Tuesday, August 1st, 2006, 4:24 am
In Defence of Geekery
Filed under:
Stereotypical images in people’s prejudiced minds
N elaborate and lateral analysis of a potentially-offensive advertisement has gotten my attention. It perpetuates the myths and confusion over hacker/cracker fallacies and scapegoating. Check out the original post in its full context or get an idea from the snippet below.
Am I nuts, or is this ad really offensive? First of all, the implication that geeks are somehow a threat. The whole tone of the ad is that you need their excellent insurance because the world is swarming with nerds and geeks who are going to break into your business systems and steal from you. So buy our insurance.
Second. What is this, high school? With the bullies who fail all their classes have such an inferiority complex they have to make fun of the geeks? If this is high school, Travelers is the neanderthal jock beating up geeks for their lunch money. “Protection” money.
