Cyborg vs The Hacker: Technicity and Intersectional Identity in Geek Culture

By Gabriela Sanchez

The idea of a “computer nerd” has long conjured the image of a white, male, hacker; just frustrated enough by the real world to venture into creating his own. But this image, though familiar, and arguably cool, does little to express the full breadth of diversity that Geek culture encompasses. In fact, as more and more black, indigenous, and people of color seek representation, the more and more problematic this image becomes. In this article, we will be exploring instances of the “cyborg” archetype in contrast to the hegemonic image of the “hacker.” Our focus will be on Victor Stone, who we will examine as a model of technicity in pop media that expressly advances the mainstream consciousness of technoculture as populated by people other than reclusive, white men.

Victor Stone/Cyborg of DC’s Teen Titans and Justice League (Image courtesy of DC Comics) 

According to Jonathan Dovey and Helen W. Kennedy, experts in the field of technoculture, the archetypes of “Hacker” and “Cyborg” first appeared simultaneously in the mid-1980s, and are “paradigms of technicity;” acting as “positive models of technicity” for critics and consumers alike. The image of the “Hacker” thus represents the pseudo-elite of the technologically inclined. Hackers are seen as highly skilled, early adapters of tech, whose work in the cybernetic world is seen as ubiquitously advancing society toward a technologically advanced, utopian future. But as Kennedy and Dovey note, this image is problematized by the implicit requirements of wealth and access necessary to participate in hacker culture. Hackers also occupy spaces that are “almost exclusively white as well as exclusively male.” Juxtaposed against this archetype, however, is the Cyborg; an aspirational view of humanity’s relationship with technology as capable of facilitating “a fluid zone of identity affiliation and agency” capable of disrupting the systems of white power which threaten to colonize the new cyber-frontier. However, as attractive as the cyborg archetype might seem at first glance, it is important to note that it too has been problematized by pop-media appropriations of the Cyborg image. Such appropriations can be seen in films like The Terminator (1984), and more recently, in Marvel’s Iron Man (2008) which depict cyborgs as militarized, hyper-masculine beings capable of grand-scale destruction. These representations however are not exhaustive.

 

As gamers, nerds, and geeks alike seek further representation in the media that they consume, we have seen a reinvigoration of the cyborg image as one more informed by its negotiations with intersectionality than its function as a force of destruction. The most interesting of these depictions, in my opinion, is that of Victor Stone, better known as Cyborg from DC’s extended universe.

Victor Stone/Cyborg of DC’s Teen Titans and Justice League (Image courtesy of DC Comics)

Before becoming Cyborg, Vic Stone was just a young bright, black man passionate about football. The son of two successful scientists, his future seemed promising, that is until tragedy strikes in his parents’ lab. A portal to another dimension brings a violent monster into the lab killing Vic’s mother and nearly killing Vic as well before his father Silas is able to send the creature back from whence it came. In a panic to save his only son, Vic’s father Silas reconstructs his son’s body with materials from his lab, and Victor’s new identity is born.

 

Though there are various iterations of Cyborg’s story, in each version the themes of race, ability, and humanity can be seen taking center stage. Unlike other supers, Vic is forced into his power at the cost of his humanity and his aspirations of a career as a professional athlete. In Vic, the image of the Cyborg is complicated by conflicting experiences of ability, and privilege. Unlike the Terminator, Vic’s power inhibits his ability to fulfill his imagined destiny, and unlike Iron Man, Vic’s body is not passably human, nor is he able to remove his super-suit. In this way, Victor, or Cyborg, serves to challenge the white-male hegemony that proliferates Geek culture and he does so by suggesting a relationship between nerd and computer that extends the self through technology as opposed to extending oneself into technology. In other words, Victor reminds us as viewers of the duality of machines and the role they play in our societal advancement. Both a victim and a hero, DC’s Cyborg is continuing to honor the tradition of the “Cyborg” image as an agent for creolizing technological culture. In his blackness, in his youth, in his humanity, and in his complex relationship with the machinery that both enables and disables him, Victor Stone offers consumers a new iteration of the “Cyborg” archetype; one that makes room for all at the table of nerdiness and geekdom.

 

References: The Player’s Realm: Studies on the Culture of Video Games and Gaming https://www.academia.edu/3729994/The_Players_Realm_Studies_on_the_Culture_of_Video_Games_and_Gaming