Did Apple Make Geeks Cool?
A couple weeks ago I had an assignment in my English Composition class that made me reflect on my own adolescence. The assignment was to choose a word that has a dual meaning…a different connotation than denotation. We were to use a writing selection from our text as a model. In the story, a woman describes how a word, used as a term of endearment at home, is used with malice as a racial slur at school. I’m choosing not to site the work specifically because I don’t want to confine that experience to a particular group. During our childhood, we all had terms and words that could be used only by our family members.
For my assignment I chose a word whose meaning changed over a period of time rather than one with concurrent meanings at a single point in time. My word: Geek. People refer to me as a Geek fairly often these days, and I have no problem with it at all. In fact, I like it. But, it hasn’t always been this way. There was a time when being a Geek meant being an outcast, shunned by the “cool” people. Below is a selection from my paper:
Geek implied a deficiency in most other skills that were important to kids, (including hygiene.) Being a Geek meant you were ugly, didn’t communicate well, unaware of popular culture, and although you knew your way around electronics, being a Geek didn’t necessarily mean you had good grades.
That was up to about the 4th grade, and then things changed. Popular culture started to embrace electronically inclined minds and gadgets became fashionable. Movies and music were extremely 
influential to pop culture in the mid-80′s and movies like “Back to the Future” found the main character embracing technology through the film. I wrote about Marty McFly in my English paper:
I was very popular by this point in grade school and was one of few students that regularly talked to every student in class. I noticed that I genuinely enjoyed the time I spent with the Geeks and I was scared to death! I had not always been popular. It took until the 4th grade for me to be considered cool and I didn’t want to jeopardize it. But, Marty McFly saved me. He demonstrated that it was cool to be tech-savvy. This was a step in the right direction, but the role of Geek still existed. Marty learned enough to operate the DeLorean, but the highly technical skills resided with Doc, and no 9 year old kid I knew aspired to be Doc over Marty. So, I learned to temper my technology skills depending on my environment to avoid the Geek tag.
The Small Screen also had a major impact, possibly more than the Big Screen, on the evolution of the 
term Geek. Shows like “MacGyver,” (my personal favorite) took the Geek character from the supporting role and butt of jokes, to the lead and hero of the show. I can’t think of any character, movie or TV that single-handedly resolved bigger crisis situations than Mac. He made being a Geek cool on several levels: He was a pacifist, environmentalist, well-built, good-looking, scientific and engineering genius! He was oblivious to fashion, but oddly enough, if you walk into Old Navy today, half the clothes come straight from Mac’s closet. MacGyver made carrying a Swiss Army Knife and knowing obscure facts cool. Initially, only Geeks watched MacGyver, but soon it caught on and today he is a household name, associated with quirky, sexy, genius.
Moving on to the title subject I’ll quote my English paper again.
Personally, I think Steve Jobs and Apple is responsible for the conversion of the term Geek. Apple computers were flat out cool and anything associated with them was equally cool. With an immensely larger audience for Geeks to associate themselves, I believe they literally evolved. Previously, Geeks needed only communicate with other Geeks and developed only a limited scale of communication skills. Now that the entire world was enamored with Apple computers, Geeks learned to communicate with a broader range of individuals.
In my opinion, the negative connotation of Geek is rooted in poor communication. The fact that a Geek is well versed in technology or electronics is not why people looked down on them. Once Geeks expanded their (our) communication skill set, they (we) started to adopt more mainstream ideals with appearance. Nowadays, with the mobile and personal computing revolution, Geeks are an envied bunch!
Today, even a long-time Techy like me has to actively work to stay within the Geek circles. The parameters are moving so quickly in the direction of finite, specific genius, yet retaining a well rounded social skill set and other non-technical interests. Geeks now have their own genre of fashion, they influence automobile manufacturers, and have totally taken over how we communicate, work, and play. If you can believe it, being a Geek is so attractive nowadays that some fake it! :-p
So…any and all comments are welcome. What do you think of when you hear the term Geek? Positive, negative? Flattering, insulting? Is the term applicable today or is it dated?
Next on my Spring Break agenda is to establish a wireless network with this Vista notebook and my Fedora 8 Linux desktop. 
Since I’ll be “laid up” I’ll be posting with much more frequency. Also, if you ever want to initiate a discussion rather than wait for me to blog about it, visit my forums: TreoBenny.com/forums
