The commentary for today's Penny Arcade highlights for me exactly what is both the best and the most terrifying aspect of geekdom. The obsessiveness of fangeeks. I was laughing out loud, which is unusual for me at work. It tends to raise awkward questions, like, "What are you doing reading that instead of working?"
Anyway. . . Why is it that geeks (perhaps that should be we geeks) take so much pride and pleasure from knowing that which others do not? Even (perhaps that should be especially) that which others don't care to know? I understand it a lot more with the young geeks here at Information Services: They're trying to establish pecking order and a little informational one-upsmanship helps them with that. But shouldn't we be able to outgrow that? Or is that just one of those features that defines the geek his whole life? Of is it a guy thing?
And why, oh why, do all of my posts tend to be filled with questions? Am I attempting to be Aristotilian, or am I just trying to encourage the sort of commentary that makes blogs so interesting? I think that that's the one feature that threatens my geek status more than anything: The willingness to use the question mark rather than favoring inflammatory declarative statements.
Yur paradigm just shifted! Aristotle SUKS!!!!!
ReplyDeleteLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL NOOOOB!
SoKrates RuLeZ!!!!!!!!
HBot3000 philosphizes ftw!!!!!!
Ahem.
That penny arcade was also funny to me. KVC and I play this game every time we visit each other. Essentially, which of us is right on these geeky/pop-culture references most often on any given visit. But really, all things considered, we've always been laid back kind of geeks. I've had loud, drunk conversations about when princess Amidala was the bodyguard and when it's Natalie Portman of course, but usually we don't get to het up about it. Really though, if you want to check out the true horrible face of geekdom, check out this exchange on Warren Ellis's site between Warren Ellis and Joss Whedon in the comments to the post. It's amusing to see how much the fanboys fall over themselves trying to post something that sounds like they're playing it cool, but you can tell they're all wiping off the monitor/keyboard/mouse/etc.. Okay, trying a link in comments for the first time. Just cut and paste the link out of the gook if I FUBAR the tags (I expect to be flamed if I do).
Warren Ellis v Joss Whedon