Quote:
I can see where it comes from, though. There's such a fear here that our geek culture will be lost or corrupted by business needs, that there's a backlash. We stress our geek creds so much that it ends up making non-geek people feel like that they have to put up their own, which of course they can't. So, they end up looking like poseurs or horribly out of touch with us.
The thing is, we should never have pressured them to do that. So what if they're not geeks? Are they good at their jobs? That's all that I care about with my co-workers. I don't care if they read Game of Thrones or Twilight, I don't care if they know Kirk from Picard.
Yes, those things are important for some of the jobs here, but largely not for the corporate side of things.
It's just ugly to see a bunch of geeks look down their noses and sneer at non-geeks. As if we're now the "popular kids" and are going to treat everyone else like they treated us.
|
See this is pertinent to my experiences..not necessarily from the business end, but from a social standpoint. I think I told the story so quick recap, I saw the Fushigi commercial, started researching, found out about contact juggling and walked smack into a big fight between old school purists and newcomers they considered poseur fad followers.
Trying to get a small handle on some of the shit my kid is into, like Star Wars, or superheroes or Transformers or video games sometimes causes me to walk all newbie into worlds I don't even understand and where my even wanting to enter is seen as suspicious by some. Ask me how my conversations usually go at the Game Stop.
Then, there's the whole "too many people liking it makes it automatically not a nerd thing" so my niece, who considers herself "weird" informed me the other day that
Hunger Games is "all hype" and not worth seeing, though she never did read the books (which I suggested to her last Christmas based only on a site I found that said the series had a strong female character. I knew nothing else about it and hadn't read it yet) and hadn't seen the movie. The mere fact that a lot of people were talking about it made it just too mainstream for her weird self.
I don't even know that she is weird or quirky or counterculture, I think she is still looking for a place to belong as 14 year olds do, and is not finding a right fit so decided to try being weird or something. So she is prolly totally a poseur (and this is a kid who wall all into
Twilight not even two years ago)
That's why I really appreciate you guys here. There are those who share my Disney and Harry Potter and history and stuff, and those that don't share them don't berate me about it, and there are those who will help me with learning a tiny bit about other stuff that I might need or want to know without expecting me to memorize all the facts and are happy to answer my newb questions.
I am not looking for nerd cred, I just want to enjoy what I enjoy and learn enough to communicate with my kid or other loved ones.
I love Phineas and Ferb, BTW.
Nerds of a Feather - Phineas and Ferb Wiki - Your Guide to Phineas and Ferb
Quote:
"Now we've done it, Ferb. We've brought the entire convention center to the brink of an inter-genre geek war! ”
— Phineas Flynn
|