Building a Nerdier Future With Nerd Culture Literacy
We’re surrounded by structures we depend on but so rarely see.
Take a look around your home and home town. There’s plumbing, roads, bridges, buildings, and more: infrastructure. Years of work, sweat, tears, designing, redesigning, and replanting and rebuilding have given us decades or even centuries of useful creations. We depend on that.
Consider your culture as well. The books, the traditions, the education you’ve received, all of those are a kind of infrastructure as well – work in the past that has given us more in the present. We depend on culture to give us a framework and foundation.
Which brings us – as you may guess – to the culture of we nerd, geeks, fans, and otaku.
We’ve got a lot of foundation, a lot of history, and a lot to know. You could spend your entire life writing and studying a fraction of our culture. You could probably line up some sweet grant money for that.*
We’ve built so much. Conventions that are years, decades old. Websites. Gaming groups. Traditions. Humor. Meme. There’s so much out there in nerd/geek/otaku culture. It’s amazing and inspiring and important.
We’ve also encountered people who don’t always have a sense of nerd/geek history. Ever seen a community re-invent a lot of rules and policies you’ve seen before? Ever watch a convention start from scratch when you could have introduced folks to ten people who’ve run cons for decades? Ever had to explain simple trends and terms to someone who you figured should know them?**
So I’d like to humbly suggest that we keep in mind and encourage basic Nerd Culture Literacy. We need to keep our infrastructure in place (so we can spend more time using it and enjoying it as less time building it all over again). If we keep it in mind, we can make sure we don’t have to keep it in mind more than needed if you get my drift.
Let’s ask ourselves what our fellow nerds, geeks, otaku, and fans need to know about our particular spheres of nerddom. What is the history, the big players, the major events, the cool things they should know. By being aware of them we can help others be aware – even if it’s just answering questions.
Let’s find ways to keep this basic Nerd Literacy going – by sharing it. Speak, write, blog, do events at cons. You can even make it fun with game shows, skits, and more.
Let’s find a way to preserve Nerd Literacy. Write books, make videos, contribute to research and more. It has to last – like any good infrastructure. It’s not hard – and we know a lot about the technology that makes it easy.
Let’s make sure the great infrastructure of Nerd Culture lasts by making sure people know about it. If it wasn’t worth it, well, we wouldn’t be the people we are.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
* Let me know when you do. I come cheap.
** No offense, but if I have to explain My Little Pony to you, really, you should be ashamed.
