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Life Skills for Fanboys: Geek Elitism

written by Tony DiGerolamo

Copyright 2013

Fanboys often mean well and while they often develop knowledge and skills most people don’t, there are often gaps in basic information they fail to fill.  This column attempts to fill in those missed spots.  Take my criticism in the constructive way that it is offered.  Or don’t.  What am I?  Your therapist?

Geek Elitists

If you’ve every been to con, whether is comic book, sci-fi/fantasy or Bimonscificon, somewhere in the mix there will always be some high level geeks.  You know, the guys that have been using Linux since they were in grade school, speak and write in fluent Klingon and Elvish and personally had a conversation with Harlan Ellison without pissing him off.  But like any hierarchy, those in power sometimes have a dark side.  These are the geek elitists.  They turn a friendly community into a passive aggressive clique that alienates newcomers.

How it Starts

I think that with most geeks, we’re ostracized for being smart.  Geeks tend to like books and technology that, say jocks, aren’t really into.  But not being into football is easy.  Football is a game and everyone understands that.  However, not being into Minecraft or Star Trek or Magic Cards or other geek stuff for non-geeks is more than not just being into it.  It’s usually something they don’t fully understand.

Now I’m not trying to generalize people that are not geeks.  All people are different.  There are evil geeks and nice jocks and everything in between.  But when you’re a kid, especially in  a public school, the mentality is to never draw bad attention to yourself.  Since every other kid is just trying to find their identity, drawing undue attention usually draws criticism and insults.  This isn’t because they are deserved, but because kids are naturally insecure of their own emerging identities.

Geeks tend to take the barrage of insults first.  Why?  Well, I think it’s several reasons:

1. Traditionally, that has been the case for a long time.

2.  Anyone can be called stupid and being labeled as such is pretty much the ultimate insult.  People can overcome most other weaknesses pretty visibly, but lack of stupidity is tough to prove once you have that label.

3.  Being into geek stuff doesn’t necessarily eliminate you from the world of sports, but you tend not to be in it or stay on the fringe.  So physically, you’re probably not going to dominate in the world of high school.

4.  People tend to project their fears on others to deflect blame from themselves, so a stupid person’s best recourse (especially in the world of high school) is to target a smart geek as being stupid.  Being physically and verbally dominating is fast, quick, but to rebut requires a pointed explanation.  (This is probably why we have so many politicians that are like minded and not very geeky.)

5.  Geeks tend to live in their head.  Thus, when an attack comes, they are usually unprepared, since they are in the middle of doing something cerebral like memorizing the digits in pi or a Monty Python song.

Banning Together

Naturally, geeks band together with like-minded friends.  Again, this isn’t 100% thing.  There are always exceptions, but this tends to be the trend, I believe.  At a young age, geek communities emerge: Chess Club, Computer Club, Dungeons & Dragons groups, World of Warcraft crews, etc.  The geek community also tends to be the minority at an average school, so with their numbers few and far between, everyone knows it’s important to stick together.  You tend to settle your differences in the Etymology Club quickly if everyone knows they’ll have to sprint to the bus to avoid harassment by the cooler kids.

The Geek Community Emerges

So geek communities tend to emerge late in high school and in college.  College is an especially great time for us geeks as even the jocks are focused on some amount of knowledge.  Things start to shift in our favor in college since the high paying job market tends to favor the intelligent.  But it is exactly when geeks start to get comfortable that the tensions arise and the hierarchy of geeks start to be corrupted by their own power.

The Dark Side

The way I see it is this: the trauma of spending years on the fringe and finally coming into your own in a community that welcomes your kind, causes you to do the same thing to others.  The abusees become the abusers.  It’s not good enough to correct someone who makes a mistake online about the lineage of the X-men, you have to humiliate them and show everyone what a “true fan” knows.  This is geek elitism and it should stop.

Now sure, some people are often due a comeuppance for bad behavior, either online or at a con.  But when that comeuppance turns mean, when you’re kicking a geek when he’s down or when a genuine person makes a mistake but you’re verbally kicking him in the ribs in front of everyone—  No.  That’s just bullying.

We Ought to Know Better

Geeks are smart, so we ought to know better.  We ought to recognize that not everyone is into comics, not everyone is going to consider Star Trek superior to Star Wars and not everyone knows the difference between the HBO A Game of Thrones and the books.  Basically, we need to embrace the noobs.

And this isn’t about the geek community per se.  No matter how nice and open Dragon Con presents itself, there will always be some people that stand at the edge of it and go “Sorry, that’s not for me”.  And that’s fine.  Tolerance is a sign of intelligence, as well as compassion.  We had much to offer the other students back in high school when we were being ostracized, conversely, the non-geeks have much to offer us now they we have own our communities.

Reaching Out to the Non-Geeks

A clique ostracizes, but a true community grows and to grow, you need to reach out.  It’s time that conventions of all sorts begin creating systems for noobs to enter and see what we’re all about.  I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been to conventions that didn’t have the most basic information in their con books.  Basic info like show times, what was open when, policies in the dealers room, basic explanations of all aspects of the convention, etc.  And the staff, often made up of geek volunteers, do little to help as they are so laser focused in doing their volunteer bit so they can get to the part of the convention they like.

I think one way to reach out is to offer panels free, to the public at conventions.  Yes, I realize that it’s often the whole POINT of paying for a badge.  But the thing is, the panels is where the knowledge comes from.  It can be at these panels where noobs can see that the geek community has a lot to offer and we geeks are not a bunch of ostracizing jerks that sneer at people who didn’t show up in a Harley Quinn or Chief costume.  (Maybe not all the panels, maybe a few select introductory ones.)

If we spread this knowledge, we’re not just making our conventions and geek communities a better place, we’re making the world a better place by educating people and by showing tolerance and compassion for others, even in the face of ridicule.

So, geek elitists, think on these words.  Maybe it’s time you stopped making snide comments in message boards or cutting down your cohorts to make yourself look better.  Maybe it’s time you lead by positive geek example.