Signals From The Earth

The other day in Rittenhouse Square, I saw a young, stylishly dressed couple playing with a deck of cards that looked familiar. On closer inspection, they were from the “Necronomicon” collectible card game. I’ve never played it, but it reminded me of my time playing “Magic: The Gathering” and its relatives as an adolescent. I shouldn’t have been surprised, either. It’s become socially acceptable to talk about your CCG proclivities on Twitter (a nerdy medium at its core). And now I’m told that numerous bespectacled celebrities, including Moby, have confessed their love of Dungeons and Dragons. My reaction, when my brain began to collate this trend, was an enthusiastic “fuck this.”

I love geeky games. I was among the most painstaking roleplaying dweebs. I spent years of my life lost in the constructed realms of various fantasy games, and would never trade those years in. I made some of my best friends in the process. It was also cheaper than driving around stoned.

But gamers were also quietly ostracized. Most of my peers saw the activity as  déclassé, despite it making most teenage hobbies (like pretending to be old enough to drink Coors Light) look stultifying by comparison. Gaming was also symptomatic of my preexisting social isolation. It’s probably no coincidence that in high school, I excelled at the two activities, roleplaying and policy debate, whose rules dictated that the other participants listen to what I had to say.

Most gamers were outcasts. The notion of the dorky basement dweller and his level 4 magic user is not a myth from the ’70s. I have met him, even if he sometimes is from the ’70s. So why the resurgence? On first glance, one might as well ask why big-framed glasses are now trendy. Irony is a massive engine, and burns through our collective predilections at a rapid pace. As soon as D&D and its ilk were famous enough in their nerdiness to become symbolic, their adoption by the cultural avante-garde was inevitable.

But it’s not ugly ducklings bringing back gaming.The people behind the now-nascent cooling of RPGs and other basement addictions are the same people who are unironically adopting the identity of the nerd as a social positive. Presumably, they have come out of the basement, they have jobs and disposable income, and even kids of their own, and want their value to be recognized. That sounds great. But I hate it.

I consider myself an ex-geek. However, I rejected geekdom because it was unprincipled, not because it was unpopular. At first, it was the massive outlays of time that hurt my schoolwork. Then, it was the realization that immersion in my remaining fantasies of computer games and my own mental mythology were short-circuiting my desires from becoming expressions, actions. Outgrowing the geek persona was not an act of self-denial; it was a process of self-actualization.

So who is heralding the new “chic of geek”? First, most of the people calling themselves geeks would never last an afternoon around the card table. I’ve heard graphic designers, beer snobs, administrative law experts, and painters describe themselves as geeks. I’ve even heard hipsters presuming to “geek out” about the latest Pitchfork pick. These people are missing the point: being a geek wasn’t just the complex state of obsession that led brainy kids and social rejects to worship their mythic alter egos; it required a second element, the element of repression and marginalization that prevented their energy from finding external purchase.

What about the kids who never truly outgrew their geekiness? I know more than my fair share. Some find a productive niche as software engineers, or librarians, somewhere they won’t have to face the social realities of their organization. Not great artists, but often great people. But you’d be surprised how many dyed-in-the-wool geeks drop out of school, and never make it out of their home towns. These kids’ inability to engage reality prevented whatever act of creativity it might have taken to be who they wanted. Many geeks never make it out of the basement.

But it’s not that the cool kids are mocking our kitchy collective subculture. It’s the opposite: fairly mainstream or at least well-adjusted adults are recognizing the unironic allure of our beloved pasttimes. It’s fun, it’s social, and in the aftermath of Harry Potter, doesn’t seem that weird. In light of this, I’ve come to terms. The up-and-coming renaissance of D&D is less like our love of Reefer Madness and more like our love of croquet: in the absence of the social distinction that made the activity alternately clubby or pretentious, we are left with a basically fun game we can play with our friends.

And this is the larger story as well: it’s not that the society has entered the enclosure, but rather that the enclosed objects have permeated into society. We now live in an information age with information lifestyles. Everybody spends time on their computer, everybody is a specialist, everyone is obsessed with media, everybody has to think. But this does not make everyone a geek, any more than playing croquet on your college quad makes you upper class. The rules of the game have changed, and now the once-off-limits is acceptable.

Take anime. Sure, you’re all wearing glasses and riding bicycles, but you won’t admit to watching stylized cartoons from Japan. That’s because you don’t. The people that do are varied, but many of them are socially inept. Actually inept, not just pretending. And anime has a lot in common with D&D: although some works are quite sophisticated, the majority play on amped-up symbolism and simplified archetypes to evoke a hero drama that’s powerfully seductive to children– and anyone else who hasn’t matured psychologically. Eventually, the finer works of the genre will become acceptable fanfare for everyone. Until then, ask yourself: would I fit in at a screening of Evangeleon? Or am I just saying I’m a geek? You don’t have to tell anyone the answer. I wouldn’t want you to lose your cred.