Changing Terminology

At some point in the 1990's the line between the words "geek" and "nerd" became blurred. Both were always supposed to be insulting, but not exactly in the same way. To be brief the difference between being a geek and a nerd in the 1960s, 70s and 80s was that a geek would be very interested in things that were either esoteric or speculative that the average dumbass wouldn't have a clue about. For example talking about whether Star Trek-like teleportation could ever be possible, or the reasons behind why one stereo system would give you better sound than another. A nerd on the other hand was extremely interested in more fanciful things like whether Superman could beat up Batman, or in Star Trek, were green girls from Vega naturally sexier than women from whatever the hell planet that the woman in the first Star Trek movie came from. I'm not saying there was never any overlap in interests, but back in my day if you were at all knowleable in science or technology as opposed to fantasy you most likely be offended by being called a nerd but not particularly by being called a geek. In the 1980s it was perfectly natural to call someone a 'computer geek,' but calling someone a 'computer nerd' then would just say to the world you were a) not terribly bright and b) had a poor grasp of vocabulary.

I bring up this dated hairsplitting, because I saw a piece of a very long streaming session that was reposted on Youtube. It was one of a series of 3-hour streams on computer/ console video games, something that interests me and that could rightly be called 'nerdy' according to the old definition. There is a high degree of in-joke humor and silliness in the usual stream in this series, which also tends toward nerdiness. But when the three (two young men and a young woman) start talking about games they have very specific identifiable real-world reasons for judging the games they discuss. I would never call any of the three a nerd though they spend a good deal of their time talking about nerdy subjects some of which I have no interest in.

Each week the streaming series has a guest. This week the guest was immediately annoying to me. Despite the fact he makes his living on Youtube, he obviously didn't quite understand how to work the camera and computer equipment sitting in front of him. People commenting live during the stream were saying accurate things like 'we can only see the top of his head,' and 'he's is leaning so close to the microphone he's blasting our eardrums.'

I always thought of a geek as someone out of the mainstream, but someone with some real talent somewhere. Nerds on the other hand were people who couldn't say anything intelligent on most any subject but would argue fervently on a lot of topics. After years of simply not caring about the difference between a geek and a nerd, a few minutes of this guy made me want to shout, "My God, you're a nerd!" Case in point, I wanted to watch this particular video because the woman became engaged over the holidays, and no doubt desperately wanted to announce that on the stream. She could not because the guest from the moment the stream started was babbling about what was now canon in Star Wars lore after the new movie and he kept it up for a solid half hour! As soon as she could get a word in edgewise, the main host of the series thoughtfully stopped the Star Wars talk and let her have her moment.

Maybe I see geeks as not totally unaware of the real world and nerds just lost in fantasy. But somewhere inside I just cannot mix the two terms.