The Null Device
2012/6/27
Let Us Put An End To “Geek Pride”, a Tyler Durdenesque rant against the recent wave of ‘geek’ triumphalism:
A subculture is not a counterculture. A consumer culture is not a subculture. We are not all in this together. Your social Laws (Godwin's, etc.) are as insipid as any aphorism your grandmother might have cross-stitched and put on display two generations ago. What you think is cool is not cool. What you decide is uncool is also uncool. Your counter-snobbery is snobbery. Your snobbery is snobbery. You do not rule the world. Obama flashing a Vulcan salute does not mean that you rule the world.
How much money you now make because you took the "hard" courses in school doesn't matter either. Not to anyone else, anyway. Not everyone who likes the same TV show as you is a member of your "family." Not everyone who likes that TV show less is a terrible person, or bland, or foolish. It's a TV show. It exists to compel you to send a company money, or to convince you to watch an ad. When it becomes less effective at doing this, it will go away.
You cannot lash your small self to some larger thing and thus enlarge yourself. Especially not when the larger thing you've lashed yourself to is "geekdom." Enough, enough, enough.