"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
--Oscar Wilde
So my last post(Wake Up Nerd Culture, You're A Sham) got some interesting comments from Kenny and Elfarmy but I think that either they totally missed the point or I did a terrible job communicating the point(possibly a bit of both). So let me clarify:
The point of the post was not that John Green is a terrible guy. I don't think he is. I think, with that quote he was trying to make "Nerds" feel better, because he's probably a nice guy. However in trying to do that, I believe, he fed into an us vs. them mentality that I think is pointless and silly.
The point of the post wasn't that being part of a group is bad. I don't believe it necessarily is. I think that if you change yourself to be part of that group and refuse to take part in anything outside the group, and identify yourself solely as being part of that group then being in that group is bad.
The point of the post was that I believe that there are a large number of people, several of whom are my friends, who have labelled themselves nerds and they then feel the need to like certain things and feel certain things and be a certain way. And that bothers me.
One might ask, oh how do you know that they are changing themselves to fit in? Because their tastes fit in perfectly with the majority of nerds, they love the same books, the same music, and the same tv shows. And no one fits in that well with any one group. People are complex and have varied tastes and interests(which incidentally is what John Green's Paper Towns is about).
I do consider the Nerd Movement to be a cult or if you'd rather a religion. And I don't want to sound angry or bitter or anything like that but it does annoy me when I see members of my generation basically lying about themselves so that they can find a group. If the group is demanding that then the group is morally reprehensible but if it's just the individual doing that because of some pyschobabble mumbo jumbo then it is the individual's fault, and they need to understand that they don't need to do that.
When I said that being uncool is the new cool what I meant to do was say that when nerds are all "We're uncool, but we're find with it, we read and write and that makes us so strange and outside the mainstream. We're freakin' underground. Heck yeah!" they're wrong because they're basically becoming mainstream. And people are jumping on the bandwagon of not jumping on the bandwagon. I think that the nerdfighteria(or whatever it is) has either caused this or fed it a lot.
As the quote at the top of the post says just be yourself. Being anyone else is just sort of pointless and you'll look back and wonder why you did that. Come out of the nerd closet, come out as an individual.
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8 comments:
I think we got your point- I know Kenny's commenting philosophy is to mainly address the things he has differing thoughts on. It doesn't make for an interesting comment to just say "Yep. I concur. Great post." (Also, it's not "the nerdfighteria." "nerdfighteria" is the name of the nerdfighter community.)
Is it really changing yourself, though, if you think "oh, these people to whom I am similar like The Hunger Games. Perhaps I'll try and read that." Maybe you won't like it as much as they do, but there's nothing wrong with reading it just to see. Now, where is the line between taking recommendations and doing it just to fit in...I don't know. And is it changing yourself if you don't really know what "yourself" consists of? If you know you definitely don't like the Hunger Games (as alien as a concept as that may be), don't pretend you do just because others like it, but...
Also, I'm not sure how mainstream it actually is. Where do you hear about it other than from said friends? It's a _growing_ movement certainly, but that doesn't mean Random Person X on the street will have heard of it. And how do you know said people are _lying_ about themselves?
As for the third (not counting the quote) and third-to-last paragraphs of this post-- that's pretty much what I was saying in mine.
And finally: I find it hilarious that a choir is singing in unison about being individuals.
Oh, hold on. I can end the discussion on the John Green quote by quoting him again: "There is no 'them.' There are only facets of us."
That's clearly not an us vs. them mentality, and there's really no other way to interpret this quote, so I don't think the other one should be viewed as creating one, since this quote shows he didn't intend for that to happen.
so John Green might not believe in an us vs. them mentality but he fed it with that quote. I don't know what his intention was but the way he worded it was us vs. them.
I find that when a group of people all share the same ideas and opinions and likes and dislikes, when they all do, it's very disturbing, groups in and of themselves are not pro-individualism, and I feel that the Nerd Movement is the latest in a long string but they pretend not to be.
Taking suggestions is one thing but limiting yourself solely based on those suggestions is another. That's my big thing, don't limit yourself. And I think that the nerdfighteriamangafakaska movement is a big "criminal" in that regard.
And you just made my point. It's not mainstream yet but it is becoming mainstream, many, if not most, high schoolers will probably have heard of it. You can't claim that you're underground if everyone knows about you, and you can't claim you don't fit it when there are tons of people around you with whom you fit in.
Likes and dislikes, maybe. But ideas and opinions? Kenny and I originally "met" via the "debates and intellectual discourse" thread on the Nerdfighter Ning, and there is a TON of disagreement on pretty much everything in there.
What you see is all of the unity and similarity. The dissent and arguing tends to keep to itself in the forums. (the in-use version of which is here http://yourpants.org/forumdisplay.php?29-General-Discussion, which isn't the version I have ever participated in.) There are entire threads about non-nerdy pop culture that people enjoy, and debates as to whether or not the nerdy stuff is or isn't good.
Fair enough- at my school, it's pretty common (which you already knew). But maybe that's just because I mostly interact with the band and drama kids (the stereotypically nerdy groups). I'll see a DFTBA Records-produced T-shirt (that I'm not wearing) at least once a month.
I don't see it as limiting, but that might be because I had pretty much 0 exposure to anything beforehand (not that all exposure has come directly from it- I just generally became more social/aware/involved in the latter half of 2009 overall). My experience has just been "hey! Look at all of this stuff that you didn't know about before!" Then it's just a matter of making sure you balance that stuff with stuff from different sources, which is a personal thing rather than the fault of the group.
Maybe I'm just not a good sample of the group as a whole (okay, there's the music thing. other than that.) I'm way less-involved with it than a lot of people are, and haven't talked to many people who give me the impression of matching up with being limited rather than expanded.
Thank you Elfarmy, you have captured my general commenting strategy much more accurately than my subjective perspective could. I do hope that sometimes my thoughts are not differing, but additional or alternative though.
I guess if I were to try to clarify my response, it would be that the point of John's quote is not to divide us, as Elfarmy points out much more effectively in John's own words. Of course, it can be used to prop up an "Us vs Them" mentality, but if we refuse to say things that those who disagree with us might twist to their interpretations, we silence ourselves.
Thank you LiberalRocker for restating your position. As I understand it now, I would ask, why address it to "Nerd Culture"? The fact that some people feel the need to become nerds because it is in vogue now really doesn't reflect on the underlying "Nerd Culture," because odds are if something else where cool those same people would be doing that instead. Thus, it seems to me, the problem isn't the current fad but the personality type that is drawn to fads. However, this throws up a tricky conundrum, because if there are people who tend to gravitate toward the current trend, then in a sense they are being true to themselves by reshaping themselves in the current image of popularity.
Of course, groups always alter their members, so maybe this isn't so bad. As Elfarmy pointed out, a concert choir, supported by an orchestra, singing about individuality is rather ironic. That said, I agree with what seems to be your core premise, that living a life wherein you identify with one group, to the exclusion of all others, is asking to stunt your potentiality. However, if I say that there is something inherently better about being open to all possibilities, am I not doing exactly what you criticize, saying that the group of pluralistic, ecumenical people is better than the other groups? Frustratingly enough, it always seems that the pluralist must accept the particularistic in order to avoid logical contradictions.
Lastly, I think that framing the first post as an assault on Nerd Culture, rather than on particularists, who neither comprise the whole of Nerd Culture nor are exclusive to it, contributed to at least my misconceptions about the point of your post.
@Kenny I'm pretty sure he directs it to nerd culture because nerd culture puts so much emphasis on being yourself, which makes it hypocritical to alter yourself for the sake of fitting into it.
I see your point through experience.
I changed to be part of a group.
And lost the real me along the way.
Now I have no idea who I really am.
And it really sucks, emotionally. :/
Oh, just to disturb you more (mwahaha)...did you know that there's a nerdfighter in Congress? One of Illinois' representatives.
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