Well this one got interesting. Our question was "What area of the Geekonomy do you think is least understood by the mainstream media?"
And the answers we got were split FOUR ways exactly:
- 25% – Anime
- 25% – Science Fiction
- 25% – Computers
- 25% – Gaming (Non-electronic)
As for comments . . .
- "Non-electronic gaming, because it doesn't make relatively huge amounts of money, and it heavily carries the nerd stereotype."
- "Though western animation runs a very close second, anime is the worst off because even the Japanese companies themselves don't seem to understand the market outside their coveted Japanese otaku segment. Most of what "wotaku" want is almost diametrically opposed by the remainder of the world market, and the creators of anime – and manga, light novels and the related media – seem to care to only live in a myopic dreamland as long as they are making just enough to be profitable."
- "I think Science Fiction is the most overlooked as it's been entirely mainstreamed. It's social role has changed – and thus the media ignore it or it's even become shallowly "hip."
- "Too many people see the PC as a black box and don't quite grab the concept of the programming beneath the OS. What's not helping is the concept of "transparent to the user", where the user doesn't need to know much more than what to double click to start a program and how to save their work. Add to this complex error codes (in hexadecimal notation) with a message that is brief but non-descriptive, and users are left in the dark beyond, "My Internet isn't working!"
Me, I'm starting tot hink this question was a little broad, but it gave me some other ideas . . .