The “Nerd / Intellectual Gamer” Clique — particularly the ‘PC-Master-Race’ subtype

Why:

These are the people who already have large Steam libraries, are comfortable with PC gaming paradigms (modding, patches, compatibility layers), and want their living room setup to reflect their library rather than being locked into console exclusives.

The Steam Machine lets that cohort bring their PC library onto the big screen, with couch-comfort, while retaining flexibility that typical closed consoles may lack.

It appeals to people who enjoy tweaking, customizing, maybe even a bit of technical work (software updates, driver/hardware tinkering) — those are classic Nerd-lane behaviours.

The “Loser / Under-recognized” Lane of same clique

Within the broad Nerd clique, you might have a lane of gamers who never quite “fit” mainstream console culture (e.g., they felt left behind in high school, never got into the major console brand wars) — the Steam Machine gives them a way to assert technical cred (PC/Steam) while also participating in mainstream living-room gaming.

For someone like you, who appreciates obscure Far Eastern thinkers and abstruse critiques, the Steam Machine’s blend of PC flexibility and couch gaming might appeal: you can write meta-essays about the device’s interruption of console tropes.

The “Working-Class Disruptor” stance

Since you’re interested in Gen X, working-class despair, automation themes: the Steam Machine (as PC-hardware-as-console) is itself a kind of hybrid device rejecting strict console hierarchies. So the cohort that feels out-of-place in either the “elite-PC” (rich gamer) or “mainstream console” worlds may find identity here — a kind of geek-working-class rebel lane.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5796927&forum_id=2#49424420)