I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

[learnedax]

Huh, my culture has been violated in an unexpected way.

I have begun to notice a small but prolific segment of the online population who are self-identifying as geeks, and frequently describing things as "a cool geek thing", with no connotation related to what I think of as geekery. Having seen a few different examples, the only unifying thread I can find is that the thing in question is always considered cool by the author. Now, I understand that, as with other terms of derision applied to other subcultures in the past, the term 'geek' has been absconded with and made a badge of pride. However, even in its most positive sense I have always thought of geekdom as representing a very specific (if not easily quantified) culture - something roughly like "quasi-obsessive intellectual counter-culturalism", and when unmodified (as in "theatre geek") a specific connotation of technological obsession. It is not always a good thing, in my mind.

These persons I speak of don't seem to mean that at all. As far as I can tell, to them geek == cool, and there is no further specificity to it. That disconcerts me, like they're sneaking off with a little bit of my identity. It seems like an odd occurrence; it may be cool to be a geek, but it's also cool to be a queer, and I don't know anyone who identifies themselves that way without at least claiming some kind of non-standard orientation.

Am I misconstruing this, or is the term 'geek' becoming to dilute to be meaningful?

(Note: this is kind of a fiddly little thing to be spending time thinking about, but, in fact, that's one of the ungood things about geekery - a tendency to focus on minutiae.)

I want my elitism back!

Comments

[siderea]

AHHHH!!!! BURN THE HERETICS! BURN THEM!!!!!

[mpgalvin.livejournal.com]

well, my thinking goes a little bit like:

is there anything... anything at all, that draws out that bit of kid in you that's constructed of pure enthusiasminium and compels you to say "THAT IS SO COOOOOOL!"? there, there is the essence of geek.

i know many math geeks, and many many science geeks, and a few word geeks, and a couple theatre geeks. oh yeah, and Gweeps. lotsa Gweeps.

---
besides, remember that Geek Pride fest thingy they had in Boston-ish a few years back? i think the term was sorta changing connotations by then. the Slashdot guys were keynotes, iirc. and i think the Ars Technica folk were in attendance, too.

even then, i see it only as an in-house jargon change. externally, in my experience, it's still a term of derision most of the time. (people take it amiss when i self-describe using the term "huge geek") of course, as people keep cranking out l33t g33k T-shirts and the like, that may change.

and frankly, i think a generation or two that thinks it's *ok* to be intellectual could hardly hurt the country atm. (given that it's acceptable for the science press to say asinine things like "this books is brilliant! i didn't understand a thing!" as a gleeful endorsement. whiskeytangofoxtrot)

[elusiveat.livejournal.com]

whiskeytangofoxtrot

[grin] Haven't heard this one before.

[rigel.livejournal.com]

To note, some of queer culture is slipping into "traditional" culture as "cool." Hence, metrosexual.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Is there a good word for "culturally gay"? I mean, I really like show tunes, cry at sad movies, and can stand Barbra Streisand (but only before 1969)...Or maybe stereotypical gay culture has just joined up with me.

Metrosexual seems to have come to mean "caring about one's appearance", which isn't quite the same thing.

Darn Right!

[jtdiii.livejournal.com]

Being a geek has lost a lot of what made it such an unusual subset of the population. More and more people are letting the term get diluted and using it to mean things that do not apply to the original meaning. Still that is the course of vocabulary in the english language.

In the mean time, I will have a bowl full of live bugs and another of live mice for you on your next visit. :)

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect that what you're seeing is just a result of the term geek getting out more and more into the mainstream--very probably a result of a generation of geeks now well into middle-age that have been operating in the mainstream and telling stories and using the term.

[rickthefightguy.livejournal.com]

I thought geeks were the guys in the circus who bit the heads off chickens. At least, that is what the word used to mean. I generally use it to mean someone who thinks what they do is so cool they should talk about it to people who don't do it, believing they also will think it is interesting. I for example am a fight geek, a gaming geek, and sometimes a math geek, but when computer geeks start talking about computers, I get the same bored look that mainstream people do when I talk about RPGing...

[new-man.livejournal.com]

I used to say "I'm a computer geek; I bite the heads off live computers for booze". Very few people got the reference then either — I suspect less would now.

"I'm being geeky" has come to mean "I'm being enthusiastic about my particular specific interest". THerefore, you get theater geeks, comic book geeks, and Elizabethan geeks. It has lost the negative connotations of "so focused on a specific topic that you forget to bathe and other major social graces" and has taken on the subtly different badge of "so focused on a specific topic that you ramble a bit, gush excessively, and forget minor social graces".

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

tpau told me about and now I have a button which reads: "I'm a computer geek. Watch me eat a bug."

What do you expect

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

It's this user-friendly crap going around. One standard of geekdom was to be attached to your computer, but now everyone automatically has and can use one. The essence of the geek culture and some of it's values became mainstream and marketable.

While I was in Europe it became trendy to look like a computer nerd from Seattle - black rimmed Buddy Holly glasses, a uncombed (though short) haircut, a courier bag and gadgets. It was weird because it was a look, not the accidental result of poor vision and the ethic of utility over aesthetics.

Re: What do you expect

[elusiveat.livejournal.com]

I've seen the Buddy Holly glasses around Boston, but I assumed that they were trying to look like Buddy Holly, not like geeks...

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

I think dork is the new geek.


(Is this related in any way to my membership in the 'Sexy Dork' community over on Tribe? Naaaah.)

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I have always thought of geekdom as representing a very specific (if not easily quantified) culture - something roughly like "quasi-obsessive intellectual counter-culturalism",

This I agree with.

and when unmodified (as in "theatre geek") a specific connotation of technological obsession.

This, I think, is not quite true. At least, in my usage-circles the unmodified term started out with a connotation of math/science obsession, not really "technology", per se. I suspect that in both our cases, what we perceive as the "unmodified" version of the term is strongly tied to who we were hanging out with when we learned it. Within a given subculture, the word doesn't need modification, it just gets modifiers when subcultures start to overlap.

I want my elitism back!

Personally, I think elitism is more trouble than it's worth. It's enough work just to be elite these days, without having to tack an -ism on the end :-)

[elusiveat.livejournal.com]

I want my elitism back!

I don't think it's gone anywhere... ;)