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1. Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 10-Jan-2019 01:20:12 EST Strypey

   Just finished listening to #LibreLounge 'Episode 3: Hacker Culture, Past, Belonging and Inclusion':
   https://librelounge.org/episodes/episode-3-hacker-culture-past-belonging-and-inclusion.html

   1. Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 10-Jan-2019 01:53:31 EST Strypey

      in reply to

      @cwebber @emacsen
      Another great episode. I'm not neurotypical, and I was a classic "computer nerd" at school. I was into video games, programming (a bit of #BASIC and #Pascal), #SciFi and fantasy, D&D etc. I was a school librarian all through school, and at high school I was part of the nerd crew who hung out in and around the library. I mostly abandoned this around the time I left school, and only came back to hacker culture later via activism, and being involved in projects like #Indymedia.

      1. Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 10-Jan-2019 02:02:31 EST Strypey

         in reply to

         @cwebber @emacsen there was a high proportion of white males in the nerd social groups at my schools, but not because anyone was excluded. Any women or POC who wanted to hang out with us were as welcome as anyone else. Nerd culture was what we ended up gathering together to do because we were excluded from "cool" culture. In other words, nerd culture was a ghetto, not an ivory tower.

         1. Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 10-Jan-2019 02:10:09 EST Strypey

            in reply to

            @cwebber @emacsen I get that the commercialization of the web has changed that for people with desirable tech skills, but not for the rest of the nerd subcultures (gamers, genre fandoms, etc). Those are, for the most part, still ghettos. Still welcoming to anyone who groks the culture and wants to join in. Still the butt of "cool" culture jokes (the chubby comic book shop guy from #TheSimpsons is a classic example). Nerds are the only people it's still PC to pick on.

            1. Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Thursday, 10-Jan-2019 02:14:19 EST Strypey

               in reply to

               @cwebber @emacsen So when middle class "cool" kids like #AnitaSarkeesian start making money off laying into a nerd subculture, the angry backlash is disappointing, but hardly surprising. Let me be very clear, #GamerGate was horrific. Anita made plenty of fair points, and I think it's great she was able to support her work via #crowdfunding. But while from her POV she was a marginalized person attacking privilege, from the gamer POV she was using "cool" privilege to attack a marginalized group.