Most of the volunteers were male and being a female who found it hard to prove my “nerd card” in a world dominated by a mass amount of male characters in one building. I found it hard to stand out in my own with my limited knowledge. When I first started blogging in this culture, I started it as a fan of the BBC Show Doctor Who. I then found myself in a community of bloggers with similar interests. They became my inspirations on what I could do. Around this time we were only a small group that hid in the shadows the focused on female bloggers of the same genre. The night of the convention they had an event called Day Zero where all the volunteers and the vendors met before the opening day. I was nervous because most of these people were so involved in what they loved, but I was still getting to know all of this. Two brothers came down from San Francisco, and like me they were terrified by this crazy world of geek culture conventions. Between the two of them, the knowledge of the culture was split between the two. Being from a generation where geek culture has had a bigger influence on younger generation for a little over ten …show more content…
A recent book called The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy: A handbook for Geek Girls has brought a through idea on what it means to be a female in the geek community. Sam Maggs the author points out that the reason she printed out the book is because “Being a geek girl is the best thing and here are all the ways you can do more nerdy things that are awesome and don’t apologize for it because you are the best person out there and I’m so proud of you and you’re beautiful.” This phrase within the book gives me a proud sense on what it means a girl of the geek community but with comes a set of lingo that leaves just as stupefied as a learn more about this culture and what I have come to love. Even if I am taking it slowly learning as I
Bauerlein begins his piece by asserting that “digital diversions,” which is anything technological that distracts the younger generation from finer past times, are in fact cutting the younger generation off from culturally enhancing mediums and is in turn making the teenagers less intelligent. Bauerlein continues to claim that it is the responsibility of adults to guide the younger generation towards meaningful topics. The author adds that teenagers live life minute to minute and because of that suggests that the younger generation is not concerned with the past. Bauerlein states that because of technological advances, including cell phones teenagers are in constant contact with each other. The author states that this constant contact with peers makes it very difficult for adults in the younger generation’s life to guide them toward cultural topics. Bauerlein then adds that if the younger generation continues to indulge in “digital diversions” and is not guided by adults to finer pastimes by the time they are in college they will never take part in high culture. Bauerlein concludes that “digital diversions” and lack of adult guidance will result in a less intelligent generation.
In Leonid Fridman’s passage entitled “America Needs Its Nerds”, Fridman discusses why ‘nerds’ are needed in society. In his passage he develops his argument through comparison. He compares nerds to freaks and athletes to develop his argument that there is something wrong with america’s values.
The 12th street workshop was an open and topic discussion AA meeting. It was on a basement of a small building. It was on Monday afternoon and I was surprised by the number of people were there; about 18 – 20 attendees. I looked around the room and observed the people. There were people young
“We are huge nerds and we are nerds that want to share that passion with other students, specifically for girls, young girls that get told being nerdy isn’t cool. We want to change that, and that starts from the bottom,” Jawaharlal said on the
The nerd trope is ubiquitous to American media and culture. Usually, it’s an academically ambitious kid who has beyond thick glasses, tucked pants, and acne: a target. Leonid Fridman takes on this stereotype in “America Needs Its Nerds.” Fridman condemns America’s neglect and contempt for intellect. He argues that America’s perspective is self-destructive through the use of definition, example, and patriotism.
At the time we arrived at an elegant hotel, the conference had already started. We hurried to carry our luggage to our assigned hotel rooms. In a matter of seconds, we were sitting in a circle, introducing ourselves to each other and playing different types of ice breakers. I didn’t know anyone besides the members from my group, however, that did not stop the feeling I was feeling at that moment. I felt like I knew those teenagers already, and their charisma just made it so comfortable for me to open up to them.
The paradox of "cool hunting" is that it kills what it finds. In America, as well as across the globe, trends are consistently changing and the trend spotters are trying to keep up with the ever changing ideas of today’s teenagers. Every big-city scene-kid or bored teenager in the suburbs stays connected to the moment's hot clubs, restaurants, hobbies and clothing. Trend Spotters travel the world, watch people shop, eat, and mingle, videotape and photograph them, study census data, examine online journals, chat online with tens of thousands of potential customers, and devour every slice of pop culture in order to keep up with the trends.
The rise and fall of Good Times, how did it begin and how did it end? How did the show get it season? What ever happened to John Amos? How did African Americans portray the show and did other cultures also watch it? According to IMBD Good Times was a spin-off from the sitcom Maude (1972), there were no actual references to that show or its characters. In that series, Florida was employed as Maude Findlay's housekeeper in suburban New York and her husband Henry was employed as a firefighter. So on Good Times (1974), Florida and her husband James live in Chicago with their three kids JJ, Michael, and Thelma and there is no mention of their previous jobs. James never went by the name of Henry or them ever having lived in New York. In fact, Florida and neighbor Willona Woods are longtime friends and believed to have lived in Chicago for several years. Although, in one episode Florida did mention that she was house cleaner.
The event was attended as a normal member of the community and this allowed the experience to be more personal to the reader to make it more interesting and relatable.
On an individual basis, popular culture helps establish and mold the subjective self. It influences the way individuals think, act and respond, and this becomes part of how people develop their personalities, preferences, beliefs, and their overall identity. For example, most people idolize certain fashion statements or fads which determines their preference of clothing. This process of self-formation coincides with both elements of personal choice and the responses and attitudes of others. Furthermore, the identity that an individual asserts is influenced by and helps determine the development of social relationships; it influences the communities and groups to which an individual will identify with and how that identification is processed. In the establishment of communal bonding, mass culture helps with, as Leavis describes, a “leveling down of society” (35). The lines of class distinction have been blurred which, to Leavis is not a good thing, but it unites us nonetheless. Popular culture also promotes unity in that it “blurs age lines” (29). As stated earlier, the products of popular culture are targeted towards a variety of audiences; adults read comic books, children watch adult films, etc. (Macdonald 29). Similarly, teenagers and young adults are brought together through night clubs, fashion, and music; college students come together to enjoy campus events; book fans wait in line hours for new releases, etc. Each of these instances produce feelings of belonging, acceptance and connection with members of society over a common
Over my past two and a half years of high school, I have participated in many activities. From the many events I contributed to and the many activities I took part in, two activities taught me much about myself and also helped me teach others. The first one I would like to introduce is Diversity Night at Carl Wunsche Senior High School. Diversity Night is an eventful night in which different cultures around the world are represented by individual booths.
As a volunteer during the annual SXSW festival hosted in Austin, Texas, I was introduced and worked alongside people whose beliefs and experiences are very diverse from those of my own.
Have you ever wanted to fit in? In “Revenge of the Geeks” by Alexandra Robbins, a girl at school suddenly getting called a geek because she wanted to get fit in the group. There are many mistakes that have been when you mess or try to fit in a crowd and they are include how people disdained one another and how she feels about the situation students going through.
There are many ways to define popular culture. Many individuals have grappled with the question what is popular culture? And how to critically analyze and deconstruct the meanings. Looking at the root words of popular culture is where to begin. Raymond Williams states ‘popular’ means: “well liked by many people" or “culture actually made for the people themselves (Storey, p.5). This is part with the word ‘culture’ combine to look at how the two words have been connect by theoretical work within social and historical context. John Storey approaches popular culture in six categories, they are as followed: “Popular culture is simply culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people”, Popular culture is “the culture that is left over after we have decided what is high culture”, Popular culture is “mass culture”, “Popular culture is the culture that originates from ‘the people.” and “Popular culture as a site of struggle
Anthropologists define the term culture in a variety of ways, but there are certain shared features of the definition that virtually all anthropologists agree on. Culture is a shared, socially transmitted knowledge and behavior. The key features of this definition of culture are as follows. 1) Culture is shared among the members of that particular society or group. Thus, people share a common cultural identity, meaning that they recognize themselves and their culture's traditions as distinct from other people and other traditions. 2) Culture is socially transmitted from others while growing up in a certain environment, group, or society. The transmission of cultural knowledge to the next generation by means of social learning is referred to as enculturation or socialization. 3) Culture profoundly affects the knowledge, actions, and feelings of the people in that particular society or group. This concept is often referred to as cultural knowledge that leads to behavior that is meaningful to others and adaptive to the natural and social environment of that particular culture.