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

Time to bring back a Slashdot classic:

[Bozzio]

ahem.

Correlation != Causation.

ty.

Re:Time to bring back a Slashdot classic:

[Runaway1956]

Agreed. But, there isn't even a real correlation here.

"Robbins lists several companies—including Yahoo!—that prioritize hiring quirky individuals"

That is NOT a widespread practice. Most companies want - most companies DEMAND that you show up for work, do your job, and mostly go unnoticed. They don't want quirks. Author found a niche market for geeks with quirks, and he thinks that he has discovered something really noteworthy. Phhht.

Only with an "Edge"

[TaoPhoenix]

If you're only a class-c geek with an unwillingness to conform but without a layer of pizazz to roll it all together, you end up too unstable for a business to hire you, so you end up at fast food or retail with some gaming at night and weekends and the random day you skipped work to go on a raid/campaign.

That's the life to have ... up to about age 25, then it starts to crash hard.

Re:Only with an "Edge"

[vlm]

If you're only a class-c geek

WTF is a "class-c" geek? Is there some designation hierarchy I'm unaware of?

I've been a geek for almost my entire life, and I have no idea what you're talking about.

C doesn't have classes. He meant to write "C++ geek" or something like that.

Re:Only with an "Edge"

[gad_zuki!]

Or you bust your ass with some small business, suffer, and fall into deep debt. That's much more likely than "becoming a millionaire." Its kinda sad how many people live their lives on the assumption that great wealth is just a couple different decisions away.

I have a side-business running, I've worked for myself, but I never, ever went on with a "SCREW THE MAN, I'LL BE RICH SOON" because it so fucking improbable I'm not going to embarrass myself by assuming its going to come true. Its the business equivalent of the kid who goes to art school, acts all snobby because he know that in a year or two he'll be rich and famous. That's a losing attitude both in art and business.

Unfortunately, the "success is around the corner with no hard work or compromise" is used politically to advance the agenda of billioanres who feed you this myth and tell you "when you're rich like us, you'll be glad you have a low tax burden and that social services are underfunded."

Unwillingness?

[ratnerstar]

I was unpopular in High School, but I question whether that was because I was unwilling to conform, or because I had absolutely no idea how to do so.

Spielberg, I imagine, was in a similar position, unless he discovered a method of magically becoming a goy.

Re:Unwillingness?

[tooyoung]

The author makes an odd (yet common) assumption:

What makes people unpopular in the hallways of high school, mainly an unwillingness to conform

This is the typical view, "everyone else is a sheep except for me". Looking back at high school, I wouldn't say that popular people were popular because they conformed. Many were popular because they didn't conform. Others conformed to them. I don't think that these followers were necessarily popular because they conformed to the popular kids. Some were viewed as posers, while others were popular, because, well, they were likable.

That is the trick with popularity - either you have it or you don't. People will like you and want to be around you, or they won't. That will change depending on your setting - middle school, high school, college, work, music industry, actor, etc. When people try to be liked or try to be cool, they typically fail.

The lazy response is to classify all people not like you as sheep.

this observation doesn't make causation

[alta]

How many non-geeks are also wildly famous.

How many former geeks are now terrorists or serial killers?

Come to me when you have some numbers.

This is not to say I don't agree with the trend... but don't sell it like someone's done some quantitative research.

Other former outsider 'geeks':

[0100010001010011]

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."

Re:Other former outsider 'geeks':

[Anonymous Coward]

Throw in Ted Kazinsky, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. And these names all fall much closer to the "geek" category than Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen and Angelina Jolie, who were all just weirdos and not at all geeks.

sounds like a geek stroking geek ego

[krnpimpsta]

Not saying the headline's claim is true or untrue, but... these are all examples of very rare individuals - the luckiest or the most skilled of all the geeks, that made it big.

If you go by that argument, I can also point out that alot of the jocks from high school are now making many, many millions of dollars as professional athletes (NFL, NBA, etc.)

Disclaimer: Didn't RTFA, but still, dumb argument.

Re:make your own opportunities

[gad_zuki!]

>Government schools train people to be cogs for the machine

School, like anything in life, is what you make of it. Its not exactly a North Korean indoctrination facility, regardless of how often conservative pundits say they are.

The GP makes a good point. Too many "geeks" become asocial nerds unable to work effectively with others or understand basic social skills. This isn't some kind of free-wheeling "I'm running a startup" mentality, but the often seen smart-guy or smart-gal that is unable to motivate themselves or move up Maslow's pyramid to self-esteem or self-actualization and they become self-loathing WoW addicts or smelly neckbeards.

What is the opposite of geek?

[michaelmalak]

The article draws a false dichotomy between geeks and bullies. The most successful adults in today's society combine intellect with emotional intelligence. The successful adult, today, is the one in high school who could make the jocks & cheerleaders and the nerds, alike, feel like a million bucks.

And then there is the question of what constitutes success. Is it money? Is it number of progeny? Is it spiritual tranquility? Is it lack of hostile interactions? Strangely, the article seems to focus on this last one, whereas in centuries and millenia past, hostile interactions would have been seen as "success", assuming they were directed toward competitors for women and scarce resources.

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.

Article fail.

[funkify]

Quirky non-conformity is NOT the same as social retardation. From the way I see it, most "non-conformists" conform quite well to their smaller, alternative cliques.

Re:Selection bias

[Opportunist]

No, GP is right. Freaks that get famous because they're freaks are no sensible sample. They're not "accepted", they're celebrities. Being famous does not mean that someone would also allow "someone like that" in their living room for real. Or want to deal with them on a professional base.

Could you imagine Lady Gaga being responsible for your bank account? Or how about her as your pilot on your next trip? Let's imagine for a moment that she had the qualifications, do you think people would feel at ease with a "freak" responsible for their money or life?

Don't conflate celebrity status with being accepted. Josephine Baker was a celebrity. But how many who cheered for her on stage would have wanted to live next to her?

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.