Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Rise of the Geeks







We all knew it had to happen sooner or later. The geek/nerd/spod (insert derogatory term of your choice here) has enjoyed a meteoric cultural rise over the last 10 years. But as we come to the end of the noughties (for lots more noughties related thoughts, read Tim Footman's excellent blog Cultural Snow), something terrifying has happened.

We've become mainstream. We've conquered the movies with the vast majority of the top 50 grossing movies of the decade having sci-fi/fantasy/supernatural leanings.

TV became our bitch when Battlestar Galactica made it acceptable for people who'd avoided sci-fi to admit they watched it.

The graphic novels by the likes Alan Moore and Mike Mignola are read by cool looking people on the bus. We've even appropriated high literature with the marvellous Pride & Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame Smith.

We bestride the world like a check-shirted, glasses-wearing behemoth justifying why Deep Space Nine is the best Star Trek series.

All of this begs the question, now we're in the majority we will be benevolent overlords or will we enact a terrible revenge on the 'cool' people who spent so much time mocking us? I personally don't mind, although I would like to take fashion Nazi Gok Wan and force him to watch every episode of Babylon 5 until he damn well appreciates it as quality drama...




2 comments:

Valerie said...

I know what you mean. It's getting so I have to pretend I'm *not* a geek just so I'll not seem too mainstream!

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