geekdom – culture or cult
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…>
September 19th, 2008 22:19
I am surprised when all this writing happened…
Anyway, I am going through about 4 articles today and this one seems the closest to what I have been thinking about for sometime now, hence the reply.
I completely agree with the unecessary glorification of absolute stupidity and lack of sensitivity under the name of “geekdom”. Many a close friends exhibit the exact symptoms you have descibe above. What the reasons are, I dont know and wouldnt want to guess.
What I am also against though is coolness associated with being the “ungeek” or the “non-geek” or whatever the appropriate term is. These are the kind of people who “dont discuss work at lunch” or ask you to “get a life apart from work”. These are definitely larger in number than the “wannabe geeks” and are probably a bigger nuisance. (well, atleast in my opinion…:D)
Would be interesting to know what you think.
September 20th, 2008 09:32
Well, absolutely. That’s what I had mentioned in the entry too, that being a geek is great, in fact it is just a characteristic of how much you like a certain thing, work in this context. It’s just the stereotypes associated with being one that are an eyesore.
In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I like going out on lunch with my teammates, they talk about work most of the time. I mean, I consider a certain demarcation between my work life to be almost romantic in some sense … that you could go to work, completely be immersed in it even during apparently work-free time zones.
All in all, el comprende’ … :D
September 24th, 2008 11:27
Bongs status message comes to mind…”Why do you want to be nonconformist like everyone else?” :D
I like your article…..but to give so much credence to a bunch of guys who play video games on the net and to even term it a “culture” is doing them an unnecessary service. This new “phenomenon” has lasted how long? 5 years? 10 years?
On an another front, that is one of my main worries with computer sciencedom. This is one of the few areas where one can make big progress without complete formal education. We here time and again about how the best developers are school dropouts and how education is totally useless in the field. How many physics laureates do you know who were college drop outs? How many doctors?
Formal education, however corrupt gives us an insight to greatness almost all the time. Even in our much maligned system, we do study Shakespeare and Wordsworth and much more. With so much in exposure…wont I prefer ” “To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there’s the rub.” to “n00b…..w00t…kthbye” ?