Aram Zucker-Scharff

“If it was adolescent then, more mean-spirited fun than outright malice, it is now a frighteningly adult enterprise where the joke is lost somewhere amid the sexual harassment and death threats. What began as the occasional doxxing of a Tumblr user or…

“”The essence of confidence is the ability to handle critiques and the existence of challengers with grace and security in your own position. If what deBoer is describing is a permanent state, though, then a certain subset of angry geeks will prove themselves to be exactly what the once-dominant culture said they were all along: myopic and insecure. The hysterical reactions to criticism and challenge do far more damage to the proposition that geek culture contains rich forms, stories and communities worth taking seriously than any critic ever could.””

– Geeks have become their own worst enemies.

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“The problem with winners self-identifying as losers: once you’ve cast yourself as a victim in your own mind, there’s no need to interrogate your own behavior.

There is an alternative: solidarity. […]

I fear too that we have come to so thoroughly associate fandom with grievance that the two are now inextricable. That, I suspect, is the long-term consequence of the rise of the geeks: that we no longer know how to enjoy art without enjoying it against others. “

”

– A really fascinating debate unit over at the New York Times. All the articles are really interesting, but this one hit a chord. Some of the phrasing (that headline…) is more meant to incite, but the underlying point… has a point.

Why people hate Phil Fish.

People cared about racism only insomuch as it let them hate Phil Fish.