The blog of Ken Newquist, writer, web designer, gamer and geek dad.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Geek Culture
Geek Culture: An Annotated Interdisciplinary Bibliography is a comprehensive overview of books, articles and other publications relating to geek culture. I'm thinking of writing an essay on the topic of geek culture for Nuketown, and this looks to be a gold mine.
I think that the borders of Geek Nation have become more porous, and particularly as the things we are passionate about--technology, computers, superheroes, science fiction--has gone more mainstream.
At the same time, there is a blurring of the lines the other way as well--there are many for whom working with computers (programming, application development, etc.) is just a job, and not a geeky end to itself. The same goes for gaming--each year sees more and more gamers that are increasingly distanced from your traditional geek.
Plus, geeks themselves have gone somewhat "mainstream" just by having jobs, spouses, families, etc. -- these things are all considered normal, and by extension, they make geeks look mainstream.
IMHO though, there's still a core of geekiness that remains despite the fudging of the lines. It may not be apparent in one-on-one conversations--I'm sure I could go an evening without anyone thinking I was anything but maintstream--but throw two geeks in the same room and inevitably a conversation will evolve that has everyone else in the room looking a little confused and mystified at the sudden appearance of these two strangers in a normal land.
I'm the editor of the webzine Nuketown, a freelance writer for Knights of the Dinner Table, a father, a husband and, of course, a geek living in Easton, Pa.
1 comment:
I think that the borders of Geek Nation have become more porous, and particularly as the things we are passionate about--technology, computers, superheroes, science fiction--has gone more mainstream.
At the same time, there is a blurring of the lines the other way as well--there are many for whom working with computers (programming, application development, etc.) is just a job, and not a geeky end to itself. The same goes for gaming--each year sees more and more gamers that are increasingly distanced from your traditional geek.
Plus, geeks themselves have gone somewhat "mainstream" just by having jobs, spouses, families, etc. -- these things are all considered normal, and by extension, they make geeks look mainstream.
IMHO though, there's still a core of geekiness that remains despite the fudging of the lines. It may not be apparent in one-on-one conversations--I'm sure I could go an evening without anyone thinking I was anything but maintstream--but throw two geeks in the same room and inevitably a conversation will evolve that has everyone else in the room looking a little confused and mystified at the sudden appearance of these two strangers in a normal land.
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