Comments on: What Type(s) of Geek Are You?

By: Jason Tocci

Jason Tocci — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:44:35 +0000

Tela:
Excellent question. I think they’re missing because it’s harder to identify them as a consumer group to be marketed to, which is what Wired does. All the rest of these—even “hackers,” who presumably get their computer supplies and black hoodies somewhere—can be explained in terms of demographics to market to based on entertainment preferences. Even if that’s not exactly how they might describe themselves, that’s kind of how Wired imagines its audience, I think.

Still, they could’ve stuck someone in there with an xkcd shirt and a telescope.

Church:
I started peeking at the source for their polls to set up my own, but gave up when I realized two things.

One, the results would not be anything I could actually refer back to in my research, as the readers of my blog could be a self-selected group based on interest in the geeky things I write about most. (I tend to write about a variety of presumably overlapping geek interests, and if you’re only interested in a couple of those, I imagine you’d go elsewhere on the web. Also, I tend not to write deeply about technical things at all, so I imagine I’m missing a lot of the Make/2600 crowds.)

And two, I actually don’t like coding and I have other work to do, so I got bored and got back to writing.

I suppose if I could host such a survey elsewhere, someplace a little more neutral, and ask just a few more detailed questions to make it worth everyone’s while, that could be an interesting little exercise. Maybe I’ll do that for when I’m ready to update the dissertation and pitch it as a book…

By: Church

Church — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:17:54 +0000

Jason, how about running your own poll?

By: Tela

Tela — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:16:20 +0000

What happened to science geeks?

By: Matt S

Matt S — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:51:46 +0000

P.:

Is that you Paul?

Jason:

Or someone working at Wired spent an afternoon reading DS instead of working on a story and had to write something fast. Of course Wired would never have such low standards for journalism. :)

By: Jason Tocci

Jason Tocci — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:11:18 +0000

P.:
This makes me happy to hear.

Church & Z.:
Fair enough.

Matt:
Either you just cracked the code for the webcomics world, or R. Stevens already cracked the code for us.

By: Matt S

Matt S — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:57:02 +0000

Am I the only one that sees a striking similarity between the groups in this Wired piece and the characters in Diesel Sweeties?

By: P.

P. — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:49:03 +0000

I think you’ve got your definition right there, or at least part of one: Anyone who cares how we construct identity is a geek.

Which is awesome. I’ve only been reading your Studies for a few weeks, but they’re always interesting, and phrases like “how we construct identity” get me passionate about figuring out why/how people/things work.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:43:46 +0000

For those who do identify as one of those categories, I’d be interested to see how they view the other categories (more or less geeky, cooler, inferior, whatever).

For the record I’d identify as a mix. Giving up any one of those stereotypes would feel like loosing a part of myself.

By: Z.

Z. — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:03:40 +0000

You both make good points.

Part of this quandary could well be rooted in the nerd’s unyielding need to classify and catalog. Likewise, it could also be necessitated by the non-geek world’s urge to place the whole of geekdom in a series of clearly marked boxes.

By: Church

Church — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:31:33 +0000

Geeks love cladistics.

That is all.