2arrs, 2ells - marco: What that they don’t understand, maybe,...

12th May 2009

Post reblogged from Marco.org with 76 notes

What that they don’t understand, maybe, is that being a real geek is a very bad thing for a lot of people. Geeks generally had a pretty rough time in school, socially, and rarely have much romantic success during the first portion (if not the entirety) of their lives. Many have crippling social or psychological problems that severely limit their ability to interact with others or work on any sort of team.

Sure, some geeks eventually make something of themselves with knowledge and passions, but many can never overcome their social problems enough to succeed in any field. Many, while they may like geeky things with associated careers (e.g. programming, math, science), aren’t actually very good at them. Many geeky people just don’t have any strong interests in the job-relevant areas — and the job market’s pretty small for experienced LARPers, fanfiction authors, and Trekkers. And many others are socially treated like geeks but don’t have the associated knowledge or passions — they just had some other social problem that caused them a lot of trouble in school, such as disorders, disfigurements, unattractiveness, or poverty.

This geek/faux-geek distinction was really evident at ROFLCon ‘08 when Tron Guy was brushing shoulders with iJustine. Maynard (Tron Guy) is the ultimate geek to me - he loves conventions, cosplay, and his airplane - and that wasn’t going to change no matter how many people on the Internet made fun of him. On the other hand, Justine is a total queen bee - the kind of girl that ruled the playground. She may really love Apple products, but she can never be a geek in the sense Maynard can.

I should add, Tron Guy was not in the geek appreciation video, while iJustine was.

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