I re-iterate: It's not up to you to decide whether someone is a "fake" member of a subculture or not. Membership is up to that person - if they identify as a member of a subculture, they get to be a member of that subculture. You can think what you want about them, but trying to strip them of that identity is wrong.
I'm sure none of you are actually trying to be exclusionary, I just want to make sure everybody understands that point. Also, calling people "fake" feeds into my irritation with people's obsession over fairly arbitrary standards of "authenticity."
This this this this this! If you really have to call somebody out, call them out on what they do, not who they are.
Uh....so if I call someone out on WHAT THEY DO, and how it conflicts with WHAT THEY CLAIM THEY ARE, how is it different than saying someone is "fake?"
Or are you really just calling for people to qualify and justify their accusations of being fake? Because that's what we should be doing, I agree.
WTF? How is this a discussion? Why does anyone care?
Publicly claiming an identity when it is not part of your self-identity is, to a degree, faking. The thing is, that distinction means that other people don't actually know what your self-identity is, only the identities that you publicly express. The only way to definitively know that somebody is faking an identity is if they tell you that they're faking it.
I'm not opposing the social exclusion of people - I'm merely opposing that you can publicly deny someone's identity as part of a group based on a No True Scotsman-esque "but they're not really part of this group" claim that's based on an arbitrary authenticity standard. You can certainly exclude someone from a social group if they're a bad person, or you just don't get along, or for whatever other reason. But you cannot prevent them from identifying as part of a group or subculture based on those judgements.
Now, that also doesn't hold if the standards for membership are non-arbitrary - for instance, the identities "lawyer" and "veteran" are based on specifically holding the rights to practice law and having served in the military. But the identity "otaku" doesn't have that standard, and so is defined only by self-identifying as an otaku.
WTF? How is this a discussion? Why does anyone care?
I'm a purple, sparkly unicorn. You gunna argue?
Because being nerdy has no set, formal qualifications, while being a purple sparkly unicorn does. As a result, if the person in question doesn't jive with your interests and beliefs as a nerd, then you call them poser. It's a no true Scottsman argument, really.
Guys, what you are talking about is a very old thing. It is called a poser. For example, somebody who dresses in skater fashion, buys a fancy skateboard, hangs around the skate park, tries to be friends with skater people, but doesn't actually enjoy skateboarding, doesn't practice, and sucks at it. That is a poser.
A poser puts on the airs of a member of a particular group for whatever reason, usually just to make some friends. However, they don't actually enjoy or participate in the defining activity of that group. Think about someone who wears some crappy cat ear Naruto headband cosplay and goes to an anime convention, but has never watched any anime ever.
We're talking about nomenclature. That's basically all I do.
Yes, robbing people of their identity is a dick move. That's not quite the same as group exclusion.
Precisely. I guess my argument is that calling someone a "fake" or a "poser" is a form of trying to exclude someone from an identity, rather than a group.
Precisely. I guess my argument is that calling someone a "fake" or a "poser" is a form of trying to exclude someone from an identity, rather than a group.
So the next best question is if the "nerd" zeitgeist accepts people who profess love for TF2 and Reddit as members of it's culture.
I guess I'll go into more detail about what specifically I was talking about.
At the hackathon this weekend there was only one person who mentioned Reddit or any video game in the course of all of the presentations. These were serious presentations, with real cash prizes at stake, and very critical judges and an audience of (somewhat) like-minded peers. If you can't do a serious 8-minute presentation without ham-fistedly mentioning Reddit or Team Fortress 2, I think that says something about you. It screams "attention whore." I feel that if you're into geekery for the attention, that's not genuine. I don't think you're being true to yourself.
I really think a better solution to provide healthcare to Americans is to just expand Medicaid to include all Americans, and then say anyone who wants to buy extra healthcare from a company can.
I really think a better solution to provide healthcare to Americans is to just expand Medicaid to include all Americans, and then say anyone who wants to buy extra healthcare from a company can.
There's a name for this. I believe the name is "Universal Health Care."
I really think a better solution to provide healthcare to Americans is to just expand Medicaid to include all Americans, and then say anyone who wants to buy extra healthcare from a company can.
There's a name for this. I believe the name is "Universal Health Care."
It's also roughly how Switzerland operates from what I understand.
I really think a better solution to provide healthcare to Americans is to just expand Medicaid to include all Americans, and then say anyone who wants to buy extra healthcare from a company can.
There's a name for this. I believe the name is "Universal Health Care."
I really think a better solution to provide healthcare to Americans is to just expand Medicaid to include all Americans, and then say anyone who wants to buy extra healthcare from a company can.
There's a name for this. I believe the name is "Universal Health Care."
Yep, and I'm okay with that. all we have to do is frame it like I did and we might avoid the cries of "socialism!" for enough to get it passed.
I found a good article rebutting this dumb "fake nerd girls suck" complaining in Forbes, and I retweeted it. I am to lazy to find the link at the moment.
I found a good article rebutting this dumb "fake nerd girls suck" complaining in Forbes, and I retweeted it. I am to lazy to find the link at the moment.
If they can't answer "Kirk or Picard?" then they're not true nerdy girls.
I found a good article rebutting this dumb "fake nerd girls suck" complaining in Forbes, and I retweeted it. I am to lazy to find the link at the moment.
If they can't answer "Kirk or Picard?" then they're not true nerdy girls.
Not every nerd likes Star Trek, Mr. No-true-scotsmanSpocksman.
Computer Vision Homework: Intense four part lab on stereo camera calibration using epipolar geometry and singular value decomposition.
iPhone Programming Homework: Write a paragraph proposal on the app you will build for your final project.
Guess which one I just spent three hours daydreaming about, and which one I'm just about to start now. Regrets? Not really. Doodling mock-ups and daydreaming game mechanics was just what this overworked student needed. Now for some caffeine and linear algebra!
I was responding to Neito saying "UPD." In retrospect, I was thinking of UPN -- the United Provinces of the Netherlands -- the first government installed after Spanish rule.
Computer Vision Homework: Intense four part lab on stereo camera calibration using epipolar geometry and singular value decomposition.
iPhone Programming Homework: Write a paragraph proposal on the app you will build for your final project.
Guess which one I just spent three hours daydreaming about, and which one I'm just about to start now. Regrets? Not really. Doodling mock-ups and daydreaming game mechanics was just what this overworked student needed. Now for some caffeine and linear algebra!
Comments
I'm a purple, sparkly unicorn. You gunna argue?
I'm not opposing the social exclusion of people - I'm merely opposing that you can publicly deny someone's identity as part of a group based on a No True Scotsman-esque "but they're not really part of this group" claim that's based on an arbitrary authenticity standard. You can certainly exclude someone from a social group if they're a bad person, or you just don't get along, or for whatever other reason. But you cannot prevent them from identifying as part of a group or subculture based on those judgements.
Now, that also doesn't hold if the standards for membership are non-arbitrary - for instance, the identities "lawyer" and "veteran" are based on specifically holding the rights to practice law and having served in the military. But the identity "otaku" doesn't have that standard, and so is defined only by self-identifying as an otaku.
A poser puts on the airs of a member of a particular group for whatever reason, usually just to make some friends. However, they don't actually enjoy or participate in the defining activity of that group. Think about someone who wears some crappy cat ear Naruto headband cosplay and goes to an anime convention, but has never watched any anime ever.
We're talking about nomenclature. That's basically all I do.
Yes, robbing people of their identity is a dick move. That's not quite the same as group exclusion.
At the hackathon this weekend there was only one person who mentioned Reddit or any video game in the course of all of the presentations. These were serious presentations, with real cash prizes at stake, and very critical judges and an audience of (somewhat) like-minded peers. If you can't do a serious 8-minute presentation without ham-fistedly mentioning Reddit or Team Fortress 2, I think that says something about you. It screams "attention whore." I feel that if you're into geekery for the attention, that's not genuine. I don't think you're being true to yourself.
I don't want no GOVERNMENT in my MEDICARE!
Holy shit I hate people so much right now.
iPhone Programming Homework: Write a paragraph proposal on the app you will build for your final project.
Guess which one I just spent three hours daydreaming about, and which one I'm just about to start now. Regrets? Not really. Doodling mock-ups and daydreaming game mechanics was just what this overworked student needed. Now for some caffeine and linear algebra!