Fandoms and "Nerd Culture"

[stonehead]

This thread briefly touched on some of the issues nerd culture, which triggered a lot of thoughts in my brain.

I never really understood fandoms, despite seeming to fit into the prime demographic for them. Most of my hobbies would be described as incredibly nerdy by the average person, and plenty of my teenage friends would go to cons and "fandomy" websites, but I never got into the community aspect of these hobbies. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of nerdy media that I really love. I even like talking about them with my friends. It's just that the fandom spaces for these things just didn't appeal to me.

It's almost like these people were fans of the community around this thing instead of fans of the thing itself. I remember seeing a meme somewhere (I did a quick search but couldn't find it) about how if you're a writer, you should never reveal a character's favorite food, because that will be the only thing the fandom remembers about them. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. If there's any truth to that oid meme, a character's favorite food is pretty trivial to most kinds of stories, but as soon as it becomes an injoke in the community, they just can't let it go. I think it goes beyond just the characters though. Before long, they start talking about the fandom, and making jokes and references to the fandom itself, and the community loses the connection to the actual source material. Just like they can't talk about Blorbo X without making jokes about how much he loves Food Y, they can't talk about the franchise at all without referencing community injokes.

That's what always bothered me about "Nerd Culture" too. It's all about self-congratulating about how nerdy you are, and never about the niche interests themself. It's about T-shirts that say "Arrays start at 0" and not about cool personal programming projects. That's why I'm often conflicted about calling myself a nerd. On the one hand it probably gives a good summary of my job and my hobbie, but on the other hand most of the other people who say "I'm so nerdy XD" are really annoying.

I don't think this is necessarily bad. I'm not trying to gatekeep what memes people can make. To be totally honest, my friends irl and I have a lot of inside jokes too, and we'll sometimes reminisce over the past instead of talking about anything new. I know people who have met long-term friends at cons and fan-meetups too, and I'm not trying to say they're bad just because it happened through a fandom. It's more that a comminity that always talks about itself feels more like a clique than a group of fans. I'm always down to talk about Lord of the Rings, or Tabletop Roleplaying games with people. I'm just not often down to make memes about the eagles, or ones labeling fictional characters "Chaotic Neutral".

I'm not exactly sure why I enjoy my friends' inside jokes, but not the types of long running gags that come out of fandoms. Maybe it's just that I'm not friends with them. It'd be a bit weird if like, my dentist and I had a bunch of in-jokes we kept referencing. Or maybe it's that communities of millions and millions of people are too big for inside jokes to really be inside jokes. Both of these fail to explain why I still think Loss edits are funny though. I think the best bet is that fandom "injokes" invariably become incredibly overused.

I wrote a few comments before about how nothing is fun for more than 1000 hours, and I think that concept is related to why I don't like fandoms. How much time can you spend talking about one franchise before you run out of things to talk about? If it's a single movie, maybe a few hours? Probably ten or twenty if it's a really good or complex movie. If it's a genre-defining, once-in-a-lifetime film, and I rehash the same conversations with different people and at different times, maybe you could squeeze a hundred hours of discussion out of it. Ok, now how much time do you think dedicated >reddit posters spend on their favorite subreddit? Many times more than that. I feel like direct links would be inappropriate, but I found several threads in which users claimed to have 500+ hours spent on individual hobby subreddits.

Of course they're going to stop talking about the source material with these numbers. Reposts are generally frowned upon, and so all discussion related to the actual source-material is going to be used up in the first few months. After that, what is there left to do? The community is still up, and hundreds of thousands of subscribers still get updates about it. It seems inevitable that they'd make jokes about the community itself, because that's all that's left.

---

This was super rambly, but I hope it at least kind of made sense. I don't think there's inherently something wrong with self-referencial fandom spaces. If anything, I just made this post to organize my thoughts. Because when I refused to go to cons with my friends, I never had a good answer as to why.

 

[stonehead]

I forgot. @Punp wanted to be pinged.

Hope this nonsensical rant was worth the wait.

 

[Punp]

Thanks for the invite!

I know exactly what you mean. It's as if people cosplay as a fanbase and wear the aesthetic without living the life. The big bang theory appeals to these kinds of people. Pseudo-intellectualism is appealing because one can seem smart by parroting smart things. This can be applied to many fandoms where there is an illusion of being part of something bigger.

I'd like to term this "cloaking", unless there's already a phrase for it. A tidy little meme would summarise this well.

* Someone (A) does a thing, say, makes a cool program. They get really into their programming and enjoy it.
* Their friend (B), who is adjacent to that space, makes a relatable remark. Maybe "arrays start at zero, dumbass!"
* Their friend (C) overhears this. They ask what it means and why it's funny.
* C joins in on their new in-joke and starts relating it to people who have no idea what it's about. C likes how it makes them feel smart and how people who don't understand the joke ask for it to be explained.
* C meets D who understands the joke and they can feel they have something in common. C has found new people like A and B (people with first hand experience of the subject who are similar to their friends), but also maybe like C (people who admire A and B and wish to be seen as smart).
* A moves on and finds some new hobby and recognises that the joke is driven into the ground. A no longer interacts with C and D.
* B enjoys their new status as cult leader for C and D and sticks around, introducing new fragments of coder culture from conversations with A.

This is true of most fandoms or interests. People with no real opinions or hobbies are desperately hungry for new ways to flesh out their husk of a personality. They need things to talk about but have no real interesting point of view. Having memorable quotes or meta discussions to hand in order to fill the silence is very useful. Being able to immediately have something in common with other people (i.e. a fandom, a convention) is very useful to people who can't make friends easily.

Strong friendships which start at cons are strong because they either:
a) Evolve the friendship quickly beyond the shared interest and find other relatable parts of their lives i.e. hobbies, family, enjoyable passtimes
or
b) do not have the social awareness to realise that talking autistically about their fanbase is not the basis for a strong relationship. (Their social needs might be lower)

As someone who spends a good deal of time quoting and discussing the Simpsons, a show that stopped producing good material 20 years ago, I feel over qualified for this thread.

 

[Punp]

Honourable mention to the time we met our neighbour's friend - a girl ten years younger who had just started her first year of a programming course. She was talking smugly about how she can "hack websites" by changing the page locally on the inspector like she was an all-powerful cyberlich. She said how her mom didn't understand all her technobabble like "HTML" and "CSS". To use the new terminology - she was cloaking hard.

She quickly backpedalled when I told her I'd been programming for fifteen years and explained the stuff she could look forward to - but hotdamn was that insufferable.

I take shameful humblecomfort in knowing that I was probably exactly that person and likely just as ignorantly smug.

 

[Some_porcupine]

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[Jodo_Fan]

This is true of most fandoms or interests. People with no real opinions or hobbies are desperately hungry for new ways to flesh out their husk of a personality.

The world being the way it is, I find this completely understandable. It's no surprise people seek meaning, identity, a sense of individualism and belonging any which way they can. And to be fair to nerd fandom, sports and politics can be used in exactly the same way.

Even fandom's childish element, where people sometimes behave far below what you'd expect from their educational and intellectual capabilities, is part of a wider trend. As a society, how often do we look to young people or celebrities for guidance?

EDIT: I'm not excluding myself from any of this.

The big bang theory appeals to these kinds of people.

If I had a buck for every time I read or heard someone say: "People say I'm like Sheldon. I didn't know it was meant to be a bad thing."

Pseudo-intellectualism is appealing because one can seem smart by parroting smart things.

Don't pick on Hacker News.

 

[microbyte]

She was talking smugly about how she can "hack websites" by changing the page locally on the inspector like she was an all-powerful cyberlich

Man, I remember the days showing off to all my friends by hopping onto like cessna's website and making an airplane cost ZERO DOLLARS!!!

I'm not exactly sure why I enjoy my friends' inside jokes, but not the types of long running gags that come out of fandoms. Maybe it's just that I'm not friends with them. It'd be a bit weird if like, my dentist and I had a bunch of in-jokes we kept referencing. Or maybe it's that communities of millions and millions of people are too big for inside jokes to really be inside jokes. Both of these fail to explain why I still think Loss edits are funny though. I think the best bet is that fandom "injokes" invariably become incredibly overused.

I wrote a few comments before about how nothing is fun for more than 1000 hours, and I think that concept is related to why I don't like fandoms. How much time can you spend talking about one franchise before you run out of things to talk about? If it's a single movie, maybe a few hours? Probably ten or twenty if it's a really good or complex movie. If it's a genre-defining, once-in-a-lifetime film, and I rehash the same conversations with different people and at different times, maybe you could squeeze a hundred hours of discussion out of it. Ok, now how much time do you think dedicated >reddit posters spend on their favorite subreddit? Many times more than that. I feel like direct links would be inappropriate, but I found several threads in which users claimed to have 500+ hours spent on individual hobby subreddits.

Humans like community. They like being a part of something larger. Applies to me and you too. And when people invest time into a community, then they want some sort of reward. Something to stand out. So injokes get formed. The only way to understand the community is to invest time. It's both a form of rewarding oneself for being an in depth member of a group and gatekeeping.

But I do think the whole thing is annoying. Especially when everyone who likes something gets lumped in with the fandom. I like a lot of stuff, but I'm not in the "fandom" or what have you for any of them. I've got better stuff to do, like have a life.

People with no real opinions or hobbies are desperately hungry for new ways to flesh out their husk of a personality.

This is, in my opinion, one of the worst parts of social media. All the good stuff in groups getting diluted by people just there to make themselves seem cool and not the least interesting person in the world.

 

[Chuffed]

I'm awkward as hell in real life so I always got lumped into the "you like Star Wars, Anime, MCU, and video games" club and the people that really like that stuff always gravitate toward me even though I can't contribute really anything to any of that. In fact, I've been inducted into a tabletop group now, two groups were fighting for me and I finally caved. The people are nice enough and games are ok I guess. Some of us are just 'spergy and it's expected for us to know our place, I've been trying to get away from the scene my whole life. Business minded folk and polite society won't deal with me - too weird. Save me, lol.

 

[Shogun_Mosquito]

Right with you OP.

I'd bet that at least part of this correlates with intro/extroversion and independence. Some people want to follow along, others like to forge.

 

[Ross_Я]

Interesting. It looks I'm a nerd-not-nerd myself, as I agree with pretty much the whole post. This one is a very good observation.

I wrote a few comments before about how nothing is fun for more than 1000 hours, and I think that concept is related to why I don't like fandoms. How much time can you spend talking about one franchise before you run out of things to talk about? If it's a single movie, maybe a few hours? Probably ten or twenty if it's a really good or complex movie. If it's a genre-defining, once-in-a-lifetime film, and I rehash the same conversations with different people and at different times, maybe you could squeeze a hundred hours of discussion out of it. Ok, now how much time do you think dedicated >reddit posters spend on their favorite subreddit? Many times more than that. I feel like direct links would be inappropriate, but I found several threads in which users claimed to have 500+ hours spent on individual hobby subreddits.

Of course they're going to stop talking about the source material with these numbers. Reposts are generally frowned upon, and so all discussion related to the actual source-material is going to be used up in the first few months. After that, what is there left to do? The community is still up, and hundreds of thousands of subscribers still get updates about it. It seems inevitable that they'd make jokes about the community itself, because that's all that's left.

This part got me really thinking. For the first time I've actually been able to feel this question as a... well, somewhat of a creator, I guess. And, well, do I really want this thing myself? This kind of... constant community around my work or something? I mean, it's good if you make money, I guess, but if you just create stuff? I think, I do not need that. What does it mean? Does it mean that ultimately, I do not really need a community around my work? This feels like a... kind of a weird... conclusion, but I guess, if there's a community around your work, it is pretty much inevitable for it to devolve into this kind of fandom?
And then, if your work is popular, is there even a way to stop this kind of community-fandom to form around your work? The question is definitely very hypothetical, because I am, obviously, nowhere near any kind of fame, but I find it interesting. I guess, earlier or later popular work will get a fandom inevitably, but, perhaps, there is a method to... make people move on, to somehow... prolong the fandom-less state.
Raw thoughts, but I hope they are understandable.

Humans like community. They like being a part of something larger. Applies to me and you too. And when people invest time into a community, then they want some sort of reward. Something to stand out. So injokes get formed. The only way to understand the community is to invest time. It's both a form of rewarding oneself for being an in depth member of a group and gatekeeping.

What's really awkward is that a lot of people seem to like these ideas that "every human is unique", "I am unique" - all that stuff. I've wrote a very nice monologue one day, and, to not-so-nicely translate it in two words, it goes as something like this: those people probably have no idea what does it mean to be truly unique. It's a pain, unbearable pain. It is much better to be a part of something, preferably something big. It really is great if you can be part of the idea you are wholeheartedly support. In other words - people are not that unique, and that is actually quite great.

 

[Some_porcupine]

What's really awkward is that a lot of people seem to like these ideas that "every human is unique", "I am unique" - all that stuff. I've wrote a very nice monologue one day, and, to not-so-nicely translate it in two words, it goes as something like this: those people probably have no idea what does it mean to be truly unique. It's a pain, unbearable pain. It is much better to be a part of something, preferably something big. It really is great if you can be part of the idea you are wholeheartedly support. In other words - people are not that unique, and that is actually quite great.

"sonder", neologism for *that*

 

[MindControlBoxer]

You just gotta bully these people.

Sometimes i like to pretend i am noob at [redacted] hobby to gauge peoples reactions, then when you can turn it up and then they look retarded for trying to one up people . Works good especially when you know everybody already, then every body knows already and those people get the opposite of what they wanted, which is the stigma of them being retards.



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9mC6Osykgo

 

[Kyou]

What a coincidence, I was just having some thoughts about this last night. They're all that really autistic kind of thought though, the ones which quickly become only tangentially related to the normal flow of the conversation, so uh, idk. I don't feel like sharing them here, right now. I'm sure I'll have to make one of those half-cringe-inducing, self-actualizing, Manpaint-ish "break my worldview"-type of containment threads at some point. Maybe.
(And yet I almost ended up writing one of such spergy paragraphs, but caught myself midway. Make sure to put a pin in this thread though, I'll be sure to use it as an example if the time comes)

Honestly though "fandom" people, from my personal interactions with them, have always surprised me. Every sort of conclusion that you think you can make about someone, gets turned on you at some point. I wouldn't be able to hold the judgements that are found ITT, and at all times I've seen this and similar discussions in the past, and as I'm sure they will continue onto into the future. Point is, people are mysterious. Pry them the right way, and you'll often find that the sense of superiority you hold over them (which I assume is a natural state?) quickly collapses. And This culture you're trying to speak of is an anomaly that, again, I don't think can properly be approached with a conversative mindset.

 

[stonehead]

Honourable mention to the time we met our neighbour's friend - a girl ten years younger who had just started her first year of a programming course. She was talking smugly about how she can "hack websites" by changing the page locally on the inspector like she was an all-powerful cyberlich. She said how her mom didn't understand all her technobabble like "HTML" and "CSS". To use the new terminology - she was cloaking hard.

She quickly backpedalled when I told her I'd been programming for fifteen years and explained the stuff she could look forward to - but hotdamn was that insufferable.

I take shameful humblecomfort in knowing that I was probably exactly that person and likely just as ignorantly smug.

I'm sure I was just as overconfident when I was in school. I tried not to frame the post too much as "Oh, you like Nirvana? Prove it, what are your five favorite albums?" but they are somewhat related. It's kind of annoying, but it doesn't really bother me when people "cloak" into communities, especially when they're young. To continue the analogy, a non-elitist fan might talk about their favorite album, while a fandom member would make some overused joke about Justin Beiber.

Humans like community. They like being a part of something larger. Applies to me and you too. And when people invest time into a community, then they want some sort of reward. Something to stand out. So injokes get formed. The only way to understand the community is to invest time. It's both a form of rewarding oneself for being an in depth member of a group and gatekeeping.

But I do think the whole thing is annoying. Especially when everyone who likes something gets lumped in with the fandom. I like a lot of stuff, but I'm not in the "fandom" or what have you for any of them. I've got better stuff to do, like have a life.

Yeah, it makes sense how injokes and a sense of belonging can arise. What I really don't get is why I like some self-referential communities (my irl friends, my family, my coworkers, etc) and not others (LotR memes, programmerHumor, etc). It's not just IRL vs online communities, I still think Loss edits are funny despite that meme being over a decade old. A well crafted "flip your canvas" or "PEBCAK" joke can make me laugh, so I don't just hate jokes about specific jobs or hobbies.

I think it's more jokes about jokes about "content" that bug me. So like, obviously if a show I like makes a funny joke, I'll like it. Take the Time Knife for example, incredible joke IMO. When people turn it into a meme template, "Yeah,<crazy thing>, we've all seen it" it's not nearly as funny as the actual joke, but it doesn't bother me. It's when the template itself becomes the setup for the joke that it loses me. It's harder for me to come up with an example, because I usually try to avoid this type of meme, but the Dio Walking meme is probably a good example. It's not a joke on the scene from Jojo, it's a joke on the meme template the creator expects you to have seen.

This part got me really thinking. For the first time I've actually been able to feel this question as a... well, somewhat of a creator, I guess. And, well, do I really want this thing myself? This kind of... constant community around my work or something? I mean, it's good if you make money, I guess, but if you just create stuff? I think, I do not need that. What does it mean? Does it mean that ultimately, I do not really need a community around my work? This feels like a... kind of a weird... conclusion, but I guess, if there's a community around your work, it is pretty much inevitable for it to devolve into this kind of fandom?
And then, if your work is popular, is there even a way to stop this kind of community-fandom to form around your work? The question is definitely very hypothetical, because I am, obviously, nowhere near any kind of fame, but I find it interesting. I guess, earlier or later popular work will get a fandom inevitably, but, perhaps, there is a method to... make people move on, to somehow... prolong the fandom-less state.
Raw thoughts, but I hope they are understandable.

I'm not super knowledgeable about fandoms, but I've seen popular online creators whose communities I wouldn't really call "fandoms." There are a few memes about Tom Scott, but it feels weird to call it his fandom. I would guess you cultivate this by not relying too much on running gags, not interacting too much parasocially with your fans, and not hosting a community discord or anything. Doing all that would probably be bad for growth, so I'm not sure if it would be worth the trade off.

What's really awkward is that a lot of people seem to like these ideas that "every human is unique", "I am unique" - all that stuff. I've wrote a very nice monologue one day, and, to not-so-nicely translate it in two words, it goes as something like this: those people probably have no idea what does it mean to be truly unique. It's a pain, unbearable pain. It is much better to be a part of something, preferably something big. It really is great if you can be part of the idea you are wholeheartedly support. In other words - people are not that unique, and that is actually quite great.

Yeah, we're unique in the sense that there are thousands and thousands of human traits, and the odds of two sets of them being exactly the same is unlikely, but most of the differences between us can be rounded off. What bothers me about the uniqueness crowd is when they treat it like a virtue. "Be yourself" or worse, "Don't be like everyone else" being extolled as good advice. If you're carefully monitoring everyone else to ensure you aren't too similar to them, you're just as controlled by the masses as someone who tries to fit in. It's like that old Phineas and Ferb joke I couldn't find a clip of, "Can I get a red streak in my hair? It shows my individuality, everyone's doing it."

 

[Ross_Я]

Yeah, it makes sense how injokes and a sense of belonging can arise. What I really don't get is why I like some self-referential communities (my irl friends, my family, my coworkers, etc) and not others (LotR memes, programmerHumor, etc). It's not just IRL vs online communities, I still think Loss edits are funny despite that meme being over a decade old. A well crafted "flip your canvas" or "PEBCAK" joke can make me laugh, so I don't just hate jokes about specific jobs or hobbies.

You are heading into the area of very fine lines and nuanced borders which are really hard to define. I usually just end it at that: there are multiple fine lines that should not be crossed. Albeit you've outlined at least one of them rather nicely, just a moment... here:

communities of millions and millions of people are too big for inside jokes to really be inside jokes.

This one definitely applies, IMO, it's just not the only reason. Defining them all is really hard, and I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
And if you insist on doing it, keep in mind that there are also exceptions to the rules. Loss edits that you keep mentioning might be funny to you simply because of your personal tastes or something.

 

[GENOSAD]

That's what always bothered me about "Nerd Culture" too. It's all about self-congratulating about how nerdy you are, and never about the niche interests themself.

Nail on the head with these two sentences. Every gripe I've ever had with fandoms condenses into this, and it's the reason I believe some level of gatekeeping is necessary in online cultures. There are total normalfags out there who assume they hold esoteric knowledge of the Star Wars universe just because they understood a reference to it on The Big Bang Theory. There are people who only ever play AAA games and never played something from before their own time, yet assume they know everything about gaming because they played le nerdy Skyrim. It's that kind of attitude that gave Starfield the "most innovative gameplay" Steam award; not because Bethesda paid anyone, but because gaming has spread to a mainstream culture that doesn't actually understand the medium.

 

[GENOSAD]

also this

 

[Deleted member 7044]

How much time can you spend talking about one franchise before you run out of things to talk about?

This reminds me of this video:

The Undertale fandom first obsessed over major characters, then minor ones, then lesser known things. When the fandom started to run out of things to discuss about in the game the various alternative universes (AUs) took off like wildfire. Now we're having large scale fan games made with varying levels of originality, with Undertale Yellow IMO the most original out of the major fan games out there to name an example. I've seen this occur to various extents with various other fandoms such as Signalis, Undertale, etc. The members of a fandom make art, theories, etc of existing media, however this can't go on forever. At some point either new content stops getting made such as with Undertale, or updates take a long time to be made such as with Deltarune and the ~3 year gap between new content for it. When the official content runs out and nothing new can be done with it, that's when I've noticed fandoms tend to go to interesting places... Personally I feel the this aspect of fandoms stems from consumerism and the idea that you must keep consuming content, and since the creators like Toby Fox can't produce at that scale the fandom does so itself. Combine that with the fact the Internet is a thing, and you've got a system where this happens often to countless pieces of media.

 

[Jodo_Fan]

I've been wondering lately if fandoms and the people who profit from them aren't the reason culture is so weird and static at the moment. Everyone is so emotionally and financially invested in keeping things the same forever. Even internet revival groups have this idealized, emotionally charged concept of the way things were (and should be) which they defend and gatekeep aggressively.

 

[Ross_Я]

keeping things the same forever.

Well, about Star Wars and Warhammer it was just doing the things right. Warhammer was expanding OK up until 5th edition included. Even first Black Library novels about Horus Heresy were OK, despite the fact that the lore about primarchs was hit or miss. It all went down hill from that point. Even though yes, it all happened when GW finally decided to move the timeline forward.
Same with Star Wars. Expanded universe was ever shifting, always new things. It was never the same. It was hit or miss, but it had dozens of authors writing about different things. And then Disney came in and canned it all... but left in the prequels. Duh.
Can't really comment on anything else.