Advice towards a Non-Consumptive Nerd Culture

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of nerd culture as hypercapitalist and reactionary. A friend asked me how a person who recognized that nerd culture has become unpleasant might differentiate him or herself from the consumptive model of apolitical consumer-centric nerdism.

(Author disclosure: I do not identify as a nerd. But as a white man with a kind of weird personality and interests in science fiction and the internet, I’ve been around nerd culture my whole life.)

My thoughts:

Respect What Brought You To Nerd Culture

• Be aware of your similarity to the consumer nerd.
• Acknowledge that there are reasons you are drawn to nerd culture.
• Acknowledge that you can address those reasons in a progressive way.

Have Interests Beyond “Cool” or “Fun” Things

• Appreciate beauty and complexity.
• Get socially engaged: understand the problems of the world.
• And recognize that you have a role in addressing the problems of the world. 

Challenge Yourself

• Get diverse in your interests.
• Question your lack of interest in things.
• Put yourself in new intellectual and cultural situations.
• Be careful how and what you collect.
• Keep learning.
• Create things.
• Consider yourself an adult by whatever definition you choose. The consumptive nerd is a child. You are not.

Be Genuine in Your Interests

• Like things because they’re good, not because they’re terrible.
• Acknowledge and do not celebrate the deficiencies of those things you enjoy.
• Don’t use irony.
• Don’t exaggerate.

Accept and Celebrate Differences

• Allow change.
• Enjoy differences.
• Allow others to have interpretations which differ from yours.

I realize this is all likely preaching to the converted. Maybe I’m doing this backwards.

But if you feel disengaged and unfulfilled in a life of consuming, there is a way out.