Rick Rubin did it with the term “Def”, many are trying to do it with the “Metal Horns” and I feel that the term Geek is the next obvious choice. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the death of a term, the final burial of a word or idea that has long since been violated and exploited beyond what it originally meant. The glass that is public perception has allowed “Geek Culture” to float to the top in the last several years and now the term has lost all of its relevance.
It’s no longer a term we can use to describe ourselves because so many claim the name as their own, deserving or not. We must face facts that our days wrapped warmly in the term Geek are over as are the days of the war between Geek Pride and Geek Embarrassment. There were always those of us who embraced being a Geek and being different and then those who desperately wanted to be accepted by the populous at large, hating their forced Geekdom.
That war has ended and the Geeks that hated being Geeks can now use it as a way to get laid. Sure it bastardizes what the term stood for but they don’t care. These are ideas that have been ripped from us by the thick boney wanting fingers of a mass audience hungry to maintain the illusion that they stand outside the gilded cage.
You can see it in just about every facet of current popular media. The blood is in the water, the sharks have come out and there is little we who have lived under the burden of this term can do but turn our backs and move on. Where once comic book conventions were there for those of us who actually read comic books they are now a focus group with a thousand heads each caught between the crosshairs of the film industry and their marketing oxen.
You can see them perusing the conventions offering riches to lock up the rights to proven and non-proven comic properties in hopes of cornering the next Dark Knight and the profits it returned. Their retinas are burned with dollar signs, their Bluetooth earpieces are permanently in place and they exude a false excitement about comic books that sours the purity of these events. These men and women throw the term “Geek” around without knowing what it takes to be considered part of that group.
This false love of the Geek is apparent in movies, TV, magazines, nearly every facet of popular culture. Some say this is the meek or the “geek” inheriting the earth, that the geeks who all got picked on and put down have grown up into positions of power and that’s where this flood of interest has come from.
While I agree that a few of them have raised to that height most of the people moving in that group are liars, frauds and fakes. To be a geek, a true geek is to not want acceptance and approval at all costs. We as true Geeks are so invested in our passions that we constantly hold what we love up to the fire so that they stay true to their ideals and not become watered down in hopes of making a buck.
What is going on right now are people who desperately want mass acceptance but refuse to admit it so they hide in this Geek army in order to protect their reputations. Look at someone like Quentin Tarantino or Harry Knowles two of the worst violators of what it means to be a Geek. If you really listen to these two or read what they say what you get are two self-serving egotistical frauds who long for nothing but to be seen as cool in Hollywood.
Knowles’ posts on his Ain’t It Cool News website always regurgitate who he knows, what he owns or who he’s met. Nearly every post reads like a desperate attempt to convince us he’s still a true Geek when the simple truth is that he has been bought and paid for. It would almost be more honorable for him to admit he’s in love with the Hollywood Machine than to continue this charade. Instead we’re forced to labor through his company bought opinions. Knowles never counters anything unless it has been understood it’s ok to dislike it. For instance he refuses to admit how bad The Spirit movie looks but he continues to rage against the newer Star Wars movies.
Tarantino is a different type of false Geek. He is desperate to exude cool while always trying to tell us he doesn’t care about being cool. Largely his films are rip-offs of better movies, his dialogue is dated and his ability to direct questionable. What he can do is throw a thousand references and visuals at you to try and hide the fact that his movie is essentially pretty lame.
The Death of Geek 
