It’s All Geek To Me — A Response to That Patton Oswalt Nerd Culture Thing From Wired » 30ninjas

It’s All Geek To Me — A Response to That Patton Oswalt Nerd Culture Thing From Wired

Share on Facebook posted 01-06-11 by Dan Kaufman

What better way to start a new year than with a fresh evaluation of what it means to be a geek and/or nerd? Comedian, actor, and writer Patton Oswalt recently penned a piece for Wired magazine essentially claiming that the ease of accessibility the internet has afforded to geeky interests has allowed pop culture to cannibalize and sanitize it for mass consumption, robbing it of any allure, as well as any drive to create better geekery. (Sidebar: is “penned” even an appropriate term anymore? “Typed” sounds like an admin chore. “Keyboarded”?) He claims that in order to preserve the integrity of our interests, we must achieve a pop culture critical mass in which everything is cross-pollinated to the point that a big bang (sans “theory”) destroys all that we love, save for a few scraps with which to rebuild the landscape.

Before I get into this, I should say that Oswalt is indirectly responsible for my being here on 30Ninjas. It was his Comedians of Comedy tour and special(s) that showed him and fellow comedian/writer Brian Posehn making stops at comic stores that got me back into collecting after I’d stopped for more than ten years. This was my first step towards reawakening my own geekiness, and helped me come to terms with being out and proud about this part of myself that had lain dormant for so long. I started writing about and reviewing comics, then movies and TV, which led to my gig here at this ninja-fied uniform resource locator.

For helping me find and reignite this vital corner of my being I am tremendously grateful to Mr. Oswalt. That being said, FUCK YOU, PATTON, YOU HIGHFALUTIN, “B-WORD” ASPIRATING, CARTOON-RAT-VOICING, SUPERCILIOUS AARDVARK FUCKER!

Okay, insults have never really been my strong suit, but you see what I did there? My all-caps spew is done with tongue firmly planted in cheek (and spewing with your tongue in your cheek is no small feat, let me tell you), much like Oswalt’s entire piece. He doesn’t actually want to see “The Human Centipede done with the cast of The Hills and directed by the Coen Brothers.” But he does seem to long for a time when The Star Wars Holiday Special wasn’t available on YouTube.

All this begs the question, what is it that defines being a geek? I’d never really considered that the exclusivity of the interest in question is what makes it geeky. I’d probably never considered it because I don’t agree with it. Patton argues that today, everyone is geeky (he uses the Japanese term otaku) about something. That the discussions following episodes of American Idol are just as passionate and detail-oriented as those after episodes of The Wire. “It’s the method of consumption, not what’s on the plate.” This is also where I disagree.

To me, being a geek isn’t about how obsessive one gets over one’s particular pop poison, though there is certainly that component to it (my VHS collection of every episode of every iteration of Star Trek ever is a testament to that). But it’s still kind of like saying a baseball player is defined by how well he spits. Being a geek is not about how difficult it is to track down your fix. Granted, I grew up in New York City, so I may have had it a little easier on this point.

Let me be clear, American Idol and Top Chef fans absolutely might as well be having Kirk vs. Picard smackdowns. What they are engaging in is certainly geeky, but the term doesn’t truly apply to these people. Not yet, anyway. At this point in time, the terms “geek” and “nerd” in and of themselves are already set apart by being very much about “what’s on the plate.” Need proof? Know anyone who’s involved in fantasy football? Sure, the collating of the various stats of the guys on their chosen team might as well be comparing the healing factors of orcs versus magic users. But try walking up to one of them and calling them a geek, and see how well that goes over.

If I were to stand in the middle of Grand Central Station and yell out “I am a geek!” at the top of my lungs, the first thing most people would think is probably not, “Wow, that guy’s a big fan of Crystal Bowersox.”

Sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, horror, video games, tech.

As to the point that geek culture has now been oversaturated into the mainstream, yeah it has. But so be it. The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2 were no less awesome for all the people that saw them. And there will still always be creativity and exclusives to be shared among an enlightened few. For every Inception there is a Troll 2. For every District 9 there is a District B13. For every hit movie in 2010 there was (sigh) Scott Pilgrim. And so on.

At the very least, I need to thank Patton again for providing meaty fodder for my first column of the year, and an excellently entertaining excuse for some personal stock-taking. In return, may I perhaps suggest a new catalyst for his personal “A-pop-alypse” — how about the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a remake of Suspiria directed by Atom Egoyan?