Master Thesis Comparative Literature
The Melting Glacier of Geek Identity
University of Amsterdam David Claassen, 6132863 Dr. Murat Aydemir June 15, 2015
Table of Contents
Chapter Content page
Abstract 5
1. Introduction: The Nerd as a Contemporary Identity 5
2. Objects: Ready Player One and Dodgeball 9
3. Zooming out: Production, Distribution and the Author 13
4. Origins: The Nerd in High School 18
5. The Nerd and the Internet: Collectivization 21
6. Geek Culture: Obsessive Interest 25
7. Role-Playing: The Geek as a Gamer 29
8. Capitalism: The Geek as Anti-Capitalist Rebel and as Capitalist Competitor
33
9. Popularity: From Outcast to Cool Cat 41
Conclusion 46
Appendix 49
Abstract
This paper will establish what the geek identity is by looking at its historical development and its contemporary position in American society. Furthermore, it will argue that the nerd
identity is establishing a paradoxical position in contemporary society: traditionally he represented a social misfit but nowadays, his identity simultaneously and ambiguously embodies a new, ‘cool’ identity. Ultimately, this paper attempts to account for this essential ambivalence. To exemplify and illustrate my research, I have chosen two objects, namely the novel Ready Player One (2011) and the film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004). Chapter 1. Introduction: The Nerd as a Contemporary Identity 1
I was sitting in the bus the other day. This guy was standing in front of me. He was wearing sneakers, a NY-cap, an Adidas hoody and designer glasses with no apparent eye-enhancing function; your typical cool kid. What struck me was that this adolescent, perhaps 22 years old, was engulfed in a comic book, one of the later issues of DC Comics’ Batman. According to this
self-conscious individual, it was apparently all right to be seen in public reading a comic book, perhaps even cool.
My hypothesis in this paper is that ‘the nerd’ as an identity, and in its extent the objects he is engaged with, have moved from distinctively unpopular to cool. The popular geek parade is led by nerds such as Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, who rate amongst the wealthiest contemporary celebrities and personify the possibilities that tech-savvy geeks have in an increasingly technological society. The nerd star has risen notably in cultural production as well, ranging from the growing popularity of nerdy actors2 to TV-shows about nerds3 and the
glorification of nerdish themes4 and characters5 in dozens of blockbuster Hollywood films.
The fact that, geek chic¸ a clothing style that is based on stereotypical depictions of the geek appearance is currently in fashion could even signify that the popularity of the geek identity is at its highest point. In any case, geek culture seems to have become embedded in
1 I want to mention that my research is greatly indebted to Jason Tocci. In his dissertation Geek cultures: Media and identity in the digital age (2009), he defines and describes different aspects of the nerd as an identity and his work largely contributed to this paper. Tocci emphasizes that geek identity should not be understood as a single or solid entity. Rather, the geek identity is constructed ‘around four common, sometimes overlapping images and stereotypes: the geek as misfit, genius, fan, and chic’ (IV, Tocci). He defines the stereotypical geek eloquently as a ‘tech-savvy, pop-culture-obsessed, socially-awkward misfit and underdog’ (6).
2 For example Rebel Wilson, Michael Cera, Jason Long and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.
3 For example The Big Bang Theory, which centers around a group of stereotypical nerds, The Office, in which in both the English and the American version the lead character is a typical geek, and Community where the characters Abed and Troy depict geeks.
4 Typical nerd themes can be found in the abundance of superhero movies since the 1990s, including five Spiderman films and seven Batman films, but also in the rise of the fantasy genre ( Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit) and the science fiction genre ( The Hunger Games, the Mazerunner).
5 Typical nerd characters in popular books and films include Harry Potter (in the Harry Potter books and films, Napoleon Dynamite in the eponymous series, Thomas Anderson in The Matrix trilogy and the ‘new Q’ in the James Bond films.
mainstream culture. What is extraordinary about this phenomenon is that traditionally, the geek is considered to be the antithesis of coolness. The geek in this sense, is not cool but rather a misfit, a socially inferior counterpart to the successful jocks and cheerleaders of the American high school environment. This misfit nerd identity is still very much present and it would be wrong to suggest that the chic nerd has replaced him. While the geek is becoming an increasingly popular cultural phenomenon, the traditional socially awkward nerd also still exists. A shift in meaning seems to be ongoing, in which the authentic geek is not replaced but sided by a new type of geek, adding a paradoxical dimension of meaning to the totality of geek identity. The ambivalence resides in the fact that now, the geek identity seems to be unpopular and cool simultaneously. This paper will attempt to account for this paradox inherent in the nerd as a contemporary identity.
Before proceeding, I want to explain briefly why I have been, and will be using the terms ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ interchangeably. Jason Tocci (2009) has spent some time on researching the origins and uses of the different terms. He traces the term ‘geek’ back as far as 1876 while ‘nerd’ first appeared on paper in the 1950s. However, as Konzack (2006) suggests, the difference is not that interesting, and there are even complete articles written about the pointlessness of the entire debate (Z. 2009). Tocci chooses to use the terms interchangeably, ‘partly for stylistic reasons, but also as a way of reminding us that these terms have no essential definitions’ (20). I also do not think the discussion on preferring one of these terms over the other is relevant as they signify the same thing, and accordingly, I will use the different terms as synonyms.
Identity is a difficult and ambiguous term. Taylor (1989) concludes that many debates on identity are concerned with ‘philosophical questions about the nature of subjectivity and the self’(qtd. in Hayes, chapter 2). Furthermore, he asserts that ‘that the modern identity is characterized by an emphasis on its inner voice and capacity for authenticity—that is, the ability to find a way of being that is somehow true to oneself (Taylor in Gutmann ed.1994)’ (qtd. in Hayes, chapter 2). Two problems with the concept of identity follow from these premises, the first being that the geek I describe may not identify as a geek, while others who fall beyond my scope of what a geek entails might do so. I realize that in my generalization of such a broad concept as nerd identity, there are bound to be exceptions on both the in- and the outside of my presented framework. However, I want to emphasize that the borders of what is geek and what is not, are not solid or clear-cut but rather fluid and elastic, and the assertions made and conclusions drawn in this thesis should be interpreted as general rules rather than
as unbreakable laws. Secondly, theorizing identity implies describing subjective experience and when identity is used to refer to a multiplicity of people, it is implied that these people share the same experience and that this experience can be interpreted univocally. The way I use the geek to describe a number of individuals collectively implies that their experience can be distillated and described. Hayes states that ‘[e]xperience is never, critics argue, simply epistemically available prior to interpretation’ (chapter 2). To engage with this critique I will be applying Joan W. Scott’s (1991) focus on the framework in which the geek identity is formed and given meaning. Particular focus will be placed on the environment in which the geek identity came into being, the American high school and the arrival of the Internet, which played a crucial role in the formation of contemporary nerd identity.
Lastly, to theorize and understand the nature of the geek identity, I want to expand on three different philosophical views which I will argue, explain different aspects of the nerd identity and can collectively elucidate our understanding of the geek. Firstly, I want to spend a brief section on Slavoj Žižek’s notion of the ‘parallax view’, which he describes in his eponymous book (2009). Žižek argues that the parallax view is ‘(…) the illusion of being able to use the same language for phenomena which are mutually untranslatable and can be grasped only in a type of parallax view, constantly shifting perspective between two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible’(4). The cool geek on the one hand, and the misfit geek on the other, are two sides of the geek identity, and I will argue that the geek identity can thus be understood as parallax. As Žižek asserts, ‘(…) although they are linked, they are two sides of the same phenomenon which, precisely as two sides, can never meet’(4). In order to grasp the concept of geek identity, it is necessary to constantly shift perspective between two different but similar identities ‘between which no synthesis or mediation is possible’ (4). Žižek’s parallax view results in a ‘(…) parallax gap, the confrontation of two closely linked
perspectives between which no neutral ground is possible’ (4). Thus, the relationship between A and B is parallax ‘when they are substantially the same, the shift from one to another is purely a shift of perspective’ (5). It must be noted that in these quotes the ‘perspectives’ concern the different ‘philosophical, scientific and political’ (10) perspectives which Žižek analyzes in his book. I want to make clear that I use his concept of the parallax differently6.
In this paper, the parallax should be understood not so much as the confrontation between closely linked philosophical perspectives, but rather as the confrontation between closely
6 Žižek himself agrees that ‘[t]here is an entire series of the modes of parallax in different domains of modern theory’ (9) after which he gives a series of examples, to which I would like to add geek identity.
linked perceived and produced identities. The parallax is closely linked to Hegelian
dialectics7. The difference resides in the synthesis that is reachable in dialectical philosophy,
but essentially unreachable within the parallax. While a dialectical paradox is only an
apparent paradox, and can be resolved through synthesis, a parallax paradox is fundamentally unsolvable. Thus, the second philosophical perspective that I will use to illuminate the nerd identity is the dialectical perspective. To complete my philosophical framework on identity, I would like to introduce Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of ‘liquidity’ within what he labels ‘liquid modernity’ (2000). Bauman argues that nowadays, identity is not fixed and solid but rather a fluid concept: One is free ‘to make and unmake identities at will’ and free to ‘shop around in the supermarket of identities’ (83). Bauman argues that within the general structure of mass individualism, everyone has the freedom to become anybody; the options are
limitless. It is my contention in this paper that the cool nerd is such a liquid identity. As Bauman states: ‘(…) the loose, ‘associative’ status of identity, the opportunity to ‘shop around’ to pick and shed one’s ‘true self’, to ‘be on the move’, has come in present-day consumer society to signify freedom’ (87). Identity for Bauman is thus inherently adaptable and fluid. It is my belief that Žižek’s concept of the parallax adapted to the analysis of identity, Hegelian dialectics and Bauman’s liquidity can illuminate different aspects of the nerd and thus further our understanding of the geek identity.
Chapter two and three will deal with my research objects, the film Dodgeball: A True
Underdog Story (2004, from here on abbreviated as Dodgeball) directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber and the novel Ready Player One (from here on abbreviated as RP1), written by Ernest Cline in 2011. Chapters four and five will be concerned with the historical formation of the geek identity and the environments that facilitated its existence, namely the American high school and the Internet. Chapter six is concerned with geek culture. Chapters seven, eight and nine will focus on the contemporary role and position of the nerd identity and the philosophical views I have set out in this introduction will come in to play in these chapters. Chapter 2. Objects: Ready Player One and Dodgeball
When researching a certain socio-historical development, the analysis of cultural production can tell a different, sometimes more illuminating story than what bare historical facts can disclose. The power of for instance music, art, architecture and literature resides in the 7 I have chosen to introduce Hegel’s dialectical philosophy briefly, since explaining his work in-depth will constitute a different paper all together. For those interested, I want to refer to the original 1817 text by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1990).
conception that it can capture the Zeitgeist of a period within a single object more so than anything else. However, I want to stress that I focus not so much on the complete texts, or on their essential meaning, but rather on how they portray and produce geek identity and culture. Peter Wollen (1972) claims that ‘(…) it is necessary to insist that since there is no true, essential meaning there can therefore be no exhaustive criticism, which settles the interpretation of a film [or novel] once and for all’ (103). I do not attempt to provide complete or essential interpretation of these texts, rather I aim to demonstrate in what way they are productive and in what way they challenge the existing hegemonic notions. As Wollen argues, the scholar should ‘(…) concentrate on the productivity of the work: A
valuable work, a powerful work at least, is one which challenges codes, overthrows established ways of reading or looking, not simply to establish new ones, but to compel an unending dialogue, not at random but productively’ (105). In this particular case, I will argue that these cultural objects not only illustrate, but also produce the contemporary cultural identity of the nerd.
I will be using two objects to exemplify and comment on the changing role of geek identity in contemporary society: Dodgeball and RP1. I want to emphasize that I use two texts that are not only produced but also situated within the United States of America, and that
consequently, this paper and the conclusions it draws are located within the framework of American culture.However, American culture is found outside the USA as well, as it travelled particularly to Europe and Japan as a result of American military and cultural dominance in the 20th century. Consequently, the geek identity can be found abroad as well, particularly in Japan, where the ‘Otaku’ emerged, a Japanese sub-cultural counterpart to the American geek.8 Patrick W. Galbraith9 (2010) asserts that ‘Otaku [are] often defined as
devoted fans of anime, manga, videogames, and technology (…)’ (210). Like the term ‘geek’, Otaku originally had negative connotations, but gradually has become more positive. The Otaku is in different ways remarkably similar to the American geek and suggests that this type of identity is a cross-cultural phenomenon which develops particularly well in capitalist countries. While this paper will focus on the American geek rather than on the Japanese and limit its scope to the exploration of the geek identity in the American culture, it deemed me relevant to point out the existence of the Otaku, as it asserts that the geek identity is a product
8 In Ready Player One, the Japanese geeks are acknowledged, as the Otaku are represented by the Japanese characters Shoto and Daito, two top Gunters.
of American capitalist culture that can be found outside the borders of the United States as well.
In the following section, I want to provide short summaries of the plots of both Dodgeball and RP1. This will allow me to refer easily to certain key features or aspects of the film and the novel in the rest of my paper, an endeavor I believe will provide fruitful in the long run. Dodgeball centers around a team of stereotypical geeks competing in a dodgeball
tournament. They do so in order to win the first prize of fifty thousand dollars needed to save the run down gym where they all work out, Average Joe’s, from going bankrupt. Among the team members are Justin (Justin Long), a high school student who aims to be selected for the cheerleader squad ‘to prove to Amber and everyone else he is not a loser’, Gordon (Stephen Root), a slightly obese, middle-aged, glass wearing geek who is fascinated by obscure sports, and Steve ‘the pirate’ (Alan Tudyk), a character so obsessed by pirates he indeed identifies as one. Average Joe’s team is captained by the owner of the gym, protagonist Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn), whose philosophical stance on the concept of life-goals is an adequate reflection of his character: ‘I found that if you have a goal, you might not reach it. But if you don’t have one, you are never disappointed. And I’ve got to tell you, it feels, phenomenal’. The antagonist of the story is White Goodman (Ben Stiller), founder and owner of the corporate gym across the street, ‘Globogym’. White wants to take over Average Joe’s and ‘bulldoze it to the ground’ to build a new auxiliary car park for his customers. He captains a team of stereotypical jocks in the dodgeball tournament in an attempt to beat the geeks and prevent the rescue of Average Joe’s by what White labels ‘the mongrel race that comprises its membership’.
RP1 is one of the bestselling science-fiction novels of the past years10, and is promoted as a
novel about nerds written by a nerd. Set in 2044, RP1 depicts a dystopian future, in which the neoliberal mode of production has resulted in the drainage of earth’s natural reserves and a global scarcity of resources. Earth’s population lives in highly precarious conditions, with little hope of a better life. In an attempt to escape reality, protagonist Wade Owen Watson, ‘and eighteen-year old kid living in a trailer park on the outskirts of Oklahoma City’ (RP1, 9) seeks refuge along with the rest of humanity in an all-encompassing, free-to-access, virtually programmed world: the OASIS. The OASIS can quintessentially be understood as the
10 RP1 is listed as a ‘New York Times Bestseller’ and as bestselling science-fiction book of 2011 on Amazon. Information retrieved from Cline’s blog, page 24.
evolved version of the Internet11 which anno 2044, has become dominant over the real.
People work and go to school within the OASIS, and only plug out to eat and sleep. Using haptic gloves, a visor, earbuds and microphone, a user logs in and experiences a simulated reality. Their identity is cast into an avatar, a persona created to represent – although it can look completely different - a real person within the OASIS. Wade’s avatar is called
Parzival.12 The creator of the OASIS is James Halliday13, who as the reader learns in the first
chapters, has died recently. Shortly after his death, Halliday’s will is released in a video blog going viral. Halliday promises his massive fortune and more importantly the control over OASIS, to the person who finds the Easter egg14 that he has hidden within the OASIS. ‘Easter
egg’ is a term with specific meaning when used in the context of video gaming. It refers to a feature or message within a game that is hidden and that does not have to be found in order to complete the game. Parzival and millions of others devote every free moment of their lives to searching for Halliday’s egg. Being successful in this Easter egg hunt relies almost
completely on the competitor’s knowledge of 1980s pop culture in general and classical arcade games in particular.15 Thus, 1980s pop culture has to be studied meticulously in order
to stand a change in the competition and solve the riddles that lead to the Easter egg and Halliday’s inheritance.16
The people who spend their time hunting for the Easter egg form two different but related sub-cultures. Parzival is one of the ‘Gunters’, a group of egg hunters who are characterized by their individual pursuit of the egg, and by the goal of keeping the OASIS a freely 11 Cline explains: ‘The OASIS quickly became the single most popular use for the Internet, so much that the terms ‘OASIS’ and ‘Internet’ gradually became synonymous’ (RP1, 60).
12 ‘Parzival’ is a variation on ‘Parcival’, the knight of Arthur’s famous Round Table in Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. In this medieval tale, ‘Parcival’ is the knight who finds the Holy Grail. The stage name that Wade chooses for his online avatar can thus be read as a metaphor: ‘Parcival’ and the ‘Holy Grail’ double for ‘Wade’ and the ‘Easter egg’. Similarly, the character Art3mis is a reference to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and thus also a reference to the egg hunt. Both their names signify that geeks such as Wade and Samantha (Art3mis’ real name) possess cultural knowledge. The misspellings ‘z’ for ‘c’ and ‘3’ for ‘e’ are references to the difficulty of finding an online alias that is not already taken. The fact that Cline is aware of this online custom professes his knowledge of online geek identity.
13 Described by Parzival as ‘a god among geeks, a nerd über-deity on the level of Gygax, Garriott and Gates’ (RP1, 52).
14 The Easter Egg in RP1 is a homage to Warren Robinett, a programmer who hid the first videogame Easter Egg ever in the classical arcade game Adventure (RP1, 5, 362).
15 ‘Halliday was obsessed with the decade of his youth, the ’80s, and propagandizes this through the Easter egg contest’ (RP1,3).
16 The intensity of absorbing pop-cultural knowledge from the 1980s is aligned to the intensity of religious devotion, particularly Christian devotion. Parzival studies memorizing the memoires and references of Halliday, bundled in ‘the Almanac’: ‘The Almanac was over a thousand pages long (…) Most of the entries where his stream-of-consciousness observations on various classic videogames, science-fiction and fantasy novels, movies, comic books and ‘80s pop culture…’ (RP1, 7). Parzival admits, that ‘over the past five years, the Almanac had become [his] bible’ (61). The Almanac is represented as a holy book, a geek bible complete with references like ‘- Anorak’s Almanac, chapter 91, Verses 1-2’ (RP1, 11).
accessible platform. Gunters interpret and pursue the competition the way it was intended and therefore see themselves as authentic and honest. On the other end of the spectrum are the ‘Sixers’17. The Sixers are contracted by ‘IOI’, a major corporation who ventures to seize
control over OASIS. The Sixers subsequently have all the capital they need in their search for the egg, and they have the advantage of working in a team and sharing their wisdom with each other. Gunters renounce the Sixers because allegedly, cooperation rigs the game. However, certain Gunters do group together, forging alliances against the Sixers to
accommodate a higher goal. They fear that if the OASIS falls into the hands of IOI it will be made into a monetized enterprise and hence lose both its essence and accessibility.
Chapter 3. Zooming out: Production, Distribution and the Author
In this chapter, I want to zoom out and focus on the phenomena and actors surrounding Dodgeball and Ready Player One. Firstly, I would like to address the most obvious difference 17 Cline emphasizes the cooperative and capitalist nature of the Sixers by equating their avatar names and their employee numbers: ‘IOI required its egg hunters, which it referred to as ‘oologists’ to use their employee numbers as their OASIS avatar names. These numbers were all six digits in length, and they also began with the numeral ‘6’, so everyone began calling them Sixers’ (33).
between my research objects, and focus on the difference between the conveying of meaning within a novel as opposed to how this is processed in film. According to George Bluestone (1973) the novelist and the director share the common intention of trying to make the audience see. However, the ambiguous term ‘see’ is expressed in the novel as a mental image, and in the film as a visual. ‘Where the moving pictures come to us directly through perception, language must be filtered through the screen of conceptual apprehension. And the conceptual process, though allied to and often taking its point of departure from the percept, represents a different mode of experience, a different way of apprehending the universe’ (Bluestone, 20). These different ways in which the audience is forced to conceptualize meaning force the novelist and the director into making different choices. Of course, RP1 and Dodgeball are not only different media but also different texts, so a comparison is bound to consist out of differences rather than similarities. However, when focussing on the portrayal and production of geek identity within these texts, the difference between the two media assists in understanding their respective positions.
In RP1, the geek identity is constructed in greater debth and in far more detail than in Dodgeball. The novel dedicates extensive attention to numerous aspects of geek identity, including the Otaku and the pre-Internet nerd. The result is a voluminous and comprehensive literary (re)production of geek identity that offers a thorough sense of understanding of the complexity of the concept of the geek. Dodgeball on the other hand, relies largely on visual representations of the geek and depicts a thinner, more superficial representation of the geek. Bluestone argues that directors are ‘(...) always thinking plastically, the film-maker may use almost endless spatial combinations’ (25). Consequently, ‘a new kind of relationship between animate and inanimate objects springs up, a relationship which becomes the key to plastic thinking’ (26). While ‘plastic thinking’ might not be applicable to all films, it does adhere to Dodgeball. The movie is a typical Hollywood production and looks aesthetically polished, from the sets to the editing. Its marketing campaign is largely dependent on the personalities of the star actors Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller18, and to a much lesser extent on the narrative
or the director of the film. The ‘plastic perspective’ of the film is however not limited to the art-directed visual spectacle of the film, but can also be found in the depiction of nerdism. The different characters are stereotypically geeky in their actions and dialogue, but also and primarily through their visual appearance which adheres to a stereotypical media-constructed 18 See Appendix I. I have chosen to embed images of the characters whom I discuss in greater detail. I believe they can convey meaning that words cannot and adhere to the meaning production inherent in the medium of film.
image.19 The strength of the character of Steve ‘the pirate’ for instance, resides in his visual
depiction on the screen, and cannot be reproduced in the literary realm without losing his essence. While these images help the audience to identify these characters as nerds, it also marks them as flat characterizations and superficial constructions of nerd identity rather than as broadly developed and rounded geek characters. Dodgeball’s geeks flatly represent rather than deeply characterize nerd identity and adhere to the popular image rather than to the authentic. This can to a degree be ascribed to the medium of film, as the film has less room to construct round characters than the novel.
However, the choice to present the geek either as a superficial or as an authentic identity can also be attributed to the author of a text. According to Michel Foucault (1969) ‘(…) the function of an author is to characterize the existence, circulation and operation of certain discourses within a society’ (1481). He furthermore asserts that ‘the ‘author-function’ is not universal or constant in all discourses’ (1482).Foucault’s text is focused on the author of a text or a book, but Foucault agrees that ‘(…) a person can be the author of much more than a book (…)’(1485). In the case of Dodgeball, the role of the author is less decisive than in the case of RP1. Rawson Marshall Thurber wrote and directed the film, and can thus be
considered the author of the story. Thurber was a fraternity member and a football player in high school, which signifies that he was not an authentic outcast nerd in the classical sense of the word. While it is speculative to designate definitive meaning to the film based on this information, it does favor the conclusion that Thurber is not an insider in geek knowledge and that consequently, his view on what nerd identity is, is external rather than based on
experience. More importantly, Dodgeball is a product in which hundreds of people played various important roles, from the lead actors to the editors and the art-directors. The
inexperience of director Thurber20 underlines the view that the film is essentially a product of
cooperation rather than of individual authorship. A hugely significant influence must also be ascribed to the producer of the film, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, the largest film production company in the world. Dodgeball is a typical Twentieth Century Fox
production with a budget estimated at 20 million dollars and an eventual revenue of over 167 million dollars.21 Essential to any film by such a grand capitalist company is its ability to
generate large amounts of money. Charles S. Tashiro (2002) argues that ‘[s]tudios and the people who control them, while receiving little publicity from this or that hit, reap huge 19 See Appendix II-V.
20 Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was Thurber’s debut as a director. 21 Information retrieved from IMDB.
financial rewards, maintain copyrights over products, and control all distribution and
exhibition (…) The artists' degree of creative responsibility is secondary to the corporation's control of its assets, to its political and economic power’ (32). The presence of genuinely challenging content and an authentic depiction of geek identity is a conditional impossibility within a film produced by Twentieth Century Fox. The film must conform to the wants of the large audiences and should be primarily consumable rather than thought-provocative, hence a superficially accepted rather than a controversially authentic depiction of the nerd is
preferable.
In the case of RP1, the identity of the author contributed significantly to the distribution of the text. Foucault states that ‘(…) the subject (…) must be stripped of his creative role and analyzed as a complex and variable function of discourse’ (1489). In case of the author Ernest Cline and his relation towards RP1, this function is particularly significant in respect to the marketing campaign around the novel, which is focused in an unparalleled fashion on the author rather than on the work he has written. In this sense, the work’s reception is influenced by the identity of the author. Cline applies for the title king of the nerds. He consistently bombards the reader with obscure and trivial geeky knowledge in RP1, implying that authentic geeks will stand their ground and understand these enigmatic references. Cline’s geeky knowledge covers all the fields of geek culture, ranging from Japanese animation and canonical science-fiction films to classical arcade games and arcane cyberpunk. RP1 thus becomes a celebration of true nerd culture. Cline takes his geekdom a step further in his personal blog, as he emphasizes and reestablishes his geek identity at every opportunity. For one, he has bought a DeLorean car, and modified it to look identical to the time machine that was used in the canonical movie trilogy Back to the Future; an obsessive reference to
classical geek culture, and a fact that is repeatedly stated on the blog. Furthermore, he constantly refers to himself as geek or nerd: ‘Another geek bucket list photo, taken the same weekend’(1), and ‘Mika took this ‘Nerd of Arabia’ photo of me’ (1) as he comments on pictures of himself on his blog. On all these pictures, Cline looks like a stereotypical nerd, wearing Star Wars t-shirts and thick glasses, glimpsing goofily into the camera. He
furthermore consistently promotes and shares nerdism as a culture, in referring to ‘us nerds’ (3) and ‘our geek knowledge’ (7), an also by pointing towards his personal history of high school exclusion and subsequent escape into video games:
If you’re having a bad day, or wanna escape from your life, just playing an old video game that you used to love when you were a kid, there’s nothing like
that, just turns of your higher brain functions and you’re just dealing with the 2-dimensional world of the videogame screen (YouTube clip: page 13 blog).
Cline thus caters to the popular as well as to the hardcore image of the nerd. In doing so, he is setting the standard for what a geek is, while he simultaneously expends on the possibilities of being a geek. I argue following Bauman (2000), who in his turn elaborates on Mathiesen, that
we have moved from a Panopticon-style to a Synopticon-style society: the tables have been reversed, and it is now the many who watch the view.
Spectacles take the place of surveillance without losing any of the disciplinary power of their predecessor. Obedience to standards tends to be achieved nowadays through enticement and seduction rather than by coercion – and it appears in the disguise of the exercise of free will, rather than revealing itself as an external force (86).
Cline thus functions synoptically as an exemplary geek. This essentially mediated function operates twofold: It sets the standard by marking what a nerd exactly is, while simultaneously pushing the limits of possibilities in showing what a geek can become. Cline continuously emphasizes how similar he is to the observing mass, something Haugaard emphasizes to be characteristic of the contemporary elite (122). Cline is following in the footsteps of geek celebrities like Steve Jobs and Rebel Wilson in the sense that he is, like them, another
example of a successful geek celebrity, as he has become relatively wealthy and famous after the success of RP1. Cline’s success as a nerd writer is different from that of the existing nerd elite, and he has popularized the nerd identity in another realm, that of popular fiction. Cline thus promotes nerdism on multiple levels, through his novel, but also through the
proliferation of his own identity as a nerd writer.
Nonetheless, while RP1 is celebrating nerd culture, it is simultaneously capitalizing on geek culture. RP1 is not merely an homage to the Gunter. RP1 clearly distinguishes between the Gunter as an authentic geek and the Sixer as a false copy. By letting Parzival gloriously win the egg hunt Cline claims that in spite of the Sixer’s existence, true geekiness is not for sale and the authentic nerd will somehow dig down deep enough and survive. However, the success of the book is a not merely due to the quality of the novel, but like many products in
capitalist society, also a consequence of an elaborately constructed marketing campaign22
around Ernest Cline and RP1, promoting the first as a geek, and the latter as his ‘little nerd novel’ (blog, 24). Cline, while seemingly attempting to promote and celebrate nerd culture, actually undermines and threatens his very sanctuary by capitalizing on geek culture and compulsively sharing its wisdom with outsiders. By selling geek culture to the masses, both through RP1 and his own personality, Cline makes it easier for Sixers and even non-geeks to understand and become geeks, thus blurring the line between the authentic and the fake. Paradoxically, he is pushing the authentic nerd deeper into the mainstream, while at same time advocating that the true geek is characterized by eccentricity. RP1 thus bridges the gap between the popular and the authentic geek.
Chapter 4. Origins: The Nerd in High School
In the next chapter, I want to focus on the environment in which the geek originated. Scott argues that identities are always historically produced; the subject’s experience is always 22 This is emphasized in Cline’s biography at the end of the book, which simply states ‘ERNEST CLINE lives in Austin, Texas, where he devotes a large portion of his time to geeking out. This is his first novel’. (388) It is furthermore underlined in the section of the book that is dedicated to praise for RP1, for example: ‘Completely fricking awesome…This book pleased every geeky bone in my geeky body. I felt like it was written just for me’ (Patrick Rothfuss, New York Times Bestselling author of The Wise Man’s Fear).
mediated by a historical framework. She emphasizes that attention should be focused on this framework particularly rather than on the products that are formed within it. I believe that to understand how the geek developed into a distinctive identity, Scott’s emphasis on the environment in which the geek identity originated is of significant importance. Thus, to focus on the camera rather than on the photo taken, I want to zoom in on the American high school environment. This is the framework that surrounds the geek and facilitates his possibility of existence. Tocci describes geek identity as being ‘largely a product of rigid status hierarchies in schools’ (5). He paraphrases23 the high school environment as ‘a consumer-culture driven
caste system, with freedom from exclusion and harassment only guaranteed through listening to the right music and wearing the right clothes’ (72). An inevitable product of this
individualizing and competitive social environment is the loser of the competition that is dominated by the stereotypical jocks and cheerleaders: the socially-awkward misfit that is the geek.
However, the geek is not principally characterized as abnormal by virtue of his race, gender or sexuality. As Nicolas J. Mizer (2013) argues, ‘the identity geek should be understood as interacting with, rather than stemming from dimensions of identity such as gender and race’ (4). Rather the geek’s identity is marked as irregular because the geek does not accommodate hegemonic values. This hegemony encapsulates a combination of aesthetic values and social values: If someone is not perceived as attractive or socially attuned he or she is likely to be labeled as a geek. The social exclusion of the geek in high school is not a voluntary exile, but rather a differentiation imposed upon the individual by a competitive environment. In RP1, Wade described why school had not been a very pleasant experience: ‘I was a painfully shy, awkward kid, with low self-esteem and almost no social skills.(…) interacting with other people – especially kids of my own age – made me a nervous wreck’ (30). Wade also
concludes that his appearance was part of the problem: ‘I was overweight and had been for as long as I could remember. (…) To make matters worse, my limited wardrobe consisted entirely of ill-fitting clothes from thrift shops and donation bins – the social equivalent of having a bull’s-eye painted on my forehead’. ( RP1, 30-1). He concludes that for him, the stereotypical geek, ‘school had been a Darwinian24 exercise. A daily gauntlet of ridicule,
abuse, and isolation’ (RP1, 31). In Dodgeball, the high school geek is personified by the 23 Bucholtz, 1999; Kinney, 1993; Milner, 2004.
24 Darwinism refers to the concept of natural selection as it is describes by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species (1859). Wade insinuates that the high school is an environment of natural selection in which the geek is not selected.
character Justin. Like Wade in RP1, Justin seems to be unable to wear the right clothes and adhere to the current coiffeur trends. He is bullied on numerous occasions by a typical jock character, whose sole reason of existence in Dodgeball is harassing Justin. Justin is the antonym of a jock, which becomes apparent not only through his contemptible achievements in the dodgeball court, but also through his inability to get into the cheerleading squad. Justin wants to be a cheerleader in the hope that people will perceive him as cool. In this American context, the masculine football or baseball team might have been a more logical choice in terms of gender standards, as also becomes apparent when Peter la Fleur reacts to Justin’s choice by mentioning that ‘high school changed a bit from when [he] was a kid’. It is
tempting to read Justin’s longing to become a cheerleader as an attempt to renegotiate gender stereotypes. However, the highly awkward cheerleader performance that Long puts to the screen forces the audience to reaffirm rather than reconsider gender standards in a high school sport environment. Justin’s failure to penetrate the gender barrier essentially serves as a character marker, an aspect that simply marginalizes and discredits Justin’s character as a loser, adding another layer of peripheral depth to his nerd identity.
Justin in Dodgeball, similar to Wade in RP1, represents a stereotypical version of the
marginalized and harassed identity of the geek in the high school environment. Furthermore both characters illuminate that in the formation process of the nerd identity, the identity is characteristically forced upon, rather than chosen by the subject. A deviation from the social norm – usually entailing both insufficient social skills as well as the wrong ‘look’- causes the subject to be isolated and ridiculed. Logically, the geek identity is thus perceived as negative by the subject appointed as a geek. The marginal position in which these geeks find
themselves seem to lend itself perfectly to ‘a politics of resentment’ (Grossberg, 97). Analyzing a specific tendency within identity politics at large, Lawrence Grossberg (1996) concludes that ‘the creation of a group of people by virtue of their difference from a
presupposed norm can only lead to ‘a politics of resentment´ (97). However, he admits that this is a general fallacy of identity politics: ‘The management of diversity and difference through the bureaucratic mantra of race, class and gender encouraged the divisive rhetoric of being more marginal, more oppressed’ (97). He furthermore argues, building on Nietzsche (1996), that identity politics in this sense, advocate an inherently self-defeating slave mentality, as victimization at the core of identity results in a competition of tears between various oppressed groups. While Grossberg’s attack is directed at the ‘holy trinity’ of identity politics, it is also applicable to the geek identity, since the geek finds himself at the periphery
as well. However, Contrary to what Grossberg argues, in Dodgeball and RP1 the resentment and emphasis on victimization does not result in a self-defeating slave mentality but rather in a self-fulfilling formula of success. Wade as well as Justin acquire the trophy girl and a large sum of money, by simply staying nerds. Both embrace a politics of resentment and give it a fundamental role in the process of providing a state of narrative closure. These texts do not focus on the arbitrariness and created character of an identity system based on diversity. Rather, they emphasize that the otherness of the geek and his persistence in remaining authentic result in eventual redemption. Justin and Wade are originally constituted as victimized and oppressed but somehow, the tables are turned and without essentially
changing their persona, their identities change radically from negative to positive. Both texts establish a character development that can be described as moving from a bullied geek towards an excepted successful geek. The shift from essentially negative towards more positive realms is accomplished without the expected identity change, but through a change of framework. The geeks do not change, but the role they fulfill in the stories does.
This paradoxical narrative development signifies that the high school geek is bound to find redemption later in life. It serves as a metaphor connoting that the jocks may have the floor in high school, but the geeks will eventually win the social competition, not because they change to adhere to the social norm, but because the social norm changes to adhere to them. The nerds, traditionally associated with learning and good grades, another characteristic that could serve as a negative social trade in high school, go out to find the better-paying jobs and become successful after their school careers. At the end of the line, the chances of an
educated and qualified geek in contemporary society might be better than those of the socially skilled jock’s and cheerleaders. Within both RP1 and Dodgeball, these stereotypical depictions of the geek’s social development in life are oversimplified versions of reality that lack nuance. However, in its exaggerated simplification, they nevertheless emphasize an ongoing tendency in the real, a shifting norm in which the marginalized geeks find
themselves at the top of an upside-down pyramid when they move beyond the environment in which their identity was created.
Chapter 5. The Nerd and the Internet: Collectivization
The birth of the Internet is a crucial historical development in the formation of the geek identity as it exists today, as it enabled the sharing of geek culture. The Internet came into
being in the early 1990s, and transformed and collectivized the existing geek identity. Tocci argues that the birth of the Internet is engendered by geeks25. Based on this premise, he
concludes that ‘…geek culture represents a new way of understanding how identity may be constructed through media in the wake of the digital revolution’ (4). Paradoxically, as I will demonstrate in this chapter, the Internet in her turn, gave birth to geek culture26 as it
collectivized the geek as a (more or less) coherent identity. The birth of geek culture
coincided with the birth of the Internet, and this mutual dependency between geek culture and the Internet adds a dialectic layer to the identity of the geek. However, I want to focus on the creation of geek culture via the Internet to emphasize the relation between the individual and the collective geek identity.
As I have argued earlier, the geek is characterized by a lack of social skills, which forced him into his marginal position in high school. The creation of the Internet provided the nerd with a platform in which social interaction is less direct and more unanimous than it is in the real. Communication via the Internet provides the subject with an online avatar, a substituted identity which serves as a social barrier, making online communication easier for the socially less-equipped. Thus, disguised under the cloak of virtual identity, the geek can escape into a virtual world much more accessible than the real world. This process can be observed in RP127. Cline describes the escape into the OASIS as ‘an escape in a better reality, a
playground, a magical place where anything was possible’ (RP1, 16). He adds that [b]est of all, in the OASIS, no one could tell if I was fat, that I had acne, or that I wore the same shabby clothes every week. Bullies couldn’t pelt me with spitballs, give me atomic wedgies, or pummel me by the bike rack after school. No one could even touch me. In here, I was safe (32).
However, in RP1 the cloak of virtual identity is not just used to escape from reality. It is used to alter one’s identity, to become somebody else, somebody who is cooler than the substituted real. The protagonist Wade designs his avatar Parzival to look better than the original Wade: 25 Tocci argues that ‘[m]eanwhile, around when 'geek' and 'nerd' took on their present connotations in the '50s, MIT students initiated an ‘Ugliest Man on Campus’ tradition in self-deprecating recognition of stereotypes of engineers. Over the course of the next decade, the ideas for what would become ARPANET and eventually the Internet came to be formulated, giving rise to (almost first of all) a place to discuss science-fiction (Thomas, 2002; Turkle, 1984). As use of the Internet and its predecessors has become more normalized over the years, going online to connect to people with shared hobbies and interests has become one of its most popular uses (M. Griffith & Fox, 2007) - but the geeks were there first, and maintain a strong presence’ (73).
26 The Internet has of course provided the potential of a public sphere for innumerous identities, but the dialectical relationship in terms of creation is exclusively formed with the geek identity.
27 The Internet does not play a significant role in Dodgeball, and I have chosen to focus solely on RP1 in this chapter.
‘I’d designed my avatar’s face more or less, like my own. My avatar had a slightly smaller nose than me, and he was taller. And thinner. And more muscular. And he didn’t have any teen acne’. (RP1, 28) Furthermore, most female avatars model their bodies on either ‘the absurdly thin yet wildly popular supermodel frame, or the top-heavy, wasp-waisted porn starlet physique (…)’ (35). The possibilities of the Internet are thus used not to escape the concept of identity, but rather to alter the subject’s identity to adhere to the aesthetic norm. Perhaps most prominent in the desire to be within the normative center rather than at the periphery of identity is the difference between the real and the avatarized version of Wade’s best friend. In the OASIS, this friend uses an avatar named Aech, an averaged sized,
Caucasian masculine adolescent, but at the end of the novel, when Wade finally meets his friend in person, Aech turns out to be an obese black lesbian girl, named Helen Harris. ‘In Marie’s [Aech’s mom] opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie had used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given’ (320). RP1 thus addresses the holy trinity of identity politics - race, gender, and sex- by huddling them all into one character. Important to note is that these characteristics do not function to identify Helen as a geek, which is done by Aech’s excessive knowledge in geek culture. The characters in the novel as well as the reader identify Aech as the geek and Helen as a reference to a related, but essentially different issue of normative identity formation. Aech’s real identity indicates that being a marginalized geek is not so bad, it could be a lot worse if you were as peripheral as Helen. The inclusion of the holy trinity in this novel then, serves to convey the message that the acceptance of diversity is the way towards helping marginalized identities in general, and the geeks in particular. However, the treatment of this subject via the revelation and the acceptance of the character Aech’s real identity takes place at the end of the novel, and is not developed further. It acknowledges her peripheral status in relation to the norm of the white heterosexual male, but does not attempt to change this framework. Rather, virtual identity is used to masks these essential pillars of one’s identity and while Wade’s acceptance of his friend’s real identity28
seems noble, the novel does not attempt to further a solution or alternative framework as it does not even give the issue a significant role. Virtual identity is thus merely used as a cloak to mask the marginalized identities of the characters in RP1, rather than to change or escape from the entire concept of identity.
28 ‘We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a dear friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation’ (321).
The essentially divisive process inherent to the formation of identity has left the nerd at the bottom of the food chain, thus it seems logical to assume that the nerd is not a supporter of this system of identification. The virtual identity in the OASIS, and in its real counterpart the Internet, provides the potential possibility to become truly anonymous, and to escape from the constructed normalized identities of our contemporary society. In RP1, a hint is given towards this possibility, but it is dismissed because of ‘the school’s strictly enforced dress code [which] required that all student avatars be human, and of the same gender and age as the student. No giant two-headed hermaphrodite demon unicorn avatars were allowed. Not on school grounds, anyway’ (28). Outside the school premises, where the bulk of the story enfolds, no character attempts to break through the rules of normalization. Up to a certain extent, the nerd could have been without identity and more than people for who having a specific identity actually worked in their favor, had a particularly strong case to desire such an ontological rebirth. However, this revolutionary potential is left untapped, as Cline
underlines by the choices his geeks make. The geek does not want to be nobody, to be or not to be is still answered positively and the geek remains within the paradigm of identity. The decision to conquer a place within the existing web of identities rather than to search for an eccentric position29 is underlined by the birth of geek culture. As a result of the possibility
of social interaction without the burden of physical interaction, the traditional loner-geek, the high school misfit without a lot of friends, met and interacted with a myriad of others like him. The Internet provided the lonely geek with a public sphere - not apparent, if at all existing, for pre-Internet geeks - in which the geek’s cultural interest and obsessions could suddenly be shared with innumerous likeminded individuals. As Tocci observes, ‘it has helped develop the collective identity of the geek to show nerds that they are not alone. Fan conventions and tech hobbyist groups have long served this purpose, but the Internet has allowed enthusiasts to circulate symbols more widely, more quickly, more cheaply, and from further apart than ever before’ (76). The Internet furnished a public sphere of communication for misfits and underdogs, an easily accessible social platform in which social acceptance and even respect for being a geek and knowing and understanding geek culture were suddenly feasible options. With the online collectivization of the geeks, previously shattered and fragmented cultural interests of the nerd crystallized into a solid web of geek culture. Tocci asserts that ‘[t]he Internet offer[ed] a sort of central hub through which the symbols of geek culture are circulated and distributed’ (10). The sudden increase in social interaction between 29 See Teresa De Lauratis (1990) for extensive theorization of the eccentric subject. I will return to her position in chapter 9.
geeks via the Internet has resulted in the birth of a collective form of geek culture, which in its turn validates and substantiates geek identity. Thus, the possibilities of the Internet are used by the geek to find a position within the existing paradigm of identity construction, rather than beyond or outside this system. The reason for this is that the virtual realm can only substitute, but never truly replace the real. James Halliday, founder of the OASIS acknowledges that virtual identity cannot replace real identity: ‘I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness, because reality is real’ (RP1, 364).The online platform thus came to serve as a foundation on which the geek identity in the real could be constructed, a cornerstone that grounded the creation of a collective geek identity within the existing identity structure.
Chapter 6. Geek Culture: Obsessive Interest
As I have argued earlier, the geek loses the social competition in the high school
environment. Consequently, he is driven to focus his attention to other spheres, in order to become successful or win, in other areas than that of the social jungle in high school. Culture entails a wide array of interesting phenomena on a broad scale and has become increasingly accessible in the second half of the twentieth century. Consequently, this became the realm in which the geek chose to develop his interests. Furthermore, investing into a specific branch of
culture entails the possibility of control. Through knowing all its particulars, a high level of control and domination can be achieved, which of course contrasts sharply to the familiar high school reality which certainly for the geek, cannot be controlled. Lastly, as I already argued, the Internet contributed substantially to both the access to and the sharing of nerd culture. All these factors contributed to that fact that excessive interest in culture has become a typical feature of nerdism. I have hinted at this in the precious chapters, but its importance to understanding the geek deserves an own chapter. Tocci acknowledges this as well, as he states: that ‘geeks share a collective affinity for entertainment widely dismissed as juvenile’ (5). Mizer describes geeks as ‘people who obsessively love their cultural interests and are unwilling to be ‘mere consumers’ (5). He adds that they are ‘individuals who bond with one another over a shared exuberance for creative consumption of their cultural interests’ (6). Whether escapism from reality, or the need to control a secluded environment lies at the heart of nerd’s motivation, a defining feature of the nerd is the tendency to develop an obsessive interest in pop-cultural objects during high school, and continuing after high school. Gordon and particularly Steve in Dodgeball, and Wade and the other Gunters in RP1, embody geeks who choose to fixate on their childish cultural interest rather than on putting their effort in competing in the real world. All these characters are simplified stereotypes, but they
nevertheless represent an identity that can be extracted from the realm of fiction into the real world. The cultural objects in which people tend to lose themselves include card games30,
Japanese anime’s31, science-fiction and fantasy movies 32 and online role-playing games33, as
also becomes apparent through the cultural references in RP1. The essence of all these geek obsessions resides in the fact that the more one knows about these objects, the larger the respect one enjoys within the cults that have formed around these objects.
The excessive obsession with cultural objects can be observed in RP1 most notably in the Easter egg hunt that runs as a thread through RP1. The Easter egg hunt is a testimony to obscure fandom given shape within the realm of literature. It is primarily characterized by a need for and an abundance of obscure geeky knowledge. An example of the depth of
knowledge required to complete the quest is found in tests that Parzival has to pass at various stages in the novel, in which he has to act out the protagonist’s role of 1980s movies such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and War Games (1983). His avatar is positioned 30 The best example is the card game Magic: the gathering, which is played by over 12 million people globally. 31 For example, the movies Princess Mononoke (1997) and Howls Moving Castle (2004), and the series Naruto (2002-2007) and Fullmetal Alchamist (2003-2004).
32 For example, Star Wars episodes I to VII and the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogy’s.
inside an interactive simulation of the film, and Parzival has to improvise the entire dialogue and movements of the character by heart, which he, being an authentic geek, does flawlessly. As Parzival states, ‘over the past six years, I’d watched Holy Grail exactly 157 times. I knew every word by heart’ (356). In this manner, the egg hunt encapsulates both the sharing of geek culture as well as an element of testing whether the audience adheres to the geek-standard, and thus caters both to the experienced and informed geek as well as to the green apprentice. It is in this sense both a proliferation and celebration of obsessive fandom. In Dodgeball the obsessive fan is represented by the characters Gordon and Steve. Gordon’s looks34, although he is middle-aged, resemble that of a stereotypical geek. He is short, fat,
dresses horribly and wears large glasses. His geeky looks are further emphasized through the appearance of Gordon’s young children, a boy and a girl who both look as stereotypical geeky kids. Gordon is bullied by his mail-order bride, who gives him a hateful loser signal in front of his friends and children35, a relationship that emphasizes through both the
mail-ordering and the bullying that Gordon is a social misfit. On top of that, Gordon is obsessively interested in obscure sports, which he reads about in the magazine ‘Obscure Sports Quarterly’ (OSQ). OSQ is given a significant role in the film. Besides the cover of the magazine getting a screen wide close-up, the OSQ ultimately leads to the salvation of Average Joe’s, as the group learns of the decisive dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas through Gordon’s abnormal, eccentric and obsessive interest in obscure sports. Similar to the narrative of RP1 then, where the biggest geek Parzival saves the OASIS, being the most committed and well-informed nerd pays off for Gordon who provides the information that saves Average Joe’s in
Dodgeball. In both texts, digging down and engaging with nerd culture on the deepest level is not only a significant part of geek identity, but even essential for the survival of geek culture in the respected forms of the OASIS in RP1 and Average Joe’s in Dodgeball.
Steve on the other hand takes his fandom even further. Steve is known as ‘Steve the pirate’. This is due to the fact that as a result of his obsessive, excessive interest in pirates, Steve actually believes he is a pirate. Steve dresses like a pirate36, talks like a pirate37 and acts like a
pirate. Steve is a pirate in every sense of the word, except that he is not a pirate, but merely 34 See Appendix II
35 See Appendix III 36 See Appendix IV
37 For instance, at 7.18 Steve, attacking Peter with a pirate knife says: ‘argh! Who goes there? (Peter: It’s me, Peter) Ah, Peter. It is about the matter of payment for me membership, Steve be a touch short this month. (Peter: that’s okay Steve, just pay me when you get the money). The dread pirate Steve be in no man’s debt, I’ll make a barter with you! In exchange for your kindness, I'll be splitting me buried treasure with you!’
an empty copy of what he believes a pirate to be. Steve is an example of what Jean
Baudrillard refers to as ‘a simulacrum’ in his book Simulations (1983). Baudrillard describes the creation of a simulacrum as ‘the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal’ (2). According to him, the hyperreal tests ‘the limits of reproducibility’ as it is ‘not only [that] what can be reproduced, but that what is always already reproduced’ (146). Steve embodies this, as his identity is a copy of the popularized conception of a pirate, referring to something that arguably never existed historically in the first place. Steve embodies the ultimate excessive fan and is heralded in Dodgeball for his eccentricity and authenticity, not just by his mere existence but through a specific plot twist in which Steve is first forced to accept that he is not a pirate, and eventually forced back into the crow’s nest. After an
argument, Peter forcefully states to Steve: ‘Steve, you’re are not a pirate’. Steve is forced into an existential crisis, and roaming the streets of Las Vegas, stops to observe his reflection in a mirror. A car passes honking and out the passenger window, a man throws a milkshake at Steve screaming: ‘Go back to Treasure Island38, freak!’ Steve leaves the stage, only to return
for the grand finale in blue jeans and a t-shirt. He approaches Peter, and states that after thinking about what Peter said he realized that Peter was right and Steve admits: He is not a real pirate. Peter than asks Steve that if he is not a pirate, ‘who the hell [is he] supposed to share all this buried treasure with?’ as he points towards the money he has won and stored in a chest resembling a stereotypical - simulacrum - representation of pirate treasure,
immediately hurling Steve, who can only react in a pirate howl39, back into character. This
double-play on Steve emphasizes that it is fine to be excessively obsessed. Steve as well as Gordon, are simultaneously ridiculed and respected, their bravery to embrace their identity as obsessed geeks and their vast knowledge in their respected geeky fields, paradoxically makes them objects of mockery and admiration at the same time. In fact, the glorification of
mockery seems to be a tendency within geek culture at large and often results in ironic self-mockery. This peculiar form of nostalgia towards a high school legacy of marginalization can also be found in RP1 and unites the geeks in a shared sense of negative experience.
Furthermore, it provides geek culture with a certain ‘myth of origin’, a shared history of struggle that affirms and validates the geek identity.
38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLKwX5bot0E Interestingly, it is the director Thurber who plays the role of obnoxious Las Vegas jerk.
Chapter 7. Role-Playing: The Geek as a Gamer
‘Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable. – Anorak’s Alamanac, chapter 91, versus 1-2’ (RP1, 13).
To elaborate on the nerd’s tendency to escape reality by obsessively hurling himself into a variation on or extension of reality, I want to focus on role-playing games. Many popular videogames are principally competitive in nature40. However, while online role-playing
40 Popular first-person shooters such as the Call of Duty and Halo series use statistical hierarchical ranking systems to measure each player’s success in the game in relation to others and the norm. EA-sports massive
games have competitive elements, they are essentially strategic games based upon
cooperation rather than on competition. The role-playing gamer-geek as a variation on the obsessed cultural fan is a fruitful trope in analyzing a distinct element of nerd culture. The gamer relates to the fan in the sense that in both cases, the object of the nerd’s interest resides outside reality, or is at least a mediated version of reality. I want to underline that of course, not every gamer is a geek, just as not every geek is a gamer. Gaming as a phenomenon has grown significantly over the past decades, and is itself an interesting area of study for cultural research. However, in this paper, I will limit myself to the role-playing gamer, who is more so than gamers who play sports-games or shooting-games, typically identified as a nerd. Again, the Internet played an important role in enabling the gamer-geeks to collectivize and arise. However, gaming geeks existed before the Internet as well, where they either played alone on their game consoles41 or met up to play offline role playing games such as
Dungeons and Dragons42. Marjolein Hennevanger (2001) gives a good summary of what a
role-playing game is:
A role-playing game is play based on interaction and improvisation in which players engulf in an imaginary world as fictive characters43 under the
supervision of a game master and a rule book. This can be a science-fiction cyberpunk world, but also a medieval fantasy setting. It is always a world in which good and evil battle and in which solving problems and completing quests is key (…) By completing quests, a character can earn experience points and develop. (…) Thus a character grows through experience in the game world, similar to a person growing through experience in the real world. (110) The Easter egg hunt in RP1 is a direct reference to role-playing games. Besides from being an homage to 1980s pop-culture, it also exemplifies competitive gaming, specifically online online football game FIFA functions on similar competing notions as one’s achievements are constantly measured against those of other players. Interestingly, FIFA is being marketed as if it is an actual sport. It blurs the line between game and reality by sponsoring some of the leading football clubs in the world and hiring some of the best footballers to function as the marketed faces of the game, thus blurring the competition in real life with the competition in the game.
41 Examples of popular consoles are the different American Atari consoles fabricated in the early 1980s, followed by the Japanese Sega consoles in the late 1980s, and the Japanese Nintendo and Sony consoles in the mid-1990s. RP1 refers mostly to Atari games, which underlines both its focus on American culture and the era of the 1980s.
42 Peter G. Stromberg (1999) argues that Dungeons and Dragons is ‘[o]ne of the earliest, and still best known, of these games (…) It enables players to enter a vaguely medieval environment and embark on fantasy quests featuring treasures, heroism, mayhem, and the like’ (496).
43 The possibilities that one has in creating a character are broad; you can pick race, gender, profession, age and religion, as well as chose physical and psychological skills and characteristics.
