/lit/ - Literature

>they bothered to make Mass Effect Andromeda merchandise

>>10560628
No, they haven’t produced anything good. No good sci-fi no good fantasy, not even good videogames or movies.

Nerd culture isn't real. Authentic cultures are bottom up. They consist of the attitudes behaviours and memes of their constituent members.

Nerd culture is a marketing scheme. It is top down and is whatever marketers and advertisers say it is. Therefore it cannot produce authentic art

>>10560628
We stock these sometimes in the prize cabinet the kids get to pick from.
Literally every fucking time a kid wants one I feel a pang of guilt for giving them something so fugly.

No, it's all thinly veiled commodity fetishism, and nothing more.

>>10560697
"Nerd culture" built up the IPs and ideas that are now being sold from the top down. Like him or not, George Lucas was a big fuckin dork and cobbled together his own ideas and influences into Starwars as an example. Steve Wozniak would be another example of someone's creation coming out of the bottom and now being sold from the top.

>>10560628
muh supaheroes!
comics !
sci fi!!!

>>10560628
>people actually like these
the only thing worse than these are those fucking retarded looking micky mouse ones. Like, what retard thought that was a good idea?

I mean, we had fuckin' chibi's and shit but at least they had fucking faces.

Why are these things plastic? They wouldn't even be that bad if they made them as 12" dolls.

WHY? WHY DO THESE EXIST? Their existence is vexing. WHY AREN'T THEY DOLLS?

>>10560628
holy cow capitalism is so fucking gay

>>10560628
my sister buys this stupid shit and I wanna smack her over the head with a fucking golf club when I see them

just back from publix and really wishing i had picked up a double brie or some danish blue at the very least

>>10560628
couple good non fiction books

Masters of Doom
Racing the Beam
I am error
Console Wars

you could also argue that watchmen is /lit/

>>10560892
Why don't you do it?

>>10560892
don't smack her break the toys. that will teach her a lesson and also you won't have to kill her!

>>10560628
I fucking hate self described nerds. Truly the most tepid of midwits. Dumb people are easy to talk to, truly smart people are easy to talk to, but midwits elude me.

>tfw you spend $1000 a year on these

Can't help myself lads. I need to collect.

>>10560742
Hey, there are good non-capeshit comics. It is not an inherently childish medium

>>10560628
No.

>>10560628
No. Some idiots might try to babble about sci-fi and fantasy but every good genre fiction writer predates nerd culture.

I have no idea what nerd culture means in this context.

>>10562300
> haha I’m studying Maus in my postmodern literature class it’s SOOOOOOOO frEeeeAky it’s like the holocaust but with mice and cats and it’s metafictional which is like when fiction talks to itself like my grandma does haha

Please define 'nerd culture'.
The greatest work of art ever is for the most part loveletters to the genre.

>>10562431
In Western civilization hollow genre fiction is overhyped by the media and dumb manchildren blindly swallow the hype. Look at the religious level worship that surrounds Star Wars, superhero movies/comics, and Game of Thrones.

>>10562431
What part about it do you not understand?

>>10562460
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSrgyYVCFps

>>10562634
That isn't a definition.

>>10560628
>star wars rebels but not game of thrones, gtfo with your lame ass "nerd culture"

>>10562470
To each their own, but I wouldn't put SW and superheroes together with GoT.

>>10562673
GoT is cancer you ape

>>10560628
Tails Gets Trolled

>>10562678
fandom sucks alright, but content and world is above star wars and marvel/dc. it's half way lotr and pulp fantasy.

>>10562694
Nope.

>>10560950

Masters of Doom is great, essential americana imo

>>10562696
kek nice argument little bafoon

>>10562300
what are some /lit/ comics?

>>10562272
post your collection

>>10560628
no

fuck off

>>10561023
>destroying someone else's property because it doesn't agree with your feefees
Nigger detected.

>in b4 "soyboy detected"
I don't collect this garbage but I don't feel the need to be aggressive to the virgins who do

>>10560628
I'd go one further. Nothing that inspired the stuff that nerd culture worships is worth reading either.

>>10562634
Are they so inarticulate that all they could do to describe the things they get is use the word cool and attach an adjective to it?

>>10562640
To understand nerd culture, we must understand the nerd identity before it became commoditized. The word gained prevalence in the latter half of the 20th century, and the word was associated to a person who had a strong affinity for academics, natural sciences, technology particularly computers, and lack of social skills. Nerds were shamed and bullied for these qualities as a perceived weakness and lack of masculinity. One of the first mediums nerds gravitated towards were role-playing games such as D&D in the 70's - 80's. The Satanic Panic of the 80's smeared D&D, and exacerbated the reputations of nerds, and their identity.

Video games also had a little popularity among nerds in the 70's -early 80's starting with arcade games, them home consoles, followed by the crash in 1983. The vidya industry was reborn in '85, but didn't actually gained a general popularity until the late 90's - early 00's.

What happened here, a specific medium which has always been associated with the nerd stereotype has now gained general acceptance among the community. The identity has been further normalized in the 00's by television shows and movies like The Big Bang Theory, the Doctor Who reboot, The Lord of the Rings movies, the Harry Potter franchise, the Star Wars prequels, and cable channels like TechTV/G4.

1/2

>>10562850
Entering the 2010's, the 'Nerd' has been successfully commoditized. By bringing together science fiction, fantasy, video games, comics, tv/film, board games, and card games marketers and advertisers have created a consumer identity which bears little resemblance to its old form.

Millenials who grew up consuming "nerd media" have developed a self-awareness of sorts. They know enough that the nerd identity has become mainstream, and they express their discontent by saying those who only consume this media, but do not have an interest in science aren't real nerds. Yet, they only postulate a fleeting love or interest in science (ie "OMG I LUV SCIENCE XDDD!!!!!" types), and are only interested in interesting scientific facts, not the nitty gritty study of the sciences themselves. Despite their amateurish understanding of science, they worship it as a secular religion, and look up to Richard Dawkins, Bill Nye, and Neil Degrasse Tyson gods.

tl;dr - Nerd culture is nothing but consumerism, idolizing franchises, subscribing half-baked scifi/fantasy lore philosophies, and worshiping the modern institution of science.

>>10562828
Very cool.

>>10562850
>>10562853
Okay.

Has nerd culture produced anything worth reading?

>>10562713
BPRD
Road to Perdition
A history of violence
Happy
Preachet
Habibi
Greek Street

Those are the only comics I ever read.

>>10562917
You should read Watchmen, Persepolis, Maus. Those are also /lit/ comics.

>>10562828
If you can't tell RLM are parodic you are a fucking cretin.

>>10562853
You are a butthurt hipster edgy faggot. You're not completely wrong, but I would still stab you in the ribs with a broken beer bottle for being such an insufferable cunt.

>>10562928
Watchmen is fucking shit, but I did read Persepolis and it was great.

>>10562933
Akira if you don't mind Japanese stuff. The printed editions are expensive but you can find the complete scans online.

>>10562915
What is nerd culture? Star Wars? Batman? Spiderman? The IT Crowd? Define it muh man.

>>10562917
>>10562928
What's that cyberpunk one that /lit/ always talks about called? The title's a number but I can never remember the number.

>>10560950
Console Wars is great.

>>10562915
>Orson Scott Card
>Philip K. Dick
>Frank Herbert
>Isaac Asimov
>J.R.R. Tolkein
These are the only scfi/fantasy authors worth reading. Notice that they predate the upcoming of nerd culture.

>>10562961
Lmao

>card
Tastelet

>>10562961
>Orson Scott Card
Enormously overrated, Ender's Game was one of the most predictable things I have ever read.
>PKD
Never read him, but he sounds good
>Frank Herbert
Dune went downhill after Dr. Kynes died.
>Isaac Asimov
Correct
>JRR Tolkien
Correct

>>10562929
>butthurt
>I would still stab you in the ribs with a broken beer bottle
Take it easy, sweetie. Just relax, and play some Nintendo Switch™ to calm down, m'kay?

>>10562939
I don't actually care, I was just being annoying.

>>10562940
2020 Visions? Never read it .

>>10562983
A bit early for me it seems.

>>10562938
I probably should get around to it, although I did try GitS and Appleseed and found them lacking.

>>10562678
The fanbase is utterly annoying, but the books and show are just mediocre. Whenever something is hugely popular it's likely not very good, but it's not bad either. Just meh.

>>10562933
The original Watchmen is a masterpiece. The prequels/sequels suck.

>>10562250
>midwits

That's a fantastic word anon.

>>10563029
It's a deconstruction of a genre I dislike so it will always be shit in my eyes.

>>10560642
I tried playing through the MEs before buying Andromeda a couple of months back and realized they're utter shit. Then I replayed fully modded Morrowind and had the time of my life. Maybe I'm getting old but I feel like older games are so much better.

>>10563102
It's a bit of both really, one of the things is that gaming is such a big industry and they are pumping the games out faster

>>10562886
Very cool.

>>10563102
ME1 only came out 5 years after Morrowind, and if you read the codex there's some interesting stuff in there. Oblivion came out 2006 and was still good but the general meme is things started downhill around 2007 as far as AAA games go. I hated Mass Effect after the first one.

>>10562724
>property exists
LMAO

I never read it but Legend of the Galactic Heroes was based off some sci-fi Japanese novels and that anime is as kino as anime can get.

>>10562938
Uzumaki is another great japanese manga imo. The horror and artsyle is pretty captivating.

>>10563604
Japs really love Cronenberg don't they?

>>10563606
I remember hearing something about them loving body horror so much cause it reminds them about how their culture was completely westernized after wwii.

>>10562431
Literally anything which inspires people to say or think "lol I'm such a nerd".

>>10560628
Not that I can think of, but some Star Trek episodes are worth watching.

>>10560628
yes, this is the most important book of 21st century so far

>>10562850
I was about to argue against this by saying nerddom was always commoditised (eg D&D rulebooks and vidya weren't free), but then I read again- you're saying first there were nerds, and THEN they gravitated toward certain products, whereas now being a nerd literally means consuming certain products. Makes sense, good argument.

>>10562300
this was the best I've ever read, amazing

Nerd culture is so sad. What is even sadder is that they don't get bullied for it. I don't mean they should be bullied for their intelligence, but for their femininity. Now it seems the people who were nerds, are now - I hate to use the term - hard leftists.

>>10563658
But what about the nerds on this website? From what I’ve seen, they’re pretty conservative.

>>10560628
It's all to perpetuate consuption
the Nerd is the perfect capitalist, he's willing to spend tons of his wages on utterly useless trivial shit in order to pose and gains status with his fellows, as it stands now, its an identity entirely built around material consumption and display of said conspicuous waste.

>>10563655
Jodorowski as in Holy Mountain, Dance of Reality, El Topo, Jodorowski? The "fuck capitalism for not letting me rape Dune" Jodo? If so, I need this in my life so fucking bad.

>>10563689
Best analysis here.

>tfw the only nerd object in my posession is a small Yoda figure I stole from some chick I used to date

>Nerd culture is the product of a late capitalist conspiracy, designed to infantalize the consumer as a means of non-aggressive control
Pegg

>SW is for children but they don't want to admit it. There's a small group of fans that do not like comic sidekicks. They get very upset and opinionated about anything that has anything to do with being childlike
Lucas

>SW created the big-budget comic book mentality, it ate the heart and the soul of Hollywood
Schrader

>A 12yo boy told me proudly that he had seen SW over a 100 times? I said 'could you promise never to see it again?' He burst into tears. I just hope the lad, now in his 30s, isn't living in a fantasy world of secondhand childish banalities
Guinness

>I don't think they are making them an elevated art form, it's still just Batman running around in a stupid cape. It's for kids, it's adolescent in its core
Cronenberg

>I don't want to see films about super heroes that fly around in spandex and a cape solving the problems of the world. I think it's fine for children, children of all ages by the way, but it's not for me
Friedkin

>They have been poison, this cultural genocide. The audience is so overexposed to plot and explosions and shit that doesn’t mean nothing about the experience of being human
Iñárritu

>Spandex must cost a lot. I look at them and scratch my head. I’m really baffled by it
Gibson

>Superman makes me vomit, Batman and all of that. That whole empire, this religion. It is so important that superheroes suffer... I don't give a damn, I shit on the United States
Jodorowsky

>Superman Vs Spiderman, Iron Man Vs Superman... I can't believe people are still paying to see this shit
Verhoeven

>>10563829
>>Nerd culture is the product of a late capitalist conspiracy, designed to infantalize the consumer as a means of non-aggressive control
Was he being sarcastic? This quote really sticks out as inauthentic and, frankly, retarded.

>>10563842
Never mind, I found a blog post of his where he explains the context and elaborates on his actual, less retarded position.

>>10563686
"nerd" stands for normal person who's into marvel movies and that sort of shit
people on 4chan are referred to as "spergs" or "weirdos"

>>10560742
>Maybe bashing 'muh nu-males' will make me feel like less of a try-hard pseud. Do I fit in yet???

>>10563849
Post link por favor.

>>10563829
I don't necessarily disagree, but Cronenberg, a guy who made B-horror movies for nearly 30 years. seems a little silly trying to define something as adolescent.

>>10563686
"Normal" nerds in the wild have seen 3 Star Wars movies and are huge fans even though it's all they have seen. "I'm trying to fit in" is what you feel when you encounter them.

"Nerds" here have seen/read like 30 different series and their novel/manga/anime/movie adaptations. You are going to get plenty of autistic people in this group, but definitely not autistic enough to jump on counter in McDonalds demanding their drink.

>>10563887
>dead ringers
>altered state
>scanners
>videodrome
>crash
>a history of violence
>eastern promises
>adolescent

Fuck off cocksuck

>>10563102
I could never get into the ME series myself (not for a lack of trying, mind you), but I'd still say that Andromeda is the only one of them that's legitimately bad on almost all fronts.

As for whether or not old games are tendentially better, I think it depends an awful lot on the type of game. Turn-based tactics has stagnated/devolved, for example, with a game from 1999 still reigning supreme over all that succeeded it, but action RPGs and (arguably) racing games have been continuously improved/tweaked. Also, I think you could make a solid case for survival sims being better now than ever before, despite the vast ocean of shit you have to swim through to get to the decent ones.

>>10563876
http://simonpegg.net/2015/05/19/big-mouth-strikes-again/

>>10563896
I have not played a game that came out in this decade except Borderlands 2.

>>10562713
I'd add Will Eisner and early underground comix like Raw and Zap.

>>10563897
He's surprisingly coherent and seems pretty well-read.

>>10562449
>Discrediting an incredibly moving work by making up a shallow reading.

Should have been you in those gas chambers.

>>10563829
The Alec Guinness quote is so brutal (and sadly true in its implications)

>>10563686
Hate to tell you this, anon, but it looks like you're trying to argue seriously with either /pol/ or /r9k/ or both.

>>10562917
Those are really terrible examples, the road to Perdition and History of Violence are both shitty comics that were turned into good films (which is to the credit of the filmmakers).

>>10563102
Morrowind is pretty bad in a number of areas, even with mods. Mass Effect is largely all shit, though. You probably just enjoyed Morrowind because it's familiar and expected.

>>10563829
This largely applies to everything though. All of these people are equal offenders, another great example is philosophy and politics (they usually go together).

>>10563897
Didn't expect to read something such as this from him, good job

>>10563972
I read them like a decade ago, don't blame me. I remember liking them, just not as much as the films.

>>10560697
>bottom up
>top down
What do you mean? Seriously.

>>10563854
>muh
Reddit.
>pseud
>Do I fit in yet???

>>10562917
Habibi is absolute dogshit.

>>10562694
Content and world in GoT?

>Dragons
>sex
>british accent to hide the vacuity of dialogues
>sex
>Magic
>Crude Sex
>Prostitutes
>Muh degenerate ruler
>a lot of blood
>a lot of people dying
>incest
>Not 10 min without boobs on the screen

Srly if you re not under 16 and like this show you're a manchild with a very little brain

>>10563829
You can say the same things about Homers Iliad

>>10560628
I enjoyed the halo novels

>>10563895
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, Altered States is not a Cronenberg film, and until the early 2000s Cronenberg worked in the realm of B-movie schlock with occasionally "artsy" aesthetics and themes. I like him but I can't take him too seriously in that comment.

>>10563658
b8

>>10562961
You forgot, Clarke, Gibson, Lem, Wolfe, Vogt, Bradbury and Heinlein

>>10563925
Every holocaust work is “moving” because the holocaust is moving. It would take actual talent to write about the holocuast without making soy boys cry about it. Your gas chamber Winnie the Pooh comic is shit

>>10563808
Yeah. He also did The Incal with Mœbius among others.

>>10564230
I think he means that in the former case, art is produced by people outside any industry and then eventually put in the market; while in the latter it is the other way around, since works of art are produced by corporations with the purpose of putting them in the market.

>>10564348
thanks for pointing that out my man

>>10564652
It's pretty much just art growing from the culture and possibly becoming commercialized vs commercial product being sold as art, achieving that status in the eyes of the plebs. Organic vs artificial.

>>10564354
> Every holocaust work is “moving” because the holocaust is moving

False. A movie that constantly directs your attention on sad details like people being forced to walk for kilometers and to shit in their own pants because soldiers won't let there stop is pedantic, pathetic and cringy. It may enumerate a series of important historical facts, but it does a really bad job at creating empathy among the audience.

>>10562961
You forgot Robert A. Heinlein and H.G. Wells. Also, Orson Scott Card is a one hit wonder who shouldn't be held up amongst the greats of sci-fi/fantasy.
>>10562975
>Never read him, but he sounds good
He's great. You should check out:
Ubik
The Man in the High Castle
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
The Minority Report

>>10562634
>>10562850
>>10562853
All of this is 100% accurate.

>>10560950
"Soul of a New Machine" is better than all of those put together, but it came out in the 80s so must of today's generation hasn't read it.

>>10560950
>look up Masters of Doom
>there's an audiobook of it read by Wil Wheaton
Dropped.

>>10564737
>but it came out in the 80s
Then it isn't a product of nerd culture, anon. The media's glorification of "nerd" shit started in the late 90s and it didn't become a widespread problem until the 00s.

>>10564604
I'm reading The Metabarons right now, and so far it seems like a rapid-fire succession of trashy sci-fi silliness. I guess it's quite funny in how ridiculously over the top it is, but so far that's all I'm really getting from it. What am I missing?

>>10564313
>Homer's Iliad is the product of a late capitalist conspiracy
Wut

>>10563033
Fair enough.

>>10563030
It really does describe nerd culture extremely well. These are middle class people by and large who are looking for meaning in modernity and are just smart enough but by no measures are they actually interesting or intelligent.

The warcraft novels were fun if you're familiar with the games.

>>10564760
Who are you quoting?

>>10563898
Then you wouldn't know, now would you?

Isn't fandom basically the hyperreality (Baudrillard & co.)?

They obviously don't fit in the real world. In highschool they were ridiculed so they seek escapism. This leads to them being so indulged in their fantasies & fandom - a framework of fictional characters, heroes, and plots - that it's become inditinguishable from real characters and stories. Extrapolate further with the advent of VR and related tech and the only line between reality and hyperreality would be biological needs like literally taking a shit and eating, but even then this disturbance can be further alleviated to possibly nil with technology. Further loss of control makes it easier for corporation/gubbiments to provide context and content.

I haven't even taken into account things like sex dolls, vr porn, etc. People are already indulging 24/7 in 4chan, vidya, and related consumption through escapism. I don't think it's far-fetched to extrapolate it this far.

Maybe Kaczynski is right and tech is terrible.

>>10564888
read database animals by azuma

>>10564888
Kaczynski was an autist

>>10560628
>nerd culture
This lowest common denominator entertainment is really holding back society's potential to create huge swaths of experimental/meaningful art, even kino indie films are very rare these days

>>10564854
hmm haven't read them but I heard some were shit by knaack(?) because the characters were Mary sues. But i like the lore and aesthetics in vanilla wow until they ruined everything in tbc and onwards. I sometimes read pages/articles on wowpedia. It's kinda fun and interesting despite the fact that it's not god-tier /lit/

>>10562679
This but almost as unironically

>>10563925
fuck off jidf there was never anyone in any gas chambers

>>10565003
Zyklon Ben strikes again!

>>10564956
I don't disagree, but the counterargument would be "You just gotta look harder!", which is also a valid point. Imo, cheap pop consumerism isn't inherently wrong, but it is (and was previously, years ago) aimed at children. Now it's directly aimed at young adults and they are totally fine with it. That's where the problem lies, adults consuming children's content. The lowest common denominator is not the 25yo beta male, but the child within him that is being exploited.

>>10563897
>This article
>BUY: Ready Player One: A Novel
What did he mean by this?

>>10563980
Morrowind is far and away the greatest rpg ever made you fucker

>>10565036
Only if you played it in 2002. Its aged terribly.

>>10565031
He sold his soul to work with Steven Spielberg.

POP toys are so fucking disgusting. Nendoroids are much better made and actually cute.
OP, I would dig into Arthur C. Clarke and the general precursors to nerd culture as >>10562961 pointed out.
>>10565031
That he needs to make money as well.
>>10565036
You haven't played lots of RPGs, have you? It's okay to have a personal favorite but you really should educate yourself.

>>10564899
He was wicked smart bruh and MKULTRA victim.

>>10565053
Interesting that some IE games like the Baldur's Gate saga are kinda replayable still, but a newer thing like Morrowind is not. It's because of Bethesda's fucked-up engine that they keep using in all their games, it is reproachful to the limit.

>>10560950
Game Boys.

The author was a regular sports writer sent to some CS 1.6 tourny to take the piss out of it, but he ended up finding it fascinating how similar it was to traditional sports, right down to the drug use, back door contracts, slimey managers, unbelievable come backs, thrash talk in multiple languages, etc.
He followed two separate teams over the course of a year or so. One team has almost all the NA sponsoring available and an all-star team, and the other team is being funded out of pocket by a guy trying his best to be a coach and mentor for a handful of underdogs.

Its written for a non-gaming audience, so there's some awkward stuff up front trying to give context for CS, but its really just some incredible sports drama. You could replace CS with football or hockey and it would still be a good read.

>>10560628
There is no nerd culture. Normies consuming things originally called nerdy(and are now turned in mass media) is what people view as nerd culture.

>>10565139
>he ended up finding it fascinating how similar it was to traditional sports, right down to the drug use, back door contracts, slimey managers, unbelievable come backs, thrash talk in multiple languages, etc.
Suggesting the notion that competitive gaming is just like real masculine sports only makes the nerd pandemic worse.

>>10564864
Anon said you can say the same things about Homer's Iliad. So I tried saying the same thing about Homer's Iliad.

>>10565139
as a 1.6 fan I might have to check this out

>>10565874
CS Source was out while he was touring with them, so he heard all about how shitty it was compared to 1.6, in the players eyes anyway.

They considered it CS for Girls iirc.

>>10563566
Literally starting it tonight

>>10562853
>tl;dr - Nerd culture is nothing but consumerism, idolizing franchises, subscribing half-baked scifi/fantasy lore philosophies, and worshiping the modern institution of science.

This. I hate how modern media praises that shit. These cunts feel pretty smart consuming bullshit and saying "I love science xddd".

>>10566352
It's better to start the series by watching My Conquest Is the Sea Stars, then Overture to a New War, and then begin with episode 3.

>>10560628
These things are brilliantly conceived.
They are the ultimate bugman toy.
Look at the dead eyes, and the way they all fit a neat little template. Every character, every story, can be distilled into not its own essence, but into a standardized, predictable essence. See how they stack them into neat little rows? Bugman wallpaper.

>>10566380
>>10566352
>>10563566

I fucking hope current "nerd culture" doesn't touch LOGH. Is there anything worse than seeing what you love become gentrified for dumb normalfags to brag about on social media for nerd credit?

>>10568184
Brain cancer

'Nerd culture' is utter cancer but sci-fi has produced plenty of things worth reading