I'm a nerd first and a geek second. They're different things, and I really dislike when people confuse the two. Geeks tend to like a certain genre or subset of a genre a lot, or a series relating to such. For example, you're a geek if you're deeply into World of Warcraft, which is just an MMO, a subset of role playing ames. Nerds on the other hands are generally individuals who excel at academics. I know the two are often heavily linked, but they are different things. I have a friend going to U of Waterloo for nanotechnology, and he straight out doesn't take part in video games, geeky movies, or anything, often being cynical towards geek culture. He's a nerd who likes mainstream media, that's it.
I went to Comic Con and it was a prime example why geeks are still not main stream. The New Yorkers would walk by giving strange glances to even someone wearing a Star Wars t-shirt. People would line up for hours to get Katee Sackhoff's autograph. Really? She was only in a TV show (and such one that heavily used the deus ex machina; debate that with me in another thread). I know movies like Star Wars, Spiderman and The Dark Knight look mainstream. Sometimes they truly are. But those are just the movies; easily accessible, cheap and fun. How many people do you think actually read into the comics or other basis of lore behind the movies? Hell, half the time the screenwriters make things up for the sake of Hollywood.
Still don't believe me geeks aren't mainstream? Try this. Walk up to anyone who you consider a "normal" person, and simply ask them what their favorite sci-fi series, anime series, comic hero, anything, is. I guarentee you most of the time you'll recieve either a dumbfounded look or an answer along the lines of "Batman I think, like that guy who was in Dark Knight?"
I hardly ever talk about my life on the Net outside my smaller group of geeks (most of whom are nerds and we end up talking about automobiles or architecture anyways, nothing geeky at all), most of the time having a feeling of shame when I talk about it with "non-geeky normal" people. Don't tell me that's a lie, I bet most of you get this too.
We may have more movies being made for us, and more shows being shown to us, but the core reason is this: Hollywood has realized we have loads of cash. We are not mainstream, not yet anyways. We just have a more noticable market share now, which companies like Disney and Warner Bros are exploited in the fullest sense of the word (Transformers 2, anyone?).
And once again: nerd =/= geek.
Agree on both counts. Nerd and geek is not the same thing and neither is mainstream.
However we are growing and many of us, nerds, have been moving up in high paid positions where we can influence things. But we are far from getting the attention of ex-cheerleaders and being stars in tv series (who is the real star and who gets the girl in Stargate Universe, is it the programming nerd genious or the probably, ex-jock, bad-ass marine?).
And to be honest we will always get the second seat to those guys. It is in our genes, or rather the women genes, to be more attracted to people they feel more secure with and so far it is still the bad-ass marine and not the nerdy academic.
I don't think the word geek is being used with its right context. Usually, a geek means obsession about something as that diagram shows. Here is another example taken from wikipedia: The word geek is a slang term, noting individuals as "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc.
So we are all geeks if we have focus, passion, creativity and are obsessed about it. Geeks run the world of business, government, and truely anyone who is normal is the lil rat that has no focus or obsession. Truly look at yourselves, anyone who has a over slight interest is a geek. Anyone who dwells longly on trying to be rich or even trying to help the world.
This basically is a recap of what someone posted before, but a more in depth look. I used an outside source as a example and explained further in detail as to what a "geek" is. So if geek is then defined as being one with obsession, then what can obession truly mean?
The word obsessed means influenced or controlled by a powerful force such as a strong emotion; "by love possessed"
I don't think it can get any clearer than that, its a strong emotion and mindset a focus and passion about a certain thing. Everyone is a geek, only mentally ill retards or people obsessed with being normal and claim not be obsessed deny to be geeks.
An educated person is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of generalized or specialized knowledge. An educated person is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may accuire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others.
I don't think we are quite mainstream yet either. Back in the day I had friends in every crowd. I was an avid AD&Der amongst other games as well. Fantasy is my favorite genere for any form of media. So I definitely fit the geek category. I also played baseball and football, so I fit the jock mold as well. I got along with everyone.
I am now a manager/ leader for a distribution center. I lead about 60 people. I don't have WoW posters hanging in my office, action figures on my desk, and my wall paper on my monitor set up with the latest screen shots from GW2 (I do at home.) If I did, there would be an embarassing conversation with my boss telling me how unprofessional it is while looking at me with pitty and genuine concern.
When I first meet new hires and am getting to know them, I ask them about their hobbies. If they admit to playing games, I have to dig for it. If they admit to playing MMOs, it's almost always with a look of embarassment, shame, or guilt. Now once I tell them my favoret thing to do in my spare time is main tanking raids, they warm up and we have a good time during our discussion.
Though we have definitely made progress, we are not mainstream yet. But I do have faith.....
I mean come on, how many of us back in the day thought a world series pitcher would start a game company with the talent pool 38 Studios has. Curt Schilling, I salute you!
Would you still hire the guy if he said he played EVE?
WoW isn't mainstream? It certainly is. It's so mainstream that WoW is synonymous with MMORPG (which is a horrible thing) and it being mainstream, and targeted at housewives and part time gamers is exactly why the MMORPG genre has been stuck in a ditch since 2004.
MMORPGs aren't mainstream. They're a small slice of the gaming pie, and a tiny fraction of entertainment in general. If all 12 million subscriptions to WoW were actually real individual customers, it's entire clientele wouldn't amount to a drop in the bucket when compared to professional sports. The average basketball game in the U.S. gets more viewers per game than there are WoW subscribers, globally. That's just one sport and two teams.
I think MMOs are still safely tucked away in nerd-dom.
There's an inconsistency of logic when using WoW as a reference example of MMOs showing 'geekery' becoming more mainstream.
Simply put, WoW is not an example of 'geekdom' being more accepted. WoW took the general concept of MMOs, which at the time was a very high on the geek-o-meter, and dumbed it down to appeal to a broader market. Which is why the game did garner the attention of many non MMO gamers, particularly those who were already into single player PC and console gaming.
That's why as a geek myself, I still "don't get" the Mr. T commercials. As a self proclaimed geek, I actually found the commercial as extremely reaching and actually made it embaressing to admit I played WoW to others specifically because of that commercial. The Shattner WoW commercial didn't do that, but then again, Shattner appeals more to geeks, where as Mr. T appeals to a different demographic.
It's the same with all of the comic book movies and Lord of the Rings becoming more 'mainstream', because basically, they were repackaged into a more pallatable format for the masses to consume. That doesn't necessarily mean that geek culture is necessarily more accepted, simply that it's been reformatted towards a different audience. Keep in mind that many 'geeks' were actually upset about one thing or another that was or wasn't done in these various reformattings.
The only way to judge if WoW is mainstream or not is by the number of people that have heard of it, not the number of people that actually play it. My mother has heard of WoW but would never try it. If the game itself, has made it into the vernacular of the average household, it's mainstream. I would say that WoW is defintely mainstream now, and by extention makes all future MMO's more able to also be considered mainstream. I've played MMO's for fifteen years, but only once have I met another MMO'er in a random way (i.e. Walmart) that knew what I was talking about. The other day I met my neice's new boyfriend, (total Jock/Frat guy) and when I told him I played computer games, he asked what server I was on.
Thats mainstream.
Now does that mean Mr. Jock/Frat and I, Mr. Nerd/Geek will be hanging out or playing together? No.
I don't think we are quite mainstream yet either. Back in the day I had friends in every crowd. I was an avid AD&Der amongst other games as well. Fantasy is my favorite genere for any form of media. So I definitely fit the geek category. I also played baseball and football, so I fit the jock mold as well. I got along with everyone.
I am now a manager/ leader for a distribution center. I lead about 60 people. I don't have WoW posters hanging in my office, action figures on my desk, and my wall paper on my monitor set up with the latest screen shots from GW2 (I do at home.) If I did, there would be an embarassing conversation with my boss telling me how unprofessional it is while looking at me with pitty and genuine concern.
When I first meet new hires and am getting to know them, I ask them about their hobbies. If they admit to playing games, I have to dig for it. If they admit to playing MMOs, it's almost always with a look of embarassment, shame, or guilt. Now once I tell them my favoret thing to do in my spare time is main tanking raids, they warm up and we have a good time during our discussion.
Though we have definitely made progress, we are not mainstream yet. But I do have faith.....
I mean come on, how many of us back in the day thought a world series pitcher would start a game company with the talent pool 38 Studios has. Curt Schilling, I salute you!
Would you still hire the guy if he said he played EVE?
Yep! Sci Fi rocks too. Fantasy is just my favorite.
One of my long ago former employers, an ISP, told their employees in training, "Take the dumbest person you know and realize that two thirds of the population is dumber than them." During several years of phone tech support, I have spoken to people who didn't know what a mouse was, people who bought a computer JUST because they got an AOL disk in the mail, people who called up threatening to sue because they stuck a CD into a 5 1/2 drive and couldn't get it out.
I don't want gaming to be mainstream, it's been dumbed down enough as is. When things move into the mainstream, they get simplified for the masses who don't have a good working knowledge of computers. It's already happening to gaming, it's going to just get worse until games can be played with 5 keys: Up, Down, Left, Right, and shoot...
Im with you 100%.
But dumb down continuing im affraid, its mainstream where money is not the hardcore its a dying breed:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Well it is not cool ,I know that for a fact. At one point in my life my husband would warn me against telling people I read comics and play video games. He is banker and his tight ass office parties were horrible. Full of these elitist wives who think the are better than you. He was worried about me getting cast aside but the funny thing was I never wanted to fit into that crowd heaven forbid. I am a housewife now but a whole millennium ago I was a lawyer but the degree is not recognized in the country we live in. So these women who knew nothing about me decided to look down their noses at me.
It is simply not something people consider cool and now even after 20 years of marriage he still feels he needs to explain me. I know even among my own friends they cannot understand my interests but they are friends so most respect my choices. I get along better with their children since I have more in common with them. It is funny that my children growing up has friends who thought that my kids had a cool mum but their mums were of an opposite belief.
Comments
Agree on both counts. Nerd and geek is not the same thing and neither is mainstream.
However we are growing and many of us, nerds, have been moving up in high paid positions where we can influence things. But we are far from getting the attention of ex-cheerleaders and being stars in tv series (who is the real star and who gets the girl in Stargate Universe, is it the programming nerd genious or the probably, ex-jock, bad-ass marine?).
And to be honest we will always get the second seat to those guys. It is in our genes, or rather the women genes, to be more attracted to people they feel more secure with and so far it is still the bad-ass marine and not the nerdy academic.
My gaming blog
@ Toxillum .
Nice writings but its example how fast a ugly word like NERD thats insultive to a generation that grew up .
Worst then geeks , suddenly be used as a complimentary word .
Same way how Noob (newbie) turned into stupid , its wierd how fast words are evolving .
In my time you had geeks/freaks = gothics and other group of outcast . but left alone.
You had the nerd = the bookworms to be trampled on .
Its wierd to see how one word suddenly took on a different meaning .
Anyway in way we are mainstream because we do have the money , our target group isn´t exploited yet .
In a way we do things our own way , make our own decision and judge everything by our own standards value and morals.
Most of us run companies or live above average life financiely , each there own way .
Instead of following what society dictates us . thats seperates a Nerd from a geek . we are not so closly bounded by a group
too individualistic to be targeted as a marketing group , thus unpredictable .
I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW...I say frig. Also I know nothing about Babylon 5. Pfft, if I started watching Sci-fi stuff, Tasslehoff would never forgive me.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I don't think the word geek is being used with its right context. Usually, a geek means obsession about something as that diagram shows. Here is another example taken from wikipedia: The word geek is a slang term, noting individuals as "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc.
So we are all geeks if we have focus, passion, creativity and are obsessed about it. Geeks run the world of business, government, and truely anyone who is normal is the lil rat that has no focus or obsession. Truly look at yourselves, anyone who has a over slight interest is a geek. Anyone who dwells longly on trying to be rich or even trying to help the world.
This basically is a recap of what someone posted before, but a more in depth look. I used an outside source as a example and explained further in detail as to what a "geek" is. So if geek is then defined as being one with obsession, then what can obession truly mean?
The word obsessed means influenced or controlled by a powerful force such as a strong emotion; "by love possessed"
I don't think it can get any clearer than that, its a strong emotion and mindset a focus and passion about a certain thing. Everyone is a geek, only mentally ill retards or people obsessed with being normal and claim not be obsessed deny to be geeks.
An educated person is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of generalized or specialized knowledge. An educated person is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may accuire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others.
Would you still hire the guy if he said he played EVE?
Give me liberty or give me lasers
MMORPGs aren't mainstream. They're a small slice of the gaming pie, and a tiny fraction of entertainment in general. If all 12 million subscriptions to WoW were actually real individual customers, it's entire clientele wouldn't amount to a drop in the bucket when compared to professional sports. The average basketball game in the U.S. gets more viewers per game than there are WoW subscribers, globally. That's just one sport and two teams.
I think MMOs are still safely tucked away in nerd-dom.
There's an inconsistency of logic when using WoW as a reference example of MMOs showing 'geekery' becoming more mainstream.
Simply put, WoW is not an example of 'geekdom' being more accepted. WoW took the general concept of MMOs, which at the time was a very high on the geek-o-meter, and dumbed it down to appeal to a broader market. Which is why the game did garner the attention of many non MMO gamers, particularly those who were already into single player PC and console gaming.
That's why as a geek myself, I still "don't get" the Mr. T commercials. As a self proclaimed geek, I actually found the commercial as extremely reaching and actually made it embaressing to admit I played WoW to others specifically because of that commercial. The Shattner WoW commercial didn't do that, but then again, Shattner appeals more to geeks, where as Mr. T appeals to a different demographic.
It's the same with all of the comic book movies and Lord of the Rings becoming more 'mainstream', because basically, they were repackaged into a more pallatable format for the masses to consume. That doesn't necessarily mean that geek culture is necessarily more accepted, simply that it's been reformatted towards a different audience. Keep in mind that many 'geeks' were actually upset about one thing or another that was or wasn't done in these various reformattings.
I dunno, the whole referring to LOTR as movies is pretty problematic and nearly blasphemy for me.
The LOTR movies are mainstream, they are for people who like "kewl" action scenes, they are for people who dislike reading.
For the genuine "nerd," LOTR will always be a really awesome book.
Who's Patrick Eweing??
I took this as meaning nerds are fan's of kevin smith films:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0sc-gS9AqM
also, stfu americans with your liberal this and that. jesus there's no escaping your boring ass politics even on a game website.
Currently Playing: The Game
The only way to judge if WoW is mainstream or not is by the number of people that have heard of it, not the number of people that actually play it. My mother has heard of WoW but would never try it. If the game itself, has made it into the vernacular of the average household, it's mainstream. I would say that WoW is defintely mainstream now, and by extention makes all future MMO's more able to also be considered mainstream. I've played MMO's for fifteen years, but only once have I met another MMO'er in a random way (i.e. Walmart) that knew what I was talking about. The other day I met my neice's new boyfriend, (total Jock/Frat guy) and when I told him I played computer games, he asked what server I was on.
Thats mainstream.
Now does that mean Mr. Jock/Frat and I, Mr. Nerd/Geek will be hanging out or playing together? No.
He probably couldn't tank for crap anyway.
Yep! Sci Fi rocks too. Fantasy is just my favorite.
Ing the Conqueror
See... you should have written this one. It would have been a lot less wordy. Thanks for putting it much more succinctly, you should be a copywriter.
It's a good feeling though, isn't it? Being able to flaunt (in most cases) your quirks these days?
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
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Im with you 100%.
But dumb down continuing im affraid, its mainstream where money is not the hardcore its a dying breed:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Well it is not cool ,I know that for a fact. At one point in my life my husband would warn me against telling people I read comics and play video games. He is banker and his tight ass office parties were horrible. Full of these elitist wives who think the are better than you. He was worried about me getting cast aside but the funny thing was I never wanted to fit into that crowd heaven forbid. I am a housewife now but a whole millennium ago I was a lawyer but the degree is not recognized in the country we live in. So these women who knew nothing about me decided to look down their noses at me.
It is simply not something people consider cool and now even after 20 years of marriage he still feels he needs to explain me. I know even among my own friends they cannot understand my interests but they are friends so most respect my choices. I get along better with their children since I have more in common with them. It is funny that my children growing up has friends who thought that my kids had a cool mum but their mums were of an opposite belief.
I'm not a geek, I'm a level 12 Paladin
I support Belgiums efforts to get noticed ... at all.
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six digit salary. Therefore, the geeks shall inherit the earth