Geek Culture

Over on Twitter, Mark Kern (involved in the creation of computer games like World of Warcraft, Diablo 2, and Starcraft) had an interesting discussion about how things have changed for geek culture.  With comic book movies dominating the box office and the Internet presenting computer games as a pursuit on par with athletics (e-sports), there are people following these passions who have never seen these as other than mainstream.  And he related his own experiences with being a geek back in the day, when these pursuits were decidedly unpopular.

There were a lot of positive responses, of people sharing their own stories, but as is the case with social media, there were plenty of negative responses--people denying this was a problem, or saying this wasn't real bullying (compared to, say, racial discrimination).

Twitter isn't the right platform for sharing longer stories, so I thought I'd reminisce here.

Back in the day, I was into video games and role-playing games.  Video games were pretty widely played, but this was long before e-sports, and even before popular musicians and athletes talked about video games, so they weren't mainstream.  Other games, comic books, science fiction and fantasy, and the like were even more obscure.  So my interests didn't do anything to make me popular.

What was popular in culture during my junior high school days?  Skater and surfer culture.  Kids who did neither would wear Vans shoes and T-shirts with the logo of some surf company in Hawaii.

And I thought skater and surfer culture was stupid.

Now, to give you an example of what adults thought about my interests?  A junior high school guidance counselor suggested I could be more popular if I just dressed like the popular kids, faking an interest in the dominant culture.

The way I see it, bullying was tolerated.  I won't try comparing its seriousness to something like racial harassment.  However, I will note that if a minority student were being attacked because of his culture, I guarantee you no guidance counselor would suggest he try acting more white.