Patton Oswalt's "pop culture apocalypse"
chebutykin posted this link from Wired over at FB, and while I think Bob Subiaga did a good job ripping Oswalt's glaring stupidity to shreds, there were a couple of things I wanted to expand on.
I'm old enough to remember the days when there really was a ghetto for SF and fantasy, and while it was an okay enough place to be in, (if you weren't completely autistic) the problem came when you had to deal with the outside world, which took its cues from the New York Times and similar arbiters of what was okay and what wasn't when it came to middle-brow culture. The outside world definitely did not approve of "all that Buck Rogers nonsense" and the social penalties for reading something like Heinlein or Clarke in public - and never mind that both had been published in such bourgie publications as the Saturday Evening Post and Boys' Life - could be pretty unpleasant. Let's not even mention comic books. Everyone knew those were for kids, and the sight of a grown man reading them was a sure sign of some kind of deviancy.
And then, things started to change. Star Trek acquired a large, fanatic group of viewers who eventually compelled Paramount to make a movie, then a second series, then more movies...and this guy George Lucas had a crazy notion that people would want to watch a romantic adventure with spaceships and robots and blasters and an evil villain in black armor and lightsabers, and we all know about THAT. Suddenly it was okay to like science fiction and fantasy; eventually it even became cool. Science-fiction concepts and ideas are all over the place in popular culture now, which makes some of the older fans...uncomfortable. To say nothing of their kids.
So Oswalt whines about people who have instant familiarity with the Cthulhu Mythos or any of fifty other "important" pop culture landmarks. I think he needs to STFU and get a real life. The websites and lists he complain about only provide a surface knowledge, and that doesn't make people interesting, or even otaku. It just gives them a key to the door, a free spin of the propeller beanie that marks them as someone with an interest in one of the many facets of geek/nerd/SF&F culture. Him thinking that a mere perusal of internet sites is enough is a big honking neon sign proclaiming to all and sundry: "HEY! I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M TALKING ABOUT! BUT I'M COOL AS SHIT BECAUSE I'M DISSING THE NEOS!" No, Patton. You're not cool. You're just the 21st century version of the old literary fans who sneered at the Trekkies because they had no idea who Mervyn Peake was or why they should be interested in Gormenghast*. They were never cool, and you aren't either. Your "pop culture apocalypse" is a childish fantasy with no more possibility of becoming real than Iron Joe Bob
being elected the next governor of Texas.
Frankly, Oswalt's immature, imbecilic spew is further evidence that WIRED isn't worth the trees they're killing to print it, any more than Time or Newsweek. I guess we should be happy that it didn't show up on Boing Boing. As much as I despise Cory Doctorow, he and Ms. Jardin at least have standards, which is apparently more than we can say about WIRED.
Jesus. First the Insane Clown Posse, and now this. Would somebody find the editor and take away his crack pipe, please?
*I'm going to get around to it one of these days, maybe.
I'm old enough to remember the days when there really was a ghetto for SF and fantasy, and while it was an okay enough place to be in, (if you weren't completely autistic) the problem came when you had to deal with the outside world, which took its cues from the New York Times and similar arbiters of what was okay and what wasn't when it came to middle-brow culture. The outside world definitely did not approve of "all that Buck Rogers nonsense" and the social penalties for reading something like Heinlein or Clarke in public - and never mind that both had been published in such bourgie publications as the Saturday Evening Post and Boys' Life - could be pretty unpleasant. Let's not even mention comic books. Everyone knew those were for kids, and the sight of a grown man reading them was a sure sign of some kind of deviancy.
And then, things started to change. Star Trek acquired a large, fanatic group of viewers who eventually compelled Paramount to make a movie, then a second series, then more movies...and this guy George Lucas had a crazy notion that people would want to watch a romantic adventure with spaceships and robots and blasters and an evil villain in black armor and lightsabers, and we all know about THAT. Suddenly it was okay to like science fiction and fantasy; eventually it even became cool. Science-fiction concepts and ideas are all over the place in popular culture now, which makes some of the older fans...uncomfortable. To say nothing of their kids.
So Oswalt whines about people who have instant familiarity with the Cthulhu Mythos or any of fifty other "important" pop culture landmarks. I think he needs to STFU and get a real life. The websites and lists he complain about only provide a surface knowledge, and that doesn't make people interesting, or even otaku. It just gives them a key to the door, a free spin of the propeller beanie that marks them as someone with an interest in one of the many facets of geek/nerd/SF&F culture. Him thinking that a mere perusal of internet sites is enough is a big honking neon sign proclaiming to all and sundry: "HEY! I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M TALKING ABOUT! BUT I'M COOL AS SHIT BECAUSE I'M DISSING THE NEOS!" No, Patton. You're not cool. You're just the 21st century version of the old literary fans who sneered at the Trekkies because they had no idea who Mervyn Peake was or why they should be interested in Gormenghast*. They were never cool, and you aren't either. Your "pop culture apocalypse" is a childish fantasy with no more possibility of becoming real than Iron Joe Bob
being elected the next governor of Texas.
Frankly, Oswalt's immature, imbecilic spew is further evidence that WIRED isn't worth the trees they're killing to print it, any more than Time or Newsweek. I guess we should be happy that it didn't show up on Boing Boing. As much as I despise Cory Doctorow, he and Ms. Jardin at least have standards, which is apparently more than we can say about WIRED.
Jesus. First the Insane Clown Posse, and now this. Would somebody find the editor and take away his crack pipe, please?
*I'm going to get around to it one of these days, maybe.