hellbound
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2013
Spun off the Stupid Video Games Accessories thread
I couldn't make it through much of the video but the main points appear to be:
-people who call themselves nerds seldom are
-"real nerds" have "earned their title" through alienation
-"geek chic" is cultural commodification/appropriation and harmful
By almost any reasonable definition I could be called a nerd. I am currently a scientist and I'm also studying engineering. I grew up playing tabletop RPGs and board games (like Puerto Rico, Settlers, Civilization, Carcassone, and Power Grid, not Monopoly and Risk) on a weekly basis, and Magic, Illuminati, and the Pokemon card game less frequently but still often enough. Though I'm not into it anymore, I used to be in my high school's anime club. As a project I intend to work out how having an 8-suite deck of cards changes the statistics of poker hands.
But I've never really taken the label on myself. I don't go around calling myself a nerd or a geek. I have a couple "nerdy" shirts - Thor, Keyboard Cat, and Colonel Meow, but that's about it. I got eye surgery so I wouldn't need to wear glasses anymore. I have a decent amount of tattoos but none of them are about video games. The whole concept of geek chic is a little bit baffling to me. People who take pride in calling themselves nerds seem like black people who go around calling themselves nigg(er/a)s, or homosexuals who call themselves fags. You can talk about word privileges and taking it back all you want, but it's always seemed foolish to self-apply an insult.
But even stranger than that to me is people who say they earned it and get angry about people whose interest in "nerdy" shit only goes as far as playing COD or Angry Birds and seeing the latest Avengers movie wearing chunky glasses, or who compare Big Bang Theory to blackface. It's just fashion. I suppose you get similar bitching when a white person wears a bindi or listens to blues, but it seems that many of the same people who scoff at the notion of cultural appropriation get upset at "fake nerds."
I may think it's stupid to use terms like nerd or geek when talking about yourself, but what harm does it do when somebody does it? Who has the authority to be arbiter of who may or may not call themselves a nerd? Why, in short, does it matter that things like comic books and video games are becoming mainstream? Everything that can make money gets sold.
At its core, the backlash against "fake geeks" just seems like being upset that when what you identify as becomes mainstream, for one brief moment you're at the forefront but then those susceptible to fads move to catch up and you're no longer that special snowflake.
I couldn't make it through much of the video but the main points appear to be:
-people who call themselves nerds seldom are
-"real nerds" have "earned their title" through alienation
-"geek chic" is cultural commodification/appropriation and harmful
By almost any reasonable definition I could be called a nerd. I am currently a scientist and I'm also studying engineering. I grew up playing tabletop RPGs and board games (like Puerto Rico, Settlers, Civilization, Carcassone, and Power Grid, not Monopoly and Risk) on a weekly basis, and Magic, Illuminati, and the Pokemon card game less frequently but still often enough. Though I'm not into it anymore, I used to be in my high school's anime club. As a project I intend to work out how having an 8-suite deck of cards changes the statistics of poker hands.
But I've never really taken the label on myself. I don't go around calling myself a nerd or a geek. I have a couple "nerdy" shirts - Thor, Keyboard Cat, and Colonel Meow, but that's about it. I got eye surgery so I wouldn't need to wear glasses anymore. I have a decent amount of tattoos but none of them are about video games. The whole concept of geek chic is a little bit baffling to me. People who take pride in calling themselves nerds seem like black people who go around calling themselves nigg(er/a)s, or homosexuals who call themselves fags. You can talk about word privileges and taking it back all you want, but it's always seemed foolish to self-apply an insult.
But even stranger than that to me is people who say they earned it and get angry about people whose interest in "nerdy" shit only goes as far as playing COD or Angry Birds and seeing the latest Avengers movie wearing chunky glasses, or who compare Big Bang Theory to blackface. It's just fashion. I suppose you get similar bitching when a white person wears a bindi or listens to blues, but it seems that many of the same people who scoff at the notion of cultural appropriation get upset at "fake nerds."
I may think it's stupid to use terms like nerd or geek when talking about yourself, but what harm does it do when somebody does it? Who has the authority to be arbiter of who may or may not call themselves a nerd? Why, in short, does it matter that things like comic books and video games are becoming mainstream? Everything that can make money gets sold.
At its core, the backlash against "fake geeks" just seems like being upset that when what you identify as becomes mainstream, for one brief moment you're at the forefront but then those susceptible to fads move to catch up and you're no longer that special snowflake.
