Poll: Does the classification of "Geek" mean anything any more? Bonus Question: Do you resemble a "Geek"?

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

From my childhood until the late 90's to early 00's, I reclaimed geekdom.

Growing up in the family that I did in the area that I did, being a geek was extra tough. Why would I choose to read comic books when there were girls outside? Why play video game football when I could play football outside (sidebar, I never played video game sports but that's what they could process)? Why is he wearing shirts with video game characters? Does he want to be beat up?

And again, that was just my family. School wasn't fun. I was taller than most other people, so I had that advantage. But back then, that made fighting my battles worse. Because a.) since I was taller I should have postured and got them to back off. Or b.) Since I was taller, if I was CAUGHT posturing, I'd get in more trouble because obviously I was picking on them.

I wish I liked sports. I wished I didn't find comics more interesting than porn (although that actually changed when I got into college). I wish I could just quit video games. But I didn't. I couldn't. I was a geek. And I couldn't deny that.

But in college, I met people like me (Soul Calibur at my college's Arcade was life) and we hung out and I found it was good to be around people who loved the same things. I didn't care any more. In fact, I was proud of it. Talking about comic book fights, playing Bust A Groove at our dorms, inside jokes that only fans would get. Even typing about it puts a smile to my face.

And now... we're here. It's good that the younger generation doesn't have to be afraid of liking what we did in the past. I loved seeing someone put up a Freddy Fazbear halloween decoration last week.

But... Geeks are a subculture. You have to adhere to the tenets to really be apart of it. Goths, Jocks, all those old cliques; there was something you had to buy into or like to be apart of it that others didn't. Music, activities, you name it.

But our culture is now being consumed by the masses. You don't wonder if there will be a superhero movie this year, you wonder how many. The once ultra-niche hobby of video gaming is now ignoring us lifelong players to appeal to markets that haven't been tapped yet. Our in-jokes of obscure characters are now being sold in regular clothing stores as apart of the now 'in' geek market.

If we're not a subculture any more, if we were absorbed into everyone else's culture... what's left for us? Are geeks still a thing? And is it bad if we are not?

To my bonus question that actually relates to my past. I never looked like what a typical geek is supposed to. Race, height, muscle definition (I was one of those geeks who saw anime and said "Welp, gotta go learn martial arts now").

It's actually sucked. Since I could 'pass' for normal, trying to get a date was super hard. The normal girls who liked me were always turned off when I started to talk about my interests. All geek girls wanted geek guys, or thought I was pretending for easy sex. I'll post a picture later if people actually respond to this thread. It would be really weird to have my picture in a thread where there is no discussion

If you also want to post pictures of your geekiness or of your non-geek visage, I'll put mine up as well and we can see if the Escapist fit the bill or do not, as it were.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Did it mean anything before?

I think people are kind of bullshitting of the supposed difference. When I was a kid, everyone had the console wars between Nintendo and Sega. People would talk about videogames. Half the people I knew had videogames. And this was prior any 'mainstreaming' of the internet, but in the 'glorious' days of hard printed videogame magazines, and digital distribution models and smartphones were decades away.

As a kid I also had a horse, dogs and reptiles as pets ... I had a trail bike (fairly subrural background) as well.

I played tennis and did fencing (sabre).

I went to the cinema, I went to the theatre, occasionally went to the state art museum (dad was a visual arts teacher) ...

It wasn't a normal upbringing, but it was no less an average sort of upbringing for any Australian kid in that mix of parental leeways of allowing both luxury, but cracking the occasional whip on academic and sporting pursuits, as well as household responsibilities and taking care of living creature(s) to promote a sense of discipline and restraint.

What I do attribute to 'geek' culture before it was 'mainstream' was the ugliness of certain competitive gaming rings, like the stereotypical bullshit of the old Magic: The Gathering circles and the like. One of which they finally started to cleanse out of such hobbies, because lo and behold it actually made competitions and tournaments less of a fucking chore of dealing with truly ugly people.

Basically when someone says something like 'neckbeard', I get the image of basically putting up with the "casual" racist and sexist remarks of people who were trying to throw my concentration playing board games in a tournament. MTG was particularly bad ... but I've always found the Netrunner and, now, the L5R crowds to be way less fucking creepy ... and for some mystical reason also a hell ofa lot more enjoyable to attend.

I think people are outright fabricating this somehow magical divide between 'geeks' and 'non-geeks'.

If anything, I think a lot of it has to do with introverted people making excuses for their introversion, rather than striving to find personal and meaningful contact with others who might not be like you but, you know, like adults you suck it up and find common ground because that's an inevitability of life.

And sure, once I got into high school I got picked on for being a 'fairy'. And the seniors twice your height would beat the living shit out of you in Year 7... But like half of high school problems, they are easily solved with a quick ambush one recess with a cricket bat to the back of their knees, and a swift kick to the guts when they're down.

I play a host of board games, tabletops, videogames (in that order of favourites), I like motorbikes, I like studying, I like my job, I like the people at my job, I like going to the ballet on the occasion, and none of these have somehow curtailed me making meaningful contact with people or discovering new interests with other people. And if you think it truly does then I'm guessing that's a you problem.

I also like hiking and free climbing on occasion. I also like sewing. I love living in a city, but sometimes nothing cures my desire for adventure like hanging out in a forest, getting to look at snakes and wombats, or setting myself a goal of how quickly I can cross some rugged terrain on foot.

And yeah, I'm guessing that finding a single person to be attracted to all of that is a tall ask ... but then again I don't fucking expect someone to share my interests or impulses. I can adapt, and I can even accept the fact that two people with a meaningful relationship can be different. Moreover, I might even go so far as to say for a relationship to be meaningful requires a partnership of growing experiences and finding new interests, new horizons, together.

Before the internet, there was still Star Trek. Before the internet, there was Monty Python. Before the internet, there was still Star Wars. 'Geek' was already mainstream enough, the poisonous aspects of 'geekdom' (worn as if some fucking badge of honour) was the self-infatuation of pretending these were somehow fine wines only those with a select palate could truly enjoy.

As opposed to merely treating them as the escapism that everybody else treated them as.

Star Trek is good, but it's not fucking perfect. Star Wars is good, but it's not exactly as if it were revolutionary storytelling. Monty Python was good, but honestly half of it was also incredibly shit. Fawlty Towers was far more consistently 'good' and even then ... eh? I was more of a Dad's Army fan...

All of these, however, were already mainstream. All of them. Even fucking Doctor Who was mainstream, at least in Australia. As a kid they had constant reruns of British Tv, and Old Who was on every week. As a kid growing up through the 80s and 90s ... my father and I would watch fucking Quatermass reruns they used to air fairly consistently. And my father was never really 'geek' beyond loving British sci fi.

How many sci-fi 'geeks' have seen The Quatermass Experiment?

I guarantee you any Briton who grew up during the 50s, 60s, and 70s had seen and regularly consumed Quatermass materials.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

That's certainly understandable. These labels people adhere to are more for convenience it would seem. This is a fresh generation though with access to far more information. The term 'geek' is certainly dated already; like, most people I hung with in college would class as goth/geek/metalheads as it is, kind of a natural crossover. But if these ultimately vague terms help people connect more than hate in the initial stages of socialisation, then whatever works, humans!

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, seemingly a big part of geekdom is pretending it's not mainstream, and trying to defend it from outsiders.

I daresay, though, a lot of the "geeks" doing that wouldn't be interested if it wasn't mainstream. It's very common for people to fit in by being rebels.

 

[Zhukov]

The answer is obviously to get into more obscure geek things to keep the normies out.

Everyone is playing video games now? Play Demon's Souls! (Not Dark Souls, it's too mainstream.)

Superheroes are everywhere now? Read Saga comics instead!

Personally not too fussed. I presume I'd fit most people's definition of geek or nerd (except perhaps in appearance? Eh, that's a toss-up) but I never really saw a point to making it a big identity thing.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

It has shifted but it does mean something obviously. What that is tends to differ from person to person though.

Nowadays it has a more "cool outsider" aspect to it whereas in the past it was a lot more negative. It's the result of a lot of what is deemed "geek activity" having been embraced by the mainstream. One would think that this happening would just render those activities as "normal" but there still exists a segment of the population which does not think of them as such hence we get this conflict-inspired culture which pretends to be counter culture all the while being the most mainstream thing that ever mainstreamed, much to the chagrin of those opposed to it.


Then, we have actual counter or non-mainstream cultures, which get kinda bundled in with those geek cultures that the mainstream is more aware of, which causes conflict between groups.

For example, you have some guy who doesn't know of anime, doesn't play non-call of duty games, doesn't watch korean dramas, but still is willing to cosplay as Superman and go to comiccon with his girlfriend who cosplays as supergirl or something, because these are the most known to mainstream audiences heroes. Then you have other people who live and breath these other subcultures every day, and they also go to that event, and both groups are equally "geeks" in the eyes of the public.

I don't think it's elitist or in any way negative to acknowledge that the two groups differ. Nor that they may want or like different things, or like the same things for different reasons. Whether they be geeks or not is not really the point. The important thing is noting how they are not one and the same and that you can't apply your common sense regarding one group in dealing with the other.


Then, we have people who reactionarily reject those who 15 years ago shat all over their interests, who now have turned a new leaf and behave as though they actually like those interests they were shitting all over back then. I don't think it's smart to bear a grudge in this setting. Maybe they did like them back then too but were too socially afraid of being pariahs in their social groups so they were in the closet. Maybe they were idiots but saw the light. Who knows. Point is, we have to welcome in the wayward sheep and act in a mentoring sense as opposed to reject them for past offenses.


Now, there does exist a small, tiny subset of those people who never liked these subcultures, and still don't, but in realizing their cultural power choose to wear the mantle of someone who is into them as a way of lending their voice undeserved credibility. It is also not elitist to point that out when it happens and to not let people use your culture for their personal ends. Those people can kindly piss off and go do something they do enjoy instead.


As for the personal backstory stuff, I'm Greek so in my back of the woods in the late 90s and early 2000s everyone (EVERYONE!) loved dragonball. It was mainstream. Everyone also loved videogames. I never experienced this american style anti-intellectual bullying of smart people. Like in the 4th grade I got a silver medal for our extracurricular chess activity and everyone was acting like it was a sports medal. It was legit cool.

This did shift as people aged, with a lot of the people who I literally KNEW loved these activities, growing up to pretend they didn't because they were activities "for kids". This was the stigma in Greece, not that it was geeky but that it was childish. There wasn't bullying, nobody would get beat up cause of liking video games or anime, because almost everyone did, but there was this social atmosphere of never actually expressing this love, and I did earn some resentment for rejecting it and being honest about what I loved. I never actually felt bad for that, though, if anything I pitied everyone else who would indulge themselves alongside me when we would hang out in non-school settings but who would pretend that they didn't care at school.

I remember this one event which was absolutely hilarious. So, there was this digimon movie, it was like 3 Japanese ones but it was all cut and pasted together into one long ass film. I had obtained that and watched it with some of my literal best friends, people who'd visit me at my house multiple times a week and with whom I'd hang out for years by that point. The day after that, running into one of them at school (he was a senior in HS, a year older than me), I greeted him with "hey Theodore, so what did you think about that digimon movie last night?" and his reaction was to be absolutely mortified. He was too good of a friend and dude to lie or make fun of me, he couldn't pretend that I was making stuff up cause I was speaking in the most natural tone ever. I wasn't even trying to expose him, I just asked him without thinking cause we had both loved the hell out of the movie the night before and even his honest reactions were excitement-filled, but his reaction was like "shhhhh, don't talk about digimon!!!! there's girls here!!!!" which was both pathetic, sad and hilarious.


I always felt bad people had to lie to themselves like that and I think if culture is moving to a place where they don't need to any more, it's a wholly good thing.

 

[Kyrian007]

It already has shifted. Up until the 1950s it meant performer who ate conventionally inedible things, raw and or live meats, fish, insects, etc.

And I don't know anyone who resembles that.

As far as the conventional definition... sure, I probably qualify. But, as someone who qualified in the days before it became mainstream and admitting you played D&D was social suicide and likely to get you a talking to from adults concerned about Satanism... guys, seriously we won. Our stuff has become acceptable and mainstream. And all that's left is to determine is if we (to use a non-geek sports analogy) spike the football or "act like we've been there before." I had an experience recently that illustrates this pretty well.

A barista came to my table with my coffee (a trendy hipster place where I was drinking fair trade coffee.) She was probably college age, pretty, and good enough at pretending to be nice that is the mark of a good worker in the service industry. Very much out of my league and back in my day the type of person you would go great lengths to disguise "geek" tendencies from. She couldn't see that I was catching up on an anime on my phone, and I had my headphones on. I took them off to thank her for bringing my drink out to me, and the end credits theme started playing... and this "popular girl" looking barista says, "ohh, are you watching Gosick?"

Times have changed. A lot.

 

[sanquin]

Geek has always meant 'a hugely enthusiastic person in a certain field' to me.

As for what it meant during my school days. I definitely was a geek back then. Hung out with other gamers/geeks, talked about games, talked about our computer specs and how we modded our cases, played D&D, went to LARP events, watched tons of anime, was generally a social outcast, etc. And heck, I'm still mostly like that. But today it's clearly not as socially unacceptable any more. Gaming and anime have become a lot more mainstream. Participating in D&D and LARP, while still rare, isn't as 'shocking' any more these days.

With traditionally geek stuff becoming more mainstream, of course there will also be more 'posers'. People that maybe have 1 or 2 anime they like, or play the sims every now and then, and go "I'm such a geek!" And the more people that use such a term to describe themselves while not understanding much about 'geek culture', the less the word starts to mean. Just like any other words that are used inappropriately.

But I do think the word 'geek' still has meaning. Real geeks can still fairly easily pick out the fakes. It's just that real geeks come in a larger variety now. Either that or far less people are afraid to show that they are, in fact, geeks.

 

[FalloutJack]

I feel as though geek culture has overstepped a boundary. Because alot of cool stuff now can't be looked upon by someone as cool unless you immediately get this kind of stereotype. No, you dingus, I'm just a dude who likes stuff. I don't have to be an otaku to like anime. I don't have to be a gamer to enjoy games. I don't have to be a geek to enjoy frigging science and technology. I'm just this guy, you know? Quit with the labels.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

Geek has always meant 'a hugely enthusiastic person in a certain field' to me.

As for what it meant during my school days. I definitely was a geek back then. Hung out with other gamers/geeks, talked about games, talked about our computer specs and how we modded our cases, played D&D, went to LARP events, watched tons of anime, was generally a social outcast, etc. And heck, I'm still mostly like that. But today it's clearly not as socially unacceptable any more. Gaming and anime have become a lot more mainstream. Participating in D&D and LARP, while still rare, isn't as 'shocking' any more these days.

With traditionally geek stuff becoming more mainstream, of course there will also be more 'posers'. People that maybe have 1 or 2 anime they like, or play the sims every now and then, and go "I'm such a geek!" And the more people that use such a term to describe themselves while not understanding much about 'geek culture', the less the word starts to mean. Just like any other words that are used inappropriately.

But I do think the word 'geek' still has meaning. Real geeks can still fairly easily pick out the fakes. It's just that real geeks come in a larger variety now. Either that or far less people are afraid to show that they are, in fact, geeks.

I've found my level of actual geekiness had no bearing on how geeky people thought I was. In high school I very rarely played video games but somehow got lumped into the "video game nerd" category. But for some reason they accepted me without question, even though I've seen them grill multiple girls with video game trivia if they even mentioned a video game (I would have failed those tests if I were given them, though I just kept quiet.)
Fast forward to 27 year old me, I've beaten Dark Souls twice, I own a good amount of comic books and graphic novels, and I have a tattoo from an actual play D&D podcast, and one of the first things my girlfriend said to me on our first date is "I usually don't go for guys like you, I usually go for the nerdy guys"

So how about we be less stringent on what makes a "geek". If you want to call yourself a video game geek because you played the sims, fucking go for it. If you like to watch anime all the time but don't want to call yourself an Otaku, then fucking don't. Don't let other people define you, define yourself how you want to be defined. And let people call themselves geeks without giving them the Spanish Inquisition all the time

 

[sanquin]

-snip-

I don't agree. Labels are tools for others to identify you at first glance. (though they shouldn't be used to identify someone completely as happens way too often.) Which means, to me, that you don't get to decide what labels you have. Others do. It's them that have actual use for them.

I could call myself an otaku, but I'm really not. I like watching anime a lot, but I barely know anything about them or do anything with it beside that really. So if I was to label myself an otaku, I would basically be giving people a wrong first impression.

People giving themselves labels is wishful thinking at best, and wanting to belong to something without doing the work for it at worst, to me.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

-snip-

I don't agree. Labels are tools for others to identify you at first glance. (though they shouldn't be used to identify someone completely as happens way too often.) Which means, to me, that you don't get to decide what labels you have. Others do. It's them that have actual use for them.

I could call myself an otaku, but I'm really not. I like watching anime a lot, but I barely know anything about them or do anything with it beside that really. So if I was to label myself an otaku, I would basically be giving people a wrong first impression.

People giving themselves labels is wishful thinking at best, and wanting to belong to something without doing the work for it at worst, to me.

I don't think there should be "work" involved for being a geek, it's just about liking stuff. I don't see how calling yourself an Otaku would be wrong, you watch a lot of anime. If someone calls you out on it and says "where's your body pillow!?" or "you're not a real Otaku, I bet you had a prom date!" then that's their problem

People are gonna judge you and label you anyway, but you always have the choice of what you call yourself. These hobbies are about consuming media, we don't have to be so stringent

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Geek to me always fell more in line with the people who were in on the technical side of things. Fixing computers, knowing what parts to buy, what all the high-tech jargon means. Stuff like that has always been on the geek side of the fence in my book.

I think of myself and my friends as nerds honestly. Don't fit in too well with the cool kids, kind of socially awkward, get way too excited about Star Wars or Sailor Moon, have posters and figures of anime and game characters everywhere.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I can sympathize somewhat. I often feel apart from the current "geek" or "nerd" culture since I have a lot of stereotypically contrasting interests. I'm 6'2 and a 215 pound weightlifter. I have a pretty vibrant social life and I'm not socially awkward. I don't give a shit about Gamergate or any internet drama that has no bearing on my life. I also really like building computers and playing Dungeons and Dragons. I have in the past had people look at me and heard them as they were walking away surprised that I wasn't "just a meat head".

Not really sure where I'm going with this. Just that I think there is some hostility within the "geek community" and it is very protective over certain interests. I would put myself firmly in the nerd/geek camp but have often felt estranged and reticent to share my other non-geek interests in certain online circles.

 

[McElroy]

As already said in the thread, the audience codifies these labels. Geeky stuff in general might be "in", but fandoms are not AND if they get big enough - like bronies did - the mainstream media will be the first audience and do the codifying off a small sample. Here that has more recently happened with eSports-players, for example, with a decent-to-great outcome in my opinion. Sometimes this is done by googling "[media property] fans", and if that ends badly, well, your fandom officially sucks! Ha!

Bonus: I pretty much wish I didn't resemble one, but I do. A fucking nerd. Not a "total" nerd, but too many traits hit: smart, funny, athletic... wait. That's not right... is it? Ah yes, I'm also judgmental, sarcastic, cynical, elitist, cheap, tactless, callous and lazy. And the punchline: those traits don't actually make anyone a nerd - the geekiest and nerdiest guy I know maybe shares one of them with me. Whoop-de-doo. Anyway, it's my lack of out-goingness (yes, I just typed that) that makes the real difference. I'm not introverted (definitely when compared to my countrymen and -women), but not an extrovert either as I don't prioritize company as highly as some people. But yeah, fuck this gay earth etc.

 

[gsilver]

I'll say that the geeks are those who are really-really-really into... whatever. If you've got encyclopedic knowledge of, well, anything, you're still a geek. Whether that's the history of Basketball, the Napoleonic Wars, trains, or, yes, comic books.

These days, everyone and their dog is into superhero movies and video games... and there's a big difference between watching the latest Marvel movie and doing a deep dive into their history and being able to recite anything and everything behind the history of the characters.


As for me... I don't think that I'm deep enough into anything anymore to be called a geek (maybe I used to be with anime... though I don't really care about or watch much these days), though I've still got mad nerd cred with my Computer Science degree, Aspergers (yes, officially diagnosed; the self-diagnosed BS is so lame, and makes me have to write this; though maybe that fad is over since I haven't seen it much recently), and complete lack of IRL friends.

 

[wulf3n]

I don't think it ever really meant anything in that it meant so many things to so many different people that no one would have a common understanding if the word was used.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'll say that the geeks are those who are really-really-really into... whatever. If you've got encyclopedic knowledge of, well, anything, you're still a geek. Whether that's the history of Basketball, the Napoleonic Wars, trains, or, yes, comic books.

These days, everyone and their dog is into superhero movies and video games... and there's a big difference between watching the latest Marvel movie and doing a deep dive into their history and being able to recite anything and everything behind the history of the characters.


As for me... I don't think that I'm deep enough into anything anymore to be called a geek (maybe I used to be with anime... though I don't really care about or watch much these days), though I've still got mad nerd cred with my Computer Science degree, Aspergers (yes, officially diagnosed; the self-diagnosed BS is so lame, and makes me have to write this; though maybe that fad is over since I haven't seen it much recently), and complete lack of IRL friends.

I don't get this definition. I've met lecturers that I know are really into the history of the Australian Imperial Force during the Great War. Who have written journal articles about it, written books, can tell you two thousand names off the top of their head, where they fought, their commanding officers, their contributions, where they are buried, who their friends were, where they grew up.

It's no different than being a grad student.

Still not 'geeks', or at least my entire professional existence is merely geek-filled.

To me, 'geek' has meant a focus on something that to others is either merely escapism or not comprising an 'academic professionalism' of detachment as something that is a field of enquiry.

After all, that lecturer learnt those names like in much the same fashion I did with other groups of people during my first years of university. Microhistorical perspective. Recreating an event through looking at the lives and first hand accounts of people in thesame place at the same time (or thereabouts).

The reason they taught us stuff like this was to inculcate the necessary baseline skills for he most simplest form of historiographical critiquing. Basically being a time detective and inferring directly from the sources of individuals and their lives to make arguments as to the nature of an event or a group of people. The other thing that it was to slam home was the idea of respect. Respect for a history that may still yet be written in the lives of people still drawing breath, their children, their spouses, their parents. Remembering you have a duty of respect to the words and thoughts you commit to eternity.

It's a form of historiography that adequately portrays an event, but that doesn't rely on complex theory that they start hammering home in second year courses of a Bach. Sacrificing complexity and astuteness of comparisons and complex bridging of otherwise disparate events or personalities, but recreating an event in detail rather than scope.

But I doubt simply applying these techniques makes one a geek. It simply makes one a historian.

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

I think I know what the issue here is. He speaks of obsession. There's a difference between it and dedication. namely how healthy they are. All of your graduate and professor friends probably don't focus on only their subject matter to the exclusion of other things. They have expertise, their major and tenure. But is it the thing that they think about and ignore the rest of their educational background? Hell no.

The geeks came about when being manifestly cool did, as well. It created the divide between those who obseesed over their all-important subjects and those who were more focused on their image. The problem in the extremes is that they could never see eye to eye, and the worst cases had severe disadvantages, like being dorky or being undereducated. Worse yet, they'd drag anyone who was more middleground into it, a case of peer pressure to be recognized socially VS pressure to succeed in school and the workplace.

The point is that this did happen, it has had an impact, and that divide is still there. Right now, my claim is that society has made the stereotype a little too real. My favorite media, the love of science, my decent education - These things are too-easily attributed to the perception of being geeky, but I'm a more middleground kind of guy. I'm smart and I have the whiff of cool. I'm just a dude who like a thing. This problem is real, yo.