cover image by Ryan Russell (Wired)

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Nerd Alert! Otaku-zation of Popular Culture

If you have a few minutes for a quality read on the current state of geek culture, check out American stand-up comic Patton Oswalt's essay "Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die" in this month's issue of Wired Magazine:

In the article, Patton brings up several interesting points on the converging path of popular culture and Internet, such as the emerging parallel between the Japanese Otakus and the American nerds and the growing trend of recycling pop culture relics to satiate our appetite for nostalgia, or as he calls it Etewaf:

When everyone has easy access to their favorite diversions and every diversion comes with a rabbit hole’s worth of extra features and deleted scenes and hidden hacks to tumble down and never emerge from, then we’re all just adding to an ever-swelling, soon-to-erupt volcano of trivia, re-contextualized and forever rebooted. We’re on the brink of Etewaf: Everything That Ever Was--Available Forever.