Several weeks ago, I wrote a series of columns asking "What is a geek?" I offered my notions about new definitions of the word and explained that - intrigued by what I've seen as a geek ascendancy - I am working on a book about the subject. There followed a wondrous outpouring of stories, opinions and observations from all over the planet, some of which I'll pass around for our mutual edification.
"Geekdom is an international trait," wrote Kirk from vietnam.net. "I have been working in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, for about three years now and I am surrounded by geeks at work. The Vietnamese geek and the American geek are the same breed, containing the same amount of personality quirks you outline.... I feel at times that this is the first time in the history of the world that geeks can really take charge."
Kirk sees an international geek community emerging through vast, slowly growing, connecting networks. Others reported that stereotypes of their tribe as socially awkward are becoming outdated, especially as technology brings geeks together and forces them to brush up on their social skills.
"Geeks get laid in the '90s," one wrote. There were reports of geek clubs, geek jocks, geek fashion and culture, an inchoate society beginning to take form, one that is proud of itself and happy to invoke its once reviled name.
Numerous readers reported that teachers who once sneered at them now kiss their behinds because they know how to keep schools' computers operating. A suburban Chicago geek wrote that he can hardly get through an entire class without being summoned by one administrator or faculty member to fix or retrieve something in their computers.
"Girls hang around with me because I can help them with their homework," gloated Ray, "and the jocks are terrified of me because I'm the only one who can show them how to download stuff off the Web or retrieve their mistakenly deleted homework projects."
Outside of school, this often appears to lead to corporate conflicts and tensions.
"The dynamic is this: We geeks create and run the systems and try to keep the suits from screwing them up," wrote SD from New York City. "The suits hate us because they don't understand the systems and are dependent on people they never even had to acknowledge. We hate them because we have to work for people dumber than we are and because they always - always - screw the systems up, and we have to bail them out. It's a kind of secret civil war going on in zillions of businesses. One day, they think, they won't need us. One day, we think, we won't need them. It's a race."
Perspective helps.
Jeff wrote that despite their improved image, the "sex appeal problem" for geeks in high school remains insurmountable. "But since in later life attractiveness comes to mean societal potential = earning power + influence, good geeks can really come into their own in the decades after graduation." Hollywood will help decide, Jeff adds. If movie heroes start conquering adversity with computers in place of the conventional sidearms in films, geeks are home free. "Radar on MASH was a geek, but a downtrodden little feeb," he notes. "You don't really start admiring geek qualities until one of them saves your ass by bringing back your corporate WAN or fixing the missile telemetry."
Jesse from Idaho wrote that geekdom helped shape his life. He and three other geeks, with the help of a sympathetic teacher, formed a club that helped them all survive high school. "I hope that the tide will spread as more and more of us proudly proclaim our independence and our individuality, even if that individuality is as a part of a much larger identity: geek."
Indeed, once considered freaks, many geeks now seem indisputably proud of their status. "I am a geek," wrote Samson. "I am so much a geek that the highlight of my summer so far has been my getting ttf fonts to work on my crappy Linux box (that left me glowing for weeks). I am as close to an IRC addict as you can get without actually being one. I don't have a problem really, I have it all under control."
Where, Samson asks, would the world be without geeks? "Geeks have built society from the ground up."
Niamh wrote from Ireland that the digital revolution has liberated the geek from centuries of persecution and obscurity. "I think 'geek' has taken on several meanings," he emailed. "It covers everything from computer boffins to Star Trek fanatics to computer-game players to programmers to trainspotters to electronic-music operators, etc. ... people who are unnaturally obsessive and frighteningly well-informed about what they do.... A geek remains that fidgety, socially unsure person - until they touch anything electronic or technical. Then they become the modern Supermen!"
Technology is surely a common ground for geeks, but many cautioned that technology was the means, not the end. "I am a geek, and I use technology to connect to culture," wrote Jermaine. "Especially, I use computers to connect with other people. I don't really care about technology or the inner workings of things like code, nor do many of my friends. That doesn't mean we aren't geeks, it means we aren't into the machinery for anything other than what it does for us."
Jermaine's message reflected a popular sentiment: Technology was the thing that improved, changed, or shaped their lives. In that sense, it - especially the Net - was critical. But they were happy to leave the details and the inner workings to the more techno-centered geeks and nerds.
This tide of messages also affirmed my thinking that geeks are as obsessed with popular culture as they are with technology. Almost every message mentioned books, movies, CDs, TV shows, or radio programs.
Geeks also sent along jokes. There was the one about the geek who found a frog in the woods. The creature assured him that if he took it home and rubbed it three times, it would turn into a sex-crazed woman happy to ravish him. Three days later, the frustrated frog asked the geek why he hadn't rubbed it three times. "Well," he said. "I don't have much time for women. But it's cool having a talking frog."
Ian wrote cautioning me against generalizing; geeks also hate to be lumped together. But the idea still inspired him. "This whole geek trend could be the signal of a new social transformation," he wrote. "This could indeed be the beginning of a movement towards greater understanding, empathy, and efficiency. If this is indeed a new movement towards society itself becoming more 'geeky,' then I would be all for it. A humanity of geeks couldn't hurt us at all."
For all their personal preoccupations, geeks seem to want to have an impact on the world, to use their new-found power and knowledge in a positive way.
"We have all this technology, and all this knowledge. There's a great impulse among geeks to do something with it, to use it," messaged Charlotta from Florida. "But we don't know what exactly!"
Lots of them fantasize, like Ian, about geeks transforming society, bringing a more tolerant and rational civic system. Geeks positively hate the conventional brand of two-party politics on display in Washington. They dream of developing efficient social and corporate systems and networks that could improve life on the planet.
This new, idealistic ambition, which cropped up repeatedly in the email, is something to mull over and to hope for.
These are just a sampling of the tales, jokes, definitions, and stories I got on the very evocative topic of geekdom. More are very welcome.
