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... and with that victory, they have given rise to generations of new weird-nerds that no longer feel as much as outsiders. Ok, I went there for the sake of th

... and with that victory, they have given rise to generations of new weird-nerds that no longer feel as much as outsiders. Ok, I went there for the sake of the quote, but as someone who spent most of high-school maintaining an online forum about nerd topics on a Hardened Gentoo[1] Pentium III[2] server in the floor of his own bedroom; I still find I cannot quite empathize with the fear of "insiders"/"normals" that the OP talks about and which other comments seem to echo. Not saying I can't imagine it, or that it's not real, but it wasn't like that for me. In my experience: video-games were utterly mainstream, MTG/D&D where "a bit weird, but hey, to each their own", computer programming was cool (not a super popular hobby to pursue, but people seemed either neutral or genuinely impressed if you did). Many of those cherished "hacker values"? They are now mainstream ideals: Net neutrality! Wikileaks! "I prefer texting than talking on the phone"! ;) Everyone I know is now in an online forum or another (Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/Reddit). Not saying all of the values have been popularized, but many have. Our pop culture now a days makes more fun of jocks than of nerds. It has more nerd heroes (specially for middle-school/high-school aged kids) than "popular" heroes. Freaking LoTR is one of the biggest movie franchises of all times! Besides, it's not like the groups have no intersection. Geek feminists often are or were at some point "weird-nerd" girls or "weird-nerd" guys that agreed that the world was, among all of its unfairnesses, biased to take male as the default. So we are not excluding just those "not from our tribe" (whatever that means), we are excluding "those from our tribe happen to be different from what we picture our tribe to look like". Even for those genuinely not part of the culture you might naturally want to associate with? Well, we still need to interact with and do business with them in a civilized manner. That's all any diversity advocacy I have ever read demands: not that you be friends with anybody, but that you be willing to interact respectfully with everybody. "Brogrammer" is less well defined. But the most gym-going and adventurous friend I have is also among the most nerdy, smartest and occasionally painfully awkward people I know. Also, the most social person in my circle is a gregarious, party going, business savvy, MIT engineering trained woman that in the right crowd can make jokes consisting entirely of function plots. There are no three cliques against other! There are many ideas, associated with different stereotypes, let's try not to pit armies of stereotypes against each other, and be open to the ideas! If that's not a hacker value, then I don't what is. [1] Why Hardened Gentoo just to host a small PHP forum? Because it was there... [2] Gives the age away fairly precisely, doesn't it?

fr0styMatt2 12y ago
This is exactly what I couldn't figure out how to say! Thank you.
bottled_poe 12y ago
It is a shame this comment is all the way down the page. It summarises my reaction to the article fairly accurately.
forgottenpass 12y ago
Yeah, tech went mainstream and blockbuster movies are made out of cult classic books. That's one of the points in the post, those things used to be signals of particular kind of person but are no longer. There are no three cliques against other! There are many ideas, associated with different stereotypes, let's try not to pit armies of stereotypes against each other, and be open to the ideas! In broad strokes I agree with you. For a few reasons, not the least of which because I don't exactly agree with the authors analysis. I differ from you in specific as there is a difference between being accepting of the ideas and people who live them, versus adopting it for myself. Being "open to" an idea means the former, yet often euphemistically implies the latter. I see the author's point in the way people with more social power than myself ask for my conformity, to their benefit and my cost. It's framed so politely, everything is these days, but sometimes I don't want to adopt another persons standards. Only then do you see how serious they are about getting you to conform.
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- pseudoplatypus 12y ago
  > Yeah, tech went mainstream and blockbuster movies are made out of cult classic books. That's one of the points in the post, those things used to be signals of particular kind of person but are no longer. They were more than signals, they were the culture that reflected the values we identified with: the wonder of discovery, the beauty of places that didn't exist, the value of smarts and imagination. Those values are nerd values and are also mainstream values. It is a point of agreement for which we can all start to talk. I think most nerds I know define nerdom by what they like and the acceptance of obsessive liking of an idea, not by any other "kind of person". > I see the author's point in the way people with more social power than myself ask for my conformity, to their benefit and my cost. It's framed so politely, everything is these days, but sometimes I don't want to adopt another persons standards. That's usually fair. But what happens when what people are pointing out is that your standards are unjust and are harming them? It is one thing for people asking you to, say, dress in a suit and a tie (an arbitrary imposed standard that really couldn't matter less unless you want to impress the people who like suits). It is another when the standard they are asking you to adopt is "don't grope us, don't assault us, don't insult us, don't provide cover or plausible deniability to those who willfully grope us or assault us or insult us.". Taken to the hyperbolic extreme, if someone imposes on me from the outside the standard that I should not kill people (assuming it weren't already within my own personal standards), it is still an imposition, but one they are within their rights to make. Social justice advocates really are as transparent as the name: they advocate for (social) justice. If your standards are unconventional but just, go ahead: you can be into D&D and feminist, you can be a furry and feminist, you can be an otaku and feminist[1], you can be into BSDM and feminist, you can be as weird as you wish to be and still treat people well even if awkwardly. You don't even need to be an advocate for gender equality, just do a good faith attempt at not perpetrating or upholding injustice. But if your standards are unjust or they facilitate injustice, why wouldn't people be allowed to point that out to you and request that you change them? Keep in mind that often, nerd feminists are not insiders encroaching into the outsider's safe space, but outsiders within a larger group of outsiders, trying to avoid being harmed by manipulative people skilled in the culture of the larger outsider group. They are often those of us, that we are allowing to be bullied, by others "like us". And, do people do unjust oppressive things in the name of justice and anti-oppression? Sure. Mob-mentality online shamming campaigns often are such injustice, at least when focused on individuals who are not powerful public figures (be it DongleGate or GamerGate, and I think there is still one of those that is far far worse). We should mention and call this out as well, but that doesn't mean that the points about there being injustice in nerd culture (as in pretty much any culture) are invalid. [1] Do I even need to mention you can be a brony and feminist? ;)

fr0styMatt2 12y ago

This is exactly what I couldn't figure out how to say! Thank you.

bottled_poe 12y ago

It is a shame this comment is all the way down the page. It summarises my reaction to the article fairly accurately.

forgottenpass 12y ago

Yeah, tech went mainstream and blockbuster movies are made out of cult classic books. That's one of the points in the post, those things used to be signals of particular kind of person but are no longer. There are no three cliques against other! There are many ideas, associated with different stereotypes, let's try not to pit armies of stereotypes against each other, and be open to the ideas! In broad strokes I agree with you. For a few reasons, not the least of which because I don't exactly agree with the authors analysis. I differ from you in specific as there is a difference between being accepting of the ideas and people who live them, versus adopting it for myself. Being "open to" an idea means the former, yet often euphemistically implies the latter. I see the author's point in the way people with more social power than myself ask for my conformity, to their benefit and my cost. It's framed so politely, everything is these days, but sometimes I don't want to adopt another persons standards. Only then do you see how serious they are about getting you to conform.

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pseudoplatypus 12y ago
> Yeah, tech went mainstream and blockbuster movies are made out of cult classic books. That's one of the points in the post, those things used to be signals of particular kind of person but are no longer. They were more than signals, they were the culture that reflected the values we identified with: the wonder of discovery, the beauty of places that didn't exist, the value of smarts and imagination. Those values are nerd values and are also mainstream values. It is a point of agreement for which we can all start to talk. I think most nerds I know define nerdom by what they like and the acceptance of obsessive liking of an idea, not by any other "kind of person". > I see the author's point in the way people with more social power than myself ask for my conformity, to their benefit and my cost. It's framed so politely, everything is these days, but sometimes I don't want to adopt another persons standards. That's usually fair. But what happens when what people are pointing out is that your standards are unjust and are harming them? It is one thing for people asking you to, say, dress in a suit and a tie (an arbitrary imposed standard that really couldn't matter less unless you want to impress the people who like suits). It is another when the standard they are asking you to adopt is "don't grope us, don't assault us, don't insult us, don't provide cover or plausible deniability to those who willfully grope us or assault us or insult us.". Taken to the hyperbolic extreme, if someone imposes on me from the outside the standard that I should not kill people (assuming it weren't already within my own personal standards), it is still an imposition, but one they are within their rights to make. Social justice advocates really are as transparent as the name: they advocate for (social) justice. If your standards are unconventional but just, go ahead: you can be into D&D and feminist, you can be a furry and feminist, you can be an otaku and feminist[1], you can be into BSDM and feminist, you can be as weird as you wish to be and still treat people well even if awkwardly. You don't even need to be an advocate for gender equality, just do a good faith attempt at not perpetrating or upholding injustice. But if your standards are unjust or they facilitate injustice, why wouldn't people be allowed to point that out to you and request that you change them? Keep in mind that often, nerd feminists are not insiders encroaching into the outsider's safe space, but outsiders within a larger group of outsiders, trying to avoid being harmed by manipulative people skilled in the culture of the larger outsider group. They are often those of us, that we are allowing to be bullied, by others "like us". And, do people do unjust oppressive things in the name of justice and anti-oppression? Sure. Mob-mentality online shamming campaigns often are such injustice, at least when focused on individuals who are not powerful public figures (be it DongleGate or GamerGate, and I think there is still one of those that is far far worse). We should mention and call this out as well, but that doesn't mean that the points about there being injustice in nerd culture (as in pretty much any culture) are invalid. [1] Do I even need to mention you can be a brony and feminist? ;)