Loading ...
Dawn Of The Geek
Friday, April 22nd, 2005 by joelIt’s a marvelous era to be a geek. Science fiction has never been more mainstream, special effects have never been more special, and the world has never had the sort of networking that we are currently capable of to keep in constant contact with other geeks.
But obviously the world wasn’t always like this. The nearest I can figure, Science Fiction got its start sometime in the eighteenth century. And not too long before that, fantasy wasn’t fantasy at all, but folklore and pseudo-fact. All this raises the question, when did geeks originally begin to appear on the earth? Were there pasty misfits sitting around on the marble steps of the acropolis staging imaginary battles between Hercules and Achilles? Or did it start when science fiction began to become more mainstream in the modernist age of the 1940’s and 50’s with awkward teenagers huddling in their basements listening to the adventures of ‘The Green Hornet’ on the radio and stroking their copy of ‘Strange Tales’ magazine?
I think the trick here is to figure out exactly what it means to be a geek. Geeks are typically defined by two key factors: the fact that they do not fit in with the social mainstream, and their preoccupation with fringe media such as science fiction, fantasy, and super-hero literature/comics.
I tend to believe that the one stems from the other. A geek is a person who bears the unfortunate burden of not being able to read or discern social cues that make it easier to fit in. Typically a counter-balance, like higher intelligence or a more vivid imagination, accompanies this. Because they do not fit in, the geek tends to turn to other things to fill his or her need for socialization. And because they also tend to have a more vivid imagination, it makes it easier for them to become dependant on this media.
This being the case, it’s easy to see that the personality issues that spawn your typical geek have always been present. So have the stories of heroes and legends. But my guess is that back when people had to work sunup to sundown just to keep alive it was less noticeable.
