The Common Experience of Geeks
Mar. 20th, 2004 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqCommonality of experience is a big part of the reason people are so cliquish. We don't just hang around with people because we like them, but also because we are comfortable with them. A lot of that comfort comes from having similar experiences. For example, I don't have to explain the SCA to people I know because they're either already in it, or know people who are (even when it's not their cup of tea).
I've been thinking about this recently due to a couple of recent experiences. One was what happens when the experiences we take for granted are subtly different, and also when they're completely lacking.
I got home last night to find Jenny and Lisa playing a Nintendo racing game with assorted well known characters from the Mario-verse (Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, etc.). While choosing characters to play they saw Wario, a character none of us had encountered until then (except Kris, who is still a baby and therefore more current in his pop culture reference).
"Who's this Wario character anyway?" asked Jenny.
"I think he's some Vampire-universe version of Mario" says Lisa.
Jenny, for her part, immediately understood what Lisa meant, but it took me a second to connect the dots. Vampire-universe? Oh yeah, that would be the alternate universe "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode with Evil-Vampire-Willow. Lisa got her geek-credibility watching BtVS. Me, I would have said "Mirror universe" version of Mario, having got my geek-cred watching classic Star Trek as a kid (and this would be the classic episode"Mirror, mirror". You know - the one where Spock has a goatee).
As an aside, I should point out that, while it took me a moment to get the vampire-universe reference, and Lisa might not have got the mirror-universe reference, Jenny would have got both instantly.
Classic Trek is so far in the past now that many (most?) of the younger geeks have never seen it. They only get the parts of Star Trek that have been absorbed into pop culture as a whole. Even then, there are people who don't get the most obvious geek symbols. Scary Cathy for example.
Scary Cathy (or SC, to differentiate her from the many other C/Kathys I know) worked at Office Depot after I left it. She was (and presumably still is) the antithesis of all things geek. She didn't read, she didn't watch movies. The only reason she worked was so that she could afford to go dancing and drinking at the bar on weekends. She was completely un-intellectual. We didn't talk much.
At the time, a lot of the people I hung around with were from Office Depot, one of these people was Rich. Now Rich was a proud geek, and when the Phantom Menace came out on video, he picked it up and invited people over for a movie night. The Bruce and I went. We're watching the movie and SC comes in.
"What's everyone watching", she asks.
"The Phantom Menace - it's a prequel to Star Wars. That kid there is Anakin Skywalker."
"So who's Anakin Skywalker supposed to be."
"Um. He grows up to be Darth Vader."
"Who's Darth Vader?"
There was dead silence as the room came to grips with the idea that there were people who had grown up in western culture who didn't know who Darth Vader was. I'm not even sure what a non-geek equivalent would be - not knowing who Elvis is? What can you do when faced with such a jarring gulf between your worlds then to just give up?
"He's a famous character from a SF movie."
"Oh."
Recently I was invited to a house warming party. Colleen was giving me directions and we were going back and forth trying to find common landmarks to ensure we both knew where I was going.
"Oh I get it, your two blocks from The Sentry Box!" I said.
"What's the Sentry Box?"
Now Colleen isn't a geek, but she's not an anti-geek either. Sentry Box is not a part of pop culture, but you know about it if you're a gamer in Calgary. Problem was, I forgot that there are people who aren't gamers. Like Colleen.
On the other side of the coin, I've been slowly succumbing to the SCA. I attended a political SCA gathering last week and was put in the position of the person who didn't know what all the obscure lingo meant. Plus, I didn't know the history of the local group.
I've been thinking about this recently due to a couple of recent experiences. One was what happens when the experiences we take for granted are subtly different, and also when they're completely lacking.
I got home last night to find Jenny and Lisa playing a Nintendo racing game with assorted well known characters from the Mario-verse (Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, etc.). While choosing characters to play they saw Wario, a character none of us had encountered until then (except Kris, who is still a baby and therefore more current in his pop culture reference).
"Who's this Wario character anyway?" asked Jenny.
"I think he's some Vampire-universe version of Mario" says Lisa.
Jenny, for her part, immediately understood what Lisa meant, but it took me a second to connect the dots. Vampire-universe? Oh yeah, that would be the alternate universe "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode with Evil-Vampire-Willow. Lisa got her geek-credibility watching BtVS. Me, I would have said "Mirror universe" version of Mario, having got my geek-cred watching classic Star Trek as a kid (and this would be the classic episode"Mirror, mirror". You know - the one where Spock has a goatee).
As an aside, I should point out that, while it took me a moment to get the vampire-universe reference, and Lisa might not have got the mirror-universe reference, Jenny would have got both instantly.
Classic Trek is so far in the past now that many (most?) of the younger geeks have never seen it. They only get the parts of Star Trek that have been absorbed into pop culture as a whole. Even then, there are people who don't get the most obvious geek symbols. Scary Cathy for example.
Scary Cathy (or SC, to differentiate her from the many other C/Kathys I know) worked at Office Depot after I left it. She was (and presumably still is) the antithesis of all things geek. She didn't read, she didn't watch movies. The only reason she worked was so that she could afford to go dancing and drinking at the bar on weekends. She was completely un-intellectual. We didn't talk much.
At the time, a lot of the people I hung around with were from Office Depot, one of these people was Rich. Now Rich was a proud geek, and when the Phantom Menace came out on video, he picked it up and invited people over for a movie night. The Bruce and I went. We're watching the movie and SC comes in.
"What's everyone watching", she asks.
"The Phantom Menace - it's a prequel to Star Wars. That kid there is Anakin Skywalker."
"So who's Anakin Skywalker supposed to be."
"Um. He grows up to be Darth Vader."
"Who's Darth Vader?"
There was dead silence as the room came to grips with the idea that there were people who had grown up in western culture who didn't know who Darth Vader was. I'm not even sure what a non-geek equivalent would be - not knowing who Elvis is? What can you do when faced with such a jarring gulf between your worlds then to just give up?
"He's a famous character from a SF movie."
"Oh."
Recently I was invited to a house warming party. Colleen was giving me directions and we were going back and forth trying to find common landmarks to ensure we both knew where I was going.
"Oh I get it, your two blocks from The Sentry Box!" I said.
"What's the Sentry Box?"
Now Colleen isn't a geek, but she's not an anti-geek either. Sentry Box is not a part of pop culture, but you know about it if you're a gamer in Calgary. Problem was, I forgot that there are people who aren't gamers. Like Colleen.
On the other side of the coin, I've been slowly succumbing to the SCA. I attended a political SCA gathering last week and was put in the position of the person who didn't know what all the obscure lingo meant. Plus, I didn't know the history of the local group.
