A Facebook friend posted a popular comic strip, popular off-line, in the world of paper and ink and Sunday funnies as well as with the internet crowd, that contained a reference to Star-Trek red-shirts (that is the nameless crewmen who get shot/eaten/vaporized/etc. upon beaming down to that episode's planet or abandoned space-ship). I commented that I wondered how many of the comic's readers would get the red-shirt reference, and the poster replied that the strip in question often referenced Star-Trek and other "geeky" content.
That got me thinking. It seems like over the last few years, the general public is becoming more nerdy or at least more nerdophillic if you will. We have Big-Bang Theory on network television for instance. But I'm also aware that just as I am more likely to associate with people based more on similar interests than geographical nearness to me since the internet, I am also able to filter a larger amount of entertainment media based on my interests than I would have before broadband made the worlds media so ... so greppable.
I guess what I'm wondering is if I'm seeing a genuine shift in the culture as a whole, or if I'm living in a sort of virtual geeky/sciencey ghetto. I can see both happening, in the eighties, when I was a teen, there was no internet access outside a few expensive universities, so we had BBSs that were either local and cheap, or long distance and expensive, and neither was likely to have the best social software. So we tended to befriend people based on geography more than on shared interests, goals, and etc.
I've read blogs and opinion pieces that argue that we as a culture are segregating ourselves into like-minded on-line ghettos of people who all agree with us, cutting ourselves off from the culture at large. In my opinion, this is an oversimplification, at least as far as my own experience leads me to believe.
In my experience, while I do befriend people on common interests rather than geographic locale, I don't end up with a load of Facebook friends who all mirror my ideals and beliefs. Why is this not the case? Because in reality we are more than one dimensional, just because you and I may share an interest in an author, television show, political issue or computer system. It doesn't then stand to reason that we agree on everything else.
While some interests may well intersect in individuals (for instance, computer geeks are more likely than the general public to be sci-fi fans), others don't. So that if you, like most people, have more than one are of interest, you will find that your on-line community actually turns out to be quite a diverse group.
So, that leaves the question open, is the culture at large becoming more geeky, or am I just filtering for geekier entertainment?
That got me thinking. It seems like over the last few years, the general public is becoming more nerdy or at least more nerdophillic if you will. We have Big-Bang Theory on network television for instance. But I'm also aware that just as I am more likely to associate with people based more on similar interests than geographical nearness to me since the internet, I am also able to filter a larger amount of entertainment media based on my interests than I would have before broadband made the worlds media so ... so greppable.
I guess what I'm wondering is if I'm seeing a genuine shift in the culture as a whole, or if I'm living in a sort of virtual geeky/sciencey ghetto. I can see both happening, in the eighties, when I was a teen, there was no internet access outside a few expensive universities, so we had BBSs that were either local and cheap, or long distance and expensive, and neither was likely to have the best social software. So we tended to befriend people based on geography more than on shared interests, goals, and etc.
I've read blogs and opinion pieces that argue that we as a culture are segregating ourselves into like-minded on-line ghettos of people who all agree with us, cutting ourselves off from the culture at large. In my opinion, this is an oversimplification, at least as far as my own experience leads me to believe.
In my experience, while I do befriend people on common interests rather than geographic locale, I don't end up with a load of Facebook friends who all mirror my ideals and beliefs. Why is this not the case? Because in reality we are more than one dimensional, just because you and I may share an interest in an author, television show, political issue or computer system. It doesn't then stand to reason that we agree on everything else.
While some interests may well intersect in individuals (for instance, computer geeks are more likely than the general public to be sci-fi fans), others don't. So that if you, like most people, have more than one are of interest, you will find that your on-line community actually turns out to be quite a diverse group.
So, that leaves the question open, is the culture at large becoming more geeky, or am I just filtering for geekier entertainment?
Ah, the comic you are referring to was "Foxtrot" which has ran for quite a few years. It was around when Bill Watterson and Gary Larson were still putting out daily strips. Even then, the character you are talking about making Red Shirt gingerbread men was doing geeky jokes and what not.
ReplyDeleteTypically Jason's jokes are watered down versions of some bigger geek jokes. For example, he only did a Red Shirt joke here. Even most nongeeks are aware that wearing a Red Shirt is a death sentence in Star Trek Original series. Go beyond that we have jokes based on the Worf Effect, Picard enjoying "Tea Earl Grey", Romulans attacking the neutral sector, anything involving the word "Klingon", wearing vulcan ears--and quite a bit in that vein. Most of the jokes Jason does needs to already have some Memetic spot in culture's minds before he can do the geeky reference.
Jason Fox exists as a geeky inept child for the audience to laugh at--much like with The Big Bang theory, it exists because these people are ill equiped to handle society. If you watch The Big Bang theory, the majority of the geeks are not the "straight" person of the comedy. They are the crazy out of control people that make the comedy escalate. There is a single geek on the show and the audience surogate, the hawt girl next door, that act as "the straight man" in this comedy routine.
Geeks have existed as a varient of cartoon clown even in the first few seasons of The Simpsons, with Comic Book Guy, the Scientists and quite a few others. Only the episodes around Lisa (and one or two Bart ones) tend to follow the geekier characters around that much. Even then, it still notes its genre is Dom Com, so the geeks do not get much for roles. With The Big Bang theory, they just centred the Dom Com around a group of geeks.
Before stating this necessarily glorifies an image that has held a geeky public view point, or presents it in any kind of good light, I will note these similar setups for shows:
Tidus: a Dom Com following the definition of dysfunctional families. Where everything a dysfunctional family will have is played up to 11. Involving their schizophrenic mother poisoning a Turkey dinner with her meds, and at least one argument that ended with:
"Yeah! So! You're adopted! I'm his real kid!"
"Yeah! You were just born from him sleeping with mom! He actually chose to have me!"
Two and a Half Men: Charlie Sheen sleeping with women, breaking up poorly. Having restraining orders put onto him. Having STI scares--pretty much everything you could call a sleaze ball. He is living with his brother and a ten year old boy.
Then, we have the more older Dom Coms, such as "Grace Under Fire" and "Roseanne".
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The two examples you gave are not so much making geeks and nerds seem that much better. In the comic Fox Trot, the geeky character is used as a clown charicature. The Big Bang Theory is mostly watching a situation develop when only two people work as "the straight man".
I'll grant you the nerd is still played for laughs, but the stereotype is becoming more accurate. In the eighties, nerds on TV were mostly unrelated to their real world counterparts. Who for instance wore short sleve sport-shirts with pocket protectors and bow-ties after the early 1960s except referencing these stereotypes for comic effect. The TV and comic geeks today are much more likely to dress and behave like their real-world counter-parts than was true just 15-20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteGo back and watch Urkel on "Family Matters", other than race, he is a pretty run-of-the-mill geek stereotype. Yet if you took a thousand real-world geeks from that time period, the late 1980s through the nineties, you'd be hard pressed to find one who dressed or acted this way unironically.
I'll grant you that the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy was more up to date, but Professor Frink could have walked out of any generic comic from 35 - 40 years before.
Today I'm seeing jokes referencing the friendly rivalry between fans of different sci-fi shows that, I think would have flown over the heads of a general audience 20 years ago.
On the other hand, however, I do watch my TV on-line, and mix it in with web-only media which may skew my POV a bit.
On the gripping hand, one need not be a geek to post content, comics, pod-casts, or video, on the web today.