Ok, so. Geek? Nerd?

[elionwyr]

What exactly is the difference?

(Yes, yes, I could just wikipedia it, but...I'm curious what y'all think.)

It seems to me that geek is more socially acceptable than nerd*. I mean, when I think "nerd" I think "Revenge of the Nerds" and pocket protectors; and when I think geek I think of many of my friends, none of whom wear pocket protectors.

What say you?



* Unless we're talking that X-Files episode, in which case, dude, I am SO not interested in continuing this discussion. shudder

Comments

[zhent.livejournal.com]

I see Geek as being more derogatory than nerd. Nerd also is, to me, more generalized, and one can be a nerd in particular subjects vs. a geek covering everything. I've had friends even self identify their particular geekdom. My sister professes to be a music-nerd as one example, though she is in no other way a nerd...

[harkalark.livejournal.com]

I've heard it both ways, which one is the term for the cooler kind of person. And I lean towards the opposite of your interpretation. To me, "geek" is always negative, where "nerd" can be either way, negative in the eyes of jock-types but affectionate among fellow nerds (who are smart but awkward).

"Geek" also creates an image in my mind, a negative one, probably based on hearing Fred Blassie's song "Pencil Neck Geek" at an early age. Nerds seem more physically varied in my mind when I picture them (ranging from Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons to extremely hot Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

Goodness! I wonder if it's a regional thing, then..? Because I'd say just the opposite.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

See, Willow is a geek, not a nerd.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

I agree.

IMO

[bluedressdevil.livejournal.com]

Nerd: you are very smart perhaps in all things or one thing whether it is math or art history but very social inept i.e. unable to hold conversations with people outside of work and school type conversations. You are unable to dumb down explanations of your field of expertise and do not comprehend that people may not be at your level in that field.

Geek: You are very smart perhaps in all things or one thing whether it is math or art history but you are able to socialize with people well and hold conversations. You are able to speak to nerds in your field but also able to speak to "lay people" in your field because of your ability to explain in terms other than those in your field of expertise.

If that makes sense. :)

Re: IMO

[h3salthea.livejournal.com]

...I'll agree with this assessment.

..being a Geek myself, but having met LOTS of Nerds at Cons.

(..some Star Trek Nerds...*shudders violently*)

[harkalark.livejournal.com]

And yet, the majority of articles written about the show at the time or since then talks about how Buffy the Vampire Slayer made being a nerd (and being smart, doing research to defeat demons, adept with computers, etc.) cool.

A sloppy test of what is popular and current thought was introduced to me not too long ago by a certain favorite author of mine, who happens to be very close friends with a certain singer who in 1994 said the following:
"I'm the Queen of the nerds. I love nerds- by which I mean, not a cool, bitchin' person. I guess I was a cool nerd. I wasn't shuffling my feet in the corner of the playground, I was the homecoming queen, but then, all the nerds voted for me."

Neil's admittedly sloppy Google comparison of what works and what doesn't is a good gauge of popular opinion, how much one agrees with it or not. The measurement is based on how many hits a particular search turns up in Google. Like if you wanted to look up "Glenn Beck is a great guy" vs. "Glenn Beck is a jerk". The former turns up 7 hits; the latter turns up 68,700 hits.

It's not strictly scientific, but it does give you at least a general idea of how people feel. (By the way, using the Google test, I've never seen a more lopsided result than the example I just thought of five minutes ago and used above. Wow. That guy needs to get hit by something. Usually I just use it for checking spelling errors.

So using this same test, I tried the following:
"willow geek cool buffy" (39,200 hits)
vs
"willow nerd cool buffy" (1,530,000 hits)


And there you go.

[figmentj.livejournal.com]

I think geek is the one with more positive connotations. Both mean smart and into one or more subjects intensely, but nerd implies socially awkward and serious and "losery", whereas geek implies a sense of humor, certain fandoms, and a general sense of fun.

[figmentj.livejournal.com]

I submit that Willow started out as a nerd and evolved into a geek. She was originally incredibly socially awkward, and only good at schoolwork and books, and evolved into a confident, interesting hacker witchy chick who was a total geek about magic and computers and college.

[brujah.livejournal.com]

A nerd is someone whose life revolves around computers and technology. A geek is someone whose life revolves around comptuers and technology.. and they like it that way.

:D

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

in my idiolect, "geek" is someone who is focused on/obsessed by/fascinated by a certain thing, is aware of that focus/obsession/fascination, and has enough self-awareness to find it sometimes amusing. I hang out with cocktail geeks, music geeks, comic book geeks, movie geeks... actually, I tend to hang out with geeks.

Hmmmm... I don't use "nerd," often, but it has derogatory connotations to me. "Humorless," and "oblivious," perhaps, being the main ones.

I also think there's a sliding scale of good geeks to bad geeks, and nerds are not in it. A nerd is more likely to be quietly off being obsessed about, say, the first two October Project albums; a bad geek will leap into a music conversation about them and explain in detail why the third cut on the first album is the absolute pinnacle of twentieth-century female vocals, not letting anyone else get a word in edgewise; a good geek will talk about the albums, and how they relate to Mary Fahl's later solo work, the November Project, and other things, and engage in actual conversation.

[just-the-ash.livejournal.com]

Your idiolect maps to mine. I'm a literature geek, and yesterday I told my two sections of freshman comp about how National Punctuation Day (seriously, www.nationalpunctuationday.com) proved people out there were geekier about punctuation than I was. (No joke: you can download an official meatloaf recipe for NPD, and use it to bake, say, question-mark-shaped meatloaves, as held by the woman in the photo.)

But geekeries can overlap socially, and be picked up by other strands of culture. Moby-Dick has found his way into a tabletop miniatures game (wargaming geeks!), and into an entire album, Leviathan, by death-metal band Mastodon. (I admit the "Blood and Thunder" video confuses me. I get the "WHITE WHALE! HOLY GRAIL!" in the chorus, but I must have missed the chapter in the original about clowns, bearded strippers, and popcorn.)

Also, yes, the humor. Penny Arcade is a beautiful spoof of geekery -- Looking for Guild misses the mark because all the humor is in-jokey, and the plot is all SRS BZNS. The icon attached to this comment is a lit-geek-humor thang, and it's almost frightening how good Emily looks in Aretha's hat.

Your bad-geek example is almost certainly committing one or more of the Geek Social Fallacies, the very existence of which also points to a level of self-awareness not implied by "nerd."

[argonel.livejournal.com]

In my lexicon gEEk is an electrical engineer, while nerds are most other types of engineers. But then as a Metallurgical engineer my views may be a little skewed compared to the general population.

[iwhisperwolf.livejournal.com]

The primary difference, as far as I can fathom, is one of applicable knowledge.

A "nerd" is anyone who shows a socially uncouth amount of attention to any given subject.

While a "Geek" is someone who does so to the extent that said person could seek gainful employment in a field related to their geekdom.

Example...
A zombie 'nerd' survives the apocolypse, while a zombie 'geek' profits off of his knowledge of zombie anatomy by selling shotguns to nerds.

You see?

Etymologically speaking...
"Geek" stems from the Germanic "Geck" meaning "to excel through cheating." (chicken biting is an unrelated later usage)
While "Nerd" comes from "Nert" meaning a "stupid or crazy person." Possessing none of the witty "Ace" qualities that "geck" has, making "Nerd" the more derogatory of the two.

They're interchangeable, much like "Dork" and "Doofus" are interchangeable. But still different.

I think we should adopt a new word that works as an umbrella to cover both...
"Neek" or "Gerd" perhaps.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

As always, I love your responses. :)

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

Subjectively: when I think "geek" I think of someone who isn't afraid so express esoteric interests in social situations (dressing as a Klingon in public, say); "nerd" for me connotes someone more of the pocket pen protector ilk.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

My husband wore a pocket protector on our first blind date. Yes, really.

And I looked at it and said to myself "Well! At least he's not wearing a calculator strapped to his belt!" which he wasn't.

And we went out to eat, and it came time to pay the bill... and lo! he had a CALCULATOR WATCH!!!! I almost cracked up right then and there, but didn't because i didn't want to have to explain.

We've since discussed it, though, and we both think it's pretty funny.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

Awesome!