A Geek In Chic Clothing

I'm a geek ("What?" You say, "You? No! You don't look like a geek.."). Well, long gone are the days where geeks are assumed to only be those in Star Wars t-shirts who never shower or have a single comic book out of place (I'm well aware that not all geeky folk avoid showers. Please be aware, my dear friends, that I mean no offense!). These days geeky folk are just as likely to be tucked neatly into suits and ties, with elegant hairstyles and neatly applied makeup.

Look to your left. If you're at a stoplight, the guy in the next car may look like an engineer or an architect, but he may have a desperate love of Star Wars and have a Maine Coon Cat named Chewbacca. You never know.

Now, while I've managed to use the typical geek stereotype in this post, I do so with the intent of making a point: while geeks once upon a time were mocked and teased, being a geek now is an entirely different story. It's 'cool', or moreso than when I was in school years ago. The geek culture lurks beneath the surface of many a man, woman and child, and the opportunity to nurture the budding is everywhere. Some may be Star Wars fans, while others may be Star Trek fans (I'm in that camp, and proud of it!). Some may have a closet full of TeeFury.com shirts (Seriously, check it out. It's a ten dollar t-shirt a day, and some are fantastic. Not all are geeky.), while others may sleep with a giant stuffed Adipose (It's a Doctor Who reference, so if you're not familiar...check out the tenth Doctor, and watch. WATCH.).

Last summer I had the privilege of attending PortCon, a shiny four days ("Firefly" reference. If not familiar with Firefly...you're missing out.) of anime and comic goodness. FOUR days of so much geek that I came away from those four days feeling more accepted in my Doctor Who/Star Trek loving nature than I ever have. There were costumes (the BEST Link and Zelda EVER, Chell from Portal, even Richard Castle himself in his writers vest), panels on subjects ranging from "The Costuming Of Doctor Who" to "It Came From Not America" (A panel on...you guessed it...bits of Geek Culture that didn't come from America. Great shows that did not originate on these shores). Days were spent pouring over the schedule and agonizing about whether we should attend the Joss Whedon panel ("Buffy", "Firefly", "Dollhouse") or go to the Geek Jeopardy tournament. I'm telling you- there's not much that will get me out of bed at eight in the morning, but the Joss Whedon panel definitely won that honor. I love that man, and if he ever, EVER cooperates with Fox again, I will personally beat him until he's dizzy. They don't do him any favors.

But I digress.

There was a director that debuted (as far as I know- he may have shown it elsewhere) his new film, "Lloyd the Conqueror", which took a pretty high spot in the list of admired films my roommate no doubt keeps in his movie-happy brain. I didn't see it, but I heard SO much about how amazing it was...so I feel like I was there. I think I'd chosen to hang out in the video game room and play some classic Mario 3 with one of the PortCon staff members, and I know THAT was a throwback for me. Nothing like Mario.

Being a Geek means  you have to deal with a lot of assumptions. If I wrote fanfiction (yes, I did. I do. I still do.), I faced questions like "Don't you have anything better to do? You must have a lot of time on your hands." I often feel, when I get that sort of question, that I should fire back with "Oh, you watch cars running around and around a track? Don't you have anything better to do?" (Sorry, NASCAR fans. Really. I don't get that, and you don't get why I like to watch fictional characters on a fictional starship. That's okay).  But you know, just because I play video games to unwind instead of throwing back a few beers and watching a football game doesn't mean that I have nothing better to do. It means that my method of unwinding is to escape, albeit temporarily, into a world that isn't my own. It's a lot of fun, really, once you give it a chance. And growing up, I never let myself admit to people that I liked Star Trek (I did sometimes, but a lot of the time I hid my Star Trek books in a book cover and wrote fanfiction with the sheet of paper under something boring). Because I couldn't handle the way people would make fun of it. And there was no shame- there never has been. What's the shame in being a geek?

So today I urge you to embrace a geek (not literally. I'm not kidding- some really don't shower. Go to a gaming store sometime. You'll find I'm right.), and don't laugh. Don't roll your eyes, don't look at their Doctor Who t-shirt and sigh when they say they play Magic: The Gathering (Trust me, after my experience I still want to roll my eyes at that, but I don't judge. Because to each his own. And at least they aren't murderers.). Just think of the fact that it's no worse than a NASCAR fan, or even a reality TV fan. They love it, so who are any of us to judge anyone?

After all...some day the Geek shall inherit the Earth. Right? :)

"When I was a kid, it was a huge insult to be a geek. Now it's a point of pride, in a weird way." 
                                                                                                   -J.J. Abrams