Geek Social Fallacies

[osprey_archer]

Here'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.

Comments

[entwashian.livejournal.com]

"I love stories where people valiantly pretend they have no emotions because otherwise the world will surely go to Hell in a handbasket."

Have you tried Stargate: Atlantis? As a character, John Sheppard is very, very much in line with your interests.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I watched the first season and a bit of the second, and gave it up because the only character who much interested me was Rodney McKay (who valiantly pretends that his only emotion is irritation, because everything else is obviously weakness).

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.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

I think it's funny that I put so much thought into the HP comment turned rant, but I just read this article, smirked, and said, "whatever."

I didn't have a lot of friends in high school--didn't want many--but I had my college friends, of whom there were about ten regulars (and I'm still friends with them)...and it didn't look anything like that. Big example? The downer no one liked? We threw his pretentious butt out and upgraded by recruiting his roommate. What can I say? I'm a bitch.

I do get the "nothing if not everyone" thing to an extent though. Although, it's not so much a cancelling issue as a what about next week too issue.

Maybe my group's just broken. :-D

[entwashian.livejournal.com]

You know, SGA is a unique fandom for me in that it's the only one I got into through fanfic first, so I already basically knew who the characters were, & could catch some of the nuances right off the bat.

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.

[ochre54.livejournal.com]

By virtue of being a loner, I've managed to escape falling into most of these, with the exception of GSF1. I do dislike watching others be ostracized and have both turned my back on a group of people, and gotten myself into trouble over it (with boys... who don't realize that being nice is not the same thing as wanting into their pants).

WRT the Stargate Atlantis comment above, I have to say, I kind of disliked it in the beginning, too. What got me hooked was fandom, which, besides writing piles and piles of awesome RodneyxJohn epics, were obsessed with Joe's wooden delivery. Having actually seen other shows he's been on, I can say with authority that he can act quite well, and has actively chosen to portray John the way he has. Which, weird! So SGA fic is full of speculation - is he a robot (http://leahwoof.livejournal.com/10024.html)? An elf (think the pointy ears)? An alien? A sociopath? A hologram? Purposefully trying to annoy everyone in his path? Gay but in denial (http://crimsonclad.livejournal.com/tag/mission+accomplished%21)? From the fifth dimension (http://cesperanza.livejournal.com/226047.html)? Each one is pretty entirely plausible. In any case, I rewatch old episodes for Joe. He makes faces (http://community.livejournal.com/face_of_joe/), slouches despite being military, whines like he's twelve when he's upset, his hair is more emotive than he is, he runs funny (one of his knees points more inward than the other), and possibly he's a robot! By the last two seasons, the writers have mostly made Rodney a charicature of his former self, but John Sheppard is pretty much always great. (The supporting cast are fun, too!)

[anait.livejournal.com]

Joe love! *puppy piles*

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I figure the author would applaud your wisdom in ditching Mr. Pretentious Pants. (I'm also fascinated to know whether he and the roommate remained roomies.)

We did eventually get over the "nothing if not everyone" thing, because eventually the fact that we never did anything became too much even for us. Now it's enough just to invite everyone; if they can't make it, too bad.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

The ostracism thing is tricky, because some people are just toxic and have to be gotten rid of - but (IMO) such people are rarely the ones who get ostracized, because one characteristic of a toxic person is having the social skills to make fighting the toxicity difficult and painful.

So superficially annoying people with low social skills are usually the ones who get ostracized instead.

I've read some SGA fanfic, and it just seems so divorced from the show. This isn't unusual (Torchwood fic: a million times better than the show) but with SGA I couldn't figure out how people got here from the original show. It's like the fanon has eaten the canon.

(This is totally tangential, but I've always thought it would be interesting, in a THIS IS A REALLY BAD IDEA kind of way, to write fic for something I've never seen, using mountains and mountains of fic reading in about the original as my source material.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Hee. I got into Torchwood fandom that way, and I was quite annoyed that the show didn't live up to the fic.

I'll see if I can hunt down that ep.

[ochre54.livejournal.com]

Forgot to say I really enjoy your creepy people in a circle icon.

Yes, to everything you said about ostracism (unfortunately).

It's true that most of the SGA fanfic is about John and Rodney's epic love, which doesn't translate so well to the show, since it is very gen. There are things which point to it, though, like being jealous of (and stealing, in John's case) each others love interests. Trying to figure out what goes on in John's head type fics actually tend to fit seamlessly into show canon. There is a lot of genfic out there, too - exploring the city, riding in puddlejumpers, doing missions, meeting the aliens. People had a lot of fun playing with scifi tropes.

If it seems like fanon has eaten the canon, it's probably because the show writers only rarely realized the show's potential.

And fic of fic? I've seen one done before that was pretty good, but it was more of a character piece and didn't really delve into much detail.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

Actually, my (new) friend moved out shortly after that. Which is nice because I spent most Friday and Saturday nights at his place and would have been really annoyed if I had to see the other guy every weekend.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking me to this!

When I was in high school, I almost only ever socialized with one or two people at a time, even when there was wider overlap among my friends (which there was, for some of them, but not for all).

It has only been in adulthood, and actually, since making friends through the medium of LJ, that I've come to experience that group dynamic thing, where there's an unspoken rule that everyone must be included. I'm still not used to having friendships where the main interaction is in a group, and I struggle a bit when it comes to interacting that way. But it's good for me :-)

Are you still close, four years later, to everyone in the group of nine? How did making college friends affect things?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

The thing about having a group of nine is that you're never close to all the members - there are just too many people. But the people within the group that I was close to, I still am close to now. (I may make a post about this. It's actually rather complicated.)

The group as a whole still has an annual New Year's party, but I think that might fade out over the next few years as people get jobs and spouses and things.

As for college friends, they've affected different people differently. For me, they made me appreciate some aspects of the high school group more - for instance, the delicacy with which we treated each other's feelings, which sometimes drove me batty in high school.

But for one of my friends her new college group has had the opposite effect: it's highlighted all the problems caused by treating each other's feelings so delicately, and also made her exasperated by our lack of sociability in high school.