Geek: Know Your History

As the recent addition of a header to this blog makes clear, the G I'm solving for is geek, which is to say, me. As a statement of purpose, figuring out one's own life and the living thereof is maybe a bit self indulgent, but what blog isn't self-indulgent to some extent?

But before you can figure out where you're going, it's useful to learn where you've been. If not "you" in the specific sense, then "you" in the cultural sense. To that end, I present a brief history of geeks courtesy of a geeky marketing firm, Flowtown (hat tip to Janette for sending this to me):
It's a big picture, so make sure to click on it to blow it up.

It's a little reductive, and really doesn't give you any idea how we got from Geek who bites head off chickens to Geek who is essentially a nerd to Geek who is obsessive about any one of a number of cultures. But it's a neat way to think about how we identify ourselves as geeks these days.

To dig deeper into how that happened, I recommend American Nerd: The Story of My People. The author, Benjamin Nugent, spends a great deal of time parsing the evolution of geeks, nerds and dweebs from the mid-20th century onward. He focuses on a few geek subcultures, including gaming, LARPing, and speech and debate teams, largely because those were the activities he enjoyed as a kid. Nugent does mention the circus freak geeks, and how the term essentially meant "outcast" for a very long time. My dad initially balked at the notion of my self-identification as a geek, mostly because the word had that pejorative connotation throughout his childhood.

But if you think about a geek as someone who is simply passionate about a particular thing, then my dad would be hard-pressed not to identify as a Lincoln Geek, a wood Geek, or even a word Geek. (He did get pretty excited about I Write Like when I blogged about it in July.)

And passion is the important thing. Whether it's my cousin obsessing over the latest episode of Glee, my brother tinkering over mini-robots in his bedroom, or my wife gushing over old recordings of Sweeney Todd and My Fair Lady, it's that passion I want to pass on to my daughter.

So this is directed at you, Little G. There's a great big world with a whole lot of history and culture waiting for you. Find something to love and make it yours. (Although if you could pick something other than whoever follows in Justin Bieber's footsteps, your dad would appreciate it.)