Thinking about my long and rambling dissection of Patton Oswalt’s dismal view of modern geek culture, one more point occurred to me. Patton might not sense an entitlement betrayed, as I suggested by quoting Nozick:
“Unsuccessful businessmen and workers do not have the same animus against the capitalist system as do the wordsmith intellectuals. Only the sense of unrecognized superiority, of entitlement betrayed, produces that animus.”
Instead, I started thinking about Patton himself. He might be the best stand-up out there. He’s made several movies, including Big Fan, which has been on my ‘must see’ list for a long time. He’s the voice of a Disney character. By any measure he is wildly successful and beloved and mainstream. He might not like it, but there it is. Maybe he’s just disconnected from, and not antagonistic towards, modern geek culture.
The Penny Arcade guys are better spokesmen for geekery. So is Felicia Day, or this ten year old kid spazzing out over his open-source 3D printer.
Much as I love Patton, asking his opinion on modern geek culture is silly. Like asking Charlie Sheen to give an anti-drug speech. Or like asking the kids from Footloose to stop dancing. Cause they can’t stop dancing! They’ve got so many feelings, man, that they can only express by dancing in an abandoned factory. Yeah, it’s totally just like that.
Whiskey and Car Keys 