The world is big enough that you can live most of your life mostly in contact with other non-conformists in your particular cluster.
The critical issue here is whether your nonconformist group has a truly independent status hierarchy and mechanisms of social support, i.e. if it really allows you to sever ties with the mainstream society and institutions so that you don’t have to care about your status and reputation with them without severe negative consequences. I can hardly think of any such nonconformist groups except for some very insular religious sects—the modern trend is almost uniformly towards strong consolidation of a single and universal status hierarchy whose rules apply to everyone.
Maybe in the 80′s, when we were only a few Satan worshipping nuts, but we are now in 21st century where science fiction and fantasy decisively won and is The Mainstream Culture now.
Of 10 biggest grossing movies of the year, all are F/SF and role playing games are worldwide multibillion industry.
Someone who does not know who is Harry Potter and what is Warcraft is the crazy weirdo :P
Some SF movies have been popular of late—and most mainstream films have become more science-heavy… but people that watch these shows are in no way fans of the genre. I don’t know of any Mainstream types who read SF books regularly or who avidly watch more than one or two of the most main of mainstream SF shows/series.
By contrast, even the non-uber-geek SF fans will know a Ferengi from a Centari by sight, will understand what the odd-even rule is and can probably rattle of the three laws of robotics (plus the extra one) on the spot. These are the people I mean—and I still think there’s a difference between them and people who may have just watched The Matrix, LOTR or one of the X-Men movies.
Actually being part of the full on SF fandom culture is definitely non-conformist. Think trekkies (or trekkers if you prefer).
And by role-playing gamers… I don’t mean video games… I mean classic dice-rolling “your elven warlock spots three kobolds” kind of role-playing games.
WoW is a different kettle of fish… but I know of nobody that thinks classic RPGs are “mainstream”.
The critical issue here is whether your nonconformist group has a truly independent status hierarchy and mechanisms of social support, i.e. if it really allows you to sever ties with the mainstream society and institutions so that you don’t have to care about your status and reputation with them without severe negative consequences. I can hardly think of any such nonconformist groups except for some very insular religious sects—the modern trend is almost uniformly towards strong consolidation of a single and universal status hierarchy whose rules apply to everyone.
Geeks, Scifi-fans, role-playing gamers.…
Maybe in the 80′s, when we were only a few Satan worshipping nuts, but we are now in 21st century where science fiction and fantasy decisively won and is The Mainstream Culture now. Of 10 biggest grossing movies of the year, all are F/SF and role playing games are worldwide multibillion industry. Someone who does not know who is Harry Potter and what is Warcraft is the crazy weirdo :P
Some SF movies have been popular of late—and most mainstream films have become more science-heavy… but people that watch these shows are in no way fans of the genre. I don’t know of any Mainstream types who read SF books regularly or who avidly watch more than one or two of the most main of mainstream SF shows/series.
By contrast, even the non-uber-geek SF fans will know a Ferengi from a Centari by sight, will understand what the odd-even rule is and can probably rattle of the three laws of robotics (plus the extra one) on the spot. These are the people I mean—and I still think there’s a difference between them and people who may have just watched The Matrix, LOTR or one of the X-Men movies.
Actually being part of the full on SF fandom culture is definitely non-conformist. Think trekkies (or trekkers if you prefer).
And by role-playing gamers… I don’t mean video games… I mean classic dice-rolling “your elven warlock spots three kobolds” kind of role-playing games. WoW is a different kettle of fish… but I know of nobody that thinks classic RPGs are “mainstream”.