This got a larger thread on hackernews. I'm not sure if I posted it in the right group, it's vaguely politics but more about internet communities in general. I recommend reading the whole thing as...
This got a larger thread on hackernews. I'm not sure if I posted it in the right group, it's vaguely politics but more about internet communities in general.
I recommend reading the whole thing as it's less about the "movement" but about a general trend in nerdy online communities. No side in this looks great.
When their community starts to get “cleaned up,” and they’re excluded because (for example) they are crude and make offensive jokes, this is a benefit to tens of thousands of people who want to be nerds, but it’s a devastating effect on people who don’t have anything else.
... implicitly asking the question of: Where do they go, then? Being a nerd is awkward but harmless (and often rather productive) but if you have to hide "deeper" to get a break from society, you'll find the weirder dungeons of the internet. Incel culture, red pill forums, bizarre right-wing conspiracy theories. In the name of making nerds "cool", the mainstream has made the space hostile towards the people who truly needed it.
I haven't fully thought this through, maybe there's a flaw in the logic. But it's an interesting point. It could explain some of the more morbid outgrowth of internet culture in recent years.
This is pretty much the phenomenon of Eternal September in a nutshell. it doesn't even have to be as slippery a slope as diving into neo-nazism just so you can make some low hanging fruit jokes....
In the name of making nerds "cool", the mainstream has made the space hostile towards the people who truly needed it.
This is pretty much the phenomenon of Eternal September in a nutshell. it doesn't even have to be as slippery a slope as diving into neo-nazism just so you can make some low hanging fruit jokes. There's just a lot of in-jokes and jargon that gets lost or co-opted into something else that disappears once the "nerds" start to drift towards a community that implicity shuns them.
There's no real solution without near tyrranical levels of moderation. the community will conform to the popular, the nerds who once contributed much move on to the next nerdy thing, likely smaller than last time. until they fizzle out themselves. Perhaps out of the hobby entirely, perhaps into it just being a local/solitary hobby instead of one shared on the internet. Just enjoy the ride until then.
That was a hell of a read! It went into a lot of depth in the backstory of that subreddit that I had no idea of. By virtue of lurking from afar I wasn't all that invested in the resulting...
That was a hell of a read! It went into a lot of depth in the backstory of that subreddit that I had no idea of. By virtue of lurking from afar I wasn't all that invested in the resulting firestorm and this article has really given me a strikingly different perception of the whole thing.
The article, and your post, bring up something I find puzzling. Being a "nerd" isn't an irredeemable condition. Different folks have different moments in different parts of their lives. One can be...
Being a nerd is awkward but harmless (and often rather productive) but if you have to hide "deeper" to get a break from society, you'll find the weirder dungeons of the internet. Incel culture, red pill forums, bizarre right-wing conspiracy theories. In the name of making nerds "cool", the mainstream has made the space hostile towards the people who truly needed it.
The article, and your post, bring up something I find puzzling. Being a "nerd" isn't an irredeemable condition. Different folks have different moments in different parts of their lives. One can be a mess at one point in their lives but largely get it together and become happy and productive in another portion of their lives. Some so-called "nerd"s have plenty of social and empathetic skills and other folks who have all the regular trappings of success could be leading a life of pain and suffering on the inside. Online spaces also don't attract all sorts of oddballs or mentally ill, rather a specific type who is often introverted and/or has issues socializing in real life. In fact, there's a lot of gatekeeping in nerd spaces. Lots of women, PoCs, and neuroatypical folks who don't have classic "nerd" traits often feel excluded from nerd spaces.
So my question is, what is a "nerd", what do we (as a society) owe "nerd"s, and why do we owe them this?
I’m just seeing this thread now, and I don’t mean to bump it. But reading all this reminded me so much of this subreddit called r/ShitLeftoidsSay. I used to go on it a lot in late-2020, before it...
I’m just seeing this thread now, and I don’t mean to bump it. But reading all this reminded me so much of this subreddit called r/ShitLeftoidsSay.
I used to go on it a lot in late-2020, before it was unceremoniously deleted. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s some sort of alt-right space made to make fun of progressives. But it was actually a bunch of left-communists that made fun of self-proclaimed leftists. Everything from (as the r/neoliberal post linked in the article points out) liberal progressives pretending to be more radical than they are to self-proclaimed tankies and anarchists.
It was a cool place. I learned a lot from certain users and it’s why I read Marx and Engels and came to my own conclusion that I am, in fact, just a Bernie style social democrat. A lot of the people in the subreddit would make fun of these people, people who came across this ideology through tweets and never bothered to learn more about it. Who, as that Reddit post said, would only half-believe half-understand what they were saying.
Reading all of that reminded me of the headache that left-twitter gave me back when I was on it. And how nonsensical and meaningless it all was. I remember a hashtag created which was #GeneralStrike. And it was going to bring about the revolution and everyone was participating in it and then nothing happened. Or how a few people tweeted the hashtag #OccupyCongress which was supposed to be this nationwide demonstration to show up at congresspeople and senators homes and shout at them. Nothing real was done, all the activism was done through tweets. And these people expected results.
These are spaces less about activism and social change than they are about people who are extremely online who don’t have a lot going for them in the real world to have some sort of social outlet.
That’s all I had to say. This article just gave me a bunch of flashbacks.
This got a larger thread on hackernews. I'm not sure if I posted it in the right group, it's vaguely politics but more about internet communities in general.
I recommend reading the whole thing as it's less about the "movement" but about a general trend in nerdy online communities. No side in this looks great.
The most interesting bit to me is a quote from a different article:
... implicitly asking the question of: Where do they go, then? Being a nerd is awkward but harmless (and often rather productive) but if you have to hide "deeper" to get a break from society, you'll find the weirder dungeons of the internet. Incel culture, red pill forums, bizarre right-wing conspiracy theories. In the name of making nerds "cool", the mainstream has made the space hostile towards the people who truly needed it.
I haven't fully thought this through, maybe there's a flaw in the logic. But it's an interesting point. It could explain some of the more morbid outgrowth of internet culture in recent years.
This is pretty much the phenomenon of Eternal September in a nutshell. it doesn't even have to be as slippery a slope as diving into neo-nazism just so you can make some low hanging fruit jokes. There's just a lot of in-jokes and jargon that gets lost or co-opted into something else that disappears once the "nerds" start to drift towards a community that implicity shuns them.
There's no real solution without near tyrranical levels of moderation. the community will conform to the popular, the nerds who once contributed much move on to the next nerdy thing, likely smaller than last time. until they fizzle out themselves. Perhaps out of the hobby entirely, perhaps into it just being a local/solitary hobby instead of one shared on the internet. Just enjoy the ride until then.
That was a hell of a read! It went into a lot of depth in the backstory of that subreddit that I had no idea of. By virtue of lurking from afar I wasn't all that invested in the resulting firestorm and this article has really given me a strikingly different perception of the whole thing.
The article, and your post, bring up something I find puzzling. Being a "nerd" isn't an irredeemable condition. Different folks have different moments in different parts of their lives. One can be a mess at one point in their lives but largely get it together and become happy and productive in another portion of their lives. Some so-called "nerd"s have plenty of social and empathetic skills and other folks who have all the regular trappings of success could be leading a life of pain and suffering on the inside. Online spaces also don't attract all sorts of oddballs or mentally ill, rather a specific type who is often introverted and/or has issues socializing in real life. In fact, there's a lot of gatekeeping in nerd spaces. Lots of women, PoCs, and neuroatypical folks who don't have classic "nerd" traits often feel excluded from nerd spaces.
So my question is, what is a "nerd", what do we (as a society) owe "nerd"s, and why do we owe them this?
I’m just seeing this thread now, and I don’t mean to bump it. But reading all this reminded me so much of this subreddit called r/ShitLeftoidsSay.
I used to go on it a lot in late-2020, before it was unceremoniously deleted. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s some sort of alt-right space made to make fun of progressives. But it was actually a bunch of left-communists that made fun of self-proclaimed leftists. Everything from (as the r/neoliberal post linked in the article points out) liberal progressives pretending to be more radical than they are to self-proclaimed tankies and anarchists.
It was a cool place. I learned a lot from certain users and it’s why I read Marx and Engels and came to my own conclusion that I am, in fact, just a Bernie style social democrat. A lot of the people in the subreddit would make fun of these people, people who came across this ideology through tweets and never bothered to learn more about it. Who, as that Reddit post said, would only half-believe half-understand what they were saying.
Reading all of that reminded me of the headache that left-twitter gave me back when I was on it. And how nonsensical and meaningless it all was. I remember a hashtag created which was #GeneralStrike. And it was going to bring about the revolution and everyone was participating in it and then nothing happened. Or how a few people tweeted the hashtag #OccupyCongress which was supposed to be this nationwide demonstration to show up at congresspeople and senators homes and shout at them. Nothing real was done, all the activism was done through tweets. And these people expected results.
These are spaces less about activism and social change than they are about people who are extremely online who don’t have a lot going for them in the real world to have some sort of social outlet.
That’s all I had to say. This article just gave me a bunch of flashbacks.