To tell the truth, I think you hit the nail on the head. Part of why I sat on that paper so long before sending it out to people who requested a copy was that I knew I’d be revising it, and I hoped the revision would turn out better. In addition, the paper I sent out was written with the plan of turning it into the first chapter of a dissertation. This meant I had to spend some time covering the obvious material (which still remains unsaid in academic writing, I think) before I got into most of the complexity of the topic. Actually, my first geek paper (written before conducting interviews with convention attendees) covered a lot more ground, which is what prompted a couple of my professors to tell me to do this for my dissertation rather than try to compress it all into one paper.

You’re right, too, that one of my stumbling blocks so far has been balancing between a psychological perspective and anthropological/sociological perspectives. Psychological research has been deployed in fan studies mostly to pathologize, unfortunately, though Matt Hills’s book Fan Cultures offers a different and interesting take on the psychological mechanism behind fandom. Perhaps I’ve been too timid to delve into the inner workings of others so far, which is something to think about as I proceed.

So: thanks again. I welcome you folks to be brutal with me here. (Hopefully in a friendly way—one can be friendly and brutal, right?)

Not to detract from the value and insight that the paper most certainly exhibits, I think far too much of it focuses on the potentially cliche and common aspect of “geeks are marginalized.” No really? I mean, I understand that in many respects one is almost forced by the standards of academia to work to add to the inertia generated by so many previous works (which naturally form the list of works to cite) that have addressed that aspect. However, I really think you need to balance that more with new directions. Rather than looking so hard at the cliche shared experience of discrimination and cause and effect therein, I think you could spend more time on the conscious and unconscious motivations, perceptions of value inside and outside the geek community. Really I think it’s more important to have a deeper understanding of why geeks feel what they are doing is valuable as a individual and collective experience, and beyond that the potential real, objective value emerging in the world where it concerns the application of geek skillsets, not simply in the IT industry stereotype, but as I said at the end of my interview, applications that are completely new such as operators of unmanned military vehicles in the manner of video games etc.

Ultimately, you’ve talked a lot about geek identity and how other people dislike them, but I don’t think you’ve sufficiently addressed (I can see you have tried) why geeks like themselves or why other non-geeks might like them. Instead you’ve grazed the issue, focusing more one what brings them together than what makes them do what they do, but then perhaps that’s what happens when hit the demarcation between communications and psychology. I’ve always had a very wholistic view of the humanities and hate artificial limitations (needless to say I don’t work very well within traditional academic systems), so perhaps my criticism is overmuch and asks for things that are ultimately not feasible for the functional necessity of your project.

ANYWAY… It’s a good start.