my discussion with liza about making friends with sci fi geeks unexpectedly got me thinking about “the poser barrier.” it’s silly, but talking about making friends with a particular group of enthusiasts actually dredges up one of my insecurities: it is another example of how i’m too much of a dilettante to feel accepted by those who share my interests.
like most dilettantes, i’m passionate about all my wide-ranging interests, no matter how superficial my knowledge of each one may be. whereas, your typical “scenester” is much more of a specialist — she puts in the time and effort to become intimately familiar with her passion, whether it’s sci fi or surfing or animal rights or hiphop or whatever.
i really like the camaraderie that arises out of shared passion for a particular subject, but so often i feel left out from that camaraderie because i’m not focused enough to be a scenester. for instance, i like to skateboard, but i’m not “a skater” and i don’t fit in with skaters. same thing with surfing. i like most kinds of music, but i’m not that into any one genre enough to fit in with metalheads or punks or whatever. i like playing videogames, but i don’t have much experience with gaming. i do a lot of things, but nothing very well. i just like a lot of variety. as much as i love talking about firefly/serenity and battlestar galactica, i’m not so into them that i remember the type of engine that powers fireflies (radion something?) or the hierarchy of military rank aboard the galactica. and because i’m not intimately familiar with any particular interest, i never feel like i can hang with scenesters.
i know that most sci fi geeks or skaters have other interests too, and most people probably enjoy talking to others who genuinely share one or more of their interests even if we aren’t intimately familiar with every aspect of it. to some extent, it’s just my own insecurity. but a lot of these scenes have a reputation for shunning “posers” (some more than others, of course). really, doesn’t the whole poser thing basically come down to reserving that camaraderie for those who “earn it”? and as a dilettante, i rarely put the time and effort into any one interest to earn any rank above “poser” level.
all of which is intended to explain why a perfectly friendly, personable chick like myself finds herself being easily frightened off by liza’s description of the sci fi geek scene.
hopefully, though, most people aren’t as anti-poser as i fear. i’m not trying to pretend to be anything i’m not, i’m just trying to be friends with people who share my interests. i’m not competitive in the least — i’ll freely admit that you scenesters are “better at it” than me. in other words, i know i’m a poser, but can’t we just be friends anyway? show us some tolerance, we posers really aren’t such bad people.
it’s totally possible for posers like myself to be friends with tolerant scenesters. i have friends who are hardcore fitness people and hardcore animal rights people and hardcore hardcore (music) people. but i always feel more comfortable with other dilettantes. the great thing about dilettantes is that if you know enough of us, eventually you’ll know at least one person who shares each of your various interests. and you never have to worry about a dilettante thinking you are a poser. and we are more fun to invite to parties. hooray for dilettantes!
woo hoo! give me 1/2 browncoat point for almost remembering that firefly class ships have a “radion and accelerator core”! i’m (well) on my way to geekdom.
I think part of that insecurity about whether we’re sufficiently “into” XYZ to be scenesters in the XYZ scene probably stems from high school and maybe college.
At that age, IMO, everyone is busy trying to prove that they fit in and are sufficient scenesters that they ARE judging everyone else — and themselves — to see how they measure up. And to draw clear “us” and “them” lines.
I don’t think most adults are like that. In fact, I think MOST adult enthusiasts about anything are excited to share what they know and hopefully help more people to get how amazing and wonderful XYZ is.
But this is one of those areas where knowing that makes no difference.
PS What’s a browncoat point?
a “browncoat” is a firefly/serenity aficionado. in line with my rant on posers vs. scenesters, i was being facetious about having to earn a certain number of “points” before calling myself a browncoat.
i think you are generally right about growing out of the poser thing, but i know for a fact that some adults still shun people they think are posers. i usually laugh at them when they do this.
apropos of this whole discussion, last night travis and his two bandmates had a potential drummer over to see if they all might get along. they talked about nothing but bands they like for 2.5 hours. then when the other guys left, travis told me about how the drummer was mocking his co-workers, who are so into D&D and role playing games that they wear cloaks and dice pouches to work. i told him that a bunch of guys who just sat there and discussed music for 2.5 hours straight have no right to make fun of D&D geeks for being overenthusiastic about their hobby. talk about a glass house! incidentally, the drummer works at an “internet provider” in tysons corner — did you see any cloaks and dice pouches at your last job, liza?
That is a great story! Music geeks are SO intense about their music — as was driven home to me when my sister and her husband last visited.
It turns out that Jason and Jill have a common musical geek obsession: The Rolling Stones. Anna and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise at lunch.
I don’t think I’ve seen any dice, either at the current job or the last one. But maybe I’ve seen a cloak or two.
We should check with B over at Car54. She works with a much more hardcore geek community than I did, and her boyfriend has what I view as the ultimate in geek cred: he wrote an O’Reilly book.
PS I was semi-joking with the browncoat point question.
When you come right down to it, unless you’re the Lance Armstrong of your field, there’s always going to be people who are more passionate and more skilled at whatever it is so there will always be others who could consider us posers. And, on the other hand, there are always people who know less and to them we’re the “experts” and they’re the dilettantes. I wonder if the president feels like a poser in a meeting with world leaders discussing current events. I always feel like I’m play acting roles in my life–whether I was a math grad student, running a meeting as a project manager (wearing wll-accesorized) business suits) or as a martha-stewart-mom or as an aerobics instructor. My life as a poser. Or as Shakespeare put it, a little more eloquently, all the world’s a stage.
Lmao! This is a great discussion! I must say that I sometimes have felt like a poser, not because I feel I necessarily am; but because I’ve more than once been accused of being, “a Jack of all trades, master of none.” I think more than anything its been one of those things where I DO have an intrest in certain thing; but I’m not about to go delving neck deep in a topic I’m not THAT passionate about… I guess I’ve been lucky in that sense that most of my friends understand that about each other and we only go deep in the things we know the others are deeply into. And we cross polinate each other in topics we don’t necessarily know much about… (Like the fact that I know which of my friends to go to if I have a Justice League Q) I think alot of it stems from peoples’ insecurities that someone out there who obviously doesn’t know as much as them will usurpt them in their chosen field of… ‘geekness’? ’cause as everybody knows; you’re only as good as your ranking. or at least it was in HS… people grow up, mostly; and realize that it isn’t allways so. I like what liza said; it’s their “relatively socially inept way” of interacting… a relic of the HS wars that shattered the kingdom and … ahem, yes; (I mention I’m into D&D and fantacy?)…its the way it WAS. Most have moved on and you will find, with a little searching, that those make the best contacts into any particular field.
BTW- I love that word, Dilettante… MUCH better than poser… what a great word! lol
love how you frame it in fantasy language, ralphie! what is it they say in “lord of the rings”? “the world moved on”?
also love the use of the term “cross-pollination.”
by the way, y’all should know that raphael, who is most certainly not a geek, is the one that got me hooked on both firefly and battlestar galactica. actually, he literally had to convince me to give them a try. now of course, if raphael tells me to watch something, i watch it — no questions asked.
anyhoo, my point is that cross pollination between dilettantes can be a powerful force. the geeks may reign supreme in terms of the depth of their love for a subject, but they can’t hold a candle to us dilettantes when it comes to sharing the love. in more than one sense of the phrase, actually.