Mainstream Geeks

Biggest thing this week in gamer geek news has been this: League of Legends is an official sports in the USA. This is a stepping stone to the gamer world, a milestone. And it is pretty cool - the boundaries between online and offline are being torn down. You don't need to be in top physical condition to be an athlete - you can be something else entirely.

So, what else has been going on this year, concerning different kinds of geeks? Biggest Hollywood blockbusters this year: a movie about mechas thrashing it out and comic movies - Pacific Rim, Man of Steel and Iron Man 3 cropping up top. Everyone is trying to make the next Avengers movie. Games and comics are in. The places to be are E3, ComiCon, Playstation 4 and Xbox One launch events. Geeks are the popular culture.

What about Finland? Anime conventions are selling out, the Finnish Twitter is dominated by the anime and manga culture, and globalism makes all of what's happening elsewhere reflect here as well. What does all of this roll into, then, for geeks and geek culture?

We are mainstream. We won. Except we didn't.

Most of geek culture never wanted to be mainstream. It means we have the upper hand - we're no longer the epitome of a guy with coke bottle glasses that gets the stuffing beat out of him for his lunch money. We have to take responsibility now, instead of just shielding away behind the "we're the minority, everybody hates us" line. For the first time since the rise of geek culture, we would need to look at ourselves and see what's wrong on our side of the fence. And that doesn't come easy.

Sexism. Racism. Hateful slurs, hetero dominance, gay fear, oppression of belief. Not funny, eh? Log into almost any public game lobby, anonymous (or half-anonymous) online forum or any other public online agora where geeks compile and look around. We are the haters now, and have always been. It simply shows now, when we cannot shield behind being the bullied ones. This needs to stop. Yes, juvenile boys will be boys. No, we shouldn't feed the trolls. But that doesn't mean its ok, should be ok or will be ok to be a jerk to someone else, about anythingm, ever. The only way geek culture will "mature" is if we make it. If we, the ones who were the outcasts back in the 80's or the 90's, are actually at the center of what geek culture is, the change needs to begin with us. All of us.

We can't go around yelling "Everyone just hates us, boo hoo hoo!" anymore at every turn - we need to take responsibility for what happens on our turf. I wrote about games (specifically the newest Hitman game) in this regard about a year ago, and the point still stands. We can't do this shit. Not before, not ever, but especially not now. If we are the mainstream, we have the chance to be a better mainstream than it has ever been. But we need to start the change. We need to be better, not wait for the world to change. Man up, and take responsibility. Geekdom is no longer a hiding place. Get out there and change the world.

Edit: Looks like Moviebob said pretty much the same thing and more in a Big Picture episode a few weeks back. Go check it out at The Escapist.