Did the nerds win?

[Bohandas]

Yeah I'm aware, what I mean is, bullies haven't consistently been "jocks" or "the cool kids" for my entire lifetime, and I'm 46 (though in the UK as I note).

The issue isn't and wasn't jocks per se, it's anyone with an "alpha male"^‡ type personality, and that can be nearly anyone, it is just that this character flaw is traditionally overrepresented in popular sports

‡ie. meathead-douchebag

 

[MichaelSomething]

What were you hoping to win????

Did you want acceptance? Freedom? Power? Peace?

 

[Bohandas]

What were you hoping to win????

Did you want acceptance? Freedom? Power? Peace?

"...Illusions Mister Anderson. Vagaries of perception..."

 

[Wolfram stout]

It seems to me the biggest challenges in any community are its points of polarity and diversity, because those are also points of conflict and creativity. They are a pressure-cooker where either one side dies and the other takes over, or there is fusion resulting in innovation. They are the wild heat as opposed the mundane and routine stability.

I remember when it was difficult to find any other nerds at all, to play D&D with. A couple of kids regularly united by game sessions. Occasionally some travel and connection with other kids from beyond the border of practicality, discussing the game and characters before seldom seeing them again.

Then, the internet. Then, the popularity of RPGs in general expanded to the point where two things happened.

Reinvention:

Suddenly it was cool to play it, but only to play it the new way. The old-schoolers were not often embraced as its pioneers and teachers so much as ignored. The next generation are not as entrenched in issues they prefer not to take on board.

Polarisation:

For the first time, there were so many people involved in the hobby, we no longer had a rare handful of nerds trying to find each other. Suddenly we had factions and division within an expanding community. Generational differences. Ethical differences. All of the differences are contained within the concept of 'us verses them'. There was a phase of 'inclusivity' being the virtue-signal of the day, except it didn't include most people.

The original generations who grew up on RPGs through the 70s 80s 90s had a unity, they did not care about political differences or socio-economic differences. They set all that aside and connected through the shared passion of the game, an unspoken understanding. Nobody charged money to DM. That was the culture, the tradition, as much as the rolling of dice or checking on tables, moving 28mm miniatures around a map drawn with a biro on maths paper.

So did the nerds win?

No. The original Nerds were bulk-dumped by the new kids who think the old boys racist because they are heterosexual males and kill imaginary green-skins. The rebranded products now published by an industry which cares more about profit and image than it does about the people who fund it. The OSR movement evolved as a response to that; ageing, independent role-players standing their ground that indie-rpg is the core of the hobby, not the sideline.

The new-wave of Nerds are hipster-gamers, "I want the D&D experience because it will make me cool" are happily being financially extorted by commercial DMs who first picked up a rulebook five minutes ago, with push-button solutions instead of imagination and any sense of authenticity.

In UK the Warhammer movement is huge amongst gamers. Unlike D&D communities, the Warhammer gamers still continue to set aside all differences to game together. That is something beautiful to be aware of. The online D&D people though, omg where to begin? There are fractures which are destroying the community and damaging the industry. As with all fractures it is because hate is bigger than forgiveness. That toxicity is putting people off becoming involved in gaming because non-D&D people who show any interest and do a little research are coming across hate mobs and being encouraged to choose a side before they have even experienced their first game session.

We are all doing this because we are dysfunctional as a collective.

My exerpience couldn't be more different. The "new wave" players at my (very non-nerdy) work place think it is awesome that I can bring in my Holmes basic and 1st edition AD&D books and actively seek me out to try to run something. They would easily embrace trying the old stuff just to see what it is like.

They don't know nor care about the reps of Old School Players.

This would include not only new players that have come to it during their professional careers, but the 2nd gen gamer kids of my and my old player group.

For me, I define winning as being able to find people (in person) who are exicted about D&D, RPGs and Fantasy/Sci-fi in general, along with a shrinking number of people looking down on those same things. So yes, this feels like victory (at least for now).

 

[Parmandur]

I actually find the attitude that stuff like Lord of the Rings or Spiderman being more broadly celebrated being "appropriation" fairly distasteful. People always loved these things, just most people kept that on the down-low because they thought they were alone. Those of us who were more outgoing about our tastes don't "own" cool stuff.

 

[Bohandas]

This is an interesting thought though I've never had a manager or boss or seen a CEO that was also a nerd. Usually they are the people who used to be the "jocks" that kept networking their way into positions of power, many times climbing on the backs of the hard working nerds.

Athleticism has never been something that I've associated with businessmen. However I get what you're trying to say; they often have the same "alpha male"^‡ mentality as the stereotypical athlete. However I think that's more commonly the case only at the upper levels of management and that the trait that characterizes managers more generalky would be a "type-A^‡‡ personality"

^‡meathead-douchebag
^‡‡uptight control freak

 

[Bohandas]

I actually find the attitude that stuff like Lord of the Rings or Apiderman being more broadly celebrated being "appropriation" fairly distasteful. People always loved these things, just most people kept that on the down-low because they thought they were alone. Those of us who were more outgoing about our tastes don't "own" cool stuff.

The appropriation part is how the IP is being handled. They're shohorning what are basically a bunch of [expletive deleted] comittee-written fanfics into the continuity while at the same time better fanworks by non-associated people who actually care about the setting remain marginalized and borderline illegal. And this all occurs for reasons that have nothing at all to do with art.

EDIT:
and this is true of all the major nerd fandoms (with the notable exception of the cthulhu mythos, whose founding works are mostly in the public domain, thus allowing the works that came after to stand or fall by their own metits rather than by the whim of some soulless corporation or distant relative of the author)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is an interesting thought though I've never had a manager or boss or seen a CEO that was also a nerd.

I think this is probably very industry specific.

My current boss once said something was a "retcon" in front of me and we ended up having a 45 minute conversation about Crisis on Infinite Earths.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What were you hoping to win????

Did you want acceptance? Freedom? Power? Peace?

Luxembourg.

 

[billd91]

I think some of the toxicity in nerd culture is right here in this thread where any expression of nerd/geek culture that goes mainstream can't be authentic and has to be appropriative or negative in some other way. It strikes me a lot more that there are still nerds who want to feel victimized despite the pastimes and properties they hold dear being more accepted in the mainstream than ever. I think it's ultimately drawing from the same well that makes Star Wars fandom so toxic because SW has change to much over time (and so have they) that it isn't and can't be the same as it was when they encountered it as kids. They don't "own" Star Wars, never did. The same is true of nerd culture in general. You all don't own it and it being more in the mainstream of media culture isn't punching down at you.