Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
theintrinsicperspective.com
Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
1–10 of 77 posts
Re: Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
#2The article’s length planning and argumentative process are too bad to feel like AI slop.
It's human slop.
Re: Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
#3Could have been put in a few short sentences, most of which would be wrong.
Re: Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
#4The article’s length planning and argumentative process are too bad to feel like AI slop. It's human slop.
Warms the heart to see it
Re: Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
#5Back in my day, "nerd" meant actually being an intellectual. You know, reading books, doing math, being interested in physics, etc. How did consuming comic book slop become false signaling for what Nerdom once was?
Re: Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
#6Back in my day, "nerd" meant actually being an intellectual. You know, reading books, doing math, being interested in physics, etc. How did consuming comic book slop become false signaling for what Nerdom once was?
That’s not really what the word intellectual has meant for the last century. Intellectual is more akin to “liberal arts major” in modern language: philosophers, writers, art critics, etc.
Re: Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
#7Back in my day, "nerd" meant actually being an intellectual. You know, reading books, doing math, being interested in physics, etc. How did consuming comic book slop become false signaling for what Nerdom once was?
I was never into comics, but the impression I get is that many "actual nerds" were. And that's something that was clearly visible from the outside.
And since everything nowadays seems to be about surface-level signaling, cultures get represented by whatever is most visible.
So, for "actual nerds", that is comic books, I guess. Nobody will pay attention to what those comic books were (no idea if there were any of the "non-slop" kind). People spending hours poring over some math/physics/other textbook in their homes or libraries weren't exactly visible to the others. They were just the "pasty weirdos".
Re: Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
#8I don’t think the author’s thesis is right, and actually his first inclination is correct. No one starts liking nerdy stuff because Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos does, because no one really wants to be them. They want their money, success, etc. but not to be them, in the way you’d want to be a movie star or athlete.
So I think it’s an under-discussed thing that the art forms which lend themselves to the most profitable “ecosystem” are ones that get pushed in a commercial-driven culture. You can only make so much money by selling people a book or an individual print / painting. Much better to sell merch for your media franchise, which includes books movies toys, etc.
Re: Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
#9I don't buy the article's thesis because tech bros are neither spending on the sector nor are they popular.
I have a simpler explanation, also applies to the 'Otaku-fication' of anime. Miyazaki complained that the people making anime now do nothing but watch anime. Try making Patlabor II now. Same for comic adaptions, upside to them is you can do them if all you ever did was watch TV and read comics. Many games now exclusively deal with the tropes of games.
In a culture where the dominant activity is media consumption you get a Baudrillard-like media-on-media ouroboros without any reference to base reality
Re: Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
#10Back in my day, "nerd" meant actually being an intellectual. You know, reading books, doing math, being interested in physics, etc. How did consuming comic book slop become false signaling for what Nerdom once was?
Came here to say exactly this. Since when was being a nerd about consumer preferences?
But then I start wondering if we are just gatekeeping nerddom?