I'll #Microserf This Beach: Part One
#TalkNerdyToMeLover’s LikesGoyBoys
I am danielu@microsoft.com
I am a bug checker in Building Seven.
Lately . . .
I've been unable
to sleep . . .
"Microserfs" by Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland is one of my generation's prophets. When we were on our knees at the mercy of a 24.4 baud, BBS/MSN/AOL-centric world in 1995, "Microserfs" was released; if you read it today, not only will you see what is effectively a quasi-primitive blog, but a meditation on how and when the word 'nerd' became part of the tech lexicon and something to be proud of. As if I needed another reason to sleep with this book under my pillow, it's a venerable piece of work to me.
Although Coupland released "jPod" in 2006, we need to celebrate the relevance of #Serfdom. Weren't you proud of your 486 before you went Pentium, or really smug if you were a Debian baby?
Did you ever feel that newsgroups were made up of archetypes from "Microserfs"? Well, smell you, Nancy Drew, because that's what I'm talking about. Behold, the exegesis and eisegesis of the nerds as we count down the 10 best nerdy moments and concepts in "Microserfs"!
You'll laugh, relate and relive the era just before the dot-com bubble with Karla, Dan, Todd, Susan, Bug Barbecue, Michael and the rest of the gang. Like Captain E-O, they were there to change the world. Enjoy the first half of my 'Serfdom Weekend Countdown!
10. Todd's Prince-speak Emulator (emul8r)
Todd, the bug testing body-builder from picturesque Port Angeles, Washington, had devoutly religious parents. Referring to computers as 'the Devil's voice box', they raised Todd to bring about a eulogy for the dictionary and birth to abbreviation via an elegant slice of code culminating in
“The Prince Emulator”;
Todd and the Devil (maybe Prince, too) knew that Twitter was nigh and truncation would be necessary if we wanted to communicate through all these neat interfaces, especially when it comes to marketing purposes. After running a diary entry through the emulator, Dan deduces that after a certain point, real language decomposes into encryption code. Oh, Dan, you had my heart at hellojed.
9. Emoticon Sickness.
We've all had discussions about emoticons. At this point, everybody has a strong opinion about them. I prefer acronyms like RTFM myself. Love or despise them, the wide world of emoticon sports won't be going anywhere. The initial, popular 'Serf opinion is that everyone hates them, but then negotiations concerning the use of all emoticons break down when everybody admits to using them in at least a limited fashion – ie; emails with their parents. Who hasn't huddled around a water-cooler or over a phone while inputting a veiled ;) or =D
….guilty as charged. You got me. LIMEDILLIGAF? :D
8. Pop Culture Bonanza!
Like most Coupland works, Andy Warhol, and yeah, I'll say it, Cameron Crowe's under rated (at least in my opinion) Vanilla Sky, it is inferred that we are pop culture and nothing is wrong with it. We all have our Jeopardy! categories. Advances in technology and computer use being greater and more accessible than ever before allow us to do as Karla and Dan do in the book, which is to email a real British person and verify that bollocks means … go ask a British person or anybody who watched the World Cup what it means. Oh, fine.
Things in this galaxy tend to work in elliptical ways, especially for us nerds, which is why Battlestar Galactica, Snapple and names that begin-with-an-X-pronounced-like-a-Z may go out of fashion, but they never really stay out of fashion. Shoulder pads come back again too, sometimes, oh yes, they do. We create new things by taking influences and cues from what we know, adding our own spin, then giving life to our ideas.
7. 1.0! One-Point-Oh!
There's nothing like the innovation of getting in on the ground floor of a start-up. Money? None of that around here – but that's the point. To be 1.0 is to be hungry, adventurous, never awake because you're constantly dreaming. We like to think of it as #nerdsunite! we love our friends at established companies and start-ups alike, but none of us would be here if nerdy only existed as a binary concept. No matter what platform you're on, you understand what it is to struggle, which is why the 'Serfs are so poignant, especially as they stake out their own territory. As their product, Oop! progresses, you join the team in going boldly where no nerd has gone before. The journey is inspiring. The destination is unknown but no doubt awesome, which I'd like to think we all relate to. You are 1.0; You 1.0, so make it count.
6. Let Go My Lego!
Before we compose code, HTML, music or sentences, most nerds are obsessed with stringing together endless piles of Legos. They come in primary colors! Secondary colors! They make sense, they are mathematic perfection. I liked always having them in my line of vision, which really made my mom mad, because I had a lot of those bad boys. Not only is the elusive Lego minifig discussed several times in the book, but everybody relates their personal experiences with these blocks of utter perfection. Once upon a time, flame wars roamed newsgroups, wherein you were dead meat if you dared to refer to Lego as merely a toy. You don't screw with a fellow nerd's Legos, and you lost it if they ever got wet. We even have Lego video games now, and in very nerdy flavors: Star Wars and Indiana Jones. That's #nerdsunited in spirit and in action if I ever saw it.
The #Serfdom countdown will wind down tomorrow! We are going to #microserf this beach here at #TNTML!
You can find me nursing some sort of exotic drink at DefyAuthority.net and on Twitter, where I have a unique username.