Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die

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This guest editorial on geek culture written by Patton Oswalt is rather entertaining.

Fast-forward to now: Boba Fett’s helmet emblazoned on sleeveless T-shirts worn by gym douches hefting dumbbells. The Lord of the Rings used to be ours and only ours simply because of the sheer goddamn thickness of the books. Twenty years later, the entire cast and crew would be trooping onstage at the Oscars to collect their statuettes, and replicas of the One Ring would be sold as bling.
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Star wars has always been popular. The first was the highest grossing film ever at that point. Pretty much everyone has seen it, you could hardly call it an underground movement :D Anyway theres still dungeons and dragons and LARP.

But why would you wear the one ring to show it off? You'd be invisible... (plus it came out in 1954)
 
People will only explore so far into something that they don't have an interest in until they reach a point where they don't care. That's why non-mainstream ''geek culture'' will never be fully uncovered, most people only look so far into tech, games, books, movies, cars etc that it makes it practically impossible to expose the majority to things outside their interest.
 
Sounds like the author is as mainstream as the new "geeks" he tires of.

Hate to say it, but all the Star Trek, Asimov, RAH, D&D, anime, video games, whatever is still pretty much just light geek fare.

Try this:Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, or if the general population's IQ suddenly jumps 100 points (it is a popularization, after all) On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems (which, to my shame, I have not yet read).

If you are going to be a geek, geek out. Sounds like the author just likes the fluff.
 
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Wumpus said:
Sounds like the author is as mainstream as the new "geeks" he tires of.

Hate to say it, but all the Star Trek, Asimov, RAH, D&D, anime, video games, whatever is still pretty much just light geek fare.

Try this:Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, or if the general population's IQ suddenly jumps 100 points (it is a popularization, after all) On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems (which, to my shame, I have not yet read).

If you are going to be a geek, geek out. Sounds like the author just likes the fluff.
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What makes a geek isn't just stuff that's considered super complicated by the majority. You can be nerdy about anything if you take the time to educate yourself and have an interest in the subject and take your knowledge to that ''hardcore'' level which most people don't try to reach these days. Knowing everything inside and out, hot and cold and above and beyond what you learned in school solely for exploration and interest purposes is in itself something i consider ''geeky''.
 
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I was going to post a comment explaining how Patton has just too old for the new geek, but it has been explained to death by comments on the article at the original site.
 
Hollywood "Geeks/nerds" aren't geeks or nerds, nerds and geeks earn money the hard way, by inventing computer parts!
 
I enjoyed, though hated the truth in, the first half. (And he's right, lots of things once considered the domain of "nerds" have turned to pop culture) but then he went so far off in left field it lost all luster...

Truth: old nerdyness is old hat now. (with exception to a few backwards places that havnt embraced current pop culture yet (emphasis on *yet*)) However, as these go mainstream there is more out there that will not yet. Nobody will keep up with the current "cutting edge of nerdyness" and it will take time to become common, but this HAS forced nerds to move forward at a much faster speed (which does bother some of us who enjoyed the slower-paced nerdyness of the past...).

But, as this happens, like 3far4shot said there will be oversaturation and mainstreamers will not explore the nuances like the rest of us. Yes, everyone knows what LotR was about, but how many people can explain the origins of middle earth dating back to the creation of the great lamps in the first age? or write elvish? How many people will (to use the author's own words) memorize all the names of the ships in The Empire Strikes Back? Only the nerds.

In short, it's no-longer *just* what your interested in, but how deep down the rabbit hole you choose to go that makes you a nerd.
 
I stopped reading halfway through as I lost track of his point... if he even had one... but it seems that, to him, if it's not underground it's lost its "cool" factor. That's kind of ironic, as I thought a lament of those labeled as geeks or nerds was not being understood or accepted by society. I suppose some people are not happy unless they have something to be unhappy about. I will never understand humans. Why can't you just be yourself and be content with that?
 
Phoenix333 said:
I stopped reading halfway through as I lost track of his point... if he even had one... but it seems that, to him, if it's not underground it's lost its "cool" factor. That's kind of ironic, as I thought a lament of those labeled as geeks or nerds was not being understood or accepted by society. I suppose some people are not happy unless they have something to be unhappy about. I will never understand humans. Why can't you just be yourself and be content with that?
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Couldn't have said it better myself.
 
I have a friend like him. If something is popular then he doesn't like it. He got an iPhone when it first came out and then once it started going "mainstream" he decided he didn't like it. He does that with everything.
 
Maximus825 said:
I have a friend like him. If something is popular then he doesn't like it. He got an iPhone when it first came out and then once it started going "mainstream" he decided he didn't like it. He does that with everything.
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There's at least two people at my work who are like that. The irony is they both own iPhones.
 
The use of the term post punk basically told me he's just another tool that gets pissy when a scene isn't exclusively his. The rest of the blog entry furthered that. He has no point because being an "Otaku" still isn't easy with just web because it takes a lot of time to obsess about something. Oh, and there's nothing wrong with people liking things. I feel like he saw those little Nintendo tins of character shaped mints and lost it.
 
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