The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture

[Orlando Smooth]

I recently had some mindless work to do, so I listened to this video someone had sent me regarding the rise and fall of geek culture. If you're not familiar with the creator, she's a Canadian progressive who makes these long videos about cultural topics - a style that the YT algorithm currently loves. With that being said, the content wasn't as bad as I expected, likely due to the fact that she has a background in formalized debate. For instance, she makes it all the way to the 56th minute before saying capitalism, 67 minutes before mentioning men in a negative way (shortly followed by claims of racism), and a full 70 minutes before mentioning gamergate. Still, the content rang fairly hollow to me. The crux of the argument is essentially "2000's-2010's geek culture was primarily white men, white men are toxic, therefore it was bad and failed." While some of the points made were entirely valid, they do not add up to support the overall claim of "everything I don't like is toxic masculinity." For example neckbeards truly were/are shitty people, but their toxicity towards you does not inherently represent a unique hatred towards your demographic. Funko Pops are dumb pieces of plastic that people should not feel pride in owning, but that speaks more to the stupidity of the average person than a valid criticism of capitalism.

________________________________________

So this had me thinking; since I'm unsatisfied with this explanation of the downfall of geek culture, what is my explanation?

Background on me: I'm not looking to dox myself, but I was born in the early/mid-90's America in a town where, if you were to randomly take someone I went to high school with, you'd have roughly equal probabilities of picking someone who became a doctor/lawyer/etc. and someone who became an alcoholic day laborer. I was the smart, awkward, nerdy kid in school, so I was around to happily watch as the things that I enjoyed as a kid gained popularity as the mainstream picked up geek shit to the extent it did starting in the late 2000's. As I approached and entered my 20's though, I found that I no longer had the attachment to these things in the way that I once did. My life was occupied with new situations and new forms of meaning and fulfillment - put simply, I grew up. This meant that I was able to watch with unattached amusement as the whole scene fell apart later in the 2010's. I understood the infighting and was a witness to it on the various socials, but rarely if ever engaged as I was far more likely to laugh at both sides of the flame war for how emotional they would get over IP.

Yeah, yeah, get to the point: One of the good points made in the video was that at a certain time it stopped being about actually being a fan of something and was more about being part of the fandom monoculture itself. For a lot of people, this was their primary source of community and acceptance where they would convene to discuss their ideas, seek support, express their loyalties through various signaling devices, attempt to find meaning, and argue others who held opposing views... sound familiar? Basically, it is my opinion that nerd pop culture was the last stop on the secularization path that has railroaded society's normies from religion to culture war over the past ~50 years or so. These people tried to fill a god-shaped hole with graphic tees and funkos, failed to do so, and thus moved on to the next thing to fill that hole which turned out to be the culture war. Think about it, how many of the people that you knew who were super into the fandom scene are now either SJWs or incels? The pipeline of tumblr and 4chan to political extremism was definitely a real phenomenon by the mid/late 2010's.

If religion truly is the opiate of the masses, perhaps it's best to keep them on a slow drip instead of ODing or flushing the stash.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

I'd like to add that I do lament the loss of genuine pop culture enjoyment, if such a thing ever truly existed. The absolute corporatization of everything combined with the millennial-minimalism mentality of "if you own anything, you're a part of the problem" meant that myself and a lot of people I know felt an unresolvable tension. Do you buy a maximalist consumer product for a fleeting, hollow sense of entertainment? Or do you commit to the Spartan lifestyle of stoic self denial? There doesn't seem to be much alternative at this point, which is why I'm mostly content to let other people enjoy whatever they think is right for them, within reason.

 

[Ixion_SEROV]

Several things happened at the same time to contribute to the fall of 'Geek Culture' as well as everything else that we're seeing now. I want to use Marvel as an example here since it's become so ubiquitous with the neo-nerd image.

Think about comics, video games, anime, or obscure hobbies before 2010 Back then, a lot of these interests were insular and marketed only within specialty fandoms that never really branched out far from the beaten path. Think of Warhammer 40K, Star Trek, or Dungeons and Dragons. A lot of these mediums would be kept "close to the chest" and away from normies.

One big contributing factor is- like everything- money. Marvel's success with its movies showed that if you just "put the right spin" on your content and cast a wider net, you could catch the most fish. Who doesn't like money, right? Well, that would require a few changes as well, such as dumbing down the game to make it more "palpable" to new audiences. Marvel did it with flashy camera work and giant CGI retard-battles. Why can't we do it with something as simple as fantasy board games or sci-fi shooters?

From another angle, something else was happening. A little over a decade ago, the rise of newspeak buzzwords would begin. Think of all the strange sexualities, identification terms, and other verbiage to bleed out from our shitty academia (i.e. microaggressions, male privilege) One of the first terms to come out of this slough of thinking was "Gatekeeping." Simply by uttering that word, it invokes an image of hostile exclusivity, meaning that any community that gatekeeps- large or small- needs to be dealt with. What happened? Nerds who cared about things like canon, continuity or narrative would be labeled as "gatekeepers." As if that's a bad thing.

Before the term "gatekeeping" became widespread, we all used the term "having standards." There is nothing wrong with having standards. Alas, these would be the first casualty in the long, grueling erosion of decent fiction. We can't afford to have standards. We don't need those anymore, you know? All we need is more money and more mindless hordes buying our stuff that appeals to the lowest common denominator.

 

[Mеченый Яков]

And everything started with a bang...

 

[HellManMayo]

Reminds me of this copypasta from back in the day.

 

[Deleted member 1930]

Reminds me of this copypasta from back in the day.

View attachment 28658

Magic the Gathering

 

[Jared]

And everything started with a bang...
View attachment 28625

this is advanced humor

 

[GhostCow]

Reminds me of this copypasta from back in the day.

View attachment 28658

Way too wordy. I prefer this version

 

[LostintheCycle]

I was in my teen years a part of the Brony fandom, and it's probably the peak of your 'fandom monoculture'. Most people watched the show and the spinoff movies and shit, but the focus was definitely on feeling like a part of the community, the content was secondary. The community is still fairly strong now, there are still releases by major pony music labels, and many visual artists still pumping out pictures, and other projects still ongoing, even though the show ended a year or two ago. Sure, the Brony community isn't as big as it used to be, but that's more to do with Bronies no longer being the hot thing to shit on than it is the end of the show. Basically the show is less important than engagement with the fandom, even though the fandom centers around the show. The community is the only reason there were so many grown men watching a little girls pony show, no matter how good it supposedly was. Once you've seen a few fandom communities though, you realize that in all of them the core is not that important. Most fandoms have just the same few activities; they have fanfiction, which is always the same in any fandom with its terms and genres; there's fanart; there's merchandise obsession; there were those Tumblr memes that pretended the characters were homosexual; there's endless discussions about meaningless details of the show; all those fandoms are usually occupied by the same people who call themselves 'multi-fandom'. It's quite easy to do that, because they can find all the same things from the One Direction fandom as the Harry Potter fandom.

These fandoms (which I will now refer to as the 'Standard Fandom') seem to propagate naturally into popular long-running shows, especially those marketed towards teen girls. They have a few benefits: they keep people engaged for a long time as the fans entertain each other with fan-generated content until the next season or next movie or whatever; the fandoms go off and rope in more customers like a marketing automata. I also find that people who enter a Standard Fandom are likely to join other Standard Fandoms in the future. I suspect astro-turfing occurs, as a Standard Fandom represents the demographic of 20% of customers who will generate 80% of the money. It's not like companies are ignorant to what happens online, they know more about online culture and online memetics than they let on, they just let people think they don't.

I may have used examples that come from the 2010's, but the Standard Fandom exists today in a broader sense but mostly the same, functionally it serves the same purpose as a marketing tool. Though I talked in terms of a show in this post, please know that I actually mean it in terms of anything, the show could be a game, a band, a whatever... as I said, the actual content is secondary, the structure remains the same still. The Standard Fandom ultimately represents a demographic of the crazed fans who must be strongly catered to, but in return will fork over cash. Hundreds of dollars for tickets to a musical? Or hundreds of dollars for bishoujo figurines? Or a hundred for every Pop Funko in the series? Or hundreds on mugs, clothes, plushes, and other dumb shit? They will pay for all that shit even if their earnings are paltry! All to prove their love for their Standard Fandom.

For the record, I'm not a Brony anymore. Most of them are hypocrites, most of them have something wrong with them, a majority of them masturbate to ponies (EquestriaDaily confirmed this with a poll a while back), so I got sick of them and left. Everyones a dumbass when they're 14.

 

[ignika98]

The entire concept of a "fandom" was always bad imo. It takes the act of relating to and enjoying a piece of media, and turns it into a social identity. And it's not enough to just like a single work anymore, no. Everything is a franchise or brand attached to it now. If you like a game that's part of a larger franchise, people automatically assume that you're a fan of that franchise rather than someone who just enjoys a certain game, for example.

It hurts creators too. Because if people like your work, they expect you to make more of the same rather than experiment making new things and branching out. It honestly feels like most media these days is made by the collective expectations of its intended audience, rather than by a creator who wants to make something of their own. And while that might sound like it's giving people what they want, it really isn't. Because consumers don't know what they want, they only know what they like.
I feel like the whole concept of being a "fan" of something and creating a fandom around a particular interest is part of what's caused media these days to be so stagnant and boring. It strips artists creations of their individual worth, and just reduces them down to a series of tropes that are associated with a particular brand identity.

 

[Deleted member 2362]

The entire concept of a "fandom" was always bad imo. It takes the act of relating to and enjoying a piece of media, and turns it into a social identity. And it's not enough to just like a single work anymore, no. Everything is a franchise or brand attached to it now. If you like a game that's part of a larger franchise, people automatically assume that you're a fan of that franchise rather than someone who just enjoys a certain game, for example.

For most people today, fandoms exist as a poor substitute of old fellowships and other associations that went tacitly suppressed by modern times and the industrial society. People in need of a social group will attach themselves to all kinds of consumables, be it Harley bikes, Pokemon games or Monster Energy cans, everything can derive a "personality", the product/thing being attached to is not that important in itself as the aim is still to form and be part of a group regardless of how superficial their interest in the thing is; this obviously creates a friction with the hardcore members who happen to actually enjoy the thing in itself — two different sets of expectations.

Fandoms, cultures and the likes will keep getting 'invaded' by people who simply want a social situation because as I said in the first point, the right of free association (specially of men) keeps getting trampled by state efforts, which sees such thing as dangerous to the state itself(*). And so, being barred from communal ties, people flock then to what seems the most similar and easiest thing to partake, the fandom, whether their interest is genuine or not. Only activities that are most obscure, niche and hard to get into remain protected from these dynamics. Work has also changed, most workers don't have any attachment to co-workers and their work. With men being alienated from culture, religion and effort, thus do people turn to fill the emptiness of life with surrogate activities as actually defined by Ted Kaczynski. We don't live in the Facebook Meta-Matrix yet but it's a matter of time as long as it provides the masses with a feel of needed companionship and meaning; maybe then will the normies leave fandom core members alone again.

(*)I have the intuition that fandom infiltration dynamics as depicted in the comics above are actually designed and promoted by the state and their intel communities, which is why you can observe media screeching about "inclusivity" in hobbies and shit. Their desired outcome is destroying all kinds of association and force people into parasocial activities that can be dictated top-to-bottom, achieving total control on the populace.

 

[ZinRicky]

The entire concept of a "fandom" was always bad imo. It takes the act of relating to and enjoying a piece of media, and turns it into a social identity.

This a million times. Fandom is just corporate speech for a bunch of fanatic, exploitable people.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

Reminds me of this copypasta from back in the day.

This reeks of incel, but is on the right track. I think GhostCow's meme is much more accurate a depiction of reality.

I suspect astro-turfing occurs, as a Standard Fandom represents the demographic of 20% of customers who will generate 80% of the money. It's not like companies are ignorant to what happens online, they know more about online culture and online memetics than they let on, they just let people think they don't.

I didn't get into Pareto in the original, because it's not really related to the original point I was trying to make, but I have believed for many years now that it is the underlying agent or force that leads to the death of healthy fan groups. It's really simple:
OG fans promote the IP because they genuinely love it > normies come in, become unhealthily obsessed > normies spend tons of money > creators offer fanservice and catering towards the subset of fans that are actually spending money, because they don't see the rest > OG fans become alienated and lose interest, leading to a death spiral. This is essentially the memes above. There are tons of people that watch Star Trek, but only a small percentage of that group are the people who spend thousands of dollars a year on merch, fan art, etc., but since those people are the most easily observable of the fans, those are the ones the executives cater to. Surprise, surprise, they're also the most toxic and the most lost of the fanbase.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

The entire concept of a "fandom" was always bad imo. It takes the act of relating to and enjoying a piece of media, and turns it into a social identity.

Where's the line? Seriously. If I go to a bar and say to my friends: "Hey, I just saw the new season of Lower Decks. What did you think of it?" I don't think anyone would say it is my social identity. Even purchasing some amount of merch can still be seen as tasteful, if it's done correctly. At what point does it transcend from simply being a fan to having it be your social identity?

I agree with your overall point, but it's hard to draw the line so to say "If you do X, you are a manchild of the fandom." Perhaps this is the exact reason why these people exist, because no one can put in place rules for them to follow.

 

[Mеченый Яков]

For a second i thought it said "rise and fall of greek culture" oh well, i'll post these anyways.

 

[ignika98]

Where's the line? Seriously. If I go to a bar and say to my friends: "Hey, I just saw the new season of Lower Decks. What did you think of it?" I don't think anyone would say it is my social identity. Even purchasing some amount of merch can still be seen as tasteful, if it's done correctly. At what point does it transcend from simply being a fan to having it be your social identity?

I agree with your overall point, but it's hard to draw the line so to say "If you do X, you are a manchild of the fandom." Perhaps this is the exact reason why these people exist, because no one can put in place rules for them to follow.

There is no line. It's a matter of the mindset a person has when it comes to media. Whether they appreciate a work for what it is and relate to it personally, or just consume things for the sake of consuming and fitting in.

 

[WALFTEAM]

Subcultures were created during the era of mass media to try and carve out a refuge from the monoculture that mass media was creating. The early internet somewhat enhanced this activity, then the one-two punch of social media and crowdfunding simply smushed everything and everyone into one big monoculture without really much warning or anyone realizing what had happened until it was too late. Everyone is under a magnifying glass and they're getting fried like ants.

 

[JihyoParkXX]

One of proudest achievements, or in this case nonachievement, is finding Discord too complicated to use that I never got really involved with the degenerates of any community.

 

[Iommi Fan 420]

there are still releases by major pony music labels

what

 

[LostintheCycle]

what

What we called 'pony music' refers to music released by Brony netlabels. Here is a popular one: https://poniesatdawn.bandcamp.com
Brony music is mostly just regular amateur music, but is occasionally related to the show, or is sometimes about friendship. Again, the pony thing is mostly arbitrary.