Stephen Lynch, who wrote the article in the NY Post I linked yesterday, sent me a link to his personal website, where he has the full text of his original draft:
Geekdom is a clique like any other, and there were those who felt things have gotten out of hand lately. Like a cult rock band that scored a top 40 hit, geek entertainment got too big, ruining the fun.
Only the truly dedicated will stick with it, Wheaton enthuses.
“There are so many geek poseurs. Putting on Weezer glasses does not make you a geek,” he says. “Until you have tasted the sting of a dodgeball on your face, you are not really a geek.”
Mikki Halpin, author of The Geek Handbook: User Guide and Documentation for the Geek in Your Life, believes “there will still be comic book conventions and sci-fi movies, but the line won
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Stephen actually has a few interesting articles there… it’s always nice to discover a new writer on these here intarwebs.
Now, we just have to teach Mr. Lynch about RSS and we’ll be in good shape.
–AJ
Culture-wise, as I said to the last post, I think we’ll be fine. Bring on the refiner’s fire.
There is, actually a point that I’ve thought of in the meantime. Looking at one particular avenue of geekery, programming. Programmers were such a hot commodity that companies had to not recruit, but practically court new employees. That’s changing. Even just in the last few years that I’ve been married to a dev for MS (don’t shoot!), I’ve seen a serious decline in the treatment of “professional geeks.” Less and less perks are coming forth; more and more jobs are being outsourced (to India, mostly).
Devs in some groups, unfortunately even here at Unimatrix 01, are being worked to a degree that it’d be illegal to make a physical laborer work. I don’t know if you saw this (ea_spouse)when it made the rounds of the internets initially, but it pretty well sums up the position a lot of devs find themselves in all to often (at EA, at MS, and elsewhere)
If there will be an end to geekdom as a subset of society, this will be it’s undoing, not a lack of Braga-muck.
Absolutely! Having the blogs and stuff is very much like having the director’s commentary on DVDs. Sometimes, it’s nice to be able to be able to get the more complete story.
Geek poseurs! Who ever thought we, of all people, would have wannabes?
Nerds and geeks are not interchangeable breeds htough. A nerd can be a geek, but a geek can not be a nerd.
For example, a geek might watch TV on his computer. A nerd would run a live capture card and be streaming it out from his server over his cable connection so he can watch it- from work. Or on his laptop. In the living room.