Geek Culture II: The Geek-ening

Geek Culture II: The Geek-ening 

 I wrote two comment postings on the blog about Geek Culture. Make sure to read MC's counterpoint to my posting over there, because it is a good point of view. (I really need to stop typing POV because it means something else in the Porn culture and I keep thinking about that when I type POV.)

I was a child with a lot social problems growing up and a lot of attitude. I had trouble with learning things like math and had to take speech classes to stop the stuttering. I found myself spending more hours by myself and playing with toys alone than most kids. I couldn't relate to the other kids, so I turned inward. One of the bright spots, was getting a model of the X-Wing Fighter from Star Wars A New Hope. 

 My imagination exploded with me playing with the X-Wing outside my house, flying it around. Later, I would get a really detailed Enterprise D die cast model that even had a separation mode where you could pull apart the saucer from the drive section. 

 My imagination, playing videogames and other geek things helped me from turning my anger inward, causing great harm to myself. Being a geek and soaking in uncool facts and information probably helped me from being a total loser. Because I was an outsider and a geek (not a Nerd), I knew I would never be one of the “cool” kids. I knew loving TNG wouldn't get me laid during my developing years. Actually, the girls wouldn't even look my way because of my status and appearance. Back in high school, this caused me great confusion and anger because of how I looked and what I liked.

Because I wasn't a Guy-dude-bro or a cool kid, I would never see that kind of popularity. It was frustrating to see the jocks and cooler kids get all the respect and attention, while I just became more of a shut-in. I watched other geeks shed their geeky nature in order to fit in, and that even troubled me more. Was it so important to fit in with the mainstream that people would completely change who they are?

I had it even harder because I was a black geek. Black geeks were even rarer than a gold Chocobo. We had to misfortune of being made fun of by the black community as well because we didn't conform to rest of the group. Because you spoke properly, you weren't consider black but a sell out. That's whole other post. 

 Flash-forward to 2014, everything that made us geeks, to be mocked and ignored, is now cool. Star Trek, Dr. Who and Star Wars are completely mainstream. I've people that I wouldn't normally view as RPG gamers discussing the latest Final Fantasy spin off game Lightening Returns. The paradigm has shifted so much that it is now a bit confusing for me.

So, all the mocking and being in the fringe group is now socially acceptable?

Being an outsider was kind of a badge of honor because we went through it. We sort of earned our right be called geek/nerd. “You're a geek” was considered a bad thing to mainstream and popular people. We took it as our own name.

-Cool Friends: You know, the ones that constantly get laid by hot chicks discuss Marvel movies and Star Trek movies.   This is so strange.

 -Wearing Glasses is perfectly okay now. “Hey four-eyes” is a term of endearment. Before, you either wore the glasses and got mocked or you went with contact lenses.

-“You know, I grew up watching...”: How many times have we said that to younger people? Transformers My Little Pony Dr. Who GI Joe

Have we gotten so old and bitter that we can't accept this new age of Geeks? Probably.