5. The internet crushed the walls of isolation
It used to be that if you felt particularly weird in some manner or had feelings, thoughts, or habits that seem just so crazy you could never ever admit it to anyone, you just kept that to yourself.
Then the internet came along, and with it a bazillion of online communities, and all of a sudden you could actually find people who have the same exact tendencies like you. Chances are you’ve had such an experience at least once, when you see someone confessing something in an online community that described you almost perfectly but could never admit before. All of a sudden you’re not that crazy anymore!
I bet that millions upon millions such little walls have been crushed thanks to the existence of these global online communities, and that had to have an impact on geekdom as well.
For one thing geeks could connect globally with each other into these massive communities even if they had nobody like them in their local community. This empowered them just as it empowered many other “fringe” groups, but it empowered them especially because the internet itself, this thing that brought them together, was a part of what they’re so passionate about, which set them on a path to dominate it with their businesses.
Secondly, just the mere fact that walls were brought down probably resulted in a generally more accepting attitude among people in general. If you saw strange things being treated as acceptable for multitude of times you probably slowly begin to think that those other people whom you typically considered crazy and perhaps even feared a little, might not be so bad or crazy after all.
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2PartsAnalog
I never thought that we would be cool. The world s changing!
Murray Snudge
Just because geeks are extremely useful does not make them cool – case not proved.
Karl
IT has such a conceit that they are THE tech and nerds. Sorry. There were tech nerds when punch cards were developed for looms. I am Technical Support for my company. The face that I am an Oracle DBA, programmer, and computer power user has nothing to do with the fact that my company makes high purity chemicals and that is what I am supporting. And it’s a whole lot easier to teach computers to a chemist than chemistry to a computer nerd.
Based on the history I know, the generation born in the late 80’s and 90’s is so isolated that, despite the “liberating” force of the internet, they are re-inventing everything around them. Comicon? There have been fan-run science fiction conventions since the ’40s, possibly earlier. Search for WorldCon. Cosplay? Those were hall costumes, part of the masquerade. Chemists and materials science nerds made the basic building blocks of that silicon you use as the foundation of your chips. Sorry, but you can’t claim the exclusive title of nerds.
SEAbeliever
The article isn’t saying that people are claiming to have started all of this. It is stating that the IT crowd has created the necessary spark to ignite the enormous popularity of the “tech and nerds”. It has all been said or done before, regardless of whether or not we are aware of it.