I share quite a lot of infographics in my role as a freelance short post writer for Lifehack that invoke some err, opinions. It’s not my job to convey my thoughts on the matter when I write the articles for another site, but here I enjoy over-analysing everything. So, let’s talk about ‘50 Things A Geek Should Know’:
This infographic - or anything that promotes a ridiculous concept of elitism in interests and cultures that every human being has a right to be a part of - gets on my tits. Let’s say that being a geek makes you different to other people, let’s pretend it’s actually as important as society makes it out to be: you’re a special snowflakes made of pixels and Star Wars trivia. Is it still necessary to have this sort of mentality about being a geek or more importantly, those who are not?
The creator of this infographic seems to have similar thought processes to a spoilt child and it encourages a competitive nature where it isn’t necessary. It doesn’t even cover most things I personally would find ‘geeky’. It’s as though no one can have interests in these things because some people like it more, they liked it first, they’re more enthusiastic: everyone bow down and stop doing this shit because the Geek throne has been claimed.
There was one comment on my article that read “I am very happy you wrote this post. It weeds out the hipster geek wannabes who “look” like geeks but probably fail this test!!!” and I was actually really surprised. Especially since I’d encouraged readers to ignore the elitist nature it conveys as it’s socially harmful. I’m not saying that they can’t have an opinion but that is the complete antithesis of my reasons for publishing this. Some people who fall into the ‘hipster’ subculture category are annoying, I’ll give her that, but I don’t understand why people get so irritated by other’s sharing interests. I think they view it as encroaching on their territory, making it less unique and somewhat cheapening the experience and validity of those who do actually believe themselves to fall into the geek stereotype. All I can say to those people is calm down. It’s this whole idea that we have a right to judge others and spend more time attempting to devalue others’ decisions instead of focusing on our own lives because for some reason they offend us. Those “hipster geek wannabes” are not trying to offend you, they’re just living their lives.
Thankfully, most other reactions were from people who just debated whether these things made us geeks or nerds, or were more of the “who cares” mentality like I am. Fair enough, it’s okay to be proud about your interests; I got 22 on this which I was surprised at, but I’m not about to start ridiculing people who don’t know any of these because the ‘test’ its self doesn’t mean anything, it’s the language and cause behind it that annoys me.
Is ‘geek’ still even a term that refers to people who like Star Trek and computers anymore? It’s more of a word that denotes an enthusiasm for a certain thing now in some ways I think. Book geeks, art geeks, food geeks. I get referred to as a geek a lot because I do like and am enthusiastic about some of the more stereotypical geek stuff, from the more knowledge based stuff to the movies and video games. But I also get called a geek when I talk about guns or philosophy or even feminism. Maybe the time of the guy being ostracised for sitting in his basement playing warhammer at the weekends has passed and being a geek in general is a lot socially common. So why would that annoy people who have developed a geeky self-perception? Surely this is a good thing?
I don’t know. I don’t want to devalue those people’s feelings and thoughts but I also can’t validate them; you’re being a douche if you look down on someone who doesn’t know as much about something as you do. That doesn’t make you better than them and it doesn’t mean their interest isn’t genuine or that they can’t participate. You may have firmly placed yourself in the Geek box but you are making other people feel uncomfortable now by introducing a competitive nature to the subculture. Get off your pedestal and come play with us lowly ones who didn’t score 50/50.
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