Has The Expansion of Science Fiction and Fantasy Fandom Made Geeks Less Tolerant?

(Subdivisions)

In the high school halls

In the shopping malls

Conform or be cast out

- Rush.“Subdivisions.” Signals. Mercury Records, 1982.

It may seem strange to my younger readers, but there was a time, not that long ago when we only talked about the world in black-and-white (or perhaps brown and beige).  Diversity wasn’t a buzzword, and the wounds of Jim Crow were still festering.  People were slowly learning the lesson that we should be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Unfortunately, that still left a lot of people out and I was lucky enough to be one of those people.  

I was the poor kid in the well-to-do neighborhood.  Since I didn’t fit with any of the groups at the local high school, I found my refuge in science fiction and comics.  Luckily there were other misfit toys just like me, all feeling alone in the world, and together we formed a coalition.  We came together, the left outs and left overs, the ones that didn’t fit in.  There was the gay kid, the stinky kid, the fat kid, the stoner.  We found each other, and formed, maybe not friendship, but a coalition of the unwilling, our own island of misfit toys.  

We discovered gaming, and built our own worlds.  We discovered Rocky Horror, and decided that we could be it and not just dream it.  Most importantly, we discovered each other, our similarities and our differences.  We didn’t agree, but we learned to respect one another.  The Christian, the Pagan, and the Atheist.  Gay and Straight.  Rich and Poor.  We practiced tolerance before it became fashionable.  We didn’t do it out of any sense of altruism, we learned to deal with each other and our differences to survive in a world that was hostile to us for being different.

This experience has always made me feel that geeks were just a little more open than mainstream society since we learned to tolerate each other, we welcomed all comers to the gaming table or the Anime club.

But that was a long time ago.

I have lost faith in my community, the geek community, the people who once welcomed all comers. Now, based on recent experience, it seems that just being a geek isn’t good enough.  You must have the right religion and politics to be welcome.  It seems that our tolerance has disappeared and we’ve become the thing that we once reacted so strongly against.

When reading blogs like Gizmodo and IO9, game company message boards, and Facebook posts, I read messages that pointedly make it clear that some people aren’t welcome in the geek community.  I have personal friends, people I know “In Real Life” that post horrible, hateful things about opposing political philosophies, or the faith of others, making it clear that folks with these beliefs are not welcome.  I see disagreements on Facebook that result in an instant “unfriend”, and I wonder what the heck is going on?

In many ways, we live in the Golden Age of geekdom. At the risk of dating myself, I remember when Doctor Who was an obscure British TV show that you could only find at odd times on the local PBS station.  Now,  take a trip to the local mall, and you’ll see at least one person wearing a Doctor Who tee-shirt.  Game of Thrones rules cable, and big-budget science fiction and fantasy films dominate the box office.  

Once Upon A Time, Supernatural, Arrow, American Horror Story, Being Human, Haven, Grimm, Fringe, The Vampire Diaries, Beauty and the Beast. Television is loaded with shows for the speculative fiction geek.  The Hobbit is in theaters this week, and The Avengers was one of the highest grossing films of all time.  

We’re in a sci-fi utopia. So all should be good with the world, right?

Unfortunately, it seems that the polarization of our culture at large has percolated down to the geeks and nerds, and now we’re drawing lines, and picking teams.  You don’t want to hang out with the fat kid?  Guess what, there are enough geeks now that you don’t have to.  Don’t like someone’s faith?  You can unfriend them with a click of a mouse.

I had always hoped that someday speculative fiction fandom would become mainstream.  It has.  More than that I had hoped that we’d keep our inclusive spirit.  We haven’t.  We had a chance to create a utopia of tolerance and understanding, yet for some reason we chose divisiveness, pettiness, spite, and exclusion.  Speculative fiction fans have become the bullies from which they once sought refuge, and that my friends is a very bad thing.

I challenge all geeks and speculative fiction fans to choose their words more carefully, being sensitive that you have friends of different faiths and political stripes, use the unfriend button sparingly and realize that just because someone doesn’t agree with you doesn’t make them evil.  You know, respect your fellow geek.  We’ll all be better off for it.

Even though the social pressures of high school are long gone, my wife and I still welcome all geeks, the fat and the thin, the gay and the straight,  the theist and the atheist  into our home.  We couldn’t identify ourselves as geeks and have it be otherwise.

We're Not Bullied Because We're Geeks, We're Geeks Because We're Bullied

Refuge, a place of shelter, protection or safety.  It’s something we all need, a place where we can be ourselves, without fear of judgement, criticism or abuse.  Refuge is important to people of all ages, but no one needs it more than teenagers, young people who are trying to figure out who they are and where they fit into the world.

While we tend to think about a refuge being a place, more often than not, the sanctuary we seek can’t be found in a place, but rather in the company we keep. When I was a boy, my uncles and aunts would come over to the house. My mom and her sisters would adjourn to the kitchen where they’d sit around the table and talk. Their husbands would head to the shop behind the house.  The kids would go outside to play.  One day, I happened to come back into the house to get something from my room.  Needless to say, my mom and her sisters were having the kind of frank conversation that can only happen between sisters, and then only in private. They had their refuge, their safe place.  They could say anything at the table, and it wouldn’t leave the table.  No one would judge them for it.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was actually an important lesson.

Recently I read a blog post titled “Why are Geeks, Bullied, Excluded, and Taunted?”  It's an interesting read, and even though the author may not be wrong in his conclusions, I think he completely misses the point.

Have you ever heard the phrase taking refuge in a book?  That’s what many proto-geeks do, the fat kid, the skinny kid, the kid with the odd speech pattern, the smelly kid, the gay kid, the atheist kid, the Christian kid, the kid that doesn’t quite fit in, the one who’s just a little bit different.   Each of these kids, each with a different reason for the mundanes to exclude, bully, and taunt, finds his or her way into their place of refuge.  Sometimes it’s comics, games, books, anime, or science fiction, and when it is, they become geeks.  Then these geeks slowly find each other, discover common interests, and become a community, building an even safer place for themselves.  It’s like the movie “Revenge of the Nerds”, where all the oddballs come together because no one else wants them.

We’re not special, not better than anyone else, but our hobbies and our community are our refuge, our safe place.  After all, the bully’s fist can’t find you in Middle Earth, Grayhawk, Gotham City, the Federation, or the planet Jurai.  So, we tend to be defensive. That’s where the author misses the point, we’re not bullied because we’re geeks, we’re geeks because we’re bullied.

For an article about bullying, there is a lot of talk about  gender issues.  Apparently women aren’t welcome at ComicCon.  They’re seen as interlopers, outsiders, and are there only to tease the real geeks.  As someone who's been married to a geek girl for 25 years, all I can say to that is... WTF?  I don’t think the problem is a fear of women, but rather a fear of Cosplayers.  

It seems like an academic difference, but it’s important.  For full disclosure, while I read comic books, I’m not a comic book “fan”, and I don’t attend comic book conventions (not the big ones at least).  All my experience comes from science fiction, both literary and media, table-top gaming, and anime conventions.  

So why, you may ask, would geeks be afraid of Cosplayers? It’s a case of immigrants versus colonists.  

For the purpose of this discussion, an immigrant is someone who migrates to another community, and then is assimilated by the new community.  A colonist is someone who moves into another community and seeks to supplant the indigenous people or culture with their own.  In most communities, immigrants are welcome, but colonists are not, largely because good things never seem to happen to the indigenous population when the colonists show up.

Are Cosplayers immigrants or colonists?  In the anime community, Cosplayers are taken for granted.  Generally speaking, they’re simply anime fans who dress up as their favorite characters.  Sure, they’re willing to spend hours talking about the intricacies of costuming, but they’re also willing to spend just as much time talking about Full Metal Alchemist or Tenchi Muyo!  Thinking about it in role-playing game terms, their character class is anime fan, with a proficiency in costuming.  I think the same can be said for Star Trek Cosplayers.   These folks are not just immigrants, but citizens.  

On the other hand, if people aren’t conversant with the underlying subject matter and have no respect for the community or its mores and values, then they’re colonists.  Fortunately, I haven’t met anyone at a science-fiction convention who didn’t either read a good bit of science-fiction or watch a good bit of it.  It could be that costuming is their primary thing, but they enjoy science-fiction enough to be at least a casual fan.

The most important difference between being an immigrant or a colonist, is that immigrants respect the mores and folkways of the community, geek culture so to speak, whereas colonists don’t.  A full discussion of geek culture is a missive for another day, but there are basic rules that I think we all agree to.  First, we don’t put each other down, period.  Yes I know you may think that fuzzy Transformers slashfic is disgusting, but there’s surely someone out there who loves it.  Second, we respect each other.  Third, it’s OK to argue about whether the Galactica or the Enterprise would win in a fight.  Fourth, it’s your thing, do what you’re gonna do.  But most important is no bullying.

Everyone is welcome in the community if you love the subject matter and are willing to learn.

- Roger Carden

Kickin' it back old school: Anime Style

Back in December the Diva and I were in Richmond, Va attending the monthly meeting of the Japanese Animation Network (JAN). JAN was founded by my friend Roy back in the late 80's, and was, depending on the year, a local, regional, or national club. When Roy passed away, the club fell by the way side, but a couple of years back Roy's wife Cathy, decided to resume the meetings.

Since we live in North Carolina we don't get to come up for every meeting, but we drive up when we can. The meeting started by watching Star Trek: The Animated Series - The Slaver Weapon and The Eye of the Beholder. Both were excellent episodes, and the quality of the DVD was amazing. Then we switched over the Tenchi Forever - Tenchi Muyo In Love 2. If you're not familiar with Tenchi Muyo in any of its incarnations, its a zany "harem" comedy where several young women compete for the affections of a clueless teenage boy. Tenchi Forever is not that. Its the same characters who have essentially grown up. There is no slap stick comedy, no over the top space battles, and no sexual innuendo - but there is a sex scene so parents beware. Its as different from the OVA series and follow-ons, like Tenchi in Tokyo, as night and day.

Next we watched several Nelvanna shorts. A Cosmic Christmas, The Devil and Daniel Mouse, and Please Don't Eat My Planet. Let me just say that despite my love for Rock N' Rule, I'm thankful that Japanimation not Cananimation (Canadian Animation) has influenced modern American animation. I don't think I could tolerate Batman: The Animated Series or Avatar: The Last Airbender if the characters all had bell bottoms, giant hands, and looked like the funny animals out of a Max Fleischer cartoon.

The high point of the evening was watching several videos pulled down from You Tube which were fan subs. The first, "Ôkami to kôshinryô" or Spice and Wolf, the second, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun), and the third was Toaru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index). The last two were set in the same setting with the former being a prequel to the latter. I recommend all three series, but hope that when they are commercially available they're available as English dubs. Subtitles seem to work well for me with theatrical releases, but I often have a hard time following them on the smaller screen.

The Life and Times of The Familiar (part 1 of many)

Recently, on the Steve Jackson Games forums, one of my fellow members started a discussion thread about publishing a professional RPG magazine. As soon as I was able to push down my first thought, For Goodness Sake Man, Don't Do It!, I thought that the would be publisher might gain some insight from my experience publishing a professional RPG magazine.

The Familiar magazine, for those who do not know, was published from 1987-1989 as a fanzine, and then again from 1994-1997 as a prozine. We closed our doors in the summer of 1997 due to the loss of our primary advertiser, TSR, Inc, the then publisher of Dungeons & Dragons. Truthfully, TSR's failure didn't kill the magazine, it was a one-two punch in the gut to be sure, but we could have weathered it had it not been for the industry wide shake up that happened while TSR reorganized its dept. TSR's financial problems led to a series of industry wide slow pays, and no pays.

When it became obvious that the magazine couldn't pay its debts, we tried a couple of things to reorganize and refocus, but they didn't work out. In the summer of 1997, after a failed attempt to return to print as a trade magazine in partnership with AEG, the magazine for all practical intent closed its doors.

We had talked about writing up a post mortem for The Familiar, but that never happened because at the time we were all a little bitter about what happened, and I, for one, was dealing with the crushing debt left over from the loans and leases that we had to start the magazine to begin with.

Even though its been 10 years, I still miss publishing The Familiar, not enough to do it again mind you (you learn not to try to pet the dog that bit you) but enough to long for the days attending parties at GenCon, and to miss the smell of a freshly printed issue when you first opened the box.

My purpose here will be to try to give potential publishers a chance to learn from our mistakes and to match or exceed our successes.