are you a nerd / geek

there was going to be a triptych of nerds of different species and genders but the beardy obese unix admin dude just looked amiss in that company

Why is that lady dressed as Tai from "Clueless"?

is the girl supposed to represent "nerd/geek" or just "nerd/geek" fantasies?

it represents 'geek chic' according to GIS

I don't have breasts, does that make me a nerd or a geek

xp: nerd, then

hbc probably not a girl at this point tho

i guess this is obvious, but the difference between a nerd and a geek is?

it isn't obvious afaik

geek def seems more easily reclaimable/co-opted tho

"geek chic"
About 3,560,000 results (0.16 seconds)

"nerd chic"
About 364,000 results (0.45 seconds)

talking point: does nerd/geek 'mean anything' any more now that prefixing _____ with nerd/geek and employing some black plastic rimmed glasses apparently qualifies for nerdiness/geekiness

needs 'shut-in aspie rube' option

geek def seems more easily reclaimable/co-opted tho

"geek chic"
About 3,560,000 results (0.16 seconds)

"nerd chic"
About 364,000 results (0.45 seconds)

― Some other race (nakhchivan), Friday, April 22, 2011 10:21 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah or it rhymes with "chic"

but who needs an obvious explanation when u can disappear up your own ass

"sexy geeks"
About 41,500 results (0.13 seconds)

"sexy nerds"
About 23,000 results (0.12 seconds)

srsly matt p u r are a retard and shd p much fuck off and choke on yr grits

lol s/p

does the ass disappear as well?

yeah well you are a nerd / geek

nerds are wan, ill-formed and physically hapless specimens, right? the wormlike inferiors pulped beneath more virile cleats. nerds (nurds?) often harbor geeky enthusiasms for the likes of sci-fi, computers and pop music, but this isn't necessarily a defining characteristic. they might just as well be incurious cud-chewers.

geeks, meanwhile, mire themselves and others in the vaguely creepy minutia of their abject devotions. they cultivate odors and often fail to obey the dictates of social convention as regards personal space and tone of voice. for their investment in other worlds, they lose track of this one.

i suppose nerd is the creepiness of failure, while geek is the creepiness of obsession. lines get blurry though.

http://geekcentricity.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Haters_Gonna_Hate_05.jpg

I self identify as a nerd, but the frat guys who drove past me while I was waiting to cross the street to the library let me know that I am, in fact, a dork.

was gonna say, where is dork option on poll

nerd, geek, and dork are interchangeable terms of generic derision to frat boys and the like, so that's an inaccurate indicator of your sub-classification. inversely, if you think that nerds, geeks, and dorks are ontologically distinct then you are likely one of those three things.

^herb

http://www.theonion.com/articles/gaywads-dorkwads-sign-historic-wad-accord,668/

realization that made this decade tolerable: hipster poseur-nerds aren't actually, like a cool version of nerds at all, they're just boring kids who appropriated my lack of style

that just means i suck at life? at least nerd and geek have positive connotations when self-applied.

xpost

inversely, if you think that nerds, geeks, and dorks are ontologically distinct then you are likely one of those three things.

i am certainly all of those three things, so yeah

No choice to be noncommittal about the noncommittal option? I guess I'll go with neither

i've had week long arguments w/ ppl over this distinction, ultimately feel its a narcissism of nonexistent & purely subjective differences that is kind of hilarious & fun to talk about nonetheless

a nerd is just a nerd but a geek is a full blown nerd

kind of hilarious & fun to talk about as long as it's not with a nerd / geek imo

From my dictionary-widget thing:

http://i55.tinypic.com/2qxudl0.png
http://i52.tinypic.com/24wftdi.png
http://i53.tinypic.com/sxn4ah.png
http://i53.tinypic.com/25im0s6.png

I said, get offa the floor, get offa the floor, boy,
People gonna think, yes they're gonna think, people gonna think you're a spazz.

i am not about ~labels~

"change a word into another word by switching the order of two, and only two, letters"

if you pull out 20 in your head from some hidden reservoir of scrabulous neuron clusters, you're a geek.
if you write a computer program to do this, you're a nerd.
possibly a cheater, too.

I don't know which I am (though I surely am at least one of them, or maybe just a dork) but the reclamation of the word geek has been annoying me lately.

Especially since my town has a "geek night" which turns out, on closer inspection of the impeccably kerned small print, to be a web designers' night. Oh boy, we sure reclaimed that word from its pejorative meaning! Now isn't it awesome that we've found a new way to meet fellow edgy nu-media Macbook users in Helvetica t-shirts and not have talks about any other strands of geekdom? Otherwise some old-fashioned geeky geeks might turn up and make us look bad.

"change a word into another word by switching the order of two, and only two, letters"

if you pull out 20 in your head from some hidden reservoir of scrabulous neuron clusters, you're a geek.

I spent tooooo long trying to do this with the word
TWENTY
tewnty? twetny? wtetny?
before realizing this didn't mean "20" would be the ideal word that the mental scrabindex would produce (coded in Arabic numbers like writing YHWH because TWENTY is too perfect for man to put in alphabet except in scrab tylez). Well, I was wrong.

Tho I like in Word Freak when Marlon points out that both
eleven plus two = twelve plus one
and
11+2 = 12+1
are both anagrams on each side of the equals sign. "God put that there," he said.

http://i52.tinypic.com/24wftdi.png

miss the days when dictionary would just offer geek show defs!

Yeah, that is one thing I have to remember when I get cranky about new media reclamations of the word geek, that somewhere there is a physicist with pocket protectors who would be mad that I might call myself a geek, and some chicken-biting fairground dude who would be mad at the physicist, etc.

Holy shit, I just spent a long ass time writing a long ass comment about identities and communities and about how I share interests and pursuits with geeks and nerds but don't feel comfortable identifying as either because I'm very socially adept and like the fourth time I went back to carefully edit my words for clarity I realized that I probably should have just voted "nerd and geek" and been done with it.

"nerd" has a wacky origin too!

http://www.gearlog.com/images/nerdbig%20seuss.gif

I feel like this is a really negative distinction imo - like, I get that geeks are meant to be the "socially acceptable" ones and I don't begrudge people who don't have nerdy interests from making the distinction, but those of us who do should rise above this narcissism of small differences nonsense & admit that fundamentally we're all the same weirdo underneath! Like, I have fairly stylish friends and am confident around people and etc, but that's not because I can't speak for an unbroken hour about Magic The Gathering casting costs past and present - it's because I was born a rich kid with nice cheekbones - you'd be a real self-hating geek or nerd to think that kinda superficial stuff was somehow more important than who you really are? IDK!

Jeeny probably had the right idea tbh - vaguely regret that post already! I dunno, touchy subject I guess.

not really sure of the distinction -- and am old enough to not really care. but i like to think of myself as smart and like to interact with people i consider smart. also i have played d&d and first got glasses in third grade, so

no

or neither i guess whatever

is djp a nerd/geek

definitely a nerd

me that is, can't speak for dan!

the way I understand it, geeks are capable of social lives and are not prisoners of their enthusiasms, even if their enthusiasms would ordinarily set them apart from others; nerds are socially inept and pretty much slaves to their enthusiasms.

I identify as a geek. Geeks and nerds alike seem to get the distinction, and from what I've seen have pretty strong feelings about their classification.

I identify as a cute dog wearing glasses. I also identify with exposed undergarments on hot girls. If there was an ascot instead of merely a fashionably carelessly bound scarf, I'd declare this thread perfect.

geeks are capable of social lives and are not prisoners of their enthusiasms, even if their enthusiasms would ordinarily set them apart from others; nerds are socially inept and pretty much slaves to their enthusiasms.

strange (in a good way) how these words have shifted in meaning through the reclamation process spacecadet mentions upthread. i mean, in common use they've both long been disparagements aimed at your smarter misfits, and it's therefore nice to see them become badges misfit pride.

as i remember it, "geek" was once the harsher term, applied only to the creepiest and most grotesquely flawed of nerdfolk, implying a catastrophic sort of social failure. like to be a nerd was dork-ordinary, but to be a geek was to be remarkably abhorrent in some special way, falling beyond the pale of your garden-variety book hunkered aspies.

welcome back, dude!

"Geek" will always mean, in my internal glossary, one who bites off chicken heads in a sideshow. Thus, metaphorically, I claim that mantle. Literally - I can dream, can't I?

Lol jjj is fooling himself if he doesnt think he is a nerd

How many non-nerds own Steve Jackson d20 fiction and took calculus the year before their high school social class? (ans: 0)

Voted myself as neither. I take self-disparagement in only the tiniest of doses. It tastes too much like false modesty.

as i remember it, "geek" was once the harsher term, applied only to the creepiest and most grotesquely flawed of nerdfolk, implying a catastrophic sort of social failure. like to be a nerd was dork-ordinary, but to be a geek was to be remarkably abhorrent in some special way, falling beyond the pale of your garden-variety book hunkered aspies.

yeah, that's how i always interpreted it.

http://www.videodetective.com/photos/971/040808_3.jpg

genuine nyerd

i used to think i was, but no. um, in general i think that geek culture is corny and bad, and the way geeks consume culture is not interesting. i mean sci-fi geeks, IT geeks, etc. who seem to mostly all like the same stuff. i guess i'm more of a snob

"geek culture" as a thing is indeed irritating, but nerdiness knows no genre bounds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnYoyCgFKSI

"i'm into hard sci-fi, fantasy is bullshit"

<3

in general i think that geek culture is corny and bad, and the way geeks consume culture is not interesting. i mean sci-fi geeks, IT geeks, etc. who seem to mostly all like the same stuff. i guess i'm more of a snob

― daria g, Saturday, 23 April 2011 02:26 (41 minutes ago)

totes

i mean like with cinema it seems the geeks often like things that are complicated and non-linear as long as you can put all the pieces together and explain it all in a clear, linear way and if something is confusing there is always a secret cheat code to figure it out & someone will and that's that. (the wedding ring in 'inception'! so what? still bad! but the suits were v nice)

I wouldve thought geek culture was more Scott Pilgrim & Shaun of the Dead? ...but then I guess everyone has a different definition of geek culture.

welcome back, dude!

― sarahel, Friday, 22 April 2011 20:30 (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah wb contenderizer

dont know abt str8 nerd or nerd polymath, but to me nerd as suffix is cool bc is implies an unusual level of engagement w/ something but doesnt nec imply you're doing it in an autistic way, just that u have a disproportionate ability to get absorbed past the point where others would be like "ok lets do something else now." sci fi nerd, music nerd, fantasy nerd, film nerd, are all p cool & honorable titles

sci fi nerd, music nerd, fantasy nerd, film nerd, are all p cool & honorable titles

ilx0rs honoring the fire

i mean like with cinema it seems the geeks often like things that are complicated and non-linear as long as you can put all the pieces together and explain it all in a clear, linear way and if something is confusing there is always a secret cheat code to figure it out & someone will and that's that. (the wedding ring in 'inception'! so what? still bad! but the suits were v nice)

― daria g, Saturday, April 23, 2011 3:58 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

this is less a "geek" thing and more a "regular moviegoer" thing

stop being so racist against geeks

yes, geeks are a race. they come from the planet where the Highlanders come from (as revealed in the theatrical cut of Highlander 2)

and that is a movie NO ONE can make sense of

yeah, Ive been thinking about this more and I think that while its cool if you don't like geek culture, it might help to identify what it is, or isnt first. I mean, you might just hate mainstream cinema, or over-analysed movies. Or Christopher Nolan.

Seriously though I think Daria is referring a specific kind of geek, i.e. the kind of person who posts comments on Ain't It Cool News and thinks Firefly is the greatest show of all time

Inception really isnt a geek movie, even in the loosest terms.

Nothing drives a geek or a nerd crazier than not "getting" the movie, or worse your Mom and her friends breaking the movie down for you. If geeks dont get the joke right away, and if it doesnt alienate "normal" people, then whats the fun? :)

FIREFLY IS AWESOME DIAFIUD

I'll ask: DIAFIUD means Die in a Fire if You Disagree, right?

Die in a Firefly if You Disagree

wait what is DIAF if i disagree?

don't intubate asshole forksclovetofu [with an] iud

Die in a Ferengi If You Disagree

xpost!
the kind would be nearly all the guys from IT departments i have worked in + group of friends from college who all work in IT in some capacity

individually they definitely have specific tastes but share a lot of common references from shows/film/etc they all know about. i don't think any of them bother posting irate comments on the internet ever!

i think i'm kind of envious of the camraderie. there's a rohmer series playing at the afi and it's like, i wish i knew a group of people who would be all interested in this thing

regular movies are horrible, i can't even watch them tbh

Dance Inside A Foxhole If Under Duress

uh, yeah!

regular movies are horrible, i can't even watch them tbh

― daria g, Saturday, April 23, 2011 6:14 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

can't really argue with this

daria would you like to go see a movie w/me

geek shit i am thoroughly done with: star wars, zombies, superheroes

haha i was just thinking "i would like to go see a rohmer film"

stop being so racist against geeks

― shamefully blowable (latebloomer), Saturday, April 23, 2011 6:45 AM (4 hours ago)

"Geeky? That's discrimination!"

(from Takashi Miike's MPD-Psycho)

nerd ^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mRG2oAQhso

Answer me this, nerds: Why is Takashi dressed as a Native American? Who hits a gong?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

~innnnntresting~

there are lots of nerds who infiltrated pro sports, but was billy mitchell the first jock to have infiltrated and colonized nerd culture?

on a similar dance tip: i think that pilobolus was started by some dartmouth football players who took a dance class together

whoops

i meant billy elliot

ack! belated hi dere to sarahel, hi sarah!

there are lots of nerds who infiltrated pro sports, but was billy mitchell the first jock to have infiltrated and colonized nerd culture?

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 23:24 (Yesterday)

billy mitchell isn't a jock. he's a classic alpha nerd!

I hope one of the defining features of alpha nerddom is helping out elderly Q-Bert fans.

haw

"billy mitchell isn't a jock. he's a classic alpha nerd!"
hm... you're right! maybe billy beane then?

My wife just discovered that I've conducted 22 horror film polls on ilx. I feel like the nerdiest geek ever.

my parents held a party for family friends and like four of my friends when i graduated from lolcollege, and we all got stoned and drunk and my dad started talking endlessly about the history of The Sonics (as in "Strychnine") and then there was this period of silence and my friend said, "i think i get where you get it from now."

genuine nyerd

― offee is for losers only, do you not c? (Abbbottt), Friday, April 22, 2011 9:11 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

haha i was totally thinking of that guy when i opened the thread

I just watched the episode of Big Bang Theory where Raj and Howard fake being goths and go to a goth club and I ROFLed all the way through it :/

There's two new-ish shops in Glasgow with "Geek" in their names. I never went into either but I looked into the window of one of them today and it seemed to be mostly expensive collectable junk. I'm a bit worried but I don't know if this poses much of a new threat to anything that is good but it's not nice seeing more people buying into all the worst aspects of this culture.
People often say that this side of comics fandom is dying out and is being replaced by something more positive but I'm not so sure. The bad side seems to be going more mainstream.

I don't know where to put this so I'm putting it here

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/kids/kidsmain.htm

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/kids/images/major_uncertainty_front_web.jpg
An alien invader from parts unknown, Major Uncertainty uses his less-than-trustworthy monkey wrench to generate a dreadful "chaos beam," which causes us to doubt the accuracy and precision of our measurements.

Major Uncertainty feeds on this doubt, which makes him bigger, stronger, and less pleasant to be around.

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/kids/images/second_front_web.jpg

By reading the vibrations of her laser-cooled cesium atoms, Professor Second can synchronize any frequency and correct any clock.

A second is the time it takes an excited cesium atom to vibrate 9,192,631,770 times.

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/kids/images/kilogram_front_web.jpg

With his immensely strong arms, Monsieur Kilogram is the master of mass.

The kilogram is a cylinder of special metal about 39 millimeters wide by 39 millimeters tall that serves as the world’s mass standard.

Some of these need to go in the "Girl, you must be a [x]" thread.

the Steve Jobs Broadway musical Nerds has been cancelled!

i see lots of stuff online about geek culture and nerd culture but nothing about dork culture, so the field of dork theory is wide open.

just from my personal observations i think the central and defining characteristic of dork culture is you think the princess bride is the best movie ever. i'm sure there's more to it, but that's the heart of it.

usedta be a nerd, never been a geek

Where my dweebs at?

why is that, tho? why think one and not the other? just wondering what yr personal distinction is.

there are think pieces on geek vs nerd and sometimes dork but nobody's compiling data and doing a systematic approach to the issue. i'm throwing it out there as a dork: this is a shameful episode for the geek and nerd communities that a dork has to call them out and say there's neither a geeky nor a nerdy approach to this issue in evidence. it's always some writer's opinion about what differentiates a nerd from a geek; where's your data? find a sociologist and have them do surveys and analysis and then if you disagree with their methodology ok fine but absent that how the hell can anyone who thinks there's a geek vs nerd distinction even start to have grounds for argument? what study are you disputing?

i just think anyone who calls themselves a nerd or geek would have fact-based claims. dorks get a pass because nobody gives a shit about what we think and that's what makes us free to just dork through life.

re: the nerd but never geek post. dweebs i counts as dorks.

well, our interests may align at this juncture.

i am down with the dweeb resistance so more power to you, brother. may you persevere in perpetuity.

there should be a new poll with more options to reflect our changing times. I personally identify as a twat.

geek def seems more easily reclaimable/co-opted tho

"geek chic"
About 3,560,000 results (0.16 seconds)

"nerd chic"
About 364,000 results (0.45 seconds)

― Some other race (nakhchivan), Friday, April 22, 2011 10:21 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah or it rhymes with "chic"

― motivatedgirl (Matt P), Friday, April 22, 2011 12:27 PM (eleven years ago)

i haha'd at this one

then i disappeared waaaaaaaaaaay up my own ass