G4: Cable Television for Geeks or for Cowboys?

In a television advertisement promoting the G4 cable network, a 20-something male geek is playing with one of his gadgets in his bedroom when suddenly a 20 foot digital woman, who looks like she could be a character out of Tron, flies in through an open window. He hops onto her back and she flies back out. As he rides her through the night sky, he suddenly slaps her on the ass in indication to speed up like a cowboy does with his horse.

It is a scene of a too typical sexist act that has been performed too many times by an iconic, male, American archetype. Therefore this scene contradicts what the G4 network is supposed to stand for: geek culture which is very diverse and largely consisting of both sexes. G4 emphasizes shows and programming for geeks (such as myself). The programming ranges from anything such as flash news shows covering pop techie culture to Star Trek and video games. Devout viewers of The Waltons and John Wayne movies probably would not find anything of interest on this network. Or would they? G4 is supposed to specialize in programming for those items of popular culture that many geeks partake in, items that are more innovative, creative and dynamic such as science fiction, video games and computers. But how can G4 really be us geeks' television network when it depicts a male geek as a wanna-be cowboy--the cowboy being an icon of traditional, male, American culture--riding a woman like she were a horse?

To answer that question I should probably define "geek". To begin with, a geek is not a cowboy in the redneck sense, a sense that is branded by the sexist, macho attitude in so many men. Geek society consists of both guys and girls who are too open minded to new ideas, creativity and innovation to act anything like the "cowboy" who thoughtlessly slaps the next shapely girl on the ass he sees. Unlike the typical redneck cowboy, geeks are not the type to go and hang out at a bar to get drunk and shoot their mouths off to and about people of the other sex, another sexual lifestyle, race, ethnicity, etc.

As innovative, creative and intellectual people, geeks are always looking towards people of diverse backgrounds because in doing so that's where they get many of their new ideas, new perspectives on life and therefore new knowledge. Such open mindedness goes for all geeks, the list for the types of geeks being nearly infinite. Just to name a few, these are: artist geeks, writer geeks, film geeks, computer geeks, science geeks, science fiction geeks, fantasy geeks . . . You can see that geek society itself is very diverse!

To define "geek" more simply and straight forward, a geek is any person who dedicates his/her spare time or even their entire life to any creative and/or innovative aspect of pop culture, unlike a member of mainstream society. Therefore a geek would much prefer producing movies or TV shows over selling stock for a big corporation. He/she would rather design pc games rather than manage a chain of hardware (or even software for the matter!) stores.

So then what about mainstream, or non-geek, society makes geek society so much different? To answer this question, let's first go back to the cowboy archetype. The typical cowboy is a person who lives by his own familiar routine of his white, Anglo Saxon, protestant (WASP) background. He'll go into the saloon for drinks and poker way over going into a café to participate in an intellectual conversation with a circle of philosophers, writers, artists, etc. He'd rather go through the more familiar routine of making a load of money via a hand of poker than think up and discuss new ideas and discover new meanings.

Like the cowboy archetype, the mainstream of society tends to stick to more traditional and more familiar routine. Therefore a mainstream person sticks more to convention than they do creativity/innovation. The mainstream person would rather watch NFL football, drink beer in a sports bar and/or play poker (sound like the above archetype in a modern day setting?). In the case of female mainstream society, the person would prefer, in addition to most of the above, reading a glamour magazine or dancing to the latest but overplayed top 40 in a night club. The mainstream person would prefer working a career that will make them a big salary and provide benefits, such as one of corporate executive, over working one that may not pay a big salary but would allow the use of creativity and innovation, such as one in the fine arts or electronic game design.

The typical American ideal has always been to go "west" and make a fortune, as the cowboy (and -girl) from the eastern part of the U.S. has done. Specifically, this has been the case with the easterner who came out west during the gold rush. The gold rush may had ended nearly two centuries ago but the rush for monetary profit continues, especially in the corporate world. Contrary to what the corporate executive may say, like the cowboy he/she is often overtly uncreative and not very innovative, at least not the executive him-/herself. If there is anything creative or innovative in the executive's role it is the utilization of a creative/innovative worker several tiers under them, a worker who may be him/herself a geek yet is only creating by pre-set guidelines. Therefore the "creative/innovative" corporate worker is really just a cog in the machine, a machine simply programmed by the higher level workers including the executive.

Corporate workers' jobs are to make money rather than to discover new ideas or new methods. If anything, their jobs are to buy new ideas and sell new methods such as technology. Too often, like his cowboy cousins and gold mining ancestors, the male corporate member looks at women as objects for his pleasure while he is off the job (and sometimes even while on it!). This form of sexism ties in with his fear of women rising in power. We still see very few female corporate executives or CEOs, don't we? So the male corporate worker looks at women as subjects to men, much like a cowboy looks at his horse as a subject to him. The male corporate member uses women as sex objects like the way he uses his "geek creators/innovators" as cogs in the money making machine. So to answer the above question, what makes geeks so much different than mainstream people is that geeks dedicate themselves to certain aspects of culture simply because they like them and not because such aspects get them sex or big sums of money. Such aspects often reach beyond conventional and traditional ways of thinking, and therefore geeks do the same.

Therefore a geek is closer in likeness to the socio-political rebel than they are the typical American cowboy. (In fact, some geeks are socio-political rebels as well!) Geeks, to a certain extent, are members of counterculture society like rebels. Like rebels, geeks are always looking to new ways, following their own hearts rather than what the rest of society says. As rebels strive for social change geeks strive for pop cultural change in such areas as art, literature, music and technology, which are in fact parts of society since society makes them. Geeks view the world with insight rather than just through the eyes of mainstream media programs such as CNN or CBS's The Insider. Geeks listen to their hearts and passions that come from them rather than to the rest of society, especially mass consumer society. Like counterculture youth of the '60s and '70s looked individually inward to find direction in life, geeks look inside their individual selves rather than take the majority of society's word for everything.

So is there any difference between the geek and the socio-political rebel whether he/she be the hippy, punker, goth, etc.? Yes. The geek dares to be different not so much as a means of making a political statement than as a means of enjoying a particular aspect of culture, specifically pop culture. Such an aspect is often a more creative/innovative one, such as pc/video gaming, science fiction/fantasy/horror literature and film, progressive science, and even experimental religion. However, this difference from the rebel is not exclusive; as I mentioned above, many geeks are socio-political rebels themselves. One example of this is the '60s mod style musicians and fans who practice their art and passions both for cultural enjoyment as well as political purposes. So there are ideas of socio-political rebels that are adaptable to those of geeks (kind of like a computer geek's software and other gadgets, isn't it?).

I don't only find G4 misrepresenting geeks in terms of the narrow minded, sexist cowboy but also in terms of its programming. Ironically, it tends to cater to mostly the geeks who are fans of programming that is more popular by mainstream, commercial standards. For one thing, the network tends to promote mostly the hottest and newest items on the market especially ones that fall within the categories of movies and video games. Thus the network plans its programming according to what will bring in more profit. Many geeks, although not necessarily the majority of them, are nostalgic in their interests. Many of them take up interests in the pop culture of eras such as the '60s, '70s and '80s especially when it comes to movies, games and music among other things. Such geeks love to look back in time as well as forward in it (especially some of us time travel-sci fi geeks!). Some of us, like myself who is a '70s geek, live these eras today. For example, I will not only watch television and movies of the '70s, not only write poetry depicting my inspiration of the decade's culture, but also wear the clothes and speak the slang of that period as a part of my daily lifestyle. (Real groovy, isn't it?)

Ok, G4 does air the original 1960s Star Trek. However, the station has aired no other vintage science fiction--or vintage anything for the matter--to my knowledge, save for Star Trek the Next Generation. But this brainchild of the original series having started in the late '80s but continuing on into the '90s, which is only the decade previous to the one we're in now, can hardly serve as vintage television. In only promoting the new and what is popular by mainstream consumer standards, G4 does not represent us geeks as a whole.

This exclusive promoting of the new and popular is hardly anything more than the commercialization of a television network, a network that is supposed to be for an audience consisting mostly of members who are not as interested in buying the latest, most expensive brand name product as they are in what the product is inspired by. For example, one of these members may be a Star Wars geek who will not buy the latest Star Wars pc game so much for the reason that "everyone else" in consumer land is buying it than for the reason that he/she loves the Star Wars films themselves. If that geek does not care too much for Harry Potter he/she is probably not going to bother spending thirty-five to forty bucks on the latest Harry Potter pc game that the majority of consumers are buying. Yet G4 limits itself to promoting such games that are popular not only by geek standards but also by mainstream ones. Therefore G4 is not much different than any of the mainstream, non-geek commercial networks.

G4's ad depicting a geek posing as a typical, chauvinist cowboy by riding a woman and slapping her on the ass like she were a horse is almost a perfect one for this network. The ad represents those sexist members of mainstream society who are consumer and profit ambitious far more than they are creative, innovative and intellectually inquisitive. Such members tend not to be very diverse in their thinking. Therefore, the G4 network fails to represent the diverse interests of geek society, including the female members of it, when it caters to only what is popular by mainstream, consumer standards. It's a wonder that it represents geek society at all. So who's network is this really, the open minded, intelligent geek's or the typical, ignorant cowboy's?