Comment on “Guardians of the Shitpile”

The title threw me. I thought this would be another post about people (especially bloggers) defending their dumb D&D gaming by saying "it's fun!"

Instead you talked about people defending dumb movies by saying "it's fun!"

Having deliberately written the sentences out in parallel, I realize from them that this explains major phenomena in the behavior of the nerds I know.

They cling to various dumb entertainments (Pathfinder, shitty formulaic fantasy books, comics and their movies) for enjoyment. However, they believe as nerds it is impossible to like dumb (i.e. unintelligent) activities. The looming contradiction is resolved by insisting that the entertainment in question is not, in fact, dumb. After that, they invent all kinds of meaning where there is none, since obviously a not-dumb (i.e. smart) entertainment must have deeper meaning in it. Finally, to complete the circle, anyone criticizing the entertainment is subjected to a two-pronged hate.

Prong A: the critic is attacking something that binds nerds together socially. This can manifest as the standard belief that the critic "hates fun," or as a call for the critic to "leave us alone" because "taste is subjective," etc.

Prong B: The meanings they have invented are now a way to counter-attack the critic, claiming that they "don't get" the thing in question. This can tie into the tribalism above when the nerds posit that one must identify as a nerd and perform X sacrifice to "get it." (The sacrifice, of course, involves "reading the book" or "watching the original version" and so on.) Thus the critic is accused of not having done due diligence.

You may have written something or other on this before. Doubtless you've railed against "but X is fun" before, in several ways.