geek (or is it nerd/dork?) stink breath.

this song/video has marginal relevance, but i love the song, and the title is somewhat related to today's topic, so hit play + keep reading:



the terms "nerd," "geek," and "dork" get thrown around a lot these days. some as insults (preceded/followed by a wedgie and/or stolen lunch money), some as forms of reaping credibility to oneself being just out of the mainstream.

REGARDLESS, it's quite annoying, like when people see a gorilla + call it a "monkey" (they're APES you moron! monkeys have tails. go away.)

so let's clear this up once and for all, on the internet, for all to see. years ago, rising out of loser obscurity into the my own personality (be yourself kids, stay in school, and just say no to drugs), i came up with the proper layman's distinction of nerds, geeks, and dorks. many of my friends have heard me wax on about it at parties, and hear i lay it out for you the esteemed reader:

NERDS:
the most overused term. refers to those who have "nerdly" interests (sci fi, comic books, super tech stuff), but CAN socially acclimate with people who DON'T have such interests (though often those people will clearly acknowledge the "nerdliness" of their friends)...in fact, we like to mingle outside so we can tell them that BSG/graphic novels aren't all so bad (think of us as stealthy ambassadors). sometimes these "others" with whom we socialize of the opposite sex will even let us date them (they simply put up w/ all the action figures on the bookshelf). simply put, we can tell you anything about ST: TNG (and uniformly agree that DS9 sucked), but you're not going to find us wearing a costume at the convention. as nerd culture (comic book movies, gadgets, the internet) permeates more and more into the mainstream, and becomes more "cool" this is obviously the largest growing segment (which annoys many oldschool nerds, making us adopt more geekish tendencies).

GEEKS:
those who have similar genre interests to nerds, but cannot successfully acclimate with others of non-nerdly interests. net, they tend to prefer hanging out with their own kind. though they are on friendly terms with many nerds. these are usually the guys you see chatting away at the comic book stores about the latest Watchmen trailer (quite the friendly lot). geeks tend to exist on the music scene in the indie record store as well, but music geeks (or music snobs, as they're more commonly known) tend to look down on others who listen to things that are more mainstream (NOTE - there is some overlap between music snobs + nerds). there seems to be a higher incidence of D&D players amongst geeks VS amongst nerds. also, quite a high (observed) overlap with goths.

DORKS:
the rarest of all breeds, and give the rest of us a bad name. dorks have their own interests of a similar variety (though often more eccentric in nature), but cannot even socially acclimate with those of similar or dissimilar interests. geeks and nerds can't stand them, even though we try.


so now you know. and knowing is half the battle.