Was Geek culture as toxic in the 1980s/90s as it is now?

It was a lot more secluded back then because of no internet. As you know being a "Trekkie" or "Star Wars" fan back then was considered kind of nerdy. Adults also weren't expected to be playing videogames back then, you were supposed to outgrow them.

I remember being a kid in the 90's and constantly being told adults don't play videogames and I would have to stop soon. Anime was barely a thing in the west and adults watching cartoons was also considered childish.

I think elitism has always been a problem when it comes to geek culture.
Just look at the life of Billy Mitchell or Todd Rodgers for examples.

It was largely contained by the lack of connection between communities in a common forum, but elitism and gatekeeping was always there.

Cybersai said:

I remember being a kid in the 90's and constantly being told adults don't play videogames and I would have to stop soon. Anime was barely a thing in the west and adults watching cartoons was also considered childish.

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I think my parents thought it was a phase. They eventually realized it wasn't. Nowadays, they're very accepting of it. I even told my mom over the phone the other day that I'm playing WoW again, and she couldn't stop laughing.

thetrin said:

It was largely contained by the lack of connection between communities in a common forum, but elitism and gatekeeping was always there.

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Yep, only difference was back then the elitism was mostly confined to grognards at tabletop places.

Yes. The difference is they couldn't eff your mom without internet.

Yes, but the difference is that they only could show that to their friends or via mail

Possibly, but we couldn't really tell because the content creators were sucking the metaphorical dick of the idea that geekery was only for boys, remember back then booth babes were acceptable and expected for example, so the the maximum level of misogyny was just the fact that geek stuff objetified women with impunity, as the demographics began to shift towards content being consumed by a wider demographic, specially devs being unable to any longer ignore that women, in fact, consume geek content is when the misogynistic tendencies shifted towards male nerds lashing out towards girls playing with their toys.

Trekkie said:

So I kinda liked the narrative that we were simply infiltrated by assholes, but you guys are telling me we were assholes from the very beginning and we're (Geek/Gaming community) actually our own worst enemy?

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No, they are telling you that the new internet culture brought a new level of toxicity.
There has always been trolls, there has always been people that vent their frustrations or ideas on other people, the only difference is how far they can reach and how much can they resonate in a defined place. Internet broke most of those barriers, and now people can find easyly places to share and expand their best and worst thoughts, and is really easy to make yourself more radical and toxic.
But this is not exclusive of geek culture, gamers, or whatever.... so in the end, its a matter of education a internet culture.

People had to either talk in person or over the phone during those decades so there were less anonymous online masks to hide behind. Yes, there was elitism, as there always will be due to a broken system, but it was not nearly as toxic as today due to the more personal nature of conversation.

Trekkie said:

So I kinda liked the narrative that we were simply infiltrated by assholes, but you guys are telling me we were assholes from the very beginning and we're (Geek/Gaming community) actually our own worst enemy?

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Yes. The assholes are coming from inside the house. The idea that ostracized groups don't then turn around and ostracize others is false, and unfortunate.

edit: But I'd argue that modern methods of communication and social media and all that have made it easier for the shitty people to group up, find other shitty people, and make everyone else feel awful.

Trekkie said:

So I kinda liked the narrative that we were simply infiltrated by assholes, but you guys are telling me we were assholes from the very beginning and we're (Geek/Gaming community) actually our own worst enemy?

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We were always pieces of shit

There is probably a fairly complex answer to this but I don't believe the culture was infiltrated by 'assholes'. I think those who were picked on grew up and saw their chosen culture get popular and think they get to be the gate keepers of who can enjoy it.

These are people who have based their whole identity on a thing, for example being a star wars fan or a gamer and get too possessive of said culture.
Though I think these types of people are the types who would push anything to unhealthy amount of importance in their lifes. Whether it was working out or healthy eating etc, they'd still be obsessing over it and be on forums complaining about how to do or enjoy said culture properly.

Blaming it on having the culture infiltrated by 'assholes' seems way too convenient. Do you think most of the people who enjoy comic book movies really care about diversity or more female characters in comics? Enough to go online and complain or make youtube videos? I don't think so. It's those people who think they are the real fans and who feel threatened who spend their time and energy spreading toxic views and arguing about it.

Same with gaming, those the average person who buys a COD or Fifa each year going to get that worked up about playable female characters in the new battlefield?

Basically there has always been a bunch of people in any geek culture or fandom who are just toxic to begin with. They can just share their views in a much easier and hyperbolic way than before.

Yes and no. There would be geeks writing rants about how an ep was inconsistent or violated canon or whatever but less avenues for people to wanna hear it... and geekdom was frowned upon in general, compared to today

Yes, but they just had no power both culturally and market wise. Now is a different story.

Remember said:

People had to either talk in person or over the phone during those decades so there were less anonymous online masks to hide behind. Yes, there was elitism, as there always will be due to a broken system, but it was not nearly as toxic as today due to the more personal nature of conversation.

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But this is worth noting too.

Video games, comic books, etc were much more marginalised and the followers were much more quiet about it but I believe everything was there. People are people. I mean there might be an argument that the feelings and opinions were worse just not on display. Just look at how women were represented in gaming back then.

As societies we are just learning how to cope with the web and it's possibilities like egalitarian content and intermediaries.

One good example to note was the HUGE amount of BS backlash and man tantrums (mantrums) when Star Trek introduced Janeway as a woman captain in Voyager. People saying openly that women could never run a ship, that it had no place in their fandom, etc, etc, and this was 1995.

no. im sure some shitbags existed back then but I don't recall ever dealing with one. today thanks to social media and the internet nurturing the cancer you cant go a week without encountering a few or reading a news story.
imo you could feel things getting worse during the back half of last gen. it was around the time of the mass effect 3 ending debacle that it felt like the scale had finally tipped and its only gotten worse since. taken a lot of fun out of the gaming.

Was always there, you just didn't see it because of a lack of connection to other communities. But the sexism and racism was always there.

Yes. However a lot of popular culture in general was toxic to everyone who wasn't a white man back then, moreso than today. I'd also say that you could maybe make the argument that it's worse now because the average userbase age is probably quite a bit higher and you'd expect people to grow into better people once they become adults. Regardless it's always been shit.

I think back then video games only attracted a few very specific kinds of assholes, whereas now they attract all kinds of assholes. This is due to the broader specter of "gamers". Also, it probably intensified as the community gained in diversity, with people reacting with hostility to, say, women wanting to be a part of it.

The question is, how will it be in, say, 20 years?

Trekkie said:

How could you even consider yourself a Star Trek fan and say something like that?

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I've seen Trekkies do the most extreme intellectual backflips trying to justify how their terrible/bigoted views somehow align with the show's ethos

I think there was always shitty gamer/nerd people, the internet just gave them a soap box to shout from.

Velocity:Design:Comfort said:

One good example to note was the HUGE amount of BS backlash and man tantrums (mantrums) when Star Trek introduced Janeway as a woman captain in Voyager. People saying openly that women could never run a ship, that it had no place in their fandom, etc, etc, and this was 1995.

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I was thinking along these lines: If available, we could check old Internet/BBS/Usenet archives for discussions and see how people reacted to various things.

I remember that my brother was fairly active in Usenet in the early 90s when I was a kid, and the mocking and despective tone of discussions dealing with Micro$oft and Windows was not that different to what you find today on other topics. Besides that, I cannot remember much regarding the toxicity of the online community.

Trekkie said:

Wow, i don't remember this, that's terrible.

the irony of this is that Star Trek is a show that is the embodiment of tolerance and acceptance of other cultures, creeds and species.

How could you even consider yourself a Star Trek fan and say something like that?

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Exactly! That's why it's even more sad. And Janeway goes on to be one of the best and maybe my favorite captain besides Picard. Voyager is great honestly.

No, cause that's when the most toxic geeks/nerds were growing up.

I think the worst of the toxicity has appeared in the last 5-10 years, rather than the last 20.

I think the issue is only partly that it was nerds only before. I think matchmaking is a bigger catalyst for the toxicity. Having dedicated servers led to them being run by communities, who were less assholish to one another due to a diminished sense of anonymity. And also servers could have admins and/or vote kick to deal with any toxic players. I remember joining servers and getting a banner telling me to respect other people on the server, and threatening bans for flaming.

Trekkie said:

So I kinda liked the narrative that we were simply infiltrated by assholes, but you guys are telling me we were assholes from the very beginning and we're (Geek/Gaming community) actually our own worst enemy?

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No, we were infiltrated. Once gaming and geek culture got big enough to move out of the garage, basement, whatever, we became visible to other communities and turned into a viable target.

I think if anything, modern technology (looking at you, the internet) has made a lot of benignly crappy people a lot worse. It's enabled a whole bunch of really bad behaviors that there wasn't really a vector for before it came along.

Trekkie said:

So I kinda liked the narrative that we were simply infiltrated by assholes, but you guys are telling me we were assholes from the very beginning and we're (Geek/Gaming community) actually our own worst enemy?

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I don't think it was either; I think the internet changed people. It gave them the tools to be either better or crappier (much more common) than they were before.

Yes, they were around back then. I grew up in the 80's and the shit people had to deal with in NYC, LA and other major cities while playing Street Fighter was nuts. People use to get punched in the face for throwing or they simply turned the machine off. Or when girls went to the comicbook shop by themselves. I've seen somethings. Unless you rolled with a crew you be alright.

In Trekkie, Star Wars, and Comic Book Culture? A little. A ton of elitism and people trying to outclass people by their knowledge. Females weren't expected to be fans and were always poked at for not knowing everything, much like the "female gamer" concept of not playing "real games".
I'm sure you can find shows that showcase that era of Comic Conventions pretty well, it's not much different from the mid 2000's until social changes came in waves.

KunaiDrilla said:

Yes, they were around back then. I grew up in the 80's and the shit people had to deal with in NYC, LA and other major cities while playing Street Fighter was nuts. People use to get punched in the face for throwing or they simply turned the machine off. Or when girls went to the comicbook shop by themselves. I've seen somethings. Unless you rolled with a crew you be alright.

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Roshin said:

No, we were infiltrated. Once gaming and geek culture got big enough to move out of the garage, basement, whatever, we became visible to other communities and turned into a viable target.

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This thread is already incredible.

It's easy to be a bully behind the anonymity of internet and security of distance. The most toxic people on internet are losers in real life, they are probably even afraid to go to the grocery store and talk to the seller there

Auctopus said:

This thread is already incredible.

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In what sense?

I feel like it was there all along, but I was ignorant of the reach that flippant behavior in videogames (or in any medium of interest) could have in harming the real lives of others until my twenties. I was, for a long time, part of the problem, even if at times I wasn't participating in it myself... But I let it go on unquestioned, because I didn't think it was doing much harm.

It's not just videogames for me, it's been other entertainment media like comics, movies, anime, and it's been in middle school and high school life and everything. I was just a middle of the road kind of kid socially -- I existed, I sometimes got some light bullying and I sometimes unfairly dished out some light bullying with no cognizance whatsoever of the potential harm I was doing. When it came to videogames, you can bet your ass my stupid teenaged self was on GameFAQs participating in those shitty types of conversations in the mid-2000s, thinking it was the end-all, be-all of gaming discussion. When reddit blew up in the early 2010s, I was all about the era of games discussion where it was typical and almost perceived like a consumer-side duty to cry "lazy devs" at every single tiny thing in a game that felt like a sleight to my expectations of the game.

I won't claim to necessarily be a great person now -- I mean, my biggest interest in life is fucking video games for crying out loud, and it took me until my late 20s to realize how questionable that can be in the face of the kind of suffering that exists in the real world, and how most games are just fucking flighty hero fantasies that don't teach me a goddamn practical thing about addressing real problems at all. STILL, with that said, I still get a lot of my positive emotions from the act of participating in the culture that surrounds video games (the HYPE and DELIVERANCE!) and playing video games, and even in spite of the ways in which that doesn't help me in real life, I can't help but be grateful for it. With that kind of gratitude and understanding, then, I guess I've really started to take on a philosophy that's more about trying to promote those positive aspects to as many people, as many TYPES of people, and encouraging creators to try and create the experience that can reach as many people and types of people as possible... And that doesn't really come from gatekeeping, it doesn't come from taking pride in this shit like it's the end-all be-all of my existence, and it sure as shit doesn't come from being destructive in behavior toward creators in the medium.

I just think games probably needs a huge undertaking of humility, and I think I'm staring to see that occur in myself and plenty of others nowadays. I don't know how far that'll go, and I know there's still folks holding on desperately like their entire lives are going to fall apart if games expand and change beyond a few limited defined purposes that they serve (and it's fucking pathetic), but I do think it's always been toxic and ultimately self-defeating.

Oh, most definitely. Video game culture in the 90s was obscene and factional like crazy.

It was different, rather than better. There were still garbage people, of course, but the lack of internet put up a bit of a higher barrier of entry.

I feel the immediacy inherent in social media goes a long way to explaining the toxicity. People certainly sent nasty letters back in the day, but the physical act of writing and mailing it acted as both a deterrent and as a way to cool your head. That's really not there in modern social media, and it's really easy to let yourself get lost in the negativity.

Trekkie said:

the irony of this is that Star Trek is a show that is the embodiment of tolerance and acceptance of other cultures, creeds and species.

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People have been comically missing the messages of Star Trek since time immemorial, lol.
There are a lot of people who only engage in things on a very surface levels, and tend more towards the curative (Wiki) side of things.

Just watch Revenge of the Nerds and tell me it wasn't.

Better access to media happened, the problem was there but no ones dare to say your mother is a classy lady in front of your face

It's not that 'mainstream interest means bullies have infiltrated geekdom', that's letting geeks off the hook far too easily. The element of gatekeeping was always there, but the internet has connected what was once tiny fan groups into global communities. That then magnifies the more aggressive elements as they find each other, decide that the majority of the fans aren't 'fan' enough and then create ever more hostile inner sanctums where what was once private discussions by the disaffected now becomes hate campaigns on social media.

Trekkie said:

- In the 70s/80s/90s if you were into that sorta thing (comics, video games, sci fi etc) you were more likely to be bullied and labeled a geek/nerd and ostracized... therefore you were less likely to be an asshole that picked on others.

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I dunno if that last bit is true. It's a gross simplification of the effects of abuse.

Cybersai said:

It was a lot more secluded back then because of no internet.

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I think this is probably the major cause of the attitudinal shift, for various reasons. Coupled with geek objects getting into the mainstream (because all the old geeks are old enough to be decision-makers in media now), geeks are much braver because they are validated, aaaand...

Redcrayon said:

The element of gatekeeping was always there, but the internet has connected what was once tiny fan groups into global communities. That then magnifies the more aggressive elements as they find each other, decide that the majority of the fans aren't 'fan' enough and then create ever more hostile inner sanctums where what was once private discussions by the disaffected now becomes hate campaigns on social media.

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This.

can only speak from my own experience, so it's hard to say how the majority reacted. gaming was very personal because multiplayer happened on the "couch" so to speak. but was it less toxic? probably not. I remember back then if I beat any of my friends in a game, they would start punching me. when the playstation released, a lot of small gaming shops would surface and random guys gathered there to compete in tekken. one time a friend of mine was playing against an asian dude and he taunted him to hit him. he said something like "I'm gonna punch the yellow out of your skin!" so yeah, I'd have to say we were always like this.

Sexually repressed sure, and some associated ails, but I found the communities in general much more friendly. I think it has to do with size and popularity. Pockets of nerds were small so you didn't have internerd competition, and geeks/nerds became hip in the early 2000s with nerd chic clothing and the big bang theory, well nobody in the 80s/90s had any illusions about being anything else than outcasts, so there was much less strife to become the alpha nerd.

It was probably just varying degrees of bad

Now you have youtubers and personailites/forums sometimes encouraging this shitty gatekeeping behaviour as if its normal.

Yes. See: sci-fi pin-up girl covers, the rape scene from Revenge of the Nerds, etc.

Regulus Tera said:

Just watch Revenge of the Nerds and tell me it wasn't.

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Revenge of the nerds was just a movie like Porky's but with nerds. I don't think you can use it to deduce some special kind of toxicity.
...aside from that it's entirely fictional of course

Social media and people being used to anonymity/distance has made it possible to argue with someone.

Before you'd have to go to a fan meet or maybe a convention (which weren't as regular as they are now)- particularly if you weren't in the US.

I managed to hang out with a bunch of like-minded nerds in high school. Not one of them was into any of the things I was into like Doctor Who or Star Wars. They were mainly into D&D. None were super interested in games (none had a console). I knew one guy in high school who read comics (He was an Xmen fan and wouldn't otherwise have been considered a nerd).

I would say social media, more people into geeky-stuff, everyone on the internet and all that entails. It's way more toxic now than ever. Maybe one other difference, people can be called out for their behaviour now.

I was the bullied nerd in the 80s and 90s. Had a handful of friends that all had different interests so I was "tech support" for anything that involved pressing a button to set... Vcrs especially with daylight savings.
It was very much location dependent to the amount of toxicity. I saw none, except from the bullies. Now I see those same people doing stuff that they beat me up for. They brought their bullshit with them :(