Nerds and Fanboys and Geeks, Oh my!

The terms “nerd” and “fanboy” have started to lose all meaning amongst pop culture fanatics. They used to signify a certain type of person: insanely smart or ridiculously obsessed with something, but now they’ve become synonymous with “geek.” The nerds are fanboys and fanboys are geeks, and all three are something to be embarrassed about. (Apparently. I didn’t know that was a thing. Ask the normie’s.)

But way back when – a whopping 10 years ago – “nerd” and “fanboy” were two completely different brands of human. A nerd was someone “whose IQ exceed[s] his weight… The person you will one day call ‘Boss’,”* and a fanboy was “a passionate fan of various elements of geek [to be discussed momentarily] culture, but who lets his passion override social graces.”*

Nerds were known for their high intellect, glasses, suspenders and floods whereas fanboys were those socially inept, overweight dudes wearing their Dungeons and Dragon robes and sporting the ever-fashionable light sabers. But never at the same time, obviously. (Insert why-D&D/StarWars-could-never-co-exist-in-the-same-universe-fanboy-rant-here.)

So… exactly when did “nerd” and “fanboy” become the same thing?

I advocate: the Geek. If Nerd and Fanboy had a secret lovechild it would absolutely be the Geek; the bridge between the two. Here’s a great little chart* I found:

Title:	Technical Skills	Social Skills
NORMIE	NO	YES
NERD	YES	NO
FANBOY	NO	SORT OF… WITH EACH OTHER
DORK	NO	NO
GEEK	YES	YES

The “normie” is the average Joe (or Jane!): No particularly special technical skills, but socially successful. They can have a conversation, and come in a variety of styles from nice to douchey, to whatever else normal people are. Honestly, I’m probably the wrong lady to ask about that.

Nerds are honored with technical skills, but lack social artistry (being social is absolutely an art) and fanboys tend to have a general lack of social prowess out in the real world, but have great communication with each other (probably because they all speak Klingon instead of English.)

The poor dorks are the bastard child that no one loves; “Someone who does things that are kinda silly and not necessarily cool.”* Lezbie honest, (yes, I will continue to make as many PITCH PERFECT references as possible until the day I croak) we all know at least one dork: the guy who reads the dictionary for fun, the girl who edited her science book back in high school. Not necessarily technical, but not lacking social skills, either. Just a wee bit strange.

However, after a painful journey through the bullied and scorned, we can finally revel in the masterpiece that is the Geek. The perfect amalgamation of nerds and fanboys, with both technical and social competence, the Geeks must have gotten all the good genes from both parents.

“An outwardly normal person who has taken the time to learn technical skills. Geeks have as normal a social life as anyone, and usually the only way to tell if someone is a geek is if they inform you of their skills… A geek does not have to be smart. A geek is someone who is generally not athletic, and enjoys video games; comic books; being on the internet; etc.”*

With a deep appreciation for fanboy culture but lacking the general obsessive compulsive behavior that goes along with it (which scares everyone else off) and fairly adequate technical experience, the Geek has overtaken the social rungs of its predecessors and formed a new, all-inclusive group of misfits.

“Wouldn’t geeks be the product of normie’s and nerds, though? Why fanboys?”

Unfortunately, through our scientific testing and research we have come to find that the control group “normie” does not exhibit any of the necessary traits that are found in the Geek sub-culture, so we must exclude them in our results.

Translation: They don’t have any love or excessive excitement for video games, anime, comics, TV, etc.

The Geek sub-culture allows anyone who has even a stitch of nerd, fanboy, or [so help us] dork in them to connect and relate over our favorite hobbies and interests. Some may go a little too far (I’m looking at you, Cumberbatch fangirls) and some may not go far enough (Ian McKellan/Patrick Stewart shippers) but props go out to the Geekdom who works really hard at giving everyone an awesomely decorated place to bond and delight in our crazy.

Can you imagine the jungle gyms we’d build?!

*You can always count on Urban Dictionary. The chart was altered to include the fanboy category, and general punctuation and grammar were edited because let’s face it: Urban Dictionary is not the place for award-winning writing. http://www.urbandictionary.com/