An Attitude of Counterculture

[Mr. Lim]

Counter-culture is a funny thing.

Take the X-Games as an example: A wonderfully entertaining, and provocative set of "counter-culture" sports that was nauseatingly effective at rousing our young people to emulate them.

The unfortunate thing is all we did was rally our young people to spend ungodly hours of concerted focus and concentration to become really good at doing skateboard tricks - a wholly un-useful skill in the real world.

Imagine being able to employ that kind of power to motivate our young towards something like robotics? Counter-culture could be the key...

As an aside, the irony is that everything that is X-Games related has become so popular, that there is no counter-culture anymore. It's become so mainstream, that when I see a kid hop on a skateboard, the reaction is more "another mindless sheep trying to fit in" as opposed to "this kid is trying too hard to be different."

Maybe the hidden gem in your post is that the FIRST community needs to take advantage of counter-culture attitudes in order to eventually gain mainstream acceptance, just like the X-Games did.

Can we do it? Absolutely.

We already have the most important parts going for us: we nerds are already unpopular and not well liked.

So were skateboarders when they first emerged, and what did these wholly unremarkable destructors of public property do when you made fun of them? They took on a belligerent "eff-you" attitude, skated harder, and flaunted their tricks even more. People eventually noticed. They became popular, but still were not that well liked by the masses - and that's the secret. It's definitely better when some people hate you, and even moreso when you don't give a hoot that you're hated. For some reason, that's the secret to success when it comes to the teenage mind.

So what should we do? As Dean and will.i.am say: be louder. Be more belligerent about the fact that we're nerds. Let the others know that they're on the fast-track to a future pumping gas... or if they're really good, in retail ("Hey, I used to hang out at the mall, and now I WORK there... booya!")

Most importantly, flaunt your skills without regard for whether you're going to be hated or liked. That's the point: people are supposed to not like you, and if they don't, you've done your job furthering the counter culture!

In other words:

Nerd harder, be seen doing it... don't care what others think.