frustration Friday

I'd like to talk about pornography. Good, now that I have your attention, read on and become distinctly non-titillated.

One of the strangest trends I've noticed in media is that there were pornographic parodies of all sorts of properties–many of them geeky, such as comics and Star Trek. It seems every few weeks that I see some news on a science fiction or comics news site about yet another XXX take on something belatedly geeky.  Perhaps the ultimate achievement is a film titles, seriously "PR0N" which if you can't guess is a "Tron" parody.

(And if you couldn't guess that, I weep for you).

Amusing? Funny? Me, I find it ironic. Do you know why?

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As I've noted many times, I view fandom and geeky activities as being roughly (and for some, inseparably) divided into two basic motivations: to have fun, or to fulfill career/life ambitions. This is, of course, an extremely simplistic reduction, doubtlessly limited, but hey, it's a Frustration Friday, and I'm gonna rant.

What am I ranting about? I'm ranting about the fact that fannish, geeky, otaku activities bogged down in wank (pointless and dramatic arguing that is a tad too personal, if you're not familiar with the use of the word). I find some of the arguments, battles, fan wars, and so forth stupid and nonproductive.

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You know how much college costs? If you do these days, you probably think about it with a shudder of dread. Things are pretty freaking expensive these days, education wise.  You don't even want to know how much (or how little) my entire college degree cost in the 80s – with dorm fees.

I've actually talked to teachers who worry that the expensive college degrees are becoming a detriment not just financially, but psychologically, making people loose interest in college. Yes, seriously, I've heard people worry that students don't want to go to college because it's too expensive and won't pay off. That's a terrifying thought.

And let's face it – college is insanely expensive, pay rates are going down, no one knows where the jobs are, so on and so on. It's scary.

Know what scares me? The possibility that a college degree might be considered a form of conspicuous consumption.

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