Monday, June 30, 2014
The Geeks have inherited the Earth
(and it’s about damn time too!)
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| This comic, courtesy of JoyOfTech.com, proves our point. |
Anyone who was interested in science – and by extension, science fiction; was fascinated by personal computers which were just beginning to make their ways into people’s homes; and who’d spent his or her free time playing games where imagination was more important than physical prowess, were looked upon as being weird, and worthy of ridicule and scorn.
But sometime during the last the 30 years we geeks went form being Urkel to Adam Savage.
And it’s about damn time too!
Without us, there’d be no smartphones; social networks, e-mail, or even Google. Hell there wouldn’t even be an Internet – which I guess, depending on your point of view, may or may not be such a bad thing.
But all the modern conveniences you now take for granted were invented by us geeks, who the mass media used to portray as bespectacled, pocket-protector and flood-pants wearing wimps, with high-pitched, nasally voices.
Well who’s laughing now?
We are.
And it’s not that stereotypical honking laugh that you all think we have.
It sounds more like this.
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Today's geeks look and sound more like Adam Savage than the
Nerds from "The Revenge of the Nerds" movies or Steve Urkel from the "Family Matters" TV show. |
That’s right, it’s the sound of us laughing all the way to the bank as you scramble to buy the latest tech gadgets we’ve created and then again when you have to pay us to fix them or teach you how to use them.
And, no, all those tablets/smartphone/computers/Apps you can’t live without don’t really need to be so hard to use. We could have made them simpler, and would have, if you guys had been nicer to us in high school.
Karama baby, it’s a bitch….
Now I guess you could argue that it was Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Inc. and the brains behind some of its most iconic devices, who first began to bring some chic to us geeks in the late ’90s. But while there is little doubt that his creations earned him the public’s adoration, the man himself was no Mr. Congeniality. By all accounts, he was a difficult man and had a reputation as kind of jerk.
Other contenders for the title of “First Cool Geek” might be Bill Nye, “The Science Guy” whose television show aired on PBS and a few other stations from 1993-1998; or to a lesser degree, writer, producer and director Joss Whedon whose genre TVs shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” and “Firefly”; films: “Toy Story,” “Alien: Resurrection,” and “The Avengers”; and web series: “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” have helped bring mass appeal to stories once thought the domain of only geeks.
Regardless of who was first, right now I think the poster boy for the modern “hip” geek belongs to “Mythbusters” co-host Adam Savage.
For a while now, I’ve been watching him on YouTube and based on what I’ve seen, I can’t think of any better role model for today’s geeks. He’s crazy smart and every bit the creative genius Steve Jobs was, but unlike the former Apple CEO, he is personable. He’s the type of guy you’d want sitting in on your Dungeons & Dragons game and could even imagine discussing who was the best captain in “Star Trek” or whether the Enterprise could beat the Battlestar Galactica or an Imperial Star Destroyer in a space battle.
But his affable personality and fame aren’t the only reason why I’d crown him “King of the Geeks.” He’s become the face of the Maker Movement and actively campaigns and encourages people to get out and make stuff they want instead of wishing it existed.
The enthusiasm which he speaks on this subject is infectious and after watching videos of him speaking at Maker’s Faires, graduation ceremonies and fan conventions, he inspired me to turn my DIY and woodworking skills to a slightly less practical pursuit: building my own lightsaber.
I’ve always wanted one ever since I saw “Star Wars” when I was 13, but the cost of buying a film-accurate replica seemed way too exorbitant.
The one I built doesn’t do half the things those replicas I could have purchased can, but I think it’s way cooler, because I was able to built it myself to my own specifications. In addition to the bragging rights and pride of having made it myself, I also learned a new skill doing it – electronics.
Learning to wire together a few LEDs, and a switch and battery into a simple circuit may not seem like much, but from that experience I learned enough to fix a flatbed scanner of mine that had suddenly stopped working and am now planning on integrating some electronics into the woodworking projects I build during my summer vacations.
This is Adam’s point.
Get out there, find what inspires you and learn how to build it.
It doesn’t matter “if the project kicks you’re ass,” he preaches. Stay with it and persevere. What you learn from that experience will be even more invaluable than your sense of accomplishment and lead you on to bigger and better things.
I think that’s an important message, given the current age of increasingly shrinking school budgets where art and shop programs are getting axed. Children should be encouraged to indulge their imaginations and build things.
Who knows, that geeky kid in your school who’s trying to build his own Iron Man armor out of cardboard and a handful of electronics parts he picked up at Radio Shack might just grow up to be the next Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates or Eric Schmidt.
So don’t make fun if him. Encourage him instead. Hell, even volunteer to help. You never know what you might learn.
And if you are very, very lucky, that kid might remember it and make the next generation of high-tech gadgets simple enough for even non-geeks to use!
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