When Did “Geek” Become a Good Thing?
Okay, I admit it. It’s been years – okay, decades – since I was in public school, and I’m not sure the word geek was ever used by anyone my age that lived in my small hometown. Nerd was the term used for those sporting pocket protectors and who were (honest-to-goodness) interested in quantum physics, electronics, and “data.”
After graduating from college, I moved to a “real” city with a very diverse population. I learned a few things and met a few people, some of them geeks. At the time, I didn’t really know they were geeks or even what a geek represented. It didn’t take long for me to figure it out. Being geek was not good.
Things have apparently changed. While I was transitioning from electric typewriter to word processor, learning the difference between a bitmap and a .jpg, and creating a Twitter profile, being a geek became a good thing.
Geeks, formerly known as nerds, no longer carried calculators and mechanical pencils. As a matter of fact, a person would be hard pressed to find a geek with a pencil handy. Who needs a pen when you have a touch screen or keyboard? Furthermore, geeks no longer dressed badly. Geeks actually had social skills, and yes, they became, dare I say it, popular.
As technology became ubiquitous in our world, people in the mainstream became proficient with electronic equipment. They became geeks and they were proud of it. A definition from Urban Dictionary explains geek this way:
An outwardly normal person who has taken the time to learn technical skills. Geeks have as normal a social life as anyone, and usually the only way to tell if someone is a geek is if they inform you of their skills.
The definition of the word geek has not just changed, but it has evolved. No longer is it simply a noun related to technical skills. When used outside the technical arena, it can be used to define those with a real understanding or even an obsession about a certain topic like music or the environment. Geek can even be used as an adjective.
Like the technology that helped to define geek in the modern world, the meaning of this word continues to change. By default our children are geeks, immersed in a digital world. Their education should be as geeky as they are, with opportunities not only to use the ever-improving technology, but to evolve creatively and independently and to explore their own geeky interests.
If you weren’t born with a mouse in your hand, and it’s your job to reach and teach these kids, it’s time to embrace your inner geek. It’s cool these days.