Now, here’s the thing that struck me about all these anecdotes and reactions. They all sound really familiar to me. And it dawned on me that was because I’ve been witness to the phenomenon for over thirty years. Before there was even such a thing as social media.
Except it wasn’t about politics or social justice issues. It was in fandom.
Nerd culture. Letter columns and fanzines and conventions. When the internet happened, it migrated to CompuServe forums and message boards. And now it’s everywhere.
The Exaltation of Anger
really great piece that expands on the thesis on the various sects of nerd fandom being the canary in the coal mine of public discourse.awhile back i had had some meager gigs writing cult movie / comic book / music reviews for a few nth tier websites, and i walked away from them for much of the reasons laid out in this article; the undermining contrarianism, the barely veiled hostility, the weaponized snark (and that was just from the cunting webmaster, but i digress). seemed like the commenters (and if we're being real, the contributors) were less interested in movies/books/etc. than they were interested in making fun of and/or getting angry about movies/books/etc... which then devolved into making fun of and/or getting angry about people who talk about movies/books/etc. shit just had me seeing every imaginable shade of red (mostly dog boner), so i stepped back and decided to just keep it all to myself, letting these works supply grist for the mills of my own imagination, and privately channel my creative energies elsewhere.
bitch of it is; i love talking about this stuff. i love deriving bizarre theories and threadbare connections to all the mythologies and multiverses presented in the content that enable my enthusiasm, and i forever pined in secret for comparably minded individuals who not only shared my interests, but my attentive disposition and restless speculation. instead i found nothing but failed comedians, entitled gatekeepers, and vindictive rageaholics whose over-muscled acerbic flexings only allow for expressions of venomous sarcasm, stifling pedantry, and ballistic spite. and with "geek culture" still mutating and spreading into a misshapen leviathan that resembles in thought what the techno-tumorous protagonists of the Tetsuo films resemble in physical form, its only gotten wider and worse.
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