Photo by: Hey Paul Studios
It wasn’t long ago that geeks roamed the halls of their high schools in fear; fear of being wedgied or wet-willied or whatever horror the bullies would bestow on them. High school was hell if you couldn’t hide your obsession with video games or comic books, let alone an interest in Dungeons & Dragons. Watch any ’90s teen movie or sitcom and you’ll get the idea.
But over the last few years there has been a turnaround in attitudes. Geeks are cool now. If you need proof, just look to Hollywood.
Some of the highest grossing films of all-time are movies that embody geek culture. Marvel superheroes, Batman, Transformers, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter – these series all have films in the top 20 for highest gross margin. And that doesn’t include merchandising revenues.
These series have garnered huge, obsessive fan bases, on top of their original fans, the old-school geeks. Science fiction and fantasy genres were once reserved only for the geeks and nerds, there was little mainstream interest. The original Star Wars movies are an exception but even then, the Star Wars universe – the novels and lore of the series, the games and the memorabilia – was reserved for only the geekiest of fans.
On TV, The Big Bang Theory illustrates how popular geek culture has become. For a show about a bunch of unapologetic nerds, The Big Bang Theory is incredibly successful. It consistently falls in the top five shows every week according to Neilsen, and is the second most expensive show for advertisers, behind only NBC Sunday Night Football (which is a whole other realm of geekery). Unfortunately, this show isn’t written by geeks and it shows, so there are some people out there who find it patronizing. That hasn’t stopped it from gaining popularity season after season, and it is undeniably perpetuating geek culture.
Nothing has been left untouched by geek culture. Suspenders and bowties are pictured in high-fashion magazines, enthusiastic sports fans have found themselves classified as geeks by TV shows such as The League and even the music industry has been bombarding us with chip-tune and dubstep beats in every song (DJing is super geeky, you guys).
So what is a geek?
Merriam-Webster defines a geek as a person who is socially awkward and unpopular, or a usually intelligent person who does not fit in with other people. This is how geeks have been defined for years, and with these negative definitions it is not hard to see how the label has been avoided for so long.
But there is another definition of a geek: a person with expertise and excessive enthusiasm about a specialized subject.” By that definition, everyone could be considered a geek. The guy on the bus who knows the name and detail of every Pokémon has always been considered a geek. But the football fan who knows the stats of all of his favorite players and spends his nights organizing his fantasy football team – he’s a total geek, too.
Geeks are everywhere, and there is a geekdom for everyone.
Chloe Smith
There’s the movie reviewer for the Escapist that does video about geek culture in general. He has this video about how nerds/geeks/introverts are becoming the driving force in mainstream culture and how that should change some over all attiudes of what it means to be a geek. I think you might find it interesting:http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/7645-With-Great-Power
Sheetal Reddy
“Geek” is such a relative term. By the standards of previous decades, anyone who uses a computer as much as our generation does would have been considered a geek and would get bullied for it. It’s neat to geek culture becoming the mainstream because it makes no sense for people to be ashamed of things they are passionate about. Also, although Doctor Who may not be entirely responsible for it, I’m sure it’s part of the reason why suspenders and bow ties are cool.
Joao Vitor Correa
I think the message is to be smart. Everyone now needs to be smart, because it’s cool as much as fashion, for instance. Being smart gives you the status you need to fit in. Very nice story, good points!