[PeekPoke]

I've been in the computer industry for 30 years now. Back when I started we were all looked down on as underachieving losers who couldn't talk to 'normal' people, couldn't get laid and would never amount to anything in 'the real world'. Look at the world now, look at programs like The Big Bang Theory - the world has change and the geeks have truly inherited the earth. How they are behaving is as clear an example as you can possibly get when the originally downtrodden get power, wealth and influence - they use it and say 'F*ck you' to those who laughed at them and are now no longer at the top of the pile. Go figure.

[jcbrand]

> they use it and say 'F*ck you' to those who laughed at them

Except that the "fuck you" goes less to people who laughed at nerds years ago and more to the local community, regulators and software users.

[skizm]

I agree with this for the most part, but The Big Bang Theory is a bad example imo. It is still laughing at geeks, not with them. I think that's why it rubs a lot of people (myself included) the wrong way.

[Bartweiss]

There's certainly a reason Silicon Valley got away with duplicating the components of Big Bang exactly.

Like, they've both got the stereotypical awkward Indian engineer who can't talk to women, but SV took a novel approach by not hating him. SV's weird-by-engineering-standards characters are weird for reasons outside of their nerdiness (e.g. Jared's German-language night terrors), BBT just turned Sheldon's nerdiness up to 11. (And created a really nasty autism stereotype in the process.) And so on.

(Can anyone imaging BBT finding a stereotype as obscure as Gilfoyle's occultist thing? Because that's definitely a 'thing', but it's some serious inside baseball.)

If anything, you might argue that the transition from Big Bang to Silicon Valley is a display of the changing position of nerds. More realistically, though, I think they're just aiming at different demographics.

[internetman55]

I thought the Indian guy on BBT was one of the more sympathetic characters. He is a bit sheltered, but seems to do significantly fewer stupid things than the rest of the cast. Also seems to be a good friend. But I've only seen a few episodes.

[abandonliberty]

Nerd blackface with a stereotypical understanding of nerds.

It's usually a disaster when writers try to create characters smarter than themselves. You get word soup based on how the writer imagines smart people communicate, filled with weakly used jargon and unnecessarily long words.

My coworkers still accuse me of using complex language even though I have worked to simplify and clarify my communication.

[JDLongley]

It blows my mind that in an article about income inequality, someone who I’m perceiving as a white affluent male can paint themselves as the underdog and then cheerfully refer to The Big Bang Theory as “nerd black face”. Seriously?

[mcguire]

Well, the two aren't necessarily incompatible.

Although, strategically, we should be supporting the "nerd black face" image.

[Redoubts]

> someone who I’m perceiving as a white affluent male

Of course you are.

[aantix]

Hmmmm... Especially in the earlier seasons, I'm not sure there's ever been a mainstream television show that incorporated so many technically nuanced jokes.

The jokes are validated by David Saltzberg, a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA.

I think if the jokes were superficial and lazy, I would perceive that as mean-spirited. But they seem to get the details correct.

The Heisenberg uncertainty joke was pretty good. https://youtu.be/F6LIo-FfpKs?t=11s

[Bartweiss]

It's a weird mix, because some of the jokes were pretty intricate and clever. The background stuff (e.g. writing on whiteboards) is also correct; a bunch of it is apparently equations pulled from old physics papers.

The characterizations, meanwhile... well, Howard and Sheldon both struck me as pointlessly mean-spirited portrayals, while Rajesh was just a really overwrought stereotype. It felt like the technical side of things ended at input on specific jokes, and in response everything else was hammed up to ensure it would maintain mass appeal.

Of course, that's a pretty common pattern - could-be-good works getting diluted to ensure they won't drive away any viewers. I wouldn't be surprised if it boils down to a good idea plus executive meddling. The later seasons also seem to have a really bad case of Flanderization, where writing novel jokes got hard so "hah, nerdy talk!" came to the fore.

[internetman55]

I always just read it as dysfunctional people getting into comical situations. I see the show sometimes at my parents' house, and it doesn't seem that bad.

[BeetleB]

I think your comment (albeit exaggerated) is a major part of the equation. Society never viewed such people well, and that's missing from the article.

When I was younger, I tended to have roughly equal sympathies for everyone, regardless of wealth, race, career, etc. As I get older, I think I've become a bit more hardened and "preferential". I'm definitely a lot less sympathetic to people who I perceive as prejudiced - and I tend to see a lot of prejudice against tech folks - not related to the current sentiments, but the more common antisocial behavior towards "geeks", "nerds" and the like that's always existed.

To me, it's the same as one who is overtly racist. Why would I want to help a jerk like that? Except when it comes to prejudice amongst "geeks" and "nerds", it is much more prevalent than overt racism.

Of course, it's not as black and white as I put it, but I can understand if others in the tech industry are leaning that way. I've seen first hand wealthy tech people do a lot of good for people around them, but they're still treated poorly by them because "nerds" and "geeks".

In fact, I think it's had a much bigger impact on me observing this over and over again than it has on the people involved.

While the status quo may not be good, I prefer it to the world before the Internet giants. At least people have alternatives to joining a law firm or the finance industry.

(Written by someone who does not live in SV, does not work for any of these SW giants, and does not make a lot of money).

[gugagore]

Well, I think the people who are most harmed are those who never were near the top of the pile. Unless I don't understand what pile you mean.

[hkmurakami]

Honestly I see the industry being increasingly taken over by the very people who looked down on you/us.

The econ major banker/consultants are now CS majors and PMs.

[throw2016]

Nothing to do with downtrodden, this is how people behave when they get power. Loss of core values when you get power suggests you didn't have any values to begin with.

Those with integrity behave with integrity. This is the biggest betrayal of the people by those who spent the first 10-20 years incessantly posturing about freedom and liberty, at least the bankers are not hypocrites.

[abandonliberty]

You are making the typical reasoning error of assuming that all people match a stereotype exactly, that all these people are exactly the same.

Last I checked FSF and some very powerful nerds who aren't assholes still exist.

I believe you have the order reversed. It's not that people behave like this when they get power, but that behavior like this increases the likelihood of gaining power, causing those with these behaviors rise to power disproportionately.

Examples: Trump, SV Bros