Full Frontal Nerdity
I recall a few years ago when “Personal Branding” first came on strong in public consciousness: the idea that you should take control of your identity and image. The initial ideas were actually very good (if not as new as people thought), even if later years saw some of the concept degenerate into shallow pandering. Still, the lessons of “Personal Branding” are simple: take control of your identity.
Only we geeks, nerds, fans, otaku, and the rest kind of know that. Not always consciously, but we know it because we’ve been seizing control of our identities.
Remember when “nerd” was bad? When “Revenge of the Nerds” seemed almost refreshing instead of pandering? Yeah, well people like you and I owned that word, took control of it and now I’m posting at a site proudly called “Nerd Caliber.”
Remember when “geek” was bad and now it’s everywhere – almost to the point of being a fad of its own? People dimly realized that geeks kind of made a lot of the great stuff in the world, and over time the word became more positive. Certainly many of us who call themselves “geeks” have been working to own the world.
Remember when fans took the negative term “Otaku” from Japan and owned it (even with some controversy)?
This is great, but it’s not enough. We have to own our identities totally, take control of them as opposed to be controlled, and proudly state the truth . . .
We’re a bunch of geeks, nerds, and more and we’re proud of it.
We shouldn’t let people control the words for us because there’s been enough negativity about people like us. We’re creative, we’re intellectual, we’re technical, we’re imaginative – and too often that’s been shoved into a corner and labeled as something “weird.” What makes us the nerds, geeks, and fans that we are is positive, it is good, and we should let it out.
When we let out who we really are, when we’re proud of it, we can do more with our lives. We can use our skills, communicate honestly, and build new and wonderful things. We can be us. The world needs more people who are “themselves” anyway.
So to be us, we need to control the words that define us. We need to say being a nerd is good, being a geek is wonderful, being a gadget freak is great. Then saying that we can proudly show the truth.
Me, I call myself a “Geek 2.0” – a professional geek. It’s on my website and business cards because it’s who I am, because it’s what I do, and because every time someone sees that term they see I’m owning it – and realize they can own the words that describe them. I’m not hiding it, I’m proud of it (in fact, it probably got me a few of my past jobs).
So, nerds and geeks, and all the rest of you, own the words and be proud of what makes you who you are and how we’ve made labels that were negative into positives. In fact, go and re-create them – maybe you’re a “Nerdologist” who happily studies geek culture, or a “MoneyGeek” who tweaks financial calculations, or something else. Make new terms out of the one’s reclaimed and take it farther.
We’re the geeks, nerds, and more of the world. We invented and run a lot of great and wonderful things in these modern times. Let’s be proud of it.
Besides, we can’t do this forever, we have an upcoming generation to encourage.
