Note: Written partly in response to this article [http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/24/booth-babes-need-not-apply/?hpt=hp_c3], but also as a response by one male anarchist individualist to the encroachment of feminism on Geek Culture in general.
I've seen more than one cougar come down from the mountains and make off with a sexually-inexperienced young geek in my time. And this is going back years, and years, before the very definition of the cougar entered popular consciousness. The sexual predation of the sexually inexperienced by the sexually experienced is certainly nothing new, but I've been around long enough to see it go from an isolated occurrence to something of a reoccurring trend in Geek circles.
Geek space both as public space and as a intellectual concept, has traditionally been a sanctuary of sorts for damaged and vulnerable men to seek social interaction without the constant reminder of their own all too human frailties. The maladies are many and varied, and certainly every awkward Geek that I've ever met has had his own story to share. The all too common consequence of having these assorted problems was sexual inexperience. Our parent culture readily defines a real man as a man who has ready and easy access to sex with a woman. Our decadent western lifestyles mean that sex alone has been left as the last rite of passage into adulthood. A cultural expectation that feminists readily exploit to bludgeon uncooperative Geeks with labels such as man-child (undeveloped virgin), misogynist (resentful virgin), basement dweller (unsuccessful virgin) or neck-beard (let yourself go virgin). It's the same reason why they're occasionally known to paint the Call Of Duty experience as innately homoerotic one for it's exclusion of the feminine. They miss the point altogether that men might just want to gather together with other men, even if it is just virtually, pursue an activity and get away from the presence of sexuality altogether. For a feminist to accept such a notion is tantamount to open heresy.
Not that I'm going to stand here and insinuate that Feminism is alone in wielding that particular cudgel, but wherein the traditional morale guardians have relented it seems that a new radical morale guardian has picked up the slack. Trying to browbeat a demographic that has been renown for having an individualistic and anarchistic streak a mile wide.
But nothing lasts forever, not even Geek space or at least not how it once was.
The ever shrinking availability of wider male spaces in the western world has driven men who seek the platonic companionship of other men into a tighter and smaller space. This has caused a consolidation of sorts, as men who a generation ago might never have entertained the notion of entering public places and subcultures that would have otherwise been beneath them have invaded Geek space so quickly that nobody really knew what was up till after it had happened. But I was there, so I saw it unfold. We let them in through the front gate, hailed an influx of "6 of 9" alpha males into the fold as conquering heroes and long lost friends. These men eventually brought their girlfriends, and these girlfriends brought their female friends and it was through this avenue that our space was colonised by women to the point that even Feminism is now starting to take an active interest in what our subculture does with itself. I'm sure that more than one Generation X Geek has been the victim of, or at least seen someone else been ostracized and cast out of their local community of social outcasts by an "6 of 9" of either gender who realised just how much power they could wield in such an environment.
Geek identity was once an identity of exclusion, a band of outcasts but also a band of brothers, but in an example of delicious irony as the world rushed in, I think we've lost something in the flow. The exclusion that helped define us was swept away, and now for the first time in our history the shape of our identity is largely in our own hands. Going forward who we choose to include and exclude is going to shape what it means to be Geek.
But I reject the notion that to be Geek now is to denote ownership of the legacy of art that Geek culture has produced, a legacy that has been actively strip-mined, commercialised and sold off to the highest bidder.
At this point except for a last few scattered and desperate individuals that can occasionally be sighted eking out an existence at edge of a cultural space which they once dominated, Geek space is in no part unique. What made it unique in the first place is long past gone. It is just yet another generic, overly commercialised cultural space like any other. But there still exists a lingering cultural memory that once boys who didn't fit in anywhere else could gather together, share their experiences together and create a shared art together, and through that art they would escape their suffering.
Because no other avenue was open for them, using only the power of their own imaginations they would take our reality and fold it upon itself. Substitute it for their own.
They were the very first escapists, and I am no longer ashamed to say that they were my brothers. But I am deeply shamed by the realisation of how I have treated them over the years.
Shine on you crazy diamonds, shine on. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLKiMbC6s2k] You know who you are.
I've seen more than one cougar come down from the mountains and make off with a sexually-inexperienced young geek in my time. And this is going back years, and years, before the very definition of the cougar entered popular consciousness. The sexual predation of the sexually inexperienced by the sexually experienced is certainly nothing new, but I've been around long enough to see it go from an isolated occurrence to something of a reoccurring trend in Geek circles.
Geek space both as public space and as a intellectual concept, has traditionally been a sanctuary of sorts for damaged and vulnerable men to seek social interaction without the constant reminder of their own all too human frailties. The maladies are many and varied, and certainly every awkward Geek that I've ever met has had his own story to share. The all too common consequence of having these assorted problems was sexual inexperience. Our parent culture readily defines a real man as a man who has ready and easy access to sex with a woman. Our decadent western lifestyles mean that sex alone has been left as the last rite of passage into adulthood. A cultural expectation that feminists readily exploit to bludgeon uncooperative Geeks with labels such as man-child (undeveloped virgin), misogynist (resentful virgin), basement dweller (unsuccessful virgin) or neck-beard (let yourself go virgin). It's the same reason why they're occasionally known to paint the Call Of Duty experience as innately homoerotic one for it's exclusion of the feminine. They miss the point altogether that men might just want to gather together with other men, even if it is just virtually, pursue an activity and get away from the presence of sexuality altogether. For a feminist to accept such a notion is tantamount to open heresy.
Not that I'm going to stand here and insinuate that Feminism is alone in wielding that particular cudgel, but wherein the traditional morale guardians have relented it seems that a new radical morale guardian has picked up the slack. Trying to browbeat a demographic that has been renown for having an individualistic and anarchistic streak a mile wide.
But nothing lasts forever, not even Geek space or at least not how it once was.
The ever shrinking availability of wider male spaces in the western world has driven men who seek the platonic companionship of other men into a tighter and smaller space. This has caused a consolidation of sorts, as men who a generation ago might never have entertained the notion of entering public places and subcultures that would have otherwise been beneath them have invaded Geek space so quickly that nobody really knew what was up till after it had happened. But I was there, so I saw it unfold. We let them in through the front gate, hailed an influx of "6 of 9" alpha males into the fold as conquering heroes and long lost friends. These men eventually brought their girlfriends, and these girlfriends brought their female friends and it was through this avenue that our space was colonised by women to the point that even Feminism is now starting to take an active interest in what our subculture does with itself. I'm sure that more than one Generation X Geek has been the victim of, or at least seen someone else been ostracized and cast out of their local community of social outcasts by an "6 of 9" of either gender who realised just how much power they could wield in such an environment.
Geek identity was once an identity of exclusion, a band of outcasts but also a band of brothers, but in an example of delicious irony as the world rushed in, I think we've lost something in the flow. The exclusion that helped define us was swept away, and now for the first time in our history the shape of our identity is largely in our own hands. Going forward who we choose to include and exclude is going to shape what it means to be Geek.
But I reject the notion that to be Geek now is to denote ownership of the legacy of art that Geek culture has produced, a legacy that has been actively strip-mined, commercialised and sold off to the highest bidder.
At this point except for a last few scattered and desperate individuals that can occasionally be sighted eking out an existence at edge of a cultural space which they once dominated, Geek space is in no part unique. What made it unique in the first place is long past gone. It is just yet another generic, overly commercialised cultural space like any other. But there still exists a lingering cultural memory that once boys who didn't fit in anywhere else could gather together, share their experiences together and create a shared art together, and through that art they would escape their suffering.
Because no other avenue was open for them, using only the power of their own imaginations they would take our reality and fold it upon itself. Substitute it for their own.
They were the very first escapists, and I am no longer ashamed to say that they were my brothers. But I am deeply shamed by the realisation of how I have treated them over the years.
Shine on you crazy diamonds, shine on. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLKiMbC6s2k] You know who you are.
