I am no longer a basement dweller; in my early twenties I decided that living in my parents' basement was isolating, had a lot of cultural baggage attached to it, and gave rise to temptations to engage in various illicit activities. I have, however, been living on the ground floor with my parents for the last 15 years, my bedroom being adjacent to my father’s in this house I’ve lived in for the 37 years of my life.

Is there shame in this? I don’t know. But the basement still sees use; it is the storehouse of the various old Japanese video games, manga, and CD-ROMs I sell to various geeks around the world through eBay. The kitschy themes of the various items lie waiting in my basement, waiting to find their way into the minds of nostalgic consumers, computer geeks, retro-gamers, Japan aficionados, and various other types that have arisen in our capitalist society. I make money through items that dwell in the basement of my house, and so I will not speculate as to whether the consumers of said items are basement dwellers.

I do think that assuming that certain hobbies are the domain of basement dwellers is an over-simplification disguised as insight, however. People who take the straight and narrow path in life and don’t understand certain types of people and hobbies nevertheless pretend that they do, and so it’s easy to say something crass and idiotic such as “this hobby is for basement-dwelling faggots”.

To make my own over-generalization, it is usually the type of person who will pull out a bigoted epithet like “faggot” that characterizes people in this way. Science-fiction? It’s for “basement dwelling faggots” of course. I would say that while not a hardcore fan, I do enjoy science-fiction from time to time, and that I am a “faggot” in that when my libido isn’t dead I desire homosexual relations with other men (and women, I guess), and that I have been a “basement dweller” before, yes. But the over-simplifier likes to paint entire swathes of human activity as being the exclusive domain of basement-dwellers, when there are probably people interested in said hobbies who have families, do not masturbate constantly to pornographic anime videos, and may even be happier and more successful than the person who has contempt for said hobbies.

I think that when one views oneself as an outsider, though, they can pigeon-hole themselves into roles in life relegated to outsiders. So if one is an under-achiever and likes certain geeky things, they can try to conform to the expectations of others when it comes to said things, maybe becoming a basement dweller as a middle finger to society and using passivity as a form of resistance (but alas, it is really a middle-finger to themselves and a form of self-contempt). The basement-dweller becomes an archetype that the person’s behavior is a manifestation of, the self-interested loner who occupies his time with his own interests and hobbies and lives on other peoples’ dime. It’s easy to fall into this niche of society under certain (middle-class) circumstances. It’s an easy path if one doesn’t care (and can afford) to not care what others think. It’s a path of least resistance. It’s a part of society occupied by a privileged swath of outsiders with low self-esteem.

It may seem like letting life pass you by and believing the crap that the bullies of your childhood told you, that you were a dork, a nerd, a loser. It could seem like believing the bourgeois tripe about working and lower-middle-class intellectuals being worthless wastoids (which is subtly based on a desire to suppress this class of people out of fear of them gaining influence).

That said, I do not have issue with someone who honestly desires to be a basement dweller, having thought it through a bit more. Most people don’t know it, but despite their conformity to a negative archetype many “basement dwellers” create interesting things, make interesting art, and perhaps accomplish more doing “nothing” with their lives than many people who “actually do things with their lives” accomplish. Despite its antisocial implications, its not a spot of perpetual negativity; there are bright spots as well. There is a light that shines in the darkness, and its the potential for creativity that occurs when one lives outside the box.

That said, it’s possible to avoid conforming to negative expectations and taking the path of least resistance. It’s possible to care about the interests of someone other than yourself, and I think that for someone who falls into the “trap” of being a basement dweller that they have some trouble with these things. But the biggest way to fall into it is to believe the lies people told you, that you were nothing, that you were destined to be a loser, that you were socially inept and could never become something “more”.

So while one can choose this life, I don’t personally want to live it, although I feel less judgment for someone who does. I want to see the sun, even if like for many basement dwellers it feels frozen in my heart, waiting to melt just enough to turn one into a living, breathing human being that walks outside of the shadows of society’s negative expectations.