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posted by LaminatorX on Monday September 15 2014, @06:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the Tri-Lambda-Calculus dept.

The New York Times reports (use Google search or browser extensions to bypass the paywall):

Never before has the boundary between geek culture and mainstream culture been so porous. Beyond xkcd's popularity and the national obsession with Apple products, other examples abound. Whether it is TV series like "The Big Bang Theory" and "Silicon Valley," or comic-book movies such as this year’s top-grossing title, "Guardians of the Galaxy," or the runner-up, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," or fantasy-based fiction like the "Game of Thrones" books (and HBO show), once-fringe, nerd-friendly obsessions like gadgets, comic books and fire-breathing dragons are increasingly everyone’s obsessions.

"Becoming mainstream is the wrong word; the mainstream is catching up,” said the actor Wil Wheaton, a self-described champion of nerd culture who wrote a memoir, "Just a Geek," and appeared in "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

An engineering degree is also no longer a requisite to using technology, as seemingly anyone today can install a printer or upload a video. Similarly, another signifier of nerd status — knowing obscure facts about favorite subjects — has also lost its currency. The total number of “Simpsons” characters or the name of a constellation is only a Wikipedia entry away.

Randall Munroe (of xkcd fame) said it was healthy that the tech culture had seeped into the larger culture, and warned against the community turning inward with a "nerd pride or 'revenge of the nerds' attitude." In an email he expanded further: "This can easily become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that can make a community steadily more homogeneous and exclusionary." Mr. Munroe said he thought this was a reason that "geek culture" has had such persistent problems with sexism, and that the tech industry’s gender and racial diversity is so woeful.

Katari Sporrong, a self-described "Art Nerd, not a Tech Nerd", from Queens, was in the back of a crowd at en event waiting for Mr. Munroe to speak. Ms. Sporrong said, "It's a little bit demeaning, real nerd and fake nerd," adding that "everyone lives with tech; right now I have three devices — my phone, my Kindle, my iPod." Looking at the techie crowd in a "not cynical way," she saw a "common intelligence" around her:

"The world maybe isn’t getting smarter," she said. "But it is trying to."

Submitter's Note: I was a nerd before it was cool to be one.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @06:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @06:56AM (#93297)

    My definition of nerd/geek/whatever has always been someone who knows (or at least puts a lot of effort into figuring out) the under-pinnings, the mechanics, etc of something (not necessarily a technical something, just something). Under that definition using an iphone no more makes you a nerd than driving a car makes you a mechanic.

    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 15 2014, @07:57AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Monday September 15 2014, @07:57AM (#93307) Journal

      Big/Vast/Immense difference between a nerd and a geek, and I think Eth falls among the latter.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @08:47AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @08:47AM (#93317)

        if being a nerd requires worship of apple products, i'm a geek

        • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday September 15 2014, @03:36PM

          by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Monday September 15 2014, @03:36PM (#93491) Homepage Journal

          if being a nerd requires worship of apple products, i'm a geek

          I'm three years older than Steve Jobs and was hacking hardware* when I was a teenager. In the sixties, long before there was an Apple, I always had a book (usually nonfiction and electronics-related) under my arm and a slide rule in my pocket.

          Apple aficionados aren't nerds, the people who design Apple products are. It's just that in my lifetime, we nerds have gone from being the uncoolest people on the planet to being the coolest.

          * Hacking $10 transistor radios into $300 guitar fuzzboxes to sell to musician friends, fixing broken amps, building a guitar amp and a ham radio receiver, etc.

          --
          mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
    • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday September 15 2014, @08:01AM

      by shortscreen (2252) on Monday September 15 2014, @08:01AM (#93308) Journal

      I would agree, and I also think this part from TFS is outrageous "Similarly, another signifier of nerd status — knowing obscure facts about favorite subjects — has also lost its currency. The total number of “Simpsons” characters or the name of a constellation is only a Wikipedia entry away."

      Sure, Average Joe could hypothetically find out the number of Simpsons characters by looking it up online. But the vast majority of people will not do this. Because they don't care. Because they aren't Simpsons nerds. And learning the answer to that trivia question wouldn't even make them Simpsons nerds.

      The woman with the phone, Kindle, and iPod needs to take a moment and consider, for instance, how her knowledge of tech stacks up against the engineers who programmed those devices, designed the silicon, designed the machines that manufactured the silicon, etc.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @09:09AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @09:09AM (#93320)

      Nerd - A geek whose primary focus is on scientific or technical details.
      Geek - A nerd whose primary focus is on liberal arts, but in a detail oriented or pedantic fashion.

      That was mostly based off the view that many RPG 'geeks' tended to be lib-arts students who either were more focused on the drama/role playing aspects, or on nuances of the rules, especially regarding the language and how ambiguities could be leveraged.

      In contrast to this, nerds were more about the dice rolls, statistical probabilities and technical aspects of the rules (what the odds were of a certain die roll succeeding, what equipment would maximize their character's abilities, etc.)

      Anybody else come to similiar conclusions?

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday September 15 2014, @10:58AM

        by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday September 15 2014, @10:58AM (#93343)

        Anybody else come to similiar conclusions?

        I did.

        I was a little confused with what other commenters were saying. IMHO, the geek is someone that has an in depth interest in something. As an example you could be a Harry Potter geek, you could be an Apple geek, you could be a WoW geek, you can even be a Star Trek geek. To be a nerd, you have to not just know trivia, you also have to know how it works and be able to take it a part and put it back together... Ok well at least take it apart, if you have a few screws left over no big deal.

        I guess what I'm trying to say is Geeks "know" about stuff, Nerds "understand" stuff. Geeks use their favorite brand of phone, Nerds write their own software. Basically Nerds are more interested in the underpinnings and figuring out how to create for themselves, where the geeks are content to just know, use or do something someone else has recorded, created or done.

        This, IMHO, is why sciences are more often filled with nerds, it's not good enough to just know about the universe, we have to understand and lean to manipulate it. An amateur astronomer is a Geek, they have an interest that goes beyond the average Joe, but a Nerd has at least a bachelors of astronomy. Nerd is just one step up from being *just* interested in something.

        --
        "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
        • (Score: 2) by tynin on Monday September 15 2014, @11:20AM

          by tynin (2013) on Monday September 15 2014, @11:20AM (#93351) Journal

          Ok well at least take it apart, if you have a few screws left over no big deal.

          This very much reminds me of when I rebuilt my first car engine, a Dodge Shadow. When I was done and had several bolts left over, I jokingly called it my Bolt Reduction and Weight Savings Plan. The car continued to run fine (thankfully) for many years.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @12:33PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 15 2014, @12:33PM (#93394)

          TLDR, and if I'm mischaracterizing you, my apologies, but it boils down to a geek consumes and a nerd can at least theoretically produce something.

          So a better analogy is a geek read a popular science book or wiki article about astronomy, but a nerd has an AAVSO account and uses it, or at least occasionally scribbles in a lab notebook.

          Another good analogy is a cooking geek can on occasion slavishly follow the directions in someone else's cookbook and get a decent result, but a cooking nerd can basically be set loose in a stocked kitchen and "chopped" TV show style will produce an edible meal out of random stuff with no recipe, and possibly no idea how they made it unless they were paying attention.

          There is a social hierarchy here. Geeks read books nerds write, but it never happens the other way around. I don't know how a geek could write a cookbook other than random experimentation and testing, or maybe outright plagarism (well, language translation would be acceptable, maybe, but then they really didn't "write" it.)

          • (Score: 2) by fadrian on Monday September 15 2014, @01:36PM

            by fadrian (3194) on Monday September 15 2014, @01:36PM (#93426) Homepage

            This.

            My wife is a cooking nerd. Her degree is in food science and she's worked in the food production industry (one of her claims to fame, for example, is that about 25 years ago, she was working at a company that sub-contracted to Safeway, and she designed Safeway's store brand yellow mustard). She's in purchasing now, but she can still cook. You put her in a kitchen with ingredients and she'll make something that's not only good tasting, but relatively nutritious, and often a very surprising twist on comfort food.

            This is not always a good thing, waistline-wise.

            --
            That is all.
            • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @02:39PM

              by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 15 2014, @02:39PM (#93458)

              You may have hit another aspect of geek vs nerd with "25 years ago" in that geeks just need to read this months PC magazine and a website or two, and then they gossip amongst themselves about current events. In comparison, to be a nerd only takes like 10000 hours of experience and a bookcase or two of reading.

              So geek only needs current events and represents about a small paperback book investment of time and reading. Nerd is more like self imposed PHD program wrt investment.

          • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday September 15 2014, @06:14PM

            by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday September 15 2014, @06:14PM (#93535)

            Yeah, that's pretty much what I was getting at. *thumbs up*

            --
            "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday September 15 2014, @07:53PM

          by Gaaark (41) on Monday September 15 2014, @07:53PM (#93588) Journal

          I think nerds are curious and need to know and use and hack and 'ultra-use'.

          Geeks need to use, but aren't curious about it beyond 'shiny'.

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @12:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @12:55PM (#93410)

        Nerd - A geek whose primary focus is on scientific or technical details.
        Geek - A nerd whose primary focus is on liberal arts, but in a detail oriented or pedantic fashion.

        Just out of curiosity - what do the cool kids in HS do these days?

        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday September 15 2014, @02:31PM

          by kaszz (4211) on Monday September 15 2014, @02:31PM (#93451) Journal

          Show of their latest branded electronic tablet to friends and what software they can use on it (I guess). Nerds modify their favorite OS to run on it instead and follows up with steamrolling the walled garden and messing with the public WiFi that has an exploit route to people with more electronics than they understand..

      • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 16 2014, @08:11PM

        by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday September 16 2014, @08:11PM (#94201) Journal

        I always thought of it as nerds being the academically smart ones. The ones who memorize a thousand digits of pi for fun, who read their textbooks over the summer, who get straight As in every class in school. Geeks on the other hand are generally hackers. Self-taught, might not put a ton of effort into school, only putting in effort for things they personally find interesting. A nerd can sit there and listen to you explain how something works and remember every detail. A geek won't pick up a word of it until they tear it apart and see it all for themselves, and they won't bother with that unless they have some use for it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @09:51AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @09:51AM (#93328)

      Do we really need the labels? I'd prefer if we just talk to each other as people. So a particular set of labels have transitioned from being uncool to being cool - can we please stop putting up fences to keep others out of our "club"?

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday September 15 2014, @03:25PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 15 2014, @03:25PM (#93488) Journal

      What is a Nerd?

      See the Venn diagram [nerdist.com]

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @02:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @02:28AM (#93790)

      Assuming that you're comfortable considering yourself a nerd (or a geek), then the question is like "What makes an effective employee?"

      And the answer is....

      Whatever is the strongest suit, or couple strongest suits of the person answering the question.

      - Tinkers with hardware in the basement? That's what a nerd is
      - Has played every AAA console game released in the last six years for PS and XBox? That's what a nerd is
      - Downloads new Linux and/or BSD distros on a weekly basis and compiles from source? That's what a nerd is
      - Contributes fixes written in C/x86_64 assembly to the Linux kernel? That's what a nerd is
      - Stays on top of the latest twists and turns in web, phone, and cloud development? That's what a nerd is
      - Administers 300 node networks and installs software using fully automated scripts written in a bitches brew of scripting languages? That's what a nerd is
      - Messes around with retro gaming consoles from the '80s and '90s? That's what a nerd is
      - Goes to Star Trek conventions dressed from head to toe in battle gear? That's what a nerd is

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by keplr on Monday September 15 2014, @07:51AM

    by keplr (2104) on Monday September 15 2014, @07:51AM (#93306) Journal

    Most of the youngest generation just reaching sentience can't use computers [coding2learn.org]. The previous generations had to learn to the workings of computers if they wanted to get anything done because there wasn't very much abstraction between the lowest levels of the operating system or hardware and the user interface. Now, there's a an immense edifice between the user and the hardware which smooths the learning curve and reduces the technical skill necessary to operate the machine. Being able to navigate a touch-interface to log into your social-media app doesn't constitute computer literacy, much less being a "nerd". They're just toaster operators.

    --
    I don't respond to ACs.
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by Geezer on Monday September 15 2014, @09:33AM

      by Geezer (511) on Monday September 15 2014, @09:33AM (#93323)

      +5 Insightful.

      I just love it at a party when some young snotty starts running his mouth about how savvy "the hip generation" is using tech, only to get shot down in flames upon being reminded that the technology behind the nice shiny gadgets he's playing with was engineered by gray-beards, and that Mr./Ms. Hipster has no fucking clue whatever about how any of it works. It usually reduces them to stammering and mumbling buzzwords. "Bbbbut Apple...cloud...the web...social network..."

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @09:55AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @09:55AM (#93330)

        username is too on the nose
        i will stay off your lawn

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @02:32PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @02:32PM (#93452)

          Sig is rather relevant too. Even someone telling kids to get off their lawn should stay off his lawn.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by deimios on Monday September 15 2014, @08:20AM

    by deimios (201) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 15 2014, @08:20AM (#93313) Journal

    Bypassing the paywall is wrong. I suggest you stop linking to paywalled sites altogether. If they cannot subsist from voluntary subscription and ads we should be shunning them not giving them traffic.

    • (Score: 2) by Leebert on Monday September 15 2014, @09:31AM

      by Leebert (3511) on Monday September 15 2014, @09:31AM (#93322)

      Well, at least they ended up literally quoting more than half of the article. :) Personally, I find that a little distasteful; article summaries should be summaries IMO. But whatev.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @09:59AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @09:59AM (#93333)

        > article summaries should be summaries IMO.

        Soylent doesn't have article summaries. It has "scoops" - check the submission form.

        As for the OP's claim about paywalls - cracking paywalls is a legit nerd activity.
        So it is totally on topic.
        And in general, soylent ought to encourage that sort of thing because it is one way to protest paywalls in general.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Monday September 15 2014, @09:08AM

    by Aiwendil (531) on Monday September 15 2014, @09:08AM (#93319) Journal

    It is more a sign of that the concept of geek/nerd has been diluted quite a bit.

    This is sadly enough a long term trend - take a [computer] geek/nerd of today which basically is "I managed to follow a step-by-step instruction", of yesterday was someone who was able to "reinstall the OS from a disc", a geek/nerd before that was someone who was able to edit the configuration files/tweak their system, before that it was someone who wrote their own programs, before that someone who knew who to write an os and/or drivers, before that it was someone who was able to solder their computer together, before that it was the people who was working with research on the big machines, and before that there wasn't really any since this early on pretty much all was researchers, mathematicians and/or engineers.

    (Yes, I'm annoyed at this, it used to be that you could go to a geekparty and end up discussing programming and arguing over algorithms, today at geekparties you normally end having to explain linear memory-adressing after mentioning a pointer [if you can talk at all, it used to be that only a single room had loud music playing, today you have to go outside in order to not having to shout] (I can't even remember the last time someone broke out a chessboard for an impromptu challenge))

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khakipuce on Monday September 15 2014, @12:18PM

      by khakipuce (233) on Monday September 15 2014, @12:18PM (#93384)

      I kind of disagree that the "concept of geek/nerd has been diluted quite a bit".

      It seems to me it is more about technology maturity and transfer. Nerds are prepared to, in fact enjoy, making incomplete and difficult to use things work. It's a puzzle to be solved. From the definitions above regarding nerd vs geek, I would say then that as things mature geeks tend to come in and contribute to making the nerdy thing look better and work better. Then it transfers to the public.

      What underlies the article is I think is that the tech has reached sufficient maturity that non-nerds/geeks can find it interesting and useful rather than frustrating and unusable. So they haven't moved into the nerd/geek camp, more the tech has moved out

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday September 15 2014, @03:03PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Monday September 15 2014, @03:03PM (#93477) Journal

      We've gotten to the point where someone who is really good at football, calls himself a football geek. In my day, that guy was called a jock. He was also a total asshole to geeks or nerds. Honestly, I feel a little robbed by this trend to label everything as XYZ Geek.

      However ... I will relinquish my bitterness if the "football geeks" are actually friendly and respectful whatever they call my modern counterparts.

      • (Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Monday September 15 2014, @05:43PM

        by JeanCroix (573) on Monday September 15 2014, @05:43PM (#93525)
        Maybe to stay a step ahead, we need to subvert it. We're no longer nerds - we're technology jocks.
      • (Score: 1) by bziman on Monday September 15 2014, @06:57PM

        by bziman (3577) on Monday September 15 2014, @06:57PM (#93552)

        "someone who is really good at football, calls himself a football geek. In my day, that guy was called a jock."

        I am a basketball geek. I am rather mediocre at PLAYING basketball, and even when I was in shape was never much of a jock. What makes me a basketball geek is that I know all the players and all the stats and all the rules and all the nuances of what is going to happen in any game between particular teams in a given situation.

        You have to be a basketball geek AND a hell of a jock, both, if you want to go pro. That's why they spend so many hours in the locker room studying tape. Raw physical talent is rarely sufficient at that level.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by E_NOENT on Monday September 15 2014, @09:59AM

    by E_NOENT (630) on Monday September 15 2014, @09:59AM (#93332) Journal

    The culture industry can be thought of as being similar to the logging and energy industries. How so? They all seek out previously unexplored areas, exploit them, and then move on.

    In the Olden Days, there was a steep price to pay for one's interest in, say, electronics. While your friends were out banging the prom queen/king, you were at home with a memory map of a 6502-based system, trying to understand raster interrupts. Maybe you got called 'geek' or 'nerd,' and it wasn't in a fashionable, admiring way. You developed a thick skin against the buffoons, and you went about your business.

    Now it seems like the only thing happening, culture-wise, is in tech, and so the industry latches on to whatever it can. Its lack of imagination is seen in its co-opting of 'nerd' and 'geek' for marketing/fashion purposes. Call yourself a nerd because you're banging the prom queen and have an iPhone and 80s glasses. Whatever.

    The real geeks/nerds (why argue? who the hell cares--call us 'gerks' [pronounced with a hard or soft 'g'] if you want) shouldn't really care too much, as we've got our own things to do...

    --
    I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
    • (Score: 2) by gallondr00nk on Monday September 15 2014, @01:05PM

      by gallondr00nk (392) on Monday September 15 2014, @01:05PM (#93414)

      Precisely. Like any other cultural group, from punks to hip-hop to hipsters to anything else you'd care to imagine, after a brief period of autonomy the whole thing is eventually sucked into the Marketing Machine and spat out again as a "lifestyle". We've been watching nerdy turn from something you are to something you buy into.

      It's all completely fake and trite, but if someone wants to spend money on making themselves nerdier, I'm not sure I care.

    • (Score: 2) by RedBear on Monday September 15 2014, @01:55PM

      by RedBear (1734) on Monday September 15 2014, @01:55PM (#93431)

      The real geeks/nerds (why argue? who the hell cares--call us 'gerks' [pronounced with a hard or soft 'g'] if you want) shouldn't really care too much, as we've got our own things to do...

      The joke was amusing ("gerks" with a soft "g", LOL, that describes most of us), but what really drew my attention is the construction and punctuation of the overall sentence. It's just beautiful. So much can be communicated so easily with proper punctuation.

      Gerks Unite!

      --
      ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
      ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @02:27PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 15 2014, @02:27PM (#93449)

      "Now it seems like the only thing happening, culture-wise, is in tech, and so the industry latches on to whatever it can."

      Perhaps its the only thing happening economy-wise not necessarily culture-wise?

      The prom queen banging dude isn't going to go into manufacturing as a drone since the 80s, or construction since 2007, or middle mgmt since the 80s/90s merger mania set in, or ...

      If you don't go into tech, other than mcjobs or outright unemployment or weird niches (priesthood? K12 teaching? .mil? bedpan changer? militarized police state?) then what does the proverbial prom queen banger do for work?

  • (Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday September 15 2014, @11:13AM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Monday September 15 2014, @11:13AM (#93350)

    From what I've seen, the "nerd" and "geek" thing has mainly been people buying technology. They want the latest iPhone or whatever as a status symbol, because they can afford it. They're not into technology necessarily for its own sake, but want to buy something no one else has. They might buy apps or hire the Geek Squad to set up a home theater. Even the name "geek squad" is an indication that this is more about buying technology than anything else. The actual number of people who understand, or even effectively use, technology probably has not changed at all.

    This is when I usually insert a Star Wars refrence so obscure that even Star Wars fans don't get it, but I can't think of one for this post. Sorry. Maybe next time.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @11:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @11:25AM (#93352)

    If I broaden and over-generalize a category then hey yeah, I'll be able to fit pretty much the whole population into it.

    Nerds usually get straight A's in school. Boom. I've just re-excluded 98% of the population again. Sorry guys, you are NOT nerds.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday September 15 2014, @02:38PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Monday September 15 2014, @02:38PM (#93456) Journal

      Only if that applies to math, physics and programming. The rest of the subject may suffer some serious neglect..
      Unless it's a biology nerd, then another style of study and neglect may ensue.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by doublerot13 on Monday September 15 2014, @12:33PM

    by doublerot13 (4497) on Monday September 15 2014, @12:33PM (#93393)

    the normal distribution. When everyone is a nerd, no one is.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @12:41PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 15 2014, @12:41PM (#93401)

    "We're All Nerds Now"

    "boundary between geek culture and mainstream culture"

    Really?

    I checked the stats for big bang theory, which I have never watched and is shockingly up to 7 seasons, and surprisingly the ratings go up every year, from 10 mil to just under 20 mil avg viewers in the USA.

    The problem is the population of the USA is 313.9 million per google. Its a free show on a free network, so we can assume that all 313.9 million people either watch it or actively avoid watching it by doing something else.

    So someone has a major math problem when "everyone" is apparently more than 7% of the population but less than 14% of the population.

    As one of the 294 non viewers of the show, I admit the lack of appeal is the advertising seems to heavily focus on dork's next door neighbor being a really hot chick with amazing jiggle factor. I'm not sure how "guys like looking at hot chicks" is nerdy geeky or new.

    Or another way to phrase it is we're defining the culture of 313.9 million people using something that 294 million of those people won't participate in for free despite heavy advertising and lots of jiggle. I donno man, I'm just not seeing it.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @12:44PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 15 2014, @12:44PM (#93404)

      "So someone has a major math problem when "everyone" is apparently more than 7% of the population but less than 14% of the population"

      Damn SN for not having an edit button and also me for pushing "submit" too fast.

      By the cultural definition above, "Everyone" in the USA is gay or lesbian or bi or trans. There are no straight people in the USA anymore. I mean all you need is "around" 7% of the population to define what the population is, right?

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Monday September 15 2014, @02:42PM

        by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday September 15 2014, @02:42PM (#93461)

        The article is saying "everyone is a nerd", not "everyone watches a particular tv show". Whether you agree with the premise or not (I, for one, do not) whole idea is you can be a nerd in a lot of different ways. There is no "accepted" behavior that a nerd must or must not do.

        --
        "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @03:37PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 15 2014, @03:37PM (#93493)

          I'd interpret it more as "everyone is a nerd" because insert long list of what they define as mainstream and actually numbers show practically no one participates in.

          Or they make the "soft sci fi" analogy of nerdy topics like claiming people only watch GoT because it has dragons. Really? Not from the gossip I've heard at all.

          • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday September 15 2014, @08:48PM

            by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday September 15 2014, @08:48PM (#93628)

            Yeah, I would agree with this. Really the article is kind of a fluff piece, just some quotes with not much content. I don't really see the popularization of a few geek things as the whole thing going mainstream anyhow.

            Going on the ratings thing, though, 10 million viewers is big for a regular tv program. The last superbowl had like 115 million viewers and was the highest viewed thing of all time. So even in the US that would not be considered "most people", yet it is the biggest tv draw around.

            --
            "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
            • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @09:00PM

              by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 15 2014, @09:00PM (#93638)

              I looked it up and the superbowl count is only in the USA, so that was a bit more than 1 in 3 people watching.

              Worldwide I was surprised to see the world doesn't watch much american TV, and billion viewer cricket matches happen and stuff like that.

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts [wikipedia.org]

              4.7 billion people watched at least some of the summer '08 olympics? How? Somebody trolling wikipedia probably.

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts [wikipedia.org]

              Its interesting to watch the "most watched USA TV show" drop over time, soon to enter single digit territory.

              The USA seems to be turning into a cultural backwater, and I'm not just talking about our politics. Kinda interesting.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @11:25PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @11:25PM (#93714)

                Its interesting to watch the "most watched USA TV show" drop over time, soon to enter single digit territory.

                That's most likely due to DVRs/time-shifting and streaming, rather than people not watching. I never watch anything live anymore, if for no other reason than to be able to fast forward through the commercials.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday September 15 2014, @04:17PM

      by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Monday September 15 2014, @04:17PM (#93507)

      Is the Big Bang Theory really a show "for" nerds, though? I watched it - at the insistence of my 70-year-old and thoroughly non-technical father - and it was painful. It seemed to be a show about socially inept people who get bullied by a sociopath and mention Star Wars/Trek a lot. My father finds it hilarious, though.

      I suppose part of it comes from the fact that a lot of sitcoms seem to involve some mix of:
      1) people with painful-to-witness character flaws
      and
      2) someone who no sane human would voluntarily spend time with

      And that doesn't interest me one bit. Maybe they've got better since last I saw them and Big Bang Theory is a throwback...?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @11:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @11:28PM (#93716)

        Kaley Cuoco is the only thing about that awful show that's worth watching.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday September 15 2014, @02:46PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Monday September 15 2014, @02:46PM (#93465) Journal

    What we have is likely a massive cargo culture [wikipedia.org] in technology. They will have the devices and operate them. But they will have no curiosity of its workings or possibilities. Devices will be bought because everyone else has them not their functionality and so on.

  • (Score: 2) by metamonkey on Monday September 15 2014, @05:01PM

    by metamonkey (3174) on Monday September 15 2014, @05:01PM (#93517)

    "everyone lives with tech; right now I have three devices — my phone, my Kindle, my iPod."

    And none of those are literate devices. They are products for consuming content and are generally closed off from creating your own programs or modifications.

    Nerd: makes things.
    Subjects of this article: people who like the things nerds make.

    --
    Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:21AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:21AM (#93819) Journal

      "They are products for consuming content"

      There we have the one significant difference. Key test: Does your default installation feature a C-compiler? if not it's a likely a consumer version. And a touch screen is crap for writing anything longer.