I don't post a lot of tests, but why not? It's Friday. Here's a Geek Test that my mom sent me that mostly only caught my interest because it contains a question about a +2 sword. There are lots of different kinds of "geeks", and this test is aimed at what it calls "true" geeks -- that is, computer geeks.
On a broader note, I think it's a good thing for the youth these days to have conformity de-emphasized. When I was in high school -- ten years ago? geesh -- the defining characteristic of geekiness (indifference to the approval of others) wasn't very well respected. Sure, it was cool to say you didn't care, but if you actually failed to conform there were social repercussions. I can remember the futility of trying to explain ICQ and instant messaging to friends who didn't even have computers; they didn't get it, and thought typing messages to people through a computer was pretty dumb. I get the impression that's not so much the case anymore, which is good.
Ultimately, we all want to be geeks of some sort, of whatever we're into, and it's great that the social pendulum has swung in the other way for now. I'm sure the trend will reverse towards conformity again at some point, but the internet is just so darn useful and new that it's impossible to look down on the mentality that made it possible. Once the net is fully assimilated into our culture, it will no longer be associated with geekiness.
i don't know anyone who isn't a geek of some sort. Whether you're into unix scripting or the last decade of football results, everybody's obsessed ( = more interested than me) in at least one subject...
After all, what's the categorical difference between getting dressed in your team's uniform, and standing in the cold and rain for two hours screaming ritualised chants, and role playing in a castle decked out with swords and chainmail, recreating the battle of Bosworth Field?
I think the internet's influence -- increased communications, means that everyone's geekiness is more visible. We are now realising that our (levels of) obsessions are not unusual or weird.
I think that
"Once the net is fully assimilated into our culture, it will no longer be associated with geekyness."
is a very interesting idea, and probably false. To a large extent, the internet is so assimilated into so many people's daily lives and work, that it can't be, by itself, associated with geekiness. The days when people who used email and chat were geeks are gone. I don't see how the internet can become any more of a regular day-to-day thing than it is now. Cars and cellphones used to be luxuries of the rich, but not any more. Computers, and then the internet, used to be only a part of geeks' lives, but that's also no longer true.
Of course there will always be people who really understand the internet, who are really into it much more than is "necessary". And those will always be geeks, even long after the internet is a part of everyone's daily lives. Cellphones and cars, and even computers, are a part of most people's daily lives, but then some peope get INTO them much more than most, and these people are geeks. Anyone who really understands (or knows a lot about) anything - be it a sport, politics, a market, a kind of machine, a field of science, social issues, teaching, languages - and who is proud of and excited by this knowledge, is a geek. Many of these things are done by most people at some level, but if you really, really love something, you're a geek.
So there will always be internet geeks. But there will be more and more internet NON-geeks, internet USERS. I say there are already enough that the internet is no longer intrinsically geeky.
(The neat thing about that quiz is that, to know some of these answers, you had to be in on the whole thing long before the general population, and those are the people - or represent the kind of people - who today are, and will be, internet geeks).
Hmmm... to make myself sound less contradictory, what I think is "false" is the "will" part of that statement. What I mean is, I don't see any future changes on how the internet is no longer intrinsically geeky, or on how there will always be internet geeks.
OK. Back to work.
Bernardo: The net is nearly ubiquitous, but it's still associated with geekiness. Geekiness is "cool" because of the association. Once the association loosens geek-chic may recede. Then again, the improved communication facilitated by the net may nurture geekiness even aside from perception.
This question made me feel old:
"6. Internet: I learned how to use it:
When I was very young.
When I was a teenager.
When I got to college.
I still don't understand it."
Back when I was a boy, we didn't have any fancy shmancy internet. And we liked it! In college, we got phone modems if we were lucky, running at 2400 bits per second. And there wasn't any internet to call, either. You could only call other computers called bulletin boards on the local phone lines, and all you could do was post messages, swap files, and play crappy text-based multiplayer games.
And we liked it!