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[ Line of Sight ]
DATE: August 28, 2003

It's Still Hard to Be a Geek

Despite the prevalence of science fiction and fantasy in popular culture, the media still fundamentally misunderstand us.

It started in 1977, this "rise of the geek." George Lucas released Star Wars, and rather than being just another flash-in-the-pan sci-fi flick, it caught the imagination of an entire generation. (Perhaps instead you could even trace it back to the sixties when Tolkien became popular -- whatever, that's not the point.) Science fiction became part of pop culture, but it's taken the media years to catch on. Oh sure, lots of creative people saw it right away. They saw all of us growing up with video games, superhero comics, and fantasy stuff and could tell that we were eager for more.

Newspapers, magazines and reviewers didn't get it. Even though science fiction clearly was pop culture, fans of science fiction were still branded as weirdoes and geeks. Despite the continued success of fantasy and science fiction in movies, television and books, it was labeled a "genre," like it was a small subset of popular culture, even if the facts really would make it seem more like the other way around.

Eventually, though, it seemed that the people observing popular culture began to catch up with where pop culture really was -- or at least they realized they couldn't dismiss it entirely. From Bill Gates to Keanu Reeves, the geek became cool. At least that's what we were told. In reality, however, late night talk show hosts were still making nerd jokes about people going to see the Lord of the Rings movies -- despite the fact that Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were two of the highest grossing movies of their respective years. Somehow, while the media was telling us that it was okay for us to like science fiction, everyone else who liked it was still a big dweeb.

This whole mindset of "I like some of those geeky things, but I'm not a geek like the rest of them," is frustrating to me. But it's clearly pervasive.

Yesterday I was reading through an issue of Sci-Fi magazine and came upon an article about the new Battlestar Galactica. As a fan of the old show (schlocky as it was), I was intrigued. What's the plot going to be like? How are the Cylons involved? That sort of thing. But the article read like something out of Entertainment Weekly, not a magazine devoted to science fiction media. It told me about the actors, the director, and what it's like on the set. That's all fine, but none of my questions were answered. None of my geek questions.

It's as though the writer of the article and the publisher of the magazine didn't really want to be writing to the audience who was reading it. As if they should aspire to something "greater" than writing for readers who want all the geeky details.

You hear the same thing about some writers. Kurt Vonnegut denied up and down that he was a science fiction author, despite the fact that that's what he was writing most of the time. Other science fiction writers want to break out into "real" fiction. (I don't begrudge them wanting to write other kinds of stories -- it's the perception that SF/F books aren't real books that gets me.) My own creative writing professor in college told me something similar in a private conference. "It's clear that you are going to go on to become a successful writer," he said (in fact, I had already published my first book before the conference took place). "But don't waste your time and talents with science fiction. Write something of substance."

Somehow, science fiction and similar geeky pursuits went from being icky brussels sprouts that only strange people ate to fast food fare that the masses partook of but that no one actually respected. (And before I get angry emails, I don't actually think that people who like brussels sprouts are strange or that all fast food is terrible.)

Our culture still rates us as second class, at best. Spider-Man was a wonderful movie with huge box office returns last year, yet no one seems to think for a moment that it should have been considered for an Oscar. I've heard people use it specifically as an example for showing that just because something is good and popular doesn't mean it should win awards. My response is, "Huh? Why not?" Why shouldn't something that's wildly popular as well as considered well-done not get an award? We seem to have accepted our second class status.

So why doesn't anyone actually cater to the geek? You can look at lists of high-grossing movies, popular television programs, and best-seller lists (try to find a big chain bookstore that doesn't have a special Tolkien display, which has probably been up for the last two years steady) and see that geeks are a force in pop culture to be reckoned with. (And we probably have a much larger disposable income as well. Hey Hollywood -- quit catering to the lowest common denominator! We have more money to spend on movie tickets and action figures than they do!) And yet, the people out there who actually understand how to deal with that force are few and far between.

Take the original series Star Trek show. The DVDs of those programs have no special features. Does no one out there understand the Star Trek fan's mind? We're the people who love special features. Imagine how many of those things they sell if they just got Shatner and/or Nimoy to come in and give us some commentary. Heck, they could get George Takei and we'd buy them.

I have to admit that I'm not actually that big a Star Trek fan. The big fan in this household is actually Sue. At her behest, we went to a convention a year or so ago where both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy appeared (together). I must admit, it was pretty cool. But rather than talk about Star Trek memories and behind the scenes anecdotes, the two of them just joshed with each other and talked about other issues. The whole time, I wondered, do even you guys misunderstand us? It doesn't matter if we've heard the stories before. We'll listen again. We want to.

I'm sure any one of us could come up with a list of ideas for geek products, books, or articles that aren't being done because the people in charge don't understand us well enough to know what we want. It's disheartening... and a bit ironic. We're not the minority in this case (assuming we can convince all of us to actually admit our inner geek). It's not too much to ask for us to be understood.

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