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Geeks vs. Nerds
GUNTHER asks: "I've always wondered what the difference is between a "Geek" and a "Nerd." I think of a geek as one who is interested in sci-fi, computers, role-playing, anime, and the like. I think of a nerd as one who is interested in math, physics, and technology. I consider myself much more of a nerd than a geek. I've done a bit of searching on the net for the difference and everyone seems to have a different opinion. Some say that nerds are just social outcasts. Some say that geeks are just arty nerds. Slashdot is "News for Nerds" but most people here seem to refer to themselves as geeks. What do you think, is there a difference between the terms? Which do you prefer (if you prefer either)?"
Slashdot already had this, but nothing wrong with revisiting a topic...
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A wealthy eccentric who marches to the beat of a different drum. But you may call me "Noodle Noggin."
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
A geek bites the heads off of chickens, a nerd looks like a chicken.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Actually, i see it as the exact opposite.
The connotation of `nerd,' etemologically, has ALWAYS been that of "an outcast," a person who doesn't fit in because of their brains/mannerisms.
the original connotation of geek was a carnie guy who ate the heads of bats, chicken, and other small mammals & birds, much like some death metal bands we all know about.
however, seeing as how those kinds of things don't happen, geek has been redefined.
i take geek as a compliment. i call myself geek. women can call me geek when they smile at me after i fix their computer. geeks know what they're doing with (insert subject of interest here), but they also have some amount of social ability that varies from geek to geek.
at least, that's how i see it.
From a motherboard manual, error beep codes: S-L-L-L-SS: Speaker Error
In my youth, "geek" and "nerd" meant the same thing. I imagine it was much the same everywhere. If you got good grades, and liked getting good grades, AND people didn't like you too much, you were a nerd. AND a geek. I was called both, not to mention a fair spread of other not nice things.
Then in the 90s something happened. Perhaps as we got older, and certain new fields of knowledge grew, a distinction began to be made. At once, humanities enthusiasts were called "nerds", and technology enthusiasts began to be called "geeks".
Now, what happened, and no one denies it, is that the "geeks" began to become more important than the "nerds". Computers were an expanding world, and were encroaching ever faster into every professional and personal arena. Consequently, geeks got good-paying jobs. So, not only did geeks begin to get a lot of money, but they also started working with other geeks. As a result, they were able to bond. And they were able to do the things they secretly wanted to do -- buy cool cars, get nice clothes, hang out with lots of friends, go out to places in groups. In short, they began to feel successful, and most importantly, desirable.
For the most part, the nerds didn't care. They enjoyed doing what they were doing. It hurt to think that they had missed out on The Big Secret -- but they were still happy doing what they were already doing. Some became geekish in limited extents.
But what happened between geeks and nerds is that the geeks started to feel popular. They realized that they had broken the social glass ceiling (even if only due to some coincidental and uncertain shifts in modern industry). And a peculiar thing happened to geeks, as happens to all those who become popular: they needed someone to pick on. And that group was the nerds. And the term "geek" became owned by that community, and was lifted, at least among themselves, as a title of triumph; of superiority in power and significance, and success. And "nerd" became a sign of past sorrow and failure, of the pathetic creatures "we once were", before the world decided to make them (the geeks) feel important.
Nerds are the ones who are unpopular. Nerds are the ones who no one likes, and who talk about things no one else cares about. Nerds are the ones who aren't making all the money. They're the ones that missed the boat and fell behind. No one today, not even geeks, would be willing to call themselves a "nerd", but "geek" is a badge of pride.
Nerds are now the estranged old friends of the geeks. The geeks look down on them, as if they can no longer understand their way of life. They say, if only you had gone this way or that way. If only you could bring yourself up. If only you could be more like us. Despite the fact that we simply just got lucky.
I'm a nerd/geek.
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nerd n.
1. [mainstream slang] Pejorative applied to anyone with an above-average IQ and few gifts at small talk and ordinary social rituals.
2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what's really important and interesting and doesn't care to be distracted by trivial chatter and silly status games. Compare the two senses of computer geek.
The word itself appears to derive from the lines "And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo / And Bring Back an It-Kutch, a Preep and a Proo, / A Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!" in the Dr. Seuss book "If I Ran the Zoo" (1950). (The spellings `nurd' and `gnurd' also used to be current at MIT.) How it developed its mainstream meaning is unclear, but sense 1 seems to have entered mass culture in the early 1970s (there are reports that in the mid-1960s it meant roughly "annoying misfit" without the connotation of intelligence).
An IEEE Spectrum article (4/95, page 16) once derived `nerd' in its variant form `knurd' from the word `drunk' backwards, but this bears all the hallmarks of a bogus folk etymology.
Hackers developed sense 2 in self-defense perhaps ten years later, and some actually wear "Nerd Pride" buttons, only half as a joke. At MIT one can find not only buttons but (what else?) pocket protectors bearing the slogan and the MIT seal.
computer geek n.
1. One who eats (computer) bugs for a living. One who fulfills all the dreariest negative stereotypes about hackers: an asocial, malodorous, pasty-faced monomaniac with all the personality of a cheese grater. Cannot be used by outsiders without implied insult to all hackers; compare black-on-black vs. white-on-black usage of `nigger'. A computer geek may be either a fundamentally clueless individual or a proto-hacker in larval stage. Also called `turbo nerd', `turbo geek'. See also propeller head, clustergeeking, geek out, wannabee, terminal junkie, spod, weenie.
2. Some self-described computer geeks use this term in a positive sense and protest sense 1 (this seems to have been a post-1990 development). For one such argument, see http://samsara.circus.com/~omni/geek.html . See also geek code.