This is totally my headspace too. It started as a simple affinity for the objects themselves, and expanded to... well... this.

The other side though, is that if we all had the chance to talk to each other in person, I wonder how many of us would actually just be annoying as hell. Sometimes the internet can also mask excessive personalities.  

The truth is, I'm always a little surprised when I meet other TF fans, because most of the time they come off as pretty hip people. Though that might just be Montreal, where even the geeks have better fashion sense and social skills than most other places.  

zmog

 

I can't believe I'mma say this, SMOG, but I agree with you 100%.

While true it has become easier to be a geek, we've also experienced bit of dilution of identity. What I mean to say is, when they're packaging and selling "geekdom," it means less. About the time G1 T-shirts started popping up at Hot topic, I realized I can't actually see one and assume the wearer knows a thing about Transformers, anymore. 16-year-old kids wearing hip distressed shirts with the NES control pad on them that say "addict," or someshit... I kind of get an impulse to shake them and scream "YOU NEVER KNEW what it was like to unwrap a brand new NES game! You've probably never even HEARD the joyful 'pKANG! pKang!' of the first Zapper, or felt that nubby pre-ergonomic callus on the edge of your thumb. WHO SOLD YOU MY HERITAGE?"

It all started in the 90s during the "dark and adult-accessible Anti-Hero" era of comics. Punisher started cursing, Spawn was the biggest thing since the Turtles, and every superhero started wearing black. Flash forward about fourteen years, and every other movie that comes out is an adaptation, etc..

That's not a complaint, strictly. Geekdom going mainstream has yielded an unprecedented feast of cross-media goodness. At the same time, though, you get 15-year-olds who want to tell you all about how awesome WATCHMEN is going to be, nouveau geek who haven't the slightest idea that it's one of the best stories ever told in its original medium, just because it came out before they were born and doesn't have Venom in it.

I hate to relate this to gay culture, but since "being accepting of gays" has become trendy, gay people have had a bit easier time of it. At the same time, though, the tradeoff is that they don't quite enjoy as much of a distinctive social identity. I would argue that if it's a "fad" to accept a subculture, it's not really the same as bona fide social acceptance.

That being said, either of these attitudes can engender the other, and both are better than general intolerance.

 

It does make me wonder, as well. To wit:

When the Speed Racer movie was due to come out, our intern said it looked like it would be a good movie. I commented that I hoped it would be as entertaining as the original cartoon show.

To which he replied: "It was a cartoon?"

I felt so old at that point.

Slightly more off topic: I won't say the new Watchmen movie will be good, I say I hope it will be as good, because the original comic was amazing. Almost as amazing as Alan Moore actually giving his permission to make the damn thing to begin with.

 

Did I kill the thread? I think I killed the thread. :-(

 

You went too far.  

 

No, just 20 pages of discussion on this topic was too far...and that was 7 pages ago.

If there's one thing I've learned from observing fandom over the years, when it comes to fans there is no such thing as too far.

 

Doesn't your second statement contradict the first?

If there's one thing *I've* learned, it's how interesting it is to observe actual social trends among things that even the people involved think is pretty silly. Even so, nothing quite like one person telling another that they should be less curious about something.

In my experience, people who look at themselves and say they've gone too far might have a point. People who go around telling other people they've gone too far are just bitter that the person in question seems to be having more fun than they are.

 

I neglected to include a key word at the beginning of the second sentence: "but".

However, 20+ pages on this topic is definitely too far and too long to read.

 

Just being 30 and still buying toys is going too far

but no harm, as long as there's other people doing it too thing then It's ok.  

Being a geek is better anyway, there's less pressure that way. Plus we can just be ourselves without giving a f*&k what others think.

and smog, i agree man. you make good points

 

this got EPIC.

 

Nah... I'm just on vacation. Sometime it takes TWO die-hards to beat a couple more pages out of a dead horse.  

This is often the case, I suspect. Though not always... sometimes your friends have to tell you when you have a problem, to provide a wake-up call. People who know you, and who are invested in knowing you sort of have that right (or even obligation). However, I'm not sure that random internet pundits really have the same privileges.  

zmog

 

Never stopped them before.  

 

Dare you to plant a similar thread in the movie furum. teehee

like growing a bomb