The Rise and Fall of Geek Culture

On the 2010s geek boom, where we're at now, and what happens when your character dies in DND. Visit www.curiositystream.com/sarahz and get thousands of exciting documentaries and access to my streaming service Nebula!
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Princess' video: • F**k Racist and Racist...
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Voices by:
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Music:
Quarter Roll - Geeks Unite
Mary Riddle - A Hoax
Jo Wandrini - Hordes
Silver Maple - Serene Solitude
Zoë Blade - Walking in the Rain

[@yacobo4397]

I can't prove this empirically but there's no doubt in my mind that 99.99% of the people who accused every girl of being into nerd stuff for attention completely fell for it when Elon Musk very obviously pretended to like Minecraft, Evangelion, etc.

[@spore4ever91]

Maybe they were just sexist the whole time…

[@rootbourne4454]

Facts bro

[@IrvingIV]

I just want people to like the stuff I like.

[@icedcapplord710]

Elon Musk is about as much of a geek as the entire cast of Big Bang Theory lmao

[@alienjay7703]

I can’t prove this empirically , but there is a 99.99% chance your brain is fucked . Every girl gamer on twitch gets swarmed with praise by people. This is a fact . So this feminist victim complex about “gamer girls being persecuted” is just idiotic . Yes you can find examples of men being mean to women in gaming , but that’s literally the same in every single aspect of life . Some people say mean things . It doesn’t mean you are some victim ffs

[@dapperOctopus]

Very minor thing but one of the "fake geek girl" memes had the caption "Thinks Slytherin is a person" and.... Like... yes, he was.

[@leocomerford]

Well, I’m sure he must have been a giant snake at least some of the time.

[@TailsFan]

Whoever made that meme didn't read the books OR watch the movies.

[@jvgreendarmok]

@@leocomerford Was he an Animagus amogus?

[@tonoornottono]

@@jvgreendarmok yes he could turn into a snake and a sussy baka

[@asmrtpop2676]

@@TailsFan whoever made that meme actually came out on top by not reading the books or watching the movies lol

[@inthegrass11]

if WAP was released in like 2012 Screen Team would have made a parody that had the line "certified geek seven days a week"

[@friedzombie4]

roll that d20 make that saving throw weak.

[@inthegrass11]

@@friedzombie4 horrific! well done!

[@CrashExhibition]

Yeah you LARPing with some Wild Ass Paladins

[@jamieenoshima5147]

@@friedzombie4 This line made me want to die.

[@jamieenoshima5147]

@@CrashExhibition Pls stop no I know exactly who you're refering to and I do not want to remember Nhym? Nhmmm? It's horrible I will not even get it correct.

[@CZsWorld]

So happy to find someone who hates FunkoPop as much as I do

[@frerkshow9874]

Yes had the same thought. I hatet it when it came out.

[@TakeTheStep10]

Omg yes!!!

[@CuteKiller313]

they're so ugly, such a wide variety of character designs getting flattened into the same chibi body, featureless face and soulless black eyes, can't believe they ever got popular

[@tmntvspr]

I have many.. and I hate that I do. It reminds me of the frosted tips of the 90s.. Did we love it when we got it? Of course. Do we hate ourselves for that then? You betcha

[@scratwichman]

They’re terrible, crappy quality, and a blight on the environment.

[@Chloe-yq6nd]

I remember considering myself a “female brony” when I was around 11/12 and thought I was super counterculture and geeky like I wasn’t basically the show’s target audience

[@Jinsoku440]

The howl of laughter I released while reading this

[@oxxy6678]

Beautiful pfp, makes me feel like little green ghouls are jumping up and down in my heart, take me out for milksteak and jelly beans some time

[@user-kw7mr6xt9n]

Yeah same here, lol. Although I was a tiny bit older, around 13, when I got into it, and it definitely wasn't something people at school would have accepted me watching at that point (middle school is rough)

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

Hilariously I just got into geek culture because that's what Zoomers grew up with. Superhero cartoons, Nintendo games, big fantasy blockbusters pre-MCU, etc.

[@Vesperad0]

@@user-kw7mr6xt9n Man when I was in elementary, maybe third fourth or fifth grade, I carried a little rarity toy in my pocket all day because it gave me a sense of comfort in this unfamiliar and poor environment. Then when it fell out, and I was with a group of kids I only described as the "popular ones" because that's what Mean Girls said, the _shame_ I felt for being the target demographic was overwhelming. To this day I'm not sure if they mocked me about it later, or truly didn't care because we all were EIGHT/NINE, and I know this isn't exactly related to the video, but damn. Having interests was and continues to be unnecessarily rough.

[@bentonic4998]

Unimaginably brave of sarah to willingly post footage of herself saying "le nerdgasm" unprompted. A u.s. marine could never

[@aarontheperson6867]

this comment was funny as hell. thank u. this is the type of 2003 era comment that would start a flame war lol.

[@grahamcarpenter5135]

braver than our troops

[@gav668]

[insert crayon joke]

[@robbynix7473]

i thought that reading this comment before actually seeing it would prepare me for the cringe. It did not

[@whatever3440]

Not even batman could waterboard this information out of me

[@catabat49654]

So there was a tumblr post from like 2012 or 2013 where someone posted “you will always be embarrassed by who you were at 14, no matter what” And someone else replied, “really? Me at 14, enjoys SuperWhoLock, loving tumblr, and all around a cool person. What’s there to be embarrassed about?” The OP said, “come back in five years and see if you still agree,” and I, as someone who was chronically on tumblr from 2012 to 2020, think about that every single damn time i hear “SuperWhoLock”

[@bigamateur9055]

RiseOfTheBraveTangledIceDragons

[@dragonfire7965]

That makes me kinda happy, though. 14 year olds should get to enjoy being themselves. I’m happy they liked who they were at that point and I hope they can still love and appreciate their 14 year old self

[@MsFeyCreature]

I don't cringe at my 14 year old self because of their interests or enthusiasm. I cringe because they were kind of a repressed, self-centred jerk. I probably would have been a better person back then if I'd liked myself more. So well done to this kid. I hope they look back on those days and say "yeah. I was pretty cool."

[@Dr_Bille]

I'm 30. I have absolutely no shame about who I was when I was 14. It's not even that much different than who I am now, except I have better taste in clothes and don't have a need to masturbate 3-4 times a day

[@V2ULTRAKill]

​@@MsFeyCreaturei cringe at my 14 y/o self for having no media literacy and unironically thinking god awful homophobic thoughts

[@StrongZeroPowerHour]

I feel like the same thing is evident in Japanese nerd culture. When I was a kid, akihabara was a place filled with electronic parts stores, doujinshi circles, radio and computer stuff. Now it's all anime merch and every "make your own stuff" store is closing.

[@Hawkatana]

Oh yeah, I can attest to that. I once heard Akihabara described as "the Mecca of Otaku", when really it's more the Disneyland of Otaku: soulless, overpriced corporate trash. It's still good for getting PC parts, but if you want to get a better feel for the Otaku experience, you go to Harujuku and Shinjuku.

[@StrongZeroPowerHour]

@@Hawkatana a lot of the old stores moved over to Nakano bc rent was affordable!

[@endofcentury7077]

Went to Akihabara last year and was blown away at how shitty it was. Prices are out of control, and it's all just the same ubiquitous anime statue stores. There were a few cool places where the DIY spirit was left, but mostly, it was maid cafes and tourist traps. Nakano is better, and so is Ikebukuro.

[@guybatchelor4646]

Yo shoutout to Emily it's too easy to praise Sarah alone since it's her talking and the channel is named after her, but thank you to Emily for her unquestionably important contribution to these videos ❤️

[@spudsbuchlaw]

We stan Emily in this house

[@VinceWhitacre]

One of the fun parts is trying to figure out which punch lines are Sarah's and which are Emily's.

[@Lanier2369]

Ya, I join the praising of Emily.

[@electralumen165]

Emily's part about in store loot crates sound very similar to scoot the woz's part about the same thing in his lootcrate vid.

[@marocat4749]

Praise the grey eminence emily

[@jessArcade]

"Not every character can be Deadpool" is what nobody wanted to hear in the 2010s.

[@TimeTellsNoLies90]

As someone that was forced to constantly watch Angel by my dad before going to school, I was certainly annoyed by everyone that wanted to imitate Deadpool and Joss Whedon's writing style for superhero movies.

[@CodeNameX001]

I remember the endless flood of DeadpoolxRandom cosplay at EVERY convention, using the costume as an excuse to do awful obnoxious shit, without the funny. And most of them moved on to cosplay Rick Sanchez.

[@jorda8915]

@@CodeNameX001 anime NYC still gets dozens of Deadpool cosplays and they still are just as unfunny as you think it is.

[@CodeNameX001]

@@jorda8915 Oh, I've experienced it, lol

[@nohrianscum9791]

​@@CodeNameX001 it's still a common sight but the deluge of them has definitely calmed.

[@csousher]

I think the moment I turned my back on geek culture was when I realized how warped my peer’s perception of me were as a half Japanese person after consuming incredible amounts of anime and manga

[@justinbieber8028]

Yeah I’m half Japanese too and it’s insane how much people’s perception of Japan completely warped by media. It has gotten to the point where many people these days treat Japanese people as more of a novelty that exist for their personal amusement rather than actual human beings. In my experience the only people I see who don’t treat japan and it’s people as an amalgamation of stereotypes and misconceptions are other Japanese people or people who’ve lived in Japan.

[@thanosandnobill3789]

@@justinbieber8028 Are you talking about USA, may I ask? Because I have some japanese friends here in Greece and their opinion is totaly different.

[@justinbieber8028]

@@thanosandnobill3789 yes im talking specifically about the US. I dont know anything about Greece but i would imagine that their views are completely different for any number of reasons.for instance, asians and asian culture in the united states has boomed in popularity in the past few years, we have become "trendy", especially japanese culture. this recent trend is what my opinions are based on and pertain to. I have no idea how it is in greece but i cant imagine that Greek people are as dumb as Americans. also my own views are relatively uncommon even amongst Japanese Americans. most japsnese Americans dont really care too much or even see an issue, i just think about this kind of stuff a lot because im neurotic.

[@alim.9801]

​@@justinbieber8028 this comment is really sad but also very accurate I feel :/

[@justinbieber8028]

@@alim.9801 I find it more annoying than anything tbh. black people in the US have to deal with the same exact thing but much worse, and they've been dealing with it for much longer than we have.

[@disgruntledcashier503]

I went to a McDonald's to get the Szechuan sauce when it came out, and I will never forget the look of absolute hatred and disdain the cashier gave me when I placed my order.

[@peterkerj7357]

I never had a mcchicken before I came to /ck/, so I did once ask for extra mcchicken sauce. I've never heard so much disappointment in another person's voice as when they told me it was mayonnaise.

[@geckopecko]

sorry but this is hilarious also is your username related to that? lol

[@user-nm4rq8uk6p]

@@peterkerj7357 And yet, the big mac sauce is thousand island dressing but they always seem a little stunned when I reveal their secret.

[@haileyshannon7548]

I remember when they first sold it as a tie-in for the Mulan movie, it came in a takeout box with chopsticks, why didn't they bring that back?

[@adamdavis1648]

Do you mean when it came out the first time (before Rick and Morty, when it was to promote Mulan) or the second time (when they brought it back because of Rick and Morty)?

[@eduwitch8954]

"even my co-writer Emily was once told by a professor when the book came out that she seemed like someone who would enjoy the 'ready player one' movie and according to her it's the meanest thing anyone has ever said to her - and that means something because she's a trans woman on the internet." that broke me lmaooo

[@justineberlein5916]

Okay, but. There's actually a transphobia element to it, because of Helen / Aech. In the real world, she's a black woman, but in the digital world, she presents as a white man to avoid harassment. So already, you can read the reveal of her gender as an allegory for trans women coming out. Except the narration also almost immediately goes back to referring to her as male and with he/him pronouns, so if you *do* read her as a trans allegory, then Wade / Parzival is doing the equivalent of saying "I've just always known you as a boy, so this is hard on *me*, having to switch". And, of course, she winds up being the straightest gay character as a result, where it feels like she's only gynosexual so that her male-presenting avatar would be straight. It's basically adding representative for the sake of not having representation

[@killerbug05]

@@justineberlein5916 what are you talking about? I'm genuinely confused.

[@justineberlein5916]

@@killerbug05 In Ready Player One, the main character Wade's best friend in the OASIS is another dude who goes by Aech, a phonetic spelling of the letter H, in the game. However, late into the story when everyone's meeting up in-person, it's revealed that Aech is actually a black woman named Helen, with the implication that her being black is also a surprise. However, after the reveal, the narration immediately goes back to referring to Aech with masculine pronouns, under the explanation that that's just what Wade is used to using for her. In other words, the "Learning a new name is so haaaaaard" "excuse". However, this really comes into play when discussing her sexuality. She's technically a lesbian, making her a threefer for representation, but remember that the narration treats her as male. So even if *Helen* is gay, Wade's best friend *Aech* is, functionally, a straight man. Contrast with how if Helen were straight, Aech would be functionally gay. Thus, Helen's sexuality comes across, not as Cline wanting to add representation, but wanting to avoid it, because it's really just a force to make sure Wade doesn't have a gay best friend

[@puffnisse]

@@justineberlein5916 But that has nothing to do with what the original person said anyways.

[@poop_storm]

This also happened to me and it was in that moment that I learned what it was to be called “Reddit” as an adjective

[@maezelbop]

“The religious fandom is really into crucifix merch” is an under-appreciated joke

[@falconJB]

The religion fandom really seems similar to fandoms for things like Rick and Morty or Evangelion in how the creator clearly would not approve of the actions of the fans and a lot of the opinions expressed by the fans related to the work seem very much against the message that the creator was trying to get across, even a lot of the merch seems to really not get the point that they were trying to get across.

[@Kuhmuhnistische_Partei]

There is a chapter from a German book series about an artist living with a communist kangaroo where they say talk about the Fantasy genre: "Fantasy is the most popular of all genres since ancient times. Fantasy writers of the second big wave like John, Luke, Mark and Mel Gibson have to this day fanatical fans who can quote entire passages from memory and meet regulary in medieval buildings for conventions where they read their favorite parts to each other and reenact absurd rituals from the books. Total nerd."

[@benjohnson9224]

There was a great collegehumor video back in the day about how religious people were just nerds. Both obsessed with canonicity, both fixated on a specific book, both get into arguments with people who don’t share their enthusiasm. They weren’t wrong,

[@melasn9836]

That one made me snort-laugh, especially since that a lot of fandoms treat whatever media they're fixated on the same way zealots treat their religions.

[@izzylovejoy3587]

love when people say religion when they actually mean christianity totally doesn’t erase the other hundreds of religions

[@amelia3146]

one time an acquaintance from high school told me i really reminded him of Rick Sanchez & I’m sure he meant it in a good way but tbh i’ve never been shoved so forcefully into deep self-reflection as in that moment

[@jokerrfox354]

This was during my teen years. I hate how people look back at this era and called it cringe because I genuinely had so much fun, much like little you going to that con in 2012. I miss it so much. You covered it well in this video

[@uhicanexplain3858]

Glad someone else relates! ☺️

[@Jeebus-un6zz]

Same. ...but it was cringe 🤣

[@ryu_street_fighter561]

@@Jeebus-un6zz it wasn't cringe tho

[@kakyointhemilfhunter4273]

​@@ryu_street_fighter561The triforce shirt with khaki shorts disagrees

[@ryu_street_fighter561]

@@kakyointhemilfhunter4273 people dressed that way.. and still do...

[@Avery-eg9nu]

I work in a "nerd" shop; we sell comic books, board games, action figures, and, regrettably, funko pops. and it's still extremely common for someone to walk in and be like "uh oh, don't tell people that I came in here lol! I love Marvel and superheroes but I've got a cool reputation to keep lmao" and we always laugh along like "haha don't worry your secret is safe with us." until they leave. then i look at my co-worker and say "do they realised Avengers Endgame was one of the highest grossing movies of all time?" like everyone and their gran knows who Captain America is, and yet people still seem to think a passing interest in superheroes is niche and uncool. It baffles me every time it happens, and it happens a lot.

[@coscorrodrift]

Man, i would not last a week working retail, i'd get fired so quickly

[@GabyGeorge1996]

You try being a woman in her mid-twenties and knowing more about obscure comic book characters like Quasar and Adam warlock and get blank stares from everyone whenever you talk about them

[@lainiwakura1776]

@@GabyGeorge1996 That guy they mentioned was very clearly a normie.

[@epb9000]

@@GabyGeorge1996 Honestly, I am frequently excoriated as uncultured swine for not knowing anything about the MAIN CHARACTERS in marvel and DC series by my friend's 16-year-old daughter. 🤣

[@novelty_thief]

That shop story sounds like the best clichee nerd joke nobody ever used sadly

[@ginichilders9619]

Honestly, that line from The Social Network, the one that goes "people don't like you and it's not because you're a nerd, it's because you're an asshole", applies to so many of those manchild types (ie Moviebob and Joss Whedon).

[@kumatorahaltmanndreemurr]

The Social Network is such a great takedown of entitled nerd guys tbh

[@ralphthefanboy]

Wait... Moviebob is an asshole?

[@Leon-fg9bu]

@@kumatorahaltmanndreemurr Honestly i'd say it's a better takedown on social media warriors in general lol.

[@itsgeegra]

+ the entirety of the nerd manosphere/anycunt who has a last jedi hot take

[@IsaacMayerCreativeWorks]

to paraphrase DireGentleman’s “Troper Fails” series: You’re not “Gifted with Suck,” you’re gifted and you suck

[@mimispring95]

One of the things I hate about geek culture is how many of these people have become so toxic they ended up becoming the bullies. I grew up loving anime, manga, video games, and reading fantasy books, but now I feel I can't talk to anyone about any of these things without people coming in starting a war. An example would be the video game Final Fantasy 7. I was never part of those forums back in the mid 00's when I became a fan and owned my first computer. However, since the Remake came out I saw waaaaay more arguments and harassment over the dumbest things.

[@LynetteTheMadScientist]

I recently got into Fallout and my word the Fallout fandom is beyond irritating. A man sent me a text wall about the inaccuracies of the guns in Fallout 4 and I was just like: dude I’ve been using firearms since I was 7. You don’t even own a gun. Stfu

[@wmaiz0anococo345]

​@@LynetteTheMadScientist Send pics or it's cap.

[@LynetteTheMadScientist]

@@wmaiz0anococo345 Pics of my firearms or pics of my buddy's insane text wall?

[@omgjimmyboy]

FF 7 was came out in the 1990s and there were forums then too. The internet was always this way if not worse actually, you normies ruined it. Half the things I’d like to say to you I can’t because of all moderation implementations thanks to people like you. Log off.

[@LynetteTheMadScientist]

@@wmaiz0anococo345 Pics of what? My guns?

[@missingaria2503]

Funny story: When The Big Bang Theory was pretty much at it's height of popularity I was a regular at my local game store. I'd been playing/running TTRPGs for about 10 years at the time and this is where I met with my friends to play/host Pathfinder Society, play board games, and just generally hang out with most of my friends. Once a month the store had a "game night" where the owners would let us hang out until 2am and use the store's board game library (or bring in our own games to share) to game all night. The place also happened to be nextdoor to a pub style bar so we could go back and forth for pub food and drinks with ease. Now this store (and pub) ALSO happened to be in one of those super fancy "we're not rich but we get by", ultra manicured, ultra white picket fence, everything you could possibly need within the "village" type, walkable neighborhoods that were popping up around that time. It was great, but it (obviously) came with the most suburban suburbanites you could possibly imagine. Every year, for Halloween, that neighborhood would do bar crawls and that year it aligned with our game night. All the drunk housewives would invite their friends who lived in inferior neighborhoods over for these bar crawls and they would treat us like zoo animals. And I mean that in the most literal sense, like... they'd bang on the glass to make us look at them and stuff, it was wild. So my friends and I are walking back from the pub next door, I'm a bit drunk and I hear some completely smashed Karen say "and THIS is the store where all the Big Bang type people hang out!" I immediately think to myself "no tf it's not!" Except I didn't just think it, I said it. Okay I shouted it. This woman just stood there looking at me like shocked Pikachu. I think it was the first time it occurred to her that we were people who weren't just there for her to show off like specially pedigreed dogs or something. I don't even mind the Big Bang Theory but no one I knew in the store was anything like the characters on that show. We had more tech bros and gym bros than science geeks. Hell, the overall feeling of the store was pretty clean and "normal" compared to other stores I'd been in. Most of the actual monetary business the store got came from the neighborhood's Pokémon kiddos and the store reflected that. Not a single comic book in sight.

[@dexterbunco4212]

My issue with Big Bang Theory was that it felt like it was punching down at strawmen. It wasn’t a take on geek culture that looked its actual quirks and flaws and allowed the audience to laugh along with the characters. It was clearly to laugh at the characters. I don’t think anyone was actually invested in any of the characters as people, but as caricatures to be laughed at. The show felt very mean-spirited to me.

[@adamrmoss]

That’s a long story bro

[@devononair]

​@@dexterbunco4212 It totally agree. Not to mention that Sheldon was coded as being autistic and even the other characters mocked him for that. It also portrays sexual harassment as a joke, according to Sarah there is racism too... it's a really punch down kind of show. It's weird that this was made after Friends. Friends has its problems, and you'd think BBT would have learned from those, but apparently not. I enjoyed the show for a while, but it slowly started to dawn on me, as I started to identify more with Sheldon, that it was definitely punching down at autistic people and I just couldn't watch it anymore.

[@idontevenhaveapla7224]

​@@devononairMaybe you'd like young Sheldon. It's a VERY different show

[@ZoeAlleyne]

"Bullying geeks" is now us bullying each other for our takes and we have become our own bullies and oppressors and I just think that's really beautiful.

[@weregretohio7728]

Power corrupts absolutely?

[@Darko113]

*Ironic...* They wanted to be free of bullies, to end up bullying themselves...

[@mentosfairy]

Yes god forbid you have the wrong opinion about Star Wars or some shit lol

[@exquisitecorpse4917]

I mean....if they would just accept that Last Jedi is a good movie, I would let them out of the box.

[@ZoeAlleyne]

@@exquisitecorpse4917 it was a great movie, shame there was never a sequel to that movie. Oh well.

[@TheWunderWaffelShow]

As both a theoretical physicist and a person with autism the amount of “oh so you’re like sheldon then?” I get is depressing

[@pureevil9496]

lol that sucks

[@llynxfyremusic]

Sheldon is the main reason i lost my way with BBT. The older i got the i realised how terrible Sheldon is as a character in so many ways, and i felt really spiteful that my parents would compare me to him.

[@clsisman]

I’m so sorry. Both for how insulting the Sheldon-type autistic character is to actual autistic people, and the fact you get constantly compared to him. ❤️

[@cheezbiscuit4140]

Have you adopted the response: no because I'm actually funny

[@localabsurdist6661]

As a physics student and someone who is autistic I have to sadly say same

[@djadelaney]

I'd been working at a smoke shop the past 18 months, and watching this plus my experience there makes me want to study the relationship of specific uh, drug fandoms, and the Rick and Morty fandom in particular. You wouldn't believe the tattoos I've seen

[@freethebluejay]

I get what you’re saying but they’re really weird about a lot of other animation, especially children’s animation. Like SpongeBob, holy shit is there a wide variety of SpongeBob rolling trays, bongs, related tattoos, etc.

[@doublejoywilson]

in regards to the satanic panic around dnd mentioned at the beginning of the video: i actually went to a school that had a clause in the student handbook warning students against playing rpg’s up until *last year*

[@plaidchuck]

Yep. Even the right wingers now don't realise how ridicioulous the shity was throughout the 80s. There's a reason there was such a backlash against it for years.

[@upd0g1]

I thought this video was about the rise and fall of “GREEK” culture and was super excited to learn about all the trendy Greek things I had been oblivious to.

[@hexapodc.1973]

same exact shit here

[@merrittanimation7721]

Clearly we missed the tumblr black figure pottery boom.

[@morbidsearch]

I get reminded of how toxic Greek culture is every time North Macedonia releases their Eurovision entry

[@IsiahTomas]

This isn't about geese?

[@21Trainman]

Nerd

[@DarkkestNite]

"being cruel doesn't make you clever, and being kind doesn't make you foolish, and being cruel and clever doesn't make you right" somewhat ironically sounds like a Tennant-era Who quote.

[@EventideBlackFox]

Less Tennant and more Smith, T. Baker or McCoy imo *wait I just outed myself as a doctor who fan*

[@leightonpetty4817]

Love that cheesy idealism that Doctor Who embodied, it was simple feelgood fluff but the show always had this feel of “The world can be shitty but it’s got so much good”

[@carolinemcgovern4488]

Honestly yeah I can see any Doctor saying that.

[@mredbadger]

That’s a Capaldi line if I ever heard one

[@ikanakodomo]

“When everyone is geeky, no one is” thank you! I’ve not been able to put it into words but yes! Liking funco pops, marvel, and anime doesn’t make you a nerd - it makes you normal. I fell out of fandom around 2014 for this reason. Everything felt like a shallow husk as a way of getting consumers. I never bothered with the superhero crap. It’s crazy that a series aimed to the broader population is considered to be dorky still

[@Jeebus-un6zz]

Yeah I feel this way allllll the time. It's like everything from D&D to PC Gaming to Anime and Fantasy Shows has just been overrun with the people we called 'casuals' and because of their presence everything has been watered down.

[@V2ULTRAKill]

​@@Jeebus-un6zzjust come to fighting games Even at their most popular guilty gear is still niche

[@andrewwinters6352]

im old enough to remember when being a dork wasn't some cool in-group, but rather sucked total ass. this is a significantly better world to live in.

[@ScoundrelDaysSon]

​@@andrewwinters6352This. It's so weird to see folk lust after times when social exclusion was the prize for liking anything related to geek culture. Go to a convention? Prepare to have to hide it or explain it away. Honestly it is far preferable to have 'casuals' enjoy geek properties, to play board games, play video games, read comics, to attend conventions . . . It doesn't dilute it, it expands it. Point of fact: geeks gatekeeping true geekdom is really antithetical to the best qualities I've observed within fandom, and I don't understand it. Thinking it would be far better if only those darn casuals would step away from their properties, and the idea that less people enjoying any given property will preserve said property has clearly never lived through times when geekdom was rife with cancellations, where there was maybe one movie a year that might resonate with you, there were - in the UK at least - there was literally nothing beyond 'Bugs' and 'Red Dwarf' for fans of sci-fi. There was X-Men, Matrix, and Lord of the Rings. For over a decade. Oh - and the Star Wars prequels. Is there definitely a problem with capitalism co-opting geek culture? Yup. But the answer to it isn't to push out the casuals, or police who's the best geek.

[@AvengerVincent]

This was a perfect encapsulation of what it was like being a nerdy kid in the 2010s. And you perfectly touched on the bad side of the subculture. Thank you for making something i can give to someone who wasn't a part of it and explain what it was like

[@notquitechaos6705]

god i really was just "THAT'S what young sheldon is about??" totally ready to accept it until the punchline hit

[@jamesanthony5874]

I mean, with the proliferation of police procedurals centered on the quirky civilian consultant, I wouldn't even blink at one where the consultant was an autistic child.

[@Chocibunny]

Omg same I was not prepared xD

[@jtillman8251]

Honestly, I was a little disappointed it was a joke, because for the first time ever I had the slightest spark of interest in that show.

[@ThurstonCyclist]

I went to high school in the 1980s, and I was a nerd, and I was bullied. However, as I look back at it, the bullying was never about my nerdy interests (D&D, science fiction novels), it was about the fact that other kids saw me as a weird kid. So, sure, it's great to see a lot of the niche stuff I liked as a kid become part of the mainstream--but weird kids still exist, and weird kids still get bullied. And if we don't protect the weird kids, then what's even the point?

[@christophersmith3341]

But, um, didn't they see you as a weird kid to a certain extent because of those interests? Were they also playing D&D or reading science fiction novels, or at least did they have friends who played D&D or read science fiction novels who they didn't see as weird? Was anyone on any of the sports teams bullied and seen as a "weird kid"? I think that's what was so frustrating about the proliferation of so-called "geek culture." Seeing the newest Marvel movie the week it opened or following Smallville wasn't a sign of geekdom--it's just checking out the latest action blockbuster at the cineplex/latest big teen drama on tv. As everyone was doing it, it was by nature mainstream and not niche, not "geek." But actually knowing the last few years' chronology was at the time in Amazing Spider-Man or Detective Comics? That was geek; only a very small, devoted group of people were doing it. And yeah, were being looked at as weird as a result.

[@greglong7170]

@@christophersmith3341 It's possible to be wierd without liking things like comics, sci fi, or D&D. The two are not related or linked. You can like those things and 100% be viewed as normal at that time. I was in high school in the 90s and I knew plenty of people into such things who weren't considered weird. Being weird can often just be being awkward. Not dressing like everyone else. Not having the same social skills or friendship groups. None of that is the result of playing D&D and liking sci fi. I was a big sci fi nerd and played D&D but also had a sense of style that allowed me to have large group of friends. If anyone ever thought to bully me I would tell my friends on the basketball team and then all of a sudden my bully had to deal with the entire team if they really wanted to push it. It's possible, and likely, the OP sees his weirdness as a result of other traits about himself as opposed to being weird for being a geek and nerd.

[@greglong7170]

Also I went to high-school at an inner city school where you had to walk a careful balance if you didn't want to be considered white for liking D&D. Yet there were many on the football team that liked comics. Many liked anime as that scene was developing at the time. I got more grief for being smart and in the accelerated and gifted program than I did for anything I liked.

[@frauleinfunf]

I'm actually really interested in how much "nerdy" interests intersects with neurodivergence, which seems to be the most common reason a kid is deemed "weird". Hell, I feel like the isolation from being bullied when I was younger drove me deeper into my interests, sort of a snake eating it's tail situation.

[@ramblingnonsense8030]

@@christophersmith3341 I think that's prpbably the op's point here tho. It isn't about the interests except in that they signify weirdness. I think you're both making the same point, these things becoming mainstream doesn't mean it's the 'age of the geek' just that the signifiers of what even is a geek has moved on. And therefore, the bullying just has different targets. Incidentally, and this might be cultural, I was in one of my schools best sports teams, and still got called a geek. I didn't get bullied for it, but it happens. Not to say the my annecdotal experience is the norm, even culture boundaries excepted.

[@YonatanZunger]

@sarah z, thank you for this! I'm one of that generation of 80s geeks, and during a lot of this key window I was chief architect of social at Google - so I was nose-deep in trying to squelch things like GamerGate, but simultaneously trying to figure out what was even going on. I missed a lot of this transitional geek culture at the time and this explanation makes a lot of things way clearer in retrospect! I wish I'd had this video a decade ago. :)

[@Tunanunaa]

Hot take: We wouldn't have nearly as many douchey guys worshipping Elon Musk if it wasn't for Sherlock, Rick & Morty, and Big Bang Theory

[@shadracarthur]

Hmmm, interesting thought

[@tsukiumika5807]

weirdos being convinced their lack of social life and isolation is a sign of deep intelligence is nothing new. They were definitely part of the problem but if it wasn't Rick and Morty and Elon musk it would be Zuckerberg and Robot Chicken

[@alim.9801]

I'm not sure it can be entirely blamed on those influences but I honestly think they did play a part in the idolization of the "asshole genius" figure and boy I wish that wasn't so much of a thing 🙃

[@mr.x2567]

I thought Big Bang Theory made fun of nerdy people?

[@tsukiumika5807]

@@mr.x2567 I feel the comedy of big bang is more "laughing at yourself" than punching down

[@emilyfarfadet9131]

As an autistic broke Goth who wore goodwill and hand-me-downs- I spent most of the late 2000's early 2010's side eyeing rich pampered classmates in their brand new geek shirts driveling about how downtrodden they were as nerds....while getting bullied relentlessly for my interests, dress sense, and awkwardness. It was a time.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

How much do you want to bet that that those classmates are now trying to be an ekid or a goth now?

[@heiext]

Sometimes I'm glad I grew up in schools that required uniforms lmao I would have gotten bullied hard (not that I wasn't already bullied)

[@timm5362]

I feel that. I was big into anime and Manga in the 90s. And I was labeled as the weird kid. Then suddenly after I outgrew it, all the girls who made fun of me were into anime and Manga.

[@ducksick9973]

Now thrifted clothes become "trendy"

[@Franciskev2]

🤮

[@averyjeanne]

Was about 13 and a self proclaimed geek girl when Ready Player One came out, so everyone told me I had to read it. I remember that being the first time I was made uncomfortable as a woman in the geek space. I was made so uncomfortable by the main character’s discussion of women’s bodies and talking about getting off with a blow up doll. But I didn’t want to tell anyone about how I felt about the book because all of my mostly male friends were praising the book. So I just felt like I was too dumb to understand and enjoy the book.

[@galactic85]

I was a guy in high school when the book came out and even I found the blow up doll thing super weird and creepy. I probably didn't pick up on half the stuff that you did, like the discussions of women's bodies, but i just remember thinking "this is too geeky even for me. It's geeky in the worst ways." Every time I would get excited when something like Leopardon from Japanese Spider-man was referenced it would be undercut by some long description about something else that I didn't care about. That whole book was like a nerdy conversation with a friend that started out kind of fun but just went on for way too long.

[@amoureux6502]

@@galactic85 Quinton Reviews did a good video about it a while back, and he basically summed it up as reading like a list of nerd buzzwords instead of an actual coherent story

[@alexandreturcotte6411]

@@amoureux6502 The movie is WAY better anyway. Am I right, @Lady Emily ?

[@VincentMariethe4th]

Ugh. I do not blame you for being uncomfortable with that. I'm all for honest & frank discussions/education on sexual health, but a sci-fi story that's basically the internet sequence from FUTURAMA is not the time or place for it. What made me nearly throw my audio player across the room when listening to the audiobook was in Chapter 0; something about just referencing "the funeral scene from HEATHERS." I'm like, "First of all, buster, WHICH funeral scene? There were three of them! Second, I KNOW about the stalker love story crap in this book! You do NOT get to reference my favorite movie about a girl ultimately dumping her toxic boyfriend in this book that purportedly encourages toxic boyfriend behavior!"

[@StarsMadeOfGlass]

I ended up with a copy of it. I'm pretty sure I got it in a Loot Crate, actually. I still haven't read it, but I've seen enough reviews that I don't feel like I missed out.

[@lindenshepherd6085]

Anyone else grow up when anime was still a negative nerd interest, especially for girls/femmes? I actively remember shielding my interests as kid and being super careful who I talked about anime with, particularly in middle school. Anyone who wasn't already a fan of anime (and sometimes male fans) were aware of the nerdy, perverted, socially-inept *male* identity of anime fans, which led to me having a pretty limited friend group. Even when one of my male friends starting watching anime for the first time (Seven Deadly Sins, guess how he treated his female friends), he started making fun of me for being a "new/fake fan" for both being a female and not having shared my interest with him before. Even if I found groups of people I could talk about anime with, chances are, if it wasn't majority femme, shoujo and rom-com anime would be ridiculed, along with any kind of shipping. It absolutely blew my mind when my sister entered highschool and everyone was making anime references and memes so casually. Even OHSHC got a surge in interest in the last couple of years and Fruits Basket finally got a faithful reboot. I'm so happy for the kids of today, but it's still wild.

[@emilyniedbala]

I find it interesting the parallel, if slightly behind, rise and fall of Nerdfighteria along with the wider Geek Culture (peaking in 2014 rather than 2012), but the “fall” has been one of returning to a closer and more wholesome community as people who were just there for the trend of it all have moved on, and those who have stuck around are really committed to the values of the community - increase awesome, decrease world suck. While the Geekdom of the early 2010s was a fun wave to ride in my late middle/early high school years, Nerdfighteria and its embrace of learning and loving things is what will always stick with me. DFTBA!

[@mikkosaarinen3225]

Definitely agree with this. I think the commitment is the key here. It has always irritated me how many social issues are talked about in passive. Like misogyny is a thing that just happens instead of things people do/ignore.

[@user-jq1mg2mz7o]

nerdfighteria has been a bright spot and should probably be talked about more and seen as a type of template for a healthy model of fandoms/niche interest communities. it's kind of ironic that the 'fall' of its fame and size (which is anathema to the corporate driven consumption-driven 'fandoms' described in the video) has been a great insulation against assholes. apart from commitment to certain values, the lack of clout also means assholes are less likely to glomp on for "social capital" (in a sense). it's almost like profit-driven models always leads to more worldsuck...

[@fluffywolfo3663]

Some facts about James Dallas Egbert, the student who disappeared- He was gay. This was a large part of why he disappeared from under the thumb of his parents. That, and academic pressure and drug use. Apparently he also asked the PI who was tracking him to conceal parts of his story, too. Egbert didn’t want his little brother to be bullied because he was gay. Also, it turns out Egbert’s parents never blamed gaming for it, which comes as kind of a surprise. But Dear (the detective) had accidentally opened the bottle and it got crazy from there.

[@Xhistris]

Not to mention, the "ritual satanic abuse" that Dear suggested was just part of a whole list of possibilities he put together, where he listed basically everything that COULD have happened, from "Egbert ran away" to "Kidnapped by drug cartels because of his significant intelligence to run their books". Also, James, as far as I remember, was something like 16 while in college and he also complained significantly about social isolation because, y'know, a 16 year old in college would have troubles integrating. Edit: Oh, and the fact that, once again, a spotty memory here, I think I learned my facts about this in like 2017 (my memory is so bad I don't even remember when I learned what I learned lol), that Egbert's disappearance and suicide were reported as being damn near simultaneous, as opposed to the year and a half space between

[@littlemau1360]

Seeing this comment at the beginning of the video has greatly confused and intrigued me.

[@fluffywolfo3663]

@@littlemau1360 He's important to understanding the part where she talks about the Satanic Panic, but not as important by the time she talks about ponies or rick and morty.

[@littlemau1360]

@@fluffywolfo3663 nothing is more important that ponies or rick and morty obviously/s

[@erinlynn4033]

Y’all should read Mazes and Monsters

[@0hate9]

"the artistic bimbofication of hot topic" is possibly now my favorite sentence

[@SlapstickGenius23]

I’ve been to the Sydney CBD Chinatown a couple of times. Some of the stores at the Market City Mall are well filled with knockoffs and unofficial home video releases of anime.

[@voidutopian]

Nice pfp. Best character.

[@dogguy8603]

One of the worst tropes that I hate is this idea of "Fit/jock guy is a duche" I mean talk to any gym rat they are probably the most positive and encouraging people in existence

[@alim.9801]

My partner is very into fitness and he's one of the kindest people I've ever met, esp to all my fellow queer and alt friends :) I wish that stereotype wasn't as prominent, like there are for sure asshole gymbros but I feel like it's a minority

[@mr.x2567]

Maybe that came from high school bullies back in the old days.

[@dogguy8603]

@@alim.9801 one of the most heartwarming vids i have seen is of a bunch of gym rats cheering on a guy with cerebral paulsy as he beat his personal best, whats great is people were dropping what they were doing to watch and cheer him on

[@dogguy8603]

@@alim.9801 kzbin.info_1hJt9xX2fE?feature=share

[@Qaosbringer]

@@mr.x2567 exactly. people who didn't live those days, mistake the old things like still happening nowadays.

[@TheShadowcreator]

I remember when in the Rick and Morty directors commentary one of the creators said, "Morty needs to get more action." and then another one responded by saying, "What do you mean?" because every episode he was with a different girl.

[@kabobawsome]

People locking on to Scott Pilgrim, and the like-named character, uncritically is always so funny to me, because the entire main joke of the movie and comic is that Scott is just the eighth one, that he's just as horrible and objectifying as the exes. The entire point is that he's given so many chances to grow and change and self-reflect, and he just... doesn't. So it's very spot on to me that people refuse to re-analyse the story about the guy seemingly biologically incapable of self-reflection. EDIT: Another favorite is that they fully gave up and wrote a full episode of Rick and Morty dedicated to explaining the point of the story and telling the audience, almost directly, what is wrong with Rick and why the entire Sanchez family is horribly dysfunctional, and the fandom went fucking crazy for the joke about how Rick tried to avoid that confrontation.

[@anthonywilde4179]

but he turned himself into a pickle, funniest shit ive ever seen

[@galactic85]

Scott isn't "the 8th one." He is VERY CLOSE to being the 8th one though. The whole reason he rejects Gideon's offer to join the league of evil ex's in the final comic is that he has finally started to mature and change after accepting "nega scott." He very clearly does change and starts trying to be better by the end of the story.

[@kabobawsome]

@@galactic85 In the comic, he does grow a tiny bit, you're right. I shouldn't have implied he didn't change in the comic, even if he's still objectively a pretty horrible person at the end. That said, in the movie, he's a shithead and the movie's making fun of him for being a shithead.

[@ExeErdna]

Yes people legit back then didn't get Scott Pilgrim wasn't the hero at all

[@kabobawsome]

@@ExeErdna He *is* the hero. Of the story. Which is the point, and why a lot of people didn't get it. It's a story, it's not real, it's meant to show how immature, childish, and horrible his worldview is. A worldview where the world is a video game and his girlfriend's exes are all evil supervillains and that Romana is herself nothing but an object to be won and fought over. But a lot of people completely miss the metanarrative because they aren't used to engaging with a movie critically. Which I blame on c a p i t a l i s m.

[@str1fe13]

I have never seen anything vanish from popular culture so thoroughly and so immediately as Game of Thrones after the final episode aired. Like, everyone should have been re-binging the whole show during early pandemic lockdown but I didn't hear that from ~anyone~

[@necroseus]

Yeeeeep. It was the most popular show on television for many, many years. Those last two seasons really killed it dead. Left a bitter taste in everyone's mouth.

[@albertoriveramena2897]

Because it is like having a really nice cake and when You get to The core of it, is filled with shit

[@ykakutani]

there's also no joy in watching all the intricate foreshadowing and character building in the early seasons when you know it's all meaningless by the last season

[@tywren2486]

That's because Martin was so busy fellating himself on the con circuit that the show runners ran out of source material, so they had to take Martin's jumbled post-it notes and hand them off to a pair of glorified script writers who think "Subvert their expectations" is the holy grail writing.

[@davidrich27]

@@albertoriveramena2897 How do you eat cake?

[@jonathanmiley1248]

I’m a little sad this video didn’t end with “the real geek culture were the friends we made along the way.”

[@owlbearwithwizardlevels8312]

This made me incredibly nostalgic and maybe a little sad, geek culture was a huge part of my identity as a teenager and early 2010s fandom culture is what indirectly led to me coming out as trans last year after starting me down the road of understanding queer culture and questioning my own identity. I was there to see what was once a happy, wholesome community I was engaged in, where I was going to cons with friends and doing shitty cosplay but having fun, slowly become more and more cynical, then toxic, then outright hateful. A lot of people I met online who I had considered really close friends I just had to stop talking to because they would get swept up by gamergate and whatever other bullshit. It's easy to see in hindsight that the undercurrent of what would lead to things just getting worse and worse but I do kinda miss the days where we would all say shit like nerdgasm and wear those pop culture mashup tees without really knowing or caring that we were being pretty cringe. That being said, fuck funko pops.

[@d-o-k-i]

First off, congrats on coming out as trans! :D As for the rest of it... yeah, I do feel like a lot of people are REALLY into gatekeeping and self-policing to make sure they don't come off as 'cringe' now, and it ruins a lot of the camaraderie. And this isn't just me viewing when I was a kid through rose-tinted glasses! I'm talking about a shift I've noticed during my adulthood, post-Gamergate. It's... really sad.

[@mamba7160]

nah fuck that I love funko pops. easy way to show off a character I like for $10

[@notapplicable6985]

​@@mamba7160Yeah, but there are cheaper and more show accurate figures. Funko pops can feel like an invasive species almost

[@mamba7160]

@@notapplicable6985 I like having them all in the same style 🤷🏿‍♂️

[@notapplicable6985]

@@mamba7160 understandable, its just that they can crowd out other figures. They do have some ones even I like mainly ones with non-standard eyes I just feel like most funko pops will wind up being creepy-dollish in the future

[@Princess_Weekes]

This was such a fun video The fact that my father loved The Big Bang Theory was always a strike against it. He barely knows who Batman is. Also Nerd Blackface is the whitest term I've heard. Dollhouse is trash.

[@michimatsch5862]

I am autistic and I was always compared to one character in it. Sheldon was the name, I think. It bothered me to no end because I saw like one episode with that character and he was casually mysogonistic and a creep, and I was like: "Cool, that's how this show thinks nerds are apparently."

[@nathandrake5544]

My conservative grandpa is a huge fan of the Big Bang theory. I used to think it was strange, since he barely watches any recently aired TV shows, but then it clicked that he relates to the male characters because he was an engineering student.

[@merrittanimation7721]

My entire extended family on my father's side absolutely loves the show. My mother's side doesn't as much but they're Colombian so American sitcoms in general aren't their thing.

[@fluffywolfo3663]

friend of mine once referred to Sheldon as "a goddamn minstrel show." And while maybe we don't want to compare geeks to black people... ...I feel like this friend was onto something, at least.

[@gregcourtney751]

@@nathandrake5544 but like they make fun of the enigineer for being an engineer. The characters I mean esp. Sheldon.

[@revevague6256]

This concept of "identity through consumption" is really everywhere. Excellent work!

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

Even though all the coomer and consoomer and consume product memes are Nazi dogwhistles, they do describe a good portion of the nerd audience and how shallow and meaningless their hobbies and habits can get.

[@shabushabu5319]

@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 bro shut up lol

[@myname9130]

@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 I mean, there's a reason Nazi dogwhistle memes happen to overlap with actual nerd audiences. It's not a coincidence, it's very much on purpose.

[@ChangedMyNameFinally69]

@@myname9130 Well the nerd audience those memes mock is in the mind of Nazis leftists somehow

[@unblorbosyourshows9635]

@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 Wait how are those memes dogwhistles?

[@ZMYaro]

While this hit on many important points, I feel like it should have noted that the rise of geek culture was largely just the rise of _commercializable_ geek culture, and plenty of the rest (e.g., studying advanced maths/sciences) was still received with some ridicule or disdain by the mainstream-especially in the Trump era and the COVID-19 pandemic. Characters who were supposed to be likeable by the mainstream audience generally had brief snippets of technobabble and showy CG, while displays of actual knowledge still came from the designated nerd characters. Iron Man, for example, was a mainstream successful adaptation of a comic book, but it also arguably shows more of its protagonist being an action hero and egotistical playboy than doing the “geekier” parts of engineering a mech suit (not to mention the visible influence of the U.S. military on the film). Stark's résumé is just as nerdy as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Fitz on paper, but they are definitely not portrayed that way.

[@ZMYaro]

Thinking about it, I think the “rise and fall of geek culture” when it came to consumption of fiction kind of paralleled the shift elsewhere from the idea that the geeks were going to rule the world-as home Internet and then smartphones became widespread, and tech companies dominated our lives-to the realization that tech companies were still run by rich businessmen controlling and profiting off the work of the actual scientists and engineers.

[@V2ULTRAKill]

It also showed in more niche aspects of the gaming subculture Fighting games and visual novels still got the same disdain Because 'geek culture' was the mainstreamization of already marketable media and people just admitting to it, while niche subcultures still had disdain

[@josephkolar3443]

It truly was a golden age of villains letting themselves get captured on purpose.

[@JessieGender1]

Great video. It's interesting to me because I remember my parents getting into The Big Bang Theory and suddenly feeling that they "got me", because I was nerdy and autistic like Sheldon (though he was not expressly autistic, he was autistically coded)... And it honestly made me feel good at the time, but also looking back me to think I'd never be able to be interact with anyone socially.

[@emcrolls]

Hey Jessie & anyone else Neurodivergent in nerd culture . I’m glad if Big Bang etc helped you feel safe, seen or better. Sheldon especially can easily be read as Autistic & often Ace. Do not let Myam Bialk & crew (sadly actual neuroscientist who wrote gods awful parenting books) hurt or affect your experience. You are too important.

[@eliburry-schnepp6012]

That's fascinating to me because as a nerdy and autistic kid Sheldon Cooper and his pop culture omnipresence legitimately made me feel like absolute shit.

[@stephanieok5365]

I don't drink the sand because it's water, I drink it because it's the only thing in the desert. I wonder if there are different characters people relate to now. If there are more options? I look at shows like Steven Universe and SheRa and think, damn, could have used those as a kid.

[@eliburry-schnepp6012]

@@stephanieok5365 Yeah absolutely.

[@bradhorowitz2765]

I’m sorry Jessie, but Sheldon ISnt Autistic. That’s not me who says so-that’s the show’s creators! It honestly was so surprising considering who sheldon is. But looking back, your right (as did the video here) points out that Big Bang gives bad stereotypes of nerds for mainstream culture. Not all nerds love the same thing. Not all nerds are sexist, week characters who sexually harass women (yes I think back to that AWFUL episode where sheldon and the gang keep spewing insults to their boss-a woman). For gods sake, the Baltimore ravens Once had a player who was a MATH genius.

[@theheresiarch3740]

"Which is very funny if you know any LARPing people, those guys all, like, obnoxiously kinky." Sarah, has anyone told you that you have a gift for understatement? I was a year into some LARP adjacent hobbies attending a large event when I drunkenly stumbled into a large, outdoor Roman orgy at 1am, complete with togas (although most of them had been discarded at that point), wine, and fully nude gladiators.

[@afarensis16]

I know way more about the sex lives of the LARPers and SCA people I know than I ever wanted to... ...some things cannot be unheard, other things cannot be unseen. Funny story, though, I was once at a birthday party that turned into an orgy with a bunch of SCA people and LARPers, and it was made clear to me that I was not allowed to participate in the orgy (which was fine with me), but that they wanted me to hang out and talk to people as they took breaks from the room with the excitement in it. It was very odd.

[@justas423]

@@afarensis16 it's kind of amusing how they didn't want you in the orgy (I'm curious as to the reason), but wanted you around for between the breaks. Either way, kinky birthday party.

[@dailymdesdemona]

I love this thread. I hope more LARPing orgy stories get added.

[@SometimesCompitent]

Why do you think they have all that leather?

[@bene.1587]

was looking for a comment like this. everyone I know that ever talked about going to big LARPing events has stories like this.

[@wearyatlas]

"nobody has ever watched young Sheldon" man I'm sad it's got a weird rep. I love that show. It's depiction of a family is actually something I can relate to on some level, the small country town living and the issues and dynamics it brings. It is objectively hilarious that a spin-off of big bang theory created some of the best depictions of a family I've ever seen 😅

[@Writebrain82]

There's another key factor in the end of the 2010s geek culture. We're losing more and more of our disposable income. How many people can afford to travel to a con, buy merch, get a new video game system, and expensive cosplay outfits? It's turning into the "haves and have nots" and if you're not wealthy enough to invest in what you're passionate about because the cost of rent and food and electricity and other essentials have gotten so out of control, well, then, that culture starts on the decline because you need new people getting into it in order for it to continue. Maybe it's not the sole reason, but, it's definitely A reason that goes along with all of these wonderful thoughts from Sarah Z. I wish I saw this when it came out, but, you got a new fan/subscriber a year late, anyhow!

[@TristianBlake]

As someone whose staple wardrobe used to be nerd t-shirts and whose only remaining engagement in fandom is reading/writing fic, I wonder how many others shifted from commercial to non-commercial geek culture because of exactly this?

[@mredbadger]

For sure, and it certainly doesn’t help that previously accessible nerd hobbies have skyrocketed in price due to opportunists. It’s no longer fun to go to retro game markets because scalpers always get there first, scoop up everything of mild value and leave nothing but the Madagascar movie game on GBA. Trading cards have the same issue People don’t have money, all of the authentic nerd crap people used to collect is insanely expensive and all we’re left with are funko pops and Rick and morty shirts

[@chewychibi03]

My dad is in his 70s and still proudly calls himself a geek to this day. He’s an inventor and electrical engineer who used to read the dictionary for fun. When he calls me a geek like him it makes me smile so much lol he’s a good old man.

[@GraveyardShift-tl6ri]

im sobbing dude this is so cute pLEASE

[@santiagoacosta3372]

That is so cute

[@kanakkhare5002]

wholesome comment 😊

[@Zom13y]

My dad is also in his 70s and he got me and my brother into Anime. Like he was stealing cable with his friends so he had every channel and one day when we went over my dad was excited about this movie he found on PPV. He was like “It’s awesome! It’s got giant wolves and talking boars! It’s like a Disney movie but everybody is killing people and there’s tons of blood!” he was describing Princess Mononoke. So we got some cheap Chinese food and watched it with him. That was a while ago but every couple weeks since then me and my brother get some cheap Chinese food and a case of beer to head over to the old man’s to watch a new anime film. That was until the pandemic started.

[@EvonneLindiwe]

❤️☺️

[@vvvvventy]

I thought it said “Greek culture” and was expecting a detailed account on the fall of Greece but this is just as good

[@kwirro]

that would be a good video ngl

[@worldssmallestfan]

There has to be a bit of a crossover.

[@Fillyann11]

Underrated comment

[@halikarnak1862]

Imagine thinking it was about greek culture while watching and being confused as to why shes talking about the big bang theory

[@MoreColtraneChanges]

“This isn’t the Byzantine Empire, this is Big Bang Theory!”

[@muppetpilled]

good news ! i recently did seasonal shifts at hot topic and while more "tiktok alt" than "mall goth" , stuff like invader zim and skelanimals is back as well as a darker pallette again. pop culture stuff , besides anime , kinda has been put on a major backburner lately save for a few major properties and "disney". more and more kids are going to the mall now too its kinda cool too see. the spirit of the mall goth has reawakened in todays high schoolers

[@forrestjames1312]

As someone who worked in screen printing during the boom of those mash-up property shirts I gotta say those things were never ever actually a limited stock but in fact were print on demand (aka the shirts weren’t actually made until after you ordered them online). they created artificial hype by claiming designs were limited edition and rotating them every so often (the designs would always, always get another run a few weeks down the line) and were absolutely always printed on the cheapest garments available. Additionally they were usually annoying as hell to print.

[@lignjahal]

My problem with the Big Bang Theory is that it has a negative and disparaging portrayal of Autism in Sheldon. It's a show, and a character, that won awards for gleefully depicting this negative stereotype of Autism that really messes things up for our community and getting acceptance. Which is just gross...

[@annamaria9073]

It doesn't even admit to Sheldon being autistic. That's the whole 'my mum had me tested' thing is about. That's just something people read into it. In the text he's just absurdly socially inept

[@Chachixo]

Do you mind sharing an example or two of the stereotypes? I never attributed anything he did to him being autistic - it hadn't really occurred to me that he was meant to be for a really long time so nothing comes to mind. I also don't really know of many stereotypes about autistic people in general tbh.

[@aurora.lis956]

yes!! i’ve always hated how sheldon had essentially become the ‘face of autism’. he’s so stereotyped. and, he’s a cishet white man, which adds to the false perception that only boys can be autistic and adds to the lack of diagnoses in ppl who don’t fit into that specific box. there’s a reason why more white men (specifically boys bc they’re usually diagnosed during childhood) are diagnosed with autism. it’s because ppl only view autism through a white male perspective and alienate every other autistic person that didn’t fit the bill. having sheldon be such a stereotype is so much more harmful than ppl can imagine.

[@damien678]

I sure do love feeling like my autism is a death sentence for my social life, ha ha. cheers, bazinga boy

[@mhawang8204]

To be fair, the creator/writer repeatedly said they did not intend for Sheldon to be on the spectrum, though he can certainly be read that way.

[@koolkidasaurusrex]

As a very poor geek during the 2010’s, I always felt like a fake geek because I couldn’t afford to take part in geek capitalism.

[@nicolasnamed]

I know how you feel somewhat, I was a tween/teen then so I didn't have much money and couldn't buy much either.

[@CyanAnn]

Same, as a poor tween in the 2010s, they only "geeky" think I ever had was a Mockingjay pin that my brother bought me but i was so nervous to wear it out i just left it on the cardboard backing.

[@CounterfittXIII]

I had dealt with similar feelings in the past so I felt different but I can definitely empathize with that. I felt more like I was watching a play or a melodrama sometimes. It was surreal. People performing their love and affection in ways they wouldn't in other situations or about different subjects that they loved. Imagine walking down the street and passing someone who was wearing a t-shirt that said, "I love my girlfriend," or something on it.

[@TheBayzent]

I dunno how geekdom worked outside of Spain, but here we often pooled resources (and pirated the sh*t out of shows and videogames) so social status never was an issue.

[@choreomaniac]

I’m an 80’s nerd but not so much in the subculture but more that I unapologetically liked math and science. I wasn’t into comic books or d&d. I think the fact that I am male and half-Asian made it easier for me to be an open nerd as well as the fact that I liked sports and was decent at them. I was into Escher prints, word and math puzzles and languages. But in college everyone was a nerd and the same in grad school. And by the time I entered the real world I felt no need to have nerd cred.

[@seacrest73]

Nerds, like any group, come in variety. A nerd invited me to an RPG one time where he was the master, and while he was decent looking, a successful law student, and social, his friends were a mixed bag and did remind me of big bang theory characters. One of his friends completely shut down and I felt bad because somehow I felt like it was because of my outsider presence. I became friends with another nerd through law school who was into Dr. Who, death metal, and guns, and was a Republican. Is that ever a combination you would imagine? And his friends were definitely a mix too. Different levels of education, social skills, and looks. Goes to show you can't really box people.

[@YossarianVanDriver]

Love reading the comments and finding how common my "autistic kid whose parents kept comparing me to Sheldon in a way they thought was positive but I REALLY HATED" experience is...

[@tjenadonn6158]

The autistic experience is repeatedly insisting that Abed Nadir from Community is better autistic rep than Sheldon. He's an autistic character, created by an autistic creator (Dan Harmon,) based on an autistic person he knew when he was actually attending community college.

[@ivanmarquez2218]

I had a girl call me "Literally like Sheldon" because I had some very shallow surface-level knowledge of a lot of random stuff. Say, we were talking about Cars and I knew this super niche thing about grease engine, and then we swapped to Movies and I had the particular knowledge of say Lens resolution or something. I had a very hard time arguing why I found that comparison insulting. And also ironic in it's own sense, because I was talking about things that were completely outside of my expertise and just had a "referential" knowledge of them and THAT was enough for her to categorize me into Sheldon.

[@sanguinestallion]

For me it was my friends in College and University doing that

[@kant.68]

Was Sheldon confirmed to have Asperger?? Chuck Lorre only stated that “Sheldon was just like that”

[@YossarianVanDriver]

@@kant.68 That's part of the shittiness, that he's 100% autistic-coded in a very direct and pointed (and negatively stereotyped) way, but since they won't call it that they get to (try and) dodge the responsibility of actually portraying neurodivergence.

[@sasak369]

My dad, who grew up as a kid who was into comics, D&D and sci-fi and all that in a time when it was unusual, said that geekdom is being passionate about your weird interests regardless of who makes fun of you for it. It’s not about fantasy or science-fiction aesthetics, it’s about loving things that the mainstream isn’t currently appreciating. It’s also not some kind of elite club to try to getekeep or prove membership in. When the stuff he used to actually be made fun of for got popular, it was like his childhood dreams coming true.

[@phoenixfritzinger9185]

Your dad sounds like a pretty cool nerd

[@davidturner1835]

sounds like a huge nerd, like my dad.

[@phoenixfritzinger9185]

@@davidturner1835 this is barely scraping the surface, my dad’s taste went a lot deeper than that, I had a phase in elementary school where my favorite superhero was The Tick, I wrote 80’s Voltron fan fiction in a composition book over a decade before the new one hit Netflix

[@steve7745]

@@phoenixfritzinger9185 that's awesome! Makes me think of my dad, he was a metalhead nerd in the 80s and The Tick was his favorite when he was younger. It's hilarious to me looking at him now as a 50somethin professional lookin dude (with the exception of the long hair) versus his photos from back then when he was a dorky stoner lookin type wearing tiny shorts and all sorts of weird colorful tiedye/hawaiian stuff with his guitars and comic posters and computer equipment lookin like the entire archetype of the geeky loser from the time. He's still like that mind you, but he has a sense of fashion these days 😉😂

[@phoenixfritzinger9185]

@@steve7745 IDK about metal music but my dad definitely introduced me to They Might be Giants and Barenaked Ladies when I was a kid kid I had a pretty interesting childhood like my dad was a huge nerd/kinda lapsed otaku (found like Speed Racer and Robotech and stuff on TV when they were first airing but wasn’t really able to find more after they ended so that ended his anime watching career until the 10’s when I got old enough to make him take me to a convention) in the body of a cowboy, yes a literal cowboy. He grew up on a ranch In Oklahoma and that was just part of his normal chores. My mom was like an artsy new wave punk girl who even though not all of them were really that “punk” has probably seen everybody on those 80’s nostalgia playlists because all the places she worked selling tickets

[@TheBrclear66]

Watching this over and I can't help but wonder what the internet, internet/geek culture, and even politics in the US would look like if instead of adopting "don't feed the trolls" it was shut down quickly and harassment was taken seriously

[@Imxel21]

You know that meme of an advanced future? That’s what the world would be like

[@joshroomwymbsy312]

That line of "when everyone is geek, no one is" really speaks true to me. I've been working in the book industry for over a decade now and in that time I've seens sections like manga and graphic novels go from a tucked away shelf to entire areas with merch and displays. And where the people shopping it used to be niche customers, now its 14/15 year olds, and parents buying for their kids, and the know it and understand it and its, well, normal to them. The culture is no longer niche culture - its just culture.

[@jonathanlgill]

The "less likeable friend insisting you watch Rick and Morty" might be the truest line Sarah has ever uttered.

[@richardbourton4523]

I had to pause it so I could laugh at that bit! So true. Can’t remember how many times people suggested I watch it, only for me to express doubt because the show and characters seemed very mean spirited which doesn’t appeal to me. Then they told me ‘nah it’s just funny he’s a total arsehole’ and start listing horrible things Rick did while laughing like a callous sociopath.

[@tjenadonn6158]

@@richardbourton4523 Yeah, it's funny when it's a background character who's joyously evil in a world full of deadly serious evil like Dr. Bright from the SCP Foundation or Medic from Team Fortress 2, or a clueless but sincere idiot who thinks he's actually improving things, like the title character of Xavier: Renegade Angel. When the guy I'm supposed to be rooting for is essentially Charles Bukowski In Space: hating life, hating his family, hating existence, hating everyone and everything he comes into contact with, doing nothing to try and either improve the world and people he's with or find help for his very apparent personality disorder, and doing irreparable damage to everything he comes across without remorse or even cracking a smile it just feels like I'm staring into the abyss. It becomes this joy dessicant, with s fictional character so miserable that it actively makes me miserable. Basically if Rick hates himself, the show he's on, and the universe he's in so much why the fuck should I be expected to fall in love with them?

[@thepagecollective]

Yeah, Rick & Morty is okay. But mean spirited and one note.

[@lenap319]

@@tjenadonn6158 same, i also just really dont find the toilet humor funny

[@shanelbryant5638]

I watched Rick and Morty for the first time with friends and the whole thing wasn’t even mid. Like it was all too mean spirited. And then I watched it blazed because “that’s how it gets good” and the show literally made me feel like I was on a bad lsd trip

[@ellencoleman4604]

Talking about the Avengers like it's a historic event and explaining that it was 'actually a big deal at the time' is giving me a crisis. Has it happened? Am I finally... old?

[@LiarJudas666]

We're aging at a rapid pace thanks to the internet

[@pistachiopanda]

I was only a teenager at the time that it came out and I was more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan. I loved the Spiderman films and I can still quote the X-Men movies even now. But when the Marvel Cinematic Universe started and exploded in 2012 with the Avengers, it was like, all of the niche stuff that I couldn't have before suddenly exploded. It came out in summer of 2012, and I watched it with my family and fucking loved it. My family was full of nerds and gamers, so my family continued to watch the MCU throughout the years. When I came back to my Sophomore year of high school fall of 2012, it was a cultural shift. EVERYONE was talking about the Avengers. I got a little salty as a teenage "not like other girls" type as my friend waltzed into class with a blown up face of Tom Hiddleston as Loki plastered on her shirt. She never made fun of nerd culture but did poke fun at me and our other friends for being geeky. As the years progressed and Tumblr boomed in popularity, I felt vindicated as people fell in love with comics, sci-fi and fantasy. As a 25 year old woman seeing all these Tik Toks getting popular about talking about being a nerd and the rise of KZbin channels like New Rock Stars that break down the MCU, it felt like I blinked and the world was suddenly anew. Its absolutely crazy what the world looks like right now in its cultural zeitgeist and the closest we've ever come to feeling that again was one, when Pokemon Go came out in 2016, and two, End Game came out.

[@DrFranklynAnderson]

You posted this comment on the 10th anniversary of the first Avengers movie’s release date. What do you think?

[@trashcatlinol]

Yeah....my moment hit when someone was talking about something that happened 'recently ' in 2002. My first thought was, 'Recent? That was 20 years ago!' I have been referring to my activities in terms of decades for a while, because it's easy to say, 'oh, I've been studying that for a decade.... I've been married a decade....yet it never really hit as hard as realizing the 2000s were 2 decades ago...

[@danielramsey6141]

@@LiarJudas666 Fuck man, I loved the 90s, and boy do I feel Old as hell! I remember the Start of ALL of this Man!

[@beardedgeek973]

My biggest problem with all this is that the moment "we" (I was born 1972) stopped being bullied for our interests, a lot of us turned out to be Nazis, or Incels, or you know, Anti-woke youtube creators or... It was a very sobering moment when you realized you could not just click "follow" on anyone with D20 in their profile pic anymore, ,because they might favorite fanart of anime with all characters in Nazi uniforms or whatever.

[@kingstarscream3807]

Yep. Geek culture is more open than ever but the original nerds who were bullied from 1970-2010 aren't welcome.

[@skeleletonboi4533]

yea 2nd guy I dated was one of those. I thought he was cool cause he was nice to me, played dnd, liked monty python, and didn't call me cringe for being in the furry community... turns out he also likes to erp with significantly less than adult characters, wanted to be part of the 1940's era n*zi party and was only fetishising me for being trans and having some german ancestry

[@Jeebus-un6zz]

​@@kingstarscream3807That's a bit much of a generalization. Not every nerd in that age group matching a certain description is a neo-fascist.

[@user-jq1mg2mz7o]

@@kingstarscream3807 that's not really accurate, in fact I'd bet money that the right wing assholes were most likely not actual nerds. it's ironic that the right wing types that scream "tourist!" or "normie!" and like to 'gatekeep' and have a persecution complex are the very outsider normies who really should have been gatekept and have now kicked out the demographic who would originally be the most bullied nerds (i.e. minorities)

[@xenonchikmaxxx]

BBT is very contributing for "incelisation" cause it depict main heroes - males, stayed with women which actually bulled this man for their geekiness and this women stayed with geeks only because they failed relations with "normal" men. Its just incel textbook about alphas and omegas.

[@agentbeauty7516]

It's so weird to look back at this and actually reflect on it - I was bullied for reading Batman comics at school and reading fantasy books, so badly I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety at 12 (which didn't help my already lacking social skills). Now it's popular and everywhere. I'm so detached it almost feels like a weird dream. But I'm still living with the mental scars. On the topic of comic shops. I worked at one and the sexism was REAL. Looking up porn at work (including Jenifer Lawrence's). We were downstairs and sometimes they'd joke about looking up skirts or dresses as women left. One time the owner made a comment to a customer and she made a post about it. He got low-key offended by it. I just brushed it off and stay in my head alot so barely noticed it at the time. Looking back it's insane and just so... Blugh I shall happily stay in my corner with my videogames and continue to avoid people.

[@RegsaGC]

There's this Danish expression: "It killed itself by its victory" _(Det sejrede sig til døde)_ And I think it really applies here.

[@sabin97]

except it didnt. nerd culture has NOTHING to do with buying trendy things. our culture has always been "underground". we've never gone mainstream. our culture started and continued without the normies.

[@sycastells1212]

I see where you're coming from and I want to agree, but there's something very "no true scottsman" about this argument. Clearly there was a mainstream pop culture trend that overlapped with and took a lot of cultural elements from and called itself "geek culture". It reminds me of the people who call the dominant Christian hegemony "not true Christians". It's ultimately a semantic difference because the dominant, mainstream version is what's being discussed here.

[@angelic_stargaze]

damn thats good

[@sabin97]

@@sycastells1212 that's the thing. it didnt "take a lot of elements" from my culture. it simply took trendy things and called them "geeky" and they started calling themselves "geeks" even when they arent. geek culture is about maths, science, engineering, history. it has never been about capitalism(purchasing trendy things) or trying to be flashy. it's not a semantic difference. it's a difference in essence. the normies buying trendy things are to geeks what a larper is to a real fighter.

[@sycastells1212]

I think it is a semantic difference, because you're clearly referring to a sense of the term "geek culture" that isn't the one being discussed here. Sometimes words mean different things. It doesn't mean one of them is wrong. It just means you have to clarify your meaning sometimes. Perhaps you could tell us what you mean when you say "geek culture" so we can better understand why you disagree.

[@TalkingVidya]

Not sure how to feel about Sarah talking about my teenage years as if they were anciant history, but it's not good!

[@LordValdomerol]

Hey, it's even worse for people like me who were young adults back then, around 19 or 20. I feel absolutely ANCIENT. Also qué pedo qué sorpresa verte aquí kek

[@Chachixo]

haha the looks backs are getting so current it almost feels insulting,

[@santiagoacosta3372]

El pollo vaporwave

[@lovableasshole]

Feels even better when it's your 20s she talking about 😜

[@99brickstudios]

That‘s this whole channel😅 An interesting one was also „remember when the hunger games was a thing ?“

[@Horcrux_maker]

One of the things that baffled me about the perceptions of fandom,I was a "geek" or "nerd" for enjoying entertainment,created to entertain,memorising quotes,remembering specific comic issue numbers,reading up on character history etc. ,yet one one of my friends who was a massive football fan,would never be seen out of his teams shirt,would plan his life around matches,analyse stats etc. And he was seen as normal

[@c.m.9369]

I think there was one big milestone that really helped Geek-dom find its footing in the mainstream: „The Dark Knight“. Suddenly random people quoted villains from a comicbook movie and movie critics gave unironic approval to a comicbook movie… I really think the impact that movie made can‘t be underestimated.

[@LynetteTheMadScientist]

The popularity of The Dark Knight pretty much encapsulated my entire experience of geeky interests becoming popular. Like yeah now everyone loves [IP] but I’m still the odd one out because I dislike the popular version of the thing and instead prefer a niche version and therefore I’m enjoying it wrong in the eyes of most everyone else.

[@ryanh3635]

I find it fascinating and hilarious how for me, as someone who never watched even 10mins of a GoT episode, it seems like when the show ended any and all references or cultural cache evaporated overnight.

[@alexis_evo]

It's kinda the show's fault. The cultural impact dropped only as fast as the show's quality. I binged it before the last season to try to catch up, and ended up just not caring about the last season. one of the final episodes has a Starbucks cup in a shot and that's oddly indicative of how little they cared about wrapping the story up.

[@snuffles504]

I was always bitter towards GoT, so watching the fallout was highly entertaining.

[@reasyrandom]

I wonder what happened to Glee that everyone only talks about it in hushed whispers now...

[@CaptainJLinebeck]

Game of Thrones stumbled and fell so that Elden Ring can run. Probably.

[@heinoustentacles5719]

Ha. I swear by 2025 kids won't even know the name

[@SuperPal-tr3go]

Having a persecution complex while being the dominant group in a society has always gone well. Totally.

[@nihilego3634]

Evangelismcore 😍

[@PeterParker-ff7ub]

for the normal people it wasnt

[@stardusst]

"the lgbt+ is taking over! soon us straights will be the minority!"

[@Mezelenja]

Yep, nothing bad ever came from that…nothing at all.

[@davidnotonstinnett]

@@nihilego3634 fun fact: evangelism isn’t the largest Christian denomination, even in the US. The are just the loudest. Compare this with the entire world, especially the internet, as you will. (Catholicism runs away with being the largest Christian denomination in the US. Part of this is how fragmented Protestantism is, but also a lot of immigration to the US is coming from predominantly Catholic areas….and the history of large catholic families)

[@SolasLupum]

Iirc I was starting to come out of my “persecuted nerd snide intellectual” phase about when Rick and Morty got big so it was a moment of “oh god, that was me” that really cemented my personality shift

[@medhros]

I love how most of this video is just you talking direct to us. This is not normal with video essays, normally we have editing trying to make some context with image, but your text is SO GOOD that the contextualization is mostly unecessary, and you have so much charisma that it feels really good to just see you talking and drinking some tea. Great video.

[@haydentcem]

Gotta thank Scott The Woz for helping to kill LootCrate’s popularity, it never made sense

[@Haverlock]

Scott is a chaos spirit brought upon the world by the psychic deluge of nostalgia for the Nintendo Wii

[@TimoNaaro]

How is he doing that?

[@katherinealvarez9216]

I have no idea what lootcrate is.

[@67tedward]

@@katherinealvarez9216 In the early 2010s there was a subscription based package full of random "geek" items that you could pay to be sent to your house once a month. It sponsored a lot of youtubers so chances are if you watched youtube at the time you would have someone try to hawk you the lootcrate.

[@ComedicRick]

Not to mention Ashens getting it every month just to complain about how bad it was in videos

[@quickflash2studios232]

I remember my first Comic-Con, I was badly cosplaying The Doctor and saw a man across the hall wearing the exact same bow tie, fez and braces! We’d both bought the same bundle on the internet and just smiled at each other!

[@vivilonrane1330]

wholesome

[@fish-fingers_and_custard7685]

Love that :)))

[@egg_2705]

Please tell me you're married now otherwise the story isn't complete

[@quickflash2studios232]

@@egg_2705 No I was 11 and he was a grown man.

[@egg_2705]

@@quickflash2studios232 goddamn it why

[@weirdlyhungry]

I am from India, still live and work here. I was in college from 2009 to 2013, and I was the weird nerd nobody really talked to for the first three years of college. Then Avengers dropped in 2012 and suddenly I got all the attention I could have ever wanted from my peers who wanted to know all about Marvel, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and what not. I still remember the sheer power I felt when it happened. 2012-2013 was wild. Then of course, GamerGate happened in 2014 and I had to re-examine who I was as a person.

[@DahliaDew]

The original Star Trek tv show was my grandmothers favourite show and even though she passed away before me and my female cousins were born it’s been something we’ve been able to bond with both each other and her. This weird and wonderful old show was something that connected me to someone who I would never known previously.

[@pghbekka]

So, as a geek born in the 70's, I'm not going to claim that geek boys were never made fun of, but I will say that misogyny and self hatred and gatekeeping had much more to do with not getting the girl than any geek status. Because it's not about "not getting the girl." It's about not getting the cheerleader and/or who ever is seen as the high status symbol. Turns out when you only see a girl as a status symbol and you share none of the same interests (or you gatekeep their interests) it's hard to get a date.

[@Poedoco]

as a non-binary person i find the binary crap silly. but i get your point? ig.

[@12me91]

Yep, i was 100% shat on for being a 'geek' when i was a little boy, and in *my* personal experience girls were the worst to me about it. But even as a kid i was smart enough to know it was only those girls in particular that were so mean. now im married to a wonderful geek girl. and wouldnt ya know it i wasnt sexist through any of it

[@slayer100141]

I think part of the problem is that the stereotypical nerd is so socially awkward, that instead of looking in and reflecting on themselves they kind of double down on the screw everyone else mindset. Where the other people/ girls are the problem. And even if they can self reflect to some aspect, they effectively have no "good" role models to even emulate(due to their social awkwardness) because the "nerd/geek" roles in media are very heavily the people you shouldn't be emulating irl.

[@raro344]

@@slayer100141 Well, to be somewhat fair, sociaty expect you are socially app or just get the idea men know how to talk, and idea self improve means becoming more "Normal" well....you can see were this is going.

[@12me91]

@@slayer100141 that's a good point. I can't think of a single good nerd role model in media. Big bang are aholes and sexist to put it mildly. Revenge of the nerds has a LOT of SA. Even in media where the nerds and geeks are secondary characters. They are unkempt, sexist, aholes, superiority complex. Etc

[@mollymcdade4031]

I’ll never forget seeing Royal Family funko pops, including two different Diana funkos with different dresses. Haunted times

[@LakituAl]

When Queen Elizabeth passed away, I found out all because I was browsing Twitter and the official Funko account posted REST IN PEACE along with a black and white photograph of the Queen's very own Funko Pop. If such a thing were a scene in a satirical movie, people would think it's too on the nose.

[@BetaJackMaxis]

It's like those commemorative coin ads on the TV about 9/11 updated to the modern day.

[@erin9323]

my parents got given funko pops of prince william, kate middleton and the queen (comes with a lil corgi) 💀

[@Mitcham28]

Well first, let me say I’ve just discovered you recently Sarah Z and I’ve been binging your content and I’m so far enjoying it all. Your videos are fantastic, so take this subscription real quick. I find this analysis of geek culture so fascinating. We went from geeks being bullied and made fun of, to being praised and popularized, to normalized, to now almost annoying. Geeks of the 80s and 90s never chose the label and yet it was slapped onto them, only to then grow older and see their interests and hobbies get adopted by more people, which can either result in them being happy to be acknowledged or bitter that they are only now being acknowledged, then normalized to such a degree that it’s hard to distinguish oneself in it. While you might have been picked on, you still felt pretty unique because of your interests, you actually were different from most, but now what you are is normal and that can be difficult to contend with. I can see why now having more geek things or engaging in more geek activities is the metric used to judge what a geek really is now, since it’s seemingly the only way to distinguish yourself. Geeks are not special anymore. Which is fine, because too much importance is put on being special and it bleeds into so much else. Pff, you listen to Drake? Do you even know Missy Elliot or Method Man? You don’t know shit about Hip-hop or rap if you haven’t listened to all of the OGs. I grew up with them so I’m better than you. You played Persona 5? I’ve grown up with the series and played them all. You’re just hopping on the bandwagon now that’s it popular. I’m better than you. I mean honestly this kind of holier-than-thou is everywhere and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that just creates more and more bitterness. The jocks pick on the geeks, the jocks start doing geek stuff, the geeks pick on the jocks for not being geek enough or for simply chasing trends, and so on. That’s a simplified version of the more toxic sides of the culture are, but it’s something I’ve seen a lot. And the irony of even being in this demographic in the first place, self-considered the “underdogs” or “losers” on the social ladder, is that even in those spaces women and colored people, “the actual underdogs” weren’t treated much better, even though you might think they would in some way. I find that so wild to think about. On a side note, to a smaller degree this also applies to glasses. Wearing glasses was THE postcard for what a nerd looked like and people made fun of you for having them. Now it’s considered stylish and cool and people buy fake glasses because that’s sexy now. Which I have no problem with personally, but I know there are some people who grew up being picked in for having glasses, which is a medical necessity, who find such things annoying and even disrespectful. And then now, I’ve seen examples where wearing glasses you don’t need is now considered cringe. All that over just some damn glasses. I

[@Peter-qe1yh]

I (straight white cis male) was talking to a coworker (also a straight white cis male) and found out he also liked D&D. When I mentioned to him I've also been a long time D&D fan he said 'its nice that society finally accepts people like us'. It was an extremely odd way to say it.

[@GucciPucciMIH]

This reads like an AITA reddit post

[@cleeks5549]

One of the nicest things I ever saw happened at a fan convention. It was my first time at Fan Expo years ago and I was crossing the floor in the convention center. I saw this little skinny guy shuffling around against the wall wearing this outlandish costume - classic nerd guy looking very shy and uncomfortable. Suddenly there was a shout and a whole crowd of costumed people ran down the escalator towards him - they were all in cosplay together. This guy's face just lit up! I guess he had been waiting for them to show up, and suddenly he was with his people and the group was talking and laughing and having a ball. It made a huge impression on me and one of my favourite memories of "geek culture."

[@s0api3]

my heart omg

[@neegas3490]

That's so cute

[@TravenTalks]

Regarding the whole "combine 2 pieces of media for a t-shirt" thing, there's a pretty interesting reason for that from an artist perspective I learned about from knowing a good few people who did it for t-shirts & prints. One of the big reasons they said they did it was to avoid copyright problems - it makes it easier to argue that the design is meant to be a parody, or in the case of ones with no direct punchline, in some way transformative, and thus falls under fair use, and so they can sell it without issue. Didn't always work, and I guess it applies more so to artist alley / putting designs on redbubble / etc type situations rather than the mass produced stuff, but it seemed like it worked ENOUGH that it was accepted as just a rule of thumb for selling fan based merch.

[@PrismPoint]

Ah, yes. The Sonichu Defense.

[@MasterMemo]

Also puns are dope

[@byMidnyt]

The crossovers that caught my eye always had something in common, they did have a "punchline". I guess I just figured a lot of the others did as well and I just wasn't interested in or in on that joke. Those were, and still are some of my favorite t-shirts. They are great conversation starters and if you're feeling social, a good way to meet new friends. But then again, I never did let anyone tell me what I could and couldn't wear anyway.

[@VincentMariethe4th]

From my own experiences, those kinds of cartoons/designs are just a lot of fun to create & share. Indie artists selling it as merch is just another way for them to pay the bills in this capitalist hellscape & I don't blame them at all for it. I've done it myself.

[@sparkymularkey6970]

My favorite example of this that I've seen recently is a drawing of Darth Vader sitting on the toilet in the pose of Rodin's The Thinker. 😂

[@cupidsintern]

I used to work at a comic book store and I’m not even a girl but bc I’m perceived to be female it was hell sometimes. Like when Sarah said “the experience. I don’t even have to explain it” I sighed so heavily oh my god

[@andersongrillo5902]

Atually i really like funko pops because they are minimalistic, easy to clean and have a friendly price here in brazil. To me always felt like a easy way to have something from an IP i like while not having a complex action figure to clean.

[@aidanboyle7374]

Less than halfway in but I don't think "artistic bimbofication of Hot Topic" will be topped as this vid's Most Sarah Z Sentence

[@punkitt]

This reminds me a lot of how vehemently Bill Watterson pushed back against any type of Calvin and Hobbes merch; he could have absolutely made gangbusters on selling Hobbes plushes, but he said no every single time. If you wanted a Hobbes plush, you would have to make it yourself. I feel like that makes it more genuine than anything; you couldn't mass produce a stuffed tiger toy, you had to, if you REALLY wanted a Hobbes, find someone who could or make him yourself. It lent a level of authenticity and care to the character. He wasn't a marketable plushy, he was an artful comic expression, and if you wanted to express your love for him, you had to create something yourself. It's not entirely related, but I think that it's certainly food for thought in the context of 2010's capitalism-hell geek-cred era.

[@punkitt]

@@11111110 I mean.... It was not a great place to publish art even by the time Calvin and Hobbes finished lol

[@ma.2089]

@@11111110 if a guy isn’t good with technology, he’s allowed not to interact with it.

[@DumGoblin]

@@11111110 but, like, he didn't want to

[@coscorrodrift]

@@11111110 i think he is already publishing whatever art he wants

[@raro344]

Which become a problem when pbulisher just use calvin anyway and he lost the right because he simply didnt use it.

[@WhatRobodoom]

my boyfriend actually still has that exact recalled oven mitt !!! we keep it in the kitchen still to keep us humble and remind us of our sins (kitchen goblinry and food crimes, respectively) and also as a bonus trivet for if we run out while making a lot of hot dishes

[@Otakutori]

I read it as Greek culture and was surprised for a quick second

[@burnemail2467]

Tbh I'm kinda disappointed was hyped for a Sarah Z video about Athens.

[@cowgirltheworld]

thank god I wasn't the only one

[@karolisr]

Same

[@r.u.entertained1849]

Sarah Z finally covering the Peloponnesian War

[@sailorhatguy5763]

When will she cover the Rise and Fall of the Greco-Roman Byzantines????

[@ForeignManinaForeignLand]

Watched it on Nebula and fear not folks, Sarah does drink tea after the title card 😮‍💨

[@J.R.Unbound]

SPOILERS

[@drukqs1736]

Love your content foreign, keep up the amazing work.

[@filiaaut]

I have to admit, I was stressed a teensy bit each time I saw the tea rising so close to the lip of the cup

[@Ambiguous9]

SO glad you mentioned racism in fandom after talking about the whole 'geek girl' paradox, because that's exactly where my head was going too and it's so important to mention.

[@Ambiguous9]

also YES, thank you for mentioning The Killing Joke, because I've *specifically* dealt with geek dude bros being shitty when I JUST wanna have fucking conversation about how 'yeah its got interesting concepts but, damn, the sex crimes don't seem very necessary to me and also aren't taken very seriously by follow up comics or the fandom!' and suddenly I'm being called slurs on twitter

[@deanofthequeer]

Sarah: LARPers are obnoxiously kinky Me, a LARPer: now wait a seco- *trips over kinky objects in home*

[@loki_is_tired]

Funny story about the What We Do In the Shadows "LARP virgins" - my parents met at a LARP event, and I've LARPed my entire life because of it. I can tell you, from having spent nights awake, as my family got drunk and sung medieval versions of folk songs, that yes, a lot of LARPers are very k*nky, and yes, a lot of them have incredibly drunk adult fun-time at LARP events. The amount of times I've heard people singing drunk in parades through the fields at night is far too much. It's worth it though, they're having their fun, and I have mine by hiding in a small bell tent on my ipad, playing dumb ways to die until midnight.

[@emmess6419]

I met my boyfriend through D&D and we started talking outside of the game because of mutual interest LARPing 😅 When we watched What We Do in the Shadows, we half expected that there’d be a twist where the vampires find the two LARPers hooking up in a closet or something

[@resstie]

yeah, I remember a post that went something like: the Venn diagram of "people who are into k*ink" and "people who are into LARPing and medieval fares" is a circle, and I thought that it checks out haha

[@Painocus]

@@emmess6419 I must have done something similar because I could have sworn that was actually the punchline. That they had all slept with eachother or something like that. Maybe I'm mixing it up with some other Vampire media that also did a LARP joke?

[@emmess6419]

@@Painocus tbh I haven’t finished watching the season, so it might have happened at some point 😅😅

[@IsaacMayerCreativeWorks]

@@Painocus SMBC did a comic (edit: 13 February 2015) where a demon tried to find a virgin sacrifice and found a woman who argued about anime online all day, then underwent massive trauma when he tried to eat her soul and found how depraved she actually was

[@jamesesw]

Ever seen the movie Zero Carisma from 2013? It's about this old school, heavy metal Dungeons and Dragons player, and how his life is ruined when his friends prefer to play with a younger, hipster DM who takes the game less seriously and is more fun to be around. It's really a movie about the transition period between two generations of geeks in the 2010s

[@maryz9319]

Fascinating! Do you know if its streaming anywhere?

[@starbird3939]

My friend watched it and hated it. He absolutely dispised that his friends seemingly sided with the main dude despite the main character being an asshole DM. And then ending assunes he is now gonna take his DnD game to old folks to bully them too.

[@legionofyuri]

I watched it like a month or two after it was released. As a guy whose 20s perfectly aligned on the 2010s it hit home as I fell into the tabletop fandom at around the same time and through 4chan.

[@wayfaringspacepoet]

oh god I thought the trailer for that was a fever dream when I first saw it and I've been trying to figure out the title for ages also, whose music did they use? was it Therion?

[@alcedob.5850]

so, turns out I, being a zoomer and actually liking geek culture always thought of it as 'pop-culture'

[@ryanstewart25]

the guys who wore the triforce shirt and khaki shorts were always so nice to me