
It's time to call time on nerd culture - Garbage
http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/10/its-time-to-call-time-on-nerd-culture.html
======
Nullvoice
Just no. He mixes this,

"nerds now have money, power, and status", and "mainstream culture has shifted
from mocking us to respecting us" with, "GamerGate made me ashamed to be a
gamer"

Nerds are still the butt of the joke, and still get the negative media
attention. Gamergate is the perfect example of this. The media spin has been
enormous, and not in "nerd" favor. I don't know how many times I've seen "fat
sweaty basement dwelling nerd" thrown around during the ordeal. If the nerds
had really won, certainly the nerds would get the spin, or at least a proper
voice. No, This guy has obviously just been reading the mainstream, otherwise
he'd know that the death threats, harassment, and other terrible elements of
internet culture have been thrown equally at pro-gamergate supporters.

The nerds haven't won yet, not even close. Some nerds and elements of culture
have merely gone mainstream, but nerds themselves are still pariah at large.
In TV they're still black-faced by shows like The Big Bang Theory and
Scorpion. Negative stereotypes still rule public perception. I would equate
what's happening now to the rise of Jazz and The Blues in early America. Many
whites during this time were accepting of some black musicians (enough to
listen to them), but blacks themselves at large didn't benefit from the
popularity of the media they'd largely created.

Are there issues in the community? Yes. There is in any, and they should be
addressed reasonably. But only because that's the right thing to do, not
because nerds have "the power" now and have a responsibility to do right by it
as such. Most of the money and power they have is locked up by non-nerd
businessmen, investors, and a select few nerds who have taken nerd labors and
interests and made them profitable and mainstream.

So for the time being, while the mainstream is so bent on portraying nerds so
insultingly and wrong, they should keep not listening. Nerds should solve
these problems from their own ranks, and not from impartial bystanders. Nerds
have gotten _better_ over the years, and almost none of it because the
detractors.

~~~
A_COMPUTER
A while back I was with a friend, and in the course of a conversation she
referred to another person we know by "what a fucking nerd." I said "don't you
call yourself a nerd?" And she replied "Well yeah, but not a _real_ nerd."

I don't play games much anymore, but I still have affection for them. I have
watched the gamergate thing unfold and began to feel things I hadn't felt in a
long time. It took me a little while but I finally remembered. It felt like
back when being a "nerd" wasn't cool, and your peers treated you like human
garbage for loving science fiction or typing code from a book into a Commodore
64.

I don't think a god damn thing has changed about people hating nerds, except
nowadays you pretend you're tolerant and enlightened so you have to construct
a moral failing that the nerd is guilty of even if they didn't personally do
anything to you. Then they're fair game for name-calling and personal abuse.
Basement-dweller neckbeard dateless permavirgin fedoralord.

------
kstenerud
What I'm seeing is a group of traditionally marginalised people being suddenly
thrust into positions of power. And lo and behold, their behaviour is more
mainstream than they're willing to admit.

And therein lies the problem. Nerd culture holds fiercely to the differences
between them and the "mainstream". But what does one do when ones culture
becomes the mainstream? Suddenly, caustic behaviour and bullying are no longer
the eccentric responses of an oppressed people, but instead are the humdrum
machinations of your average asshole.

This is not nerd culture; it's HUMAN culture, and must be dealt with as such.
You don't treat those who lack empathy with kid gloves.

------
daveloyall
I agree with @mindcrime that the spirit of this is right and the details have
probably been implemented by an amateur.

I read an article on this topic recently which said something about people who
grok what a meme is.

Let's say that you are in that club and also agree with the author in spirit.

Some trolls are paid to be disruptive because you-know-who doesn't want our
geek community to be _too_ unified. Oh, and the shills are sometimes armed
with big-data insights, too.

...Yes? Okay. :)

------
krigi
I had to stop reading half way through. Whenever this type of examination is
posted, it's usually that the author finally realizes he's an individual and
doesn't have to adhere to any culture at all.

------
mindcrime
I'm not sure I agree with all the amateur psychoanalysis stuff in this piece,
but I generally agree with the overall spirit. Hacker culture / geek culture /
whatever you want to call it, isn't always as welcoming and kind-spirited as
it could be, and I think that's sad. It's sad on very many levels too -
everytime a prospective Open Source contributor walks away because a group of
morons on IRC were acting like dickheads, or anytime a kid decides to study
finance instead of physics or computer science, everytime somebody (note:
Female OR Male OR Trans, whatever) is harassed and abused at a conference, it
makes the world a suckier place.

I wish we could get geek culture (and, to be honest, ALL human culture
eventually) to adhere to a simple "Be Excellent To Each Other" principle. It's
really not that hard to choose being kind over being a dick, or to choose to
treat other people with respect and dignity instead of being an asshole. So
why not just do it?

