Geeking Is SRS BZNS
Nov. 17th, 2009 08:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoyAll right, so the poll from my last entry has been very interesting, and has turned up a lot about what people define as a “geek.” Bonus points to those of you who supplied the original definition, too. From the poll, we can establish that a geek is one of two things:
1. Someone who bites the heads off of small animals in a sideshow, or
2. A person with a vast knowledge of and enthusiasm for a particular, often non-mainstream subject or subjects (most often technical, mathematical, scientific, or speculative-fiction related, though there are subsets of “literary geeks,” “drama geeks,” etc.). Anayltical. Pedantic. These traits may reach the point of impeding social abilities.
I’d argue that a lot of the second definition has become the basis for a subculture of such people, with its own definitions of “cool” and its own rules of interaction, but that’s a discussion for another day. Right now what’s important is that neither of these definitions seem to fit with this book I picked up—Marybeth Hicks’ Bringing Up Geeks.
I admit, I saw the title and was rather intrigued by the idea. Is it for geek parents trying to indoctrinate their kids? Is it one of those “so your kid is a geek; now what?” books? I was curious enough to pick it up.
Turns out the book is, above all else, a study in cognitive dissonance. Mostly it’s your standard sanctimonious book telling you that “MY kids are great; you should raise them like I do!”, with some good advice and some totally bizarre advice. The idea is that raising kids to be uncool and unpopular is actually better for them in the long run—something I don’t really contest. But Hicks keeps referring to this as raising “geeks,” and the word pops up all over with very little recognizable connection to what a geek is except for the part about being unpopular with the in crowd, so that my main reaction to the book is, “You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” She could have taken the word “goth” and it would have made just as much sense.
Because she has decided her kids were geeks, Hicks goes on to redefine “geek” to make her kids feel better about it:
Genuine, Enthusiastic, Empowered Kid.
Okay, well, we geeks aren’t quite as self-esteem-less as people make us out. So let’s consider the evidence. I looked through the book, so let’s see how her ten pillars of “geek”dom actually correspond with, y’know, geeks:
Oh, fuck it. Madam, I hate to break it to you, but while your kids may be well-rounded and imbued with values stronger than the popular kids, they are not geeks.
Geekdom is not just a general label for someone outside of the mainstream. We are not defined by what we are not—it’s not just about being unpopular. There is a very specific set of positive characteristics involved in being a geek. We have a subculture—and we have sub-subcultures. We have a jargon, our own pop culture, our own material culture, a shared set of cultural icons, a specific history. We have jokes, songs, unofficial holidays, even superstitions. As far as we’re concerned, we’re not uncool—we just have our own ideas about what is cool. We have our own intra-subculture battles, we have a particular set of social rules, and we also have our share of total fuckwads. Many of us may even have some varying degrees of an upbringing like the one you have outlined up there—but that upbringing alone does not a geek make. That’s reserved for something more specific.
Find some other way to describe your outsider kids.
I hear “twerp” is free.***
*I won’t say that in my experience all geeks avoid sports with the same vigor they’d use to avoid a chainsaw-wielding madman, but I will say that most geeks seem to prefer solitary sports.
**Not that I know anyone who does this regularly.
***Unless you want to go with one of the possible etymologies of the word, which doesn’t conjure up images of beheaded animals but does bring with it the possibility that Christopher Tolkien will attempt to bring death and ruin to you and all you hold dear.
1. Someone who bites the heads off of small animals in a sideshow, or
2. A person with a vast knowledge of and enthusiasm for a particular, often non-mainstream subject or subjects (most often technical, mathematical, scientific, or speculative-fiction related, though there are subsets of “literary geeks,” “drama geeks,” etc.). Anayltical. Pedantic. These traits may reach the point of impeding social abilities.
I’d argue that a lot of the second definition has become the basis for a subculture of such people, with its own definitions of “cool” and its own rules of interaction, but that’s a discussion for another day. Right now what’s important is that neither of these definitions seem to fit with this book I picked up—Marybeth Hicks’ Bringing Up Geeks.
I admit, I saw the title and was rather intrigued by the idea. Is it for geek parents trying to indoctrinate their kids? Is it one of those “so your kid is a geek; now what?” books? I was curious enough to pick it up.
Turns out the book is, above all else, a study in cognitive dissonance. Mostly it’s your standard sanctimonious book telling you that “MY kids are great; you should raise them like I do!”, with some good advice and some totally bizarre advice. The idea is that raising kids to be uncool and unpopular is actually better for them in the long run—something I don’t really contest. But Hicks keeps referring to this as raising “geeks,” and the word pops up all over with very little recognizable connection to what a geek is except for the part about being unpopular with the in crowd, so that my main reaction to the book is, “You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” She could have taken the word “goth” and it would have made just as much sense.
Because she has decided her kids were geeks, Hicks goes on to redefine “geek” to make her kids feel better about it:
Genuine, Enthusiastic, Empowered Kid.
Okay, well, we geeks aren’t quite as self-esteem-less as people make us out. So let’s consider the evidence. I looked through the book, so let’s see how her ten pillars of “geek”dom actually correspond with, y’know, geeks:
- Brainiac – Okay, this is fair enough. She waffles a bit about the difference between a kid interested in pursuing knowledge and the kid who has all the answers, but yeah, interest in learning is geeky enough.
- Sheltered – When Hicks says “sheltered,” she means it in the sense of cyberspace—her kids aren’t allowed to instant message, and she has to approve every website they visit. No blogs, no social networking sites. She also keeps tabs on her kids’ movies, feels that they should have limited exposure to popular culture, and finds video games distasteful.
- Uncommon – I think she’s trying to say you should let kids like what they like, but really this chapter is a rant about consumerism, Bratz dolls, midriff clothes, and not buying the shit everyone else is buying. Geeks are not consumers, she tells us. She has apparently never been to Think Geek.
- “A Kid Adults Like” – This is about teaching kids good manners and social skills, so that adults will be impressed with how polite they are. Because geeks are the kinds of people who charm everyone.
- “A Late Bloomer” – This chapter is not about the scrawny kid with the cowlick who doesn’t hit puberty till their sophomore year at college, if ever. Instead, it’s about willful late-blooming: it advises you that ten-year-old girls should probably not wear g-strings and go around having oral sex, even if they do have to wear training bras.
- “A Team Player” – Specifically, playing on a sports team. She has some pretty common sense advice about not turning into a crazed win-obsessed parent. I spent the chapter snickering madly at the words “geek” and “sports” being put together without fuss.*
- A True Friend – The usual. Friends are people who you can trust etc., etc..
- A Homebody – Someone who is comfortable with family.
- Principled – Geeks are the same thing as being Nice People, she contends, who care about others and never, ever succumb to the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory even if they are allowed on the internets. They also never go to bookstores and read the comic books without buying them.**
- Faithful – As far as I can tell, you need to have a religion (she quickly says she means any religion and then carries on about how everyone else gets God’s Plan wrong) if any of the other stuff will work, because what kind of crazy person has morals and values without religion? She equates doing religious things like praying and going to church with being geeky.
Oh, fuck it. Madam, I hate to break it to you, but while your kids may be well-rounded and imbued with values stronger than the popular kids, they are not geeks.
Geekdom is not just a general label for someone outside of the mainstream. We are not defined by what we are not—it’s not just about being unpopular. There is a very specific set of positive characteristics involved in being a geek. We have a subculture—and we have sub-subcultures. We have a jargon, our own pop culture, our own material culture, a shared set of cultural icons, a specific history. We have jokes, songs, unofficial holidays, even superstitions. As far as we’re concerned, we’re not uncool—we just have our own ideas about what is cool. We have our own intra-subculture battles, we have a particular set of social rules, and we also have our share of total fuckwads. Many of us may even have some varying degrees of an upbringing like the one you have outlined up there—but that upbringing alone does not a geek make. That’s reserved for something more specific.
Find some other way to describe your outsider kids.
I hear “twerp” is free.***
*I won’t say that in my experience all geeks avoid sports with the same vigor they’d use to avoid a chainsaw-wielding madman, but I will say that most geeks seem to prefer solitary sports.
**Not that I know anyone who does this regularly.
***Unless you want to go with one of the possible etymologies of the word, which doesn’t conjure up images of beheaded animals but does bring with it the possibility that Christopher Tolkien will attempt to bring death and ruin to you and all you hold dear.
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Date: 2009-11-17 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-11-17 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-17 08:07 pm (UTC)Except for just before the internet, which instead consisted of actively inventing the internet.
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Date: 2009-11-17 09:39 pm (UTC)