Geek Social Fallacies
Jul. 20th, 2009 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerHere's a link I thought was interesting: Five Geek Social Fallacies, which lists and explains five dysfunctional patterns of interaction common among geeks.
I read this article with a rather a lot of nodding and wincing, because (except for fallacy #2) most of it applies very strongly to my high school social circle, which was so geeky that we lavished on our math homework the kind of time and attention that normal high school girls spend on their thighs and their boyfriends.
I suspect this is part of the reason why I never found teen dramas very interesting: because my social group never functioned that way. We didn't have problems with people getting excluded from the group, because - as per GSF5 - everyone always got invited to everything, and if someone couldn't make it, the event got canceled. (Unless it was a birthday party. Birthday parties with suboptimal attendance were allowed.)
As there were nine of us, this basically meant that until junior year our only out-of-school social events were birthday parties. Sometime in junior year part of the group unilaterally decided that these rules sucked, which would have engendered a lot of drama if we had ever discussed any of this; but of course no one ever did, because we were all convinced that the social world was a set of glass dominoes that would all fall over and shatter if anyone breathed too hard, let alone actually complained.
As you might imagine, there were a lot of elephants in the room that we never talked about.
(This is probably why I love stories where people valiantly pretend they have no emotions because otherwise the world will surely go to Hell in a handbasket.)
The other interesting thing is that Geek Social Fallacy #1 coexisted quite comfortably with a cultic esprit de corps, probably because no one else in the school wanted to hang out with people so obsessed with math homework, so we were never faced with the need to ostracize anyone.
I don't think I'm actually going anywhere with this, except that I find analyzing social relationships fascinating and therefore having been handed a chance to do so on a silver platter can't help myself.
I read this article with a rather a lot of nodding and wincing, because (except for fallacy #2) most of it applies very strongly to my high school social circle, which was so geeky that we lavished on our math homework the kind of time and attention that normal high school girls spend on their thighs and their boyfriends.
I suspect this is part of the reason why I never found teen dramas very interesting: because my social group never functioned that way. We didn't have problems with people getting excluded from the group, because - as per GSF5 - everyone always got invited to everything, and if someone couldn't make it, the event got canceled. (Unless it was a birthday party. Birthday parties with suboptimal attendance were allowed.)
As there were nine of us, this basically meant that until junior year our only out-of-school social events were birthday parties. Sometime in junior year part of the group unilaterally decided that these rules sucked, which would have engendered a lot of drama if we had ever discussed any of this; but of course no one ever did, because we were all convinced that the social world was a set of glass dominoes that would all fall over and shatter if anyone breathed too hard, let alone actually complained.
As you might imagine, there were a lot of elephants in the room that we never talked about.
(This is probably why I love stories where people valiantly pretend they have no emotions because otherwise the world will surely go to Hell in a handbasket.)
The other interesting thing is that Geek Social Fallacy #1 coexisted quite comfortably with a cultic esprit de corps, probably because no one else in the school wanted to hang out with people so obsessed with math homework, so we were never faced with the need to ostracize anyone.
I don't think I'm actually going anywhere with this, except that I find analyzing social relationships fascinating and therefore having been handed a chance to do so on a silver platter can't help myself.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 04:41 am (UTC)Have you tried Stargate: Atlantis? As a character, John Sheppard is very, very much in line with your interests.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 02:23 pm (UTC)By the end of the first season John Sheppard was getting better - I think Joe Flanagan needed some time to get used to the character; he was noticeably flat for the first half of the season; but it wasn't enough to make me stick around.
But if you think the show gets better later on, I might try it again. I know there are some new characters added, and I caught an episode on the sci-fi channel where Sheppard and McKay had been playing a computer game that controlled really people, which was pretty cool.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 07:27 pm (UTC)Or maybe Flanigan just doesn't pop for you as much as he does for me. :(
There's a canon AU epsiode in season 5 called 'Vegas' (the technical style of the episode is more like an episode of CSI than Stargate-verse), which I think would work as a standalone. It's very Sheppard-focused, & even though it's an alternate version of the character, it gives some good insight into the hows & whys of John Sheppard. I'd suggest giving that a try (it's episode 5.19) to see if that pushes any of your buttons.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 02:50 am (UTC)I'll see if I can hunt down that ep.