Week Sixteen - The Meaning Of The Word Geek

Well this task has me slightly perplexed, gaming cultures, what is it, who’s involved in it, how does it affect life of those directly involved and those not in the know. Well I suppose these tasks are to enlighten us in these areas so research away.

…

Okay that didn’t go all that well, I’m still not all that sure I understand just what I’m suppose to be finding, however a thought has been occurring. In the task it say’s about people who have visited LAN parties, now I can say I haven’t, but is this a good thing or not. I can defiantly say there are two answers, yes, and no. now hold on I haven’t just contradicted myself because the answer will depend entirely upon who you ask the question. If you asked someone who had been to a LAN party before and enjoyed it, they would think how can you have never gone to one you crazy person, however if you were to ask it to someone not much of a gamer, not into the gaming culture, they would say no, they would ridicule you for how sad you are and what a ‘geek’ you would be. Now the reason I’ve put geek in inverted commas because it depends on your definition of geek. In common culture the word is immediately looked down upon, and seen as an insulting word, but I beg to differ. If for just a second you forgot what the word means and the stereotypical value it has, and imagine this word just means belong, it means that you belong to certain culture, and certain involvement in something that you truly enjoy and wish to be a part of. If this is the meaning of the word geek then everyone is a geek to there own interests, you can call a gamer a geek for playing games, and at the same time you could call a sign maker a geek, I’m sure if you were with a sign maker and they suddenly said ooo that sign looks like it’s been done very well, or that’s a horrible effort, I’m sure you would think how sad to notice that. I hope this makes sense and portrays what I’m trying to say, and it is something I think is actually becoming widely acknowledged.

Now alas, I’ve just typed that out and understand now what gaming culture it is, it’s the ‘geeks’ who are a part of it, the people that attend these LAN parties, launch nights, conferences etc, and as the gaming industry is exponentially increasing so is the culture it has behind it, and if not already, gaming culture is going to play a large role in world we live in, and the people who call the people involved geeks in the insulting sense are going to have a real shock when they realise just how many people they are insulting.