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SOCJUS[SocJus] The Washington Post goes full SJW, declaring the death of the geek stereotype. (self.KotakuInAction)

md1957 が 投稿

The archived article can be found here.

Timing it just right for Comic-Con 2015, it seems like The Washington Post (which hasn't exactly been the paragon of journalism and freedom that it likes to think it is) has published this insightful piece of dredge from Michael Cavna, on the supposed progressive changes going on in nerd culture at large and the impending "death" of the geek stereotype. In doing so, resorting to more or less the same narrative used to kill gamers and erase the notion of gamers.

All while using pretensions of gender equality, rewriting the past and the excuse of speaking on behalf of women to mask said killing. And deeming those who aren't catching up to their "trends" or not conforming to the narrative as being sexist reactionaries ruining it all for everyone.

Indeed, these paragraphs would sound familiar.

MacDonald [editor of The Beat] also emphasizes that gender parity is not a new threshold, but rather a circling back to an earlier time in American comics.

“This is not so much a radical change as a return,” says MacDonald, a former editor at DC’s Vertigo imprint. “If you look at comics promotions of the ’40s, it’s clear they were aimed at boys and girls. Even [infamous comics detractor Fredric] Wertham said that boys AND girls read dangerous comics. This idea that girls don’t read comics is purely an invention of the early direct sales market days of the late ’70s to about 2000.”

Turning personal, MacDonald says that throughout her life, she’s known that women and girls liked comics. “I was raised in a household where my grandmother and mother read comics to me,” she says of her New Jersey upbringing. “It was the resistance to this idea that flourished in the ’80s and ’90s, with men thinking that ‘geek stuff’ like ‘Star Trek’ and comics were ‘their safe space.’ I think it was this impulse that birthed so many gatekeepers to keep girls away from comics.”

A crucial factor, Salkowitz and MacDonald agree, is that a rising tide not only lifts all boats, but also can alter how they’re docked.

Part of what changed, MacDonald says, “is the overall acceptance of ‘nerd culture’ to the point where it’s the major part of pop culture. It seems like the parts of the media that aren’t touched by comic-book culture are dwindling into a small ivory tower. Seeing women more involved is no surprise, because the Avengers, for instance, are meant for everyone.”

Amid this shift, though, what will happen to any residual prejudice and lingering misogyny that will surely become more exposed and less tolerated?

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[–]iamgreaser 82ポイント83ポイント  (22子コメント)

The "geek" stereotype is pretty much dead by this point. They call us neckbeards now.

[–]md1957[S] 40ポイント41ポイント  (6子コメント)

The more things change...

[–]tux333 11ポイント12ポイント  (5子コメント)

To be fair, geek is usually a lot better received than neckbeard is...

[–]Revet-ment 20ポイント21ポイント  (1子コメント)

Why do you think they don't use that any more?

[–]primalchaos 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is so fuckin' perfect.

[–]eaton80 4ポイント5ポイント  (2子コメント)

Geek now means clean-cut and super-smart, assertive if somewhat aspergy, like Sheldon Cooper.

Neckbeard implies the lowest order of Geek, like Captain Sweatpants but worse.

[–]tux333 8ポイント9ポイント  (1子コメント)

oh, actual geeks, you mean?

[–]eaton80 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Sorry I meant to say The Brilliant DOC-TOR Sheldon Cooper.

[–]Claude_Reborn 21ポイント22ポイント  (12子コメント)

They call us neckbeards now.

I hear "Autists" and "spergs" being thrown around nowadays.

[–]kaian-a-coel 10ポイント11ポイント  (9子コメント)

Not with SJWs, that'd be ableist.

[–]pewpewpewmoon 10ポイント11ポイント  (5子コメント)

I've actually had the term cis-sperg-ableist yelled at me in person, had a certain ring to it. Though, to be fair, I don't know if she was a SJW or just crazy.

[–]HariMichaelson 12ポイント13ポイント  (2子コメント)

"I don't know if she was a SJW or just crazy."

What difference?

[–]pewpewpewmoon 6ポイント7ポイント  (1子コメント)

A vulture is always a bird, a bird isn't necessarily a vulture.

[–]HariMichaelson 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

It was partially meant as a joke, hence the odd syntax.

[–]Bloodrever 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

Not many people use cis outside of tumblrinas

[–]Necrothus 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

¿Por que no los dos?

[–]cakesphere 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

IDK, I see a lot of people who ostensibly might be high-functioning people on the spectrum get reamed by SJWs because they have no social tact.

As someone on the spectrum myself, I have a lot of friends through support groups and things who absolutely fit the "neckbeard" stereotype (still living at home, on disability because they don't function "normally" enough to get steady work/hopping from menial job to menial job, spend lots of time online, etc). I can't help but feel like every jab at neckbeards is a jab at us non-neurotypicals who aren't non-functioning enough to elicit pity.

edited for clarity, additional thoughts. Also, "sperglord" is a hilarious word, I can't even be mad when someone uses it. IT'S SO WHIMSICAL

[–]kaian-a-coel 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

I didn't say SJW wouldn't aggress autists, but "autism" is often worn as a badge of pride on tumblr, so actually using the word "autist" as an insult would be seen as "ableist" by (at least some) SJWs. Actually insulting actual autists though? Totally ok. Like the trans thing.

[–]cakesphere 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Ah ok. Yeah, you're right in that SJWs would decry the use of "autist".

[–]nothinfollowsme 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I hear "Autists" and "spergs" being thrown around nowadays.

Yeah I see that a lot myself. Liking anything that doesn't conform to being "normal" ends up with people calling each other such things. I see it mostly used against people who like anime or anything that generally doesn't meet some sort of hidden societal norms or criteria.

It's funny the words that people come up with to justify alienating others just to make themselves feel better. Funny, and a little bit sad as well.

The hilarity of the use of "autist" and "sperg" as words though is that they are pure nonsense words that have no real place in our lexicanum.

Sadly with the way society is, they will be used so much, that they will end up being called real words soon.

[–]TheSaoshyant 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The best of 4chan

[–]ApplicableSongLyricWe provide... leverage. 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

I just had a 28 year old girl that spends easily eight hours a day playing with NeoPets call me a "rare female neckbeard" because I called her out for gushing over rape culture.

J'ai toujours fait une prière à Dieu, qui est fort courte. La voici: Mon Dieu, rendez nos ennemis bien ridicules! Dieu m'a exaucé.

[–]MyLittleFedora 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Because hipsters appropriated geek and nerd for "nerd chic" so they needed a new object of ridicule.

[–]INH5 58ポイント59ポイント  (10子コメント)

The big evidence for this piece is that the people attending Comic Con this year will be 50/50 male/female. They then extend this to comics as a whole, but that doesn't actually follow. Comic Con became pretty much just a general sci-fi/fantasy pop culture convention a long time ago. For all the talk about nerd culture becoming mainstream, actual comic sales haven't increased at all in recent years. I don't have any data, but my first guess would be that the gender ratio of actual comic readers hasn't changed much either. Actually, given the decline in the American Anime and Manga import industries, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of female comic readers has declined along with it.

What has actually happened is that movies and related properties with characters and stories adapted from comics have become popular with mainstream audiences, while comics themselves remain as obscure and "nerdy" as ever. Using this fact to argue that changes must be made to comics makes no sense, as even a brief glance at sales figures shows that by and large the mainstream audiences who watch superhero movies do not go on to read the comics that they are based on. It's exactly the same kind of non-logic seen in "50% of gamers are women if you include casual, puzzle, and mobile games, so we need to change games in AAA genres to appeal to those demographics."

A lot of this kind of discourse reminds me of a 2010 Cinema Blend article that tried to explain why Scott Pilgrim bombed at the box office and came to the conclusion that the movie studios failed to distinguish between geek demographics and more mainstream demographics, resulting in a movie and marketing campaign that failed to broadly appeal to either group. The money quote is "People say it's become cool to be a geek. That's not true. People have just started applying the word geek to cool people."

I also note the irony in arguing that comics need SJ stuff to appeal to women, while at the same time crediting an increase in the number of female fans to the popularity of manga. That is, to comics that are made in a country that seems to be completely free of Western style SJ-ism.

[–]md1957[S] 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

A rather good point. When it comes to coherence and consistency, the argument being presented in the article is lacking (and that's an understatement). But so long as it pushes the narrative and patronizes the right kind of people, it's just fine.

Even if it's utterly full of BS.

[–]BioShock_Trigger 4ポイント5ポイント  (5子コメント)

A lot of this kind of discourse reminds me of a 2009 Cinema Blend article that tried to explain why Scott Pilgrim bombed at the box office

I still think it is because The Expendables opened on the exact same day and one is going to get more advertising and word-of-mouth about its existence over the other.

[–]INH5 2ポイント3ポイント  (4子コメント)

That may have played a part, but I don't think it was the main factor, because Scott Pilgrim opened at 5th place on the Box Office charts. It opened behind not just The Expendables but also Eat, Pray, Love, The Other Guys, and even the 5 week old Inception. Something about the movie put people off from seeing it, and the article's theory that it failed because it tried to appeal to too many niche audiences at once seems very plausible to me. Especially when you see the same confusion of geeks with hipsters and other more mainstream demographics again and again in things like this WaPo article.

[–]Uptonogood 1ポイント2ポイント  (3子コメント)

I know some people who love that movie. To me it might as well be called "Narcisism: The Movie". It tries way too hard to be "geek cool" while having none of the characters the smallest bit likable.

Seriously, they're all assholes who learn fucking NOTHING!

edit.: In another note, I have an intense dislike to nerd pandering. Somewhere along the line, producers realized they could fill a mediocre movie full of nerd references and people would just gobble it up like the best thing since sliced bread. eg. Pacific Rim, Scott Pilgrim.

[–]Grampy_Bone 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

Boo! Disagree! Scott Pilgrim is "Beating up Pretentious Hipsters: The Movie." The whole point of the movie is that all these douches are fighting over a hipster twat who's kind of a bitch and doesn't even like them. Every one of the Evil Exes represents a hipster stereotype (unfashionable clothing snob, music snob, douchey actor, vapid rockers, etc)

[–]cakesphere 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I really enjoyed Scott Pilgrim but the whole thing really is hipster battle royale.

[–]INH5 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

The fact that the characters (except maybe Knives) aren't even nerds to begin with doesn't help matters. To paraphrase the Cinema Blend article, the protagonist is a not particularly bright slacker indie rock musician whose main problem in life is deciding which of the two hot girls he is dating (who are only the most recent in a long list of girlfriends he has had) he would rather sleep with. The only nerdy traits that Scott displays are that he is slightly socially awkward and he likes playing video games in his spare time. If that's enough to qualify as a nerd, the term has lost all meaning.

I actually like the movie, but I get what you mean about a lot of it feeling like cheap pandering. I've read the original graphic novels, and the NES video game stuff wasn't nearly as common or over the top as in the movie. I get the feeling that a lot of that was in put only because the producers thought, "this is a nerd movie, and nerds like old video games, so let's toss in more old video game stuff."

[–]ev1lb1t 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

decline in the American Anime and Manga import industries

That's to be expected. in the early 2000's most American importers were subsidiaries of Japanese parent companies working through a 20-30 year backlog of good titles.

Around 2005 or so they ran out and were forced to pay the same kind of prices for titles without the kind of proven track record the old backlog had, suffering major financial reversals going into 2009 and resulting in all of these divisions shutting down until only funimation remained. Sadly, funimation is a bitchy anti-consumer hellhole and most fans hate their guts, resulting in the entire Americas sector looking poisonous.

http://io9.com/what-killed-the-american-anime-industry-1501880696

The hope in this is American influence will be minimized and quality will slowly return to the entire genre.

[–]Grampy_Bone 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The real joke is that the comic book market has drastically shrunk and crashed since the 90's boom and the only reason it's still relevant anymore is due to being mined for content by Hollywood. Every comic that attempts to reach out to "diversity" bombs horribly, only the good old classics survive.

[–]Davidisontherun 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

If 50 percent of gamers/comic fans are women then why do games/comics need to become more inclusive to women?

[–]Limon_LimeSeven-37k Get. Eleven more drug deals. 95ポイント96ポイント  (17子コメント)

Well, most of us were bullied in highschool, so why not bully us now.

[–]md1957[S] 59ポイント60ポイント  (13子コメント)

For these people it seems, high school never ended. Some just got a bit more "professional" and pretentious with their bullying.

[–]Scimitar66 39ポイント40ポイント  (7子コメント)

I absolutely had to deal with the SJW figurehead types in high school. Opinionated, self-righteous fuckwits who constantly talked over other people and were unbelievably cruel, yet unable to understand or take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

They always had some kind of shitty art- and convinced themselves that they were prodiges after trying an art form for a week or two. No lie, I honestly knew a girl who constantly compared herself to authors like Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, and say things like "We authors..." and "Non-authors don't get it." Whether she had ever written so much as a page of prose I have no idea.

They're bullies. Not the classic muscled celebrated jock bullies- these are the bullies of the 21st century. How we will ever knock the narcissistic, masturbatory bullshit complex out of this generations heads is beyond me.

[–]md1957[S] 13ポイント14ポイント  (0子コメント)

I get what you mean. And share the same pain.

These people tend to get away with their antics by masking it in various way, however hollow it might be. Be it platitudes, feels over reals, professional and intellectual pretensions or having "good" PR.

[–]maxman14 9ポイント10ポイント  (1子コメント)

I maintain that SJWs fundamentally do not understand and cannot create Art, with a capital A.

[–]HariMichaelson 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is absolutely true, because capital-A Art relies on the entire range of the human condition, because ultimately, art is about people. People create art, people observe art, people experience and appreciate art, and everything in art is a reflection of the artist and the very human world that surrounds the artist. SJWs are hamstrung by this fact because there are aspects of the human condition that fucking terrify them. The greatest example of this that I have ever seen was in Euripides' "The Bacchae."

In the play, Dionysus, the god of art, celebration, and joy gives his gifts and blessings to those that would join him, but the local ruler has a massive, thorny stick up his ass and keeps attacking Dionysus and his followers for their "lack of morals." Spoiler alert, said moralist asshole ruler winds up getting torn apart by the revelers.

No matter how much the superego-ruler attacks us and complains to us about our id's lack of morals, it will find a way to be satisfied. That dark, wild, Dionysian aspect of our human nature is something to be explored, celebrated, and integrated with the whole of our being, not shunned, hated, and destroyed.

[–]iamgreaser 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

I never had the SJW types, I just had the plain vanilla shit-tier "your retarted" types.

[–]gekkozorz 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is a different "type" of bully, but all bullies are the same when you boil them down to it.

Bullies seek to feel powerful. If they can belittle and subjugate others and make them feel small, it makes them feel big.

Sometimes it's meatheaded dudebros physically assaulting or humiliating the scrawny nerdy kids. Sometimes its gossipy meangirls propagating ugly rumors about their enemies. Sometimes it's journalists declaring that "gamers are dead."

It all comes from the same place.

[–]Lowbacca1977 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Had a friend in high school that publicised my private life to show how amazing he was that he was going to 'fix' things for me, so stuff I didn't want publicly known got spread around so he could explain how he'd be amazing, then after a week he never mentioned it again. He couldn't fix it, but he used it for his own gains.

The SJW thing is.... strong there. His wife and I clash rather a lot.

[–]MaximoffZero 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

In high school, most of my bullies were more the "classic muscled celebrated jock" types. I always viewed artists and creative people as the anti-bullies, which is why it makes my jaw drop that now they're stooping to the same level.

Also, I used to play bass for Masturbatory Bullshit Complex

[–]DwarfGate 15ポイント16ポイント  (3子コメント)

These people peaked in high school, why do you think they run everything like an exclusive high school clique where only the popular SJWs get to speak?

[–]md1957[S] 7ポイント8ポイント  (2子コメント)

To quote an old sage.

Everybody wants to rule the world.

[–]DwarfGate 6ポイント7ポイント  (1子コメント)

Ah yes, I remember that song. Written by Albert Fink in 1912, IIRC.

[–]tux333 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

+1 Bioshock reference!

[–]ExplosionSanta 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

If you're good at something, never do it for free.

[–]Cross_of_Coronado 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is what I love the most. I have always been the bullied one, never been the bully. Now the internet bullies me and tells me I'm the bully. It's like they beat me with my own fist while asking me: "WHY ARE YOU BEATING YOURSELF? WHY ARE YOU BEATING YOURSELF"?

[–]Tumblr_PrivilegeMAN 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

I was never a bully in high school, but I saw it happen and did not try to stop it. We had trenchcoat mafia kids who always got shit on, then Columbine happened and they were left alone. As a man I feel regret for not stopping something I knew was wrong, and will certainly teach my kid about bullying.

[–]waltdewalt 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Most of us were bullied in high school

Don't lump me in with you losers

That's a joke, in case people can't tell

[–]Rygar_the_Beast 23ポイント24ポイント  (3子コメント)

So these mofos are using the same BS narrative from video games that all of a sudden girls are getting involved.

All of a sudden nerd girls dont exist, all of a sudden they are NOW popping out because X and Y. Well, at least they actually do say that back in the day stuff was fine.... in the 40s. But still, this BS about this only being men and women just popping in is straight up BS.

[–]md1957[S] 17ポイント18ポイント  (1子コメント)

It's amazing, to be blunt, how these people are willing to erase nerd girls even while lauding them.

[–]HariMichaelson 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

2+2=5, or indeed any other number, except for when it has to equal 4.

[–]INH5 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Their rhetoric make a lot more sense when you realize that they aren't talking about nerd girls, but instead talking about non-nerdy girls from their own cultural-political tribe. I once read an anonymous blog comment by a female programmer who said she was mocked for her unfashionable clothing choices by the same people claiming to be fighting for women in tech.

[–]Cosmic_Mind89 22ポイント23ポイント  (9子コメント)

They DO realize they are saying this a Month before Gamergate's first birthday...

[–]md1957[S] 19ポイント20ポイント  (7子コメント)

It didn't work with "Gamers are Dead," that's for sure. Still, these people insist on rehashing what must be a dead horse at this point.

[–]mbnhedger 9ポイント10ポイント  (5子コメント)

did the horse die before or after they started beating on it? Did it ever have a life to begin with?

[–]md1957[S] 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

The horse existed in their heads and projected it on everyone around them, attempting to make it real.

[–]Urishima 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

Not even the brony community could tulpa that hard...

[–]cakesphere 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

So it's a tulpa?

EDIT: Someone beat me to it. By about 11 hours. Welp, that's what I get for not looking at comments before running my mouth D:

[–]tux333 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

You know, you could write a serious philosophy paper based on that sentence...

[–]Cosmic_Mind89 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

At this point they are kicking the atoms that used to be the horse.

[–]throwaway7575751 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Horses are dead. Horses don't have to be your audience.

[–]87612446F7 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

christ has it seriously almost been a year already

[–]feelsbeforemeals 16ポイント17ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't think he gets that those of us in geek culture don't move on to something else when this become "uncool". If he and his power friends want to go on to something else because it's "cooler", then they can leave. We're welcoming to all, but we're not going to follow you if you leave for the next "big thing." I'm happy with my gaming and my Star Wars and my comics and my computers.

[–]Lowbacca1977 34ポイント35ポイント  (3子コメント)

This seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of geeks. I have never heard a guy in geeky stuff complain that there were women working their way in. Heck, every girlfriend I've had I met through some sort of fandom (actually, technically they're all Star Wars one way or the other). I know several married couples that met that way.

What they don't realize is that women have been present a lot more than anyone really admits. And I think a big part of that is that part of the way that nerds/geeks have been smacked down for years is the whole "a bunch of lonely fat guys that have never talked to a girl". By ignoring the women, it allowed the stereotype to keep getting used.

I camped out in Hollywood for Star Wars for a few weeks, and a large number of the people there were women. 2 of the 3 people there the longest were, for example. People would call the payphone we were lined up to to make fun of us, and one of the things people usually asked was "Have you ever talked to a girl?" I'd tell them 2 of the 3 top people were women, and the response I'd get, almost without fail was "Are they hot?". As soon as they couldn't put me down that way, suddenly they were focused on them. I usually told them one of them was building a slave leia costume to twist that knife. This continued up to the scale of Tom Arnold, who was a total tool and kept walking up to women saying "Oh wow, a woman!" (apparently he's not familiar with the concept of women). The media would sometimes comment that they were surprised there was women there and would focus on talking to them.

The message, I think, has often been "women don't belong here", but for a lot of it, it's that's because that's what the media and pop culture tells women, that there's something wrong if they hang out with that group of lonely loser guys, not that those guys are angry that they're coming in. I mean, there's a fair number of guys that have serious issues with tact, and do NOT know how to properly talk to women one way or another, but I know so many guys that find the shared interests with women that are into this stuff is great.

It was a safe space, yeah, but it wasn't a safe space from women (which is absurd) it was a safe space from the jerks and bullies on a day to day basis. In high school, I had one year where 4 people signed my yearbook telling me to die. 2 years after high school, and despite being uncomfortable with new people, I managed to in just 6 weeks make enough friends that when the movie premiered, I had people sign a shirt and I have a complete shirt full of signatures and messages. Heck, I'm going to be seeing a good dozen of them over the next week at comic-con. Incidentally, the majority of the ones that are going to be there are women.

[–]eyeballfrog 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

The flipside is that nerds are usually pretty hostile to posers. When the poser is a woman, this is touted as misogyny and a demonstration about how nerds think women don't belong. Poser men being rejected is ignored, as are actually nerdy women.

[–]Lowbacca1977 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah, I think that's definitely true about hostility towards posers. Years back I was at someone's place and there was a trailer for King of the Nerds that came on. I commented that one of them seemed very phony (the clip they had of her was something like "I've got a ton of fans on the internet) and I got a lecture from someone about how clearly I just felt that way because of some hostility towards attractive women. I just sort of let that rant happen so conversation could move on, as i didn't really feel like having to explain to her that I didn't find the woman in question attractive. And attractiveness really didn't have much to do with the topic at hand, either, I felt. It was the focus on fans that irked me.

This is also my issue with some brands of hipsters. Like what you like, but do it sincerely. There's something about people wearing 1980s shirts ironically that just annoys me.

[–]Uptonogood 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have a real problem with the way these people portrait nerds as bitter misogynists just because some of them have difficulty relating to women.

I can say with confidence that most geeks, nerds or whatever would be more than happy having more women in our midst.

Hell, I have plenty of girlfriends who are way nerdier than I could ever be, and none of them were ever discouraged by any of us. It's the opposite really, some of them even end up using it for special treatment.

In the end, It's the media/culture that's consistently telling them they don't belong here, not us.

[–]VoluntaryAct 13ポイント14ポイント  (2子コメント)

I am going to venture an idea here, I want to know what you guys think.

Political activists such as SJWs like to target intelectually-oriented social groups because they are more likely to take it without resorting to counter-campaign.

Let's say that geeks are into "weird stuff", meaning something-other-than-mainstream (specifically mainstream thinking). This makes them easy to identify and easy to ostracize.

Similar it was with scientists and philosophers in history.

Story of Socrates is a good example of this. Here is a guy who publicly criticizes people in Athens and disproves political propaganda. One of the charges is "he corrupts the youth". Sound familiar?

Now you can argue that GamerGate and SadPuppies are a kind of counterpush against political ambitions of SJWs. True enough, although there is a significant difference in tactics between the SJW crowd(together with journalists, I would remind you) and us.

While we focus on truth and fact and logical examination, they favour emotion, radicalism and heavy-handedness.

I worry that somewhere in distant future, we can expect the fate of Socrates.

[–]Litmust_Testme 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

There's definitely a rebellious spirit in the shadows of the "nerd" personality, a person that likes what they like regardless of societal pressure and has a tendency towards critical thought. It is a mentality that some in the business of social control would see as dangerous. As for hemlock-laced futures, I don't think we have to worry, this hydra has heads to spare.

[–]HariMichaelson 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

One of the charges is "he corrupts the youth". Sound familiar?

"Think of the children!"

Oh yes. This has been the rallying cry of moralist guardians of every age. The Legion of Decency did this. South Park mocked the hell out of this particular bit of vice and foolishness with Kyle's mom and her song, "Blame Canada."

"I worry that somewhere in distant future, we can expect the fate of Socrates."

They're certainly welcome to try. Of course, should they try to force poison down my throat, or engage in any other means of harm, I will take every step to protect myself from said harm, and can't be held liable for any incidental injury that may occur to the people trying to harm me, in the course of protecting myself.

Legal Disclaimer: I do not in any way shape or form advocate any kind of violence or violent threats to any group for any reason at any time, ever. Peace is the way, and be aware of your local self-defense laws at all times.

[–]subhorizonKOBS Reject | Happy Camper 12ポイント13ポイント  (7子コメント)

So cyclical. I wonder how much more of, "_____ is dead," we'll see before we finally see "SJWs are dead."

[–]md1957[S] 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

I guess it'd be soon.

[–]Urishima 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Alle these squares make a circle...

[–]kalphis 3ポイント4ポイント  (4子コメント)

Not until they say "atheists are dead"

[–]Asaoirc 3ポイント4ポイント  (3子コメント)

Well, we did have God is not dead.

Where the athiest professor gets hit by some pastor characters and dies and they're happy that he's gone to heaven.

So that happened.

[–]cakesphere 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

Kevin Sorbo why

[–]Asaoirc 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

But he based the characters on all the athiests he knows!

[–]cakesphere 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Must be hard to be friends with nobody but scarecrows :^)

[–]Millenia0 12ポイント13ポイント  (0子コメント)

Being a fan of something is fine no matter what gender you are.

Not being a fan but still insisting that something should cater to both genders is not fine.

These so called "culture critics" are doing nothing more than point at things and yell MORE WOMEN OR SEXIST. They are not fans.

Edit: They are also talking about tropes and archetypes like its some plague.

[–]MidNiteR32 10ポイント11ポイント  (0子コメント)

Comic-Cons are no longer "geek" conventions. They've now been devoured by the mainstream.

[–]urection 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

fortunately for the real geeks, hipsters and bullies can write all the articles they want, it won't move product, as the creators of Sunset found out the hard way

[–]HighVoltLowWatt 8ポイント9ポイント  (1子コメント)

More women in geek culture as it becomes socially acceptable? Obviously. Nerd culture wasn't created by direct marketing campaigns but shaming and social ostracism.

Women are typically more concerned with their peers views and wouldn't intentionally choose the out group. The lie here is that nerd culture is some marketing technique and made to pander to men and we are somehow threatened by new comers to the our various hobbies.

Seriously shit lime this pisses me off. I'd love to not have been the butt of jokes for playing magic cards. To have more women, more poeole in general enjoy these types of hobbies in the 90's and early 00's.

We feel threatened by people like this writer who are shaming ua for existing.

[–]azazelcrowley 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Pretty much. I find this kind of hilarious. I'll use LGBT to make a point clearer, not comparing the experiences except in terms of how they are a socially ostracized group.

LGBT magazine and paraphanalia stores spring up after LGBT people spend a while nurturing their culture and such. They cater to the LGBT people. Over time, the culture becomes pretty important and hip. Lots of products relatng to it are made, an entire industry springs up. And straight people notice, hey, hey wait a minute, they keep advertising to LGBTs. LGBTS ARE DEAD! RAR RAR We want all these products too! The only reason you aren't marketing them to us is because you hate us! (Rather than the truth. Which is we aren't marketing them to you because you aren't hated.)

It's the result of the "EVERYTHING IS MISOGYNY!" lens.

It also ignores that there were women in the culture. Just not very many of them. And they were just as weird and awkward as we were, which is why they were there.

[–]vonmonologue 17ポイント18ポイント  (2子コメント)

I don't like the idea that nerd culture "died." That passive voice annoys me.

Maybe the "murder" of nerd culture, the rape of nerd culture, the appropriation and slaughter of nerd culture, the defenestration of nerd culture, but not the "death."

We aren't the Mayans, nerd culture didn't just sort of collapse and disappear for unknown reasons. It got invaded and attacked mercilessly for the last few years and GG is nerd culture fighting back.

[–]md1957[S] 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Perhaps that's part of the conceit with the use of language. After all, it's a convenient way of disavowing themselves of both astroturfing and cultivating said "death" of nerd culture.

[–]HariMichaelson 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah, like they're taking a leaf out of Ronald Reagan's playbook.

"Mistakes were made."

Great. Who made said mistakes, Ronnie?

[–]mscomies 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

“This is not so much a radical change as a return,” says MacDonald, a former editor at DC’s Vertigo imprint. “If you look at comics promotions of the ’40s, it’s clear they were aimed at boys and girls. Even [infamous comics detractor Fredric] Wertham said that boys AND girls read dangerous comics. This idea that girls don’t read comics is purely an invention of the early direct sales market days of the late ’70s to about 2000.”

He's right in a twisted sort of way when he compares geek culture to the comic book industry in the 1940s. Moral crusaders like him caused the comic book industry to enter a dark age of censorship with the creation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954.

[–]Tokukachi 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

Comic-Con isn't really a geek convention any more, not since it was taken over by the movie/TV studios to launch anything they feel like but I have no idea where they're getting their survey numbers from, Comic-Con last year was nowhere near 54/46 split, it was at least 70 to 80% guys. You can see this yourself by looking at any crowd shot from the event.

Also including media-fandom, I.E a fan of literally anything, in with sci-fi/fantasy for women will screw the stats massively compared to targeted demographics.

[–]cakesphere 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Came here to post this, but you beat me to it.

iirc even After Earth had a fucking comic-con panel. The mega blockbuster piece of shit vanity project that Will Smith had made for his son. If that's not mainstream then I don't know what is.

[–]Fraidnot 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Wapo has gone full sjw over the last few months on monday they had an article on their foreign news blog titled "The terrible, sexist tweet that shows how far women’s soccer still has to go." That terrible tweet?

We've got an idea for a new $10 & $1 @federalreserve. How about the best Women's Player and Goalkeeper in the World.

Which apparently needed no explanation as to why that was suppose to be sexist. Never mind that wapo has run several opinion pieces on having women's faces on money. They also complained about a tweet by the england twitter account:

Our #Lionesses go back to being mothers, partners and daughters today, but they have taken on another title - heroes

It claimed that no one would ever post that about the mens team because reasons...

Our #Lions go back to being fathers, partners and sons today, but they have taken on another title - heroes

That apparently is patronizing, but please let me know why.

[–]JustABaku 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

Well shit. They declared us dead by proxy didn't they? Here we go for another month or ten.

[–]md1957[S] 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's as if they were attempting to throw grenades as us but instead threw their ammo boxes for us to use.

[–]nothinfollowsme 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

QUICK SOMEONE ALERT WESLEY CRUSHER THAT HE IS NOT LONGER RELEVANT!

Oh wait......

In all seriousness though, I think the MSM and MSGM in general have written off gaming culture long ago in return for creating click-bait trash and jumping aboard the mahogany bandwagon.

[–]ThePseudomancer 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

So they are saying the stereotype was true up until this point.

Yep. All those bullies were justified in their actions just like Sam Biddle said.

Basically geek culture has been appropriated and its progenitors shunned and assigned a new demeaning label while the popular kids use the term with pride or to shame others when it suits them.

They have no attachment to it. It's just a fad to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Jbz4c_WKA

This really hits home for me. While I think you can be a nerd without being this awkward, there are people who simply don't appreciate what the word really meant. It meant you were a social outcast. It had nothing to do with your interests. It just meant assholes preyed on you because you were an easy target.

As someone who only found empowerment when playing video games while being tormented on a daily basis by both faculty and fellow students, it rubs me the wrong way when someone with no social problems says they are a nerd just because they enjoy video games or Star Wars.

[–]illage2 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

Oh god here we go. Will other websites follow suit?

[–]md1957[S] 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Given how some other sites latched on to demonizing Redditors, I wouldn't be surprised if those do.

[–]Splutch 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Maybe faux geeks are over. That'd be great. Real nerds can get back to doing what they do best in their private circles. Creativity, humor, engineering, all the hallmarks of clever outcasts. This new marketable hipster geek shit is intolerable.

[–]SkizzleMcRizzle 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

OH BOY. can't wait for this to blow up in their faces in such a way that mainstream media acts like hipster journalists.

"All news is stupid, of course".

[–]centrum5555 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

i do see a difference in the dead of a stereotype and an identity, though. although i did not read the article to be fair

[–]DrawADay 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I read it and I see a distinct difference. It says geek stereotype = males in basement. This stereotype is dieing as it should,as we all know geeks are more diverse than that. I think most of the article is fine (except for some agenda and "gamedropping"), definitely not the " gamers are dead" category.

[–]Deverone 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

I love this crazy idea that they seem to be pushing that guys chose to be geeks to protect themselves from scary women. And now these guys are all upset that women are sharing their interests.

Obviously, I only read comics and play video games because I am purposely trying to avoid women.

[–]Lvl99Shitlord 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think that the erasure of male geek culture, wherein and still now men were/are singled out in media as nerds for liking Sci-fi/Fantasy and thusly these men retreated into their own social groups to enjoy their fare, is going to be erased. "NO, WOMEN NEVER THOUGHT THAT MEN WHO PLAY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS WERE 'WIERD', AND WHEN YOU WERE GETTING TEASED FOR HANGING OUT AT THE COMIC BOOK SHOP AND/OR PLAYING FINAL FANTASY WE WERE SECRETLY GETTING MADE FUN OF TOO!" They are shouting, but it falls on deaf ears. Sure, I agree that some women play video games, read comic books, etc. However, all lived evidence speaks to the contrary. This emerging narrative of "The entirety of nerd culture belongs just as much to women as men." is a false one, the reason said culture dosent cater to women is because they were not the ones to cultivate that culture. If you want a spot at the table, go apologize to those kids at your school who played Magic and talked about video games at lunch who you didn't want to sit with back then but are angry at now and get back to me.

[–]BobMugabe35 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

You know to be fair maybe basing your entire life off of being unpopular in school and "geeky" probably isn't the worst idea.

[–]Anathema_Redditus 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

The Washington Post goes from exposing Nixon's crimes in Watergate to calling geeks 'dead' in Gamergate.

What the hell happened?

[–]Uptonogood 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Geeks don't have to be your audience something something.

[–]TheSaoshyant 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

If geeks are dead then its the very same type of hipster-SJW writing this article who did it

[–]mnemosyne-0000#BotYourShield 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Archive links for this post:

I am Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. I remember so you don't have to.

[–]mnemosyne-0000#BotYourShield 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Archive links for this discussion:

I am Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. I remember so you don't have to.

[–]solariant -3ポイント-2ポイント  (0子コメント)

This article is simply saying that the geek STEREOTYPE is dead - i.e that geeks can't be thought of as basement-dwelling, anti social misogynerds any more. How on earth could you take offense at that idea, unless you're a basement dwellig anti social misogynerd yourself? (which most of us aren't, right?)