Coffee Talk #587: Excessive Nerd Rage and You

Nerd rage is a funny and often ridiculous thing. The world has many problems — damage to the environment, malnourishment, and homelessness, for example. Yet dorky debates often escalate the point where you’d think people were more interested in solving the “Han shot first” dilemma than making sure kids have enough to eat. Sure, it’s sometimes hard to maintain perspective and it can be fun engaging in geeky arguments, but this week was out of hand. Look at the nerd rage that dominated the Internet this week: the “controversy” over Alice Eve’s half-naked scene in Star Trek, the pronunciation of GIF, and anger over the Xbox Onemore

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the Phil Jackson watch, Olivia Munn’s disgusting Esquire interview, or Yahoo! possibly buying Hulu, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Nerd rage is a funny and often ridiculous thing. The world has many problems — damage to the environment, malnourishment, and homelessness, for example. Yet dorky debates often escalate the point where you’d think people were more interested in solving the “Han shot first” dilemma than making sure kids have enough to eat. Sure, it’s sometimes hard to maintain perspective and it can be fun engaging in geeky arguments, but this week was out of hand. Look at the nerd rage that dominated the Internet this week:

  • Star Trek: People were passionately railing on JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and company for having a needless scene featuring half-naked Alice Eve. Never mind that James Tiberius Kirk is a total dog that also appears shirtless and that many men don’t need a narratively-sound reason to see Alice Eve half-naked. People were demonizing the scene as if it were comparable to slashing acres of rainforest for kicks.
  • GIFs: People were arguing over the pronunciation of GIF (Graphics Interchange Format). The creator says it like the mediocre peanut butter, while most of the world pronounces it like the word “gift” without the last letter. I’m struggling to understand why anyone cares enough to participate in this argument. You say JIF and I say GIF, let’s call the whole thing off, no?
  • Xbox One: Unsurprisingly, people are harshly passing judgement and hating on Xbox One. Yes, there’s a lot to criticize, but there’s also a lot that Microsoft hasn’t revealed yet. The full story will be revealed in a few weeks at E3 2013. Enthusiast gamers know this, but that hasn’t stopped them from raging against the machine (*snicker*) and bombarding the Internet with palpable anger. There are fair points to be made, as seen in several excellent comments by RPadholics, but I don’t understand some of the vitriolic criticism being hurled at Microsoft.

How do you feel about this week’s nerd rage. Was it just a typical week on the Internet? Or were netizens particularly angry this week?

Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

8 thoughts on “Coffee Talk #587: Excessive Nerd Rage and You”

  1. Vitriol can be solved by flat out denying the harsh things instead of “we will discuss our plans with your property at a later date”.

    I had to skip the Star Trek portion. My own fault I suppose for not going to see any movies yet.

  2. People are so close minded when it comes to their nerd passion. Only gripe I had with Star Trek is having a Spock A and Spock B cheat.

    Choosy moms choose Jif. I love MiLFS so I’m on the Jif bandwagon

    I can’t really hate on xBone when I haven’t heard prices and haven’t anything to really compare it to yet

  3. Wait where did the Gif vs. Jif argument happen?? I thought that was old news.

    “narratively-sound reason to Alice Eve half-naked.” You a word.

    I can understand the hate against the Xbone because people were expecting an awesome console, and the Xbone is definitely a letdown so far compared to what I would have hoped for. Sure there is a lot left to be found out about the system, but initial reactions seem to be what tech news is about so why are we surprised that people have strong initial reactions?

    1. The creator of the format caused a stir by proclaiming that he announces it like JIF and Twitter exploded.

      Thanks for the Alice Eve typo. Fixed.

      While Microsoft had a lot of flip-flops with messaging, it did state that this presser was for a mainstream audience and that E3 will be more about games. Some of the criticism is warranted — being vague about used games and Internet connectivity. Some of the criticism is random anger.

      1. huh, a friend of mine from college worked with the creator of that format about a year ago and posted that revelation on facebook. I guess I could have broke the news early if I would have realized it wasn’t widely known, haha.

        I get that all the information we have heard so far is for more of a mainstream audience, but I don’t think that really changes anything. Being vague about used games and internet connectivity is an issue for almost all consumers, hardcore or mainstream. Not being backwards compatible I can see as more random anger/hardcore fan anger and not so much an issue for the mainstream. E3 being about games is simply what is supposed to happen, I feel, but talking about games at E3 won’t do anything for me personally on the issues drawing anger and criticism already.

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