Aquial said:
I'm actually suprised by Bob's answer to the question. So much of nerd culture is focused on being the best of humanity. How many games do you start as some normal dude rising to the challenge and helping mankind even though you werent seen as anything special when you started. How many of our hero's began picked on only to rise to the position of power and use it for good rather than selfish evil. We, more than most other cliques, value moral choice over power. Uncle Ben said it best, "with great power comes great responsibility". How can you turn your back on that. Hell take your own example. the X-men regularly kick magneto's ass for the simple reason that they are on the side of good.
Bob. I've been with you on every video you've posted up to this point. I think nerd culture as a whole disagrees with you, or every movie/comic book/nerd who made it would be totally focused on revenge. I think part of seeing yourself as "Homo Superior" means rising above petty barbaric reactions. And it makes me proud to be called a nerd/geek/dork. I'm part of a group that is the next step of society. I'm above petty -ists. I see bullys for the scared little people that they are.
Well, you see the problem is that in most fantasy the hero represents the masses, even if they are oppressed during the time of the story. Even the weak, fledgling hero is typically a part of the greater social consciousness. What makes a nerd or geek what they are is simply being outside of the mainstream, and this is what makes them easy to pick on. To be honest a lot of nerds and geeks, stereotypes aside, aren't all that smart, or simply aren't smart in any practical way. People who are interested in fantasy and science fiction in a "hardcore" fashion are typically those seeking escapism, probably because they don't fit in.
Understand that there is the dark side of fantasy and science fiction, and it's just as popular with the geek crowd, that is "horror". Typically speaking, the expression of "nerd rage" has little to do with "boy done right" morality tales, but with the idea of the oppressed loser getting horrible revenge somehow. This can be as an avenging spirit, with a curse, summoning a monster, or simply as a seriel killer. The stereotype of horror typically has a bunch of normal people (who may or may not be all that obnoxious, but they usually are) being horribly killed one at a time. It's typically a morality tale where the nice, accepting character (the final girl) is spared the horror visited on the other victims. Horror typically involves the realization that the person/thing doing the killing is EVIL no matter how justified, but by the bad guy is brought down (or moves on) all of the people who deserved it from their perspective have usually died. I'll also be honest in saying that with increasing frequency your seeing situations where the bad guy/killer gets away, even if the righteous/final girl type also manage to walk away from the massacre.
Horror is where I think nerds, and fan creators, deal with the issue of being one of the outsiders, and as many nerdy fans will tell you, they tend to empathize with the bad guys (and this is intentional).
Basically when the issue is addressed directly as often as not you see "Carrie at the prom" as opposed to a Peter Parker/Flash Tomson relationship (though arguably the original version of Peter Parker wasn't that big of a nerd, I mean all of the girls in school loved him, including Flash's girlfriend Felicia who wound up becoming The Black Cat).
When it comes to geekdom in general, I will say that there is a need for the majority to validate itself by picking on those who don't fit in. There is no solution for those selected as the targets, and no way out, because everyone else needs their target. Quite a bit has been said about this in terms of sociology and psychology over the years, the "Village Idiot" is a stereotype because truthfully alomost every community of people produced one as a vested need. Nerds and Geeks are the village idiots of today.
Society in general has no real desire, or more importantly abillity, to change this. Heck, in a school setting it's not even possible, if you were to suspend or expel everyone who picked on the outsiders/nerds, you wouldn't have a school. Even groups like "Jocks" who are famous for being among the worst in doing it, can't be singled out because schools have vested interests in their athletes due to the money athletic programs, donations to school sports, and scholorships bring in. This is why Jocks can be "above the law" in a lot of schools so to speak, and truthfully allowing them to vent on the local nerds prevents them from venting elsewhere.
None of this is fair of course, and as time goes on I think it's becoming more pronounced and the harassment is increasing in intensity. Geeks, especially kids, who gain an understanding of the "system" which nobody wants to talk about (because everyone knows it's wrong) sometimes do decide to take action, this is pretty much what inspired "Columbine" and similar incidents. Of course the "need" for the system means that nobody wants to actually address the real causes, it's easier to pretend that targeting violent expression can solve the problem than to try and deal with an established institution in human relations.
Or in short (for those who read this far), nerds and geeks are what they are for being outside of the mainstream, not because the mainstream fears them due to some kind of superiority.
Over the years I've kind of come to peace with it, I'd like to see things change, but honestly I'm not sure if they ever will. While some people will hate me for saying so, I think more "columbine" type incidents would probably have the best chance of seeing reforms, or at least some kind of "force minority acceptance" treatment when it comes to nerds and a bit more overt balance. Not so much because I think being picked on is a reason to kill people in of itself, but because I don't think anything short of that gets society's attention, and the occasional isolated incident is easy to ignore and try and correct with ridiculous policies. If those policies are shown to fail, and the problem continues, then I think we'll see some compromises reached. This will never stop, but I think the intensity could be dialed back a few decades.
