Thursday, December 9, 2010

A Nerd, A Geek, or A Stroke of Genius

Studies can go back to the early Dr. Suess book about the introduction of the Nerd and his ability to focus on making differences to improving mankind. Nerds have dark black eyeglass frames and, unkempt hair, and use the ultimate pocket protector to make sure the ink from their six different colors of pens did not spill onto their perfectly white and crisply ironed shirt – supposedly they have never heard of pen caps. Early Internet users were Nerds. They wrote coding to make sure the Internet worked and very rarely would you find a female "Nerd", at least not until the digital age became a little more prevalent and being a Nerd was actually cool.


The Geek is a lot like a Nerd but has one vast difference – a striking social ineptness that portrays the image of "I am smart, just don't ask me to explain it to YOU." Geeks are often the loners who draw more attention to themselves by their eccentric "damn the world style I am going to wear and do what I want." Napoleon Dynamite was a great geek. He knew a lot of random nothingness but when put on the spot, he really did know a lot – just not about the social aspect of dealing with others – perhaps he was actually on the autism spectrum for a social development delay.

In the early 1980s through the late 1990s Nerds and Geeks have had near synonymous meanings. The words were interchangeable; if you were a Geek you were a Nerd and vice versa. With the emergence of social networking and blogging sites where a person can post updates, receive instantaneous news updates, and share international secrets with terrorists across the world with push of a button, one has to wonder – does being a Nerd or a Geek have the same eccentric fashion style and social ineptness behaviors as the decades past or have Nerds and Geeks progressed to a new, elevated level of Stroke of Genius despite the person's lack of designer clothing and frazzled hair.

No comments: