BW Media Spotlight

I may be misreading the article and comments I’m about to respond to, but it still makes for a good title, right?

So last night I responded to a fairly recent article by author JW Cowan declaring that geek culture wasn’t just “dead” but was never really a thing. I had my disagreements as someone who is surrounded by “geek culture”, “genre media”, or whatever term you want to call it. It’s like saying there’s no sports culture, no theater culture, no novel culture. Geek culture is simply made up of various subcultures that intersect with each other and other genres. One of the things I like about science fiction is that it can imitate other genres while still being science fiction. Murder mystery on a space colony. Romance between two alien races. Comedy adventure about a group of smugglers often in over their head but in space. (Did I mention Runners is doing the next chapter of it’s current story arc? Go read after this.) The thing about geek culture and geek entertainment is that it’s more a spin on other pop cultures than one on its own. I mentioned that remembering sports stats or fashion icons is a bit geeky when you think about it.

This all started after seeing a repost of an article by Brian Niemeier on Bleeding Fool, but we’ll be using his own blog. The post in question was a response to a previous article he wrote entitled “The Riddle Of The Pop Cult” and the comments he garnered. This will be the bulk of my response as if I read this correctly it poses an odd theory: that the death of geek culture has to do with the removal of Christianity from those media tied to geek culture. Don’t get me wrong, as a non-denominational raised Catholic (not a strict religious home but we’re believers here) and someone who is a part of geek society (I’ve always referred to myself as a demi-geek) I have noticed the stripping of faith, as the California state of mind seems to be ditching Christian values and treating them as “evil”, and guess where Hollywood and the gaming industry in the US mostly hang out.

Warner Brothers brought DC Comics to their area and out of New York, and Marvel might as well have followed when Disney bought them. I’ve seen religious views looked down upon, but does that mean pop culture is anti Christian these days?

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