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AIBU?

To think the word GEEK is overused.....

48 replies

MortBlackCatsandWitch · 04/10/2011 08:36

I think it is the equivalent of saying "I'm maaaad me" ... you are not a geek if you can call yourself one...

....or if you know a bit more than the average Joe about popular culture like Terry Pratchet, The Simpsons or Dr Who ....

I think proper geekdom can only be achieved if the subject is not terribly well known or if you need to be very clever or if you are fully engrossed in it to the point of insanity.

OP posts:

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MumblingRagDoll · 04/10/2011 08:38

You can't quibble about what is essentially a silly word anyway. I'm a complete Geek....if there were an award for services to Geekdom I would win it. I don't mind if people want to call themselves Geeks.

BatsUpMeNightie · 04/10/2011 08:43

I think - and bear with me on this - I think that YABU because in the grand scheme of things your complaint is so far down the list it's farting anti-matter.

That's what I think.

MortBlackCatsandWitch · 04/10/2011 08:43

Awww i wanted to quibble..... i'm grumpy today and fed at having had my ear bent last night by a decidedly average Joe (of which i am one too) proclaiming themselves as a geek because they a lot of Simpsons and Friends episodes.....

OP posts:

AlpinePony · 04/10/2011 08:43

I'm a Software Engineer - some of my best friends think they're warlocks and do LRP.

However, I don't write MUD's in my spare time and I've never played Doom - I also think Terry Pratchet is a big pile of shite.

Yet people would think I'm a geek.

AlpinePony · 04/10/2011 08:43

"Friends" is geek territory? Give me strength!

MortBlackCatsandWitch · 04/10/2011 08:44

Sorry will attempt erudite and heavy weight next time....

OP posts:

nooka · 04/10/2011 08:51

dh would happily describe himself as a geek, and fits many of the stereotypes (computer programmer, collector of old gaming consoles, player of excessive amounts of old computer games, far too much knowledge of obscure stuff) but I don't think that he fits your definition really. He is a geek.

My grandfather was an academic, knew a great deal about fairly obscure things (he was a museum curator), and was very clever. He lectured and wrote academic tomes into his 80s, so could be described as fully engrossed. But he was not a geek in any way.

MumblingRagDoll · 04/10/2011 08:53

You know and I know what true Geekdom is....let the non-Geeks have ther fun. They don't know we're sniggering at them behind our obscure comic books.

ForYourDreamsAreChina · 04/10/2011 08:53

I agree with you OP.

It seems to have become a term that people (strangely, especially women) use to call themselves, just because they like maths, or science. Or think Professor Invisible Breast Fondler Cox is the New Messiah because he talks about stars. Or watch Dr Who.

It's all very Emperor's New Clothes.

ForYourDreamsAreChina · 04/10/2011 08:54

PS I'd say someone (and I know a lot of them)was a saddo, rather than a geek for knowing Friends and Simpsons off by heart...

MmeLindor. · 04/10/2011 08:56

I call myself a geek cause I like gadgets, but I am more an amateur geek than a real proper code-writing one.

spookshowangellovesit · 04/10/2011 09:00

this is one of those change of word definition things. being a geek is cool now and if you use to watch a lot of star wars and know clingon you were a geek to your peers. so now you can be a geek about any subject if you know a lot about it. geek knows a lot about rubbish, ie telly or comics or trains.
nooka your grandfather would have been a nerd some one that knows a lot about intelligent stuff.
the two terms are not mutually exclusive however and do often become intertwined.

MardyBra · 04/10/2011 09:01

My 9yo aspires to being a geek. Don't know what this adds to the argument, but thought I'd share.

SmethwickBelle · 04/10/2011 09:03

The only time this word annoys me is when people airily say that's what their job is rather than actually describe what their job is. "What do you do?", "I'm a computer geek I'm afraid" etc... As if to describe it in any detail whatsoever would go totally over everyone's head. It's a bit arrogant.

Parts of my job are very technical but I'll give a brief outline idea of what it involves if I'm asked, I start at the point of assuming that other people's brains can cope with it and it is politer than saying, essentially, "you wouldn't understand".

notcitrus · 04/10/2011 09:18

I'd love to see the reaction of someone calling themselves a geek just because they watch the Simpsons a lot, to meeting a kid I know who really is a Simpsons geek and would be delighted to discuss the differences in the credits sequences in the different seasons of it, favourite phrases of the different scriptwriters, and all the recurring actors...

Kladdkaka · 04/10/2011 09:24

I'm a geek and proud of it, so's my daughter, husband, brother, nephew and mum. But then we're all aspies and being a geek is one of the diagnostic criteria.

Kladdkaka · 04/10/2011 09:28

Actually I need to amend that. My husband isn't a geek. He's a ubergeek. He makes regular geeks look dim.

ZonkedOut · 04/10/2011 09:41

SmethwickBelle Parts of my job are very technical but I'll give a brief outline idea of what it involves if I'm asked, I start at the point of assuming that other people's brains can cope with it and it is politer than saying, essentially, "you wouldn't understand".

I am similar, but I don't go into details unless they ask me to, not because people wouldn't understand, but because I donn't want to bore them to tears if they are only asking what I did to be polite.

Snorbs · 04/10/2011 09:41

SmethwickBelle, I sometimes do the "I'm a computer networking geek" thing not because I don't believe other people will understand it but more because it's a subject that I know, through long and painful experience, bores the absolute tits off most people.

To paraphrase Neal Stephenson, when I start talking about what I do for a living most people's hair, skin, and clothes take on a pronounced reddish tinge from Doppler effect as they drop out of the conversation at relativistic velocity.

MortBlackCatsandWitch · 04/10/2011 09:56

I love folk who are really knowledgeable about a subject - to the point they can put there own theories forward about it. Or really passionate.

I do think the term is overused.

Bats - i don't think every conversation or whinge complaint on MN has to be deep and meaningful and i do think you are rude.

OP posts:

Kladdkaka · 04/10/2011 09:57

I've just discovered that there is a difference between geeks and nerds. We're not geeks, we're nerds. :o

How to tell the difference

GetOrfMo1Land · 04/10/2011 10:02

I loved that link kladdkaka. I am from that a nerd with geeky characteristics.

The one thing which was wrong is the fact that apparently nerds marry nerds. To carry on using the label vernacular, I am a nerd whose partner is a fratboy.

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Kladdkaka · 04/10/2011 10:04

Are you sure he's not a nerd in disguise? :o

AngryFeet · 04/10/2011 10:07

People call my DH a geek but I really don't think he is. He builds and runs datacentres and manages a team of support engineers so is working with computers a lot but is also installing air con and running cables a lot of the time. He is not even a programmer although he is pretty well versed in all that sort of stuff.

He does not wear glasses or sit up half the night playing weird games therefore he is not a geek. IMO of course ;)

AlpinePony · 04/10/2011 10:14

There is really only one definitive way to tell if you are a geek or not.

If mn allowed tickers & sigs - would you have a "hun" ticker or would you have geek code?

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