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a scaling-back of identification with things that used to be highly applicable has resulted in a layered reaction to these labels on my part. Having grown up a scrawny, bookish, soccer-playing, slightly-musical, and, when everyone hit the stage where "interest in exploring strange new urges with attractive others" began to be a thing, becoming essentially invisible for a few years[1]... I definitely considered myself nerdy and geeky, though neither the nerdiest or the geekiest.
as mainstream acceptance and enjoyment of many of these things has waxed, it's been a boon - more people to share in conversation about things! (also, for anyone who haven't seen yet, ob. pointer to Chris Kluwe's diatribe on this aspect of things, with a heavy leavening of how "gamer gatekeepers vis a vis gamergate are right to die the fuck off" - https://medium.com/the-cauldron/why-gamergaters-piss-me-the-f-off-a7e4c7f6d8a6)
My own constellation of tastes is far from a 1:1 map on what's popular - superhero/comic book movies generally leave me cold, and the reboots/series continuations of beloved franchises from my younger days are annoying, problematic, lame, or any/all of the above - but some remain somewhat more marginal. all of which is fine; we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to vaguely geeky popular culture consumables.
the only thing i'd go so far as to self-identify as a geek/nerd about these days is frigging weightlifting, which is about as diametrically opposed to polyhedrons and mechanical pencils as one gets, starting from conventional stereotypes.
(nb: my working definitions of the terms boil down to, essentially, "knowing a lot about something isn't fundamentally that geeky or nerdy; being passionate about it is what hits the tipping point (which usually leads to learning and subsequently knowing a lot about the topic)"... i know a shitload about what i do for a living, but am not nearly the computer hardware geek i was ten or fifteen years ago when it was a topic of constant recreational study.)
[1] for those manchildren who continue to inhabit this space and blame women for it, I have empathy but no sympathy.
as mainstream acceptance and enjoyment of many of these things has waxed, it's been a boon - more people to share in conversation about things! (also, for anyone who haven't seen yet, ob. pointer to Chris Kluwe's diatribe on this aspect of things, with a heavy leavening of how "gamer gatekeepers vis a vis gamergate are right to die the fuck off" - https://medium.com/the-cauldron/why-gamergaters-piss-me-the-f-off-a7e4c7f6d8a6)
My own constellation of tastes is far from a 1:1 map on what's popular - superhero/comic book movies generally leave me cold, and the reboots/series continuations of beloved franchises from my younger days are annoying, problematic, lame, or any/all of the above - but some remain somewhat more marginal. all of which is fine; we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to vaguely geeky popular culture consumables.
the only thing i'd go so far as to self-identify as a geek/nerd about these days is frigging weightlifting, which is about as diametrically opposed to polyhedrons and mechanical pencils as one gets, starting from conventional stereotypes.
(nb: my working definitions of the terms boil down to, essentially, "knowing a lot about something isn't fundamentally that geeky or nerdy; being passionate about it is what hits the tipping point (which usually leads to learning and subsequently knowing a lot about the topic)"... i know a shitload about what i do for a living, but am not nearly the computer hardware geek i was ten or fifteen years ago when it was a topic of constant recreational study.)
[1] for those manchildren who continue to inhabit this space and blame women for it, I have empathy but no sympathy.
