Slashdot Mirror
ZDNet on the Essence of Geek
sebFlyte writes "ZDNet has a feature on The Essence of Geek, which looks at the rise of the geek (and the fact that everyone's turning into one), in the years post .com boom." From the article: "For a few years, an interest in computers and technology became inextricable linked with wealth and power -- geek became chic. Technology companies suddenly became the focus of the kind of attention that had been reserved for the music or fashion industries. In the UK TV makers even went so far as to create a hip series, Attachments, based around the antics of a tech start-up."
Um...no. Owning an iPod and knowing how to use it doesn't make you a geek. Knowing how to use your Windows smartphone doesn't make you a geek. Discussing mobile phone design doesn't make you a geek, because from tfa, I don't think they were talking about protocols or other engineering aspects. Even knowing how to synchronize your email with your smartphone doesn't make you a geek. It makes you a slave, but not a geek.
Knowing how to use technical things in the prescribed manner does not make you a geek, any more than knowing the exits on an airplane makes you a flight attendent. Knowing how to use technical things in ways they were never meant to be used makes you a geek. (and this is only one small definition "geekiness.")
Saying that "we're all geeks" is like saying "everyone is special, just like you."
Mox
After all, how different is dressing up for a Star Trek Convention and a Football game? Not much...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Until the high school cheerleaders start hanging out at the chess club, geek ain't chic.
This is just about toys. Pre-packaged, nearly idiot proof, toys.
Like, omg, I'm so totally a geek now! I can IM, and sync my ipod, and blog, and post myspace pix! And like, even I know that those popups are annoying!
I am SO geek!!!!
Sounds like a line of new cologne from Ralph Loren aimed at today's IT workers.
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
Anybody who saw Attachments will know that the so called "geeks" it portrayed were nothing like the pale and socially inept people of real life. Entertaining enough though.
Q: You know how a geek likes you?
A: He looks at your shoes.
I still don't have my 5000 groupie girls who would spread their legs open for me en masse'....however, when I meet girls and i tell them I program they pretty much go "oh wow, you must make a lot of money" and then i snicker to myself in sadness...obviously i don't argue with them (what girl wants a poor guy) but hey :) It is, however, more accepted. I know many hot girls who love places like myspace, AIM, etc.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
"For a few years, an interest in computers and technology became inextricable linked with wealth and power -- geek became chic"
I'm pretty sure this is one of the signs of the apocalypse
unlike nerd and anorak, which still tend to be used as insults Dude, I would HATE to be called an anorak! After all, who WOULD want to be identified as "a usually pullover hooded jacket long enough to cover the hips". So insulting.
from TFA
The modern word surfaced in American slang in the early 20th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and continued to refer to various kinds of oddballs. The OED records this example from the 1916 Wells Fargo Messenger: "A new Wells agent struck our town the other week, and say you never saw a more enthusiastic geek!" By the 1950s Webster's dictionary recorded that the word referred to a carnival sideshow weirdo "whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake".
At some point, the word began to be used to refer to people with an interest so obsessive that it puts them outside the mainstream -- as it still is used to talk about people with an inordinate knowledge of, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, it's most immediate association is now with technology, and particularly with people who actually make technology work.
I've found 'geek' to be neutral at best in common usage, and nerd always is negative. Now being 'rich' as opposed to being a 'geek'...I've found the former is always better socially, but is directly proportionate to the latter.
Thank you Dave Raggett
He claims that increasingly, "we're all geeks" -- even if a lot of people don't care to admit it.
I remember when a geek was a guy who was extremely intelligent, read books, didn't dress well or had the latest fashions, never had a good haircut/hygiene, was not good at sports and never made out with girls.
If we are all indeed 'geeks' than the word geek doesn't mean anything. Or maybe we're just all nerds trying to be geeks?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Frankly the geek bar seems to be getting lower not higher.
I know people that just because they can us Windows think they are a "Geek". I hate the term geek I like the term hacker. If you can not create technology then you are not a hacker. If you can code, solder, or wire wrap then you are a hacker. If you can IM you are not. If you can write an IM then you are.
It is about creation not use.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The Essence of Geek:
Serves: 1
Ingredients:
2 tbsp Mountain Dew: cooled to room temperature
12 fl oz generic beer
2 oz Cheetos: crushed to fine powder
5 oz Bacon strips: fried till crisp
0.5 lb butter: at room temperature
0.5 lbs onions: ground to fine consistency
2 nos. matured socks: preferably fermented for 3 days
Preparation:
Preparation Time: 5 minutes.
Heat butter in pan until gently melting. Stir in remaining ingredients and simmer till delicious smell begins to whaffle through kitchen. Cool to room temperature, drain and apply in generous proportion.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Now the guys who picked on me are geeks too?
They don't care about the GPS technology. But when it came out in a toy, they bought them.
They can't tell the difference between xDSL and a cable modem. But they buy whatever claims to give them the fastest access.
The toy-philes will be able to take a picture with their phone, email to their work account and print it on the colour printer there. But they won't know how to convert it to a different format or even that there are different formats.
Driver
Driver who takes advanced driving classes
Mechanic
Automotive engineer
When did wealth mean "big credit lines?"
Most geeks I meet have negative net equity due to outrageous debt loads. Maybe it's just Chicago? It seems that every geek here thinks they can live like Sergei Brin.
I wonder if all the common people see are (leased) BMW's, (interest-only mortgaged) 5-bedroom homes and (almost maxed out) platinum cards when they see supergeeks?
Talk about keeping up with the Joneses.
Um...no. Owning an iPod and knowing how to use it doesn't make you a geek. Knowing how to use your Windows smartphone doesn't make you a geek. Discussing mobile phone design doesn't make you a geek, because from tfa, I don't think they were talking about protocols or other engineering aspects. Even knowing how to synchronize your email with your smartphone doesn't make you a geek. It makes you a slave, but not a geek.
Yeah, but some teen who wants to *fit-in* with the geeky kids, might buy these things thanking it helps. It's like when you were in high school, and saw that guy walking about with a tie dye Dead shirt on. He wasn't a hippy, and likly never found a Dead song that he liked, and never when to the show, but he did buy a tie dye shirt. Very trendy.
Now, I've got a cs degree, and I know I geek my friends out with blab that they don't care about, but I don't own an iPod because of the DRM issues. Some people might say that someone who won't buy an iPod because of the DRM issues is a bigger geek than someone who owns them. However, the article is making a point. It does't matter if these people have any geek-cred. It's obvious that they want that geek-cred, just like the dude with the tie dye shirt.
then came an article claiming that geekiness is actually "kewl", and people were actually yearning to be one. That marked the end of geekdom. Now every other person using ipod and knowing how to download firefox considers himself/herself a geek, making the existence of the actual geeks as minority. Maybe, the geeks would start yearning to be just normal, and then it would reverse..
No doubt the term "geek" has been coopted by the media to describe, basically, the digerati generation. But I have to agree with my fellow /.ers... using your ipod and knowing how to upload photos from your cell phone does not make you a geek.
Geek's don't just use technology, they understand how it is put together and desire to change or "hack" it for their own purposes. A geek molds technology to suit him, a regular schmoe makes do with what has been handed his way by 3com, intel, microsoft, etc, etc.
That is the difference.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
We are in the midst of the Glorius Geek Revolution. Sure, high school sucks for geeks. It sucked for me, and it still sucks for most geeks today, but the life after high school has dramtically changed for the geek, for the better.
A lot of the rags to riches stories involves geeks. South Park's creators, Family Guy's creator, Matt Groenig, Woz and Steve Jobs.
We live better lives than our geek forefathers. A smart, industrious geek these days often earns a better living and lifestyle than our jock counterpart.
Society is getting geekier. Take cops shows. They used to be buddy films, the cool guys with street smarts driving cool cars in chase scenes. Now the top cop show is CSI. Geeks with badges, walking around with black lights, analyzing semen. NCIS, Law and Order, The West Wing, Adult Swim... culture has definately taken a turn for the geekier end of the spectrum.
Nerd girls are doing well as well. I read somewhere that SNL producers were worried about Tina Fey in glasses, but it turns out it totally works, and she has tremendous appeal and talent.
Of course, as we start having kids and they grow up, maybe they'll be jocks, and maybe they'll be teased unmercifully by the geeks.
Nononononononononono. News for nerds. Not news for geeks.
The true geeks are all somewhere else, having much more fun.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
A geek isn't someone who knows how to use an iPod. A geek is someone who has all their Ogg Vorbis's on their bluetooth enabled PDA along with playlists, and he can walk from his house to his car to his cubicle without a skip in the beat because it seamlessly transfers between his home stereo, built in speakers in the PDA, his car stereo, and his computer's speakers at the office.
Extra points for writing a new compression algorithm to store more songs on the PDA. Bonus if you have neon lights under your car that are synchronised to the music.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Yeah, get outta here, you geeks!
The essence of geek has nothing to do with what you use, but with what you know about it; people break down into three groups:
Group A: people who know only what they need to know to get along. This is actually a fairly small group; most people have a beyond-necessary level of interest/knowledge regarding something.
Group B: people who have some (or quite a bit of) in-depth knowledge of one or two areas because they're interested, and are perfectly content with a "necessity" level of knowledge in everything else. This is most everyone.
Group C: people who are interested in having in-depth knowledge for its own sake, and will always (given the opportunity) choose to know more about any given subject.
"Geeks," as far as I can tell, are pretty much a subset of Group B, where the one or two areas of interest are math-, science-, or computer-related, and the level of knowledge is above some ill-defined, but relatively high, point. Linus is a geek. Da Vinci was not.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
From the article: "Eric Reynolds, author of the influential open source manifesto The Cathedral and the Bazaar ."
Um, what? Sloppy research or just a typo? These mainstream "Look how geek everyone is becoming! Even your has an iPod and is therefore a geek." articles really irritate me.
It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
You know, I feel blessed that I maintain the social graces and ability to interface with women on a fairly regular basis.... well my wife anyway :) I don't know that as a whole you all aren't grabbing at straws to justify your own position as a geek.
Truth be told, I'm called a geek, nerd, technogod, and addict by various people. Quite frankly the way I see it is if you are you know you are and it's not worth arguing about. It's more socially acceptable now for us to be infatuated with our technology and our abilities are becoming more appreciated (figured you would be happy not offended that you aren't the only one). I guess we are geeks for even arguing about what a geek is, constantly having a who's logical line is bigger over inconsiquential nonsense like this.
The first time I went off rambling about the latest linux kernel source structure (back when I was 16) and how clean it was with such enthusiasim as to make the listening party look at me with the look of "please god don't hurt me" I knew I was a geek.
For that matter, if you find you are consitently speaking with fellow nerds and it suddenly becomes very apparent they have no clue what you are talking about... you might be a geek.... neck?... sorry jeff foxworthy flashback
sweet god, I'm talking about nothing... damned coffee
A real geek knows that Eric Raymond is ESR, not ERS.
My website
I'm a software tech support geek. The people I deal with use Windows. Unless I used it, I wouldn't be able to help them very much. Instead of refusing to use it, I've turned myself into a specialist in Windows internals, so I can talk my customers through undoing the damage Windows has done to itself without either uninstalling/reinstalling the software or reinstalling Windows.
Geeks do use Windows, when their job needs it, or they need to use a program that only exists for Windows. Geeks don't, however, think Windows is the be-all/end-all of computing.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Around where I work, this "Essence of Geek" of which you speak is BO.
I sacrificed a chicken and chanted a bit to get a server restarted once, does that count as being a geek ?
Kids are still punished for their desire to learn in school
Jocks are still lauded throughout society, not just high school
BUT as we age, those things that were derided early on (book l'arnin', etc) allow "us geeks" to rise up much farther than the fat-head jock wrestlers who had their moments of glory in high school.
Geeks peak later.
And for grins, I'm posting the lyrics to Friends Forever by the Old 97s because it's a fantastic nod to the outcasts in high school. (of which, by geek definition, 95% of us were such)
Friends Forever
I was a debater
Was not a stoner nor an inline skater
Was not a player nor a player hater
I was just a bookworm on a respirator
Who's to say that's wrong
I was in the chess club
Didn't have a swimming pool much less a true love
Didn't have a dalliance much less a hot tub
I was just a brain whose brain never let up
Who's to say that's wrong
The twelve years after five
Are years we're lucky to survive
Hang in there friends forever
In memory far away
Hang in there friends forever
In memory far away
Went out for the football team
Found out the hard way that you can't live your Dad's dream
Had pretty thin skin to be in the machine
Then I found a guitar and the rest's a fanzine
Who's to say that's wrong
The moral of the song
Is that the high school kids are wrong
You know they have been all along
Come graduation day you'll be gone
Hang in there friends forever
In memory far away
(end)
Cheers, bitches. :)
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
...then why can't most male geeks get dates?
*watches iron-clad karma melt into hot slag*
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/G/geek.html I cant belive no one have mentioned the Jargon files.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.