I’ve lived in or near fandom subculture since I discovered D&D back in '76, so I feel somewhat qualified to comment.
Nerd is definitely worse than Geek. The two are not synonyms for each other, and its possible to be one without the other.
Nerd --> social disfunction
Geek --> obsessive interest in fringy topics
Examples:
The flabby, middle-aged law clerk who lives alone and watches movies on HBO every night while he eats his Lean Cuisine – Nerd, not Geek.
The pimply-faced 17-year-old you see on the bus, carrying a briefcase and talking in an overly loud voice to his buddies about whether Cthulhu could win a fight against the Deathstar – Nerd, Geek.
The cute girl with all the piercings who works at the coffee shop and who, you are surprised to discover, has an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure anime – not Nerd, Geek.
The guys in the fraternity down the street who spend their free time getting drunk and watching sports – not Nerd, not Geek.
I’ve been a Geek all my life but I was never really a Nerd. I played D&D in high school, but I also played sports and had a social life. I’ve known a lot of Nerds in my day and usually they’re pretty fun to hang with as long as you can recalibrate your own social skills to compensate. I find that spending time with non-Geeks is just painful though – they don’t usually have much interesting to say … .
(And yes, Geek used to be an insult. But we long ago reclaimed it and made it ours. Gooble gobble, one of us, gooble gobble, one of us … .)
I always thought that geeks were the socially inept ones, and I would prefer to be called a nerd. Not to mention the fact that our school newspaper just had an ad looking for a nerd–yes, they used that word. Probably depends on how you’re used to hearing the words used.
BTW, anyone with an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure anime is better called (and in most cases, would probably prefer) the term otaku. This changes is they also know that otaku in Japan is an insult.
LOL, I almost threw Otaku into my post. From what I understand Otaku in Japan combines the worst aspects of both Nerd and Geek – social disfunction that borders on the pathological coupled with a total disengagement from reality. What we in the U.S. would probably call a Creep.
I suspect that the milder meaning of the term in the U.S. is the result of Otaku No Video, a humorous anime from the early 90’s about a fanboy trying to become the Otaku of Otakus – the king of all fandom. I suspect in Japan it would have played as a kind of self-loathing satire, (like Evan Dorkin’s Eltingville comics) but here, cut loose from its cultural moorings, it came across as just normal comedy.
In 1960 +/- 3 years, my brother had heard the word, and used it in a song (to insult an acquaintance):
Name-of-person is a nerd,
Hey lawly lawly oh,
There’s nothing decent rhymes with nerd,
Hey lawly lawly oh
My brother was a California engineering student and a surfer.
Like any word, if you use it as an insult, it’s easy enough to be offended by it. In the same way homosexual men have reclaimed ‘queer’ as their own, there are those who have similarly managed to reclaim ‘geek’ as their own.
I think nerd, geek, poindexter, dweeb, etc, originally were pretty interchangeable, but now they’ve come to be distnct from each other, though many people are still combinations of them.
Nerd - socially awkward loner
Geek - obsessive about a (possibly obscure) topic
Dweeb - physically or sportifically(?) inept
I’d also like to point out that people obsessed with sports or cars somehow don’t end up being called geeks, as these are considered standard human male pursuits. But in my experience it’s not near as common as people seem to think, and should be considered as geeky as comic book fans.
Since I consider myself fairly intelligent, a huge sociophobe yet have a good sense of humor and can hold my own in social situations if I am forced into it, had a barely successful social life but never fit in with the “normal” people in school, hate most sports (except hockey, but I don’t watch it that much), and completely immerse myself in either reading (currently tolkein, but usually archaeology) or in my home studio playing heavy metal, I would fit squarely in the geek category.
But in highschool I could definately see the nerds as a separate group of people, and they got on my nerves after awhile, usually because of their inflated egos, but sometimes because they were so socially inept that they were crippling themselves. One in particular that I used to occasionally hang out with is probably, at age 34, still living with his parents.
Well, I think a key thing is a lot of guys are intrigued by the ‘Geek Girl’ concept, while few seem to be into the ‘Nerd Girl’.
(I think many of the non-porn ‘Nerd-Girl’ websites out there seem really to be ‘Geek Girl’ sites confused about their geekuality, based on sampling using my l33t googling skillz)
A geek is one who can accomplish multiple tasks and is a “real man of genius”. They also have a better time at acutally getting into a good relationship. A nerd can only do one thing in life and one thing only. The latter usually will be single the rest of their life and complain to others that there is nothing they can do about it. Personally I am a geek who is know to my friends as, " wierd science". The nick name came about from my ability to fix any and everything from computers to cars without even really thinking about it. Give me a manual and time and I am gravy.
I think this defines many nerds well - that combination of incredibly inflated ego with social ineptness, which leads them to believe that it’s everyone else’s fault that they can’t interact with society.
I think nerd is far worse than geek. Geeks can fit streamlessly into everyday society. I mean, I’m a total music geek, but you wouldn’t know unless you engaged me in conversation about my special interest. I’m sure all the anime lovers, or whatever are similar. I mean, often nerds aren’t even interesting enough to have a geeky interest. They’re just boring.
Example 1: I found a website for a woman in KC who plays the recorder, and wish to send her an email to introduce myself and suggest that we play some duets together. Apparently, this makes me dorky.
Example 2: I love to soak up what I call “dead interesting facts” about all kinds of historical events (i.e., Mary, Queen of Scots wore a red wig to her execution). For this I was called a “history dork”.
Example 3: I want to join the SCA. Apparently, this is dorkiness at its most refined.
Is dork even in the same matrix as nerd and geek? I saw dweeb referred to earlier in the discussion, so I thought I could introduce the term dork.
“Computer nerds don’t like extended social situations. They’d rather talk on-line to someone they can’t see.”
The above wisdom from De-De on the NBC show, She Spies.
As for the term “nerd”, I don’t remember hearing it during my teenage years. (late 1950’s/ early 1960’s) “Toad” was the term that would have been most similar in meaning. A “square” was considered to be a little higher on the food chain than a toad.