1. Introduction – From the Outside, Again
I was there before the internet had memes, before “power user” was a marketing term, and long before inclusivity became a trending hashtag. I was part of the first generation to fall in love with computers—not because they were cool, but because they were ours. In the ’80s and early ’90s, being a computer nerd was a social liability. We got picked on, laughed at, sometimes outright ostracized. Now, decades later, I find myself on the outside looking in again—this time not because I’m different, but because I’m not different enough in the right ways. The very communities that claim to celebrate diversity have quietly decided there’s no room at the table for people like me. Why? Because I’m over 50, white, male, and don’t speak fluent TikTok.
2. Then vs. Now – The Rise of the “Nerd” Before It Was Cool
In the early ’80s, being into computers wasn’t quirky or endearing—it was a fast track to social isolation. I wasn’t trying to be some early adopter or thought leader. I was just a kid who saw magic in a blinking cursor and the rhythmic chatter of a floppy drive. To most people, computers were alien, impractical, or just flat-out boring. But to me—and to a small number of others—they were possibility machines. Limitless, untamed, and incredibly personal.
At my high school, there were maybe a dozen of us in any given grade who had home computers. Even fewer actually used them for programming or experimentation rather than just booting up a game. By the time I graduated in 1986, out of a class of about 600, I’d estimate maybe a hundred had a computer at home, and of those, barely a handful reallyunderstood what they could do. We weren’t just interested in computers—we were fluent in them, and that fluency separated us, not just technically but socially.
The word “elite” might sound arrogant, but there was a kind of exclusivity in that world, not by design, but by circumstance. You had to earn your place in that universe. There were no YouTube tutorials, no Stack Overflow, no forums to hold your hand. You learned through books, trial and error, and—if you were lucky—a mentor or BBS community. It was hands-on, break-it-to-understand-it learning. And when you figured something out, it felt like you had just unlocked a secret door no one else even knew was there.
And here’s the thing: we weren’t all introverts hiding behind screens. Sure, some were—and they deserved a place too—but a lot of us were multifaceted. I swam competitively. I played water polo, basketball, and volleyball. I was a lifeguard for several summers. I had a tight-knit circle of friends—forty or so people who I could count on, joke with, learn from. I could talk to anyone, from the jocks to the burnout kids to the straight-A honor roll types. Computers didn’t isolate me; they enriched my world. But try explaining that to anyone back then without getting a weird look or some smug insult.
We weren’t worshipped. We were barely tolerated. “Nerd” wasn’t a term of endearment—it was a slur, a way to put you back in your place. It meant you were bookish, awkward, uncoordinated, or somehow not man enough to matter. Even those of us who defied those stereotypes still carried the label, because once people knew you were “into computers,” they made assumptions. They always do.
Still, we kept at it—not for status, not for praise, but because we loved it. There was something deeply fulfilling about making a machine do what you told it to. We were building things, exploring new ideas, understanding systems most people didn’t even realize existed. We weren’t seeking attention; we were chasing creation.
Then the ’90s came. Hardware got cheaper. Software got friendlier. Big beige boxes with Intel Inside™ started showing up in every home. What used to be rare became common, and suddenly the same people who mocked us were installing AOL trial CDs and calling themselves “power users” because they could change their desktop wallpaper. It was disorienting, but also strangely validating. We thought: Finally. People get it.
And for a while, it felt like the tide had turned. The world that once ridiculed us was now riding a wave we helped start. Geeks were rebranded as geniuses. The same kids who got shoved into lockers were suddenly building billion-dollar startups. It felt like vindication. But it didn’t last.
Because just as fast as we were embraced, we were left behind.
3. The Shift – When Access Replaced Skill
As the internet crept into every home and office in the ’90s, it brought with it a sense of global wonder. Suddenly, anyone could dial in and access the same information that once took us years to hunt down in dusty manuals or obscure user groups. But with that came a strange, slow erosion of respect for the people who built the road. Knowledge was no longer earned—it was downloaded. You didn’t need to understand how anything worked. You just needed to know where to click.
Don’t get me wrong—access is a good thing. Democratizing technology opened doors for people who never would’ve had the opportunity otherwise. But somewhere along the way, the narrative flipped. The very people who had once laid the foundation for this digital world were no longer seen as essential—they were now seen as outdated. What was once our domain had been packaged, streamlined, and resold by corporations and influencers with no sense of history and no interest in context.
The transition wasn’t immediate. At first, we were mentors. Guides. The wise ones who knew what a command line was, who could edit config files and rescue your machine when it wouldn’t boot. But then came the point-and-click revolution. The “it just works” era. And with it came a new breed of user—louder, flashier, more interested in aesthetics than understanding. They didn’t want to know how things worked. They just wanted things to work on their terms, and when they didn’t, we were no longer the heroes. We were the problem.
We stopped being cool and started being “cringe.” We weren’t mysterious anymore—we were dads. IT guys. Fossils with opinions. The worst sin? Having a memory. Daring to say, “Back when we—” only to be cut off by someone half your age telling you it’s not relevant anymore. The very culture that was built on curiosity and problem-solving now celebrated not needing to know anything.
Worse still, the new guard didn’t just ignore us—they rewrote the rules to make us irrelevant. Suddenly, if you weren’t fluent in meme-speak, hadn’t built a “personal brand,” or didn’t use the right buzzwords, you were dismissed. Not debated. Not disagreed with. Dismissed. You could have decades of experience, mountains of insight, and still get written off as a “dinosaur” by someone who just learned how to code from a YouTube short last Thursday.
We were there when the internet was a wild frontier. When every website felt like an artifact and every interaction had the electricity of discovery. Now it’s a strip mall—same five templates, same algorithm-choked feeds, same performative outrage cycles. And if you speak up about any of this? You’re labeled bitter. Out of touch. Or worst of all, conservative—because apparently having any reservations about the way things have evolved makes you an enemy of progress.
But we’re not bitter—we’re bewildered. We’re not out of touch—we’re out of patience with being told to sit down and be grateful we’re allowed to scroll. We’re not trying to gatekeep. We’re just tired of being gaslit out of our own history.
4. The New Gatekeeping – Inclusivity with an Asterisk
The internet is full of communities that proudly brand themselves as inclusive, empathetic, and open to all. The language is polished, the intentions look noble, and the mission statements are filled with words like safe, equitable, and diverse. But scratch just below the surface, and you’ll find something that doesn’t match the brochure.
For all the talk of welcoming everyone, there’s a quiet, consistent exception: older voices. Particularly those who don’t frame every thought in the latest sanctioned language, or who dare to offer a dissenting opinion without apology. In those moments, inclusion becomes conditional. You’re welcome, as long as you don’t remind people that you’ve been around long enough to remember how this all started—or worse, that you helped build it.
I don’t expect a parade. I’ve been online since the modem screamed at 300 baud. I’ve written code, built systems, and watched this entire digital world take shape. I don’t need to be celebrated—but I refuse to be dismissed by someone who just learned to “sudo” last week. Especially when that dismissal comes from the very people who claim to be fighting for empathy and respect.
And that’s where the hypocrisy becomes impossible to ignore. The same crowd that will drag someone across the internet for using an outdated term will think nothing of sneering, “OK Boomer” at anyone over 40, regardless of who they are or what they’ve contributed. Never mind that I’m Gen-X. Never mind that I’ve spent decades in this space. If you challenge the narrative or don’t speak in the dialect of the day, you’re painted as irrelevant. Not wrong—just old.
It’s a neat little trick, really. Strip away someone’s credibility by slapping a generational label on them and pretending it means something. It lets people who see themselves as so fucking enlightened punch down while pretending they’re punching up. It turns genuine contribution into a target, and disagreement into an excuse for character assassination.
And what makes it even more absurd is how short-sighted it all is. The loudest voices preaching “inclusion” now are the same ones practicing quiet exclusion with a wink. They confuse visibility with depth. Trend with truth. Influence with impact. I hope, for their sake, that they write it all down—because 30 years from now, when they’re trying to explain to their own kids why the tools they loved were replaced by firewalled feeds curated by whatever corporation or government still holds the keys, they might realize they weren’t quite as revolutionary as they thought.
And I’ll still be here. Gen-X, bitch. The generation that was ignored in the ’80s, underestimated in the ’90s, and now miscategorized and written off by people who don’t know the difference between booting up a system and bootstrapping a life.
We’ve been marginalized before. We’re still standing.
5. The Hypocrisy of Selective Empathy
Empathy is supposed to be a universal value. It’s supposed to mean hearing people out, giving them space, allowing for differences—especially when those differences are generational, experiential, or cultural. But that’s not how it works online anymore. In digital spaces, empathy has been twisted into a performance metric—something you flash when it benefits your image, then discard when someone steps out of line or doesn’t speak your language.
We’re told to “do the work,” “listen and learn,” and “make room for marginalized voices.” And in principle? I agree. I’ve done that. I’ve lived that. But what I’ve learned is that empathy in these communities is anything but consistent. It’s conditional. It’s transactional. And above all, it’s selective.
You only get empathy if you’re part of a favored narrative. If you’re young, angry, and equipped with the right hashtags, you’re a truth-teller. If you’re older, reflective, and use plain language instead of buzzwords, you’re a threat. It doesn’t matter if your story is valid. It doesn’t matter if your insight is useful. If you’re not part of the currently accepted “struggle,” you’re recast as the oppressor—even if all you’ve done is exist long enough to see the cycle repeat itself.
That’s not empathy. That’s brand management.
I’ve watched people who claim to fight for mental health tell others to “touch grass” the moment someone disagrees with them. I’ve seen communities built around “safe spaces” launch dogpiles against someone for asking a question the wrong way. And I’ve seen genuine curiosity punished more harshly than cruelty—because the former threatens the illusion that everything’s already been figured out.
Empathy, in its truest form, is about curiosity, not conformity. It means making room for people you don’t understand—not just people who reflect you. It means slowing down long enough to consider that someone older, quieter, or different might have something worth hearing. That maybe—just maybe—someone who’s been around the block isn’t here to scold or belittle, but to connect.
But the platforms don’t reward nuance. They reward outrage. They reward fast takes, sharp jabs, and emotional purity tests. And empathy—the real kind, the messy, inconvenient kind that involves uncomfortable conversations—is nowhere to be found when the mob shows up.
So if your empathy doesn’t extend to people who challenge you… if it only works in one direction… if it disappears the moment you feel discomfort, then it’s not empathy at all.
It’s theater. And I’m done pretending it’s a show worth watching.
6. A Call for Actual Inclusivity
There was a time—not that long ago—when we were taught, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” That phrase wasn’t perfect, but it instilled something we desperately need now: resilience. We knew how to take a joke. We knew how to argue and still shake hands after. We understood that not every opinion needed to mirror ours, and not every awkward phrase was a threat. Sometimes it was just a human being figuring it out in real time.
Somewhere along the line, we traded resilience for fragility. Today, every word is weighed, every sentence dissected, every tone judged. Empathy has been weaponized into censorship. And people now walk on eggshells—not because they’re unkind, but because they’re terrified of being exiled for a clumsy moment.
That’s not inclusion. That’s social control dressed up in progressive language.
And I’ve felt the fallout firsthand. I lost my brother to it. We used to be close. We gamed together, joked together—the same jokes, mind you. The inside kind. The kind only siblings can tell. We didn’t just share blood; we shared language. Then one day, out of nowhere, he handed me a list. A literal list of what I was no longer allowed to say or discuss around him. No debate. No conversation. Just: comply, or don’t call.
I told him I wouldn’t censor myself just to be someone else’s comfort pet. That I wouldn’t rewrite my personality to pass some arbitrary emotional purity test. That if decades of shared laughter and loyalty could be wiped out by a shift in approved vocabulary, maybe we didn’t have much left to stand on. That was nearly a year ago. We haven’t spoken since.
That’s the price of performative inclusion: silence. Isolation. Estrangement. Not because you were cruel, but because you wouldn’t perform.
We all like to romanticize how technology connects us—but connection without tolerance is just surveillance. If we want a truly inclusive culture, we need one that includes the uncomfortable parts, too. That includes people who speak plainly, people who’ve lived through change, and yes—people who might say something that makes you bristle but still deserve a place in the conversation.
You don’t have to like me. But if your definition of empathy disappears the moment I don’t toe your line, then let’s stop pretending it was ever empathy at all.
7. What We Lose When We Push Experience Away
There’s a cost to all of this. To the exclusion. To the selective empathy. To the performance of inclusion without the practice of it. When we push away experience, we don’t just lose the stories—we lose the lessons. The scars, the nuance, the lived wisdom that only comes from being around long enough to remember how we got here in the first place.
We lose perspective. We lose context. We lose the ability to see the patterns repeating themselves, because the people who could warn us—who would warn us—have already been silenced, mocked, or written off. We’re not just alienating a generation. We’re amputating our own history.
And we don’t notice the loss right away. At first, it just feels easier. Cleaner. Fewer complications. But give it time. When the pendulum swings again, when the tools we built are used in ways we never imagined, when the freedoms we took for granted are regulated, monitored, or erased altogether—who’s going to remember how it all started?
I’ve seen the cycle. I’ve seen the fall of open platforms. The rise of centralization. The creep of control disguised as convenience. And I’m watching now as a new generation, so convinced of its moral authority, builds its identity on the bones of a culture it doesn’t fully understand—and doesn’t seem interested in learning from.
So here’s my message to the digital gatekeepers of today: You don’t have to respect me. You don’t have to agree with me. But you will remember that we were here. That before the hashtags, before the dopamine loops, before the curated bios and personal brands, there were people wiring this system together with actual sweat and solder. People who believed in what this could be. People who still do.
You can write us off now if it makes you feel better. But when your own relevance starts to fade, when the next wave comes crashing in and your voice doesn’t matter the way it used to, I hope you’ll think back to how you treated the ones who came before you.
And maybe then, you’ll finally understand what inclusion really means.
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