Being a Star Wars geek does NOT make me an LOTR geek! (Lame)

The BBQ Pit
1

Just to get this off my chest:

Yes, I am a Star Wars geek. Yes, I have waited in line for 6 hours to get Episode I tickets. Yes, I have bought every action figure made on God’s green Earth in the last 3 years, the Lego sets included. Yes, I regularly read the comics, and I even forced my way through the muddle of the New Jedi Order novels. Yes, I spent 3 hours painting my own head so I’d look like Darth Maul at Halloween.

DESPITE all this, having a passion for Star Wars does NOT automatically make me nuts about LOTR. I am looking forward to Return of the King, but perhaps not a whole lot more than the average person who ALSO just got into the genre back in 2001. Quit asking me if I’m going to midnight showings. Quit assuming that because I love one particular form of fanboy fiction, I must be nuts about all others.

Geekdom is not transitive. Thank you.

2

I always figured people who read Star Trek paperbacks were nuts period. :smiley:

3

Did you listen to Morning Edition today? They featured a short piece on Star Wars geekdom vs. LOTR geekdom.

I thought it was pretty amusing, but then I belong to neither camp. Any Star Wars fan who criticizes LOTR for “corny” dialogue such as “The forces of evil are strong here” has forgotten about lines like “I sense a great disturbance in the force.”

4

I’m your exact opposite. I am a LOTR geek girl and it’s assumed (AND we all know what happens when you assume, correct?) that I must love Star Wars and Star Trek, as if it’s all lumped together under the same geekdom. Geekdom has many facets, many interests, many lands…

I don’t go “both” ways… I go the fantasy way.

5

Mm… not so sure I would agree with the statement that “geekdom is not transitive.”

After all, to the average joe on the street, both SW and LOTR is “made up stuff what coont happen nohow.”

Therefore, there is no effective difference between the two, to a fair segment of the population.

YOU, of course, feel differently. Big difference. You like SW. You couldn’t care less about LOTR. Two totally different flavors.

…like football and basketball… two things that many geeks couldn’t care less about, and classify as “all that ESPN stuff.”

Follow my drift? :slight_smile:

Geekdom is not transitive, in that being a geek of one stripe does not necessarily enter you in all categories. Hell, some of the worst intergeek rivalry I’ve ever seen is between historical gamers and fantasy gamers… two geek frames of reference that a Star Wars geek likely would not be able to distinguish between unless he was also a game geek…

…all of which is totally opaque to the outsider. One is a geek, or one is not. And to the outsider, if you’re a true geek, then you are equally knowledgeable about (and enthusiastic about) Star Wars, LOTR, Dungeons and Dragons, Star Trek, comic books, miniatures games, Aliens Vs. Predator, Everquest…

For some reason, I regularly amaze people when I mention that I like LOTR or Star Trek a great deal… and then reveal that I don’t know diddly about the new Star Wars films, and have never played Everquest…

6

Uh oh. I’m a girl who loves Star Wars. Has every episode of Star Trek: TNG on tape. Has ready LOTR trilogy every year since 1979. Has been known to play D&D. Has Summoner Geeks as a mainstay on my hard drive. Could watch Babylon 5 for 12 hours in a row. And ::clears her throat with embarassment:: has a level 65 Druid on Everquest that I’ve played for 4 years.

::hangs her head:: I guess I’m Super Geek.

7

:: banquetbear gets down on one knee ::

Tams, will you marry me???

… just kidding, but its nice to meet another Super Geek!!!

:: wallows back to Middle Earth… ::

8

I always rather preferred the term “ubergeek.”

I always also rather liked the term “alpha geek”… as in, “You say you’re having computer problems? Check with John, he’s the Alpha Geek,” or “I don’t know which issue of Fantastic Four had the first appearance of Doctor Doom, but you could check with Bob – he’s the Alpha Geek where comics are concerned…”

9

My long-lost twin!

(What server? :stuck_out_tongue: Bertox here.)

Yeah, geekdom definitely doesn’t have to span all the different categories, but occasionally it can. At the last wedding I went to, the bride wanted a group of us at a particular table to figure out why she sat us all together. After about 15 minutes of discussion, the answer was “We’re geeks.” Not all of our interest areas overlapped, but there was enough to make it humorous - and easy to talk to total strangers while at a wedding reception.

10

You’re not a LOTR geek?

Uh huh…then 'splain this photo of you, Sherlock.

11

Welcome to the boards Tams! You are going to be quite popular here.

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3 Hours!?! What the hell took you so long? I can do mine in 25 minutes flat.

13

Heh… the reverse is true for me. I’m a reknowned LOTR geek around my friends and acquaintances, but definitely not an SW geek. I like science-fiction and fantasy both, but LOTR turns me easily into a ravening fanboy.

Fortunately, I must have done a pretty good job of impressing this distinction on those around me, because there is little confusion on the subject. Must be the Aragorn costume. And maybe the swords.

14

I am both a huge LOTR geek and a huge SW geek… as well as just huge, period. Hell, I’m such a huge geek that the only movie that supplanted the original SW trilogy as my favorite movie of all time has been the LOTR trilogy…

… Though I didn’t read the the entire New Jedi Order series… but I DID mourn for a month when Chewie died.

15

Res, honey, you’ll always a perfectly adequate geek no matter what form you take.

I’m not sure you should be too definite about what kind of geek you ain’t. Your Simpsons mania is just one notch past troubling.

P.S. Gotcher Christmas card–THANKS!

16

Meh. All us Dopers have some basic proficiency in Simpsonia.

Anyone ever been to a Dopefest where EVERYBODY knows ALL the words to “the Stonecutter song”? Scary, I tells ya.

17

Not in all cases, certainly, but the trio of slovenly, lumpen twentysomething twats fighting each other with plastic extend-o-lightsabers in the aisle of the cinema before my showing of Return of the King yesterday afternoon provide a decidedly compelling example of the phenomenon.

I am certainly a geek, and I am probably even a nerd, but by no stretch of the imagination will I admit to being a dork.

18

Is that your sword or are you just happy to see me?:wink:

LOTR RULES!! Whooohoo!

Oh, and… HUZZAH!

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… I’m just going to say that it’s Trekk_er_, not Trekkie, thank you. Those folks is all kiiiinds of crazy.

20

Exactly, Sabbath. I also prefer Trekker. The difference:

Trekker: Watches all the new Trek movies on opening day. Goes to any Trek convention in the area. May own a tricorder or Star Trek plate.

Trekkie: Goes to any new Trek movie on opening day in full Klingon costume and talks Klingon to the other moviegoers. Goes to any Trek convention in full Klingon costume and takes every “How to learn Klingon in 4 hour” class he/she sees. Owns every tricorder version ever made, every action figure, has added Trek music and dialogue to home movies and shows them on a big screen at the convention.

Trekker’s can pass for normal people, perhaps mildly on the geek side. Trekkie’s will always look like dorks.

However, that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the enthusiasm of the Trekkie’s at conventions and movie openings. They give me free added entertainment. I just don’t want to hang with them outside of Trek events. :wink: