[phlakaton]

There's a big difference between "childlike" and "childish." I see nothing wrong with professionals that engage with media and culture that stokes our childlike sense of wonder and play, and I count us fortunate indeed to live in a time and place where such luxury exists. It never ceases to astonish me just how far geeky interests have invaded the mainstream over the years.

A danger is the potential exclusion of people who do not participate in that specific culture, and that's something I'm more cognizant of now than I was in the past. If you should have a concern about the interweaving of tech professions and geek culture, I figure this is the most important one.

As an adult, my relationship to comics and geek culture has definitely changed enormously from where it was when I was a child, a teenager, or a college student. Things I thought were awesome I now see as cheesy, trite, or problematic. Things I didn't appreciate earlier on have come to take on new resonance. A few things have remained constant. The opening fanfare to Star Wars, for example, when infrequently presented in a dark theater, will probably never stop sending shivers down my spine.

The trick, then, is to approach the intersection of tech professions and geek culture as grown-ups, shrugging off the (usually blatant) attempts at manufacturing hype, and enjoying the real connection that our culture affords, without pursuing it to exclusion.