[This post originally written for the No-Lyfe Journal]

Maiwenn thinks that we here at No-Lyfe would know all about the difference between being a nerd and a geek. On our egroup, she asks:

Don't mean to go completely off topic, but I have a question that has REALLY been nagging me for the past month. And I'm pretty confident YOU guys are the ones who can clear it up for me. What (if any) is the difference between a Nerd and a Geek? And, has the status of the nerd/geek been raised in society lately?? I'm rather confused about the society one o_O;;. Last week I was walking around a very popular group of girls in my school and couldn't help to overhear that one called herself a "geek" because she liked LOTR and Harry Potter. On another occasion, I saw a football player in my class proclaim himself a "geek" because he was taking basic computer classes. Now you would think that they were mocking their hobbies when they said this, but surprisingly they were very proud to call themselves a nerd/geek. In fact, they repeated it several times in the course of that week. Call me old-fashioned, but back in my day a geek/nerd was shunned by society and mocked in the locker room for his/her obsessions with technology,knowledge,books, or all three. Once I tried to call myself a geek since I found out I spent most of my weekends either in band,on the internet,watching anime,in robotics,or doing homework.However, I had a friend who begged to differ since he
programmed in his spare time, played EverCrack(EverQuest),and read comic books;proclaiming himself the title of "L33T G33K". Has the status of the geek slightly raised itself in our community such that our children of the future will say, " Mommy, when I grow up I wanna be a geek!" Well, I'm probably laying it pretty thick with that reference, but please, enlighten me on this subject.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to extrapolate on the difference.

Though there is an overlap in usage, nerdism is basically related to intelligence and geekism is related to hobbies. I would say one qualifies as a nerd when their intelligence outweighs their social skills. Therefore the smarter you are, the more likely you are to be a nerd. If you're super-duper smart, you can actually be an affable nerd. In fact, the smarter you are the more likely you are because you're more likely to be able to retain an encyclopediec memory and also learn the people skills that may not come very naturally to you.

A geek, on the other hand, can be just as stupid as anyone else. What makes them a geek is their near-obsessive interest in the minutae of things that no one else cares very much about and the extent to which they let this intrude on their life. For instance, someone who answers a jury summons in a Star Trek uniform is a geek and probably not one of the smart variety. Anime fans have its share of geeks. Not those who go to conventions, mind you, but those who don't lead more ordinary lives once they leave the convention and turn off their TV.

Like I said, though, there is a strong overlap in usage and this is because there is a strong overlap in demographics. Both nerds and geeks are likely to have higher intelligence than the population at large. Thus many geeks are also nerds because their intelligence will FAR outweigh their social capabilities. Many nerds are geeks because their minds are more bogged down in academic pursuits.

Computer fanatics have been considered geeks in times past, but I've noticed that as computers become more commonplace and more people use them, that's become less the case. This especially becomes more true the older you get when almost everyone has a computer at work and/or home and your knowledge is appreciated by some of the most unlikely of sources (I get shophands asking me for computer advice all the time). So most computer technical people are, if anything, a nerd rather than a geek. If one programs, however, they specialize in the minutae and therefore are more likely to be geeks in other aspects of life (anyone uninterested in minutae is unlikely to become a programmer). Computer engineers (and engineers of other sorts) are also quite possibly geeks to whatever extent they let their interest in physics, chemicals, and electrical circuits dictate the rest of their day. The more narrow the interest, the more likely they are to be a geek.

For example, I'll take one of the main characters from a novel I recently wrote, Something So Perfect. Brad Carter is a computer networking consultant. He had a stellar academic career and is quite obviously intelligent and astute. Though he is known for being a little bit aloof and is not the most social person in the world, most people that know him enjoy his company and think he's friendly, if a bit private. If he wasn't as smart as he was, he'd escape the "nerd" label for being an introverted guy, but since his intelligence outstrips his charisma, he doesn't. Though he got a degree Physics, he found a niche working on a specific network server operating system. While this wouldn't make him a geek, but his apartment is laden with computers he's bought from people he's worked for and his elaborate set-up indicates that he takes his interest in the obsolete OS to geek levels. On the other hand, since he has a keen awareness of how little other people are interested in it, he doesn't talk endlessly about it, so he's a geek, though not as much a geek as a nerd.

Contrast this with Nick Clayton, a character from my second novel. Nick is a very private person, but not nearly as intelligent as Brad, so the fact that he's not very social does not inflict him with nerd status. He doesn't have many interests that are out of the norm, so he is not a geek. If Nick were an avid fan of Anime, had scrolls on his wall, and made inside Neon Genesis Evangelion jokes to anyone and everyone who would listen, he would be a geek without being a nerd.

So your jock friend is most likely misusing the term. He may be a "geek" according to the norms of his peer group (fellow jocks) if and only if he finds computers to be interesting (instead of taking it out of necessity), but most people wouldn't view him as such. If he excels in computers without much effort, though, he may be a nerd.

One is not a geek if they like LOTR and Harry Potter, as those were box office smashes. If she finds herself locked in debate as to the true underlying spiritual philosophy of the hobbits as compared to those of the halflings in D&D, well then she may qualify. Most likely not.

Has the status of nerd and geek elevated? It certainly has for me, but that's at least in part because I've gotten older. I refer to myself as a "computer nerd" without fearing what people will think. I would not have done that 10 years ago when I was entering high school. "Nerd" and "geek" were not exactly insults when I was in high school as much as they were descriptions. They carried a negative connotation (particularly "geek"). I'd say nerd was to smart people like redneck is to a southerner. More often than not a negative term, but some people wear the banner proudly. Has that changed? I think I'm too old to answer that question.