, empathetic, and excited for me to be here. I think there's a big conversation to be had about the effect this has had on commercialization of geek spaces, but tbh we're often talking about shared interests in things which have always been commercial products featuring good-looking people with charisma, like comics.
* You know what, I was going to qualify this, but today I'm in the mood to own it.
**I'm also a social misfit, but I'm not a social failure.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:04 AM on May 4, 2022 [30 favorites]
I'm a good-looking person with charisma* and I've been in geek spaces for decades. I have not, however, typically felt welcome in geek spaces where geek men bond over being hopeless social failures, because those have never been a safe space. Too often, they think their difficulties are my fault or my responsibility to fix, that my presence threatens their exclusive club, or that I'm there to take something away from them - for example, by having a different perspective on the media that they like.
This isn't all geek men who felt like geekdom was a way to bond with other social misfits**, but the feeling that your safe space is being encroached upon is the first step on this road.
The mainstreaming of many of my geek interests (anime, gaming, dnd, fantasy, etc) has made it easier for me to find people with similar interests who are welcoming, empathetic, and excited for me to be here. I think there's a big conversation to be had about the effect this has had on commercialization of geek spaces, but tbh we're often talking about shared interests in things which have always been commercial products featuring good-looking people with charisma, like comics.
* You know what, I was going to qualify this, but today I'm in the mood to own it.
**I'm also a social misfit, but I'm not a social failure.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:04 AM on May 4, 2022 [30 favorites]
As SF/fantasy loving kid in the 80s, I would never have believed you that Hollywood would taken over by people who were serious and thoughtful fans, serious and thoughtful creators, or suits happy to give the foregoing billions of dollars a year to make genre movies and shows.
It makes me sad that anyone would fail to enjoy that windfall because they are still so obsessed with their geeky or nerdish adolescent trauma. (If I have one thing to say to smart teenagers is to do what I did: treat anyone who tries to lord it over for being LESS smart than you with the derision they deserve, and they’ll quickly learn their place.)
posted by MattD at 11:08 AM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
It makes me sad that anyone would fail to enjoy that windfall because they are still so obsessed with their geeky or nerdish adolescent trauma. (If I have one thing to say to smart teenagers is to do what I did: treat anyone who tries to lord it over for being LESS smart than you with the derision they deserve, and they’ll quickly learn their place.)
posted by MattD at 11:08 AM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
When I was in school "the geek class" mostly consisted of kids who didn't have any particular talents (me) so they were ostracized because they weren't hanging out in the band room...
When I was in school the band room crowd was considered more geeky; even though it was kind of split between geeks and cool kids, we were there to share a common geeky interest.
Some of the interests I was into as a kid were distinctly uncool at the time, but became mainstream and cool afterward.
Some of them did not, particularly, but the internet made getting deep those interests and talking about them with other interested parties a thousand times easier.
And some things, like superhero comics, I admit had no appeal to me until they became more mainstream. I was into Sandman, The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan etc. but could care less about the Avengers. What the MCU and X-Men (mostly) movies did as far as I'm concerned, was show that that stuff is valid science fiction too, with some good stories about struggling for one's identity, rather than just silly power fantasies and a thing for collectors that can be notoriously difficult to find a starting point and get into the stories.
posted by Foosnark at 11:19 AM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
When I was in school the band room crowd was considered more geeky; even though it was kind of split between geeks and cool kids, we were there to share a common geeky interest.
Some of the interests I was into as a kid were distinctly uncool at the time, but became mainstream and cool afterward.
Some of them did not, particularly, but the internet made getting deep those interests and talking about them with other interested parties a thousand times easier.
And some things, like superhero comics, I admit had no appeal to me until they became more mainstream. I was into Sandman, The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan etc. but could care less about the Avengers. What the MCU and X-Men (mostly) movies did as far as I'm concerned, was show that that stuff is valid science fiction too, with some good stories about struggling for one's identity, rather than just silly power fantasies and a thing for collectors that can be notoriously difficult to find a starting point and get into the stories.
posted by Foosnark at 11:19 AM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
The American obsession with high school, and the attempt to reconstruct the social structures of high school wherever and whenever possible, is going to destroy the world.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:47 AM on May 4, 2022 [55 favorites]
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:47 AM on May 4, 2022 [55 favorites]
I watched the whole thing and I feel like it didn't need to be anywhere near as long to make the same points (most of which have already been made elsewhere). But it was definitely a comprehensive defense of her point.
I'm not sure why she sees Triforce t-shirts as the apotheosis of everything she hates, though. Zelda is still a massively popular gaming franchise, and plenty of people wear Captain America and Star Wars shirts - let alone all the people who wear NFL / NBA / MBA licensed clothing for games they like. If her argument is that geek culture is now mainstream culture, then surely someone wearing something mainstream isn't - or shouldn't be - in any way problematic?
But maybe I'm the one taking it personally because my kid loves his Zelda shirts and now he's not supposed to somehow?
posted by Mchelly at 12:00 PM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure why she sees Triforce t-shirts as the apotheosis of everything she hates, though. Zelda is still a massively popular gaming franchise, and plenty of people wear Captain America and Star Wars shirts - let alone all the people who wear NFL / NBA / MBA licensed clothing for games they like. If her argument is that geek culture is now mainstream culture, then surely someone wearing something mainstream isn't - or shouldn't be - in any way problematic?
But maybe I'm the one taking it personally because my kid loves his Zelda shirts and now he's not supposed to somehow?
posted by Mchelly at 12:00 PM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
Columbine showed the world that if you were an outcast in any way, if you had been picked on by the "cool" kids, you had a way to get back at them.
nushustu
I really want to push back on this because what you're describing is the (very wrong) popular media portrayal and not what actually happened. Harris and Klebold were not nerdy loners who were pushed too far and finally snapped. There's a reason they did the attack on Hitler's birthday. I'd recommend reading the excellent Columbine by Dave Cullen if you want a deep look into what really happened.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:02 PM on May 4, 2022 [55 favorites]
nushustu
I really want to push back on this because what you're describing is the (very wrong) popular media portrayal and not what actually happened. Harris and Klebold were not nerdy loners who were pushed too far and finally snapped. There's a reason they did the attack on Hitler's birthday. I'd recommend reading the excellent Columbine by Dave Cullen if you want a deep look into what really happened.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:02 PM on May 4, 2022 [55 favorites]
Everyone wants to be an underdog. Christians are persecuted, even if they're national legislators or have syndicated TV shows. Men are oppressed because not every woman agrees to engage them in sex. White "journalists" are silenced when private institutions tell them they're not welcome to call for genocide on stage. We geeks are just one group among many who constantly do this. But, it's been around a long time. You see yourself as a magical spider man who can climb walls and destroy people with a flick of the wrist, or an alien who can stop time by flying too fast for physics, and yet you're somehow also the underdog we should root for because the underdog is always the good guy. But, we really should be better. After all, we keep telling people that we're better at so many other things. If we're going to be part of the class that controls the world economy and media, it would be really useful to recognize that.
In honor of the date, I'm tempted to call it the Star Wars self image. You're magic wizards who kill millions of innocent people at the drop of a hat, can destroy giant spaceships with your mind, and lead a galaxy-scale army of soldiers. . . and you're also still the scrappy rebels.
Maybe my experience as a geek kid was different from most. I was never actually bullied or really suffered any negative consequences at all for being geeky as hell and attending what might be called pretty rough schools. Maybe I was just lucky. (I learned to be weirder and funnier than anyone else at a young age, which has served me well.) But, the idea that geeks have been ostracized in the last 40 years is radically unlike my experience. I recognize it only from '80s movies, which were written by people born in the '50s. I don't know if it was actually true when they were kids.
In short, I agree with the first part of the video. (I haven't watched it all yet. It seems thoughtful.)
posted by eotvos at 12:21 PM on May 4, 2022 [13 favorites]
In honor of the date, I'm tempted to call it the Star Wars self image. You're magic wizards who kill millions of innocent people at the drop of a hat, can destroy giant spaceships with your mind, and lead a galaxy-scale army of soldiers. . . and you're also still the scrappy rebels.
Maybe my experience as a geek kid was different from most. I was never actually bullied or really suffered any negative consequences at all for being geeky as hell and attending what might be called pretty rough schools. Maybe I was just lucky. (I learned to be weirder and funnier than anyone else at a young age, which has served me well.) But, the idea that geeks have been ostracized in the last 40 years is radically unlike my experience. I recognize it only from '80s movies, which were written by people born in the '50s. I don't know if it was actually true when they were kids.
In short, I agree with the first part of the video. (I haven't watched it all yet. It seems thoughtful.)
posted by eotvos at 12:21 PM on May 4, 2022 [13 favorites]
Yeah, I think that's the long and short of it. The loudest people in the space tend to be white cis males who think being teased as a kid was a lifetime get out of jail free card for all the other privilege they carry. Hell, I got the shit kicked out of me a ton when I was in school but it wasn't because I played nintendo and read books, the people beating the hell out of me did that too, it was because I was weird and awkward and expressed myself poorly. Cultural interests were besides the point.
I think a big part of it is that for a lot of people the adversity of not being popular was the biggest hurdle they faced in life before other aspects of cultural privilege elevated them beyond such concerns and they proudly display that old scar as though it were fresh and bleeding to this day.
posted by Ferreous at 1:50 PM on May 4, 2022 [11 favorites]
I think a big part of it is that for a lot of people the adversity of not being popular was the biggest hurdle they faced in life before other aspects of cultural privilege elevated them beyond such concerns and they proudly display that old scar as though it were fresh and bleeding to this day.
posted by Ferreous at 1:50 PM on May 4, 2022 [11 favorites]
I spent some time on twitter a while back watching a pack of white cis-boys bemoaning that "blue-haired SJWs" were kicking them out of tabletop roleplaying because D&D had gotten popular enough that Wizards of the Coast was editing some of their work to make it marginally less racist, sexist and ableist. Gentle readers, this blue-haired SJW has character sheets older than most of the complainants. Do tell me what it is like to get pushback from a hobby for daring to exist while a member of the wrong demographic(s). More people liking a thing doesn't mean your enjoyment has been poisoned, it just means that if you still feel persecuted, maybe the cause lies somewhere else than in your tastes in media.
posted by Karmakaze at 1:54 PM on May 4, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by Karmakaze at 1:54 PM on May 4, 2022 [16 favorites]
or really suffered any negative consequences at all for being geeky as hell and attending what might be called pretty rough schools
I personally think, as a teacher in an urban school, that the kids in "rough" urban schools are less conformist and more accepting of differences, a lot of the time.
Also, tons and tons of them are nerds.
posted by subdee at 1:57 PM on May 4, 2022 [20 favorites]
I personally think, as a teacher in an urban school, that the kids in "rough" urban schools are less conformist and more accepting of differences, a lot of the time.
Also, tons and tons of them are nerds.
posted by subdee at 1:57 PM on May 4, 2022 [20 favorites]
Maybe my experience as a geek kid was different from most. I was never actually bullied or really suffered any negative consequences at all for being geeky as hell and attending what might be called pretty rough schools. Maybe I was just lucky.
When your school is rough enough, beating on the nerds advertises that you cannot take on bigger game. And that can get you beaten into a coma.
That kind of dynamic requires at least some safety.
posted by ocschwar at 1:59 PM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
When your school is rough enough, beating on the nerds advertises that you cannot take on bigger game. And that can get you beaten into a coma.
That kind of dynamic requires at least some safety.
posted by ocschwar at 1:59 PM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
Shitlords don't knit.
With non-union temps at their wage enslavement there is no need.
posted by y2karl at 2:02 PM on May 4, 2022
With non-union temps at their wage enslavement there is no need.
posted by y2karl at 2:02 PM on May 4, 2022
The thing that drives me crazy is that "nerd" culture is the dominant media mode, they get spoon fed exactly what they want and they still want more. More content, more respect, more acknowledgement that MCU is art house cinema and not a product by committee to maximize sales.
They won and they still aren't happy
They became republicans.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:32 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
They won and they still aren't happy
They became republicans.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:32 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
This explains exactly why I never liked Big Bang Theory.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:34 PM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:34 PM on May 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm not a Sarah Z expert, but my understanding is that she started as a Homestuck fan on tumblr and was in one of the early waves of fans that left Tumblr for Twitter.
The 2019 inflection point she talks about happened after Tumblr banned porn and as a side-effect, NFSW fanart. Then a lot of fans, including the anti-fans that harassed other fans over their NSFW fanart/fanfiction, left Tumblr for twitter.
I think the comments about cis guys in this thread are true, but it's also not the fandom background Sarah Z is coming from. In my experience as a tumblr fan, there are new people entering fandom who would never have been there 15 year ago.
However, I need to be clear here: being "in fandom" has a very specific meaning in the tumblr-space that might not match the general meaning. It's not "just" being a fan of a certain media franchise or DnD, SFF more broadly - as others in the thread have pointed out, half the planet are fans MCU and tons of people got into DnD as a fun way to socialize with friends during lockdown.
What I mean by fandom is a more specific and niche thing - it is specifically getting obsessed with these media properties, TV shows, books, etc and creating transformative fanworks for them - writing fanfiction, drawing fanart, doing vidding, writing fan-essays - as a way to socialize with other fans.
90% of fans in the transformitive fanworks space are women or AFAB. There are very few cis guys here at all. The cis guys are doing more collecting, list-creating, wiki-editing, and ranking, and less creative writing. They're over on reddit or editing the wikis, as a general rule.
Back to the transformitive fanworks space. Think Kirk/Spock fanzines, or doujin circles in Japan. A lot of it is shipping, a lot of the fans were - and still are - female, queer, trans, and/or neurodivergent.
What I see is that there are teens sharing these characteristics, entering THIS space, which is a social space but also a creative space. The people already in these spaces are creative types, traditionally creating outsider art. Teens enter this space because "doing fandom" is now a normal thing teens do to socialize, not a weird niche thing that only weirdos do, and because - being female, queer, trans and/or neurodivergent themselves - they have found "their people" online in these spaces.
And then they run up against a set of community norms they don't understand, but that exist for perfectly good reasons - my ship is not your ship (and that's okay), if someone is making weird art it doesn't mean they are a bad person, this squicks me out (but it might have value for you), I can't judge someone else's reasons for making weird art because I don't know who they are or what their background is, trigger warnings are a way to avoid the art you don't like not a way to find the art you don't like so you can put it in a call-out post, and all the rest of it.
Instead it's more or less the normal teens coming into these spaces - not only the creative weirdos - and they are socializing the normal teen way - finding weirdos they can bully as a group bonding exercise.
I find it funny that Sarah Z is complaining about the normies coming into the weirdo space BTW, from what I know about Sarah Z (which isn't much) she's got some anti-lite opinions herself.
posted by subdee at 2:36 PM on May 4, 2022 [14 favorites]
The 2019 inflection point she talks about happened after Tumblr banned porn and as a side-effect, NFSW fanart. Then a lot of fans, including the anti-fans that harassed other fans over their NSFW fanart/fanfiction, left Tumblr for twitter.
I think the comments about cis guys in this thread are true, but it's also not the fandom background Sarah Z is coming from. In my experience as a tumblr fan, there are new people entering fandom who would never have been there 15 year ago.
However, I need to be clear here: being "in fandom" has a very specific meaning in the tumblr-space that might not match the general meaning. It's not "just" being a fan of a certain media franchise or DnD, SFF more broadly - as others in the thread have pointed out, half the planet are fans MCU and tons of people got into DnD as a fun way to socialize with friends during lockdown.
What I mean by fandom is a more specific and niche thing - it is specifically getting obsessed with these media properties, TV shows, books, etc and creating transformative fanworks for them - writing fanfiction, drawing fanart, doing vidding, writing fan-essays - as a way to socialize with other fans.
90% of fans in the transformitive fanworks space are women or AFAB. There are very few cis guys here at all. The cis guys are doing more collecting, list-creating, wiki-editing, and ranking, and less creative writing. They're over on reddit or editing the wikis, as a general rule.
Back to the transformitive fanworks space. Think Kirk/Spock fanzines, or doujin circles in Japan. A lot of it is shipping, a lot of the fans were - and still are - female, queer, trans, and/or neurodivergent.
What I see is that there are teens sharing these characteristics, entering THIS space, which is a social space but also a creative space. The people already in these spaces are creative types, traditionally creating outsider art. Teens enter this space because "doing fandom" is now a normal thing teens do to socialize, not a weird niche thing that only weirdos do, and because - being female, queer, trans and/or neurodivergent themselves - they have found "their people" online in these spaces.
And then they run up against a set of community norms they don't understand, but that exist for perfectly good reasons - my ship is not your ship (and that's okay), if someone is making weird art it doesn't mean they are a bad person, this squicks me out (but it might have value for you), I can't judge someone else's reasons for making weird art because I don't know who they are or what their background is, trigger warnings are a way to avoid the art you don't like not a way to find the art you don't like so you can put it in a call-out post, and all the rest of it.
Instead it's more or less the normal teens coming into these spaces - not only the creative weirdos - and they are socializing the normal teen way - finding weirdos they can bully as a group bonding exercise.
I find it funny that Sarah Z is complaining about the normies coming into the weirdo space BTW, from what I know about Sarah Z (which isn't much) she's got some anti-lite opinions herself.
posted by subdee at 2:36 PM on May 4, 2022 [14 favorites]
Also want to be clear that this isn't so much about gatekeeping against new fans - new fans are amazing and without them, fandoms quickly die or become unbearably cliquish - as it is about the difficulties of communicating the community norms to the massive influx of new people.
And about those new people being rude AF, or in some cases gatekeepers themselves (for example, being ageist) against the people who were already there.
posted by subdee at 2:46 PM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
And about those new people being rude AF, or in some cases gatekeepers themselves (for example, being ageist) against the people who were already there.
posted by subdee at 2:46 PM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
Incidentally I have not watched the Sarah Z video so if I misunderstood her arguments I apologize.
posted by subdee at 2:51 PM on May 4, 2022
posted by subdee at 2:51 PM on May 4, 2022
Watch at 2x speed. She drinks a lot of tea.
All in all, I don't know. I'm too old for the 2000's and on stuff in any deep way. My geek/nerd is 70/80's before the internets and in a town small enough to only have one middle and high school. Not enough kids for such stratification. Pretty much non Breakfast Club 80's movie sort of divisions. It was actuall my first (summer camp) girlfriend who introduced me to Robotech and Sailor Moon, so... I was pretty much geek/nerd since preschool and it never made that much of a difference.
posted by zengargoyle at 3:18 PM on May 4, 2022
All in all, I don't know. I'm too old for the 2000's and on stuff in any deep way. My geek/nerd is 70/80's before the internets and in a town small enough to only have one middle and high school. Not enough kids for such stratification. Pretty much non Breakfast Club 80's movie sort of divisions. It was actuall my first (summer camp) girlfriend who introduced me to Robotech and Sailor Moon, so... I was pretty much geek/nerd since preschool and it never made that much of a difference.
posted by zengargoyle at 3:18 PM on May 4, 2022
I'm a good-looking person with charisma* and I've been in geek spaces for decades. I have not, however, typically felt welcome in geek spaces where geek men bond over being hopeless social failures, because those have never been a safe space.
I think the problem is people are talking about two different things using the same words.
1) conventionally attractive thin able bodied cis white dudes with more charisma than ethics who are using a space that used to be welcome to misfits for bullying, while telling others that they are a misfit because they were considered a social failure for being essentially psychopaths
2) People of different shapes and sizes who were “social failures” because they were hegemonically condemned for belonging to a marginalized group, who were great friends and kind people but didn’t have the kind of charisma that prompted koolaid suicides.
posted by corb at 3:40 PM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think the problem is people are talking about two different things using the same words.
1) conventionally attractive thin able bodied cis white dudes with more charisma than ethics who are using a space that used to be welcome to misfits for bullying, while telling others that they are a misfit because they were considered a social failure for being essentially psychopaths
2) People of different shapes and sizes who were “social failures” because they were hegemonically condemned for belonging to a marginalized group, who were great friends and kind people but didn’t have the kind of charisma that prompted koolaid suicides.
posted by corb at 3:40 PM on May 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
YouTube and TikTok, being visual platforms where you show your face, do tend to reward conventionally attractive people with conventional opinions. Especially as the audience for nerd content becomes more or less the same as the mainstream audience. If you want to find and connect with weirdos who have unpopular opinions / niche interests, a popular YouTube channel or TikTok is not the best place to do that.
posted by subdee at 4:00 PM on May 4, 2022
posted by subdee at 4:00 PM on May 4, 2022
I think a historical critique of "geek culture" should probably include a look at ways in which - quite intentionally - it has been rebuilt to quite explicitly exclude women (look at the growing market segmentation into GIRLS! TOYS! and BOYS! TOYS! and the ways things are being adjusted to make sure that girl-cooties won't get in to the boys' toys vertical market segment). This went arm in arm with the shift of "geek identity" from "here's the stuff you like" to "here's the stuff you buy", as companies lined up to sell things that fed into a very specific view of 'geek'. I haven't watched the video yet, but hadn't seen those explicitly mentioned in the discussion so I figured I'd drop them in and then go catch up on the actual content.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:25 PM on May 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 4:25 PM on May 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
It has certainly been strange to see "geek" things go from weird outcast stuff in the eighties to a major chunk of corporate franchise product. I definitely don't feel like "geek culture" is welcoming to my fifty year old trans lady self any more, not now that it's mostly code for "big-budget movies and video games with sf/f/superhero themes that have to be hits at a global scale to make a profit".
Luckily for me I have mostly left that arena for the smaller niche of the furry scene. Which has become less of a tiny weird corner but is still pretty hard for a corporation to really own the way they own a movie series. Furry's still pretty weird, and also really queer, and mostly pretty good at kicking the right-wingers out in a way that "geek culture" isn't - Disney really does not care what your politics are as long as you buy a lot of Star Wars/Marvel/Disney merch.
posted by egypturnash at 4:43 PM on May 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
Luckily for me I have mostly left that arena for the smaller niche of the furry scene. Which has become less of a tiny weird corner but is still pretty hard for a corporation to really own the way they own a movie series. Furry's still pretty weird, and also really queer, and mostly pretty good at kicking the right-wingers out in a way that "geek culture" isn't - Disney really does not care what your politics are as long as you buy a lot of Star Wars/Marvel/Disney merch.
posted by egypturnash at 4:43 PM on May 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
I definitely don't feel like "geek culture" is welcoming to my fifty year old trans lady self any more,
"Slashdot is dying"
posted by mikelieman at 5:01 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
"Slashdot is dying"
posted by mikelieman at 5:01 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
For a while I've been playing with the idea that to escape the high speed hijacking of art by capital the internet demands it would be necessary to make art that is both transient and actively unpleasant to most people.
Then I realized I was just reinventing punk and, well, we know how that worked out.
Now I'm just going to make lots of throw-away miniatures. Art as snow.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 5:07 PM on May 4, 2022 [6 favorites]
Then I realized I was just reinventing punk and, well, we know how that worked out.
Now I'm just going to make lots of throw-away miniatures. Art as snow.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 5:07 PM on May 4, 2022 [6 favorites]
mikelieman: "Slashdot is dying"
We left this comment field blank so you can help.
posted by SansPoint at 5:17 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
We left this comment field blank so you can help.
posted by SansPoint at 5:17 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
"I was bullied, therefore I can't see that I've become the bully"
structuring it this way is just part & parcel of the ego-flattery that keeps boring people going. very few people aren't secretly pleased by the accusation that they have a lot of power now, even if they put up a front about it. people do like to wear their old unwashed & threadbare self-images long past the point where a good dry-cleaner could save them, it's true, but they like having power (and having other people notice that they have power) even more. I think the thought inspiring vocal support of the last few decades of pixardisneymarvel garbage-culture is closer to "I used to be twelve years old; therefore I can't see any reason to ever be any other age than twelve inside, and anybody who did manage to grow older than that inside is just faking it or showing off."
posted by queenofbithynia at 5:17 PM on May 4, 2022 [8 favorites]
structuring it this way is just part & parcel of the ego-flattery that keeps boring people going. very few people aren't secretly pleased by the accusation that they have a lot of power now, even if they put up a front about it. people do like to wear their old unwashed & threadbare self-images long past the point where a good dry-cleaner could save them, it's true, but they like having power (and having other people notice that they have power) even more. I think the thought inspiring vocal support of the last few decades of pixardisneymarvel garbage-culture is closer to "I used to be twelve years old; therefore I can't see any reason to ever be any other age than twelve inside, and anybody who did manage to grow older than that inside is just faking it or showing off."
posted by queenofbithynia at 5:17 PM on May 4, 2022 [8 favorites]
I’m a strange bird, a person who prefers to hang around with geeks but actually is not all that excited about comic books or other geek media. Growing up, I tolerated fantasy and sci fi novels, I played on one MUD, but mostly I just wanted to have conversations with other people who had weird senses of humor and spoke in awkward paragraphs. So it feels in some way like the side of the family I never much got along with has gotten super rich. But that’s okay. The other side of the family is still there.
Falsely positioning oneself as the underdog, oy. It’s not a flattering look. I probably do it too.
posted by eirias at 5:59 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Falsely positioning oneself as the underdog, oy. It’s not a flattering look. I probably do it too.
posted by eirias at 5:59 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
I roll a natural thirteen with my dice, and the random pattern of tapping of the plastic edges, with the rolled prime number, unexpectedly summons a ghost to the role playing table. The hair on our necks rises as though in the presence of something profoundly new and unnatural, but none of us seem to genuinely fear.
The ghost sits at the corner of our table, on a wooden stool we had not noticed. He smells of sulphur, a bit, and of tobacco smoke and sweat, and we all cough while we wait for the smoke to dissipate. We turn the music down. Translucent, he is a young man, perhaps in his thirties, with cropped hair, a long but tidy moustache, and small gold rimmed glasses. He stands to greet us, and clicking his heels, he gives a short little bow.
'Ah, my friends! In what familiar future do I find you! What marvels you must enjoy! You must describe to me the plan and the state of your campaign! Which of you commands, and who is umpire?'
My friend J, the dungeon-master, explains that this is a collaborative game. We're taking it slowly to develop a character and explain the system for K, who is new to our group. Because the ghost does not seem to understand, P explains that it's a game we enjoy because of the fantasy of it, and the mutual development of scenarios and roles; at this, the ghost nods serenely.
'Yes, at the Staff College in —— I lecture upon this. When one moves a block on a map which represents a company, a brigade, this represents not an abstract of numbers, but real men, with morale and changeable will. A war is not a game but a struggle for survival, an officer might play at cards or dice to gamble, but a kriegsspiel is a precise tool, to develop within himself and within an officer corps the...'
He looks at K, seeing for the first time she is not a man, and raises his eyebrow, before going on.
'...the powers of faculty and intellectual strength to plan, to lead upon the battlefield a force which, scientifically, leads to the victory of our Army, and the attainment of the Will of the nation...'
No, no, I say. We're peaceful. We're playing, all we want is to be left alone, we're not interested in dominating or being anything but the outcasts from society we are. It's the jocks who bully each other, it's the State that exercises power, it's the world that exists as a hostile place. At once the ghost's eyes light up with recognition.
'Yes, this also I recognise! I also was posted to the Staff College from the cavalry, because I was bullied...'
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:09 PM on May 4, 2022 [19 favorites]
The ghost sits at the corner of our table, on a wooden stool we had not noticed. He smells of sulphur, a bit, and of tobacco smoke and sweat, and we all cough while we wait for the smoke to dissipate. We turn the music down. Translucent, he is a young man, perhaps in his thirties, with cropped hair, a long but tidy moustache, and small gold rimmed glasses. He stands to greet us, and clicking his heels, he gives a short little bow.
'Ah, my friends! In what familiar future do I find you! What marvels you must enjoy! You must describe to me the plan and the state of your campaign! Which of you commands, and who is umpire?'
My friend J, the dungeon-master, explains that this is a collaborative game. We're taking it slowly to develop a character and explain the system for K, who is new to our group. Because the ghost does not seem to understand, P explains that it's a game we enjoy because of the fantasy of it, and the mutual development of scenarios and roles; at this, the ghost nods serenely.
'Yes, at the Staff College in —— I lecture upon this. When one moves a block on a map which represents a company, a brigade, this represents not an abstract of numbers, but real men, with morale and changeable will. A war is not a game but a struggle for survival, an officer might play at cards or dice to gamble, but a kriegsspiel is a precise tool, to develop within himself and within an officer corps the...'
He looks at K, seeing for the first time she is not a man, and raises his eyebrow, before going on.
'...the powers of faculty and intellectual strength to plan, to lead upon the battlefield a force which, scientifically, leads to the victory of our Army, and the attainment of the Will of the nation...'
No, no, I say. We're peaceful. We're playing, all we want is to be left alone, we're not interested in dominating or being anything but the outcasts from society we are. It's the jocks who bully each other, it's the State that exercises power, it's the world that exists as a hostile place. At once the ghost's eyes light up with recognition.
'Yes, this also I recognise! I also was posted to the Staff College from the cavalry, because I was bullied...'
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:09 PM on May 4, 2022 [19 favorites]
Geek culture is huge now, whether it's superhero comics or Dungeons & Dragons. It's gone from a safe space and shibboleth for hopeless social failures to yet another pedestal for good-looking people with charisma. It's not my home anymore.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:49 on May 4
To call old timey geek culture a "safe space" words and what they mean etc.
The American obsession with high school, and the attempt to reconstruct the social structures of high school wherever and whenever possible, is going to destroy the world.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 14:47 on May 4
Is going to? 30 minutes ago.
posted by I paid money to offer this... insight? at 8:30 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:49 on May 4
To call old timey geek culture a "safe space" words and what they mean etc.
The American obsession with high school, and the attempt to reconstruct the social structures of high school wherever and whenever possible, is going to destroy the world.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 14:47 on May 4
Is going to? 30 minutes ago.
posted by I paid money to offer this... insight? at 8:30 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Geek culture is huge now, whether it's superhero comics
Another interesting thing is that superhero comics aren't popular, like the actual comics themselves. The movies have not moved the needle at all on actual comic sales, which have been negligible for decades. Comics in general have become more popular, and manga has exploded, but mainstream American superhero comics have been dwindling for ages. It's actually remarkable how bad Marvel and DC are at capitalizing on the movie momentum, but that's more a testament to how arcane and newbie-unfriendly cape comics are (and I say this as someone who has read them off and on for 30 years).
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:56 PM on May 4, 2022 [7 favorites]
Another interesting thing is that superhero comics aren't popular, like the actual comics themselves. The movies have not moved the needle at all on actual comic sales, which have been negligible for decades. Comics in general have become more popular, and manga has exploded, but mainstream American superhero comics have been dwindling for ages. It's actually remarkable how bad Marvel and DC are at capitalizing on the movie momentum, but that's more a testament to how arcane and newbie-unfriendly cape comics are (and I say this as someone who has read them off and on for 30 years).
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:56 PM on May 4, 2022 [7 favorites]
No way, GoblinHoney. Criticizing Disney is for right-wing shitlords these days. I can't run the risk of being mistaken for one of them.
I'm still mad at them for slowing down progress and art for... potentially the rest of civilization just with their goddamn mickey mouse copyright extension bs. Also not crazy about them puppeting the dead to act in their movies. And even though bad star warses have outnumbered good ones since they episode V, disney's by far released the most bad star warii in the shortest period of time, invoking the most necromancy.
not giving the rightwing perspective here a single thought, don't know, don't care, fuck em all.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:54 PM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm still mad at them for slowing down progress and art for... potentially the rest of civilization just with their goddamn mickey mouse copyright extension bs. Also not crazy about them puppeting the dead to act in their movies. And even though bad star warses have outnumbered good ones since they episode V, disney's by far released the most bad star warii in the shortest period of time, invoking the most necromancy.
not giving the rightwing perspective here a single thought, don't know, don't care, fuck em all.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:54 PM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
but "2011-2015" wasn't that long ago,
It’s probably worthwhile to note that Sarah Z is 23 years old. Think about how you viewed cultural phenomena from your middle school years when you were 23.
I recently discovered her channel and find her videos a really interesting look into cultural phenomena I know very little about, partially because I’m not well-versed in a lot of fan culture and partially because I’m 20 years older than her. Her videos are way too long and a little too reminiscent of Lindsey Ellis’ style for me, but they’re good for background watching while I’m working.
posted by lunasol at 10:03 PM on May 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
It’s probably worthwhile to note that Sarah Z is 23 years old. Think about how you viewed cultural phenomena from your middle school years when you were 23.
I recently discovered her channel and find her videos a really interesting look into cultural phenomena I know very little about, partially because I’m not well-versed in a lot of fan culture and partially because I’m 20 years older than her. Her videos are way too long and a little too reminiscent of Lindsey Ellis’ style for me, but they’re good for background watching while I’m working.
posted by lunasol at 10:03 PM on May 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
(I haven't watched the video)
I grew up in the 70s and 80s, with cultural sanctions and state controlled TV, and was one of the few people fluent in English in my school.
So my exposure to geek culture was very limited, and the phenomenon of the ostracised geek wasn't really a thing.
I did spend a year in an American high school, and it really was noticeable how incredibly cliquey things were there. I wonder why?
In South African schools we had friend groups and cliques of course, and people who were low in the hierarchy because of being odd and socially awkward. But we didn't have groups like "the theatre kids" and "the jocks".
Things were a lot more fluid.
We learned the word "nerd" from the Revenge of the Nerds" movies.
And that started becoming a thing, calling a certain set of people (always boys) who wore glasses and were into chess and computers, nerds.
Liking Tolkien was also a nerd thing. But so much of popular culture just never reached me.
It's only now, with access to the Internet and self publishing, that we're seeing a big growth in African genre fiction.
posted by Zumbador at 10:06 PM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
I grew up in the 70s and 80s, with cultural sanctions and state controlled TV, and was one of the few people fluent in English in my school.
So my exposure to geek culture was very limited, and the phenomenon of the ostracised geek wasn't really a thing.
I did spend a year in an American high school, and it really was noticeable how incredibly cliquey things were there. I wonder why?
In South African schools we had friend groups and cliques of course, and people who were low in the hierarchy because of being odd and socially awkward. But we didn't have groups like "the theatre kids" and "the jocks".
Things were a lot more fluid.
We learned the word "nerd" from the Revenge of the Nerds" movies.
And that started becoming a thing, calling a certain set of people (always boys) who wore glasses and were into chess and computers, nerds.
Liking Tolkien was also a nerd thing. But so much of popular culture just never reached me.
It's only now, with access to the Internet and self publishing, that we're seeing a big growth in African genre fiction.
posted by Zumbador at 10:06 PM on May 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
as it was put to me roughly twenty years ago by a deadly serious young German hacker type (who was rather drunk at the time), there's a definite hierarchy in the nerd universe:
i. nerds -- everybody hates nerds, including nerds.
ii. geeks -- every nerd aspires to be a geek.
iii. hackers -- very few ever attain this level.
posted by philip-random at 10:49 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
i. nerds -- everybody hates nerds, including nerds.
ii. geeks -- every nerd aspires to be a geek.
iii. hackers -- very few ever attain this level.
posted by philip-random at 10:49 PM on May 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
As a practitioner, I'll say this: there's always serious record collecting.
Where James McKune is both patron saint and cultural prototype.
posted by y2karl at 6:20 AM on May 5, 2022
Where James McKune is both patron saint and cultural prototype.
posted by y2karl at 6:20 AM on May 5, 2022
This discussion shook loose some memories for me. I was a nerdy high school kid who went to Center for Talented Youth (CTY) for math. One of the teaching assistants my first year was a guy named Jeremy Kahn, who later co-founded a group at Harvard in 1989 called the Society of Nerds and Geeks or SONG for short. I think they even got a tiny acknowledgment in Time magazine once.
As SONG defined it, a "nerd" was someone intellectual and studious, whereas a "geek" was someone who was nonconformist. I remember Jeremy said in the articles he identified as both. According to the Harvard Crimson article linked above, the main focus of SONG was challenging anti-intellectualism and the idea that you had to be an athlete to be a well-rounded person. There are absolutely no references to pop culture. I find it ironic that one of the first societies to get minor national media coverage for reducing the stigma of "nerd" and "geek" was a group opposed to anti-intellectualism and conformism, both things that the superhero entertainment industrial complex views as central to their business model.
posted by jonp72 at 8:35 AM on May 5, 2022 [5 favorites]
As SONG defined it, a "nerd" was someone intellectual and studious, whereas a "geek" was someone who was nonconformist. I remember Jeremy said in the articles he identified as both. According to the Harvard Crimson article linked above, the main focus of SONG was challenging anti-intellectualism and the idea that you had to be an athlete to be a well-rounded person. There are absolutely no references to pop culture. I find it ironic that one of the first societies to get minor national media coverage for reducing the stigma of "nerd" and "geek" was a group opposed to anti-intellectualism and conformism, both things that the superhero entertainment industrial complex views as central to their business model.
posted by jonp72 at 8:35 AM on May 5, 2022 [5 favorites]
I really want to push back on this because what you're describing is the (very wrong) popular media portrayal and not what actually happened.
Star Gentle Uterus, you're right, but also that sentence kind of makes my point: the way the world media shaped Columbine, and the way people considered it, told a particular story. And that story was glommed onto by every shitlord, who then felt like they had the power to openly be a shitlord.
posted by nushustu at 8:59 AM on May 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
Star Gentle Uterus, you're right, but also that sentence kind of makes my point: the way the world media shaped Columbine, and the way people considered it, told a particular story. And that story was glommed onto by every shitlord, who then felt like they had the power to openly be a shitlord.
posted by nushustu at 8:59 AM on May 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
The problem with geek "nonconformism" is that often times what it really meant was "I should be in charge". And the last paragraph of that Crimson piece about SONG:
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:12 AM on May 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
“We should revitalize [SONG] and petition for a 24/7 library...so that on the weekend when a good portion of people are out partying, the virgins can continue to use the glorious facilities of Lamont to be nerds and geeks,” said Slipper....illustrates some of the very toxic interpersonal politics that has always been part of "geek culture", especially in regards to sex.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:12 AM on May 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
metafilter: Art as snow.
As a middle-aged person who is a geek but not really into any specific fan scene, at least in the time since Trek conventions were advertised in physical newspapers, I really appreciate the insight here. Once again, I am impressed by the things people have brought up that I had not considered. Thanks!
posted by eotvos at 12:04 PM on May 5, 2022
As a middle-aged person who is a geek but not really into any specific fan scene, at least in the time since Trek conventions were advertised in physical newspapers, I really appreciate the insight here. Once again, I am impressed by the things people have brought up that I had not considered. Thanks!
posted by eotvos at 12:04 PM on May 5, 2022
Regarding nerds and geeks - the version I heard people say in the late '90s on the US west coast was that dweebs are weird people without skills or interests, nerds are weird people with interests but not skills, geeks are weird people with both interests and skills. I've learned since that many, perhaps most, people would disagree. I do wonder if it's a regional thing. I suspect "nerd" also sounds much more natural in more widely-spoken languages. And, it doesn't have any possibly-ugly carnival association that I know of, which is worth thinking about when deciding what to call myself.
posted by eotvos at 12:17 PM on May 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eotvos at 12:17 PM on May 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
That's funny. My sense has always been: nerds exercise a natural attraction to a topic or discipline or whatever, so: nerds don't choose, geeks choose, and hackers synthesize both, though hackerdom can largely be taught as an adjunct to the scientific process.
posted by rhizome at 12:40 PM on May 5, 2022
posted by rhizome at 12:40 PM on May 5, 2022
Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.
posted by nushustu at 2:31 PM on May 5, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by nushustu at 2:31 PM on May 5, 2022 [12 favorites]
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