Neal Stephenson, a science fiction game designer and writer, wrote the article “Its All Geek To Me”. In the article Stephenson talks about how nerd culture is oftentimes criticized. Although, his main point is how this criticism has now made nerd culture almost immune criticism and has brought the culture into the mainstream. This is especially apparent today with a lot of superhero movies being the main blockbusters of the year and video games perforating most users’ feeds on social media.
Stephenson uses mainly ethos and logos to get these points across. I feel as if he very well knows his audience and who is going to be reading his article as he gears it a lot towards geeks themselves. This is seen throughout his article where he tells relatable stories which have occurred in the past such as when “Galaxy Quest” won the Hugo award by being voted on by “Trekkies” even though it made fun of them (Stephenson). This goes to show the reader, whom is most likely a geek, that the author knows what he is talking about and builds ethos for him. He also uses pathos by calling people whom read, watch, and play anything geeky cool. “…the fact that geeks can make lots of money now, have given creators and fans of this kind of art a confidence… is kind of cool now” (Stephenson). Here Stephenson uses logos to try to get the point that geek culture is cool and part of the mainstream now by reasoning that people involved in it make a lot of money and are confident. This goes back to the reader to also affect them with pathos, as if they identify as a geek, then they themselves will feel cool and trust the article more because of it.
Although the article is old, from 2007, it is still extremely prevalent and applicable today. Such phenomena can be seen rampantly today with the game Fortnite going into the mainstream and being played by people who’ve never played video games before as well as the same being done with superhero blockbuster films like Black Panther. The article also realized that the criticism of the genre also doesn’t affect it very much anymore, which is also very apparent today with many self-deprecating memes, jokes, and videos appearing all over the internet having to do with a lot of fans of a lot of geeky subcultures.
Works Cited:
Stephenson, Neal. “It’s All Geek to Me.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/opinion/18stephenson.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/opinion-contributors&action=click&contentCollection=contributors®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=search&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront.
