Blog Entry #2: Definitions_Clinton Wright

            Patton Oswalt says that the words nerd and geek were a type of shorthand used by other cliques to describe himself and his friends. In his eyes, he never fit into the stereotype that people defined as a nerd or a geek. He never felt alone because he was friends with people who had the same interest as him. He was able to share his likes and dislikes with people like him and therefor did not feel like an outcast. Oswalt defined geeks and nerds to be people who were into science fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, and Stephen King. Otaku is defined to be people with obsessive and minute interest. He uses these three words to describe the culture he used to live in and how much American media has changed. He tries to inform the reader that if we do not change the way we get our information about pop culture, then there will be no more people with and in depth knowledge on one subject; we will all know a little about everything. I agree that the internet does make it easier for people to become more aware of multiple things and that they are less focused on a few little things. I do not think that geekiness has become normal because geeks were specialized in a few small fields of thought. People now-a-days do not know a lot about a few small things, they know a little about a lot of things.

            Supermarket Pastoral is the literary genre of the grocery store. Supermarket Pastoral is the story behind the organic foods that people buy; it is the trip that the food goes through from farmer to consumer. Pollan talks about the supermarket pastoral because he is trying to explain that organic does not necessarily mean small, individual farms. When people think of organic foods, they picture a small scale farm with a farmer who is still personal. The farmer farms his owns crops and then individually sells to the store. But supermarket pastoral shows that this is no longer true; one company produces 80% of the entire lettuce market. Organic farming is not a lot of small family farms producing crops to sell to the grocery store; organic farming has become an industry. What was once an idea to bring back the power between consumer and farmer to work for a greater good is now gone because the farmer has become a corporation. The culture of organic agriculture has morphed into the same big corporation industry as the regular agriculture industry is; it has changed from an industry interested in quality to one that is just focused on making a profit.