[OT] Redefining "Geek"

[Drawmack]

The word geek has become watery as with all words when they reach the mainstream.

I mean take alternative music for a second. In the 80's everyone knew that alternative music was music that could not be found mainstream which was usually darker and more driven then radio friendly stuff.

Then the 90s hits and alternative becomes mainstream with the advent of grunge. However the alternative label is not dropped so the question arrises what is it alternative to? As a result alternative has lost it's meaning as a classifycation for music.


When I was in high-school there were two groups the geeks and the nerds.

The geek, which I was one of, were the kids who the other kids pretty much left alone, didn't beat up on, didn't really make fun, etc. However, when they needed us they would come to us - which was the reason for leaving us alone the rest of the time. Even the most primal testosterone driven adreneline junkie knows that indefference is better then fear when you need something done and done right. I, for example, was the school's computer geek. I typed kids papers, wrote their programs, fixed their PCs and word processors, even played a couple digital jokes on other people's behalf. (those were the days when the teacher would boot up the computer and see a hula dancer and compliment the student who did it before asking them not to do it again.)

The nerd, on the other hand, were those who appeared geeky but really had nothing to offer to the school community. The nerds were generally of average or below intelligence, had no special area of interest. They were simply socialy retarded. The nerds were the ones who got the jock's sexual frustration taken out on them.

There for I proudly proclaim myself a geek.

Note: as for bitting the heads off of chickens, bitting the head off of a dove got ozzy his solo recording contract with columbia so I don't see that as all bad.

 

[Gnarlo]

You can call me anything you like except late for supper!

**rimshot**

Thank you, thank you! You've been a great audience! Please try the fish, and don't forget to tip your waiters!


/em gnarlo!

 

[Zander]

One characteristic of geeks (as I understand the term) is that they're not physically attractive. However esoteric or complex a person's interests, they wouldn't be considered a geek if they were good looking. Take Ben Affleck (sp?) for example. He played D&D (don't know if he still does) but no one would call him a geek.

It isn't a matter of a lack of social skills. Geeks (and nerds) seem to be able to interact perfectly well among themselves (or at least as well as non-geeks).

 

[Voneth]

Geek, Nerd

I'd still not get too cocky. It was only a 3 years ago that MTV's "Real World" show (Where only pretty people apply) had a promo that showed them weeding out the unworthy. One of the ones to go was the guy who said "I am advanced in Dungeons and Dragons."

The funny thing is at one point the show used to make sure you knew the participants were people talented in the arts or business savvy, that has gone to the way side now.

On the flipside, the best seller, Crytonomicon, plays around with the whole idea of geeks, nerds and people who are amazing smart, yet not scocialy adept. It sort of hits on different cylinders saying that such people can be everything from pathetic to very deep. The book includes WWII counterintellgence thrills, modern day high-tech hijinx and even comes with it's own secret code in the back appendex. Good stuff for geeks and nerds to read.

 

[Pielorinho]

Personally, I'd prefer to be called a word that Dr. Seuss made up

I'd never heard this before, so I went to www.dictionary.com, and found this:

Word History: The word nerd, undefined but illustrated, first appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo: “And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!” (The nerd is a small humanoid creature looking comically angry, like a thin, cross Chester A. Arthur.) Nerd next appears, with a gloss, in the February 10, 1957, issue of the Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday Mail in a regular column entitled “ABC for SQUARES”: “Nerda square, any explanation needed?” Many of the terms defined in this “ABC” are unmistakable Americanisms, such as hep, ick, and jazzy, as is the gloss “square,” the current meaning of nerd. The third appearance of nerd in print is back in the United States in 1970 in Current Slang: “Nurd [sic], someone with objectionable habits or traits.... An uninteresting person, a ‘dud.’” Authorities disagree on whether the two nerdsDr. Seuss's small creature and the teenage slang term in the Glasgow Sunday Mailare the same word. Some experts claim there is no semantic connection and the identity of the words is fortuitous. Others maintain that Dr. Seuss is the true originator of nerd and that the word nerd (“comically unpleasant creature”) was picked up by the five- and six-year-olds of 1950 and passed on to their older siblings, who by 1957, as teenagers, had restricted and specified the meaning to the most comically obnoxious creature of their own class, a “square.”

God, I love the Internet!
Daniel

 

[alsih2o]

the problem with all of this is that terms like nerd and geek will always be decided by those who are outside f that particular spectrum, just like jock or drunkard.

it isn't waht is chosen by the group, but what is chosen by those outside the group who are poiinting and laughing.

 

[Celebrim]

alish2o: Well, I think the point is that they are no longer laughing.

Revenge of the nerds indeed.

 

[Angelsboi]

Not meaning to thread hijack but ...

I could care less. nerd, geek. *shrugs* My hubby calls me a geek. Then again i call him a faggot and he calls me a queer.

words are just words and what you do with them is how they are empowered. Any witch will tell you that =)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread ...

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Amen to Angelsboi...and Clay too!

Heck, call me geek or nerd, whatever. I'm happy with what I'm doing, and I can find other people who are interested in it too. If you don't care about what I like, or prefer to look down on it...*shrug*...whatever!

Heh, what with me being an actor too, I have many small compartments with which people can place me

 

[alsih2o]

alish2o: Well, I think the point is that they are no longer laughing.

Revenge of the nerds indeed.

from what i can see they are still laughing.

it is like the flashback scene in broadcast news where the young man is being pushed around at his graduation by the k=jocks and he yells at them "you can pick on me now, but i get the final victory, because i know none of oyu will ever have a job that pays over $30,000 a year" or some such... the jocks punched him in the stomach and wlaked away high fiving, saying "$30,000, that's a lot of beer, dude"

i am not saying that the laughing is justified, i realize geeks run the planet, i am just saying they are still laughing.

for the people who use these names derogatorily seeing bill gates walk thru a mall would make them laugh and mock, never realizing he could buy and sell their home state.