News from America

[Michaël Samyn]

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_angrynerd_geekculture/all/1

Interesting article claiming that what was once geek culture has now become mainstream.

I've heard rumors of the world that the author describes coming from across the ocean. But I don't see it here in Belgium. I only see it on the Internet. And in Belgium, the Internet is (still?) not very representative of what happens in real life.

Europe in general seems to have had an ambiguous relationship with pop culture. It never really took over everything. Maybe it hasn't been long enough. There's still people alive who remember a world without cars, without television, without pop music. And part of us has always cherished this memory. The USA always seemed more open to adopt pop culture.

I do hopefully agree with the author that the end of pop culture is nigh. Like modernism before it and capitalism soon, it will collapse under its own weight.

But I don't agree that there is no room for sub-cultures and individual taste anymore. Hell, one look at the sales figures of Fatale tells me the exact opposite! There's plenty of things that have no chance to become mainstream in the current climate. Possibly because those things are essentially anti-pop and appeal only to intellectuals and their ilk. Maybe intellectuals are the new otaku -given that the mainstream Internet culture celebrates stupidity above anything else. It's a difficult situation to be in, given that survival in pop culture is not for the fittest but for the most popular. But it's probably something we should hold on to as much as we can, and find a way to sustain. Maybe it will survive the coming blast.

[Jeroen D. Stout]

There a strange tone in this article, the 'death of nerdom'. (It is implied) we have now nerds who regret that their 'secret knowledge' over Boba Fett is no longer secret - and that these forts of knowledge are now rivalled by other forts of knowledge. But surely we specialize in our domains, read our novels, out of love for a thing? Or are 'the nerds' complaining that the understanding of others about Boba Fett is somehow inherently more simplistic than their own? I could accept this coming from a scholar in ancient texts finding that the whole world is now reading Latin and explaining him what they think of Cicero. But they are not.

Was nerdom not much like a 'secret club' in which your knowledge of secret-club things mattered?

Arnold Bennett in an essay in the early 19th century points out that it always was a small group of engaged intellectuals (the elect?) who liked the great novels and who, throughout centuries, ensured that the classical novels stayed known and revered. At most, he admits, the general public will at times agree with the small group, but it cannot last over decades and their taste is not representative of everlasting quality. (He puts all this far more convincingly and, surprisingly, amusingly.)

I think the way for this small group, which in times can also note games to be classics, is to not be otaku - which apart from being slang places an emphasis on obsessive interests. Anybody can have interests. Perhaps refinement is what is missing rather than having an interest in intellectualism. Refinement is building forth on knowledge and customs, having an interest can just be picking a facet.