By James L. (JimiJam)

When I really think about it, I have to ask: Do we really need a day to celebrate our geekness?  Every day seems dedicated to one geeky endeavor or

Geek Squad

another.  Whether we know the difference between Java and Javascript, we’re all computer geeks to a degree, and we certainly rely on geeks when it comes to building, selling, or maintaining our computers.  Who doesn’t have that one friend or family member who always knows just how to straighten things out when the PC doesn’t seem to be running right?

It’s probably likely that most everyone seems to know at least one geek, if not an entire pack of geeks, of almost limitless varieties, shapes, and sizes:

Tekkoshocon 2010

Star Trek Convention

Maybe you’ve got a father who can’t get enough star trek, or a brother who dresses like a Wookie on the weekends; maybe it’s a son who can’t be bothered to pause video games long enough for a proper bathroom break; perhaps it’s a brother in law who tinkers with computers both on the job and off; Or maybe, just maybe, it’s you yourself, fascinated by any given subject to a degree that the average passer by would clearly identify (and quite possibly admire) as geeky.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way.  When I was a kid, being called a “geek” wasn’t exactly a good thing.  Along the lines of “spaz” or “dweeb”, “geek” was the kind of thing that got thrown at you during recess, when they weren’t throwing dodgeballs (with less than playful intent).  In the term’s early years, a geek was even worse than a simple insult; once upon a time, the “geek” was the circus performer who sat in a cage, behaving like a primitive proto-human beast, biting the heads off of chickens and growling at passers by.  Fortunately, we’ve come a long way since then.

Dungeons and Dragons

Gone are the days of lamenting the label; here are days in which people not only wear the mantle of geekhood gladly, but boldly and proudly as well.  Geeks are no longer tormented, but celebrated.  We have entire catalogs, collections of some of the oddest and yet coolest items imaginable, dedicated to the Geek Culture.  We have t-shirts that proudly brandish our geek status.  We have conventions at which we may join other geeks in celebrating the specific branch of geekness to which we ascribe.  Geeks, with all their awkward foibles and oft-neglected attention to the fashionable, have suddenly risen to levels of recognition formerly reserved for the dazzling and glamorous.  It’s no longer uncommon to see celebrities walking the red

Tenth Doctors

carpet not in designer and expensive couture, but sporting what is now known as “Geek Chic”.  Somehow, against steep odds, geekness has managed to work its way into the mainstream.  From business to entertainment, from the specific to the common, these days geeks are just plain cool.

Geekness seems to have become as accepted as sunshine, and as normal as rain.  And yet, despite its now dominant role our lives, an entire day has been set aside, presumably for those still unaware that geekness is not only allowed but encouraged.  July 13^th is Embrace Your Geekness day, a day on which any of us and all of us can and should let our Geek flags fly!

Tags: Book Reviews, Book Suggestions, Members

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2011 at 11:09 am and is filed under Holidays and Special Dates, Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.