“Hey Mordechai, you watch Game of Thrones, right? You’re into all that kinda stuff.”
If you’re someone who is as publicly geeky as I am, you’ve probably had some version of this conversation. Sure, it might not be GoT. It might be Walking Dead, it could be a book series, or even movie, but it’s always something. Something I’m not into. It’s not that it’s too dark; for goodness sake, I watch Hannibal.
Source: NBC
I don’t know if this is entirely unique to geekdom, but there’s this almost massive assumption (and not just from non-geeks), that if one is a geek, one is a geek about everything. Take a minute and think about the vagaries of geek culture and how impossible that is. By way of illustration, let’s look at music.
My father-in-law and my brother-in-law are both music lovers and musicians. My father-in-law is a former opera singer who utterly geeks out over things like a hard-to-find recordings of Carmen. My brother-in-law is a death metal guitarist (really). Using the logic of “You must love X because it is geeky and so is Y, then my father-in-law must love my brother-in-law’s music. This is, kindly, not the case.
Source: Massacre Machine.
I’m not even talking gamer geek vs RPGer vs comic geek vs mass media geek. I’m saying within “clans”. When my daughter was in preschool, some brilliant teacher taught her to say “that’s not my taste” instead of “I don’t like that.” I think that’s a lesson some adults could learn from, to the point that it’s almost my mantra. For example, I personally trend more towards hard science fiction in my reading. I have another friend who will buy any military SF/Fantasy book you put his way, but won’t touch some of the stuff I read. Because it wasn’t his taste.That’s it.
I devour parallel universe stories.I will watch any comic book themed TV show that gets put out, but if I don’t like it (and despite what those who read my reviews think, I do like it), I will drop it like a hot potato (see: Gotham). This isn’t about quality; sometimes I’ll like a show even if it is objectively bad.
Source: ITV
And sometimes it’s even if it is good. I get that Game of Thrones is one of the best things on TV now. I’m crazy happy about that. I love that Walking Dead is based on a black and white comic book, but I have zero interest in reading the books or watching the shows because it’s not my taste.
Some people take issue with that. They try to convince me to muddle through, to force myself to watch it. I respectfully reject that, and want my kids to as well. There’s so much media to consume as is, just leave us be. Instead, let’s be happy that we live in an era where there’s well done stuff for geeks of every single stripe, and you enjoy your flavor and we’ll enjoy ours.
