This goes back to my discussion about how people like to break complex issues apart and stuff the resulting pieces into convenient pigeonholes. How we like to attach labels and tags to things to simplify the world.
While this is not something I am overly fond of, it is something that is occasionally quite helpful and has its uses.
However, some tags and labels are really only there to separate people. To build walls and segregate. Arguably, that's what all tags and labels do. They define "us" and "them". Regardless of level we can always divide a group into finer pieces so that we can still have "those people" who are different from "us" and therefore valid targets for abuse of various kinds.
What's worse, some of these tags and labels are so very vague so as to have no meaning. And yet, they are still used to create targets.
There are two terms that I'm specifically thinking about here. Both could be applied to me, although I'd not do so myself. These terms are: "gamer" and "nerd". To a certain extent "geek" could be thrown into the mix.
All of these are fairly meaningless. Others have already dissected these terms in detail and at length, and so I won't do that here. For a good discussion on the term "gamer" I give you this link to the people at Extra Credits: Penny Arcade - Extra Credits – “Gamer”. I would say that the discussion in the linked video is also applicable to the terms nerd and geek as well.
Why do I say they're meaningless? Because they are so vague that they can be applied to almost anybody. The label "black" or "gay" is much more clear. But what is a gamer? What is a nerd? Or a geek? Yet, despite their vagueness, they have been used against me.
I have been labeled as a nerd. I have taken flack for being a "nerd". For a young, insecure boy, that was really not helpful. Especially not for an unusually tall, overweight and very-hairy-for-his-age young boy.
I play video games. I play tabletop roleplaying games. I build stuff. I read a lot, including sci-fi and fantasy. I've watched Battlestar Galactica and the six Star Wars movies.
But I've also watched The Wire and Six Feet Under. I'm not really a fan of Star Wars and I could never stand Star Trek. I've never watched Doctor Who, even though that seems to be the "in" nerdy thing to do.
I enjoy conversation about philosophy and morality. I enjoy exercising, cooking and watching the occasional movie.
In short I enjoy a lot of things.
Yet the "nerd" label remains. I am judged by a few of my interests, rather than the person I am outside of them. To me, being labeled as a "nerd" means having to hide a part of who you are to avoid ridicule. Yes, I enjoy things that some consider to be "nerdy". However, I don't really dare talk about that, at least not to new people. I'm afraid they'll look at me, and somewhere think "what a nerd".
Why should I care? I think everybody cares, really. Only people who run around naked, throwing their own feces at terrified onlookers while howling that "the end is nigh" really don't care what others think.
I think it's a fear of being placed outside. See, as an introverted person I may find that I enjoy being "outside" a particular group: I don't really want to be a part of it. But that's a choice I make. If I am barred from entering a group and made to stand outside it, then that limits my choices. What if I wanted to be a part of that group? But I can't, because they found out that I am a "nerd" and they don't want to mix with "those weirdos".
Of course, in time I realized that people who discriminate like that are not worth spending time with anyway.
But this ties into my discussions on solitude and loneliness. For americans I imagine the analogue would be the nerds having a crush on the cheerleaders who get together with the jocks. The nerds want to break into the social circles where the girls are, but can't because they've been tagged as "nerds" and are therefore unwelcome. In short, the guys who are non-nerds get the chicks while the nerds get a pat on the head for their good grades, and the cheap consolation that at some undefined point in the future things will change.
The "jocks" or their equivalent will get crappy jobs, the girls they had were probably not worth the effort and the "nerds" will get good jobs and loving wives and the rest of that yarn. I want to add here that I am sure that there are "nerdy" women who have experienced the same, but I am writing from a purely male perspective now because that is all I know and all that I have experienced, never having really known a female "nerd".
But this consolation, never really that savoury to begin with, is starting to taste like ashes to me.
I've plowed through life, blasting through every obstacle, but I've yet to see any real changes in that issue.
The non-nerdy people are still getting the women and the "nerds" are not.
It's foolish to expect things from life. You have to take what you want, wresting your prize from the clutches of the world.
But I'd rather not. Because I'm not the kind of person who is comfortable doing that. Because I am what could be identified as introverted.
But once again, the world doesn't give a shit about what I want to do or what I like to do. It only cares about the things I do that gets results. I understand that. I just don't like it.
I don't like having to lie to the world about what and who I am to get what I want while people that I despise get what they want without breaking a sweat. Because to them it comes natural.
As usual I don't know where I'm going with this. It started out like a roiling cloud of something that wanted out. And this is the form it has taken.
But let's try to end on a brighter note.
Changes may still occur and as long as I stay the course and keep blasting aside those obstacles, I'm sure things'll sort themselves out, one way or another.
In swedish there's a phrase that goes "Den som lever får se" which roughly translates to "Those who live will find out" and basically means "I guess we'll just have to wait and see".
Will things change? Den som lever får se.
While this is not something I am overly fond of, it is something that is occasionally quite helpful and has its uses.
However, some tags and labels are really only there to separate people. To build walls and segregate. Arguably, that's what all tags and labels do. They define "us" and "them". Regardless of level we can always divide a group into finer pieces so that we can still have "those people" who are different from "us" and therefore valid targets for abuse of various kinds.
What's worse, some of these tags and labels are so very vague so as to have no meaning. And yet, they are still used to create targets.
There are two terms that I'm specifically thinking about here. Both could be applied to me, although I'd not do so myself. These terms are: "gamer" and "nerd". To a certain extent "geek" could be thrown into the mix.
All of these are fairly meaningless. Others have already dissected these terms in detail and at length, and so I won't do that here. For a good discussion on the term "gamer" I give you this link to the people at Extra Credits: Penny Arcade - Extra Credits – “Gamer”. I would say that the discussion in the linked video is also applicable to the terms nerd and geek as well.
Why do I say they're meaningless? Because they are so vague that they can be applied to almost anybody. The label "black" or "gay" is much more clear. But what is a gamer? What is a nerd? Or a geek? Yet, despite their vagueness, they have been used against me.
I have been labeled as a nerd. I have taken flack for being a "nerd". For a young, insecure boy, that was really not helpful. Especially not for an unusually tall, overweight and very-hairy-for-his-age young boy.
I play video games. I play tabletop roleplaying games. I build stuff. I read a lot, including sci-fi and fantasy. I've watched Battlestar Galactica and the six Star Wars movies.
But I've also watched The Wire and Six Feet Under. I'm not really a fan of Star Wars and I could never stand Star Trek. I've never watched Doctor Who, even though that seems to be the "in" nerdy thing to do.
I enjoy conversation about philosophy and morality. I enjoy exercising, cooking and watching the occasional movie.
In short I enjoy a lot of things.
Yet the "nerd" label remains. I am judged by a few of my interests, rather than the person I am outside of them. To me, being labeled as a "nerd" means having to hide a part of who you are to avoid ridicule. Yes, I enjoy things that some consider to be "nerdy". However, I don't really dare talk about that, at least not to new people. I'm afraid they'll look at me, and somewhere think "what a nerd".
Why should I care? I think everybody cares, really. Only people who run around naked, throwing their own feces at terrified onlookers while howling that "the end is nigh" really don't care what others think.
I think it's a fear of being placed outside. See, as an introverted person I may find that I enjoy being "outside" a particular group: I don't really want to be a part of it. But that's a choice I make. If I am barred from entering a group and made to stand outside it, then that limits my choices. What if I wanted to be a part of that group? But I can't, because they found out that I am a "nerd" and they don't want to mix with "those weirdos".
Of course, in time I realized that people who discriminate like that are not worth spending time with anyway.
But this ties into my discussions on solitude and loneliness. For americans I imagine the analogue would be the nerds having a crush on the cheerleaders who get together with the jocks. The nerds want to break into the social circles where the girls are, but can't because they've been tagged as "nerds" and are therefore unwelcome. In short, the guys who are non-nerds get the chicks while the nerds get a pat on the head for their good grades, and the cheap consolation that at some undefined point in the future things will change.
The "jocks" or their equivalent will get crappy jobs, the girls they had were probably not worth the effort and the "nerds" will get good jobs and loving wives and the rest of that yarn. I want to add here that I am sure that there are "nerdy" women who have experienced the same, but I am writing from a purely male perspective now because that is all I know and all that I have experienced, never having really known a female "nerd".
But this consolation, never really that savoury to begin with, is starting to taste like ashes to me.
I've plowed through life, blasting through every obstacle, but I've yet to see any real changes in that issue.
The non-nerdy people are still getting the women and the "nerds" are not.
It's foolish to expect things from life. You have to take what you want, wresting your prize from the clutches of the world.
But I'd rather not. Because I'm not the kind of person who is comfortable doing that. Because I am what could be identified as introverted.
But once again, the world doesn't give a shit about what I want to do or what I like to do. It only cares about the things I do that gets results. I understand that. I just don't like it.
I don't like having to lie to the world about what and who I am to get what I want while people that I despise get what they want without breaking a sweat. Because to them it comes natural.
As usual I don't know where I'm going with this. It started out like a roiling cloud of something that wanted out. And this is the form it has taken.
But let's try to end on a brighter note.
Changes may still occur and as long as I stay the course and keep blasting aside those obstacles, I'm sure things'll sort themselves out, one way or another.
In swedish there's a phrase that goes "Den som lever får se" which roughly translates to "Those who live will find out" and basically means "I guess we'll just have to wait and see".
Will things change? Den som lever får se.