I’m a sell out. I think. But I’m not the only one. I think we all are. I think geek culture is dying and I think it’s our fault.

Maybe I should start from the beginning. I’m a 26 year old comic book reading, Josh Whedon adoring, podcast listening, Twitter addicted, iPhone carrying, computer building, photography nerd. These last couple years have been fantastic, the golden age of geekdom if you will. Comic book movies have ruled Hollywood, Dr. Horrible was a huge success, podcasts have risen from weekend projects to full content producing Internet tv channels (ie Rev3), photography has exploded in popularity, and Twitter has connected people in ways not previously possible. In the mainstream media shows like Numb3rs, Chuck, Bones, The Big Bang Theory, and The OC have all highlighted geek as cool. Even in fashion, big plastic rimmed glasses, nerdy t-shirts, jeans, and the messenger bag have become the uniform de jure of the nerdy and hip. It’s been fantastic to see the general public turn from jokes about computer nerds to accepting an understanding of file systems and operating systems as valuable knowledge to be sought out. I think the high water mark of geekdom was when Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose of Diggnation went on the Jimmy Fallon show to drink beer and talk Twitter. We’ve gone from the margins of the lunch room to the cool kids table. And it feels fantastic.

But this all came at a price, and I don’t think we realized it.

When Ashton Kutcher became the first person with one million followers on Twitter and then Oprah joined and gained hundreds of thousands of followers without even tweeting anything, Twitter went from being about connecting people to being a high school popularity contest all over again. Geek culture, like all sub-cultures, used to be about “cred.” Could you prove you belonged. The “real” world was full of people who didn’t get it or didn’t understand. People who didn’t realize what they were missing out on when we played Lego Star Wars and quoted every missing line in proper voice without subtitles. Didn’t understand why WarGames is one of the greatest movies of all time. People who didn’t stay up until 2am playing text based RPG’s over a modem connection to a local BBS. People who don’t know what a BBS is. It was this cool niche that was small but it was ours. Then one day a couple of the cool kids got kinda interested in what we were up to and instead of playing it close to our chest, we threw open the floodgates and let out a torrent of years of pent up longing to be cool. Spiderman and X-Men made reading comic books cool. We got to wear those things as badges of honor. We were here first and finally someone cared about it.

But then we lost control of it.

Money in Hollywood dictated that shows like Firefly didn’t have high enough ratings and were canceled. Ashton Kutcher turned Twitter into his own personal ego boost. Internet communities which used to be about connecting with like minded people have become replaced with people pushing their personal brand. Everyone wants followers, page views, click-throughs. With page views comes money. With followers comes power. Just look at the explosion of SEO and social media experts, not just on Twitter, on the Internet. They are everywhere! People offering to sell you their sure-fire secret for how to drive traffic to your page so you can make money on Google Ad-Sense. It’s not about us anymore, it’s about money. Our little private beach paradise had become the over crowded tourist spot.

But it’s not all bad.

There has been some good come out of this all. I’ve definitely met really cool people through Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook that I never would have met otherwise. I’m addicted being connected 24/7. I love that I can put a photo on Flickr and almost instantly get feedback on the quality of my work. I love that I can also share those photos with friends and family who live thousands of miles away. And I will continue using many of these sites and technologies in the future. I’m just a little sad that @aplusk drove a bulldozer through the wall of our private garden sanctuary and invited a million frat guys over for a kegger.

Filed under: blogging, life by Jonathan