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Does anyone else feel like "geek culture" has been watered down to a ridiculous point in the past decade or so? It's literally just superhero movies and the most mainstream of video games now. Of course, if you complain about this, accusations of 'gatekeeping' get thrown around. I don't think we should keep new people out of interests, but I feel like the "normies" at this point just massively outnumber those of us who were nerds back when it wasn't cool yet. Thoughts?
2 years ago · 👍 axeflayer, calgacus, martin, almaember, dunkel
@calgacus You are 100% correct about this. It's the cancer of capitalism encroaching more and more into our personal lives, until our patterns of consumption are our identity. It's sad. · 2 years ago
Yes. On the one hand a lot of stuff is now mainstream. On the other hand a lot of marketing creeped into what is considered "geek" e.g. if apple (or whatever tech company) releases a device youtube gets filled with reviews about the side of screen or the icons or the battery, UX etc - but the geek in me just wants to break it into pieces and see what makes it tick. For me the geek culture was more around phrack and figuring out how stuff is build, as opposed to how stuff "should" be used. · 2 years ago
Geek culture has definitely become mainstream. The areas where it's not watered down as much are in the niches, but that's understandably because you can't make as much money from a niche. I've always felt like Nerds were about the pursuit of knowledge to put in practice, and geeks are just the pursuit of content to consume and be fanatical over. Also on the point of gate-keeping, I think part of it is down to how accessible technology is now, so the geek and nerd culture in the past was implicitly gatekeeped away from the masses. · 2 years ago
I think there's also an aspect of liking or consuming things has become the marker of what somebody's personality is. When you ask somebody to talk about themselves, often they'll just list things they like watching/consuming, and that is somehow also "being a geek." It's a very strange process, to watch personality itself be reduced to an act of consumption. The spectacle continues ever onwards... · 2 years ago
Totally agree. To be a "geek" these days often just means liking something, anything at all. And "geek culture" has just become Culture. Capital will co-opt, dilute, and sell back anything it can make money from. · 2 years ago
I am a native English speaker, I suppose to me it always just meant someone who uses computers a lot, does D&D, watches SciFi, reads a lot etc. Lots of the things that used to be "geek" stuff seems to be mainstream, so thee's no point in having a separate word for it and it's been taken over by mainstream culture to be used as a marketing device. Maybe I'm just older though, and it's still the same in school :) · 2 years ago
@will_j To a degree this is true, but today's "geek culture" is really just a handful of really mainstream things. Any less mainstream interest is left out completely. And this is among people who identify with geek culture, as well. I don't know if you're a native anglophone, but that word has pretty strong subculture connotations. · 2 years ago
I dunno, it seems kinda like a lot of stuff is just more mainstream now. It's not "special" to be a programmer like it was, for example so geek ("an unfashionable or socially inept person") doesn't really fit. · 2 years ago