Do Geeks Make Better Adults?

mcgrew writes "What makes people unpopular in the hallways of high school, mainly an unwillingness to conform, tends to translate into success as an adult. Robbins lists several companies—including Yahoo!—that prioritize hiring quirky individuals who shun conventional thinking. She also name-checks historical and current celebrities, including director Steven Spielberg (who was taunted for being Jewish in high school) and Lady Gaga (a self-described former theater 'freak'), whose weirdness led to later fame. (Other now-validated former outsiders she touts: Steve Jobs, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and Angelina Jolie.)"

Comments

Other former outsider 'geeks':

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Timothy McVeigh: "McVeigh claimed to have been a target of bullying at school and that he took refuge in a fantasy world where he retaliated against those bullies." "While in high school, McVeigh became interested in computers and hacked into government computer systems on his Commodore 64"
David Koresh: "Due to his poor study skills, he was put in special education classes and nicknamed "Vernie" by his fellow students, but by the age of 11, he had memorized the entire New Testament."

make your own opportunities

[nido]

Oh noes, the corporate machines won't hire me.

you end up too free-spirited for a business to hire you,

There, fixed that for you.

Government schools train people to be cogs for the machine (ref: John Taylor Gatto. "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher" essay is also very good, and is on any number of sites). Some people rebel against being slotted into a position in life (the group you refer to who "crash hard" at age 25), while others recognize the game and make their own rules.

One must "learn the rules" in order to avoid the cog/machine outcome in their life. Gatto's Underground History of American Education (free at the site above) is a good start. :)

Re:make your own opportunities

[gad_zuki!]

Pardon me if I'm skeptical over the whole "ZOMG ID KILL MYSELF WITHOUT THE INTERNET!!"

Us older geeks know this isn't true. We did things you might recognize like read books or even socialize with our coworkers! We read magazine and wrote stories and played D&D and programmed non-network computers.

If anything, the "always on entertainment" pipe means less creative works, geek socializing, etc because we're forever stuck on this depressing loop of "Hey someone just sent me another video of someone getting kicked in the balls." Or "Hey, here's the outrage of the hour!"

Its not too surprising, it turns out that more entertainment channels and more uncritical viewers just leads us deeper in the lowest common denominator ghetto. Worse, always on information can just as likely be always on disinformation thus you have all these people who suddenly think they're political experts because they know the well-developed talking points over whether the president is really a citizen. But I digress.

I think the truly nerdy have larger issues, its not really a choice for them to go home and become smelly shut-ins, they do this because they cant function in any other way. They might suffer from aspergers, depression, social anxiety, childhood abuse, anger issues, hormonal issues, etc.
 

Re:What is the opposite of geek?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's more; There's absolutely nothing that says geeks can't be bullies. The intellectual bullying and elitist snobbery I witnessed when I first entered the workplace put a whole new perspective on the type of people I once physically stuck up for.

Others do not typically class me as successful because I've refused to maintain employment in a corporate environment. I had a well paid job with a multinational and hated it. Working in a large corporate or becoming wealthy was never a life goal for me, that I ever took such a job was a personal failure.

Stupid article!

Re:What is the opposite of geek?

[Americano]

There's absolutely nothing that says geeks can't be bullies

Interestingly, there's been some recent studies that bullies and victims often share many of the same traits:

They found the typical bully has trouble with academics and resolving problems, has negative attitudes and comes from a family with conflict.

A typical victim sounds surprisingly similar: he or she is likely to be aggressive, lacks social skills, thinks negative thoughts, has difficulty in problem-solving and comes from an environment of negativity. These youths are rejected and isolated, the research found.

Strike "trouble with academics," and you've just described many geeks. It's not surprising that people in a group that tends to fit the profile of bullying victims also learned how to be bullies somewhere along the way. Now that there's no "dumb jock" to shove their head in the toilet, one of them gets to be big man on campus and shove some other poor nerd's head in the toilet.