Geek or Nerd?

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Sheena, director from Bowling Green.

Hi, Sheena, from Bowling Green, Kentucky, or Ohio?

Ohio.

Ohio, all right.

Bowling Green, Ohio.

Well, welcome to the program, Sheena.

What’s going on?

Well, basically, I had a question about sort of nerddom. I’m teaching a course at Bowling Green this semester, actually next semester, on gender, gaming, and nerd culture.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I’m excited to teach it, and the students seem to be excited, too. But I was wondering, I’ve seen charts, and I’ve read essays, and I’ve heard a lot of debate from people identifying as nerds and geeks and not, if you could sort of figure out a way that I could talk to my students about the difference between sort of geek and nerd. Like, where do these words come from? Are they, like, really different as far as the way that we define them? Because I can’t really find a specific way to define them or differentiate.

Martha’s a nerd and I’m a geek.

I was going to say.

Actually, I would agree with that.

I would agree. Sheena, you probably have some preconceptions about what the differences are.

Yeah, what do you think?

Well, I mean, I struggle with it a little bit. I think geek tends to be sort of skewed more toward technology and gaming. And a nerd is just somebody who is perhaps more, like, bookish or a little bit more awkward. But that’s probably because I identify as a geek.

Oh, you do?

I do, I think so.

You’re a little more techie than a nerd.

Yeah, I think a little bit.

Yeah, that’s interesting. It jibes pretty well with my understanding of geek and nerd. And I know this argument has been going on basically as long as the Internet has been a thing. But in my world, a geek is somebody who has highly specific technical knowledge about something, some particular facet of a computer system or some particular part of the pop culture world or some particular just they have a discipline. It could even be an insurance geek who just, you know, they know their actuarial tables like inside and out.

They probably have stock options too, right?

Probably, yes, and they should become my friends and give me advice. And then a nerd, on the other hand, is somebody who may also be a geek, but they have this inability to express themselves and to relate, and they have kind of this social dysfunction every time they speak up or try to do something or try to crack a joke or try to be a part of the in crowd.

Wait a minute, and you said I’m a nerd? Wait.

I was kidding. It was a joke.

No, I would say I am a nerd, but it’s more, you just have sort of an unusual, outside-the-box interest in this or that thing. And maybe you’re a little bit socially awkward, or you can’t figure out how to work the microwave, but you’re really good on medieval history or something.

So you’re describing what the British would call an eccentric.

I don’t know. Sheena, what do you think?

I think I’m sort of leaning more towards Grant’s way of viewing it. I’m a little worried that the course is called nerd culture now. Maybe it should be geek culture.

Yeah, I think that makes a little bit more sense to me.

Well, you said you looked at charts.

Yeah, there’s one online. It came from one of the comics’ websites, but they have a whole Venn diagram showing the intersections. The worst thing you could be is in the middle, and I think it’s a dork.

It’s a nerd in the middle. I’ve seen this Venn diagram.

Oh, maybe it is a nerd, yeah.

So it’s the intersection of nerd and geek and dork?

Yeah, yeah.

So there’s intelligence in one circle and social ineptitude in another and then obsession in another. And nerd is at the intersection of all three of these.

And it’s not a happy combination, right?

I read it that way, but I want to say there’s something endearing about nerddom and nerd culture.

Thank you.

I have to say that I know people who call themselves things like a food geek or a fashion geek or people who call themselves an Apple geek. Not an Apple fanboy. Word nerds. I mean, people owned just the way that gay people in America can own the word queer. Right. And black folks can own the N-word. Right. People own, it’s obviously got a less potency, but they can own geek and they can own nerd and say, I am indeed a nerd for this thing which I feel strongly about.

Yeah. And by the way, there’s a great discussion about this on Metafilter. Did you find that in your research? I haven’t found that. I’ll check it out.

Yeah, Metafilter is an online forum where people can ask questions. Where geeks hang out. Geeks hang out. Oh, yeah, I know Metafilter. Sure, okay, very good. And they have a great discussion. It’s a few years old. But a lot of the arguments there are still strong and still relevant, and they still can ring true for you if you’re having this.

Basically, what you’ve done here is set out your first day’s work in class, right?

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah, exactly. Because the kids will speak up. They’ll definitely have opinions on this.

Oh, yeah. Right?

Yeah. I mean, fashion geek. Who would have thought that fashion people would think of themselves as geeks? But they have an interest.

They are strong in that interest.

They evangelize it, even.

And so that’s what geekdom is about to them.

And I think that’s relatively recent, isn’t it, Grant?

I mean, ever since I heard geek chic, and you started realizing that all these geeks were making all this money in Silicon Valley.

And, you know, I mean, Bill Gates used to be really nerdy, and now he’s a geek.

Oh, do you think that’s what it is? The rise of the computer era made these terms take more power?

I do.

What do you think, Sheena?

I think so.

I mean, there are way more geeks in, you know, popular culture now.

Like, there’s the Big Bang Theory, and those are, I mean, if not even nerds.

Oh, the television, yeah.

But people love that show, so.

Yeah, so you would call them geeks rather than nerds?

Some of them.

I think Shelton, the one who’s incredibly socially awkward, I think he would be a hardcore nerd.

But I think the rest of them, people identify them as geeks.

Sheena, we’d be interested in hearing when your class starts what your students come up with.

Definitely.

Well, I’ll be playing this for them, so hopefully we’ll get some interesting time.

Excellent.

I’ll get them back to you.

Sheena, thank you for calling.

I hope we helped some.

Thanks so much.

You did help a lot.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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