Something to keep you going while I finish packing my flat into boxes

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1016539]

Comments

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

They're like that well-known-but-name-escapes me personality test thing where the lengthy result applies to everyone who might read it.

Of the above groups, the one they're REALLY not like is geeks.

[andrewducker]

In many ways they represent the ominpresent "outsider" - i.e. the way that all geeks feel - outside of society, bullied for being different, and generally feeling that they are somehow superior to those around them...

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Unlike a lot of geeks, they're pretty, glossy, studly and pretty much airbrushed perfect.

To quote a prostitute in Desperate Housewives speaking to Bree: "Do you even HAVE pores?"

Just speaking about the first of the films, while I couldn't stand it, the look of the X-Men was nicely like the heroes of Starship Troopers, where everyone was pleasingly airbrushed and Athena poster-ish.

They're geeks in the same way a drop dead gorgeous perfect 10 model but with her hair tied back, wearing unfashionable clothes and glasses that aren't trendy ones is a "geek" and not pretty until she gets a trendygirl makeover.

As far as the comics go, I really couldn't comment.

To be honest, take any person or group that feels enough like outcasts and they'll latch onto almost anything. And, of course, the mass media takes very great care to ensure their protagonists are everyman/everywoman enough for the majority of people to identify with them.

It's why you have to make sure every muscle-bound brute has his pet dog, or fish, or takes up gardening, or has a pretty and very feminine wife (usually pregnant) or how that drop dead gorgeous ninja assassin mutant hero actually likes to read comics/has problems chatting to men.

So all of the options were true. Of course, all comic book villains are really meant to be evil Communists trying to bring down America.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Surely that describes an awful lot of social groups that don't perceive itself as the majority though?

I wasn't aware that all geeks felt like that though.

I would say that I must be a geek, but I heard goths felt like that too, and teenagers, and girls, and gay people, and people who don't want children, and people who DO want children, and single mothers, and sensible nuclear families.

I'm sure I'm not ALL of those.

Truthfully, I'm starting to hate the term geek more and more. Did it get ironically reclaimed? Like (mostly American) goths/spooky types referring to themselves as "freaks"? I hate that.

[andrewducker]

Geek got reclaimed in about 1997... I've seen it used purely descriptively on a regular basis since about 1999. To be a computer geek simply means "One who enjoys spending time with computers and is good at it." last I checked. Same with comics, music and most other subjects. I've even heard people refer to sports geeks.

Nerd is still an insult though :->