Geek Culture Will Never Die...or Be Popular 320
adeelarshad82 writes "Last year CNN wrote an interesting article on how geek culture is now a big part of pop culture, while Patton Oswalt gave his own opinion on how he thinks pop culture has outright co-opted and diluted it. These articles gave birth to a completely different view, which is that geek culture can never truly be part of pop culture. The movies and t-shirts might sell, and everybody might use Facebook, but there will still be a small percentage that loves comics, imports video games, and can build their own computers. In other words, true geeks are much different from the stereotypes we learn about in the movies. The geek culture is not just playing D&D or watching V for Vendetta but also having a bookshelf full of D20 system manuals as well as reading all the Alan Moore material one can find. The fact of the matter is that while geek culture is far from dead, it's not exactly a part of the pop culture either. So, no matter hard media outlets try to make the concept catch on, no matter how many studios try to capitalize on the cultural waves of comic book movies and best-selling video games, there is no such thing as pop culture geekdom."
Hipsters (Score:5, Insightful)
Agree (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day, you should still be nice to geeks, because they will probably manage you one day. Unless your in an MBA program, where you don't actually learn anything but get all the real pay but get to pretend to when you order the latest synergy report on your desk by Monday morning. The geek shall inherit the earth!
Oh, gee, here I thought geeks were uber awesome. (Score:4, Insightful)
We've bought into the mutual-delusion that geeks are cool, because we've gathered around places like Slashdot over the last fifteen years. If you're a furry and you hang around other furries all the time, you're probably going to have an inaccurate perception that being a furry is more popular and accepted than it really is. Likewise, we geeks have had a way to congregate like never before, thanks to the internet. And because we've been big on technology, we've been doing this longer than most other groups. So, in that time, our self-delusion has thrived.
The fact is that society may like a few of the things that geeks like, from time to time, but that should not be misconstrued as liking geeks. They may like Kick-Ass and some may even like Catan, but that doesn't mean they like *you*. It just means they like Kick-Ass and Catan.
An overwhelming portion of the population still thinks of "geek" as a pejorative. How many times have you watched movies or television recently, where "geek" was used as a put-down? Personally, my reality-check was only a few years ago. I did something absurdly dorky and mumbled something about what a geek I am. The girl I was seeing at the time consoled me with a concerned "oh, no, you're not a geek!" the same way you'd say "oh, no, you're not a loser...!" to someone who was just berating themselves and slamming their head against a wall.
Geeks think geeks are cool. Society thinks a couple things here and there that geeks like are cool. There is no overlapping venn diagram there, where society thinks some of the things geeks like are cool *and* geeks are cool. Accept it and deal with it. Frankly, I'm about fifteen years too old to give a flying fuck who thinks I'm cool or whether or not I'm accepted by anyone. I'd hope the majority here feel the same.
Re:Agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, first of all, geeks were hardly the early adopters of facebook.
Twitter, maybe. Facebook, no.
And when "all these people" are using -- nay, customizing -- Eclipse, then they will also be geeks.
Just because they've picked up the easy stuff, which geeks engineered to be easy to pick up, doesn't make them geeky.
Most Important Comment Ever (Score:5, Insightful)
NOBODY FUCKING CARES
I like to think of myself like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not... f#@k with us.
That is how us web developers are. Even how the security people are. Server people, network people, the list goes on and on.
As long as we are around setting things up for the end user, we will always have our culture. There is also this bad "feeling" of the MTV culture becoming a geek. Apparently Jersey Shore is cool to pay attention to, but being a geek is not. I know, I know. I have gotten used to it. But ask yourself this: the Jersey Shore intro, who made that happen? The editting, who made that happen on every episode.
Us geeks are right on the edge of pop culture. I mean we are right there, but the pop culture fear of not being cool keeps the masses from fully accepting all of our quirks. Like people do not understand us geeks that collect. I collect video games. I had some work people over and had my Genesis/Sega CD/32x combo hooked up, and they asked me if I had a Wii. I have a pretty decent computer, and I kid you not, this is almost word for word what a girl said, "Wow! That is a cool computer. Can I check my Facebook on it super quick?"
We are and always will be the last picked for kick ball. We will be the ones right on the outside of cool. Almost, but not quite. You know what, I like it out here.
Re:Hipsters (Score:4, Insightful)
There is some overlap. People like to feel special, especially the slightly narcissistic asshats like me.
Re:Hipsters (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to admit, this makes us sound an awful lot like hipsters trying to be on the edge and always being different.
This isn't the first time that analogy has been appropriate. Geeks are, after all, known for having huge egos and being a quite exclusive lot. Prior to mainstream acceptance of comic book movies and other aspects of geek culture, just look at how we snubbed script kiddies and noobs on our IRC channels. Much like hipsters snubbing others when outsiders adopt their music or aspects of their culture.
Labeling is the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Be yourself and stop with the labels. I build computers and I code in my spare time, I have a degree in chemistry and love science. I don't like anime, comic books, sci-fi, fantasty and have never played D&D. I played sports in high school.
Am I a geek? No. Am I a jock? No. I'm me. Fuck off with the labels.
I earned the title, thank you. (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't slog through a future ruled by mutant-hating Sentinels, storm the beaches of Klendathu and brave the Three Terrors of the Fire Swamp so that some kid could pick up Halo and call himself a geek.
When my party came back from the Temple of Elemental Evil, they spat on me.
Co-opted is the perfect term (Score:5, Insightful)
Pop culture has co-opted nearly everything worth while from geek culture and moved on. That is what pop culture does once a sub-culture achieves critical mass. In my life time it has happened twice. The first was with raves/electronica/underground dance music. The second was with computers/internet/geeks. In both cases the sub-cultures went from being isolated, to being referenced in 'popular' ways (techno music in commercials, "rave" fashion on television, companies deciding employees need email, grandma wanting to be on AOL).
The acceptance of computers in popular culture was the biggest change. For raves, even when they were "big" it was still very much a sub-culture. There are only so many people who are ever going to get into heavy bass and recreational drug use. On the other hand computers have leapt from the point where "nobody" (from a pop-culture perspective) wanted to use them, to the point where "everybody" has at least one. Of those who have computers, only a small percentage actually care how they work. The rest just have them because they need one to function in society. That is the co-opting that took place.
In a more subtle way, society's perspective of IT has shifted. In the late 1990s and early 21st century (before the tech bubble exploded), I used to get recognition from strangers for being in IT. It was one of those jobs where people didn't know much about it, but it sounded cutting edge and cool. Society knew they needed to know how to use computers, so being out ahead of the curve was an advantage. Now IT people are just the work place bitches, a rung or two above the mailroom guys (unless you work for a technology company).
Re:Hipsters (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, mostly correct. 'Geeks' used to mean 'obsessively interested in a particular subject' - hence 'computer geek', 'history geek', 'chemistry geek' etc... That term was later pre-empted and perverted by the media and pop culture.
Nope. Because the definition of 'geek' solely as 'obsessively interested in computer technology' is one created by the mass media and pop culture in the 1980's. (See: "Sixteen Candles".)
The idea that 'geek' was a synonym for Otaku ('obsessive fanboy') is a *much* later development, roughly contemporary with the explosion of the 'net into pop culture in the mid/late 90's. (Giving rise to saying such as "you haven't seen/read/heard $MEDIA_PRODUCT? turn in your geek card!".) *That* form of geekdom never died and never went mainstream - it was mainstream and deeply embedded in pop culture from practically Day One of it's existence.
Re:Agree (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day, you should still be nice to geeks, because they will probably manage you one day.
That's the geek equivalent of the jocks who think it's ok to do poorly in school, because they'll just go pro. The odds are stacked against you, but it makes for a compelling fantasy.
You could have fooled me. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to sound elitist, but the dumb bimbo bitches I see in lecture hall chatting on Facebook are not geeks. They are still dumb bimbo bitches, just with a Web 2.0 platform to spew their idiocy.
Misogynist [urbandictionary.com]
3. An adjective describing a person who takes a dislike to females. Usually losers. Pokes at them, makes derogatory remarks about them, and really don't connect to females on a mental level. Misogynist [urbandictionary.com]
Re:Hipsters (Score:5, Insightful)
Codswallop and bulls wool!
I doubt that the distribution of geeks IQs is much different than that of most others. Unless you're saying geeks are defined by their IQ.
Most of the geeks I know, myself inclusive, have very average, maybe slightly upper end of average at most, IQs. However, we have the image of being smart, by being the kind of people who will argue anything to the death, be interested in obscure topics, having reasonable analytical skills, and by associating ourselves with that sort of stuff.
As for being above average. Not necessarily. I've got several friends who don't fit your definition, and are either on the low end of average, or are under average, yet most would describe them as geeks, merely for the over interest in certain topics they have.
Also IQ measures are fucking retarded.
Your definition is too rigid, back to the drawing board with you!