"Geek Entitlement and general Jerkassery"

For my blog on defining and questioning aspects of "Geek Culture" I have decided to write an article on Geek entitlement and I need your help picking topics to cover and fleshing them out since I'm covering a huge topic here.

Here's what I have so far

When all else fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

Geeks suck. We really do. I don't mean any particular subculture of us, we just do. Especially the internet dwellers which makes up about 98% percent of geekdom. But how can I can I count the many ways in which we suck? Well technically I can get most of it in one word: Entitlement.

Non-geeks who I hope are reading this too, you have to understand this:

TV shows and movies that glamorize us for being individualistic underdogs who get what they want for being generally nice people despite our interests and crippling social awkwardness lie.

Yes, it's true that a good portion of us are affable people, but when we're jerks, we're really jerks, and part of it all comes from our sense of Entitlement. You've heard the phrase before "Geeks will inherit the World" and really can you blame that figure of speech? Especially when in this day and age, a Bachelor's degree isn't smart enough to guarantee you a job and almost everything requires a computer to operate? Nerds and Geeks own this world... in the background anyway, we're still working on that social awkwardness thing so that our reign is more prevalent. Anyhow, point is, we think we are going to own everything, currently own everything, or deserve to own everything.

Now it's that last one I'm here to talk about. I'm here to cover exactly what is it we think we deserve and why we think we deserve it and why we're such huge jerks about it.

The categories will be split up into Women, Internet=Free, The Sportsmen, The Media, Individuality,

I figured it might be a fascinating subject to discuss so you thoughts, opinions, concerns, or questions? Let the polylogue commence.

edited 11th Oct '10 9:50:03 PM by ACDrawings

Two initial things before we get started on the real meat of this discussion: Didn't you already post this? It's considered bad form to quote yourself when making the first post in a thread.

Moving on to the main discussion. I think that in general geeks are just people, they'll have the same hang ups same problems same number of stupid disconnects between reality and fact. And to imply that geeks have anymore a sense of entitlement than any other human being alive is a tad weird. Everyone at the moment has entitlement "wants" but in general a lot of people I've met who would describe themselves as "geek" don't have this entitlement complex and to say that it makes up 98% of geekdom is ridiculous unless you are going to back it up with data.

I've encountered people who think that newspapers should be free on the internet (or should have you joining a newsletter) because for the most part no-one is willing to pay for news they can get elsewhere for free.

The woman thing is more a generalised case of that happening amongst young males in western culture, it changes for the most part and people grow up either into dealing with it or ending up alone.

Sports I have no clue about because for the most part there might be some antipathy but nothing actually "important" between "geek and sportsmen" because the two groups can overlap and its kinda ridiculous to draw a line between them.

The media & Individuality are more tricky ones and I will see what you have to say first.

While I can see the truth in your blog post, I can't help but feel that someone's just a wee bit alienated from their professed clique. Spend some time in others, you'll see that geeks aren't the only dicks in the room.

The woman thing is more a generalised case of that happening amongst young males in western culture, it changes for the most part and people grow up either into dealing with it or ending up alone.

Admittedly much rarer, but it's possible to deal with it and still end up alone.

Ha, true

It assumes too much that geeks are ICT stars who will automatically land a well-paid job, or that their self-imposed exile to devote themselves to their hobbies breeds a more useful skillset than wasting the same time on ale and wenches, methinks.

I agree with the above in general; it lacks focus and spends too much time on the assumption that geeks are more misanthropic than the general population as a whole; something I have yet to see any evidence for.

I apologize for not trying to clarify further, this is only a first draft. I was going to go on a Sturgeon's law 90% of everyone sucks regardless but I'm still trying to figure out how to fit it in. I'm not trying to write this as though geeks are any more misanthropic than anybody else, more like exploring reasons and aspects of the entitlement. I'll go on about how this doesn't just apply to this specific group and applies to everyone, I'm just looking into the reasons for this particular one.

You could approach it from the perspective of the basic definition of "geek": someone who's focused in a particular topic or area of expertise, often at the expense of others. These people may then assign their chosen focus a disproportionate level of importance, whether due to insecurity, ego-stroking, or genuine obliviousness. Said feelings may then lead to a general sense of entitlement - that is, "I've spent so much time being good at this thing that I shouldn't have to spend time being good at other things."

However, the same could be said of anybody.

The things that I define as important are important by virtue of the fact that I have defined them as important. Circular? More like axiomatic.

I think you mean "tautological". And it's trivially true that different people think different things are important; one aspect of this essay would seem to be that some people fail to recognize this.

Oh okay, I probably just pulled a tl DR at some point. Been kind of exhausted as of late.

If you're going on the assumption that everyone sucks, it seems moot to write an essay about how one particular type of person sucks. Talking about a particular type of suckage will generally imply that everyone else does not suck, or sucks less.

Another sort of entitlement probably comes from the 'now it is our turn' sentiment that one finds amongst geeks that have often been the victim of bullies. To deal with their suffering, these people often fool themselves into thinking that they earned a happy life simply by having a very crappy one up till now.

This could be an interesting piece on geek culture if you got rid of the hostile and condescending tone towards it.

Geek culture is a counterculture in response to how "geeks" were treated at school. We point out that geeks will inherit the world because that will turn the tables on the jocks who bullied them.

That said, the word "geek" is fairly vague, and can refer to a variety of things. It may be worthwhile to be more specific.

This article is numero ten, I became more specific abotu what geek meant here. I'm not jumping into this completely blind here.

@Jaime: I figured as much, it's just how I write sometimes, any thoughts on how I can soften this?

@Jewelled: Consider it a thought exercise of sorts besides, I like finding reasons and explanations.

@Jaime: I figured as much, it's just how I write sometimes, any thoughts on how I can soften this?

First, you don't start by saying "geeks suck". You start with something like "people suck" and then move onto "geeks suck, too, but they suck in a different manner than most people", probably provide some nice compare and contrast thing with how non-geeks differ from geeks in their bad traits, and so on.

Couldn't you address perspectives other than those of Jewelled and Jamie? @ AC

I would love to, but I'm not sure how to answer some of the other questions so I'm taking time to think about them. The ones Jamie and Jewelled posed were simple enough for me to answer on the fly.

Methinks the sense of entitlement is one of the biggest causes of bad things that happen.

Entitlement is essentially wanting the results of action while being passive.

edited 15th Oct '10 11:41:08 AM by AlirozTheConfused