Guest post: Except that’s not their message


Originally a comment by M can help you with that on Cunningly disguised as their own.

Once there we will start distributing the totalitarian message that nerd and gamer culture is… perfectly wonderful just as it is and should be left alone to go it’s [sic] own way.

…except that’s not their message. Their message is that only the reactionary parts of nerd and gamer culture are “perfectly wonderful.” We know this from their positions: when one part of nerd or gamer culture (a more feminist, less racist, less cis-centric and/or heterocentric part) tries to influence what it means for the culture of which they are a part to “go its own way”…then that part, the honey badgers insist, absolutely cannot be “left alone,” but must be attacked, condemned, and harassed into silence. They’re not defending “nerd culture” or “gamer culture” — they’re insisting that certain reactionary elements in those subcultures should have absolute authority over the subculture as a whole.

There have been women, feminists, people of color, queer people, radicals, social-justice advocates, etc. in nerd and gamer culture as long as nerd and gamer culture have existed — certainly longer than the honey badgers (or I) have been part of these cultures, or even alive. Letting nerd culture “go its own way” means seeing the culture grow, mature, and develop in ways that expand the ways people can find a safe home in the culture, not demanding that a (supposed) core of entitled insecure straight cis white men have the divine right to prevent that growth and development.

(As an aside — I think quite a bit of the commentary regarding the honey badgers’ “infiltration” remarks have been off-point. I took it as sarcastic, i.e. they were trying to say “Hey, we’re part of nerd culture too!” — but, of course, it doesn’t work so well in terms of making a point because they, not the people who disagree with them, are the ones dedicated to exclusion.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *