Regarding the difference between embracing and exploiting geek culture (By Wil Wheaton)

[Ian David]

Regarding the difference between embracing and exploiting geek culture
By Wil Wheaton


I've gotten a ton of criticism from people about the I Am a Geek video that launched yesterday, and I feel the need to respond to it.

After watching the video yesterday, I was impressed by the production values, and I thought it was really awesome that it was just one small part of a larger project. I love that the whole thing is supposed to encourage literacy (if you really look for the links) and intends to support a good cause. As a writer, I certainly want more people to be readers!

But as I watched it a second and a third time, something didn't feel quite right to me. I couldn't put my finger on it, until e-mail started flooding in from people who could: this was supposed to be about refuting stereotypes and celebrating the things we love, but it ends up feeling like we're trying to convince the Cool Kids that we're really just like them, and a promotional opportunity for celebrities who don't know a damn thing about our geek culture, and don't care about the people who create and live in it.

I was under the impression that this video would feature actual geeks who are important to our culture, like Woz, Felicia Day, Leo Laporte, and Jonathan Coulton. Instead, I saw a lot of entrepreneurs who have good marketing instincts, joined by a bunch of celebrities who are attempting to co-opt our culture because it's what their publicity team is telling them to do.

More:
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/05/regarding-the-difference-between-embracing-and-exploiting-geek-culture.html

[RandomThoughts]

1. I read the article, Interesting

and I think I might be a geek as defined by the culture, but like most(I think most) I don't think about it much, since it is the things I like to do, more then being a part of this group or that group that is important to me.

I think I get what he is saying, and sort of understand his point after watching the video.

In some way it seems as if the video is an assimilation of geek culture into a big world of culture. Most people with groups like the identity that group gives them, they celebrate their culture.

Some groups try to keep the culture in its original form, many do this by exclusion of others, I think his comments were not of exclusion but just defending the ideas that give that culture its uniqueness. He did not seem to be saying other people could not be geeks, just that geekyness is based on the cultural attitudes and things you like.

But one thing about geek culture, is they are mostly open about others hanging out in their realms of imagination. They don't like the idea of social stigma based on liking different things.

So I think he is making a distinction about the video having non geeks saying they are geeks, which is a comment of them liking having a geek label or approving of geek ideas. But geeks are not geeks because they need approval, its because they like things in the culture. I think geek is defined by the culture you embrace more then a desire to be part of a culture, since geek culture does not need rules of acceptance or exclusion.

You are a geek if you like to do the things most of the geek culture likes to do. But the label itself has no real meaning except to give an explanation of the type of cultural things you like. And it seems maybe that video is making geekyness a type of club or peer social status, and peer social status is not a geeky thing.

Just a few thoughts on it.