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.

I love indie music. I love the lo-fi, the music for the sake of music, the love and the passion, the honesty of the sound. And I love that by its very nature, you don’t often meet people who have the same music tastes as you. Even here in Santa Cruz I often start listing off bands only to get blank stairs in return. But it is so exciting to meet someone and find out they listen to Neutral Milk Hotel or Arcade Fire. Anyway, I just spent the evening reading a great indie comic about being 26. They list the soundtrack in the back of the book and it’s all bands I listen to. I wish I was more gifted musically, maybe then I could actually be in a band. Who knows, maybe someday I will.

Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Joss Whedon’s latest project, is up for viewing in full online through Hulu for a limited time.  Follow the link below for comic-superhero-musical awesomeness.  There is a few crude jokes but nothing too bad.

www.drhorrible.com

Seriously Fox, bring back Firefly. . . right now.

As I posted a few days ago, I’ve taken up reading comics recently and I have my first favorite (unless you count web comics like Questionable Content).  The comic Invincible is written by Robert Kirkman and drawn by Cory Walker, originally, and Ryan Ottley, currently.   It has a great sense of humor and is smart without being overly so.  Of the other two I picked up, they were alright.  Preacher was kind of a dud.  I was into the story at a couple of points but for the most part it wasn’t good enough for me to forgive the language and graphic violence.  I was just too in your face and over the top for me.  League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was good enough that I’ll probably read the next two volumes but not before finishing Invincible and then going back to Powers.  Speaking of Powers, one of the things I like about Invincible is the way that they include characters from other comics without really doing it.  The two main characters, Walker and Pilgrim, of Powers appear to investigate a crime scene in Invincible.  Anyway, I’m just wasting some time at Coffee Cat before heading back to Vintage for the night service.  I’m digging the change back to Daylight Savings though.

So I got up this morning and decided to do a little exploring.  I’ve been wanting to go over the hill to a place called Holy City for a while to see what is there.  Holy City is a utopian community that reached its height in the 1920′s and 30′s and is now largely abandoned.  I was hoping maybe to find a place that would make a good site for a future photo walk with Vintage.  Unfortunately, the only building that is really accessible to the public is an old garage.  The rest of the development is hidden behind a gate that says “NO TRESPASSING” in big bold letters.  If I was the more adventurous sort, I might press my luck and try to find a way in anyway, but I generally like to obey the law so it kind of nixed that plan.  Since I now found myself with not much else to do, I decided to drive back on the Old Santa Cruz-San Jose Highway.  It was a really nice drive on a bunch of windy two lane roads through the mountains.

After getting back over to this side of the mountains I headed over to Atlantis Fantasyworld and picked up some comics.  Between watching iFanboy and The Totally Rad Show I’ve decided my comic book collection and knowledge is the most neglected aspect of my geekness (ouch, Firefox spell check wants to change “geekness” to “meekness”).  I already picked up Volume 1 of Powers there last summer so today I added volume 1 of Preacher, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Invincible.  I’ve heard good things about all three so I’m excited to get home and start going through those.  I think if I had to choose between Marvel and DC I would side with Marvel but there is such a huge pile of back catalogue to go through it would take years to really get a grasp on it.  Instead I’ve decided to start out with some of the shorter run more independent type comics that I can actually get through.  They also seem to have a more adult nature to them, exploring morality and human nature in ways some more mainstream comics stay away from.

Anyway, I’m just waisting time at Coffee Cat right now.  I woke up at 9am this morning which left me with a lot more time than I’m used to on a Saturday.  So now it’s 3pm and I’ve run out of things to do.  I’ll probably go buy some girl scout cookies at Safeway and then head home to do some reading.  Anyway, later!

I forgot to post a few days ago a link to one of my favorite sites on the web. Xkcd is a web comic which routinely features math and geek jokes that are awesome. Some of my other favorites are here and here.  Be warned, though, there is strong language on occasion.  Hope you enjoy!