Define "Geek"

A few weeks back, I had the strangest conversation I’ve had all year. I was talking to an acquaintance, and sadly, I can’t remember the original topic of conversation because it was eclipsed by the following weirdness: He stops me mid-sentence, tilts his head to the side, squints at me and says, in a quiet, conspiratorial voice, “I bet you... you know... you’re... the type of person... who’s probably seen all the Star Treks.”

My face keeps getting stuck
like this. Guess mom was right.

A moment later, when the language centers in my brain regained function, I replied “Yes, I’m a geek. It’s ok, you can call us ‘geeks’ now. We’re taking it back. I’m not offended.” Any further discussion was cut short when I realized the more urgent problem: He didn’t know the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. (And he was patient enough to listen to the explanation. The odds of a polite non-geek like that are like 3720 to 1!)

The question of how to define geek (especially as distinct from nerds and dorks) keeps coming up in conversation. The over-simplified diagram of geek/dweeb/dork/nerd has never worked for me. Mostly because anyone who calls another human being a “dweeb” should be apprehended. They are a time traveler. They are either from the future and poorly informed about modern linguistics, or from 1987.

The scratches are from a Silicon Valley Fight Club,
but Mitchell doesn't want to break the first rule.

I try to let people self-identify, but I default to “geek.” It’s just easier. I do understand the defensiveness, though. We’ve all got those geek-related emotional scars. When I was in high school, being labeled a geek meant that “normal” people considered you to be one bad day away from turning into a mass murderer. If you knew too much about computers, played a few too many video games, or wore a black trenchcoat, you were one rumor away from the police confiscating your computer and your “Satanic” gaming books. “Geek,” “nerd,” or “dork” - the specific name didn’t matter, it was the malice behind it. When I first got to college, I was worried about outing people as nerds or offending them. But I fell in with a surprisingly socially adept group of geeks, and over the years my hypervigilance faded. Since then I've started using these generalizations:

• Geeks are defined by their obsessions, or how they spend their free time (brewing geeks, gaming geeks, SCA geeks, 40k geeks, anime geeks, fandoms, makers/tinkerers, etc).
• Nerds are defined by their careers or academic interests (history nerds, chemists, physicists, math nerds, code monkeys, typography nerds, etc.)
• Dorks are... I don’t know. I generally reserve this for good-naturedly teasing someone if I’m in their specific fandom. I suppose it could be based on their level of social awkwardness, but I think I’ll avoid throwing any stones in that particular glass house.

Basically, if you can “geek out” over something you love that isn’t a particularly common interest, it’s geeky. I like that guideline because it doesn’t assume that there’s some list of great works that you have to know, or some skill that you have to possess. It’s not just programmers who play Zelda and own comic books, and we’re certainly not basement-dwelling mouthbreathers. It’s about passions and the subcultures that crop up around them.

Case in point: my search for geeky images found photos of beer,
Pokemon, Scrabble, and bacon before dice. "The times..." (via Joneses)

I’d love to hear how you all define geeks, nerds, et al. Let me know in the comments. Oh, and if you’re like me and remembering the Dark Times of being a geek makes you start drafting rants, searching for a place online to post them. Suddenly, there’s that involuntary muscle tightness that creeps from your jaw and quickly grows into a migraine? If that happens, watch this at your earliest convenience: Wil Wheaton’s 2010 PAX East Keynote. It’s much cheaper than therapy.