Well you’ve all made me feel a lot better. I suppose part of it is the growing acceptange of geekdom into the mainstream. Time was where simply watching Star Trek would qualify you, but that’s barely entry-level these days.
And please let’s not get overly hooked on semantics here aabout the word geek. I’m a geek, not a pedantic one. Whether you call it a nerd, dweeb, fanboy, loser, whatever, we all know what it being talked about here. There’s no need to dissect the terminology.
To answer some specifics:
Early Out:
Does it? I mean, how exclusive are internet message baords these days? Are they still the domain of a nerdy few?
Skerri
Yes, Kevin Smith, who makes movies where characters discuss Return of the Jedi or write comic books, who also wrote ‘Green Arrow’ for a bit, and who is a regular at comic book conventions. He’s a demigod among geeks. You can’t swing a cat in a comic store without hitting four guys in trenchcoats with long hair and backwards caps.
chula:
Some has, particularly some of the things towards the end of my list. But the 80s were my formative geek years as well, which explains most of that. Still, I haven’t kept up with current geek fashions.
**ForgottenLore **:
The answers are neither, neither, and message boards (though I enjoy almost ANYTHING more than talking on the telephone).
So anyway, I’m starting to think that maybe it’s not so much geekdom that I’m really feeling estranged from but fandom, though I would argue that participating in a certain amount of fandom is a requirement for geekdom.
For example, I watch Buffy and Firefly but will usually not even open threads on them here. Why? Because I don’t really want to discuss them with other folks, and because fans, more often than not, really annoy me and actually diminish my enjoyment of the show. My tenure on the alt.tv.x-files newsgroup way back in the day was pretty much what convinced me to STOP watching the show (the reasons are somewhat complicated, and are addresed in my treatise mentioned previously). Again with Kevin Smith - I don’t like his movies, that’s fine, but it’s his fans that really get me beyond that and into hatred.
There’s a fanboy geek mentality that I no longer feel connected to and in fact am somewhat repulsed by. I’m not sure whether this is something that has legitimately gotten worse or if it’s just my changing personality. Perhaps a little of both - I know that the internet has gone a long way towards making geek voices louder, and louder doesn’t necessarily mean better. Ten years ago I would never have known that there are people out there who think I’m not a true Doctor Who fan because I only like the show. Nowadays I can be told that daily, without even having to look real hard. As a result, I find myself not really looking into these things or talking about them, having my simple fan voice shouted out by the uberfans, which results in me feeling less interested and involved, and the cycle continues.
Anywho. Thanks for sharing in my musings. This is good fodder for my writing.
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