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cimorenei was thinking about a post ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kyuuketsukirui innocently made about her husband and their computers and game systems, and auctioning off tapes and games and stuff. and i was thinking about it in connection with my own childhood, where it always seemed like a slight waste of money to buy books and i hardly ever took them from the library, because my parents own so much paperback science fiction that neither of them has even read half of it. and about my dad's friend gary who owns the largest collection of print tolkein fanzines in the world, as far as he knows; and his wife and how their entire house is full of the accoutrements of SCA role-playing and sylvia's own artwork, which is all really good, and also all of fairies and dragons.
i was thinking about the changing image of geekdom in culture.
i think before the fifties or the sixties geeks were quite different. we've been gradually growing into a sub-culture, especially since sf fandom and now the internet. geeks used to be tolerated semi-anomalies. now we have access to a culture that celebrates otherness and indulges our obsessions and gives us like-minded playmates, and we've logically taken advantage of that to interbreed.
and it seems to me that geeks interbreeding is becoming more and more common. there are more and more second- and third-generation geeks and i think it's a good thing. i wonder what we're selecting for? OCD? fangirling? intelligence? some combination of these and other things, probably.
kyuuketsukirui innocently made about her husband and their computers and game systems, and auctioning off tapes and games and stuff. and i was thinking about it in connection with my own childhood, where it always seemed like a slight waste of money to buy books and i hardly ever took them from the library, because my parents own so much paperback science fiction that neither of them has even read half of it. and about my dad's friend gary who owns the largest collection of print tolkein fanzines in the world, as far as he knows; and his wife and how their entire house is full of the accoutrements of SCA role-playing and sylvia's own artwork, which is all really good, and also all of fairies and dragons.i was thinking about the changing image of geekdom in culture.
i think before the fifties or the sixties geeks were quite different. we've been gradually growing into a sub-culture, especially since sf fandom and now the internet. geeks used to be tolerated semi-anomalies. now we have access to a culture that celebrates otherness and indulges our obsessions and gives us like-minded playmates, and we've logically taken advantage of that to interbreed.
and it seems to me that geeks interbreeding is becoming more and more common. there are more and more second- and third-generation geeks and i think it's a good thing. i wonder what we're selecting for? OCD? fangirling? intelligence? some combination of these and other things, probably.
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Date: 11 Mar 2005 02:44 pm (UTC)And now you've got me wondering what geeks select for. Intelligence, I'd say, and the obsessive personality that breeds rampant fangirling. But I'm also wondering whether minor forms of autism aren't also being selected for. Asperger's syndrome seems to be more common in the geek culture, and since many geeks also have geek parents, there would seem to be a connection, if autism is hereditary, that is.