Geeks Come In All Shapes, Sizes, And Majors

Geeks

Geeks Come In All Shapes, Sizes, And Majors

I am fairly sure that I am a geek or a nerd or a dork or what have you. I’ve watched all of Firefly more than once. I read Terry Pratchett religiously. When I was younger I memorized the lyrics in Japanese to “Just Communication” (the first opening song for Gundam Wing) even though I didn’t know or speak Japanese. I’ve beaten Chrono Trigger four times. I watch My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. I frequently quote Lucas Arts Adventure games. I even own the biography of Nikola Tesla.


Can you blame me? That man is sexy.

In my eyes, I do not see how I could be denied my geekdom, but I am. I am told that I am not a TRUE nerd or geek because I am a Finance major. “Finance isn’t nerdy”. That’s what they tell me, they being my friends, these friends being Electrical Engineers. This is true; Business in general is not very nerdy. I remember my professor in my Business Calculus class making a joke about Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (specifically about the number 42) and I was the only one who knew what the joke was about. Business nerds tend to be foreign exchange students from Asian countries who read manga online during class.

My friends claim that because I don’t know programming like they do, or because I don’t know as much math as they do, or because I don’t know as much business as they do, or because my major is easier, that my dorkiness is somehow less valid.

Many of us have probably heard before “you’re not ______ therefore you can’t understand this” or “you’re not ______, you wouldn’t understand”. It’s not just Business majors who experience this. This is Communications, Theater, Art, Nursing, Law, Theology. This is not just males, this is also females. This is not just short people, this is tall people. This is not just Whites, this is Asians, Blacks, Latinos. This is everybody.

This is why I ask YOU, my fellow Ogeeku to share your experiences in which your geek/nerd/dork status has been questioned. Together we can rise up against those who deny us and prove that we are indeed dorky, we are for sure nerdy, we are definitely OGEEKU. (Or Odorku for those of us who have realized the folly of our ways)

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  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/svents/ SvenTS

    A great point to bring up. It’s really annoying to see the all too common divisiveness amongst the culture. Just because you aren’t fond of one fandom, or genre, or topic does not mean it has to be lesser or ‘other’.

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/thundercaya/ ThunderCaya

    My nerdity has not been questioned. I guess I’m lucky.

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/warning756/ Logan

    You’re not a nerd, you haven’t watched Dr. Who

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/ibun/ Ibun West

    The way I see it, in order to be nerdy/geeky/dorky, all that means is that you have a huge passion for something. The something doesn’t have to be inherently part of what is generally consdiered the geek bubble, either. The Reduced Shakespeare Company (a hilarious theatre troupe by the way) does a bit in their sports show that explains how sports fans are in fact, huge nerds. Everyone who loves sports probably has a favorite player. This is no different than having a favorite character in an anime. Preferring an old manager/player/owner that has since left to the current one is no different than preferring Kirk to Picard. Classic rivalries like Red Sox vs. Yankees is the same as Star Trek vs. Star Wars. (In the sense that both fan bases are equally passionate about their chosen team/series.) I could go on in my comparisons; but I think my point is made.

    On a secondary note, I’d like to point out that, unsurprisingly, this also happens in the furry fandom. Although it is more based around a persons’ particular fetish of choice and not how geeky one is, it still causes for divisions. This never ceases to amaze me because, let’s face it, being a furry in the first place is not exactly a decision most people would announce ot the world. It is still a fandom that is highly meligned in the public eye, thanks in no small part to all the extremist furries that appear on TV shows. So even inside a fandom that is generally looked down upon from the outside, there are people who look down upon their bretheren just as much.

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/xavierteatime/ Christopher Acciardi

    It’s true that most nerds seem to have a head for numbers above anything else; almost all of my friends are accounting or computer science or engineering majors. Me, I’m a Political Science major. I’ve always struggled with math. It has never leaped out at me as something easy or particularly interesting.

    I think that’s the biggest way in which my ‘nerd-ability’ is called into question; though my biggest passion is video games, I am for all intents and purposes a ‘casual.’ When my friends and I play Marvel vs. Capcom 3, they calculate hit points versus attack speed and know exactly how many hits per combo they can get with he proper execution of the right sequence of buttons. Same with MMOs – they’ll bring up spreadsheets and calculators and do hours of research determining what talents to spec into with their chosen class. It’s a very heavy form of min/maxing in which they use their affinity with numbers to eke out as much potential for victory as they can.

    Me? I don’t do ANY of that stuff. I’m all about story and roleplaying, even in games like MvC3. I’ll pick a team because I think it’d be cool to have those three characters travel around on adventures together (my favorite is Taskmaster, I generally pick him and 2 others that he is teaching as part of his mercenary school). In MMOs, I pick the class that I feel works into a story I want to tell, and if a set of armor looks cooler than the set that makes the most sense for me, stat-wise, I’ll go with that instead. This kind of attitude seems to infuriate a lot of gamers. Anyone who has ever RPed in one of these games has undoubtedly heard some non-RPer yell at them to GTFO for being a dirty, filthy casual.

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/dukekataron/ DukeKataron

    My geek-factor has only ever really been questioned when somebody makes a reference that just goes way over my head. As I stare blankly at them, they may utter an awful phrase like “Oh, I thought you were a nerd”. Bitch I AM a nerd. Doesn’t mean I keep up to date on everything you do. Now explain your damn reference to me so I can decide whether or not what it’s from is worthy of my time!

    Aside from that, I hang out with a lot of really geeky people, and we all have our areas of expertise and nerdiness. I love video games and stories, and I have an unhealthy obsession with television and movies. Not that my video gameobsession is particularly healthy either. I mean, my Steam account alone has 302 things on it, although a good chunk of those are DLC and minor things that don’t actually pop up in my library. When my friends need an obscure video game reference identified, or an actor in a movie identified, they ask me. Unless imdb is handy, then I guess they ask that. But if I’m there, they ask me, and I usually have the answer! But when it’s something about programming or math or any variety of things I don’t remotely understand, I go straight to my friends. We all fit together in this nerdy world of ours.

    Thankfully SOME of us have a Hive Mind where we can all contribute our nerdiness together in hopes of becoming the ULTIMATE NERD. Or ULTIMATE GEEK. Or ULTIMATE DORK. I’d settle for ULTIMATE AVENGER.

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/tochisan/ Tochisan

    Fortunately (or unfortunately if you prefer), my geek status has never been questioned. I am undoubtedly the geekiest of my friends. I play musical instruments (saxophone, piano, toying with bass and guitar), and was in Marching, Concert and Jazz band in High School. I watch anime, How it’s Made, and Gamebreaker.tv. I have gamed since I was 6 (I’m now 32). I have fixed computers since I was 12, and I work as a Programmer/Web Developer, previously having worked Helpdesk, Sys Admin and even as a Field Tech… totaling over 15 years of IT experience. I write my emails and chat with complete sentences and paragraph structure (this fact won me a girlfriend of over 5 years).

    I seem to exude geek. So much so that no one has ever even questioned my geekiness and automatically assume (incorrectly of course) that I know anything and everything “Geek”.

    So I guess I might be the counter argument here… or maybe I just don’t hang around enough purebred geeks… I don’t write star wars/trek/harry potter fan-fiction, or any fan-fiction for that matter. I don’t (or haven’t yet) cosplay.

    Undoubtedly, if anything, this site would be the one place geeky enough to question my geekiness. But I like to think that we’re a collective here and we accept our own regardless of their “flavor” of geek.

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/tochisan/ Tochisan

    I don’t agree with this. While I do think that geeks should be accepted regardless of your type of geek. I think there are limitations as to what constitutes a geek. Personally I wouldn’t consider an extreme fan of Twilight to be a geek. They may have other geek qualities that qualify for the title, but Twilight by itself doesn’t a geek make.

    To me, a Finance major alone isn’t a geek, but combine a Finance Major with other things like video gaming, sci-fi, etc, and then you’ve got a geek.

    To me, there aren’t a whole lot of single subject geeks out there.

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/snotsnit/ Michael Eisen

    Says you. I currently am catching up on Dr. Who. If anything, that makes me nerdier cause I remember the old stuff

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/snotsnit/ Michael Eisen

    My life has vastly improved since I became part of a hive mind

  • http://www.ogeeku.com/member/nendian/ Maddie Keller

    I actually take pride in not looking “geeky”. I’m a costume designer so one of the things I geek out about is clothes. I guess when most people picture geeks they think of someone who dresses in Japanese street fashion or always has a button down shirt with a pocket protector, but I like pretty shoes and vintage clothes. I always enjoy the surprised “You read comics???” or “You watch anime???” Only everyday!!
    I call myself a lipstick geek.