# The Geekification of Everything?



## Barantor (Aug 31, 2015)

Good thought process, but I wonder if it will ever truly wane? Technology will continue to progress at a very rapid rate and that culture of tech will remain a fairly constant thing unless some sort of 'back tech' or 'unplugged' movement becomes the rage or norm. We are almost getting to a point where I could see a rebellion happening against technology advances because of the progressively invasive way it is insinuating itself into our daily living.

My nostalgia does get ramped up when I see new versions of old favorites, but I am often left wanting that 'taste of new' that will never happen again and it ends up jading me in a way against other 'retro' products that come out.


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## Nylanfs (Aug 31, 2015)

I am REALLY digging Mike's work now that he's freed from "The Man".


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## Galendril (Aug 31, 2015)

This editorial makes me wish the D&D movie sucks!


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## Von Ether (Aug 31, 2015)

This is part of that irony with geek cultural on a high is that while for-profit con are over flowing, the old SF clubs are dying. 

And I do believe the reins are skipping a generation as the Boomers are handing it off to their Melinnial kids and grand kids.


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## Mr. Flibble (Aug 31, 2015)

Galendril said:


> This editorial makes me wish the D&D movie sucks!




Considering that...


All earlier attempts at a D&D movie have resembled a vampire (first they bit and then they sucked), and that...
Fantasy movies on the whole have a long history of significant sucktitude...
I think you stand a better than even chance of seeing that wish come true.


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## Barantor (Aug 31, 2015)

Von Ether said:


> This is part of that irony with geek cultural on a high is that while for-profit con are over flowing, the old SF clubs are dying.
> 
> And I do believe the reins are skipping a generation as the Boomers are handing it off to their Millennial kids and grand kids.




Clubs how? If you mean the meeting face-to-face clubs, those are slowly morphing into online clubs as folks realize they can go online to do the same thing instead of across town. It also lets them game with folks that live in other countries. It isn't perfect yet, but with online tabletops gaining some traction it is becoming a bit better.


How are the reins skipping a generation? We have tons of 30 something authors out there who are the kids of the boomers?


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## Umbran (Aug 31, 2015)

Barantor said:


> Good thought process, but I wonder if it will ever truly wane? Technology will continue to progress at a very rapid rate and that culture of tech will remain a fairly constant thing...




The "culture of tech" will by no means stay a constant thing.

Why?  Well, as tech becomes more and more ubiquitous, it ceases to be different.  It will stop being a point over which there's a discontinuity between peoples.  It used to be that the tech workplace was geek haven, but as more and more people get involved in producing it, the tech workplace will be come a standard office (where, for example, engineers will spend more time discussing sports than they do traditionally "geeky" things).  Tech will slowly cease being a cultural-geek-only place.  Being involved in tech will cease to be (is already ceasing to be) an indicator that one is "geeky", in the cultural sense, as many folks in tech will not otherwise be geeks.

A friend of mine was recently talking a bout how he was the sole RPG player he could find in a 50+ people engineering department!  

I think the current interest in sci-fi and fantasy movies will wane, just as the past had waves of mystery/gumshoe films, and Westerns.  Genres rise and fall, folks.


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## Von Ether (Aug 31, 2015)

Barantor said:


> Clubs how? If you mean the meeting face-to-face clubs, those are slowly morphing into online clubs as folks realize they can go online to do the same thing instead of across town. It also lets them game with folks that live in other countries. It isn't perfect yet, but with online tabletops gaining some traction it is becoming a bit better.
> 
> 
> How are the reins skipping a generation? We have tons of 30 something authors out there who are the kids of the boomers?




An online "club" isn't the same as a pot luck and chatting with people who become real life friends that you see every month.

As for the other comment, my apologies for being vague. I was talking about the con scene, where I'm seeing either a lot of retiring boomers or younger folks as compared to the middle aged crowd. It's like grandma and the kids are at the con, Mom and Dad are just vegging at home.


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## talien (Aug 31, 2015)

I think the Ready Player One movie is going to infuriate people on an unprecedented level.  That's just a vibe I'm getting.  I hope I'm wrong.


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## JohnnyZemo (Aug 31, 2015)

talien said:


> I think the Ready Player One movie is going to infuriate people on an unprecedented level.  That's just a vibe I'm getting.  I hope I'm wrong.




You're thinking of Cline's dreadful second book, Armada.  ;-)


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## talien (Aug 31, 2015)

JohnnyZemo said:


> You're thinking of Cline's dreadful second book, Armada.  ;-)



I haven't read that one, but was irritated by the details Cline got right when he invoked D&D.  Armada sounds suspiciously like Pixels.


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## Ryujin (Aug 31, 2015)

Umbran said:


> The "culture of tech" will by no means stay a constant thing.
> 
> Why?  Well, as tech becomes more and more ubiquitous, it ceases to be different.  It will stop being a point over which there's a discontinuity between peoples.  It used to be that the tech workplace was geek haven, but as more and more people get involved in producing it, the tech workplace will be come a standard office (where, for example, engineers will spend more time discussing sports than they do traditionally "geeky" things).  Tech will slowly cease being a cultural-geek-only place.  Being involved in tech will cease to be (is already ceasing to be) an indicator that one is "geeky", in the cultural sense, as many folks in tech will not otherwise be geeks.
> 
> ...




I think you're right. The cyclical nature of genre in media has flowed for so-called "geek culture" but as it flows, so shall it ebb. I would also say that what we're currently getting has the merest patina of geekdom on it. The latest "Star Trek" offerings aren't too different from the action movies of the '80s. The only difference is the overlay. As i said, 'thin patina.' Let's see how "The Martian" does in theatres, even with Matt Damon as lead.


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## Grainger (Aug 31, 2015)

Not sure I buy everything in the article:

In terms of politics in gaming, there was plenty of discussion about representation etc. in gaming back in the 80s, and probably before. I did a (not very good) project on this at University in the early 90s, and I wouldn't have claimed it was an original idea.

But that all said, the article touches on interesting issues. I personally have mixed feelings about the "mainstreaming" of gaming. I do feel slightly patronised, like a label's being applied to me that doesn't quite apply (I hate labels, and I'm not really a cookie-cutter geek - I positively hate super heroes, horror, most fantasy and much popular sci fi and Cthulu, vampires and steampunk bore me; I just happen to like some "geek stuff"). However, I'm also pleased that I can make references that other people will get, or at least get the direction it's coming from. And if more people get to experience gaming, then that's a good thing. As long as there are still games around in a variety of styles, it doesn't matter if an influx comes in, and the overall type of game changes. 

However, I don't think we need to worry about the mainstream damaging the range of games we have to play. In board gaming, which has gone sort-of mainstream, I'd say we have a high diversity of game type, theme and price point. The relatively low cost of developing a tabletop game helps. It's not like with mainstream video games where there's so much money at stake that no-one wants to take a risk. An RPG can be developed by one person, in their free time, so we'll always have a wide variety of games available - and if board gaming is anything to go by, we might end up with a flood of games with tired themes (zombies, sword and sorcery, big men shooting aliens, sodding Cthulu), but by sheer dint of market size, we also get a massive variety of other themes and game types.

I love the Mentzer quote by the way. All we need is a pen and paper, really. The rest is just companies selling us stuff. It reflects the famous Gygax quote (which may be apocryphal): "The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules."


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## mxyzplk (Sep 1, 2015)

Great article.  As I was reading Ready Player One half of my brain was saying "this is cool" and the other half was saying "I feel like I'm being pandered to, and not in a good way." 

Of course to a degree as anything mainstreams you will get the "geekier" margin of the hobby - like how the FORGE was the rebellion against the success of D&D and trad RPGs. So there's always something to be weirder about. 

That's the advantage to the Mentzer-mentioned minimalism of RPGs - as something gets mainstreamed and turned into pablum and its host company starts to talk about "the brand" more than about "the game," there's not a lot of startup cost for something else to arise that gets it right instead. Other areas where companies control the means of production more completely are much more of a threat when they "sell out."


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## lynnfredricks (Sep 1, 2015)

There are a lot of insights in this article, yet I do not feel completely pandered to, so am unsatisfied ;-)

Companies market and sell, and they find new ways to be better at it - they have always been that way. It has become easier and easier to figure out what people like with better metrics, and to deliver something that's both more spectacular and yet at the same time, easier to digest. The means of delivery are also faster, better and cheaper. And a  lot of research goes into knowing just how much money is in your pocket and how much you can be persuaded to spend, along with making you feel its okay to prioritize mainlining pixystix over what you really need.  I can't blame the shark for taking a bite.


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## Hand of Evil (Sep 1, 2015)

I am starting to wonder if we are not in a GEEK-LOOP, with all the re-boots we have been seeing.


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## delericho (Sep 1, 2015)

We didn't win the culture war. We were just assimilated into the new religion ($).

What happened was that it became possible to make a live-action Spider-Man film on an affordable budget that didn't look awful. At which point they started mining the accumulated lore of fifty years of comic books for as much gold as they could find. When that gold runs dry, they'll move onto something else. We should probably enjoy the gold rush while it lasts.


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## Benji (Sep 1, 2015)

There's an Alan Moore quote about the idea that having the nostalgia of the last century being our only entertainment and escape in this one can't be healthy and despite Moore's gift for hyperbole and general Brummy grumpiness, he's got a point. The issue for me doesn't arise from saturation but with what happens to our imaginative processes. We're slowly taught to think only in those universes. Anyone checked out the new programs starting in the TV schedule this year? Can we name one that isn't either a spin-off of an existing property, exisits in the same universe as an existing property or based on a book/comic/film? Where are the new ideas? Is this the end of post-modernism?

As a gen X roleplayer, I can honestly say I kept the faith before the millennials arrived and dreamed of this day of the house of geek. But when we  think about generations, how will the one after the millennials rebel in 10-20? It might be by throwing down the house of geek as 'shallow escapism'. That won't be the fault of those people who used comics/D&D/geek movies to ask difficult questions. It'll be those who took those fresh new ideas and dumbed them down and marketed them over and over. To continue, I think geek stuff needs to get back to the ideals of science fiction - as a lens through which we view reality. Movies like Captain America: Winter Soldier were a step in the right direction and that stuff still exists - but I'm worried we're beginning to earn the title of 'shallow'. This is a wider concern that D&D but what if we had an adventure that made us make hard choices occasionally? Would it be received well or thought of as 'too much navel gazing' have we rejected the idea our hobby can  be taken seriously in any way?


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## delericho (Sep 1, 2015)

Benji said:


> This is a wider concern that D&D but what if we had an adventure that made us make hard choices occasionally? Would it be received well or thought of as 'too much navel gazing' have we rejected the idea our hobby can  be taken seriously in any way?




It's probably quite difficult to build those hard choices into a pre-gen adventure, because the writer can't know the PCs involved (and, therefore, their individual motivations), and it's hard to engineer the "hard choice" situation without railroading the PCs into it.

That's not to say it's impossible to do ("Ghosts in the Black", for Firefly, does at least try), but this is probably one of those things that is better handled by the individual DM at their table rather than by pre-gen adventures. Mostly.


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## mflayermonk (Sep 1, 2015)

Someone autograph a urinal and lets be done with it.


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## Benji (Sep 1, 2015)

delericho said:


> It's probably quite difficult to build those hard choices into a pre-gen adventure, because the writer can't know the PCs involved (and, therefore, their individual motivations), and it's hard to engineer the "hard choice" situation without railroading the PCs into it.




About this, I don't disagree. It perhaps explains why we haven't seen so much of it. You also have to have a very specific type of player to enjoy a situation where, for example, you have to let a village be wiped out to save a nation. My actual point (probably lost in bad examples) was that  I think that by trying to avoid that 'rabid geek' sterotype in order to cater to a middle ground normal and finally bask in the fact things we liked and suffered for liking are popular, we may have begun to lose the things that made them good in the first place. I've had a great  laugh sat around a D&D table and not taken it seriously. But I've also been moved by stuff at it. That deeper investment in geek culture is one that I hope everyone gets the chance to experience. They won't get it from watching a D&D movie. Same as most people won't understand what it's like to be a fan of comics by watching the Avengers. 

I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure what I'm grasping at here. It's difficult to put into words and I realise that in doing so I'm going to start coming across as some kind of geek bigot saying people can't all be fans or true fans and then I'm drawing lines in the sand and it's all a little dodgey. I wrote a load more stuff with a massive aside about the x-men (Comics Vs Film generated fans and experiences) but when I read it back it came across as kind of sad and a little snobby. But I suppose my final point is that what happens to D&D in future is kind of our responsibility as not only it's players but also it's advocates. What games we play and what tack the movie takes will be the representation of our hobby for a long time to come. Do we want to be seen as 'lighthearted throwaway fun?' is that okay? Is it enough? or should we be pushing to say 'The time of the geek is here, now lets show them how to take it to another level?'. I don't have the answers. I know which side of the fence I'm on and from reading my posts it should be pretty clear. But I'm one dude and my response is only as valid as the next gamer.


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## Ryujin (Sep 1, 2015)

Benji said:


> About this, I don't disagree. It perhaps explains why we haven't seen so much of it. You also have to have a very specific type of player to enjoy a situation where, for example, you have to let a village be wiped out to save a nation. My actual point (probably lost in bad examples) was that  I think that by trying to avoid that 'rabid geek' sterotype in order to cater to a middle ground normal and finally bask in the fact things we liked and suffered for liking are popular, we may have begun to lose the things that made them good in the first place. I've had a great  laugh sat around a D&D table and not taken it seriously. But I've also been moved by stuff at it. That deeper investment in geek culture is one that I hope everyone gets the chance to experience. They won't get it from watching a D&D movie. Same as most people won't understand what it's like to be a fan of comics by watching the Avengers.
> 
> I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure what I'm grasping at here. It's difficult to put into words and I realise that in doing so I'm going to start coming across as some kind of geek bigot saying people can't all be fans or true fans and then I'm drawing lines in the sand and it's all a little dodgey. I wrote a load more stuff with a massive aside about the x-men (Comics Vs Film generated fans and experiences) but when I read it back it came across as kind of sad and a little snobby. But I suppose my final point is that what happens to D&D in future is kind of our responsibility as not only it's players but also it's advocates. What games we play and what tack the movie takes will be the representation of our hobby for a long time to come. Do we want to be seen as 'lighthearted throwaway fun?' is that okay? Is it enough? or should we be pushing to say 'The time of the geek is here, now lets show them how to take it to another level?'. I don't have the answers. I know which side of the fence I'm on and from reading my posts it should be pretty clear. But I'm one dude and my response is only as valid as the next gamer.




For an example of the "moved by it" play, what Wheaton's "Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana" series of role playing videos on Geek and Sundry. His players are four well known voice actors who are either far better general actors than one might think, or who get very involved in the scenes. Watch the expressions of Yuri Lowenthal ("S’Lethkk") and Laura Bailey ("Lemley") as they come up to particularly important points in their character arcs.

I think that part of the "geekification of everything" is the concept that geeks all like the same things, and so there's some magic formula for ANYTHING that will make it geek palatable. We're people. People are different. We don't all like the same stuff.


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## Umbran (Sep 1, 2015)

Benji said:


> Can we name one that isn't either a spin-off of an existing property, exisits in the same universe as an existing property or based on a book/comic/film? Where are the new ideas? Is this the end of post-modernism?




I think we ought to differentiate between "based on a popular book/comic" and "based on a book/comic nobody heard of, such that to the majority of the target market, it is new".  I this category, we get things like iZombie.  In the past few years, there are also things like Grimm and Sleepy Hollow, which take some inspiration from classics, but are so far from the source material that they are mostly new content.

But, to answer your question:  This season there's Blindspot (arguably genre), Scream Queens, Into the Badlands, The Bastard Executioner, American Horror Story: Hotel (each season is a different story and characters, so I'll count it as new), Angel From Hell.

Also, things that may be based on properties that few have heard of, there's The Man in the High Castle.




> To continue, I think geek stuff needs to get back to the ideals of science fiction - as a lens through which we view reality.




I'm sorry, but that seems like a bit of rose-colored glasses.  Remember that it was Theodore Sturgeon, classic sci-fi writer, who made the observation that, "90% of everything is crap," back in the early 1950s!  There has not been a time where the majority of genre work was awesome and deep.  In all ages, most of it is weak, shallow, unoriginal, and otherwise lackluster.  

The same is true for stories in pretty much all genres and medias.  Genre has never been a guarantee of quality.


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## Drammattex (Sep 1, 2015)

Benji said:


> This is a wider concern that D&D but what if we had an adventure that made us make hard choices occasionally? Would it be received well or thought of as 'too much navel gazing' have we rejected the idea our hobby can  be taken seriously in any way?




Hard choices are what interest me about role-playing. Siege of Gardmore Abbey is an adventure about hard choices; moreso if you play with the pregens.


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## tomBitonti (Sep 1, 2015)

I'd mostly given up on ScyFy and TV series, but then there were KillJoys and Dark Matter, which, while retreading common science fiction ideas, are original stories.  (Dark Matter is based on a Comic, but, a very recent one, and one which was aimed at a TV series.)

There is also Stitchers, which is also original.  I'll leave out most comments on the quality of the show, other than to say it runs on ABC Family, which makes for a lot of constraints.

Also of note: Ex Machina and Transcendence.

Thx!

TomB


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## Ryujin (Sep 1, 2015)

Umbran said:


> I'm sorry, but that seems like a bit of rose-colored glasses.  Remember that it was Theodore Sturgeon, classic sci-fi writer, who made the observation that, "90% of everything is crap," back in the early 1950s!  There has not been a time where the majority of genre work was awesome and deep.  In all ages, most of it is weak, shallow, unoriginal, and otherwise lackluster.
> 
> The same is true for stories in pretty much all genres and medias.  Genre has never been a guarantee of quality.




Yup; for every Isaac Asimov there are 20 L. Ron Hubbards.



tomBitonti said:


> I'd mostly given up on ScyFy and TV series, but then there were KillJoys and Dark Matter, which, while retreading common science fiction ideas, are original stories.  (Dark Matter is based on a Comic, but, a very recent one, and one which was aimed at a TV series.)
> 
> There is also Stitchers, which is also original.  I'll leave out most comments on the quality of the show, other than to say it runs on ABC Family, which makes for a lot of constraints.
> 
> ...




I quite enjoyed "Dark ?Matter" and the appearance of Wil Wheaton was a welcome surprise. "Killjoys" I'm more on the fence about. I'll watch it if it's on, but wouldn't lament too long if it was cancelled.

"Ex Machina" surprised me by being so conventional. I was so sure what turn it was going to take, that I didn't watch it until last weekend. I was wrong. *EDIT* Please don't construe that to mean I thought it was bad. It was a very good movie.


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## Uder (Sep 1, 2015)

I really don't identify as a geek or nerd any more because it turns out I'm just smart and weird.


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## JNC (Sep 1, 2015)

Grainger said:


> " which is why politics have invaded our gamer discussions"
> 
> Gamergate is just jerks on the Internet being jerks on the Internet. The means of communication acts like an echo chamber, allowing idiots to team up with other idiots and think their "ideas" are legitimate (I use the term "ideas" advisedly). It's surely an Internet issue, rather than a gaming one. Gaming just happens to be the subject around which they can be jerks. But I digress...





Some of the ideas were legit. Some were impractical. Some were dumb. 
At no point do I want all games to target the entire market. Niche makes the world go round. Shaming creators, saying they have to accommodate everyone made the conversation unbearable.   

The worst part about the internet are the personalities that direct the conversation. Most of which are just interested in the continued views or exposure the content brings. The last thing I want in gaming is to be directed to like something.

I would be ashamed to lump Niko Bellic into a brown haired male statistic, for no real purpose.


Minecraft made pixels popular again? I always liked pixels. Polygons are supposed to be the new cool or did cool skip polygons?


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## Janx (Sep 1, 2015)

Umbran said:


> A friend of mine was recently talking a bout how he was the sole RPG player he could find in a 50+ people engineering department!




That's probably a growing trend.  I'm from the whizkid on a home computer generation.  Folks like me got started young and built our skills through the evolution of computers.  From a job standpoint, my experience has shown that guys like me do "better" at the job because our understanding is deeper of how the tech got the way it is and thus how you have to solve the problem.

But our industry is increasingly filling with folks who got to college and decided to be a computer science major or something.  With no background on command line interfaces, GUI design history, or make files etc.  They hit the job and they have no clue how to do anything but write code in the language they went to school for.

The tech industry, was initially dominated by folks who got deep into the subject matter as both fans and as jobs.  These new jobbers just want to punch code until it's time to go home and be a jock.



Umbran said:


> I think the current interest in sci-fi and fantasy movies will wane, just as the past had waves of mystery/gumshoe films, and Westerns.  Genres rise and fall, folks.




Just a  thought, but is it possible that scifi and superheroes ARE our westerns?  Our tech level moved up, as did the tech level/setting of our media content.

Nobody cares about cowboys and indians anymore because when that was cool, the old west was just a few years ago (I exaggerate).

Now its rockets and capes because that is set sort of near our grasp of tech/interest.  Wolverine is the new John Wayne.


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## Mistwell (Sep 2, 2015)

Grainger said:


> Gamergate is just jerks on the Internet being jerks on the Internet. The means of communication acts like an echo chamber, allowing idiots to team up with other idiots and think their "ideas" are legitimate (I use the term "ideas" advisedly). It's surely an Internet issue, rather than a gaming one. Gaming just happens to be the subject around which they can be jerks. But I digress...




I disagree. A fair number of your peers disagree. Morrus has asked that we not debate Gamergate here. So if you want to talk about this topic you're welcome over at CircvsMaximvs.com (a sister site to this one that allows that sort of discussion).


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## Grainger (Sep 2, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> I disagree. A fair number of your peers disagree. Morrus has asked that we not debate Gamergate here. So if you want to talk about this topic you're welcome over at CircvsMaximvs.com (a sister site to this one that allows that sort of discussion).




Fair enough - didn't know that; I'll take that bit out then. It was only an aside in my post anyway.


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## Benji (Sep 2, 2015)

Umbran said:


> we get things like iZombie.  In the past few years, there are also things like Grimm and Sleepy Hollow [...]Also, things that may be based on properties that few have heard of, there's The Man in the High Castle.




If we don't count stuff that I've heard of before, then both izombie & MITHC both count as 'done before' I'd also add that Grimm isn't exactly a new or underused idea (Fables/Once Upon A Time/10th Kingdom). Sleepy Hollow technically re-uses stuff but I'll give you that. It's still as much of a reboot as, say, Sherlock though.




Umbran said:


> This season there's Blindspot (arguably genre), Scream Queens, Into the Badlands, The Bastard Executioner, American Horror Story: Hotel (each season is a different story and characters, so I'll count it as new), Angel From Hell.




On these, thanks for that. I'll check some of these out, I hadn't heard of most of them and I'm desperate to find genre that isn't Crap/Unoriginal, so I'll swallow my words. I would count America Horror Story as a) it's all beginning to be the same story and b) They're more related than a spin-off and that'd count. Having said that, I love the show. I kind of zealously count scream queens as a spin-off as well but I may just be being picky there.



Umbran said:


> I'm sorry, but that seems like a bit of rose-coloured glasses. Remember that it was Theodore Sturgeon, classic sci-fi writer, who made the observation that, "90% of everything is crap," back in the early 1950s! There has not been a time where the majority of genre work was awesome and deep. In all ages, most of it is weak, shallow, unoriginal, and otherwise lackluster.
> 
> The same is true for stories in pretty much all genres and medias. Genre has never been a guarantee of quality.




I think I may have explained my self badly, because my point was we have to keep pushing to make it better if we want it to engage a mainstream audience beyond a say, five-ten year cycle. In the 1950's maybe 90% of all scifi WAS crap, maybe it took till now for geek to conquer because there's less crap around. I never argued that there was a time it's all been good. There's always an Andromeda/Kingdom Hospital/Gotham.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Sep 2, 2015)

Uder said:


> I really don't identify as a geek or nerd any more because it turns out I'm just smart and weird.






I never got into the mindset of identifying as a geek/nerd.  Sure I fit the profile to a large degree but its not how I view myself.  I'm a guy who likes sci-fi, gaming, comics, and other things. I think if I identified myself by anything other than personal traits I'd say metalhead. 

I guess that is why I can't stand Wil Wheaton. He seems like the "I am geek" type and it annoys me.


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## delericho (Sep 2, 2015)

Benji said:


> I think I may have explained my self badly, because my point was we have to keep pushing to make it better if we want it to engage a mainstream audience beyond a say, five-ten year cycle.




Actually, I'm reasonably sure that's backwards - it's worth noting that the unabashedly light-hearted "Star Trek IV" was significantly more successful than the much more serious (and, frankly, higher quality) "Star Trek II". Serious appears to be a niche concern, where the mainstream seems to tend towards the entertaining.


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## Umbran (Sep 2, 2015)

Benji said:


> . In the 1950's maybe 90% of all scifi WAS crap, maybe it took till now for geek to conquer because there's less crap around.




I don't think there's less crap around.  I think Sturgeon's Law still holds.  We may each, personally, have gotten better at filtering out things that seem crappy, to us, but when you stop and look at all the stuff out there that we *aren't* looking at, there' s a LOT of it, and much of it is crap.


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## Janx (Sep 2, 2015)

Benji said:


> In the 1950's maybe 90% of all scifi WAS crap, maybe it took till now for geek to conquer because there's less crap around. I never argued that there was a time it's all been good. There's always an Andromeda/Kingdom Hospital/Gotham.




Maybe another way to look at it is the quality of the production.

50's scifi was crap because the tech to make good looking scifi was bad.

50's westerns were also escapist fantasy, and they looked good because the tech they had to reproduce the 1800s was well within their grasp.

Which is why I said our modern scifi and superheroes is their westerns.  It's escapist fantasy and its well done because we can do it well now.


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## Ryujin (Sep 2, 2015)

Janx said:


> Maybe another way to look at it is the quality of the production.
> 
> 50's scifi was crap because the tech to make good looking scifi was bad.
> 
> ...




And yet, with all of their limitations, there are absolute gems like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951; I refer to it as the first anti-nuke movie) and "Forbidden Planet" (1956; essentially a retelling of Shakespeare's "The Tempest", in space). True classics. People who haven't seen them are really missing something.


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## Benji (Sep 3, 2015)

Umbran said:


> I don't think there's less crap around.  I think Sturgeon's Law still holds.  We may each, personally, have gotten better at filtering out things that seem crappy, to us, but when you stop and look at all the stuff out there that we *aren't* looking at, there' s a LOT of it, and much of it is crap.




You might have a point there. Given how the UK general election turned out and how everybody I know believed it was gonna turn out, the reality filter concept is one I'm beginning to believe in many walks of life.


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## Benji (Sep 3, 2015)

delericho said:


> Actually, I'm reasonably sure that's backwards - it's worth noting that the unabashedly light-hearted "Star Trek IV" was significantly more successful than the much more serious (and, frankly, higher quality) "Star Trek II". Serious appears to be a niche concern, where the mainstream seems to tend towards the entertaining.




I never thought of it like that. Maybe I just projected my value system on to everyone and assumed they wanted serious. I would argue that maybe this is evidence that a product is often dumbed down for mainstream success. 

I've also never met anyone who quoted Quest for peace. Wheras 'Khaaaaaannnn!' gets wheeled out regularly as a remembered moment. But I'm aware that's an anecdotal point.


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## mflayermonk (Sep 3, 2015)

Janx said:


> Maybe another way to look at it is the quality of the production.
> 
> 50's scifi was crap because the tech to make good looking scifi was bad.
> 
> ...




Somewhat related to your point: on the blog Retromania there was an article about why the prices of used guitars are so high and the conclusion was that the technology hadn't made any advance. The end result was basically making the same sound for years and years.

Another book called "Electric Eden" discusses how the electric guitar changed folk music (technology advance). A good example is the Fairport Convention's "Matty Groves"-a traditional ballad envisioned with new technology. It's on youtube and a great listen.


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## Cristian Andreu (Sep 3, 2015)

A very interesting read.

I've always been of the impression that the end of nerdom would relate to its banalization, rather than strictly to massification. One of the things that makes nerdom simultaneously so appealing and unappealing is how extreme it can get; it can motivate someone enough as to undergo a deep study of high-energy physics simply to one-up Steve the next time he brings up Super Star Destroyer vs Enterprise (Super Star Destroyer all day, erry day). There's true passion there.

If we take away that extremism, traditional nerdom certainly becomes more accessible, but in the process it loses precisely what makes it attractive to become so invested in it.

A friend made one of his sociology theses regarding subcultures, and one of the things he wanted to study was whether or not roleplayers et al constitute a subculture (his conclusion in that regard was no). One of the parts that caught my interest the most about his study was on the reasons he espoused why things like roleplaying games seem to have a higher-than-average number of people with various degrees of social pathologies. And a big one was that nerd fields allow people to become incredibly specialized in certain areas of knowledge and skill, giving them the chance to shine and thus achieve a sense of social acceptance and respect that they otherwise perceive as impossible to get in other contexts. Though the analysis was much more nuanced, I found it highly interesting, particularly when contrasted to other hobbies that lack this sort of "sacred" aura given to them by their enthusiasts.


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## Janx (Sep 3, 2015)

Cristian Andreu said:


> A very interesting read.
> 
> I've always been of the impression that the end of nerdom would relate to its banalization, rather than strictly to massification. One of the things that makes nerdom simultaneously so appealing and unappealing is how extreme it can get; it can motivate someone enough as to undergo a deep study of high-energy physics simply to one-up Steve the next time he brings up Super Star Destroyer vs Enterprise (Super Star Destroyer all day, erry day). There's true passion there.
> 
> ...




There's probably some merit to the concept of getting respect or self-esteem out of subject mastery of nerdy topics.  Since folks who memorized the Enterprise specs is pretty limited, that makes one feel "special".

Yet it is much easier to master that, than to get a doctorate in Physics like Umbran.  So somebody who lacks all the traits that "normal" folks have and are saddled with those pathologies, is thinking happy thoughts when they find something they can be a master of.

That's based on an stereotype of a geek concept, but there might be some instances where it applies.


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## Cristian Andreu (Sep 3, 2015)

Janx said:


> There's probably some merit to the concept of getting respect or self-esteem out of subject mastery of nerdy topics.  Since folks who memorized the Enterprise specs is pretty limited, that makes one feel "special".
> 
> Yet it is much easier to master that, than to get a doctorate in Physics like Umbran.  So somebody who lacks all the traits that "normal" folks have and are saddled with those pathologies, is thinking happy thoughts when they find something they can be a master of.
> 
> That's based on an stereotype of a geek concept, but there might be some instances where it applies.




His aim went beyond just a sense of personal achievement; he spoke of nerdom as a sort of valve that helps them regulate exposure to social circumstances without getting overwhelmed, giving them a chance to explore what they are otherwise missing. Since people with social pathologies tend to stay in the shadows, they rarely get to experience a sense of being considered useful or exemplar by others in usual contexts like work or school, where being able to interact with others tends to be a determining factor. Meanwhile, nerd hobbies like roleplaying, wargames, sci-fi clubs, etc, both by their nature and the way they have developed, give them a small, controlled environment in which they can experience that sense through expertise in fields that are not necessarily dependent on being actively engaged with a larger social group.

I should note that one of the things he drew out of this was a concrete way in which things like roleplaying games can be so positive to people with these social pathologies.


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## Mallus (Sep 3, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> And yet, with all of their limitations, there are absolute gems like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951; I refer to it as the first anti-nuke movie) and "Forbidden Planet" (1956; essentially a retelling of Shakespeare's "The Tempest", in space). True classics.



"Forbidden Planet" even holds up in the visuals department. It's still gorgeous (also great & classic). You can do amazing things with practical, in-camera special effects and scale models (like "The War of the Worlds" float-y manta ray Martian war machines). It was just unusual for films from that era to get the kind of budget required for them. 

Hell, even much older films like "Metropolis" and "Things to Come" have effects work that still impresses today.


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## Ryujin (Sep 3, 2015)

Mallus said:


> "Forbidden Planet" even holds up in the visuals department. It's still gorgeous (also great & classic). You can do amazing things with practical, in-camera special effects and scale models (like "The War of the Worlds" float-y manta ray Martian war machines). It was just unusual for films from that era to get the kind of budget required for them.
> 
> Hell, even much older films like "Metropolis" and "Things to Come" have effects work that still impresses today.




If you (general 'you') consider everything as being of its time, rather than trying to fit it into your own, you start to find some amazing things


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## Gnerphk (Sep 4, 2015)

>  that the end of nerdom would relate to its banalization, rather than strictly to massification

Frankly, I'm of the opinion that the two are inextricably linked.

As observed, the "specialness" of geekdom is one's ability to immerse in an alternate reality, to memorize the Enterprise Technical Readout and theorize privately about the concepts of dilithium, the ion drive, and the concept of a controlled matter/antimatter reaction as the center of a propulsive unit.  Alternately, being able to maxbuild a talent stack in 3.5 to have your L6 Paladin run off a Dex rapier instead of the traditional armor tank is an ability known only to the few, the proud, the players with no life.

Once these things become ubiquitous -- and the MCU and such shows as Arrow have made it so, not to mention LotR and Harry Potter -- we've instead got a drive to make all individuals intelligent and creative -- else they won't fit in.  I believe we'll make anti-intellectualism the populist counterculture movement in the next generation.  We may even see a resurgence of garage mechanics (among those more inclined to rebel while problem-solving).

Nevertheless, the ubiquity and cultural acceptance of World of Warcraft alone seems to make this discussion almost moot.  It's curious, is it not?


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## delericho (Sep 4, 2015)

Gnerphk said:


> I believe we'll make anti-intellectualism the populist counterculture movement in the next generation.  We may even see a resurgence of garage mechanics (among those more inclined to rebel while problem-solving).




You might be right about the anti-intellectualism, but I doubt you're right about garage mechanics - there's now a hell of a lot of tech involved in modern vehicles of all sorts, meaning that you'd either need to master that tech or go _seriously_ retro to do well as a garage mechanic.


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## Umbran (Sep 4, 2015)

delericho said:


> You might be right about the anti-intellectualism, but I doubt you're right about garage mechanics - there's now a hell of a lot of tech involved in modern vehicles of all sorts, meaning that you'd either need to master that tech or go _seriously_ retro to do well as a garage mechanic.




Yeah, but retro is cool! One of my most geeky friends is exactly this - a car geek.  When cars started getting getting too computerized to work with, he moved to older cars and... recently motorcycles, which have far less computerized engines.

Some of you folk seem to be missing something important.  Being a geek isn't about the genre and technology (I mean, really, lots of geeks are into *fantasy*, which has no tech to speak of).  Being a geek is about really loving your subject matter.  Why do you think so many conventions have *fiber arts* tracks or events?  It isn't because yarn plays a big part in Star Wars.  It is because it is something people get seriously into.


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## delericho (Sep 4, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Yeah, but retro is cool!




No question. It was really the bracketing of "garage mechanics" with "anti-intellectualism" that bugged me.


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## Umbran (Sep 4, 2015)

delericho said:


> No question. It was really the bracketing of "garage mechanics" with "anti-intellectualism" that bugged me.




And that's fair.  The garage mechanics I know may not be the most educated people, but they are smart, and value smarts.


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## TheDiceMustRoll (Sep 14, 2015)

I'm blown right away that somebody mentioned Moviebob without using the phrase "I can't believe I used to watch -" beforehand.


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