The people you see on TV might be wearing suits and dresses, the voices on your local NPR affiliate somber and grave, but don't be fooled. There is a geek underground out there, and it has its hands on the controls of the machines that make media happen.
I've been running across them all week. As I sat in a New York radio studio listening to Washington attack-panelists sound the alarm about porn on the Net, a geek gave me the thumbs-up through a window in the side of the broadcasting booth.
As I walked out of a cable station in suburban Chicago, having just said the Net was more an educational and community-building tool for children than a pornographic one, a geek ran out from behind a camera and applauded.
As I sat in an NPR studio telling an interviewer that his young daughter wasn't likely to be damaged by the TV programs she watched in the afternoon, or by anything she was likely to see online, a geek at the control board raised both her arms in approval, clenching both fists in the air, yelling in my headphones to "keep at 'em."
A geek in the Christian Broadcasting radio control room in suburban Illinois spotted my Dilbert doll sticking out of my shoulder bag and handed me a note with the URL to his Web site.
A young geek in Chicago rushed brazenly into the studio after an interview and shook my hand, thanking me in front of the surprised host for arguing that he and his friends weren't dumb because they came of age loving movies, watching TV, and surfing the Web.
On my Drive Time morning radio marathon, geeks got on the phone in a half-dozen cities to trade email addresses and poke fun at their ponderous bosses, many of whom were fussing about how the civilized world was being brought to its knees by popular culture, the de-civilized young, and new media.
Except for the Web, where they have come out with a vengeance, geeks are behind the scenes in most media. They turn the machines on and off, adjust the lights, connect the wires. They're the ones who make the pictures come out of your TV set, make the sound come through the radio.
Traveling the country, appearing on TV, talking on the radio, there is this dissonant feeling that you're walking between two distinctly different cultures: The people doing the questioning and talking, and those making it possible for them to do the questioning and talking. The two worlds seem to have little in common.
Geeks have an almost instinctive ability to spot one another. They never wear ties, are prone to T-shirts with cultural messages on them, and lean toward baseball caps.
Certain secret codes assure recognition. Asking them if they're online, mentioning episodes of The X-Files (crafty geeks want to hear some specific details about episodes, not just general blabber about the show). The Dilbert doll helps too.
Geeks are to be found everywhere there is media being created, new or old. They are the techs, nerds, brains, and producers behind mainstream media. They might be underground, but they are a cohesive and tightly knit band. They share a common value system. They take care of one another.
Anchors, phobic pundits, lost boomer intellectuals, displaced academics, Washington gasbags and attack panelists, NPR announcers worried about high culture, beware.
One day, when the secret command is given, they will rise up and take control of all the machines, driving the wise men and women, luddites, and mediaphobes from their media temples. It won't be pretty.
