I've gotten a ton of criticism from people about the I Am a Geek video that launched yesterday, and I feel the need to respond to it.
After watching the video yesterday, I was impressed by the production values, and I thought it was really awesome that it was just one small part of a larger project. I love that the whole thing is supposed to encourage literacy (if you really look for the links) and intends to support a good cause. As a writer, I certainly want more people to be readers!
But as I watched it a second and a third time, something didn't feel quite right to me. I couldn't put my finger on it, until e-mail started flooding in from people who could: this was supposed to be about refuting stereotypes and celebrating the things we love, but it ends up feeling like we're trying to convince the Cool Kids that we're really just like them, and a promotional opportunity for celebrities who don't know a damn thing about our geek culture, and don't care about the people who create and live in it.
I was under the impression that this video would feature actual geeks who are important to our culture, like Woz, Felicia Day, Leo Laporte, and Jonathan Coulton. Instead, I saw a lot of entrepreneurs who have good marketing instincts, joined by a bunch of celebrities who are attempting to co-opt our culture because it's what their publicity team is telling them to do.
When you're speaking to people who read TMZ and People magazine, getting contributions from MC Hammer, Ashton Kutcher and Shaq is a logical choice. But when you're speaking to geeks, it's insulting to us to pretend that they are part of and speak for our culture. Those people are not geeks; they're celebrities who happen to use Twitter. Featuring them as "geeks" undermines the whole effort, because they aren't like us. I've been a geek my whole life. I've suffered for it, I've struggled because of it, and I've worked incredibly hard to remove the social stigma associated with all these things we love, like gaming and programming. It's like a slap in the face to be associated with these people who claim to be like me, and want to be part of our culture, but couldn't tell you the difference between Slackware and Debian, a d8 and a d10, or how to use vi or emacs. In other words, they haven't earned it, but they're wrapping themselves in our flag because their PR people told them to.
Having someone in a video that purports to celebrate our geek culture say that they don't play D&D, like playing an RPG is something to be ashamed of, is profoundly offensive to me, because I play D&D. In fact, it's the chief reason I am a geek. D&D isn't anything to be ashamed of, it's awesome. I don't recall seeing that in the script I was given, and if I had, I never would have agreed to be part of this project.
I loved the idea of creating a video that celebrates our culture and shows that we're proud to be in it. That's what I thought this would be, but I feel like we ended up with some kind of self-promoting internet marketing thing that plays right into established stereotypes, and hopes that The Cool Kids will let us hang out with them.
I am a geek. I have been all my life, and I know that those guys are nothing like me and my friends. If we're going to celebrate and embrace geek culture, we should have geeks leading the effort, not popular kids who are pretending to be geeks because it's the easy way to get attention during the current 15 minute window.
I want to be clear: I wasn't misled, I think that the project just changed from conception to release. I think their heart was in the right place, and I think their fundamental idea was awesome. But what I saw isn't what I thought I was going to be part of. I thought I was going to be part of something that said, "Hey, I am a geek, I'm proud of that, and if you're a geek you should be proud of it too!" What I saw was more like, "I am using new media to reach people. Yay!" There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't mean the people doing it are geeks, and it's not what I thought I was contributing to.
There was a great conterpoint on Twitter just now, while I was wrapping this up. Wyldfire42 said: "Seems to me that we shouldn't be deciding who is or isn't a geek. If we start passing judgment, we just become the bullies we hated." I can't disagree with that, at all, and after reading that, I feel a little grognard-y. Who knows, maybe these celebrities who have recently shown up in our world love these things as much as we do. Maybe it's not their fault that they bring hordes of celebrity-obsessed non-geeks with them wherever they go. Maybe they're as upset about people telling them they're not "real" geeks as I am about marketers pretending that they are.
Maybe I'm overreacting, but I care deeply about my fellow geeks and there is a fundamental difference between embracing our culture and exploiting it. Please, come and be part of our culture. Read our books and play our games and watch our movies and argue with us about what is and isn't canon. But if you try to grab our dice, and then don't even know or care why we're a little touchy about it … well I cast Magic Missile on you, dude.
ETA: I've been pretty active in the comments of this post, because I see the same misconception over and over again, largely the result of me being unclear when I wrote part of this post.
Somehow, a bunch of people have turned into "Wil Wheaton says you have to do a, b, and c or you're not a geek, so fuck him because he's a dick."
That's not what I meant, at all. Most people seem to get that, but there's enough who don't that I feel a need to respond, in case you don't feel like digging through hundreds of comments to find my replies in there.
I never meant to say that unless you do a or b or c even ∏, you don't "qualify" for admittance to some super secret clubhouse where I am the gatekeeper. When I said, "…couldn't tell you the difference between Slackware and Debian, a d8 and a d10, or how to use vi or emacs…" I didn't mean that unless a person does know what these things are, they don't pass some kind of test. I was making an example, picking out some things that I happen to be geeky about, in an attempt to illustrate a point, and I did that poorly.
I was not trying to be, and I don't want to be, some kind of exclusionary geek elitist. That's just the most incredibly stupid and offensive thing in the world.
As I said in a comment somewhere in this post: Creating a world where my kids don't have to grow up being picked on for loving RPGs is awesome. But what I see – not just here, but in general at this moment – is a bunch of marketing jerks trying to take the things we love and turn them into something from Hot Topic. I didn't mean "you're not geeky enough…" at all, and I hate that people seem to latch on to that, because it means I wasn't clear enough. If these guys I mentioned truly love what we are, and they have been here all along (and I've just missed them for my whole life) than it's great that they're not ashamed to love the things we love … but I haven't seen anything to indicate that they genuinely are interested in the things we love as much as they are riding a pop-culture wave that's driven by Twitter's explosive and pervasive popularity. It feels calculated and planned out by PR and marketing people, and as someone who loves this culture, that bothers me. I didn't mean to imply that you have to meet this list of criteria to come be part of our club (vi, d10, etc) as much as I was attempting to illustrate a point: we know what at least some of those things are, and Cool Kids have teased us for it our whole lives. It feels to me like those same people are now trying to take our culture away from us and make a quick buck off of exploiting it, and us. It was not my intention to create some sort of Geek Literacy Test. That's lame. Like I said, all are welcome, but at least make an effort to understand why we care about these things.
Finally, I've been trading e-mails with Shira Lazar, who had this idea in the first place. She says:
Well, I think the hornet's nest was stirred up a bit. But that's ok. I rather open, honest discourse than people to feel shut off or alienated. That would be ridiculous and horrible.
Anyway- from reading the post and comments it's important off the bat for people to know this isn't a marketing ploy or some evil plan to take over the world. ha
also, It sucks that the d&d line got misconstrued. It's important to point out that a lot of ppl besides you in the video actually do play the game- the line was more to say yes lots of geeks play d&d but you don't need to play d&d to be a geek.
It really started as a fun way to bring people together, geeks of all extremes. To break down stereotypes. I consider myself a geek. Yes, the level of geekiness changes depending on the context. Amidst developers and my gamer friends, I might not know a lot but with some of my friends I'm queen geek. While I might not know certain things in certain situations, I still have a yearning and passion to know and learn and a love of accepting those geeks who do know it all. I was the editor of my high school newspaper and the first person to make it digital. I would hang out in my computer room at school until midnight working on photoshop and quark while my friends were out and about doing their thing. I participated in my high school science fairs and went to regionals twice. My mom is also a coordinator for children with special needs- i've seen kids that are alienated from their peers who need to know it's ok and they have a place.
While some of us have struggled and some have not, some know more, some don't- this was simply a video that was supposed to be a fun way to bring everyone together.
To be perfectly honest, watching that video, I didn’t think they had a singular grasp on geek culture and were coming off pretty ignorant of true geek life. Like somebody who stopped by a foreign country, found the locals to be a “friendly bunch” and wrote a book like an expert.
I appreciated having you and Felicia in there, because you’re respected celebrity geeks, but you’re right; other folks seemed to be just a name, not really someone in the know.
But truth is, geek-dom comes in many varieties and the first thing you learn after being marginalized most of your life is that it isn’t the most pro-active thing to do to others.
So I took what they said and let slide that which didn’t quite fit and let it go. I suppose they could be closeted geeks in their own right..
Don’t feel so compelled to distance yourself or defend your actions. Geeks know better than to let the little things bother them. What the hell, we’re already outcasts.
I don’t know about wearing that shirt though.. do they still give wedgies after high school??
I would’ve liked to have seen more geeks famous to the general public like:
-Stephen Colbert
-Neil Patrick Harris
-Milo Ventimiglia
-Robin Williams
-Seth Green
-Vin Diesel
-Nathan Fillion
-Kevin Smith
-Trent Reznor
I would also like to have seen more of the geek-known celebs like:
-Bruce Campbell
-Neil Gaiman
-Chris Hardwick
-Weird Al
-Gabe and Tycho
-James Urbaniak
-Doc Hammer
-Masi Oka
-David Tenant
And the point promoting literacy was completely lost. A series of shorter PSAs with a part actually SHOWING that they were in support of literacy would’ve worked better. Take everyone in that vid and everyone I mentioned and mix and match all the little clips and you’d easily have 6 or 7 good 60 second PSAs. They also should’ve countered the “I don’t play DnD or Magic: the Gathering” with a couple guys like Vin Diesel saying that they DO and that they ARE fun. Seriously.
Also, how the hell does a nickname like “The Big Galactus” make any sense? Galactus is fucking HUGE! Obviously whomever coined that one couldn’t tell Mr. Fantastic from Fantastic Sams!
Something I have noticed over the years. Sometimes a culture or type of person becomes a trend. There was time when goth was a trend. Other times when preppy was a trend. I could go on about this. But I have noticed alot of Geeks are trying to open people’s eyes to what geeks are and there alot of different types of geeks. Because of that I am noticing that geek has become a trend. A lot of people are trying to be a part of the culture and learn all it is to be a geek but unfortunately they are missing the point. There is a hell of alot more to being a geek than just being into computers and being a gamer. A lot of people who are smart are geeks because they see that there is more to life than appealing to the social norms. And because of that they become “outcasts”. I am not saying that is a good thing or a bad thing but I think that is the way it seems to make them want to learn more and by doing so they become more geeky.
I personally am a geek too in my own right. I don’t play D&D all that often. Sorry Wil I love to watch games and listen, but I just can not get into the playing part. I am more of a pc, linux rpg player. I am also into different things like learning about linux and how to make web pages. I dabble in alot of things. HEH
What I find comppletely awesome is that your gut reaction can be boiled down to “I WAS UNPOPULAR BEFORE IT WAS COOL!”
I love you.
You know Wil, in response to the title of your blog, I wouldn’t mind being a little exploited as a Geek. Would be nice for large recognition of our importance in the world, as a sub-culture with multitudes of micro-cultures. Sports and players have been exploited and placed on a pedistal.
Instead of basement D&D, how about D&D tourneys on CSPAN?
I mean, come on. Geeks have been the driving intelligence in change and societal fuction. We think differently, creatively, and with an openness that creates invention and exploration. We deserve a little push now and then into an open arena of acceptence.
I mean damn, I’m a geek, but I only show a small percentage of my geek side and only to those who understand. Feel free to exploit my culture, get us out there (in a positive light) and let me be geek 24/7. Talk about freedom.
This “movement” seems more about selling $20 T-shirts than advancing the life of “geeks”. They seem to be saying everyone is a geek. Its the same thing as saying everyone is special, that means no one is. Geek was a label given to us, we may not have liked it at first but now we embrace it and thus people will try to market it. As soon as someone doesn’t mind their label it creates a niche market. The market with geeks has grown and the definition has broadened. The core geeks who happened to have had the bad experiences with the label take offense to the idea of someone taking and twisting that label to fit people who didn’t earn the now embraced tittle. I am a gamer and a geek, have been my whole life, no one can take that away from me even if they expand who else fits into the category. I don’t need a T-shirt to remind me or let anyone know who I am.
I think that the problem is the the negativity towards certain aspects of geek culture that seamed to be prevalent in video.
“I’m not a gamer.”
“I don’t play D&D.”
Etc.
As has been mentioned before, Geekdom is about inclusionism and accepting people for what they do with in the Geek community. I think it would have been better if they had focused on what people did to be included then what they didn’t do that outsiders seem to think all geeks do.
And as far a Shaq goes, if you had asked me a year ago if he was a geek, I would have said no, but after seeing the way that he uses Twitter to interact with people and how quickly he took to new aspects of it (like 12 second video) I would say he is at least a Twitter Geek.
Oh sure, now I can log in. Anyway, Wil, my blog post on the subject is here: http://www.almostdailyexploits.com/2009/05/fao-wil-wheaton.html
Consider it my comment on the subject.
Me neither. I’d love to, one day, but I never knew anyone who played.
I think the video would have come off much better (and been more interesting) if they had people list all the geeky things they DO do.
I mean, maybe MC Hammer is a geek, and likes geeky things, but instead all we got was him complaining that the message was over 140 characters. All we got from Shaq was confirmation of his identity.
They may have had good intentions in making this video, but in the end it suffered from poor execution.
Starting with the very first shot, most of the pseudo-geeks seemed to be claiming to be geeks entirely because of the macbook or ipod they shove in front of the camera. Sorry to sound cynical, but it looks like Apple is trying out a new viral ad campaign to me.
Thank you. I’ve been trying to make a point about how labels do more harm than good all over the place and all I see is a bunch of people fighting over the “Who’s the Biggest Geek?” trophy for some reason.
Stop, count to ten, forget about your preconceived notions of what you consider to be “geeky” and just remember that everyone here is an individual and we all have feelings, and behind those feelings are experiences that have helped mold the geek that lives inside each of us. Be proud of that geek. Nurture that geek. But please, don’t be a dick towards the other geeks in the room.
I don’t know about this – what necessarily constitutes geek culture?
Is throwing out the rules because they’re old and tired and doing it on your own part of the DIY ethos or the geek ethos? Some of these people in the video (Leo Laporte, Veronica Belmont, Alex Albrecht, Kevin Rose, Felicia Day) are old-media people now striking out on their own on the web. Do they not count?
Is being insanely passionate about a specific topic count as being a geek? Gary Vaynerchuk is super-passionate about wine, backwards-trained his palate before he was legally able to drink, and totally believes people need to get rid of the snobbishness around wine and make it something where everyone finds their own taste.
Is being a geek being passionate about something that the majority isn’t passionate about? Because all these people, regardless of how “internet popular” they are, are not really all that well known in our CBS/Disney/New York Times/Wal Mart world.
Honestly, I couldn’t hear most of the commercial. My headset has gone missing and the speakers on my computer aren’t that great. I thought it was great to see Le Var Burton and you in it. Now that I’ve heard about some of the things I missed hearing and seeing, I am not very happy with it either. Speaking as a second generation geek (Yes, my father played D&D when it first came out. Still has the original books, too. And he was my first Dungeon Master.) I think we need to get a bunch of us geeks together and do a documentary about geekdom. Sorta like they did with the “Trekkies” movies. Let everyone know what it’s really like to be a geek.
I think part of that is my fault. I didn’t mean to instigate that argument, but I’ve seen several people claim that I did. I expressed myself poorly, and I’m really bothered by that.
While I agree strongly with Will that the whole “I don’t play D&D” bit was offensive in that it seemed to imply that there was something wrong with playing D&D (I am assuming REAL D&D at a table and not just the computer games which don’t count quite so far in terms of geekiness), but I felt the same sort of twinge when Will’s bit came up and he said “I don’t speak Klingon” as if there were likewise something seriously wrong with the folks who do that (I don’t, although I do have the edition of Hamlet in the original Klingon but I respect the folks who do learn it for whatever purpose as well as the ones who learn the various elvish tongues from the Rings) as there was a slight implication that such language experiments or even things Trek aren’t so much geekie but goofy (same with the D&D backhand). The video spent a lot of time defining Geek as things “we don’t do” rather than embracing what we do do and how that’s kind of pretty damned nifty.
*blink* *blink* *blink*
Since when have geeks *ever* been part of some cozy brotherhood? Usenet flame wars were legendary long before the great unwashed masses ever found their way online…
Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be neat to see a video of a bunch of celebrities admitting that they DO do all those geekie things . . . I mean folks who really do those things. Instead of a video that tries to say “we don’t do those WEIRD things and we’re geeks but really normal just like you” have ’em saying the geekish things they do say and we’re geeks and we’re really normal just like you.
Everyone else is saying this stuff too, but I want to be heard, dammit! 😉
1) It’s a slick production that is definitely skewing more “cool” than “geek” because some of that geeky stuff is current cool.
2) Being exclusionary, just like the “cool kids”, happens to be just as prevalent on the Geek Side. There are dicks everywhere. You, Wil, happen to be not a dick, so I can see through what you said and realize you’re more concerned about how this looks than about excluding poser-geeks.
3) There are marketing geeks, too. I work with some people whose job it is to “exploit” the social media fad of the moment. They love doing it as much as I love playing with javascript, jquery, css, and html. And they are just as geeky about it as I am about my stuff. Slick websites are not non-geeky.
4) Your reaction to the D&D part was the same as mine. And I agree with your main point. And this video could be less slick and more geeky. But it is what it is, and if the end result is for charity (and a geeky one), there’s not much harm done.
Thanks!
Geez, sorry about the misspells . . . Wil was being corrected to Will before I noticed and hit post. Sheesh.
DAoC The Good Ol’ Days!
Oh Wil, your heart’s in the right place, but how many times do I need to tell you that this is NOT your fault? OK, it’s your blog, and people are responding to a post that you wrote, but you are not responsible for the posts that others make. If anything, I think we’ve established that the geeks are majorly outnumbering the rest of human civilization, plus we do have some healthy discussion going on, too. Both things to be proud of, for sure.
Teacher voice is threatening to come out and she’s about to put you on a 36 minute time-out and revoking your video game privileges. For a month. And since I’ve beaten people up before for picking on geeks, are you really going to make me kick your ass for beating yourself up? Last warning, Wil. Next time, I’m gonna follow through and let teacher me handle you.
Ah yeah, the good ol’ days in the 80’s when I ran The Tardis NOCHANGE BBS in Houston. Those were the days!
This is kinda tough for me, because I self-identify both as a geek and as marketer. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to be a marketer and not be a total douche. 🙂
More importantly, I think it’s unnecessary and a little divisive to start creating artificial “geek boundaries,” which I felt you were venturing into with this comment:
“It’s like a slap in the face to be associated with these people who claim to be like me, and want to be part of our culture, but couldn’t tell you the difference between Slackware and Debian, a d8 and a d10, or how to use vi or emacs.”
See, I’m a geek, but I’m not THAT kind of geek.
To mainstream sort of people, I’m incredibly geeky. I spent my whole childhood feeling like a weirdo because I was in gifted classes, and every Thursday I rode the “special bus” to G/T. Yeah, riding the special bus does not go over well in 4th grade.
So, yeah. Be kind to your fellow geeks, whether they be gamer geeks or grammar geeks or knitting geeks. There are a lot of us out there who thrive on technology, run our own online businesses, Twitter all day, but don’t necessarily get that deep into the … umm … “uber” geeky stuff?
If you want to call us Geek Cadets or something, that’s cool with me.
I would rather watch a D&D session on TV than a poker tourney!
Actually, most of them ARE true geeks, there are just a few like Shaq, MC Hammer, and Ashton Kucher who just seem to be riding the Twitter pop-culture wave.
I’ve been a geek all my life but I don’t play D&D. I do have 4 Macs, read & write sci-fi books, and even wear glasses. Geeks can be many things, but I do agree that it’s fashionable to be a geek now, so there are many faux-geeks out there.
I don’t think all geeks are created equal. Yes I played D&D in the 70s when I was a early teen. Yes I got my first computer from radio shack and coded in basic plus played games from cassette, but I have followed aplusk’s tweets and listened to his ustreams and I think he has a bit of geek in him. I think part of being a geek is doing non-mainstream things because they are fun and not because others do them. I played D&D because it was fun not because I wanted to be a geek, the word wasn’t coined at the time. I was the fat kid, who wasn’t very good at sports but had an active imagination. The video might have showcased people who we wouldn’t normally be consider geeks, but some of them are doing stuff because it fun and exciting not because everyone else is doing it.
I kinda ignored the video when I first saw it making it’s rounds on twitter. It just seemed like a bit of marketing to me, and it looks like I was right. But after trying to figure out what all the fuss was about I went back and watched it. I was a bit offended at the the denial of playing Magic and D&D after all those are enjoyable activities that are considered a part of geek culture and denying them is akin to saying, I only do missionary, but I’m totally a freak in bed.
I did feel that your comment, ‘I speak python, not Klingon’ was rather in the same vein so I was double confused. Geeks should be inclusive, not exclusive. You shouldn’t be not labeled as a geek because you don’t subscribe to a certain aspect of geek culture. My friend and I have very different interests, and we are still geeks. That’s what makes awesome, because it’s inclusive, not exclusive.
I don’t think we should shun those in the video who say they’re geeks but are on the shallow end of the geek-pool. You said you worked hard to try to make geekdom a good thing, well this is a sign it’s working. Now we need to embrace our new friends and show them the things they enjoy. And if they don’t enjoy them? You know what? That’s fine too.
Wow, Wil, I basically wrote something similar when I saw the video yesterday – and I felt *really* bad about even voicing the idea, since I suspected that you, Mr. Burton and Wozniak had very pure and positive intentions. Thanks. Now I feel less of a jerk.
Yeah, again, that edit function really should be operational longer. I just wanted to clear the air about the last paragraph I wrote in my reply above this one, because while it was mostly an attempt to lighten the mood a bit, I also feel as if it’s necessary to make a couple of distinctions before people think of me as some monster that beats up little kids or something.
The time-out, video game privilege revoker would be teacher me. The ass kicking person would be High School me. And again, it was just me attempting to lighten the mood a bit with some good-natured joking around. Hopefully you at least cracked a smile, Wil. I really did mean everything else I wrote, though. You really need to stop being so damned hard on yourself.
I just need to chime in that I didn’t like the video. It made me all conflicted.
Using the geek/nerd/dork distinction that I learned and think is useful:
geek = techie, especially programmer or sysadmin
nerd = specialist in odd or technical subject(s), especially in an academic or completist way, such as math, physics, Shakespeare’s works, taxonomy, genetics, music, etc., and yes, even Klingon (which is not far in character from Esperanto in that it’s an artificial language…personally I’m a linguistics nerd among other things)
dork = socially inept (also called spazz in its more hyperactive version)
A person can be any combination of 0-3 of these things at the same time. I am a proud geek and nerd. I may also be a dork, but that is for others to judge.
Large parts of the video seems to be about defining the set GEEK as holding exclusively pure techie geeks, i.e, someone who is a geek but neither a nerd nor a dork. It devalues specialist knowledge associated with geek-nerds, such as D&D, M:tG, and, yes, Klingon. (sorry, I really find your line disheartening and bothersome, because although I know you didn’t mean it to be, it can be interpreted as you being kind of a dick to those fen who are into Klingon, by implying they are not geeks. If only you’d said “not *necessarily* Klingon.”) Other parts, such as those about proper techie terms, like “tweet is a verb” and “Javascript is not a play about coffee” have no sour notes for me, and don’t limit the set of geeks to those who are not nerds or dorks.
The video is meant to promote a reading charity drive but largely disavows nerdiness??? That just makes no sense to me.
Anyway, I was upset enough I had to comment. It’s my first time commenting on any of your blog posts. I salute your writing about your discomfort after the fact, but I think the video itself was a misstep for geekery in general and for you and several other participants in particular.
I can only speak for myself and at least one of my friends who may or may not choose to chime in, but what I believed I was being part of, and what it *actually* was, were two very different things.
I can’t disagree with any of your points, and I’m glad you took the time to make them. 🙂
Remember the end of Revenge of the Nerds when all the “cool kids” realized they were a little geeky too? Terrible example, I know, but I’m not going to assume someone’s cool public persona is equal to their private persona, because even the “coolest” of the cool feel geeky in their own way from time to time. Who’s to say where the bar should be is set? It’s all shades of grey.
I recently reiterated my geekiness on my blog. Not that that was a big surprise to my friends or anything. Yeah.
After reading this particular post, I have at least two things to say. First, I agree with you. I want to encourage “others” to take a good look at all the stuff they’ve been missing out on because those things are supposedly “uncool.” On the other hand, perhaps I’m not quite as forgiving as you are, Wil, because I also hear this nagging voice that says “Hey! But they were *mean* to us!” I mean, it’s all fine and good to talk to me NOW, when we’re up in the bar and I can afford better drinks than they can, but they made every day of Junior High a living He- oh wait. We’re talking about celebs, here… uh. yeah. Don’t know much about celebs. Or how that works socially. Nope.
Ok, the second thing I wanted to say was, well, rock on! As usual, I thought I loved you before (in a distant, metaphorical and platonic way, of course) but I was wrong. After this post, I love you still more than I thought was possible. Yay! And stuff.
That was a very well thought out reply, and a very convincing argument, as well. As grown ups, we can pick and choose whom we hang out with and how we spend our free time. While most of us probably spend the bulk of our time hanging out with like-minded people that share our same interests. Nobody needs to hand out permission slips to anyone else, you just do what you like to do and enjoy whatever that thing happens to be as much as possible. Some advertising shill doesn’t have the right, or need to tell us it’s OK to do the things we love doing because we’re already doing those things, regardless.
Those are some very good points that you brought up, and you managed to word them so eloquently without getting emotionally worked up about them that I really think that everyone here should appreciate what you have to say and heed your advice to just enjoy ourselves and quit stressing out about who is and isn’t a geek. Very well said!
Shaq has some geek cred because of Twitter, yes…see this for reference:
http://sesquipedalis.blogspot.com/2009/02/finally-use-for-twitter.html
I think that makes Shaq a cool geek, myself.
And while I’ve never played D&D, I too think it looks fun. And I’m an ubergeeky girl myself.
Same here, and they’re all waiting for me to come pick them up one day 🙂
to jmbauhaus- me too! They also banned me from Harry Potter, Pokemon, and Sailor Moon. Now I’m 18 and I never understand the numerous HP references.. 🙁
Of course, I have done the kind of RPG where you simply collaborate with other people to write a long epic story, and you write it from your character’s POV and develope your character with 1337 writing skills instead of points or dice roles or whatever it is you do with MMORPG or tabletop games. I got into this version because not only do I love writing, but it’s completely free. win.
Also, my family has never been able to afford video games or game consoles. I played video games occasionally at a friend’s house, and I once had a hand-me-down color Gameboy that somebody didn’t want, but I missed the gamer boat simply by being poor.
I’m no less of a geek.
I taught myself HTML and minimal CSS in middle school, and throughout high school I devoted myself to history and recently to all things science.
and Star Trek, of course.
but no DnD, no programming languages (forgot all the html and css), no game consoles… still a geek, though. Still a geek. I collect books, watch NASA tv, stay up horribly late reading comments on Wil Wheaton’s blog… so, yea.
As for the video, I kind of felt like maybe I wasn’t geeky enough, for some reason. whatever.
geekiness is simply unmitigated devotion, that’s all.
Also, jmbauhau, I love the fact that you have “bauhaus” in your username.
Just to conclude my geek evidence, it has to do with art history.
i do totally understand you’re point, but i believe at the same time that
you can’t try to break a sterotype of what a “geek” is, and at the same time
wrap yourself into the sterotype to exclude other people.I think we would
all agree there are different levels to the geek spectrum, and although
people disagree where the lines are drawn, the only way those lines are
going to be crossed is if they are worn away and ignored.
But, i don’t think we can critize those that use the event as a PR event,
because there are those on the geek side doing the same thing… it’s call
merging… and it doesn’t always go smoothly. So what if Shaq’s PR peeps
told him to do this… the point is that there are now a lot of his fans
that will follow suit, possibly become interested in learning more, and who
knows, a small few might become full fledged geeks themselves.
I think it’s important to look at the big picture, and not look at each
individuals personal intentions, but at what’s being done for the community
as a whole…
And my personal opinion, i think as a whole, the video accomplished exactly
what it was intended for… to help unite geeks, and to help break down
walls.
So, I went for a casting yesterday. Modelling job (I’m with the Ugly Model Agency).
Only instruction was “geeky”.
Now, that covers a lot of ground. Corporate Geek? Comic book guy geek? Trekkie?
I went for corporate. The other guy I met there said he’d gone for “Open university math lecturer circa 1978”, and hit it pretty squarely, I have to say.
Well, when I got there, the casting should have said “unattractive schlub”, because that’s what they are looking for.
(Incidentally if folks want to hire me at reasonable rates to be an unattractive schlub, contact my agency. Seriously. I have no shame. Check my portfolio for proof.)
But the clients thought we’d be offended if they said unattractive schlub. They went to the UGLY model agency, and were worried they’d offend us. Folks, we signed that away when we joined.
But.
But, but, but.
Apparently, it’s okay to say “geek” and know that everyone should understand “unattractive schlub”.
Geek is my tribe. We contain multitudes. We tend to be an inclusive bunch.
And some of us are seriously TEH HAWT. Hell, my brother is a pretty high up tools developer for Sony and a Wil Wheaton lookalike. How much HAWTer do you WANT, people?
basic script:”…The geeky guy flirts with her, she puts the book back, then takes out the product placement and finds hot guy…”
Please, when it gets made, make the hot guy dress geeky.
And, oh yes, if they want me, do you think I’ll take the job? £250 a day, possible two days shooting, and no obvious “THIS MAN IS UNATTRACTIVE BECAUSE HE IS A GEEK” signposting? Like. A. Shot.
Not at ME, at the Darkness, you cast magic missile at the DARKNESS. Where are the Cheetos?
I doubt it. Apple doesn’t need to try this hard to sell their stuff.
I think you’re taking what Wil said a bit too far. His point was that he DOESN’T think they actually “want to associate themselves” with being geeks, and that it was simply a gig that their publicists pushed. That is what he is upset about, from what I can see. Not that these people could BE geeks but that they are unjustly calling themselves geeks just for the sake of this ad and nothing more, that they don’t actually see themselves that way.
And who knows, they might, they might not. Either way, I don’t believe he was condemning them as horrible people not allowed to enter the realm of geekdom, but simply saying that they are merely big famous people being used to claim that “being a geek is cool.”
And then there are the poor fools like me who play RPGs, read comic books and love sci-fi, but “couldn’t tell you the difference between Slackware and Debian, a d8 and a d10, or how to use vi or emacs.” Do the things I enjoy that make the average People/TMZ reader call me a geek just… not count?
This is the thing I hate about geek culture. You own your social exclusion with such fervor that you exclude people who aren’t excluded enough from mainstream culture?
This seems analogous to saying that President Obama probably shouldn’t be able to claim to African American since his mother is white. I mean, he can’t be considered black just because he has one black parent. He hasn’t earned it, right?
I think we’ve all had that experience where we were really into something back when it was still nerdy and uncool, then it got popular and we almost felt like we didn’t want to be involved anymore. I had that with Lord of the Rings – I was teaching myself basic Sindarin by the late 90s, before they even announced the films. I still love LOTR, but now so does practically everyone else, and it doesn’t feel special anymore. I bet none of them could tell you all the names of all the famous swords!
By the same token, even though I worked in a comic book store for two years and have a Batman tattoo and a closet full of superhero costumes, I have essentially stopped reading comic books. I respect that DC and Marvel have to find sales where they can, so they appeal to a mainstream audience, but I feel a little violated.
On the other hand, it’s always nice to learn that someone you thought was a “cool kid” is actually a geek. If they hadn’t packed so many people into the video they might have had an opportunity to actually show that the bigger-name celebs are secret geeks who are coming out. Instead it felt false, like one more coopting of geek culture by the mainstream.
I did get to have the fun experience of a little bit of a generation gap – my husband didn’t get the “You don’t have to take my word for it” at all. Then he had to listen to me go “Doooood, then there was the episode where they went to the Next Gen set and I thought I would just die of excitement…”
This all makes me think that if I’m ever famous, I will make it totally public that I have a wall of autographs from scifi actors in my house and a working SNES in my bedroom.
Wil, I think you’re right about the project mutating between inception and release; sorry about that, dude.
My wife had an idea: we’d watch the video, and tick off each person we positively knew, each we thought “oh, isn’t that…” or “looks familiar”, and then each person we didn’t have a farking clue about.
When it was all over, each of us had about a half-dozen in the first two categories, and a mess of marks in the “wtf” group.
He77, I didn’t even recognize MC Hammer until the “I’m…” closer.
That was a big pile of MEH, regardless of how valid and important its underlying cause is, and I’m disappointed that it attached itself to genuinely awesome people like you and others.
“play RPGs…but couldn’t tell the difference between…a d8 and a d10” Ummmmm…
But apart from that little gaffe, I’m with you – ‘geek’ is not a little uniform clique; it’s an enormous category with as many subdivisions as there are grains of sand on Venice Beach. There are Gun Geeks, Car Geeks, YES SPORTS GEEKS, Science Geeks, Science Fiction Geeks (and the two groups don’t always overlap), Nature Geeks, Computer Geeks, Games Geeks, Comic Geeks, Drama Geeks, Train Geeks, Magic Geeks, Space Geeks, Occult Geeks, Music Geeks (and THAT one alone needs at least two more levels of differentiation), etc. etc. etc.
Inevitably, you will get competition and rivalry between disparate groups of geeks; the SciFi pooh-pohh the Comic Book Geeks, who are then looked down on by ‘Speculative Fiction Geeks’; vi geeks and emacs geeks STILL have a vendetta going to this day; Ford Geeks and Chevy Geeks and Dodge Geeks hold themselves at bay in a mexican standoff, etc. etc.
…but this is just basic human nature, and hardly behaviour confined to “the Geek Culture”.
However, there IS one thing that all Geeks can unite against in a valid and totally-legitimate Quest To Better Mankind By Ridding The World Of™: FURRIES!!! /sarcasm
I would say the telltale question I use to fish out the geeks from the non-geeks is that when referring to a wedding band I call it a +5 Ring of Fellatio Resistance (a cursed magic item if you’re a male).
If that person chuckles, then I consider them aware enough to call them somewhat geeky. It then descends into all manner of Star Trek and D&D references.
A group of my D&D gaming buddies work very hard to remain closeted in their workplace. Apparently it’s not good for them to be ‘out’ in that environment. Maybe not, but then they’re not Israeli soldiers, they’re journalists. Go figure.