Discoverers vs Followers

April 11, 2006 on 10:03 pm | In General Gaming

On page 3 of this thread about Platform Independence over at the recently-resurrected Grimwell.com, we’ve gotten into a discussion about “Black September, 1994″. I had no idea to what this referred, so asked.

The answer was not what I expected, but I was not surprised by it all the same. Here’s the short form:

AOL allowed their members to access the larger Internet. This pissed off people already there.

As usual, I have my own take on things. My first post in a week and it’s a rant about the human condition

This is something that often irks me, this separation between the bleeding edge discoverers and the poor unkempty and unfortunate masses that follow.

/rant on

I understand the desire to define oneself as unique. We’re in a world with quite a lot of rules and all, so people find ways to think of themselves as different. Unfortunately, per those rules, the best they get is finding a group of people with enough similar interest to fulfill the communal/social needs intrinsic to self valuation. In my opinion anyway

So along comes something new that a few visionaries latch onto. They love it, they ply it, they master it. Then that thing does the worst thing possible for this crowd: it goes “legit”, becomes successful, finds a way to broaden its scope by further monetizing their unique idea. Their uniqueness diminishes with the number of new entrants, and while some become motivated to elevate themselves into veteran roles, becoming tutors and mentors for the place, others just pine for the old days when only they mattered.

This isn’t about Black September. It’s about everything. I’ve seen this sort of social phenomena in everything from Apple to Ren & Stimpy to Music to MMORPGs. I’ve long had to accept it’s simply part of our culture. But man does it continually amaze me how quickly people anchor to something hoping few others do, or that only the “right” people do. I can’t go anywhere nor read about any recently-matured concept without stumbling across a vocal minority of that concept still talking about the good old days when only smart/mature/whatever-defines-them people were part of it.

I apologize for being ranty about this, but it’s a pet peeve I’ve been carrying since forever. And this is not directed at anyone here. It is directed at the stuckup folks who think only their discovery, and then mastery, of something makes it legit:

I do not apologize for being an unwashed mass.
I do not apologize for coming to something only because I heard about it after it got full mass market advertising.
I do not apologize for starting UO only because Renaissance made it a game someone like myself, at 29, could actually play.
I do not apologize for trying to understand the difference between a few hoyty-toyty exclusionists and the far larger number of people who could like the same experience if only they knew about it.
And I do not disparage companies from trying.
There are a lot of pissed off people who go through life condemning just about everyone else as some sort of lemming-cum-sheep. I do not apologize for not being one of them.

Exclusion is understandable, but it pisses me off.

/rant off

That’s all I’ll say about it, but I think I needed to get it out. Now whenever it comes up again I have a place to link back to. Shorthand posting for the win!