Early October Link Drop

I’ve been letting some links I wanted to post fall by the wayside as I work on revising a paper for resubmission, applying for jobs for next year, and putting together a presentation describing research done through Annenberg’s SummerCulture 2007: Lisbon program. (For those who wished us luck: Thanks, and the presentations went well!) Anyway, read on for some things that may be of interest.

On the hipness of nerds: The blogger behind .Evolving Music., a self-described “nerd hag,” reports that nerd is the new black.” Commenter Johnson laments, “I hope this doesn’t start to spawn a bunch of nerd posers. I can’t imagine anything more horrifying than a frat boy saying ‘Yo bro, the new edition of D&D just came out, it’s so fucking tight bro.'” Meanwhile, Idea City interprets my description of the XKCD event as an example of “true geeks” asserting their true geekiness in opposition to appropriation by the hipster set.

Randall on the Meetup: Speaking of the XKCD event (or “meetup,” as I keep forgetting everyone else is calling it), the comic’s own creator, Randall Munroe, has written a fine blog post about how the whole thing went down. Includes photos, a description of the trebuchet they used to fling things at a place I used to play frisbee, and a link to a write-up in the Boston Phoenix Magazine.

TV’s Geeks: MSN showcases TV’s Greatest Geeks. Funny side note: I used the exact same picture of the Simpson’s “comic book guy” in my presentation Wednesday. (Thanks to Cabral for the link!)

Game industry targets school kids: I wrote a post yesterday on Shouting Loudly on the Entertainment Software Association’s new anti-piracy campaign—a K-5 curriculum teaching kids that intellectual property must be respected, and fair use only exists in the classroom.

More on “The Great Nerd Culture Gap”: Church recently brought to my attention Time Magazine‘s new nerd blog by Lev Grossman, Nerd World. I was fascinated by his post on how “the mainstream” is still might not get nerdy pursuits even as our interests make get increased media coverage, but I think I’m even more fascinated by what his readers have to say in response.

Posted on Posted in Comics, Games, Miscellanea, Science, Television

11 thoughts on “Early October Link Drop”

  3. This is awesome. The Wrock blog is by one of my students, for my Musical Youth Cultures class — this is exactly what I hoped would happen if I had them do most of their coursework in virtual public.

  5. Kiri: I think getting your students blogging is a great idea. It’s more interactive between class members (not to mention the world at large!) than short response papers, and it discourages the idea that individual assignments are just ephemera. Plus, it’s a good way to teach new media skills in addition to building writing skill. (And, obviously, I’m a big supporter of ethnographers blogging, too.)

    Church: You manage to remain two steps ahead of me in the geek-themed blogosphere. You’ll be mentioned in my dissertation, at least, but I’m starting to wonder if I should ask to be your sidekick or something.

  6. Kiri, are your other students blogging too?

    Jason, are you serious about the mention? That would be too cool.

    Hrm. Maybe I should start a blog about blogs about nerds…

  7. I’d read that blog, Church. But you know me… (And I’d be interested to hear about your other students’ blogs if they have them, Kiri.)

    And yeah, when you comment regularly on my blog and introduce me to a slew of other blogs, you get mentioned in the dissertation for sure.

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