It’s like, at first, it was relatively apolitical except maybe the New Atheists who got popular by criticizing the mostly right-wing religious nutjobs.
But then, I think around the mid-2010s, it started to get super political. Suddenly, everybody started to talk about how the evil wacky feminazi SJWs were trying to destroy gaming and our culture?
At this point, it seems like many people have snapped out of it and are making fun of these “anti-woke” crazies, but what materially caused this phenomenon to happen in the first place and why does it still persist to an extent?
Nerd or geek culture was quite reactionary for a long time now. It’s a product of the (predominantly white male) western bourgeoisie and labour aristocrats, and its links to racism and sexism go quite deep.
This 3-page article (page 1, page 2, page 3) does a good job at analyzing these cultural aspects. It’s a very interesting read.
Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:
As geekdom moves from the cultural fringes into the mainstream, it becomes increasingly difficult for the figure of the geek to maintain the outsider victim status that made him such a sympathetic figure in the first place. Confronted with his cultural centrality and white, masculine privilege—geeks are most frequently represented as white males—the geek seeks a simulated victimhood and even simulated ethnicity in order to justify his existence as a protagonist in a world where an unmarked straight white male protagonist is increasingly passé.
Our investigation proceeds through three core concepts / tropes prevalent in geek-centered visual narratives:
- “geek melodrama” as a means of rendering geek protagonists sympathetically,
- white male “geek rage” against women and ethnic minorities for receiving preferential treatment from society, which relates to the geek’s often raced, usually misogynistic implications for contemporary constructions of masculinity, and
- “simulated ethnicity,” our term for how geeks read their sub-cultural identity as a sign of markedness or as a put-upon status equivalent to the markedness of a marginalized identity such as that of a person of color.
We analyze these tropes via an historical survey of some key moments in the rise of geek media dominance: the early-20th century origins of geekdom and its rise as an identifiable subculture in the 1960s, the mainstreaming of geek masculinity in the 1970s and 80s via blockbuster cinema and superhero comics, and the postmodern permutations of geekdom popularized by Generation X cultural producers, including geek/slacker duos in “indie” cinema and alternative comics.
that was a pretty good and interesting read. thanks
thanks for linking that article
Nerds have always been “apolitical” and nazis were always nerds (seriously, look at some of the shit Himmler got up to, dude was a massive LARPing loser)
So any “apolitical” group is vulnerable to fascists, because being openly anti-fascist is a political statement, and demanding a fascist leave the group is also a political statement. But trying to “find a compromise” isn’t “political.”
So fascists infiltrating a group will always test the waters, saying things that are offensive, but juuuuust short of the dreaded “political.” Usually in the form of insisting “It’s not political, it’s just how it is.” (insert statement about the absurdity of the anti-semite here).
So you get facists constantly normalising fascist ideas, while acting like anyone calling them out is being “political” and therefore trying to “ruin” a fun hobby forum (such as a gaming forum) by “talking about politics.” Over time decent people will just leave a group that tolerates fascists, and in turn, they use the apolitical’s fear of things becoming “political” to make disagreeing with them a “political” statement.
This generally only works in communities full of privileged people who can afford to not have an ideology and don’t feel a need to care about things other than their latest distraction/treats, and people who generally don’t get out too much. So Gamers are a perfect cross section of those two most of the time.
I would hardly say that nerds are always apolitical, many nerds are some of the biggest leftists out there, with even massive personalities like George Lucas personally gushing over the Soviet Union while making a not so subtle commentary on the United State’s imperialism.
The sad part is that Nazis and fascists often hijack or force their way into communities that were originally leftist, or for leftist media, and use it for themselves. Star Wars, Starship Troopers, Star Trek, Helldivers, etc etc.
Sorry, I meant more that internet nerd culture in general has always focused on “I don’t want to talk politics, I just want to talk about this cool game etc.”
The people who make the media may not be apolitical, but a lot of people, especially in the west, demand an apolitical reading of any and all media. That’s how these groups get infiltrated, though Sickos below put it much better.
I would kind of push back on that first point though, as politics has always been part of the conversation. In my experience the ones demanding “apolitical media” and the ones saying “I don’t want politics in my XYZ” are usually the Nazis masquerading with faux-care, because to them the existence of women, black people, lgbt people, and minorities is “political”.
Most nerds seem more then eager to discuss the politics of certain media, however the same can be said for the fascists frothing at the mouth to infect the conversation or shut it down in the guise of being apolitical.
Sadly, I would agree with you and sicko that this is how it usually goes with media, but I will say that I hardly think it’s most nerds, as the ones that talk loudest and end up occupying once good spaces are usually the Nazis. Which in turn attracts more Nazis and so on.
I think we may be talking about two different kinds of “nerd” here. In this specific example, I’m not just talking about people with nerdy hobbies, I’m talking specifically about a very particular kind of (usually white, male, middle class) guy whose understanding of politics begins and ends with the South Park “everyone is dumb for caring about things” mentality. Spaces like that were very common prior to gamergate stuff, I would say they were the majority of “nerd” spaces online, but not the only spaces (people who didn’t want to tolerate that bullshit didn’t)
I wouldn’t say that these people were concern-trolling nazis, but rather people who were useful idiots for them, and had their “let’s just not talk about politics because it starts fights, and just enjoy the media we talk about here.” twisted into the “politics is when wamens and minorities.” sort of stuff we see today.
I can agree with everything you’ve said, I think we were just talking about two different types of people.
Yeah, I don’t disagree with your stuff at all, I’ve known plenty of nerds who do care about politics and political ideas in their media as well.
Incels and women hating are and will lead one farther down the road of reactionary beliefs
Selection bias, I think. It depends on the site you’re using, but often communities are dominated by people who can afford to spend enormous amounts of time on the internet. That’s going to favor people with money and free time, not to mention the people who are literally paid to post.
Steve Bannon
Subcultures are always more extreme expressions of an aspect/aspects of their supercultures.
Internet and geek cultures both, in the Anglosphere, have always been proponents of American Exceptionalism and Liberal Exceptionalism. And both of those things have progressed to fascism.
Your framing and your questions seem to mash many different things—spanning decades—together as if it was all one thing. I’m not going to try to disentangle it all, but I’ll make a few of observations.
- The Internet is a product of the US’s military-industrial complex.
- “Apolitical” isn’t. “Apolitical” is the politics of maintaining the status quo. It’s the politics of I Just Wanna Grill for God’s Sake: White American male labor aristocrats.
- To a large extent New Atheism was a racist, Islamophobic reaction to 9/11, which provided ideological support for the imperial core’s War On Terror.
Internet was initially only accessible by military and academia, its never not been reactionary
Nerd culture was targeted by companies seeking a profit from that market.
It also became way less underground and way more pop as a result.
This allowed a lot more libs in, killing any potential left approach
Back in the 90s some nazi groups invested 10k in internet propaganda, I figure the internet being so fascistic is just the results of that along with nerds being all sorts of fascistic is just a product of western academia culture to an extent as well.
Interesting that you mention that, I think I talked about that one time. Basically last decade was the best until early 2017, I mean the internet, movies, games, vibe, everything, it was like early-mid 1980s for our parents and older people. Most of the popular trash today was non existent and Reddit was a lot less popular.
Then exactly like you said, it went to shit in 2017, social media became cancer with all the political shit they started, for example, on Balkan YouTube during 2012-2016/early 2017 times there were very good YouTubers making content for little kids, older kids and adults alike, playing games, especially Minecraft, GTA V and horror games, videos about tech, work out, funny sketches, Creepypasta channels etc. After that came idiots who were fighting among themselves and causing political and regular dramas because that became popular for some reason, and of course sexual content and fighting over bullshit became normalized among them.
I can’t even wrap my head around YouTube recommendations: shitting on movies, complaining about ‘‘politics’’ in them(‘‘politics’’ being women and minorities) big games being hyped and then rushed, then videos about complaining 24/7 about them, milking and shitting on OGs with countless pointless sequels and unnecessary updates, you name it. Cringe stuff on social media, people complaining about everything, cancel culture, Twitter, not to mention openly nazi nuts in the comments somehow passing unpunished.
I don’t really know what exactly caused this.
Back in 2009, the unfortunate precipitation of the infamous Endless Eight arc caused many 4chan posters to abandon Haruhiism and drift afloat in a position of moral vulnerability which the Nazis quickly moved to exploit </s>
Anime Pope, is that you? /sus
Nerd culture saw itself as white (or certain east-asian), male, middle class plus and in the developed world. It was bound to devolve into reactionary thought. The only pro I see is its tendency to be accepting or at least ambivalent towards transpeople, even 4chan (outside of /pol/) seems to be more accepting towards trans than their political opinions of everything else.
It’s a violent (over)reaction to 2013-2016 SJW culture. Now hating women and minorities makes you “based” and not a weirdo.
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