Iconic Moments in Growing Your Inner Geek

I would never presume to write a definitive list of “things you must do to be a proper geek.” The reasons for such discretion are primarily practical - I don’t want to deal with my Constant Readers’ “constructive criticism” that I forgot this or that, or should not have included something else. Also, there is the fundamental disagreement amongst interested parties as to what precisely constitutes a geek (as opposed to a nerd, dork, dweeb, etc.) and exactly what type of geek a particular person is. Eventually, we will have to have some sort of U.N. sanctioned international summit to resolve this question (as if the U.N. ever resolves anything - political zing!), but until then I will go with a fairly broad definition of a geek as someone with an inordinate interest in one or more areas of popular or niche culture which have nothing to do with athleticism. “Geek” is in no way mutually exclusive from the other terms mentioned above - one can be a “geek” and a “nerd” - but one is not the same as the other (though I and others may occasionally use such terms interchangeably out of literary laziness).

Understand, when I use the word “geek” I (a) paint myself with the same brush, and (b) do not mean it as a derogatory term in any form or fashion. Urban Dictionary (yeah, I know - I need a new source) describes geeks as “the people you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult.” I think the spirit of that definition is accurate more often than not, as geeks tend to be people who think outside the box, and are non-conformists in some sense other than the really annoying teenage angst sense where “no one understands me, so I’ll go listen to Modest Mouse and grow out my bangs.” Geeks are well served in later life by being their own people, while often being ostracized in early life because they didn’t conform to some arbitrary standard of interests, hobbies, or fashion.

One can be a geek in a single category, as in someone who is well adjusted in most respects but has an unhealthy fascination with all things Disney. Not that I know anyone like that. Ahem. More often, geeks tend to hold interests in multiple “geek” categories - sci-fi, fantasy, role playing games, video games, comic books, etc. These are the more well-rounded geeks, but too many geek interests can counteract the constructive aspects of being a geek by making one a lazy slacker.

One can be a geek about a specific movie, TV, or book franchise, or one can get geeky about a more mainstream hobby - band is a great example. You knew them in high school, and may have been one yourself - there were kids in band, and then there were band geeks. Many of my friends are proudly self-described band geeks. I myself was a theater geek in high school. My parents wouldn’t sign the permission slip for me to warm the bench on the football team, so I had to do something, and that was where I found my niche. In the old days, AV clubs were havens for geeks, and though they probably aren’t called that anymore, any high school club involving computer based design, film-production, or audio/visual editing of some other kind is probably filled with geeks.

So, like I was saying, there’s a lot to take into account when discussing the general concept of “geeks,” so a definitive list of geek behaviors, or key moments in geekdom would be hard to pull together. That said, I am a geek and I know a lot of geeks, and there are many, many common experiences shared in and amongst those geeks I’ve known over the years. Herein, I offer a short list of Iconic Moments in Growing Your Inner Geek. Most people will not have had all of these experiences (I myself have not had all of them) but most well-rounded geeks will probably have had more than one. Enjoy.

Watching the Original Trilogy - The capitalization is not poor grammar, as there is only one Original Trilogy. Not all geeks are Star Wars fans, though it is a rare geek who truly dislikes episodes four through six in their original format, and an even rarer geek who has not at least watched these three films (cough cough *wife* cough cough). Star Wars was a defining cultural achievement, both for cinema special effects and sci-fi in general, as it allowed the concept of “space opera” to be part of popular, as opposed to niche, culture. Besides, if you can’t whip out a convenient Yoda quote when someone sets you up by saying “I’ll try,” you are socially crippled. I grew up in a generation that had “lightsaber duels” with broom handles almost as often as we had “sword fights.” From a distance they look the same, but the sound effects are miles apart. More importantly, we grew up innocent of such nonsense as Jar-Jar Binks and pod-racing intergalactic dictators. Needless to say, my early memories of the Trilogy are strong in the Force.

Mocking the Prequel Trilogy - No one hates like an old-school Star Wars fan scorned. Unlike the Original Trilogy, however, one does not need to have actually seen the movies to establish this geek bona fides, as popular culture, Youtube parodies, and RiffTrax have given us multiple ways to appreciate the finer points of the best franchise ever squandered without actually sitting through seven+ hours of excruciatingly painful “entertainment.” Midichlorians... George Lucas, you jackass.
In the same vein as this experience, but eliciting slightly less rage, is mocking the alterations to the Original Trilogy added in the “updated” versions. Among the more egregious - Greedo shooting first, the awful CGI Jabba, and the mighty “rings of doom” exploding outward from the two destroyed Death Stars. Unlimited resources and that was how you “fixed” the explosions George? Poor show old chap.

Rolling Dice- Depending on what phase of life you first experienced table-top role playing games (RPGs), you may today deny ever having had the experience, or avoid conversations where the subject comes up, but you’re just denying your inner geek. Many of us have known the joy, at one point or another, of sitting around a table drinking heavily caffeinated beverages until three a.m. and pretending to be a level seven half-elven ranger with a Ring of Sustenance, whose actions (and the outcomes of those actions) are ultimately determined by the roll of a twelve-sided die and the whims of a Game Master, or GM. And we’ve also experienced the boredom of putting up with the player at the table whose role play side-story took two hours to resolve with the GM while the rest of us grow more and more sleepy and likely to take our dice and leave. Table top role-playing is a rite of passage for many geeks, whether its the traditional medieval sword and sorcery variety (i.e., Dungeons and Dragons), or something more contemporary, or even futuristic. There are RPGs with themes ranging from western to pirate, space to other dimensional, ancient past to ridiculously unlikely future.
The big problem most people have with table top RPGs is the speed of the game, as calculating results by hand with the aid of dice is time consuming, and arguing over fine points of rules with a GM or other players is tedious. Video game RPGs (Final Fantasy, for example) eliminate that element but take away much of the social aspect. Enter Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft, which have become intensely popular in recent years, even drawing in the advertising credentials of significant (and less than significant) celebrities. These games allow you to be social - ostensibly - by playing online with friends or people you have never met, but have nothing like the social experience of sitting at a table with a few friends and going old school with paper and pencil and a few dice. Hopefully, as big as World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs have become, they will not replace the table top experience for the next generation of geeks. That’s where it all started, and there’s still a place

Reading LOTR and/or Harry Potter - No, I do not think the two are interchangeable. In my view, both have a great deal of merit, but I include them together because they are exceedingly popular, exceedingly geeky book series, and each to some extent defines a generation of readers. In the sixties, LOTR (Lord of the Rings, for the uninitiated) fans scrawled “Frodo Lives” on subway walls in New York, and took pilgrimages to the home of J.R.R. Tolkien. Apparently, Mr. Tolkien did not understand what all the fuss was about, but was generally quite pleased at how well received his books were.
In the last decade, Potter fans have clogged bookstores for midnight BOOK releases (think about that crazy sh**), often wearing costumes. I’ve seen five year olds devouring the eight hundred page tomes of the Potter series, so clearly there is something to these books. I myself destroyed The Deathly Hallows three days before taking the bar exam, and threatened anyone who wanted to dissect the exam with me after the fact with spoiling the end of the story. It was very effective (shocking, that law schools would be full of geeks).
Both book series have inspired incredibly successful movies (of varying quality), but nothing about the movies replaces the first experience of reading the books themselves.

Utilizing Star Trek in everyday conversation - Whether it’s a direct quote, an homage to the Shatner’s broken delivery style, analogizing a situation to an engineering problem Geordi LaForge had to overcome, or simply testing a possible love-interest with the query “Death Star versus Borg Cube - who wins?” (this is a story for another time), the first time one references Star Trek in everyday life is a special occasion indeed. Like with Star Wars, one does not have to be a Trekkie (or Trekker) to be a true geek, but also like with Star Wars, it is a rare geek that doesn’t have a passing familiarity with some of the characters, situations, and actors of the iconic series. A certain amount of mocking is to be expected, as most fans acknowledge the original series had weak points, the first few seasons of TNG were terrible, and Voyager might as well take a long walk off a short pier. But unlike with the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, most Trek fan ribbing is good natured, and for the most part the bad is enjoyed right along side the good.

Attending your first “Con” - “Cons,” or conventions, generally implies either a thematic convention of small to medium stature (for example, a Star Trek convention in Akron, Ohio, or a Comic Book Convention in Charlotte, NC) or one of the much larger geek meccas which occur throughout the year in major U.S. cities which have no particular theme and seemingly cover all things geek (Comic Con in San Diego - going on right now! - or Dragon Con in Atlanta later in the fall). Cons are all about fully embracing whatever it is that has drawn you to the Con, which inevitably is some incredibly geeky side of you. Whether it is an interest in gaming (board or role play), anime, sci-fi, fantasy, comic books, the latest project by Joss Wheedon/A.J. Abrams/Chris Nolan/Marvel Studios, the Dresden Files, or just fishing around for fellow cosplay aficionados (if you don’t know, you’re better for it, and I’m not explaining the concept), there is a Con or Cons for you. Think what you will about the people who show up in wizard robes and chain mail - you are only in a position to judge at all because you are at the same Con. Embrace your geekdom and put on your Spock ears.

Having your first midnight movie hangover - Off the top of my head, I cannot think of movie that had a midnight premiere that doesn’t qualify as a geeky movie in some form or fashion.* The latest round of Batman films, Harry Potter, the Star Wars Prequels, the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot - the only So if you’ve ever been to a midnight showing of any movie, the odds are good your have some geek in you. Depending on your age at the time (midnight movies tend to be dominated by high school and college age geeks) you may have bounced back easily, but the mignight movie hangover is an experience unique to the fully formed, post-college geek. There are no more excuses. You’re old enough to know better. You’re still out doing this crap. You are Geek. Go roar, or something.


* Although the Twilight Saga had midnight showings, and every self-respecting geek I know despises Twilight fans almost as much as they hate Jar-Jar Binks, there is no denying that if you have an affinity for werewolves and vampires, you are probably harboring some geeky tendencies. Therefore, I grudgingly include even this detestable franchise and those who stayed up to watch the premieres in this discussion. Losers.

These are just a few iconic geek-oriented experiences that may help you identify whether or not you are, in fact, a geek. If you recognize yourself in some of these experiences, congratulations - you may be a geek. Keep doing what you’re doing and let your geek grow. If you haven’t had any of these experiences... what the heck is wrong with you? Even “cool kids” get references to Kirk and Spock!