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The idea of geeks being marginalized
UniqueSnowflake
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Registered User regular
What does everyone here think of the idea that geeks are marginalized/oppressed in society?
Inspired by this: www.succeedsocially.com/marginalized - which lists a bunch of indicators a group is marginalized (e.g., references to being in the closet, pride movement, trying to reclaim words) and then concludes geeks fit the bill.
My own opinion is that I technically agree that geeks are marginalized, but I can't exactly get riled up about it either. My life isn't really that bad day to day. I've met lots of other geeky people who are super bitter about it though...
Inspired by this: www.succeedsocially.com/marginalized - which lists a bunch of indicators a group is marginalized (e.g., references to being in the closet, pride movement, trying to reclaim words) and then concludes geeks fit the bill.
My own opinion is that I technically agree that geeks are marginalized, but I can't exactly get riled up about it either. My life isn't really that bad day to day. I've met lots of other geeky people who are super bitter about it though...
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For example, I hate it when people say something like:
"I'm Joe and I'm a Christian.", and leave it at that.
I mean, WTF does that mean? Explain to me why it's important enough that you had to bring it up to my attention. Also, is that all there is to you? Just a word that has been changed so often that it's now effectively meaningless?
I attend a technical college and the majority of students are geeks, then they graduate and become the highest paid working group in the country.
"As a group, nerds (particularly older nerds) should understand how it feels to be shamed, to be made unwelcome, and to have a safe inclusive space to be ourselves. But we’re not so good at making non-straight white male nerds feel included. Sexist jokes, gay jokes, racist jokes, and of course rape jokes all conspire to produce a pretty coherent message that nerd stuff is a hobby for white straight males."
I'll take the idea of nerds being marginalized seriously when they realize that larger context that this marginalization occurs in.
Also when nerds realize that past a certain point that marginalization has less to do with every other human being and more to do with things going on with them.
Highschool is the only thing that be really bad. Most other parts of society are pretty accepting.
And the internet is our homeland. We're the boss here.
But the biggest tip-off here should be that some are trying to equate something a person likes to do with a fundamental aspect of who someone is. You can grow out of gaming. You can opt to give it up for whatever reasons. You can't grow out of gay.
edit: Stop starring at my puppy so creepy like Jesus.
While I find it hard to get on the "geeks are oppressed" bandwagon, the author of the linked article is at least self-aware enough to try and at least make an effort towards avoid claiming that "geeks" are oppressed in the same way as the gays:
And maybe I'm biased here, but to me there's a substantial difference between "geek" and "introvert" when it comes to the concept of social marginalization.
Yeah pretty much this exactly. What it comes down to is people don't really make fun of someone for liking anime, they make fun of someone for being way too obsessed about it or relating everything they do to anime. It's about how you carry yourself and not what tv shows you watch.
I never asked for this!
I still don't see how you can say geeks are oppressed without defining "geeks" and "oppressed" in totally unrecognizable (and generally useless) manners. Especially in today's climate, where very few people consider strong computer skills to be a negative thing and video games have gone legitimately mainstream. Even things like anime have become generally tolerable, unless you're the sort of person who self-identifies as otaku, in which case you're not so much being marginalized as you are opting to marginalize yourself.
As you point out, the stigma is not against geeks so much as antisocial introverts, and while there's certainly some overlap between the two, they're in no way the same thing. And antisocial introverts are kind of stigmatized by definition. I mean yes, if you don't know how, or refuse, to interact with others in socially accepted ways, you are not going to be a part of mainstream society. Whoo, insight?
You know what? I'll say it: Star Trek isn't real. It's a show where everything's made up and the numbers don't matter. Nothing is influenced by Star Trek aside from other episodes of Star Trek, and knowing how many photon torpedoes a Bird of Prey can hold is not in any way useful information. In Star Trek, your analysis of anything is futile, because the only thing that's going to happen is whatever the writers say will happen.
Sports, however, take place in the real world. They are highly popular with a huge number of people, both as a leisure activity and as a form of entertainment. People watch sports, people talk about sports, people spend money on sports. In sports, knowing that Jimmy McButterhands had 712 fumbles last year actually can be useful information: you know that betting on his team to win is probably a bad idea, especially if their starting quarterback is Jimmy's brother, Timmy McButterhands, who got sacked 24 times during his only start last year. In sports, numbers and analysis and probabilities do matter, because of the combination of chance and skill involved in any physical competition: your understanding and appreciation of the game is deepened by a knowledge of a player's or team's statistics, you can recognize how *unusual* it is for a batter to get a hit in his 14th consecutive at-bat.
Don't get me wrong: I'm a huge fucking geek, and big meaty chunks of my brain will forever be clogged with trivia about video games and fantasy novels that I deliberately packed in there even though I knew perfectly well that my safety or physical wellbeing would never depend on being able to remember the stats on the Langseax of the Wolves from EverQuest (19/44, 5str, 5sta). When I play a game like EQ or WoW or TF2 or even freaking Puzzle Quest, I theorycraft, I run the numbers, I familiarize myself with the mechanics and the details. But I do that knowing and accepting that it is a geeky and socially marginal thing to do. I don't think it's explicitly unhealthy, but yeah, it's a purely entertainment-based interest with no real-world applicability and there are relatively few people who follow it, so I fully expect to put up with some shit over it from friends and coworkers who don't share that specific niche interest.
And, you know, I would expect the same thing if I was heavily into model trains, or 18th century French literature, or female Olympic badminton players, or any other comparatively obscure hobby. Seriously, by this guy's definition, fucking everyone is marginalized and ZOMG OPPRESSED in some way.
Sports are real in only a rather attenuated sense; as if this ball going there in that timeframe were some universal human activity which we all identify with by our vary nature, whereas flights of fancy are something else entirely.
Rather, I'd point out that sports geeks--the type that really memorize rosters, statistics, and etc.--are most certainly not mainstream, and do, in fact, get made fun of.
Most people I know will like you more if you're into videogames, or math, or whatever stereotypically nerdy concern. I don't live in the deep South, so I have no idea how it goes there, but there are at the very least huge cultural islands where being nerdy is not only a disadvantage, but actually counts as a plus. I had several friends in college whose pants would be around their ankles as soon as the world "WoW" left a boy's lips.
In my experience, anyone who loved highschool is at least a little crazy.
Anyway, I don't think geeks/nerds are marginalized any more than they choose to be. The lack of social skills and awareness is generally what seems to put people off and after many years of that stereotype being reinforced it's kind of assumed that anyone who identifies as such will also be socially awkward. However, I have yet to see anyone who likes geeky/nerdy stuff marginalized on principle.
Is it fair that you get pre-judged? No. But it's usually not a good indicator if videogames and comic books are your go-to subjects when you introduce yourself.
After high school, geeks are largely as marginally as they choose to be. In "geek culture," at least insomuch as there is one, one of the more popular pursuits seems to be hating anything that's popular. I don't know if it's some backlash against the mainstream that rejected them as kids, or if being into geeky shit really does just make you tend to hate popular things, but that's not exactly the kind of thing that's going to help you integrate into the crowd.
I mean, I get it. You hate American Idol, you hate most sports, you hate Madden, you hate any TV series that doesn't feature Nathan Fillion, you hate most mainstream music, whatever. Then you wonder why you have a hard time socializing with most people.
Labels make things easier, I suppose, but they are also woefully inaccurate
I don't fit a label, or labels and frankly very, very few of my friends do.
plus, I don't like the idea. "That's Zombie, he's a nerd/hippy/manchild." I don't introduce myself as a selection of social categories. I'm me, for all the good and bad that comes with it and I prefer not to be described in one word.
Nerds were the mathy ones, the math and science wizards who made stats and calc and trig look easy. Geeks were the ones with the computer games, the video games, the roleplaying games.
I'm not so good with the math, and I haven't really played all that many video games or computer games, although i did roleplay online for a long long time.
But computers and programming and other 'geek' things to do? I'm fairly useless. Now, you get me into a conversation about Shakespeare's use of sexuality in his tragedy Romeo and Juliet, and I can geek out pretty much. But not many people that I hang out with want to have those conversations.
So, am I a geek? I don't fit the mold, I can't spout off star trek or star wars (although i have seen all of bsg, buffy, angel, and charmed), but I can go into a detailed discussion about the world and places and people in the Wheel of Time.
It's so difficult to say 'geeks are marginalized' because the next question is, 'ok, well, which geeks?' The whole concept is not quite well defined at all.
and I say this as a girl who opted the other night to watch Totoro with english subs in hopes that I could gain some more geek cred (did it work? :P ).
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You know, like boring people everywhere - it's not confined to people who like anime or play video games. Maybe if they shut the hell up about [insert their passion here] for five minutes and tried to have a conversation that wasn't centred around them, people wouldn't mind hanging out with them.
What a certain subset of geeks actually seem to be bemoaning is their desire to be part of a different subculture, one they can't pass in. My observations suggest that this is often Nightclub Culture, because lets face it, these guys aren't complaining about being shunned by the local survivalists or quilters or soccer players. The problem is that they think that that other subculture is the 'real' culture, just because it happens to contain people who get, on average, a lot more media attention. But this is because those people are largely a part of the media. They write the magazines and take the photos and own the clubs. That doesn't make them magically best. And this subset of geeks never seem to see past the glitz to the coke habits, the STIs, the twisted ankles from dancing in platforms, and the credit card debt. When I point that out, I'm not bashing clubbing enthusiasts, just pointing out that almost no-one's life is perfect. You can make your life really miserable by resenting other people for what you think they have, though.
Also I agree with the Cat.
this, this I thought was funny
Anyway, if geeks are 'marginalized,' (the salient question of course being compared to what) they're certainly less marginalized now than they've ever been. And as a subculture, they're trending the right direction.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
That's not even touching on the rather awful content of the article.
"Geek" and "Nerd" mean less and less as things like that used to be confined to the realm of the socially awkward introvert become ubiquitous.
The socially competent knows when to explode all over her audience with niche-interest trivia, and when to not. Putting some niches above others, well... Maybe some survivalist-junkies who would do better in a zombie apocalypse could be given a free pass, but pure grading pure entertainment along a "reality scale" isn't really accurate. It's more of a sign of social conditioning than anything else.
That said, The Cat's second paragraph is brilliant. The geeky niche interests might not go that far in TV shows or in the media, but in my daily environment... I don't follow competitive Starcraft more than I follow competetive soccer, but sheer osmosis means I pick up more terms from the former. And these aren't from people who live in their parents basements, nor will they be doing so in a few years time.
I think something along similar lines. I think some "geeks" want to do well in certain nightlife/partying cultures mainly because, when it all comes down to it, they want to hook up with the girls in them.
They'll go to a bar or a frat party or something like that, and they couldn't care less about being accepted by the bros there, but they're normal males who want to hook up the hot club or sorority chicks, just on a purely physical level. But they don't have much luck, and then start thinking, "Okay, how can I fit into this scene better?"
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Another thing is I think some geeks are still stuck in that high school mentality and they're still reacting to the 'mainstream' that rejected them. They can't let it go and subconsciously they think "If I could just get these types of people to like me, my self-esteem will be whole again" So they try to fit into whatever they see as the cultures of the "cool" or "popular" people.
But yeah, club culture is pretty warped, and only looks good superficially.
No but for real, I think it's pretty silly honestly. In the real world, you make your own barriers. Want to go dancing? Go dancing. Want to play football? Play football. Want to watch Star Trak, go right ahead. Basically, when you don't worry about fitting in, you'll have no problem fitting in. Or something.
Also the idea of club kids being jealous of the local quilting circle is pretty damn funny
The whole thing is a self-pity horoscope.
Seriously though.
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go and write a blog!:whistle:
It isn't that they're more 'real,' it's that the sort of people who call Trekkies 'dorks,' but applaud people for being able to recite the statistics for game 3 of the 1972 World Series, don't care about Star Trek trivia; and those people are in the majority. People who share in-depth knowledge about subjects that the observer finds unfamiliar and uninteresting, if not outright alienating, may not be received very well.
I know a silly amount about Star Wars because, unlike baseball, it amuses me. People who know an equal amount of baseball trivia might as silly a nerd to me as I may be to them. A third party's determination of "geeky weirdo," it isn't a question of which interest is objectively better, merely which is more popular or which subject the observer is more comfortable with.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Baseball is more 'real' than Star Trek because it follows set rules and the laws of physics rather than shifting attempts to avoid writer's block and the laws of physics as understood by Gene Roddenberry. A Deus ex Machina can't interrupt the playoffs and deliver the Cubs a pennant. Meanwhile Q or Scotty can do practically whatever and then maybe fix it later with a ret-con.
Not that this really matters in terms of acceptance on the geeky scale. Neither really matters outside of certain contexts and the simple fact that different sports are more popular generally/broadly mentionable than the intricacies of Trek-dom is only relevant inasmuch as recognizing that niches exist and social interactions mean you can't try and shoehorn everything into your own. Even so, this still sort of approaches things from the mindset of a sliding scale of appropriateness rather than a sliding scale of contextually relevant. Which is sort of the major key to all this discussion. Life is about dealing with and enjoying your time with actual people, not attempting to meet some arbitrary ideal as determined by the cool kids or the Jones' or whoever. There are ~7bn people on this planet. If your interests are truly 1 in a million that still means you can hang out with 6,999 others and have fun. Who cares about what Regina George thinks?
This is a really good post. Thank you for making it.
I'm not offended but fantastic post. Your whole second paragraph is brilliant.
OTOH, I've seen instances of "marginalization" that made me uncomfortable. I remember a group of friends of mine making fun of a kid who played WoW because of his hobby. It made me unwilling to open up to those people about my own nerdy hobbies because of how cruel they were to this one kid.
I think the Cat is spot on in that those geeks who feel marginalized are those who feel like they are somehow being excluded from the "mainstream" culture that they don't understand or feel comfortable operating in. Introversion, rather than geekdom is probably a more worthwhile thing to look at in terms of marginalization, the two categories overlap but they certainly are not the same thing.
Over all though, that site has some pretty good advice for people who may have those feelings and how to deal with them. I could probably have used some of that advice as a teenager, so I won't condemn the author too harshly.
There was a story a while back about a local DC-area guy who holds seminars to teach guys how to score with women. The advice is pretty horrifying and focuses mostly on targeting a woman's low self-esteem issues to the point where she'll have sex with you to get your approval. It was really sad that geeky guys might end up listening to a dude like that in their quest to get laid.
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And I'd attribute this, at least partially, to some of the mixed messages men receive about sex and dating.
Anyway, regarding the OP, I've been in working environments where I felt uncomfortable talking about geeky topics. If I'm on a conference call on Tuesday morning, and I spent last night doing a raid in World of Warcraft while all of the management/executive-level people are talking about last night's Monday Night Football game, I definitely feel like an outsider. Those are pretty rare, though, and I think that calling that "marginalization" is an exaggeration. I feel far, far more pressure to hide my relationship choices than to hide my video game habit.
It might be different if I didn't live where I live. With the possible exception of Seattle, I live in arguably the highest nerds-per-capita region in the US.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It just saddens me to see people lock themselves into "my only hobbies are video games, comic books, and D&D" and feel like they can't do physical activities or be in to more mainstream stuff. It is such an unfortunate high school kind of mentality.