geekdom – culture or cult
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
Since the hippie revolution combined with the emergence of the nerds happened to America, being different is no longer something you ought to be ridiculed for. I like this trend, in fact it is quite emboldening for aspiring teenagers, who would otherwise be bottled up in in the norms of the main culture of the era. However, the American nerd/geek sub-culture has a certain notoriety of being quite ridiculous at times, provided you drop your nerd cap and sprinkle some sensibility into thinking. Remember, a counter-culture should be powerful because of the possibilities it offers to individuals, a certain sort of validation to their orthogonality, if I may. In contrast to that, the nerd culture, at times seems to have caught up in a fashion of its own, to the point of me feeling that it creates more wannabes than inspiring a population to believe in themselves.
Abbreviations, for instance are the order of the day. Omfg, are they or what! Abbreviations, in sentences violating grammar are the best. Lmfao, epic fail! Interpolating numbers in sentences. Stfu n00b! Examples that would send the founding fathers of English grammar in a whirlpool of misery are aplenty. Pretty interesting, and amusing that these constructs are supposed to be indispensable in your lingua franca to be considered as a serious geek. Another minor detail that becomes an eyesore in no time, is how a depreciation in lingual quality is considered fashionable, especially when mixed with technical terms. All in all, Wtf I say!
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, often considered to be the “movie-you-have-to-love-if-you-want-to-be-a-nerd”, is nothing but a dichotomy between confusion and stupidity. To think that this movie is considered one of the best movies of all time, in the midst of genuinely great cinema is a fitting testimony to what the nerd culture aspires and has achieved. I don’t really remember at what different levels I despised the movie when I first saw it, to the point of thinking that the only way I could like it was if I was a stupid 15 year old British kid who adores nonsense in the name of satire and dark comedy. There are many such examples, but this makes my point well enough for me to move on and lament further …
I often get a feeling that a significant percentage of the aforementioned nerd population are more than happy in the many marvels they experienced as a child and as a programmer, to move on to anything significantly enlightening, say art, or classical music. How many times have you heard, “Tchaikovsky ftw!” or “That’s how Dali rolls, n00b”? I wonder if one could extrapolate the nerd culture to a cult, one that is limiting in its logic, but gregarious in influencing the minds of many for purposes of validating their beliefs. Another typical characteristic is that they worship their nerd-gods and are very harsh on newbies (ahem, n00bs).
Anyways, detractors would obviously pose the question of “what is enlightening”, “is there an absolute right”, “aren’t you a dimwit to not understand our profound theories” and so on. Well, in my defense, I am not against the coolness in being a geek, in fact, if you can make an authoritative statement about your passions in the midst of a chaotic population with an inclination towards herd mentality and the rest being ordinary, that’s great. My problem is with glorifying the stupid and unmistakably retarded and with people being so desperate to fit in …
<rotten tomatoes and eggs ensue…>
