Non-Rebels With Plenty of Clues
Geeks, nerds, and the like are rebels!
Er, no.
I was having this discussion with a friend recently about nerds and geeks (in short, us) as a kind of counterculture. Rebels. People deliberately and rebelliously different from society.
I . . . really don’t agree. But it got me thinking about the subject, and my thesis is simply this: we’re not rebels.
We may be rebellious because we’re creative, intellectual, and at times deeply focused people. That can bring us into conflicts with prevailing norms, stale ideas, and the unimaginative. But it’s not core to our being.
We may be rebellious because we know something is really wrong and we want to fix it, be it the global environment, the financial system, or the computer that one of our family members keeps screwing around with. But that’s because we know stuff and are directed by it; rebellion is a side effect.
We may be rebellious as we’re well, different. Then again we’re all different, and we can all be rebellious. Then again the world is filled with people who think they’re rebels, because who here stands up and yells “Damn it, I am so glad I’m pretty much like everyone else!”
Look we’re nerds, geeks, otaku, fans, techheads, bookworms, and the like. We’ve got a lot to do that’s awesome without trying to deliberately work “rebel” into the whole thing. Besides when we do it just kind of wastes time (on the other hand when it happens spontaneously, awesome).
Sure, nerd and geek history has its times and cultural elements of being separate. I still recall people referring to “non-fans” as “mundanes,” but it didn’t seem to be an active, larger part of any culture. It doesn’t seem to be very prominent now.
But really, we’re not a counterculture. Rebellion and contrarianism isn’t written into what we do to any large extent. We’re a subculture, really, and a rather large and disjointed one at that, because lets face it, no where else do people decide it’s time to cosplay the avengers as My Little Pony characters gone steampunk*
In fact, we’re kind of normalized because geek culture and nerdy things have won, from films to iPads to video games. All the things that were once geeky are accepted, normal, and even cool.
So no, we’re not counterculture, we’re not rebels. We’re highly visible subculture.
To that, I say, good.
I don’t have time to be rebellious, contrarian, or whatever about the world and my place in society. I’ve got stuff to do. I’ve got blogs to run, games to play, speaking to do, and software to manage. We’re inside the system, folks, in fact we’re running it.
Come to think of it, that makes it easier to change it . . .
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/.
* This doesn’t exist that I know, but it damn well should.
