What is the current "Geek/Nerd canon"

[2D8HP]

"Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel"


When I was a youth the shared "mythology" that we Dungeons & Dragons players drew allegories and allusions from largely consisted of:

1) The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings

2) Monty Python (especially Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

3) Star Trek

4) Star Wars

and

5) Conan.


I see lots of references to Firefly and Harry Potter now, what else is part of the current "Canon"?

[Mith]

In my experience, not so much Conan, no Firefly, but everything else you listed is referenced. Along with Discworld.

[The Eye]

I see a lot of skyrim and dark souls.

[Thrudd]

I gather it's mostly video games, Japanese animation and whatever other cartoon action series have been on tv, a few movies, and almost no books.

The "Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" that are now prominent in the geek-o-sphere are the Peter Jackson movies, rather than the books.

The Star Wars the new generation think of includes the prequels and the cartoon shows in an equal position with the original trilogy.

I don't think anybody knows or cares what old Sword & Sorcery fantasy is. Unless they've made a video game like it (which I don't think they have), it isn't a thing kids know about.

I talked to a gamer kid in my class the other day who had never seen "Conan the Barbarian". #sad

"The Matrix" is probably in there, even though it's almost 20 years old now (omg I'm getting old)


That's the way of things, I suppose.

There's also three plus decades of material to go through, with a lot more fantasy and science fiction content than existed back then. There isn't just one "canon" anymore, because there's just too much content for anyone to have seen/read. Geek-dom is broken into a hundred different factions with their own niche preferences. It is a dark time for the rebellion.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I'm not sure there's a consistent source everyone in my gaming group draws from. Certainly, I don't really draw from most of those because for example while I have generally liked Star Trek, I am not really sure how much of it other people I've been around know about it. The other things mentioned so far aren't things I'm terribly familiar with.

I think Avatar (animated) comes up every now and then. But that's just about the only thing that comes to mind other than occasionally OOTS.

Oh, and the Cthulhu mythos in general.

I've heard plenty of references from others about The Princess Bride, though. Surprised it wasn't listed.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, in general, everything is in there, but each person and group will be a bit different.

You start with the three time types: 1.Only likes old stuff 2. Only likes new stuff and 3. Likes the stuff they like no matter the time.

Of course that vast majority of older gamers only like the old stuff, and the vast majority of the kids (really anyone under 30) like only the coolz new stuff.

But then you need to factor in the persons back ground. The kid years of 5 to 15 or so are magical as there is not much ''in'' a modern kids world, so they have a ton of time to explore as much fiction as they want. It's hard to replace that ''kids freedom to do stuff'' as an adult, as real life gets in the way.

And more so, in 2017, it's easy to know at least a bit about something without being a fan as media is so prevalent.

[Adderbane]

Since the geeks and nerds have been taking over popular culture for the bast couple decades, it's grown large enough that it's quite fragmented. I'm not sure a single canon could be established or agreed upon.

[2D8HP]

....I've heard plenty of references from others about The Princess Bride, though. Surprised it wasn't listed.


The Princess Bride?

:cool:

I saw and really enjoyed that movie!

Sadly, it came out after I mostly stopped playing D&D so I never heard it referenced at a table.

Glad to know it's part of the "canon"!

[Lord Raziere]

Since the geeks and nerds have been taking over popular culture for the bast couple decades, it's grown large enough that it's quite fragmented. I'm not sure a single canon could be established or agreed upon.

This.

Star Trek nor Monty Python aren't things I really care for, while I'm huge into anime and superheroes. I've read a couple Discworld books but didn't find them all that funny or interesting myself. I'm not even really interested in a geek canon at all, whats wrong with it being fragmented? we don't need some stupid unified mythological whatever, we're nerds, we can be whatever we want.

[Kitten Champion]

Just going strictly by my tabletop groups, which are composed of a mix of millennials and gen-xers (I believe that's what 80's kids are called).

There's Harry Potter, which is a fairly unremarkable reference point for everyone at this point.

Pokemon's there as well, though which point in the franchise you're most aware of differs. Nintendo games and their associated references have a fairly deep place in the psyche for everyone.

There are still a lot of Simpsons references, though the more popular Cartoon Network stuff like Steven Universe and Adventure Time has supplanted it a bit.

Then there's also the MCU, which is the common ground for what comics and the superhero genre is. Essentially, when the word Marvel comes up it's generally understood to be what's being referenced.

Game of Thrones comes up, but it's not a specific reference thing and more a "We know what Game of Thrones stereotypically is" kind of thing.

Other than that Star Trek and Star Wars are known properties, still.

[Mechalich]

The generalized mainstreaming of what was once a modest cultural niche has seen Geek/Nerd culture expand to include so much stuff that it's almost impossible to talk about a large shared repertoire, especially given the large number of strong cross-cultural influences (anime obviously, but also wuxia films and others). At this point the question is far too broad.

You could talk about the high fantasy canon or the speculative science fiction canon, or the TTRPG inspiration canon to narrow things down to something more reasonable.


Just going strictly by my tabletop groups, which are composed of a mix of millennials and gen-xers (I believe that's what 80's kids are called).

80s kids are Millennials. The millennial demographic cohort includes birthdates ranging from roughly 1981 to around 1998-2001, though there's no precise agreement. Generation X is the cohort that preceded this, beginning somewhere in the mid to late 1960s (usually 1965). Generation Z is the post-Millennial generation and is best defined by never having known life without the internet.

[Darth Ultron]

After the internet, there is just too much to keep track of for any normal person. And it's only worse with dozens of creative outlets making dozens of things. Bump into any ''geek'' that they might like xyz on ptq or something you never heard off.






80s kids are Millennials. The millennial demographic cohort includes birthdates ranging from roughly 1981 to around 1998-2001, though there's no precise agreement. Generation X is the cohort that preceded this, beginning somewhere in the mid to late 1960s (usually 1965). Generation Z is the post-Millennial generation and is best defined by never having known life without the internet.

The ones I see the most are:

Generation X :1972 to 1983
Generation Y:1984 to 1994
Generation Z: 1995 to 2000
Melinenails: 2000+

[2D8HP]

Generation X :1972 to 1983
Generation Y:1984 to 1994
Generation Z: 1995 to 2000
Melinenails: 2000+


:redface:

Oh wow that makes me a "boomer" (born in '68)!

As a youth I hated the boomers (and displayed a Dead Kennedy's sticker to express it).

Now I am one.

[Starbuck_II]

Don't forget Quantum Leap, Sliders, etc stuff that is more than 20 years old now.
Can't believe I am a Gen X/Millennial since I am 83' born.

[Darth Ultron]

Really times have changed a lot.

Pre 2000 or so...there just was not all that much stuff for geeks. Even more so if you break it down by year. And it was much harder to watch shows, and there was no ''on demand''.

Like take Star Trek: The Next Generation. My local UHF station (remember those) put it on at 7 PM on Saturday nights. Not the best time to watch. Luckily by the late 80's I had a VCR... But still a lot of fan would miss the show, and a lot of potential fans would not even know it existed. So chances are only about half of ''geek circle'' would have seen any episode at any one time and everyone else was clueless. Say ''Borg'' to someone in say '92, and they will say ''a cyborg like Robocop?" and not think of TNG.

Or Doctor Who...back in the 80's there was only real way to watch Dr. Who: on PBS. Though it was awesome as they would play a whole ''show'' and not just the ''episodes'' and with no commercials....except for pledge time. It took years for Dr. Who VCR tapes to show up...and they cost an arm and a leg (and they still do, you get like 1/3 of a ''series'' for like $75)

Though it was hard to even find out about new shows. You had like commercials, word of mouth, and the TV Guide special edition on the New Fall Shows. Still you could miss a show no problem.

As a huge Quantum Leap and Sliders fan, and watched both live.....but a geek even just a couple years younger then me has no idea what they are (but they learn quick if they play a game with me as I use ''putting right what once went wrong'' and ''sliding'' a lot in games).


Video games, anime and other cartoons, and lots of the Disney stuff was far into the future. Like sure we played Gauntlet at the arcade, and when we played D&D and a character was badly hurt we'd say ''fighter needs food, badly!" but that is nothing compared to the complex ''story'' video games of the last dozen or so years.

[2D8HP]

...Or Doctor Who...back in the 80's there was only real way to watch Dr. Who: on PBS....


Oh man, I used to have to stand at the TV holding the antenna to watch episodes.

It was a treat to finally see an unfuzzy episode at the same convention that I met Patrick Troughton (second Doctor)m

I also met William Shatner at the "Federation Trading Post" off Telegraph Avenue in the 1970's. I had his album!


Video games, anime and other cartoons, and lots of the Disney stuff.. .


When I first started reading this Forum, I would furiously "Google" away to find out what people were referencing, 9 out of 10 times, it would be anime or a video game.

Since I was so "out of it" during most of the 21st Century, I shouldn't be surprised by all the allusions that I don't get, but what does suprise me is how many still riff on Monty Python.

[Trekkin]

There is no canon. Everybody judges you for the media you admit to consuming -- or, more accurately in many of these cases, rationalizes those admissions into justification for their existing prejudices. There's no common experience. There's just a fractal series of shibboleths that stand ready to give those geeks/nerds a reason to exclude and subsequently mock you because you don't watch the right shows or didn't hate the right episodes of those shows for the right reasons or otherwise don't conform to their dysfunctionally idiosyncratic definition of true fandom.

In other words, show me a piece of media and I'll find you a nerd clade whose identity is predicated on never having liked it and not liking "those people" who do.* As people have said, the concept of being geeky has been mass-marketed beyond recognizability, and in consequence there's a whole lot of bitterness and toxicity swirling around the concept of fandom. People's deep-seated need to be jerks obviates any possibility of a global canon.


*This is rhetorical. Actually doing this is deeply depressing.

[McNum]

My Little Pony is probably part of it by now, too.

Friendship is Magic is on its seventh season and is honestly old news on the internet by now. But even people who aren't fans themselves probably know of it enough to catch some of the more overt references to it purely by cultural osmosis. That and it's begun to get regular shout-outs in other media, some more subtle than others.

[Adderbane]

My Little Pony is probably part of it by now, too.

Friendship is Magic is on its seventh season and is honestly old news on the internet by now. But even people who aren't fans themselves probably know of it enough to catch some of the more overt references to it purely by cultural osmosis. That and it's begun to get regular shout-outs in other media, some more subtle than others.

It helps that it has a number of high profile fans. William Shatner guest starred in a recent episode.

But even then, most people who would consider themselves geeks/nerds probably are only vaguely familiar with it; it doesn't have the same saturation that LotR or Star Wars used to have. And most of the big stuff recently like Harry Potter and the MCU are just as big outside the geek/nerd population as within.

To borrow a real world analogy, like the Church the geek/nerd culture has been split into many different "denominations", which can be vastly different even though they look similar at a glance.

[tensai_oni]

The ones I see the most are:

Generation X :1972 to 1983
Generation Y:1984 to 1994
Generation Z: 1995 to 2000
Melinenails: 2000+

That's incorrect, and also the word you are looking for is "millenials".

Baby boomers: Post-WW II
Gen X: early 60s to 1980
Millenials/Gen Y (same thing): Early 80s to 2000
Gen Z: post-2000

A generation is 15-20 years, not 10 (or 5 in your example of Gen Z).

[2D8HP]

That's incorrect...

A generation is 15-20 years, not 10 (or 5 in your example of Gen Z).


*whew*

Okay that means I'm still "X" not "Boom".

*Takes Rolling Stones off the turntable, and puts on Gang of Four*

[Mikemical]

If you were to take a look at today's media and Hollywood's understanding of 'nerds'/'geeks', I'd say that it would be this:

1) Videogames(either Halo or some FPS, who's Zelda and why should her legend interest me?).

2) World of Warcraft(because MMORPGs aren't the same as videogames in Hollywood, silly).

3) The Hobbit/TLOR movies, might mention having read/owning the books.

4) Pop-culture references(Back to the Future, Doctor Who, Star Wars/Trek, etc).

5) Superhero comics/movies.

6) D&D, but no Edition ever named.

7) Harry Potter.