Turning in my Geek Membership Card

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve come to the realization that, although I and most people would consider myself a geek, the geek community at large would take issue with that, and would demand that I stop including myself among them. Here’s the evidence:

Star Wars Geek:
I like the first trilogy well enough, and my dislike of portions of Return of the Jedi are within acceptable parameters. I haven’t really enjoyed the prequels, even the stuff I’m really supposed to like. I don’t read the comics or the books, and the few books I did read, I didn’t like at all, especially the Zahn novels, which I’m supposed to like. I can tell you what the serial number on the trash compactor was by heart (3263827) but if a bit of trivia came from the WEG role-playing game or a novel, I don’t know or care about it. Star Wars geek? Hardly. They’d barely consider me a fan.

Doctor Who Geek:
Ever since the show’s been off the air, the BBC has been churning out novel after craptacular novel based on it. I read a few and found them sadly lacking. I look at the synopses of more current novels and wonder if this is some other “Doctor Who” entity that I’m otherwise unaware of. I then read about how the novels are better than the show, because they’re by fans, for fans. I think they’re cack, so clearly I’m not a fan. Also, I’ve never seen any 1st or 2nd Doctor shows.

General Sci-Fi Geek:
A list of movies I haven’t seen and have no intention of seeing: X-Files, Minority Report, AI, Planet of the Apes, X-Men. There’s more I can’t think of at the moment. I don’t much care for written sci-fi. I read the first ‘Foundation’ book and it didn’t make me want to read any more. I’m not a star Trek or Babylon 5 fan, and I don’t have the Sci-Fi channel (and probably wouldn’t watch much of it if I did).

Role-Playing Game Geek:
Although I do play RPGs, and I do own a considerable number of dice, the fact that I like the d20 system is enough to disqualify me in most gaming geeks eyes. d20 is the Microsoft of RPGs, and a true geek hates it and embraces GURPS (Mac) or a homebrew system (Linux) instead. I also don’t have a problem with using preconstructed adventures, which is anathema even to d20 gamers. I only just recently got a new gaming group together, and part of the reason it took a while was because I don’t get along with most other gamers. I don’t have a problem with alignment systems, dice, or rolling up stats. For most gamers, I just spoke utter blasphemy.

Toy Geek
I sort of collect Star Wars action figures. However, I don’t collect other toys, and I don’t make daily (or even weekly) toy runs. I don’t go out to Wal-Mart at 3am in the hopes that they’re stocking, and I don’t frequently go more than 10 miles outside of town to visit toy stores there. I unpackage my toys and don’t like them overly posed or saddled down with action features.I also don’t collect every variant of a figure, and often I’ll pass on a character if the figure isn’t overly different from a previous one. And I’m considering quitting anyway.

Comic Book Geek
I collect only a handful of titles. None of them are Marvel or main DC, only one is Vertigo (The Filth). I hated Preacher and dislike Garth Ennis (and no, it’s not because he offends my delicate sensibilities.) I don’t get mainstream superhero stuff but I also don’t worship Dan Clowes. I like Hellboy but don’t think a movie is a good idea (as I think most comic book movies aren’t a good idea - including and especially Watchmen). I don’t bag any of my comics.

General Geekiness
In addition to the movies above, I also haven’t seen and/or don’t intend to: Blade, Evil Dead, the Crow, and a few others of that ilk.
I have seen but didn’t like as much as I should have: Highlander, Event Horizon, the Fifth Element, and the Matrix.
I despise Kevin Smith.
I don’t have a trenchcoat or big clonky boots. My t-shirts aren’t chosen for the likelihood that they’ll offend someone, and I don’t think I have any with Japanese writing on them.
I don’t like anime.
I don’t worship all things Japanese.
I don’t like Radiohead.
I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer but I don’t like Spike.
I don’t like fandom and am currently writing a treatise on how fans are a show’s worst enemies.
I don’t run Linux.
I don’t really like console games and don’t like FPSes or RTSes.
I’m not a huge Tolkien fan.
I don’t think Red Dwarf is funny, nor did I think Black Adder was. I think MST3k is funny about maybe 1/3 of the time.
I’ve never read a Terry Pratchett book and to be honest I’m kind of wary of them.

There’s plenty more, but I think that’s enough evidence. By the time you read this, betrenchcoatted shock troops will have arrived at my desk to wrest my Geek Membership card from my hands. I’ll try to defend myself. I’ll show them the 20-sided die I have in my desk here at work and my Geocaching web site. I’ll name both actors that did the voice for K-9. I’ll tell them the line that closes side one and opens side two of “The Story of Star Wars” record album. But I fear it won’t be enough. And I’ll be a castout, living in a shadow world - too geek for the mainstream, too mainstream for the geeks. Pity me.

2

So you’re not a specialized geek, you’re a geek of all trades. There are many of us that don’t concentrate our geekieness to just one thing, it’s a state of mind not how big your collection is.
don’t try to deny it. :smiley:

3

Believe me, I’ve never tried to deny it. (Well, I did a long time ago, but then I came out of the Geek closet and never looked back.) My concern isn’t that I am a geek, it’s that I’m no longer fit to be one. I think many other geeks would feel I’m “passing” or “posing” or “frontin’”.

4

Didn’t geek once mean that you had to have some tech smarts? So, how many robots have you built?

5

Oh yeah, that’s another one. Computer geek? Hardly. Last upgrade I made to my machine I brought it into the shop and let them do it because I botched the previous one so badly. Sure, I knows me some HTML and PHP, but that hardly pulls me above the rest anymore. Ask me what kind of CPU my computer’s running - go on, ask me! I DON’T KNOW! Something Athlon, I think. So bang goes another one.

6

On the other hand, doesn’t posting all of this on the SDMB sort of reconfirm your general geekiness? :smiley:

7

Yeah, you’re still a ping on the geekdar.

8

I dunno, guys…

How many chickens has he bitten the heads off of?

9

Don’t do it man! If you hand in your membership card you lose your discount at the comic store!

um…

but if you do…

can i have your Star Wars toys??? :smiley:

10

My original impression of the word “geek” was more synonymous with “nerd”, “dork”, “dweeb”, etc., which in my day didn’t necessarily refer to someone who was technically proficient at the expense of having a social life, but instead were derogatory terms aimed at people who were just plain socially inept (which I felt I was). Later, some of these words, such as “nerd” and more recently, “geek”, have come to mean someone who has an acute interest, knowledge and involvement in using computers and other technologically advanced devices. Most recently “geek” has evolved to refer to someone who has a strong devotion to a particular subject, not necesssarily technical, though it still tends to connote that the person persues these interests at the expense of having a social life.

This is just based on my own observations of the usage of the word “geek” since it was first applied to me in grade school, which back then was more akin to being called a dork or a dweeb.

11

A. Heretic! :smiley:
B. Since when does liking Kevin Smith make one a geek? (We are talking Kevin Smith of “Clerks/Chasing Amy/Mallrats/Dogma” fame, aren’t we?)

If this makes one a geek, count me in. I’m making a pilgramage to Redbank next weekend!

12

What about general science geekiness? Quest for knowledge and insatiable curiosity and all that rar rar?

13

Alas Legomancer, none of us can completlel fulfill the stereotypes that our place on us. You are not a geek, you are simply legomancer. Nobody is 100% geek (IE fits every geeky characteristic)

14

Oh my God, Legomancer, I think I love you.

15

Speaking on behalf of the cool kids, you are a super geek.

But seriously, I’m not too familar with geek culture. This sounds like stuff that was popular with 12-year-old geeks in the early '80s. (My brother was one.) Hasn’t anything changed?

16

I was going along with you quite happily. I didn’t necessarily agree with everything you said, but I could see how a reasonable person could take your stance. But then you had to go and say this:

That just hurt, man. Now I weep for you.

17

What, pray tell, chula, was a “cool kid” even doing posting in this thread. You know you’ll just have to go do 20 Hail Marys now, right?
I am a geek, as I like “not cool” things, like Star Wars, RPGs and comic books.

I am not a nerd, dork or dweeb, as all those connote social stigma and/or ineptitude and usually liking homework or computers more than girls (or at least having far better luck with them).

Something I have always wondered about is, such as in high school, what did/do “cool” people talk about?

Sports, clothing, nail-painting tips? I just can’t see these things taking all that much discussion.

Now, I also like other things. I know martial arts, I play guitar, I watch footbal, and when called upon I can drink like a fish.

The way I see it, I just have much more to say to a wider veriety of people.

That makes me more popular.

Eat it, cool kids. :smiley:

18

If I might make a humble suggestion, Legomancer, I think that you are missing the forest for the trees. Answer me these:

Would you rather watch primetime tv or read a book?

Would you rather listen to a radio, or pry it open and try to figure out why the tuning dial sticks?

Would you rather talk on the telephone or browse the message boards?

Away with your specific instances of non-geekery. Let them trouble you no more. Geekiness is not the sum total of these things. Geekiness is a state of mind.

19

I had actually myself accepted that I am a geek - and I where beginning to wonder when my membership card would arrive in the mail.

I work as a Unix system administrator but after reading your list, it seems that I don’t even qualify for geek apprentice.

I liked the first starwars trilogy too, I found the 2 new films quite boring.
I never collected any figures besides a few action men when I was younger.

I’ve never tried role playing.
I’ve never watched or read an episode of Doctore Who.
I had no idea who Kevin Smith where, allthough I have seen Clerks.
I don’t read comic books - allthough I once had some Hulk magazines.
I have never watched an episode of Babylon 5, but I think I can spot if a Star Trek episode is TOS or TNG.

I do however read alot of SCI-FI, mostly of the variety that Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter and Douglas Adams write. However I travel 4 hours to and from work everyday so I read almost everything I can lay my eyes on.

I do run linux and I do know what CPU I have in my computer - but I’m still thinking I’m a pathetic geek and that you have nothing to fear from the betrenchcoatted shock troops - you’re a geek to me :wink:

20

No, chula’s just pointing and laughing. It’s a time honored tradition of the ‘cool kids’.

:wink: