Geek Chic

I’m a geek, not by choice, but because of where my interests lie. I loves my Star Trek, Star Wars, Matrix, Philosophy, Gaming. I can spend hours debating the virtues of Console gaming versus PC Gaming or the never ending battle between PCs and MACs and so forth. I have an unquenchable thirst for pointless trivia that would make me a contender for Jeopardy. I read books about math for fun, I know where the Vulcan hand greeting comes from, Han shot first, I can fix computing systems I know nothing about by deduction and do it over the phone, I’ve spent time with vets doing surgery on your pets just for fun and to understand biology and animal mechanics, I’ll defend rational thought even if it goes against people’s most cherished beliefs and infuriates them and yes at 36 I still want to own a real lightsaber.

And for most of my life I was a fucking ghost to people for being such a fraking nerd. My teachers hated me for correcting their mistakes – ok I was kinda dickish about it, the students beat me up for blowing the bell curve, my own father publicly ridiculed me for being the smartest guy in the room because he was an uneducated street bum who didn’t appreciate intellectualism – even when I became an unstoppable Grand Prix level equestrian athlete I was still a loser for being smart.

So intellectualism and geekdom has become my little castle which I defend to this day. I’m a geek and I’m proud of it. I won’t let anyone put me down for it, I’ll be downright vicious about it – some dipshit got a taste of me treating him like a retard – and I mean retard – for 3 months at work for doing just that. Yeah yeah I have a temper, everyone who knows me, knows that. I inherited that from my Neanderthal father.

But what really, really irks me these days – and this is the point of the post – are all these poseurs running around trying to purposefully be geeks because somehow it’s become chic to be geek. The world has become technology driven and media driven and who PWNED that environment? The Geeks of course. And now all the cool kids want to be geeks, but they want to fast-track their Geek-Cred. This means taking the appearance of being a geek and selling themselves to be geeks to everyone.

These people are easily spotted, wearing the preppy interpretation of geek dress-code, the Tin-Tin hairdo or the faux-hawk, they have an iPhone which they will flip out at a moments notice to let everyone know there are down with Steve Jobs and have dark rimmed nerdy but fashionable glasses. Hush Puppies anyone? But as soon as you approach one of these Geek Chic drones and converse with them, throw them some random well known pop-culture reference and see their eyes suddenly go blank. Busted as the ridiculous philistines they really are.

These Geek Sheep haven’t let go of their cool kid status because when the real geeks, geek-out – and real geeks know what I mean by this – the faux-geeks will look at us like we are weirdos and reduce themselves to high-school level caste systems in less than 2 seconds. People look at geeks as manboys but seriously, when you see how the non-geeks look down on us and turn their backs to us, that’s schoolyard tactics and highlights who’s really matured and who hasn’t. Don’t mistake my love of Sci-Fi for a lack of maturity.

Then there are the losers who PIMP their geekytude constantly because somehow they need to prove to everyone they are REALLY REALLY GEEKY. They Twitter their geekyness, they blog their geekyness, they blurb, they talk, they let it be know to everyone by doing their best Caulfield they can so that the world will know they are geeks. What’s next? Geek Pride? Geek Pride Parade down Sainte-Catherine’s?  Some of you really try to hard and you’re embarrassing yourselves. Just fucking STOP IT. You’re like sophomoric philosophy students cramming as many quotes as possible in an essay to show off the many books they “read” to make themselves look smart – like I can’t crap quotes from books I’ve never read. If you’re a real geek, it’s gonna shine through no matter what. People hate us by default and other geeks gravitate towards each other naturally.

Enough with the Faux-Geeks, because your smug love of everything Apple does not a geek make you – there’s more to it than owning a MAC.  And the potential-geeks, stop pandering and reminding everyone you’re a real geek. If yer the real deal, you’ll be welcomed to the club, because we’re a lonely bunch and need all the members we can get. Oh and yeah, we don’t have enough Geek Girls. Come On.