३ ऑगस्ट, २०२३

"[O]nline life today descends from where it started, as a safe harbor for the computer nerds who made it."

"They were socially awkward, concerned with machines instead of people, and devoted to the fantasy of converting their impotence into power. When that conversion was achieved, and the nerds took over the world, they adopted the bravado of the jocks they once despised.... But they didn’t stop being nerds. We, the public, never agreed to adopt their worldview as the basis for political, social, or aesthetic life. We got it nevertheless. Musk’s obsession with X as a brand... reminds us that the world’s richest man is a computer geek, but one with enormous power instead of none. It calls attention to the putrid smell that suffuses the history of the internet. I’m kind of tired of pretending that the stench does not exist, as if doing otherwise would be tantamount to expressing prejudice against neurodivergence. This is a bad culture, and it always has been. Foul nerddom is part of what invented, popularized, and profited from the internet’s commercial rise. Twitter did its part to hide all that, with its unoffending avian verbs, its adorable birds, even its charming fail whale...."


Where does this intense disgust come from? Is Ian Bogost the sort of man who felt naturally privileged to run the world before those horrible nerds broke out of their cage? Or is he being funny and he's one of the nerds? Wikipedia
Ian Bogost is an American academic and video game designer, most known for the game Cow Clicker. He holds a joint professorship at Washington University as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences and the McKelvey School of Engineering.... He is the author of Alien Phenomenology or What It's Like to be a Thing and Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism and Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogame....

It's safe to guess that he's one of the nerds, but I'll infer that he's not one of the nerds who "took over the world" and "adopted the bravado of the jocks they once despised." He's true to the original nerd position, despising the jocks, and, I'm guessing, that's where he gets his disgust for the nerds like Musk who take on the bravado of the jocks who once intimidated them. 

I know, I need to read some more of the Bogost oeuvre. Here's something else of his in The Atlantic, from a week ago, "All Soda Is Lemon-Lime Soda/It’s not a flavor; it’s a vibe." Ha ha. Great title. Small excerpt:

[In] 1772... the English chemist Joseph Priestley published his Directions for Impregnating Water With Fixed Air, the first influential manual for the artificial manufacture of carbonated water. Inheriting from the perceived health benefits of natural spa water, Priestley hoped to win over the British Admiralty on a method for improving water drunk at sea by, well, impregnating it with fixed air. Even without added flavors, carbonated water contains carbonic acid, giving it a mild taste in addition to its fizz: Plain synthetic seltzer has the sensibility of citrus.

In his treatise on artificial carbonation, Priestley makes the case for soda as a way of treating or preventing scurvy, partly on the grounds that it opposes “putrefaction” of the humors caused by dampness, poor discipline, and a noxious diet (among other factors). People were starting to recognize that citrus fruit could serve that purpose too.... 

२० टिप्पण्या:

Kate म्हणाले...

I have as much disdain for facebook gaming as Bogost has for the stench of Musk, so I'd never heard of Cow Clicker. Thanks for the link.

Instead of using the creativity of gaming to invent imaginative entertainment and social bonding, Bogost made a snide derivative of someone else's popular work.

I guarantee this guy is one of life's jocks. The nerds don't stand to one side, pointing and tittering behind their hand at the rubes.

RMc म्हणाले...

he's one of the nerds, but I'll infer that he's not one of the nerds who "took over the world"

We hate it when our friends become successful. (We hate it even more when our enemies do.)

rhhardin म्हणाले...

The trolls are mentally deranged, not nerds. Nerds are generally nice, asocial rather than antisocial. Cool is interesting to them, not power.

Dave Begley म्हणाले...

The Atlantic is just the NYT in long form, but not as long as The New Yorker. All of them are leftwing insanity posing as being intelligent. Fuck all of them. And WaPo too.

Enigma म्हणाले...

Nerds built the Internet for themselves in the 1970s and 1980s. They were on the intellectual edge and quite smart, so they kept balance to the extent that any nerd (e.g., with autism or Asperger's Syndrome) can ever be balanced. The Internet went mainstream with Windows 95, and then fully engulfed non-nerds with the rise of smartphones between 2007 and 2012.

Non-nerds demonstrated they DO NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES to live in an online geek world and remain sane or healthy. Girls become anxious and hyper critical, boys become passive and apathetic (see S. Korea's gaming culture), and the political class latches onto trivia (Twitter / X content) that they misclassify as end-of-the-world important.

After our current dysfunctional Karen-Woke-Narcissistic-Transgender-Passive-Aggressive non-nerds go extinct in a lemmings-like rush into the sea, the Amish and the nerds will take over. The Amish know when to set limits on technology, and when tech is destroying their mental health and culture. The Amish and Noble Savages will rise again.

boatbuilder म्हणाले...

"X" is more "juvenile" than ... "Twitter."

Really?

DaveL म्हणाले...

Is Ian Bogost the sort of man who felt naturally privileged to run the world before those horrible nerds broke out of their cage?

Yes. What is unfortunate for him is that he is limited to writing anti-nerd, anti-gaming polemics that no one reads. He is the gaming world's equivalent to Republicans who write thoughtful anti-Republican essays that now and then get printed in *cough* The Atlantic.

Aggie म्हणाले...

They're disgusting. Their world is disgusting. Deplorable.

rehajm म्हणाले...

I get the prof here: I tried Starry on a plane a few weeks ago. Pepsi’s anti-Sprite beverage Starry has interesting citrus notes I’ve never experienced before. Blew my mind…

…the blueberry-pomegranate Aha is still the airplane seat winner of 2023, though. No matter the flight attendants are pushing it- ‘the pilots are always stealing it!!!’ Gotta love a side hustle at FL 360…

Mike Yancey म्हणाले...

Most "nerds" are introverts. We're exhausted by human interaction and energized by either alone-time or work with machines.

They're just jealous that Musk is an extroverted "nerd". They don't know how to handle him. Plus: he operates by a creed of "The most entertaining outcome is the most likely".
They just hate that. Doesn't fit their "serious" worldview.

cassandra lite म्हणाले...

As I read, I couldn't help thinking of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

As for Priestley, a truly wonderful book is Steven Johnson's The Invention of Air.

PM म्हणाले...

Musk is making the #1- and #2- selling electric car in the world.
He's doing more to 'fight climate change' than any other human.
But...but...Twitter!

Narr म्हणाले...

Everything I've read of Steven Johnson's has been good--The Ghost Map, and How We Got To Now come to mind.

I think Prof. Bogost is more of a bore than a nerd.

For myself, I'm not a nerd at all. I'm old enough to have worked registration, handing out Hollerith cards in '72 or so, and have seen every advance in computers since; at work I was made aware of and often had to master some of the newest tech, and many friends and family
have been early and enthusiastic adopters and evangelists for their devices.

But none of that actually interests me very much, and it certainly doesn't excite me. Now, as back then, I have books to read and history to study, and all my games are played in meatspace.





JK Brown म्हणाले...

No, the nerds made the internet accessible then the middle-school mean girl vibe took over but encompassing all genders.

An observation by Russ Roberts on an Econtalk episode

There’s this meme that tech culture is solving one problem: “What is my mother no longer doing for me?” Or, as George Packer put it in 2013, “It suddenly occurred to me that the hottest tech start-ups are solving all the problems of being twenty years old, with cash on hand, because that’s who thinks them up.”

The easy money is drying up and those 20 year olds are now facing their 30s. Might we be seeing the Millennial "Big Chill"?

The Crack Emcee म्हणाले...

Considering Twitter was being used as an extension of government control, and X is not, I think the rebrand was necessary

Greg the Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Musk’s obsession with X as a brand... reminds us that the world’s richest man is a computer geek
Musk made teh first really viable electric cars, and created a rocket company the pretty much outperforms the rest of the world combined.

But to this moron he's a "computer geek". Because Ian Bogost is an idiot

Greg the Class Traitor म्हणाले...

"[O]nline life today descends from where it started, as a safe harbor for the computer nerds who made it."

So this scum bag loser's thesis is that it's a bad thing that people built a system that they liked, and was good for them?

What an entitled piece of shit

Fred Drinkwater म्हणाले...

Not again. Sigh.

Speaking as one who was there before the beginning, this "introvert nerds hiding behind computers" take has always annoyed me.

The people who invented the internet made the hardware/software TRANSPARENT, so the people could talk with each other. That was the whole point.

It was outsiders, those who were afraid of the scary blinking lights, who invented and promulgated the myth of the basement nerd.

Fred Drinkwater म्हणाले...

Not again. Sigh.

Speaking as one who was there before the beginning, this "introvert nerds hiding behind computers" take has always annoyed me.

The people who invented the internet made the hardware/software TRANSPARENT, so the people could talk with each other. That was the whole point.

It was outsiders, those who were afraid of the scary blinking lights, who invented and promulgated the myth of the basement nerd.

Assistant Village Idiot म्हणाले...

I don't get why people can even get away with saying that some group - nerds, jocks, women, incels, immigrants - have a putrid smell without getting immediately fired.