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capri0mniSo yeah... the other day, I wrote this as a quickie post:
[Quote]
A proposal for a definition of "Geek," which can exist independent of any particular cultural trend (e.g. video-games, comics, or spec. fic):
Noun:
Someone to whom the sentence: "You're over-thinking this," is inherently nonsensical.
[Unquote]
This is the ultimate antithesis of a "quickie post" It has All the Words... But a bunch are under cuts, and I'll understand if you don't actually read them all (though it would be nifty if you read some). Basically, this is where a non-geek would say I'm over-thinking this...
That thought came to me in the middle of watching the newest music video from the YouTube Channel called "Geek and Sundry," which is provided under the cuts below for those who are curious. Go Watch / Read / Whatever. I'll wait 'till you get back.
LYRICS:
1ST VERSE:
Oh, no. Don't pretend I didn't see
You roll your eyes at my gaming tee
Don't know if you can read or if you've seen
The sweet piece in this week's Wired magazine
The latest trend has hit its peak
They say that geek's becomin' chic
So now you're out of style as you can be
And I'm in vogue, so you can bite me
To all the ass-hat jocks who beat me up in school
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
To all the prom queen bitches thinking they still rule
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
2ND VERSE:
Try to cop my style but I'm the real thing
While you played sports, I played Magic the Gathering
Never earned a part of nerd society
My Aquaman pajamas prove my pedigree
Watched my Next Gen every night
Wore a headgear to fix my overbite
Your black-rimmed glasses are prescription free, where as me
I literally can't see my hand in front of my face
To all the asshat jocks who beat me up in school
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
To all the prom queen bitches thinking they still rule
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
And to my eighth-grade crush who pushed me in the pool
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
You may be tan and fit and rich but you're a tool
And I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
3RD VERSE:
Role reversal must be a total drag
But there's no point, no point for me to humblebrag
I appreciate you for being cruel
I'm burning bright thanks to your rejection fuel
Got my in-jokes you won't get
Like Honey Badger, Troll Face and Nyan Cat
So now your ballin' parties seem so dumb
You can Evite me, and I'll say yes, but I won't really come
Got my comics
Got my games
All the things you thought were lame
Got my cosplay
Fanfic too
Got you pegged
STF-You
CHORUS
The thing is, I've always considered myself a "geek,"* but I had to Google about two-thirds the cultural references in those lyrics before I understood them. And I really think "geek" is really more about: 1) A general attitude toward the world around you and 2) your favorite ways of solving problems than it ever was about which particular cultural tastes you have.
I mean, take this soliloquy from Hamlet, for example: if these aren't the words of a Geek-type wishing he could be more of a Jock-type, than I don't what is (whether these are words strictly specific to character and situation, or [as I suspect] the author getting a wee bit autobiographical)
**
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
This particular soliloquy strikes me as particularly geeky because it is nothing but Hamlet getting all meta- about his own thinking -- except when he's wondering if this makes him weak and a coward, and deserving of getting beat up by those who fight first and think later (And when "whore" pops into his head, his first thought is that they talk too much (!)). But after spiraling around a half dozen different ideas, he figures out how to use the power of thinking -- especially the power of his uncle's thinking -- to get his revenge. So yes, I am convinced that Hamlet (and the author who created him -- after all, we write what we know, right?) was a "geek."
Now, according to Etymology Online, the word "geek" first entered English in 1510 (as "geck") and originally meant "fool," "dupe," or "simpleton." and that it got the meaning of "Sideshow Freak (Who bites the heads off chickens)" in 1916. It doesn't give any suggestions as to why it acquired this specific definition in the 20th Century, but I suspect that some carnival barker thought it was a catchy word that was old enough to lend an air of faux-erudition and respectability... And for those people in the crowd who were bookworms, they might have had a vague recollection that the word meant something along the lines of "someone who's 'not right in the head.'" Also in that Etymology Online page, it says that "Geek" started appearing in its current pop culture meaning in the early 1980s, and that it always referred to someone who gets over-excited (and 'side-show freaky') about computers and technology.
And so, yes... Computers and Technology, and obsessing over gadgets, is at the center of the current pop-understanding of what a "Geek" is.
But... But.... But! I think computers, mathematics, science (as a specific branch of knowledge) and tech are all incidental to the true essence of "Geek." I think that even an illiterate goat herder in the Andes, who lives without running water and electricity can be a geek, if, while herding her goats, she's thinking thoughts about how goats are connected to the trees they eat, and how the trees are connected to the birds, and the birds to the bugs, and the bugs to the flowers, and the flowers to her mother, and.... and, and! Isn't that the most exciting thing ever?!
I do think, however, that the rise of computers in our, First World, culture (especially during that period in the 1980s) was a specific cultural development which favored the Geek approach to the world over the Jock approach to the world, so that that was when Geeks began A) to have power, and B) to realize they have power, so C) they can start to have fun and enjoy themselves.
So, of course, when they go to a friend's house for a party (say) they're going to get inappropriately excited and flaily-handed when they see their friend has the latest gadget... and you know what's nifty about that particular gadget is that in order for it to get invented in the first place, problems X, Y, and Z had to be solved -- and isn't it fantastic that they were, because that gadget has so many implications for the future! Duuuude!
*or rather, as someone of that personality type -- the year Igraduated left high school, (I stayed an extra year after I was qualified to graduate so I could be in the new Advanced Placement History and English classes): 1982, the first definition of "Geek" in the dictionary was still "Someone who bites the heads off chickens," and I was never that.
**There's also a video that compares the performances of both Simm and Tennant, back-to-back, but of the two, David's version comes across to me as more frantically barely-out-of-adolescence in age, in terms of don't-know-what-to-do-with-my-feelings and resulting social awkwardness, so I think of this performance as one of the geekiest ever. Makes it easier to remember that Shakespeare wrote the character to be college student... Or it could just be because of that tee-shirt he's wearing in the scene ;-)
[Quote]
A proposal for a definition of "Geek," which can exist independent of any particular cultural trend (e.g. video-games, comics, or spec. fic):
Noun:
Someone to whom the sentence: "You're over-thinking this," is inherently nonsensical.
[Unquote]
This is the ultimate antithesis of a "quickie post" It has All the Words... But a bunch are under cuts, and I'll understand if you don't actually read them all (though it would be nifty if you read some). Basically, this is where a non-geek would say I'm over-thinking this...
That thought came to me in the middle of watching the newest music video from the YouTube Channel called "Geek and Sundry," which is provided under the cuts below for those who are curious. Go Watch / Read / Whatever. I'll wait 'till you get back.
LYRICS:
1ST VERSE:
Oh, no. Don't pretend I didn't see
You roll your eyes at my gaming tee
Don't know if you can read or if you've seen
The sweet piece in this week's Wired magazine
The latest trend has hit its peak
They say that geek's becomin' chic
So now you're out of style as you can be
And I'm in vogue, so you can bite me
To all the ass-hat jocks who beat me up in school
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
To all the prom queen bitches thinking they still rule
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
2ND VERSE:
Try to cop my style but I'm the real thing
While you played sports, I played Magic the Gathering
Never earned a part of nerd society
My Aquaman pajamas prove my pedigree
Watched my Next Gen every night
Wore a headgear to fix my overbite
Your black-rimmed glasses are prescription free, where as me
I literally can't see my hand in front of my face
To all the asshat jocks who beat me up in school
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
To all the prom queen bitches thinking they still rule
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
And to my eighth-grade crush who pushed me in the pool
Now I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
You may be tan and fit and rich but you're a tool
And I'm the one that's cool
I'm the one that's cool
3RD VERSE:
Role reversal must be a total drag
But there's no point, no point for me to humblebrag
I appreciate you for being cruel
I'm burning bright thanks to your rejection fuel
Got my in-jokes you won't get
Like Honey Badger, Troll Face and Nyan Cat
So now your ballin' parties seem so dumb
You can Evite me, and I'll say yes, but I won't really come
Got my comics
Got my games
All the things you thought were lame
Got my cosplay
Fanfic too
Got you pegged
STF-You
CHORUS
The thing is, I've always considered myself a "geek,"* but I had to Google about two-thirds the cultural references in those lyrics before I understood them. And I really think "geek" is really more about: 1) A general attitude toward the world around you and 2) your favorite ways of solving problems than it ever was about which particular cultural tastes you have.
I mean, take this soliloquy from Hamlet, for example: if these aren't the words of a Geek-type wishing he could be more of a Jock-type, than I don't what is (whether these are words strictly specific to character and situation, or [as I suspect] the author getting a wee bit autobiographical)
**
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
This particular soliloquy strikes me as particularly geeky because it is nothing but Hamlet getting all meta- about his own thinking -- except when he's wondering if this makes him weak and a coward, and deserving of getting beat up by those who fight first and think later (And when "whore" pops into his head, his first thought is that they talk too much (!)). But after spiraling around a half dozen different ideas, he figures out how to use the power of thinking -- especially the power of his uncle's thinking -- to get his revenge. So yes, I am convinced that Hamlet (and the author who created him -- after all, we write what we know, right?) was a "geek."
Now, according to Etymology Online, the word "geek" first entered English in 1510 (as "geck") and originally meant "fool," "dupe," or "simpleton." and that it got the meaning of "Sideshow Freak (Who bites the heads off chickens)" in 1916. It doesn't give any suggestions as to why it acquired this specific definition in the 20th Century, but I suspect that some carnival barker thought it was a catchy word that was old enough to lend an air of faux-erudition and respectability... And for those people in the crowd who were bookworms, they might have had a vague recollection that the word meant something along the lines of "someone who's 'not right in the head.'" Also in that Etymology Online page, it says that "Geek" started appearing in its current pop culture meaning in the early 1980s, and that it always referred to someone who gets over-excited (and 'side-show freaky') about computers and technology.
And so, yes... Computers and Technology, and obsessing over gadgets, is at the center of the current pop-understanding of what a "Geek" is.
But... But.... But! I think computers, mathematics, science (as a specific branch of knowledge) and tech are all incidental to the true essence of "Geek." I think that even an illiterate goat herder in the Andes, who lives without running water and electricity can be a geek, if, while herding her goats, she's thinking thoughts about how goats are connected to the trees they eat, and how the trees are connected to the birds, and the birds to the bugs, and the bugs to the flowers, and the flowers to her mother, and.... and, and! Isn't that the most exciting thing ever?!
I do think, however, that the rise of computers in our, First World, culture (especially during that period in the 1980s) was a specific cultural development which favored the Geek approach to the world over the Jock approach to the world, so that that was when Geeks began A) to have power, and B) to realize they have power, so C) they can start to have fun and enjoy themselves.
So, of course, when they go to a friend's house for a party (say) they're going to get inappropriately excited and flaily-handed when they see their friend has the latest gadget... and you know what's nifty about that particular gadget is that in order for it to get invented in the first place, problems X, Y, and Z had to be solved -- and isn't it fantastic that they were, because that gadget has so many implications for the future! Duuuude!
*or rather, as someone of that personality type -- the year I
**There's also a video that compares the performances of both Simm and Tennant, back-to-back, but of the two, David's version comes across to me as more frantically barely-out-of-adolescence in age, in terms of don't-know-what-to-do-with-my-feelings and resulting social awkwardness, so I think of this performance as one of the geekiest ever. Makes it easier to remember that Shakespeare wrote the character to be college student... Or it could just be because of that tee-shirt he's wearing in the scene ;-)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-31 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-31 08:16 pm (UTC)So, yeah, I feel ya.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-31 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-31 08:41 pm (UTC)I was always under the impression that the word "nerd" was invented by Dr. Seuss, in 1950, for his book If I ran the Zoo, for an imaginary, particularly grumpy creature, and that's about the time when "nerd" entered the common slang (the page of that book in question is shown here, if you scroll down). So I've always preferred "Geek" as a self-reference, because I've considered it to have a longer pedigree, and I don't consider myself grumpy (or, at least, I don't like to).
But more and more, I'm seeing the two words used interchangeably, even in the same sentence, and used in a self-referential way. And, according to Etymology Online (I love that site), Dr. Seuss was simply modifying "nurt," a slang term from the 1940's, which was a modification of "nut" -- in other words, someone who is silly, and excitable. So maybe the two words really are interchangeable.
But, in keeping with the spirit of Dr. Seuss's artwork, maybe we could say that a "nerd" is a "geek" who is prone to crankiness when others don't understand why they're so excited about X?