6 Ways To Be A Better Nerd in 2016

Our thoughts about the famous Cracked.com.

6 Ways To Be A Better Nerd in 2016

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Tue Dec 22, 2015 8:01 pm

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-ways-to-be-better-nerd-in-2016/

Aside from the usual Cracked MCU hate, JF Sargent actually makes a decent point. Too many people these days see their fandoms as their life rather than part of their hobby. There are people who, for various reasons, plant their feet firmly in the ground and devote their life and their identity to being like this, this, or this. And that's how you end up with people who fear that some feminist is going to torch their xbox or end up in a state of representation based creative sterility.
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Re: 6 Ways To Be A Better Nerd in 2016

Postby Tesseracts » Tue Dec 22, 2015 8:11 pm

Gawker Person 1: "Hey, if I claim that there's no way that the new Star Wars movie passes the Bechdel Test and base it on absolutely no evidence, I bet people will get mad and hate-share it a lot."
Gawker Person 2: "That terrible idea is a good idea. We should exploit the anger of the nerds, because it is literally the easiest thing in the world to exploit, and make money off of it. You know what? Don't even bother making the article longer than, oh, four or five paragraphs."
Gawker Person 1: "Should I put any effort into making this piece well-written or clever?"
Gawker Person 2: "Why bother? No one's going to read past the headline anyway. Put a picture of Admiral Ackbar in there so we can claim it's satire later, after it's become one of our biggest hits of the day."
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Re: 6 Ways To Be A Better Nerd in 2016

Postby Knicholas » Tue Dec 22, 2015 9:31 pm

I object to being called a nerd.

Nerds are smart.
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Re: 6 Ways To Be A Better Nerd in 2016

Postby Marcuse » Wed Dec 23, 2015 2:30 pm

"Gamer" is not an identity. "Star Wars fan" is not an identity.


But literally anything else you might care to mention is? Being an otherkin is an identity we need to respect, but being a gamer isn't. This is why people don't take these kind of articles at face value. I kind of understand where he's coming from with the "nerds aren't on top they're just easiest to sell to" point, because it's logical to me that as a group that is a primary target market, nerds feel catered to, and it's illusory. But the idea that he gets to claim what is and isn't a valid identity is problematic because there are so many people who claim nonsense identities that don't make sense but we're expected by other people to respect them because we respect the person who expresses it. In a sense, either you need to define what can and cannot be an identity, or stop making random statements about one thing being an invalid identity that conveniently happens to be the subject of a very recent shitstorm nobody enjoyed.

It's not just that nerds are entitled; it's that we feel like we've been ripped off in some way. We care so much about our movies and our games, we care so much about the things that we're fans of and have sacrificed so much of our lives on the Altar of Our Favorite Thing that surely, surely, we are owed something, right? We're owed a Blu-ray release of the original Star Wars trilogy. We're owed video games that fulfill our every niche preference. We're owed a satisfying conclusion to our favorite TV series. Because we've given these creators our time and our energy and the space in our memories. We've done the work that a good artist expects a good audience to do. So where is our goddamn recognition?


I actually disagree with this too. Maybe I'm not that entitled, but I wanted the new Star Wars film to be good because I like Star Wars and I was invested in it being good. I literally wished it well, and yes there's a selfish motive in that too, but I certainly didn't think I was owed a good movie because I'm a fan. I wanted the people who made it to succeed and to be feted for their success instead of hated for their failure like George Lucas is now. So if I willed that Star Wars Episode 7 was good, while I certainly wanted to enjoy a good movie too, I also revelled in the act of creation well received more than I did felt myself fulfilled by the act of consumption.

In essence, for me, Sargent is belittling and misattributing an impulse to see others succeed. Isn't this the kind of thing that we're supposed to do? To wish others well and want them to be applauded for their success? Or should we all be frowning naysayers who do nothing but tear down others and seek to see their work negated?

How easy do you find it to ignore sports?


Really really easy actually. Sorry.
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Re: 6 Ways To Be A Better Nerd in 2016

Postby Taluun » Wed Dec 23, 2015 3:21 pm

I can't really say I was a big fan of it. I liked it more than I expected to I will say that much but it seemed to make some assumptions about how things have to be as if they were required which bothered me greatly.

But the reality is that this is the price we pay for pop culture superiority. It's a simple trade: If you want to see the highest-paid actor in Hollywood punching a robot in a scene from your favorite childhood comic book, then you have to listen to someone analyze that scene from a political perspective


This, flat-out, is just not true. This is not the price we have to pay. This is the price that we are paying, that doesn't mean its an inherent truth.

Because hearing someone else's perspective on something I like is the price of what I like mattering. To put it another way: With great power comes a lot of think-pieces you might disagree with.


This I find less disagreeable as its more vague. Hearing someones opinion on something is fine. Politicizing something and acting like it says things that it doesn't is not. Saying politics are just being pop culturized doesn't make it alright to me, thats just flipping the words around and it doesn't make me like it or dislike it any more.

I don't have much to say to #5 as I don't really know what he is arguing. Does anyone actually think "nerds" in the sense that he defined have power over what is created outside of crazy people?

#4 he is blaming nerds for falling for obvious troll bait. Shouldn't it be the other way around that he should be criticizing the people making obvious troll bait?

#3 I find it fantastically easy to ignore sports. My coworkers like sports, I do not. I do not have to join in on conversations about sports when they have them. Because my coworkers are actual people they understand I don't care about sports and tend to not talk about them when I am around that way I can be included as well. If they try to get me to play fantasy leagues my response will be the same to my friends who want me to play league of legends and other games like it: "I don't have the time to invest into it in order to make it fun for me". I haven't gone to a sports game in like 6 or 7 years and that, even though I didn't like sports at all, was fun because I just got to go out and hang out with my friends. The background to hanging out with friends was irrelevant to me.

It does not affect my life in a meaningful way.

#2 To this I ask, define an identity. Sure gamer isn't my identity as that implies it singularly is the most important thing to me. But being a gamer is part of my identity. A large majority of my life can be summed up as: video gamer, anime watcher, music lover. If I start playing a drumset for 2 hours a week does that all of a sudden make that a larger part of my identity then the fact that I watched 15 hours of anime that same week (Its usually much higher)? He makes the really poor mistake of saying what something isn't instead of saying what it is and thus there isn't a great take-a-way. Furthermore he says our opinions about this stuff don't matter because they are about things that don't matter. To that I ask, how do you define what matters? To me they matter because they take up my time like everything else. They are something I enjoy and losing out on that enjoyment means possibly not being as happy later on in life as I will no longer gain enjoyment from them. If our opinions don't matter than why even write an article about any of this?

#1 Yes this is how life is. Things come and they go. I do not have to be popular, I do not have to like what everyone else likes.
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Re: 6 Ways To Be A Better Nerd in 2016

Postby Knicholas » Wed Dec 23, 2015 6:48 pm

#4 he is blaming nerds for falling for obvious troll bait. Shouldn't it be the other way around that he should be criticizing the people making obvious troll bait?


Can't you do both? I sometimes fall for click bait. I hate the "content" provider, and I hate myself for falling for it.
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