The age of the geek

Brendan Rowe
Staff Writer
I’m a geek – or a nerd, or a dork or whatever you may want to call me. I’ve  been one for most of my life, and I’m damn proud of it.
Yup, that’s right; I’m proud of my social stereotype.
But hey, we geeks were never really ashamed of our status in the first place. It’s who we are, right, so why fight it?
What makes someone a “geek” in today’s society? I asked some friends what they thought a geek was, and most defined “geek” as someone interested in technology, videogames and comic books. A geek is also intelligent and studious, and often someone who tends to be a little socially inept.
(I mostly agree. I mean, those are the things I like. I don’t think I’m such a social klutz, but that might be a matter of opinion.)
What I question is how broadly this definition applies to our society – we’re not talking about a small section of the population anymore.
I mean, look at the first thing on the list: technology. You have to be interested in technology nowadays – few can afford not to be.
Computers, and technology powered by transistors, integrated circuits and microchips, are all around us. As I write this article, I can count seven pieces of technol- ogy from where I’m sitting.
Every day I see laptops in class, iPods and portable music devices, cell phones and fancy TVs. We only become more dependent on our technology as a society day by day, which is about the same rate at which these devices become more sophisticated.
And videogames. While this category ties into the general rule about technology, there are two specific points to be made. The first is the advent of casual gamers; the second, the rise of eSports.
Since Nintendo’s release of the Wii, the casual gamer has become the hottest new target demographic.
Games are now marketed to people who don’t play games like hardcore geeks, resulting in a massive spike in video game sales. I mean, just look at the rise in Facebook gaming over the last few years.
Hardcore gaming has changed a lot as well, to the point professional gaming is becoming socially acceptable. That’s right: you can make a living playing videogames, and a good one, too. The top pro gamers make up to a hundred grand a year playing Starcraft, Counter-Strike or World of Warcraft.
In Korea, the home of pro Starcraft (foreign players actually move there to play the game) they’ve filled stadiums of up to 120,000 fans with live Starcraft tournaments – that’s more than most Super Bowls.
The ’80s saw the launch of the Superman film franchise, and the start of the Batman series, too. Those and other films built up energy in the ’90s, culminating with Marvel’s release of David S. Goyer’s Blade in 1998 (Goyer’s the writer behind the new Batman Begins franchise reboot).
Then X-Men, directed by Bryan Singer, came out in 2000, and suddenly everyone wanted to do a superhero film. Since 2000 there have been over 30 superhero films, slightly more than three a year.
This year we’ve already seen The Green Hornet, a remake of an old TV series, and in the next five years, 15 other comic book films have been slated for release.
The remarkable point here is not that these movies are coming out, but that they’re successful. In 2002 audiences were treated to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man adaptation, still one of the highest grossing superhero films of all time – second just after The Dark Knight – Spider-Man grossed $403 million while The Dark Knight grossed $533 million. We’re talking huge returns.
In fact seven of the twenty-five top-grossing domestic box-office films are superhero films.
And those numbers don’t include animated movies; films based on non-superhero comics like Stardust, Red, or The Losers; or superhero non-comic book-based films like Sky High, The Incredibles, Hancock or Push, just to name a few.
Comic books are starting to become important to educators as well. Twelve different graphic novels have found their way onto the reading lists of York’s Eng- lish courses this semester. Maus I & II, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Holocaust memoirs by renowned independent comic writer and artist Art Spiegelman, appear in four different classes alone.
We’re studying comics. They actually have some literary value. It’s taken years to get respect for comics up to this point. We can only go forward from here.
What I’m trying to say is, sure, stereotypes are dumb and we shouldn’t be ignorant and judge people based on them, but they exist for a reason. The world has spoken – geeks and nerds are the way of the future.
The percentage of geeks is rising whether you like it or not. We’re just transitioning that way, and the numbers don’t lie.
Better technology means more widespread use; videogames are becoming more popular; and, well, superheroes are a profitable business.
So here’s what you do: go out and buy a book by Alan Moore, Frank Miller or Neil Gaiman. See if it’s something you’re into. Now is the time to try, because the age of the geek is upon us.
Arthur the Aardvark: Comic book nerd?
Comic book writers have always made great stars. In October 2010, Neil Gaiman, graphic novelist and writer extraordinaire, guest-starred on PBS’ Arthur in an episode dedicated to comics.
In that episode, in a segment called “Falafelosophy,” Gaiman, who has written stories for children and adults alike, tells one of Arthur’s classmates she should write graphic novels because she likes to draw as well as write.
Gaiman was ecstatic about the script, writing on his blog, “It’s a delight: with luck it’ll have kids all over the world making their own little graphic novels, and will usher in the dawn of a new golden age of comics and creativity.”
The influence of comics on our society today is expanding – but, then again, Arthur has always been intelligent like that. It takes a real kids’ show to parody South Park, Beavis and Butthead and Dexter’s Laboratory in the same episode.