We gotta get over this. We stopped being special a long time ago. It’s cool to be a geek! It took years for me to be comfortable with that statement, but it’s true. The internet belongs to everyone now and that ain’t a bad thing. But let’s get one thing straight. This anger isn’t about geekery. It’s about celebrity, and attempts to reconcile it with internet culture.
Eric, the issue here isn’t about trying to ‘take back the internet’, it’s about authenticity.
These tools are made for everyone, not just for geeks. The problem is you don’t walk into a music store and call yourself a guitarist because you just picked up your first Strat. You’re insulting people who have put years of blood, sweat and tears into learning the instrument.
These people use the internet, they appreciate geek culture, but they’re NOT geeks.
(via soupsoup)
It’s great that this has turned everyone into Ferris Bueller’s sister, bitter about how other people are living their lives and defining themselves. Like Charlie Sheen said, “Excuse you. You oughta spend a little more time dealing with yourself and a little less time worrying about what your brother does. It’s just an opinion.”
I agree with Eric. Who decides when you’re a guitarist? What are the necessary steps and how many hours must you log to apply this label to yourself? Who has defined this process or the proper amount of experience? Is the clerk at Guitar Center who’s spent 20 years selling piks and string more authentically a “guitarist” than Kurt Cobain (who didn’t “pay his dues” to the rock gods before he went out basically as a kid and changed music as we know it)? I’m pretty sure Keith Richards and Jimmy Page don’t stay up at night worrying about who is walking around calling him/herself a guitarist.
The same goes for geekiness. The term dates back long before computers, and though it’s been appropriated by computer / technology enthusiasts, it’s a label without any specific requirements, and certainly not for any of us to decide who can and cannot subscribe to it. (previously).
As for “insulting” people who have spent years jerking off to technology, fuck um. Don’t expect anyone to give you a gold star for being a connoisseur of squid-caching or knowing the caffe latte attack, it’s all useless bullshit knowledge until you actually apply it to something productive and create something that defines you better than an antiquated, vague, [historically] derisive term.
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