How portrayals of tech geniuses in media and pop culture evolved and the impact on future generations.

We went from proper nerds like Dennis Richie, Stallman, Linus, Kernighan etc to charismatic leaders like Jobs. The image of jobs has now influenced a generation of entrepreneurs who are more focused with how they appear than being masters of tech and knowing what technology can do. At the same time, movies like Iron Man influenced a generation of kids (including me) to dive into tech, further driving the image of a know-it-all, cocksure and extremely overconfident “geniuses”.

This has also given rise to a plethora of grifters and chancers who can’t walk their talk. An entire upcoming generation is being influenced by these grifters and chancers.

This will probably result in further dilution of the image of a nerd/geek/genius into something completely bland, full of marketing and advertising. Oddly similar to the simulacra and simulation ideas posed by a philosopher, where the we’re just dealing with copies of an original until we reach a point where the original just doesn’t exist anymore, therein the simulacra is a thing that doesn’t have an original.