Daryl Goard
postmoderncriticDo You Get Geek Humour?
February 10th 2007 08:01
In last week's What is a Geek? post, this comment by yoda76 got me thinking:
I started to ponder the nature of Geek Humour. It is something that is undoubtedly rising to the forefront, and many people (including myself) are attempting to cash in on the concept.
What exactly is geek humour?
The answer to this is as elusive as the defintion of geek itself. It generally centres on and often lampoons the traditionally geeky pastimes, such as technology and science fiction. The main purpose behind it revolves around the idea of the 'in-joke' - it is not something that should be funny to all of the population, only to those within the geek subculture.
The multitude of comments left on my previous post made me wonder about who actually 'gets' geek jokes. Does one have to be a geek to truly appreciate the humour? With geekdom now being in vogue, does the average person know enough about it to get the gist of what is being alluded to? And with the term geek now encompassing so many different people and things, can something one geek finds hilarious be completely lost on another?
To use myself as an example, I can usually understand allusions to Star Trek, despite hardly ever watching the show. I can also understand a lot of technology related jokes, but am clueless when it concerns anything with binary. I think I get most geek references, but undoubtedly there are some that go straight over my head.
So, my question to you - do you understand geek humour, or does the significance escape you? Is it really that obscure, or for the most part fairly mainstream?
Ah yes - All your base are belong to us - Make your time!
I think when a geek-pop-culture benchmark like Futurama makes reference to something, you can be sure it is so Geek it has become mainstream:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kRCvkuFJE9A
This is full of geek - look out for Zero Wing as the space invaders disembark @ 5.16.
I watched this clip laughing my ass off, and then stopped and realised how much of a geek I was - not just to find it funny, but because I was actually able to pick just about every reference
I'm kinda proud of my geek-dom, 'cause I'm sure I derive amusement from many things that a lot of others miss out on, but I can assure you that I keep it in a jar by the door and only bring it out on special occasions!
I think when a geek-pop-culture benchmark like Futurama makes reference to something, you can be sure it is so Geek it has become mainstream:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kRCvkuFJE9A
This is full of geek - look out for Zero Wing as the space invaders disembark @ 5.16.
I watched this clip laughing my ass off, and then stopped and realised how much of a geek I was - not just to find it funny, but because I was actually able to pick just about every reference
I'm kinda proud of my geek-dom, 'cause I'm sure I derive amusement from many things that a lot of others miss out on, but I can assure you that I keep it in a jar by the door and only bring it out on special occasions!
I started to ponder the nature of Geek Humour. It is something that is undoubtedly rising to the forefront, and many people (including myself) are attempting to cash in on the concept.
What exactly is geek humour?
Funny or confusing?
The multitude of comments left on my previous post made me wonder about who actually 'gets' geek jokes. Does one have to be a geek to truly appreciate the humour? With geekdom now being in vogue, does the average person know enough about it to get the gist of what is being alluded to? And with the term geek now encompassing so many different people and things, can something one geek finds hilarious be completely lost on another?
To use myself as an example, I can usually understand allusions to Star Trek, despite hardly ever watching the show. I can also understand a lot of technology related jokes, but am clueless when it concerns anything with binary. I think I get most geek references, but undoubtedly there are some that go straight over my head.
So, my question to you - do you understand geek humour, or does the significance escape you? Is it really that obscure, or for the most part fairly mainstream?
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Comment by yoda76
The Tube Blog
Also an interesting thought I had while reading your post - there can also be subtle shades of Geek humour... in some ways even culture-jamming is a little geeky.
For example, I know some people who are actively involved in this kinda stuff - at the height of the whole Metallica / Napster debacle they illegally downloaded and burned a bunch of Metallica CDs with dodgy hand-written labels and placed them in the Metallica section of several popular music stores.
Part geek, part activism, part humour.
I wonder does this fit the bill?
Comment by Nina
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Comment by yoda76
The Tube Blog
Love to know what you make of it!
Comment by Nina
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Comment by katyzzz
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I'd probably get some by just guessing, but, at this stage most of it looks decidedly unfunny.
I guess you have to be one to appreciate the nerdish attempts at humour.
Incidentally, my humour was to ask, last time when and where do I enrol, to do a course to become a geek, I really knew one didn't exist and that that was not what it was all about.
Unfortunely, I think people did not get my humour, which really wasn't difficult.
katyzzz
Comment by Nina
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