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This morning while lamenting a lost roll of film (I’d loaded it wrong and spent several days shooting, well, nothing) Tara said something like “I don’t know why you keep messing with that, why don’t you just go digital? I’m sure you can get the look you want with filters or something” I don’t remember my exact reply but it was something along the lines of “there’s a little more to it than that.”

Which got me thinking, of course.

And now I’m writing about it, of course.

I’ve resisted calling myself a photographer for my whole life for a million reasons, I just like taking pictures. I like documenting things and I like trying to express a feeling in something visual. Writing isn’t that much different honestly, often when I’m writing I’m trying to convey a feeling and choosing the words and structure I think will do that best. With photography, it’s about picking the right moments to capture a feeling. I didn’t realize it had been this long, but 2 years ago I wrote some thoughts about photography in general and touched on the film vs digital issue then. A lot of that still holds true. But today, in 2012, why do I shoot on film?

There’s no simple answer, but a few things play into it.

It’s about the process.
I’ve certainly taken a good number of photos on digital camera, in fact that’s exactly the point. With digital I just snap away. Here’s a shot. There’s a shot. Whatever. I don’t feel invested. Of course I realized this long after the fact, but because digital is so easy to see what you just did, and redo it, or take a ton of photos and later just choose the best one, it doesn’t feel valuable to me. That’s not a projection on any of my friends who shoot exclusively on digital, it’s just for me and for the photos I’m taking, I never felt invested in the digital shots I took. I felt like I was just taking a photo to have it.

When I realized this and started making the transition to film each photo suddenly became precious to me. I didn’t know if it turned out right or not. Should I take a few more just to be safe? Well, I can’t because I only have 36 on this roll, and maybe I’ve already used 10 of them, and maybe there will be something I want to photograph later on before I get to a new roll. I had to think about how I was spending each and every shot. Why do I want to take this photo? Is this a photo I’ve seen a hundred times before and I just want it for myself as well? Is there something here that other people may be interested in? When I look at this photo years from now, will I feel what I’m feeling right now? I never thought about any of those things with digital, and suddenly I think about them all the time. But more importantly, I like the photos I get when I think about them more before I take them, and for better or worse, I think about the photos more when I am restricted by film.

It might take me a month to go through a roll of film. Sometimes a week, but I’m not a “crank out a million shots a day” photographer. I don’t even consider myself a photographer to be honest. I really enjoy taking photos, and I enjoy taking digital photos less.

It’s about the gear.
It’s no surprise that the camera as lust worthy object plays into this decision for me. Well, it’s no surprise to me and is probably not a surprise to anyone who has been following my shenanigans over the years. I fetishize objects, and the craft and care that goes into an objects creation means something to me. At one point in time people made objects because they expected the people who bought them to use them for the rest of the lives. An object like that holds more value, to me, than an object who’s designers knew their creation would be obsolete and trashed in a few years.

I’m also not made of cash, so if something maintains it’s value is a very important thing for me to consider. Digital cameras do not hold their value, in fact they depreciate worse than cars. All digital technology is like that, because things keep progressing. Somethings are necessary, like computers – and you know going into it that your purchase today is going to be worthless a few years from now. Cameras are optional, and if I have the choice of spending money on something that will be obsolete technology-wise and worthless cash-wise in a few years, or something that, baring misuse on my end, be just as functional and worth just as much as today as it will be in 5, 10, 25 years – well, that’s an easy choice.

The camera and lens I’ve been shooting with for the past year were made in the 1960′s, and work just as well as they day they were released, and judging by prices online, have actually increased in value in the last few years. I just swapped out the body for a current production by the same manufacturer – the model they released about 10 years ago. Which is based off of, and barely changed from, the design they released in the 1950′s. There was nothing wrong with the one I traded away from, I just wanted a little more modern functionality – but the camera I have right now I can use for the rest of my life and get results that are technically just as good as the ones I’m getting today. I can probably pass it down to my kid, assuming he gives a shit, and he’ll be able to use it for his whole life. 50 years from today it will be just as functional as it is today. There’s no digital camera that can make that claim.

It’s about the feel.
Shooting on film just feels different than digital. I feel like I’m actually creating something that didn’t exist moments before. I don’t get that feeling shooting on digital, and it’s a feeling I like.

Oddly related, I’ve been reading a lot about outlaw biker gangs. I’ve been devouring both biographies of bikers and undercover agents who infiltrated the clubs. I say it’s related because in both situations we’re talking about a goal of a tight knit group that functions well, and in both cases when it’s been made too easy for people to join those groups, or when the groups have become too public, things have fallen apart. When the clubs stay private, avoid soliciting new members, and require very long “prospecting” periods before potential members can join so that all existing members can feel them out, things generally work better.

I had incredibly high hopes for Path but as they kept increasing the number of connections you could have, and the more places your actions could be broadcast out to it became clear my hopes and their goals weren’t the same thing. And every time I talk about that with people I find myself back on the topic of really private email lists.

A few examples of active and functioning very private email lists from people I’ve spoken to recently. These are not all from the same group, so some examples may conflict with others:

• Members are not supposed to talk about the lists existence around anyone who isn’t on the list, to prevent people asking to join, or feeling left out if they aren’t invited.
• New members require 100% agreement from current members before they can be added, which can sometimes result in over a year from the time someone is proposed until they are finally approved.
• On another list, 80% of existing members had to approve a new member, but only one member in opposition was needed to deny them.
• To prevent any potential problems down the line, with one group no couples are permitted. (The list was not exclusively men or women)
• On a few lists, invites are handled exclusively by one person.
• Some lists have set membership limits, that is, once a membership cap is reached, someone has to leave to allow room for someone else to join – this is generally determined by activity, inactive members get booted.
• One list had a secret list inside of the list, a council so to speak, that made decisions on who to add or removed, but no one outside of the council knew who the council was.

I find all this to be incredibly fascinating and may experiment with some lists of my own. Are you on any kind of a private email list? What are some best practices that you’ve seen in action?

I’ve been slow getting to it this year for no good reason, I can’t believe it’s April already. Gah. I’m sorry. So here it is. The first photo I posted in 2011 was this one of Ripley and Lucky cat just waking up. I guess that’s a good way to get this moving

Which I think must have been followed by a hike up to Runyon Canyon with the family based on my pics. I had a beard.

We then ventured up to Seattle to eat donuts

And drink some coffee

And upon returning I helped construct one of the most legendary pieces of furniture in hackerspace history, the MacBenchPro

In February I made Ripley some kind of fort that he thought was cool for close to 5 minutes

And finally got the bike I’d ordered a year and a half earlier, though it wasn’t exactly as I’d ordered it.

I drank more coffee

And we launched Coffee Common at TED in Long Beach

In March Ripley turned 1 year old. And eat a bunch of vegan cake.

And then I made a to trip to Florida for a funeral of an old friend who died unexpectedly. Which really sucked. But I got to see some of my favorite people who I don’t get to see often, which was really awesome.

It was a weird cathartic kind of homecoming

From there I bounced over to Austin, Texas to talk about online activism at SXSW and had coffee with another old friend

And then back to LA just in time to cheer on the LA Marathon runners. From a coffeeshop.

Rips had just started walking and they had just opened the meadow near the Silver Lake reservoir so it seemed like a good idea to let him run around there a bit

And then then I went to Japan for a meeting that I thought might impact my year, but may have changed my life

Safecast was born. In May I headed up to Portland for a planning meeting

And spent way too much time at my hotel wondering if I could ever be a bathrobe kind of guy

Back in LA I gave my first talk about what we were doing with Safecast at the first Farmhouse Conference

And then had some coffee

And was in awe by how grown up I thought Ripley was looking

By the end of the month I was back on the east coast and visited my friends in upstate NY

And then back to the city to finally see one of my favorite bands of all time play live

In June I headed up Cambridge to visit the MIT Media Lab and keep planning with the Safecast folks

Back in LA I found that Tara at built Ripley a castle. Well, she’d ordered it. Someone else had to build it.

but he loved it.

July brought more coffee

and my bike FINALLY the way I wanted it

And Rips beat the heat with some arts and crafts

And popsicles

In August I was back to Japan for more Safecast presentations and work

We talked to locals and went deep into areas where people hadn’t been for a while. With good reason.

But we met some new friends

And more progress was made. Then back to LA. With a new camera.

That takes some nice pictures.

Aaaanannnd… more coffee.

September. Holy moly. This was exhausting. The month started off in Linz, Austria for Ars where we were showing off some of the Safecast tech

Then to Vienna

But just long enough to say Hi before heading to

Dubai. Where were hung out just long enough to eat and then get on a bus to

Oman, where we got on a boat and went diving within eyeshot of Iran.

From there I swung back through Tokyo just long enough to see some protests

And then home. Our new home. Since we just moved.

But then, boom – off to Ireland for coffee

Just kidding, I was there for Funconf and Safecast

Yes, that was in a castle.

Then back to LA, where Rips was finally big enough to get some new old toys

In October I was back in Cambridge to talk about Safecast a bit more at the MIT Media Lab fall event, lots of friends were there which was great

Wait. That last pic – Crystal wasn’t in Cambridge, she was in NYC, because I went there too. But only for like, 12 hours. I didn’t even bring a bag on the plane. I had to speak at Web 2.0 but had to be back in Cabridge that night. So be it!

I got back to LA in time for coffee

and hanging out with Rips

The dude is getting huge. It’s nuts.

November. Back to Japan.

And back to LA. Remember when I thought Ripley was getting big before?

He’s totally a little man now. It’s unbelievable. Happening right in front of my eyes.

And then people started occupying

December was a Mr Toad’s Wild ride.

Rips is now closer to 2 than he is to 1.

And we went on a trip to the east coast. Starting in Poughkeepsie

And then to NYC

We AirBnB’d it, and found a convenient place, but had a lot to think about.

Then we went to Florida where we thought we’d get a nice photo of Ripley and Santa.

He thought otherwise. So we spent the day at Disney.

And then went south to Sarasota, and the #1 beach in the world.

The end of the year and the end of our odyssey brought us back to LA, just in time to give all of our posi travel mojo to a good friend about to embark on an adventure of her own.

In retrospect, 2011 was all about journeys. Both physical and emotional. Here to there, and back again. Over it, through it, and into it. And motion beats stagnation, so here’s to whatever the next 12 months brings…

—

So there’s one wild card to this, and that as I’ve been shooting more on film, the more photos I’m getting developed months later (with no exif data) so it’s confusing, and I have probably 12 rolls of film from 2011 that I haven’t developed yet. I just noticed that I didn’t post a single photo to flickr in Jan or Feb in 2012, though I know I took a lot of photos, so next year this will be a major pain.

If you know me in person you know this to be true. It’s not about changing the world, or even changing anyone else’s mind, it’s about being comfortable with my own choices. It doesn’t make life particularly easy, but I sleep really well at night.

When it comes to the internet, I’ve always tried to have my online presence reflect my offline presence. I frequently speak out in favor of things I support, and against those I don’t. But I hadn’t considered that where that online presence was also said something about me.

I’ve known that Facebook, the company, doesn’t line up with my politics for a while and have written about (almost 2 years ago) how uncomfortable the site makes me feel. I’ve justified keeping an account there for a variety of reasons – but they are really just excuses. I was already on the site, so it was easier to stay. In every other part of my life I consider inaction to be complacent support. Why was it so easy to overlook?

Besides, everyone else was doing it. And yes, that has to be one of the worst excuses in the history of crappy justifications. And there I was using it.

Facebook has shown no respect for its users privacy. The site notoriously makes it difficult to understand who you are sharing what with, and has been known to reset privacy settings to defaults without notifying users. Defaults which share everything. Facebook tracks your usage of the web and knows pretty much everything else about your life. Facebook supports CISPA, and why wouldn’t they? It gives them a free pass to give your data to anyone. SOPA and PIPA didn’t. A service that knows everything about you, even things you don’t want it to, supports legislation that would allow it to give anyone that information without recourse – sounds great doesn’t it?

Facebook wants you to feel that the web is dangerous and the only safe place for you is on Facebook, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. The list goes on and on.

I don’t know exactly how long ago I started talking about quitting Facebook, but it’s been a long time. But I keep going back and forth. It’s easy. It’s everywhere. It comes up in random conversation all the time. With over 845 million users that’s not surprising. It’s almost harder to not use it, right? I mean, it doesn’t cost anything, and even if you don’t use it, it doesn’t hurt to just keep an account there for whatever may come up, right? That has been my justification, until now at least.

My friend Peter Rojas said something the other day that felt like a punch in the gut.

He wrote on twitter “Most people disagree, but I think it’s important to not use services that you have issues with, even if they are free.”

Shit.

I knew he was right.

Usage is implied consent. Usage is passive support.

I don’t consent to this and I can’t support it. Facebook is bad for the web, and it’s bad for people. I can’t keep ignoring that.

I made the decision and made a post on my account that I’d be leaving. It got a lot of “likes.” I got the feeling that many more people wanted to leave too, but didn’t know how they would get by without it. They felt trapped. Just like I had.

Even quitting is made as difficult as possible. Look at Facebook’s own FAQ page about deleting your account. Sort past all the guilt tripping and choose the “deactivate” option (which keeps your account active, just on ice) and you are confronted with pictures of your friends and messages saying how much they will miss you. Because, obviously, without Facebook you’d have no way to contact your friends. Or that’s the myth they want you to believe. Choose the “delete” option and you are informed that if at any time in the next 14 days you log back in (which includes any apps you’ve authorized) then your account just goes into deactivated status. If you make it through all of that, and clear the 14 days, it’s still not clear if they ever delete anything. That is scary. Why would I want to keep feeding into that? How could I continue to passively condone that?

I can’t.

And that’s kind of what this boils down to. I can’t argue I’m against all of these behaviors, and keep an account there just for the hell of it. So I’m done. I’m out.

This isn’t a rallying cry, it’s simply me doing what I know is the right thing to do.

“…privacy is an illusion. There is no fail-safe way to publish privately online. Top-secret tweets and conversations can always be captured by screen shot and texted or e-mailed.”

Which is true, and something people need to realize more often. I had high hopes that Path would be a private place but it’s hard to feel private when updates are published to Facebook, and it’s hard to see the value in limiting connections, when in a click of a button you can share with everyone. I desperately want a place that doesn’t share with everyone. I recalled a few notes I made last year, kind of a wish list…

WANTS:
- No main bucket of friends
- Friends have to be added to a group immediately
- Can have as many groups as you want
- No more than 25 friends in a group
- Groups are shared completely (all members need to agree on people in it)
- You only choose who you share with
- No way to know if the other person watches you or not (silent pausing)
- Can invite, but no notification if declined
- No visibility of how many circles you have

- photos
- video
- audio
- locations
- tips
- text (long)
- text (sms)

- Hosting distributed, look to bittorrent perhaps with shared pieces – no central db
- maintain user list, but not content
- key is super secure and private
- hosted outside of the US

I started making this list of things I want in this social network. Mostly I want something private and useful. I want to have
a core group of people who I can share things with, without it turning into a status situation of who is sharing more with who, or who has more people following.

I can’t overstate the “privacy” aspect of this enough. It has to be safe and comfortable, not another place where people follow celebrities. I want a place were only real friends share with real friends. I’d like a way to distribute the central point of it so that there is no batch of data about people that could be requested/stolen by anyone.

I think keeping groups under 25 is the key, maybe 24 because then you need to be hyper selective of who you choose for what group. From a dashboard perspective I don’t know that I want to lump everything together ever, perhaps it should just have a list of your groups and the updates in each of those so you can click through. Default would be an overhead view of all the groups you are involved with

- how many people in them
- how many updates since last you looked (syncing will be key)

I like the idea of the mutually agreed upon group
- By joining a group you are agreeing to share with all (up to) 25
people in the group.
- Any member can add a member
- Any member can remove a member
- Who added/removed details are visible within the circle
- People will be accountable for the people they bring in, as well as
for their actions once in.

I think this will help keep the groups very private and trusting, and coupled with the assurance that there is no built in way for anything to be published out to the web this could be highly appealing to a lot of people. A secure meeting place for businesses, friends, boards, etc. There are a lot of “inner circle” uses for this kind of network.

It’s interesting because in an environment where people are constantly trying to get more attention from more people and more likes and more followers, I find myself wanting less. I don’t want yet another place where the same people share the same things with the whole world. I want something more intimate. And having the option to have a private group on Facebook or a small circle on Google+ isn’t intimate at all. It’s a step in the right direction, but a very small step and in the context of these giant “share with everyone” atmospheres, nothing ever really feels private.

Which gets back to the genesis of this post – Instagram felt private. And it doesn’t anymore. I think there’s a really big market for sharing with fewer people. I guess we’ll see if anyone else agrees.

The talk covers some of the issues in her recently released book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other which I preordered while she was giving this talk live, but only recently started reading. I have to admit that I’ve really only cracked the cover (though, I’m reading it on my kindle, so does that even work?) and so these initial thoughts could be completely off base once I get further into the book, or maybe she even covers these ideas. I’ll keep reading and let you know what an idiot I sound like after the fact.

So anyway, I started reading and as I was reading I found myself verbalizing thoughts or comments about the text, so I started to write them down and next thing I knew I had several paragraphs, so I’m flushing them out just the slightest bit and posting them here for feedback, as well as later reference once I get further into the book.

My first impression is that the tone I’m getting from this book is so much more depressing than I’d expected. Her talk, which while serious in nature, left me feeling optimistic and helping me think about what is actually important and worth spending mental time on. I related very much to her comments about being alone and finding yourself. I liked what she had to say. This book is starting off and I feel more depressed every time I turn the page. (Again, kindle, so… click the page?)

One thing that hit me in a weird kind of way is that she writes about the future as if it’s finite. And I’m talking specifically about her comments about robots here, but it’s clear that she feels strongly that robots will never be more than robots. They will never be more than “programmed” to care. So here’s the thing, and I can say with all honesty that I never thought of this before now myself – we know what happened in the past. Even if we don’t know, we’re trying to find out and at some point will know. Something happend or didn’t, but it’s factual either way. The future, that’s totally speculative. We can make assumptions and guesses about how the future will play out, but we don’t know for sure.

Let me step out of this for a moment – I was talking to a freiend last year and realized that I really enjoyed science when I was in high school and college. I was all over biology and it just stuck with me. But I didn’t have a single teacher who ever phrased things in a context that made it seem that there was more to discover. Lessons were all very much “this is the end all be all, we know it and it won’t change” so I had no motivation to dig deeper. I felt like everything that was going to be figured out had been. Later on in life when I realized people were still making discoveries all the time I was a bit bummed because that might have been something I would have spent more time looking into. Or not. Who knows, but back to the point here…

Sherry talks about some aspects of the future in regards to robots as if we already know how it will play out. I think that’s not a common feeling – people, like myself, who have grown up with science fiction filled with self realized robots, or robots becoming self aware and fighting for people to believe they aren’t just machines don’t see that as an impossible future. Not that I’m suggesting that it’s anything more than total fiction right now, but I feel like taking the approach that something like that could never happen is almost giving up. It’s giving up hope at least. I know plenty of roboticists and I can’t imagine any of them think that at some point they will hit some wall they can never go past. I don’t know, I think leaving that option open sets up a potentially magical future, and exciting future. Talking today as if we already know where the future dead ends is just depressing.

SciFi is fiction at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it’s always going to be fiction, and has often been a glimpse into the not too distant future by people not afraid to dream out loud.

So there’s that.

But let’s not stop there. Human relationships can be disappointing, are disappointing. People let you down. And they will let you down in the future. But that’s the thing right? No one likes to be let down. So it’s not surprising that a robot that will never let you down seems like a more attractive option. That outlook can be considered depressing in itself, that people will let you down as the inevitable outcome but it’s not being pessimistic, it’s being realistic – that’s the way the world has always been. And why true friends are seen as such a value to those lucky enough to have them – a point worth noting because many people don’t ever get the chance to have those kinds of true friendships, either because they surround them selves with disappointing people or they themselves are a disappointment to others. The fact that we’ve come far enough where a future where you can have relationships that won’t be disappointing isn’t a bad thing, rather it opens doors to make the relationships we have with people even better by removing those reliances.

Consider for example a couple in a failing marriage due to growing incompatibility of sex drives, one partner feels taken for granted and ignored, the other partner feels pressured and obligated – this is a cliche at this point it happens so much and is often the reason married people seek sexual relationships outside of their marriage – to fulfill this need they are no longer having filled in the marriage. Of course that comes with a whole host of other problems and is generally considered a “bad move” but that is because other people are in the mix. What if there was an option for a robotic companion? One that existed only to fill that specific need and didn’t present room for any jealousy in other areas. There wouldn’t be any competition for attention, robots don’t need attention. There wouldn’t be any issue about spending time together, robots don’t care. No issue about who to buy gifts for, etc.. If the robot was there to fill only the need that wasn’t being filled by the partner, it would likely be more welcomed in the relationship. Of course this would require people being honest with each other which is possibly a larger hurdle to jump. But if that option existed, people might be more motivated.

And while robots are certainly more prevalent today, the idea of creating some kind of automaton that would live with us and perform some kind of task isn’t new in any way. We’ve just gotten much better at it recently.

Creating ideal avatars isn’t bad either, we should all be able (and willing) to create the world we want to live in. The real world can also be disappointing and leave people wanting much more, why suffer through that when the option exists to craft the perfect world, and the perfect you to live in that world. Why draw the line between “online” and “offline” when there isn’t really much difference anymore? IRL – “in real life” is a mistake – online is real life too. Some things just happen to take place AFK (away from keyboard).

My notes are kind of falling apart here, and I want to get back to reading the book. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, I’m not. I really am a fan of her work, it’s just that even in her critiques I’ve always seem the bright side take away and this just seems bleak. But again, I’m just beginning so I could be jumping to conclusions and if so I’ll note that once I get further in.

ADDITION: I set up the rule that I was only allowed to add one thing a month. So at this point I should have only added 3 things. This one is so march harder than you can possibly imagine – trying not to take any new physical items into your life is near impossible. People give you things all the time. I didn’t even realize it until I started paying close attention. Of course I had a birthday in February as well, which didn’t help, but shit just shows up and there’s nothing you can do about it. So, as far as things I’ve gone out and acquired myself, I’ve done really well here. So this isn’t a total win, but it’s not a failure either, so I’m going to give myself a B- on this. With my birthday behind me, I think I can get this up to an A over the next few months.

SUBTRACTION: I set up the rule that I was to get rid of, and document, one item every day. I really, really, really underestimated how much my travel schedule would complicate this. I blogged about this problem towards the end of January and it’s just gotten worse since then. Especially on the documentation side, sitting down and adding info to a spreadsheet is always the last thing on my mind, and then when I remember I’ve forgotten what I got rid of. And then I’m trying to compensate for travel days by doubling up on other days.. ugh. It’s really rough. Way more than I thought it would be. So on the “get rid of at least one item every day” part of this, I’m failing. However, I’ve gotten rid of more things than days, so on the concept of getting rid of things part of it, I’m winning. Documenting is about 75%, maybe a little less. The thing is, overall goal of this experiment was to get rid of things, and I’m doing that, but the fact that I’m not sticking accurately to the guidelines I set up here bums me out when I think of it. I’m going to give myself a solid C here. I’m passing in theory, but not in practice. I need to either improve my aderence to the ritual, or get comfortable with not being totally perfect about it. As long as I keep getting rid of things I’m not totally disappointed.

REPLACEMENT: I set up the rule that to “upgrade” anything, I needed to get rid of two similar items. This is probably the rule I’ve been best about adhering to. I think in hindsight I knew it would be. I satisfy my cravings to buy new stuff by getting rid of things, maybe it’s a loophole, but I do end up with less stuff, so it’s still true to the core idea. I give my self an A- on this one simple because in my initial plans I said I needed to try and repair things before getting new ones and on occasion I’ve gotten something new and then scrambled to find two similar items to get rid of to make that OK. It’s not cheating, but it’s not what I really wanted to happen, so there’s some room for improvement here too.

So given all that I guess I’m at around a B. Or B- or something for everything. Which isn’t bad, it’s not perfect and could be better, but it’s still pretty good. We’re hoping to have a garage sale sometime in the next few weeks which I think will help get rid of a ton of things. With minor sentimental exception, if I haven’t used it in the last year, it’s going to be gone.

One thing I’ve found to be very useful is picking a single category, say pants for example. How many pair of pants do I possibly need? 4? 5? I think 5 is reasonable – I generally wear pants a few times between washings so even if I do laundry once every other week 5 covers that. And on a week trip, I can wear one pair and pack 1 or 2 others and be totally covered. So, now that I know 5 pair of pants will do it for me I go look at what I have. Oh, I have 8 pair? Presto – 3 items for the get rid of pile.

I’ll try to update more often, as talking about it helps me sort through my own thoughts about it and reenergizes me a bit.

One thing I’ve noticed recently, is that people who read these personal musings take them as some kind of manifesto to argue with. They vehemently disagree. They see things differently and they are right and everyone else is wrong. It’s almost like they think the commentary being made is about them directly. Or they are subject to it somehow. I wonder if people are just so used to being told what to do that they assume anytime someone is talking they must be talking about them. Or if they feel so insecure with their own standing that if someone is talking about a different perspective then bashing it seems the only viable option?

A few days ago Tara wrote a post for her Forbes column called “Dear Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away.” Now you could read that title and jump to any number of conclusions, but that would literally be judging the book by it’s cover. Which clearly a lot of people don’t have a problem doing. Since I don’t know what the venn diagram of Forbes readers vs SBDC readers looks like, I’ll give you the short version – she notes that increasingly (often for marketing purposes) there are people claiming to be “geeks” who are doing that because they think it will advance them somehow, or give them an in with a certain crowd and opines that rather that trying to be something they aren’t, people should embrace the things that they are. She’s speaking directly about girls in her article as she has a bit of a women-in-technology theme, but the same could be said dudes just as easily.

What’s interesting to me is that this isn’t a new situation. There’s a repeatable pattern here that anyone who has been paying attention to any number of subcultures can clearly see.

It happened with punk rock – punk rock was not something cool. Kids who dared to publicly embrace punk rock were laughed at and beat up on the regular. People who were into punk rock were into it because it meant something to them, and was worth the ridicule. As more people started to self associate with a group of people no one wanted to be associated with, some marketing guys realized this was a potential paycheck. Bands were courted by major labels, promoted to main stream radio, and Hot Topics opened. Suddenly without spending years as an outcast kids could go to the mall and buy a Misfits t-shirt without the trouble of actually going to see them play. Serious bank was made, and a subculture was co-opted. You could argue that wasn’t a bad thing because now more kids were exposed to these great ideas or whatever and you’d be entitled to that opinion. I’m not saying it’s good or it’s bad, just that it happened. This resulted in people asking what makes someone punk? Does owning a Green Day record mean you are punk? Does having a shaved head or a tattoo mean you are punk? Is it just music? Is it just fashion? Some say yes, some will argue it’s much more.

It happened with skateboarding. Skateboards were not something the cool kids were into. Skaters as well were laughed at and beat up on the regular. “Lets pull over and beat the shit out of those skaters” was a really popular hobby for football players when I was in high school. Similarly to punk, the kids who skated didn’t do it because it was cool, again they did it because something about it resonated with them. And then, again, at some point the marketing guys came around and started doing the math. Eventually kids could now buy Airwalks without going to a skateshop, and could learn to ollie without knowing who Alan Gelfand is. Again bank was made by a lot of people as this previously looked down upon activity was marketed to the mainstream. Again, people asked – does owning a skateboard make someone a skater? What about having some t-shirts from skateboard companies or hanging out at a local skatepark? Or is it something more?

It happened with Hip Hop. It happened with grunge. It happened with mountain biking. It happened with fixed gear bikes. It happened with… well it happened with a lot of things. And it will continue to happen. And every time it does the people who were there first will make the argument that their culture is being co-opted – which it is, and the people who just showed up will argue that they have just as much right to play along – which they do – but that doesn’t mean everyone is happy. Some people will feel taken advantage of – that something they hold dear is being exploited, because they are in fact being taken advantage of, and something they hold dear is in fact being exploited. That’s what’s going on when someone takes something that only a small group of people are into and markets it to a larger audience with the goal of making a ton of cash.

And it’s happening with geek culture. 15 years ago there was nothing attractive about being a geek. There was nothing cool about being online. There was nothing valuable about having a web presence. Owning an Apple product wasn’t sexy. In today’s world there’s nothing sexier than new Apple products. Every company, celebrity and marketing team will tell you a solid web presence is invaluable. Everything cool happens online. And being “geeky” very attractive. And again, some people feel exploited. What % of people using the web know who Tim Berners Lee is? Does that even matter? Does having a twitter account mean you are a geek? What about an Xbox live account? What about writing your own web apps?

Wait, did I just say “happening?” I meant “happened” – you see this isn’t the first time this conversation has taken place within geek culture. Jump back to 2009 and see the Geek Advancement debacle that Wil wrote about here. There’s a difference between embracing and exploiting something.

But there’s also a difference between exploiting something and just learning about it. In all of these examples there has been some kind of controversy about “new people” – why are they here, what do they want, etc? But remember we’re talking about subcultures here, so outsiders are always going to be met with suspicion. And geek culture is in fact a subculture, so when new people show up it’s only normal to ask why. New people are not always bad, everyone is new at some point, but they aren’t always good either. There’s been endless conversations about how long someone needs to be into something or what qualifications they need to have to be fully considered a part of it – so many in fact that most people assume anytime you bring up the comparison that’s the motive. I’m not doing that because I think that kind of thing is stupid. Who cares? Honestly. Do you?

I think the bigger point, and the one I think Tara was making in her post is that pretending to be into something so other people will like you is dumb. It’s being a fake. The world is full of fake people, we don’t need anymore. And life is too short to be fake. Why not spend the time you have embracing the stuff you actually love. Whatever that is. Find the thing you like and put everything you can into that and stop worrying about what other people like, or what other people think about what you like.

* Quote at the top taken from ‘Boxcar’ by Jawbreaker