Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Morrus" data-source="post: 6121082" data-attributes="member: 1">And that's fine; it's just that to me it's coming across as you reprimanding me for not knowing you rather than you just clarifying.  Maybe one of those "text doesn't convey tone very well" things.Well, that's an advancement from "Doctor Who has nothing to do with geeks", so at least we're slowly getting somewhere; as I said, there are some very popular positive geek role models.  We also have popular scientists like Professor Brian Cox and Neil DeGrasse Tyson being all charismatic and super-cool all over our TVs and podcasts and things.  And they're making films about supergeeky stuff like LotR and The Avengers which are turning out to be increibly popular mega-blockbusters!  I still maintain that we (geeks) have never had it so good.   And yes, of course not everything on TV is portrayed in the same way.  I don't think I or anyone else has claimed they are; it would be a rather dumb thing for me to say!The problem here is that you keep treating that as though it's established fact; there are folks here like me disputing the premise, not the argument.  If your premise is true (and, honestly, I'm not trying to be difficult here -- I'm jut not seeing any evidence that it is) and these shows do make people think all geeks are like Sheldon, then yes: I'd agree with your position that it's wrong, and needs to be addressed.  The problem isn't that latter bit, though; it's the initial premise.  As I said earlier in the thread, I see no evidence that - and indeed would be utterly flabbergasted to find out that - anyone, let alone any kind of majority of people, watches that show and believes for a second that Sheldon Cooper is in any way a real representation of anything, let alone geeks.  He's clearly a ridiculous, almost cartoon construct.  And if he were to represent something and cause everyone to believe that group of people were all like Sheldon, I'd say 'aspergers' or somewhere on the autism spectrum long before I'd say 'geek'.Perhaps the answer to this is beyond our ability to investigate right now; we'd need to establish whether or not, as you say, the show(s) make people think all geeks are like Sheldon or Fargo.  I see no evidence to suggest they do.I think in the long run, we can only answer for ourselves and how these shows make us feel individually.  None of us here are qualified to speak on behalf of 'people', but we can speak on behalf of ourselves.  I personally don't feel mocked or laughed at when I watch BBT; maybe you do.  But we certainly can't take as estabished fact the premise that the show makes people think all geeks are like Sheldon without some pretty hefty evidence to back it up.</blockquote>

Verification