GEEK SPEAK

Internet smiley :

Scott Fuhlman, a researcher at Carnegei Mellon University involved with early online newsgroups, creates the original internet smiley, :-). Fellow messageboard users turn to emoticons in order to clarify ambiguous postings, and unnecessary flaming are averted thanks to the new geek-speak. Geeks around the world rejoice in this dehumanised form of expression. (Neil Feineman, GeekChic, 2005)

Geeks have adapted for the internet as it was one of the only places where they could roam freely without worrying about getting their lunch money snatched. The geek population in the early stage of the internet was dominant. Well, they were smarter than the other.

PARLEZ-VOUS GEEK?

How To Speak Geek - The top video clips of the week are here
Geeks have developed new language for communication that takes place in the virtual place. It is not hard to see or read some non-geek using this language these days and it is now called the internet slang. The most commonly used ones being Lol, OMG, brb, WTF?!
This has inspired me with the project i just finished. These were to make science look cool and approachable to GCSE students.

BRAINSTORMING

Had a quick brainstorming of the word 'geek' and the words/ideas that interested me were :

Collectors

Toys

Kidults

Nostalgia

8/16 bit

Video games and video game characters

Pixels

Uncool is now cool

Internet lingo

GEEKS ARE CHIC

'After years of prosecution, ridicule and never, ever getting the girl (or guy), geeks are finally, inefutably, certifiably chic.'
-Neil Feineman, Geekchic, 2005

Being a geek is now more popular and acceptable than ever in history. The meaning of the word 'geek' has changed drastically. 95 years ago, Webster's Dictionary defined a geek as :

1: A carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake.
2: A person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked.

As you noticed, geek was in no way conceived chic or cool, especially the head biter.



But Jon Katz says a geek is someone who is ‘identifiable by a singular obsessiveness about the things they love, both work and play, and a well-honed sense of bitter, even savage outsider humour' (Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho, 2005)

Now, that's more like it.

GEEK CHIC

For my unit 14 project, I aim to explore the current fame that geek culture has been gaining and represent it in a medium/format/domain where it hasn't been explored. And the final piece will involve some physical physical interactivity from the audience.