Aram Zucker-Scharff

Scorpion Brings the Stupidest, Most Batshit Insane Hacker Scene Ever:

So Scorpion debuted last night on CBS, bringing us the thrilling tale of “geniuses” who help DHS by setting up wifi access points in restaurants. Yes, that is a true plot point. It all leads to this scene, whose true meaning I will unfold for you so that you can appreciate the full amazing awfulness.

Surprise! (Not a surprise.)

From ad one for this series I knew it looked terrible. It was: let’s take all of the shitty stereotyping of ‘geeks’, intelligent people, scientists, etc… from Big Bang Theory and double-down on it by making all the characters less able to function in reality (because geniuses can only be “relatable” if we render them non-threatening by making them totally socially inept, otherwise: oh noes, intelligent people, we hate functional intelligent people. Yay keeping up the anti-intellectualism in America, that will never have consequences.) and throw in a network-TV-producer’s level of intelligence about how computers work.

It’s not like I intended to watch it, but I’m glad to be wholly reinforced in that assumption.

“”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.

butmyopinionisright:

I’ve been meaning to post something about The Big Bang Theory for a while now but it’s taken me ‘till now to really understand what it is about the show that makes me uncomfortable. I’m not exactly a believer in the whole…

It would be fair to say that Mass Effect 2 received universal acclaim from critics when it was released. It didn’t deserve it. Whatever the reason, the game journalism community gave ME2 a critical pass.

With Mass Effect 3’s demo coming out in less than a week, I’m revisiting Mass Effect 2 in a four part series. This first post will look at some significant flaws with characters in the game.

10: Mordin the geeksploitation.

Mordin’s character is the geek on the team. While the rest of your team have superpowers or are action stars, Mordin’s the guy who spends the time he isn’t in your squad sitting around doing research in the lab. Mordin, “the professor,” is a stand-in for the average video-game-playing audience, or at least the type of person who’s expected to like the RPG-stylings of the original Mass Effect.

How is he characterized then?