So today I am leaving you an afterthought, before the year ends, on some geeky apps that I have tried this year. I am not the most techy person, but I thought “you need to try ’em to know you hate ’em”, sorta thing, and that is pretty much what happened. Well, maybe I didn’t hate them in the end – one of them I did…oh yes, I still Do. But in general I was left with a feeling of emptiness. I got this feeling that now that geek culture is popularising – which is not a bad thing – our consumerist/capitalist habits are transforming the essence of our ‘aficionado’ communities, and I am not sure if I necessarily like the impact…
As many of you may know by now, I deal with cultural theory for my academic research, so this hit home very closely. Concepts such as cultural capitalism, cultural citizenship and mass consumerism are intrinsically connected to the purpose and use of these apps, and it felt incredibly awkward dealing with this as a first hand subject, rather than from the point of view of analysing the phenomenon. But, in any case, here is some food for thought.