In a modern world full of technological avenues for self-expression, the ability for a person to express their opinion about a subject has increased substantially. With people expressing themselves online, even more have the opportunity to respond. With this, negativity in nerd culture has become much more prevalent. It appears open conversation has gone out the window, and kindness for fellow nerds has become little more than legend. Have we forgotten that nerdom is what brings us together? Is there a way to become more open in our conversations about our nerdom and the nerdom of others?

Pop Culture Is Like Food

The gamut of options for the food we can consume is incredible. There is a world of variety to choose from. The options are practically infinite. Pop culture is the same. And while our tastes may differ, anyone can find something to be satiated by in the copious amounts of pop culture available to the world. The content smorgasbord ranges from Star Wars to Lord Of The Rings to Harry Potter to X-Files to Battlestar Gallactica to…well, as you can see, like the menu at Cheesecake Factory, the list goes on and on. There are so many options, and with options come personal preferences. 

When asking, “What is your favorite food?” one could ask, “What is your favorite franchise?” And that person’s answer could be Star Wars, but that answer would be deceptively simple because one could say they only like the original Star Wars (Episodes IV-VI) and didn’t care for the prequels (Episode I-III) or even the ones that came after like the spin-off movies (Solo or Rogue One), whereas another can say, “Is it Star Wars? Then, I love it!” This goes to show that one simple statement of opinion can mean a myriad of things to a myriad of people.

If someone answers that their favorite food is Mexican, but they only like it from a certain region, does that make them wrong? Or, like in the previous example, if someone says they love Star Wars, but only the original trilogy, does that make them wrong? 

No. It is their opinion and their preference. It doesn’t make that individual a terrible person. They merely like one thing over another.

Which brings up…

To Each Their Own

One recent example of this came in the form of two different conversations with two different people about the same movie, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. One stated they strongly disliked it while the other stated they loved it back to front. The latter went on to say their rating for a Jurassic Park franchise film would automatically be 75% positive as long as it has dinosaurs and those dinosaurs are chasing or eating people. The former went on to explain specific and minute details of the story which they didn’t care for, and ultimately lead to their dislike of the film. Same movie. Different criteria. Different opinions. Both acceptable.

Pop culture preferences are individual just like each person is an individual. Everyone has their own life experience informing the criteria for which their opinions are based on. A film student may look at a film much more critically than a person who has an emotional connection to a film franchise because of personal experiences with their parent taking them to the movies when they were a child.

Fact vs. Opinion

This is when the argument for fact versus opinion comes into play. Can you prove that a certain film is truly terrible? Yes and no. One could spend hours on a dissertation proving why a certain movie is a masterpiece or the worst movie ever made based on analysis, comparison, and research. The internet is full of articles like that. But, in the end, that is still only an opinion. You can give your reasons for why something is bad, but that is only your personal view of it based on personal experience.

Subjective vs. Objective

Here is where the line becomes a tad bit blurry.

An opinion can be either subjective (based on feelings) or objective (based on facts). Someone can have an opinion that a movie is good based on the feelings they experienced while watching the movie, whereas someone else can have an opinion that the movie is bad based on facts (e.g. script, story elements, the cinematography, the acting etc.) Or vice versa.

All too often someone will treat their opinion as the truth and another person’s opinion as false. One person’s truth is their own, and as an individual, they are allowed to have their opinion.

Declaring an opinion to be objective truth rather than a subjective view based on observations of objective fact leads to a competition for ownership of objective truth. Someone treating their opinion as the truth, rather than their personal take on all available facts, erodes the value of objective truth and causes others to double-down on their opinions, and ignore available facts which they might otherwise be open to. For example, Star Wars: The Last Jedi haters have muddied the waters for those who have legitimate criticisms; people are more likely to defend the movie against any criticism because they’re so used to the zealous arguments against it being made online. This is a sort of reverse peer pressure where instead of being mindlessly swayed by the copious amounts of arguments against a piece of pop culture content, someone could take the stubborn route supporting something because everyone else is against it. Sadly, this person‘s original objective or subjective truth may have been squashed or blurred due to the lack of open dialogue.

Don’t Be “That Guy” 

This also means that the haters out there are allowed to have their opinions as well. The difference is what you do with those opinions. As it is said in this article on Wired, “If your opinion makes you say body-shaming things to Kelly Marie Tran on the internet, it’s a bad thing.” In other words, don’t be that person that goes on the internet just to spew hate without adding anything valuable to the discussion.

Remember What Brings Us Together

Does this mean we all have to agree and go about our lives like automatons? No. But it’s important to remember that we all share something in common. We all have the need to escape into our favorite fantasy worlds. Pop culture brings us together. In a time where hatred appears to be so prevalent in society, perhaps it’s time to practice kindness and to have more open conversations with our fellow nerds. Perhaps it’s time to treat our fellow nerds with love over fear. If we spent more time talking about things openly, we as nerds would find there is more that brings us together than tears us apart, even if we do disagree about something. We are all nerds and we can all be nerds together. And with that, I leave you with the 3 tenets of nerd according to Wired Magazine:

The Three Tenets of Nerd:

1. A nerd must not harm another nerd, or through inaction allow a nerd to come to harm.
2. Nerds must cooperate with other nerds, except where such cooperation would violate the previous tenet.
3. Nerds must protect the existence of nerddom, except where such protection violates the first two tenets.

*Cue “Kumbaya” by Peter, Paul and Mary*

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