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Does the angry geek/nerd/gamer to communist pipeline exist?
(lemmygrad.ml)
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this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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Communism
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I think you have to start by understanding that "gaming" or "geek" culture seeming like it leads to reactionary views or pipelines has a lot more to do with who "gamers" actually are, not what their hobby happens to be.
In most cases, videogames, table top RPGs, Warhammer 40k, pretty much any of the stuff you'd typically associate with the subculture, all of these things have been nearly entirely out of the reach of the vast majority of poorer working class kids in the past 30 odd years. As tough as it might be to hear, these have always been expensive and toys, hobbies and privileges to take part in, with maybe the exception of comic books, nearly everything else has a fairly steep entry fee, needing to buy computers, several books, figurines, videogames, merchandise etc.
It's really no wonder then, that the majority of people who are actually able to keep up with these costs will disproportionately be cis white men from the imperial core, as the group that happens to be at the top of the social structure of the world with the most amount of disposable income. And I think this is where the problem really stems from.
It's not that geeks and gamers just happen to be more likely to become reactionary, it's actually somewhat the opposite. Reactionaries, through their inherent privileged position in the world, are simply more able to get into this lifestyle in the first place. Geek culture and fascist/reactionary views might seem correlated, but they're both just part of a path of least resistance for a certain type of person.
This isn't limited to "gamers" though, if you are part of the privileged imperial core, you are indoctrinated to be a consumerist. Gamers just happen to consume games, but whether you are into cars, guns, pokemon, PC parts, phones, music, social media, clothes, or whatever other fad of the week is, the link isn't gaming, it's conspicuous consumption.
As far as the OP's questions about a pipeline leading to communism, I doubt it. People arrive at the immortal science of Marx by a myriad of paths, many that have nothing to do with their hobbies. Whereas a consumerist constantly has the status quo passively reinforced upon them at basically every aspect of society. It's impossible to escape, and the only refuge is constant examination through, at least, a socialist lens.
One thing I wanted to note, while expensive now, 3d printing is gonna annihilate a lot of these steep entry costs when it becomes easier to use/to afford. Can't wait to see it happen.
Growing up I was lucky my dad was a machinist. Being on the border of millenial and Gen Z a lot of the old windows XP shitters were getting tossed out with some pretty hefty graphics cards for the time for CAD and design. When we had electricity it was pretty nice to be able to play space pinball and learn how to use a computer. Without that, I probably would've never been interested in the internet; for the better or for the worse.
I agree, this is going to hopefully change over time, in the past 10 years these sorts of hobbies have begun to take off in the global south as well, and particularly in places like China, but naturally here on the English speaking side of the internet we won't see their views represented nearly as much as the average chud crackerite redditor who also have the same interests.
This along with videogames and many other digital media become cheaper over time, not to mention piracy almost being the norm in places like Brazil, Russia and India, should hopefully make the sub-culture less reactionary in the future.