It’s great to see pop culture enthusiasts celebrated, but it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Ready Player One is a fun, page-turning read (once you get past the exposition), made more enjoyable by all the ’80s pop culture throwbacks. It presents a future not too different from our present, a future that is both advanced, but also littered with familiar references that give it a contemporary feel. However, that does not come without some problems.

The following is spoiler-free.

Related: Steven Spielberg to direct film adaption of Ready Player One

For those who have not read Ready Player One, it takes place in 2044 where the real world is, at best, unpleasant to live in. Most people find reprieve in OASIS, a virtual world that is much like any MMORPG game today, but better. Prior to his death, James Halliday, the creator of OASIS, created a scavenger hunt, the winner of which would inherit his fortune. What’s unique about this hunt (and story) is that Halliday was obsessed with the ’80s, so all the puzzles are to do with ’80s movies, music, television, and games.

Wade Watts is the protagonist of this story, and he has spent his life studying Halliday’s passions. Readers follow Wade as he navigates this quest and tries to beat other equally obsessed OASIS users, and an evil corporation who will stop at nothing to win the hunt and gain control of OASIS in order to monetize it.

Much like our world today, the virtual world is a place to escape. Real life is dismal, but online is more fun, something most, if not all of us, can relate to. And in this world, nerds are revered. It’s quite clear readers are to admire them as they would the ‘action hero’ of our present. To be sure, it’s a refreshing interpretation, except the geek culture in this future has taken a few steps back, and what we’re meant to admire are things we shouldn’t.

The entire book is focused on characters born post-2000s who obsess over the 1980s for no reason other than to win a contest. Part of what makes people unique are our passions. We can love whatever games and movies we like because we all have different tastes. But these characters are forced to love the same things as one guy who grew up in a certain time. Feelings of nostalgia are well and good, but for whom? And to what end?

The Internet is so vast and accessible that all it takes is a few clicks to find groups of people who love the same things as you. Message boards and forums of people discussing content, both old and new, are in abundance. Discussions are as old as ‘who or what was Tom Bombadil?’ and as recent as ‘just what happened to Benjen Stark?’ The point is, regardless of the conversation, at least one is being had. There is reflection and deliberation, not just passive admiration.

The characters in Ready Player One obsess over ’80s content, solely because someone is telling them to. There’s no rumination from these characters about the content they’re absorbing. They watch and play these ’80s classics because they have to, and as far as readers know, the discussion stops there. According to this future, geeks stop thinking critically. Furthermore, there’s no indication that any other time period mattered or even existed between 1989 and 2044, no reference or comparisons the characters can make to decide for themselves what’s good and what isn’t.

Another problem is that these characters are completely stuck in this past. The OASIS is vastly under-utilized, despite how expansive it is. Users are constantly recreating instead of creating. Part of what makes our current virtual culture so great is that we take our current passions and expand on them. We create content inspired by things we love, but moreover, we create original content.

Take Minecraft. Of course there are those who will (impressively) recreate content, like making Hogwarts or various places in Westeros, but there are even more people who will use the platform to create something of their own. Ready Player One destroys the concept of originality and creativity by actually rewarding a person for the exact opposite. This ‘need’ to be online also comes at a price that extends beyond individual issues as well.

The world in Ready Player One is in shambles, and there’s only one character who seems to want to make a change. Indeed, Halliday himself says that the world has been neglected for the all-consuming OASIS, but even he, with all his wealth and power, appears to do nothing to help either. In fact, he does the opposite. He creates a contest that can only be completed in the online world. The characters are so immersed in this contest that the real world around them suffering, and their education becomes secondary, and real human interactions and feelings are set aside.

Characters are not just stuck in one decade; they’re also stuck in a virtual world, and readers are meant to believe that this is ‘cool.’ But there’s nothing admirable about being so consumed by an online world that we lose ourselves and the reality around us.

Ready Player One would have benefited from a stronger moral in its conclusion, a message that ‘winning’ isn’t achieved from avoiding the real world for the virtual, or an indication that making a change is something we should strive for. But it doesn’t. It makes us believe that we should aspire to a world in which we only exist digitally, where looking back is more important than looking forward, and where creativity is non-existent, all at the expense of our individuality and reality.

Do you like how ‘Ready Player One’ presents geek culture?

Related: Ready Player One made our sci-fi summer reading list: See more recommendations!