I think that nerd culture has just gone mainstream. It's far from dying.
I think it would be more accurate to say the mainstream has appropriated nerd culture.
Is Nerd Culture Dying?
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Re: Is Nerd Culture Dying?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
except since phase 4 MCU is now definitely a synonym for "boring, neutered, ill-concived, weak, pale shadow of former self, stuff° Kudos to Disney that was able to completely ruin it in just a decade.
This only proves the point.
the point was that
Most "nerd" interests like SciFi have been neutered if not completely bent out of shape while going mainstream
So no, it's not nerd culture that is dying, it's mainstream "nerdism" that committed suicide.
Nerd culture was never mainstream, MCU wasn't nerd culture becoming mainstream, it was "squeeze the lemon and hope it sticks".
And it did for a while, but not understanding what's the appeal of nerd culture for nerds, they went back to producing blockbusters that kinda resembles marvel if you squint hard enough, but it's actually the same thing of watching independence day set in a World where they replaced Jeff Goldblum with a guy dressed like a superhero.
Nerd are still enjoying their nerdy stuff, while completely ignoring mainstream travesties from multi-billion-dollars corporations.
MCU is not the same MCU nerds were crazy about when they were kids, in the same way kids today consider what we called nerd stuff back then as "old people garbage"
Re: Is Nerd Culture Dying?
#63Geek culture is things like comic books, video games and Star Wars. Nerd culture is things like recreational mathematics, model trains, and editing Wikipedia.
Exactly. A nerd is someone who implements emulators for extinct 70s minicomputers, or is deep into niche music. A "geek" (for lack of better word) is the target of this article.
Re: Is Nerd Culture Dying?
#64I believe there is no counter culture in the west anymore. It is mainstream to be subversive, and so there is little to no subversiveness left
Unfortunately, as things like irreligion, tolerance for sexual minorities, or left-wing economics became more mainstream, it is now, among the youth, incredible as it may sound, counter-culture to be reactionary. A reverse 1960s of sorts.
Re: Is Nerd Culture Dying?
#65I think that nerd culture has just gone mainstream. It's far from dying.
I think 'geek chic' (i.e poseurs) went mainstream a while ago, but actual nerds will never be popular by definition. I've tried in vain to find people at parties who care about my favourite arcane programming languages and obscure political doctrine, it's impossible :(
FWIW I consider myself an "actual nerd", but I also find "arcane programming languages and obscure political doctrines" to be extremely boring. No offense, but I would definitely snub you at one of those parties where you're looking for nerds. To me programming languages are just a means to an end and political doctrines are for nontechnical people. I'm more interested in building stuff.
Eg I wanted to benchmark the CPU inside my Apple Watch last week and I couldn't find any off-the-shelf apps that do this, so I had to learn enough Swift to create a basic UI with a start button and a multiply-and-add loop that pegs a CPU core. I would never learn a new language if I didn't have to.
Another example: I couldn't find any reasonably priced tool chests so I bought a table saw with the intention of building my own tool chests out of plywood next week. When I mentioned this to nerdy/technical friends, they were all interested because they also had a metric fuckton of tools, computer hardware, solvents, etc that they wanted to store efficiently. I think if you worked on more practical projects like this you'd be a lot more popular at parties where most attendees are engineers.
Re: Is Nerd Culture Dying?
#66I think that nerd culture has just gone mainstream. It's far from dying.
The objects of nerd culture went mainstream, but the nerds themselves did IMHO not. And because of the change that mainstream brought on their objects, nerds are losing their culture. People can like the same thing, but for different reasons. And this becomes a problem when people are not aware of other people's reason and just start changing them, making them more matching their own reasons. So at some point, the traits that the original fans like are disappearing, getting replaces by the preferred traits of the new fans.
We've seen this many times. Star Trek being probably a very notable example, where the fancy new original Series was a great disappointment for many fans, while the (semi)comedy-version from a fan became the preferred love of this fans.
Re: Is Nerd Culture Dying?
#67It died when it became mainstream.
Nerd culture nowadays is horribly lame. When I was a kid I loved being a nerd and finding people who shared my hobbies. Now I avoid talking about them.
Re: Is Nerd Culture Dying?
#68Yes and good riddance.
There was never such a thing as "nerd culture". It was always exclusionary and toxic, pretending to exist in rebellion against the mainstream while perpetuating the same stereotypes. It was also always defined by consumerism and consumption, just as a "niche" (but still fed by the same large corporations as the mainstream) no different from "artisanal" hipster goods or "underground" grunge merchandise.
Nerds have always existed and will continue to exist. "Nerd culture" isn't necessary for that. The Marvel movies weren't a turning point, the rise of the Internet was. Widespread access to the Internet allowed various fandoms to expand, mutate and merge (especially in fanfic and on sites like Tumblr), it also allowed people to find peers in their specific special interest communities rather than having to vaguely seek out "other nerds" and hope they're compatible.
People like to posture about "real nerds" versus "geek chic poseurs" but the distinction is arbitrary. Yes, someone wearing a Nirvana shirt who never even heard of the band but likes the grunge aesthetic can easily be dismissed as a "poseur" but most often that distinction just exists to arbitrarily exclude people just as passionate who don't fit your biases. Heck, for most of the 80s and 90s you could have believed women were biologically incapable of being nerds as even that girl wearing glasses and a nerd shirt who could recite every Ferengi rule of acquisition and speak fluent Klingon was clearly just a "poseur", especially if she was conventionally attractive.
On a related note I think we've also simply culturally come to understand that the "jock vs nerd" binary is really more of a spectrum and not even a good fit for most people. At least in programming the idea was on its last breath when people ironically (and then unironically) adopted the gymrat "brogrammer" aesthetic, which was luckily shortlived but clearly an act of rebellion against and recuperation of "jock" culture. We've also become more aware that neurodivergence is not simply a lifestyle choice even when it may manifest as such, whereas nerd culture would often ("ironically") replicate the same ableism neurodivergent nerds were subjected to in the mainstream.
So in another way, no, nerd "culture" isn't dying, you're just getting old and out of touch.
Re: Is Nerd Culture Dying?
#69> If there is any one person who still tries to consider things by some measure of quality, it’s like a needle sticking sharp in their side While Sam's articles are quite enjoyable to read, I'm not sure this argument holds. If nerds don't care about quality they wouldn't spend hours complaining about how bad the new Star Wars films are
Exactly, it's like a person comparing the subtle taste of poly-saturated trans fats in a big mac and a quarterpounder with cheese. It's all slop, that's the point.
Re: Is Nerd Culture Dying?
#70Frat star whining about nerds liking things, and its front page of hacker news. Did the upvoters have a little too much unsweetened 30 proof cranberry juice?