Geeks and Nerds a look

When you go to school, you end up becoming a geek or a nerd on something. The weird fights between the two end up becoming internet Memes, and confusing conversations. In reality, what you are seeing has more to do with modes of thought, and most people tend to go back and forth.

For the purpose of making this easy, there are only three groups you really need to know.

A dweeb is someone who is excited about something, but doesn’t really understand it. You can be excited about Power Rangers, but not look into how the effects are made, the martial arts used, and how the actors are doing. You can view the Power Rangers as just a cool TV show you watched as a kid, and be happy with that.

Once you get into the understanding of whatever subject you love, the way you understand them fall into two different understandings. The first is the idea of how things work directly. What is the system being used, and how does it work? If you want to know, you need experience to figure everything out. On the other hand, if you want to know things about how the system was made, and why, there is a theoretical understanding that has to be used. In many cases, the two methods may give you the same answer, but a completely different understanding of what it does.

A geek is someone who goes into a system, and tries to understand it from experience. They will break into an office to try out a computer, and create random things like music, games. The very idea of being a geek means to start at something dumbly, but through watching someone else they can also learn. If you know someone that enjoys taking cars a part, and then putting them back together -sometimes in the same shape- you are looking at a geek.

Computer geeks have been a backbone of the industry for ages. We keep coming up with new names for them, like Ninja or Wizard. A geek is willing to let the rest of life fall away, and take on serious projects for months, and even years on end. To them, getting into a computer, and being a part of it is a perfect world.

A Nerd is looking at things in a theoretical point of view. They are educated in researching everything about a subject before even getting near it. They will tell you grand stories of how science will change the world, and the way computers will push that forward. If you ask them how binary works, they will look at you oddly.

Historians tend to need the nerdiness. You do not release a book until you have every scrap of information you can find, and have detailed out what happened where. If you make a small mistake, another nerd will hold it against you. A nerd can study ancient civilizations, and never leave the office.

Needless to say we need both, but if you ever see the two ideals meet, it gets awkward.

My brother is training to become an engineer, he wants to get into robotic engineering in the end. I do physics as a hobby. It has become a joke between us about how equations work. Basically, a physicist will write out an equation as a way to understand why something works, though it may not be true. An engineer uses equations to control a closed system. Now imagine what happens when someone tries to use a physicists equation to control something.

As another example, I majored in History, and minored in Anthropology. Although a historian may learn the languages, read the many texts, and know the common theories held by others, they rarely enter into the place they study. In fact, it’s sort of nice. When I studied the Vietnam war it gave me nightmares imagining what it was like for someone just trying to live in the country.

On the other hand, an anthropologist goes into the field, and studies with a singular mind. They tend to be aware of what others have written, but usually base things on actual experiences. It is expected to work with the subjects for years before a paper is written.

A history paper will have at least one citation for every paragraph. I know there have been times where I cited multiple sources for each sentence I wrote in a paper. My teacher said my argument wasn’t written well enough. We had a single class where the only assignment was to write one paper, and I ended up speaking with a scottish accent trying to cram it all in.

An Anthropology paper may use five sources, and rely mostly on notes taken in the field. The papers are longer, but have a much looser editing style. There are a lot more quotes used in the paper, so there is a bit of padding to be used. If this paper sounds easier, then you are in for a surprise. I made that same mistake in one of my first classes. I had a great theory, and used my understanding of that to throw a paper together. It wasn’t until we had to present our papers that I saw my mistake. Students had gone to their fields, and spent weeks there studying everything about them. There was less sources, because the students were the sources.

When I go into my next bit of study, I will have to be a dweeb. I like the subject, and even have fun with it. However, I don’t really know how the people involved deal with it. How do you fix an arcade game? How do you keep it maintained? When I went to an arcade in Vegas, I found out that the machines were being thrown away because no one could fix them.

Just because you are a geek on one subject, does not mean you are a geek on all subjects. I am a total nerd when it comes to World War I. However, some of the tactics, and political decisions leave me pretty dweeby. Videogame culture is something I am a native at, but I can only make theories about why the darker games seem to be sold to males between 10-23.

Now that we have our theories said, lets look at the gaming culture, and how it works. When you ask someone about a subject, realize that they are going to have the same dweebiness, nerd side, and geek side to many subjects. Ask a programmer about his favorite game, and he will likely mention games that have technical details. Ask him about doing something different with gaming, and it will be a lot harder to talk.

Someone who has learned Japanese to play a game, will likely view it as better. If you asked them for technical reasons, they may not understand.

One of the first videogames was Space War for giant computers. It was so amazing that Nolan Bushnell tried to sell it in carnival arcades. It didn’t do well. However, when he told a new guy to make a game based on the concept of Ping Pong, that game became a major success. We wouldn’t have videogames if it wasn’t for the geeks that made Space War, or the theoretical understanding of Ping Pong. Thus videogames follow the same idea.

When you begin to understand something, you end up having two ways to study it. The theoretical methods, and the experiential methods are both great to use, and a lot of fun. The Nerd, and the Geek have helped out the history of gaming in many ways. Just remember this the next time you go talk about games. Someone may be looking at something from an experience, while you are talking about it in a theoretical point of view.