Geek, when you hear that word a mental picture of a short/tall guy who is either too thin or too fat to be a part of the “social world” comes up. Geeks are supposed to be nerds, one who keep themselves surrounded with books and gizmos. They are supposed to be loners, without any “life”, without any friends. Basically geeks = losers. The ones who have a “life” are the ones who have friends, who booze around and have some boastful stories to tell about they hooked up with someone. Whenever conversing with a geek, if they do not know what he is talking about, the term “Sucha Geek.” and then some boastful laugh is heard. Time as we know it, has changed….
Today the quintessential geek has evolved. Geek 2.0 if you will. The world is going virtual these days. Figure this, how many times do you meet your friends in person, how much time do you spend talking to them on the phone or commenting on their facebook statuses and replying to them on twitter, or texting them or etc. During 5 BFB era (Before Facebook), taking a picture was simple. Now there is a whole process. You cannot just take a picture and let it rot in your albums or in your computer library or on your phones, they have to be compulsorily uploaded onto facebook or twitter or whichever new networking site you have a million friends on. Not that I support or do any of it, but living and having an online social life seems to be the in thing, and one of the most important aspects of that is the number of pictures you have uploaded and the number of friends which are being reflected on your social networking account. A geek generally is registered on every site you can think of, has and keeps in touch with a hundreds of people and becomes the go to guy for many.
Hence its quite essential to know your way around technology, computers, mobiles and everything. So now suddenly the guy who was sitting in the basement meddling and playing around with the computer wearing geeky glasses and drinking soda is now a great friend to have. Everyone these days knows their way around the basics of internet and computers, it’s the yesteryears geek who is considered cool now. Knowing how to open an account is nothing, knowing how to hack that account is cool. Technological trickery is what captures the people’s minds these days. The one who can is the magician.
But this is not what drives a Geek into doing what he does. The innumerable number of hours of coding and programming or even just waiting just to make a stupid game work on something which its not built or supposed to work. Some might say, what did they achieve in doing so , a game which was made for windows is now, numerous crashes and pizzas later is made possible to be played on the Macintosh. But it’s the liberation, its doing what’s not supposed to be done, or thought cannot be done. Today one can port an unstable version of Android Éclair (v1.6 v2.0) on the apple 3Gs. It’s a geeks dream to see this happening, Apple – the iCompany from Cupertino with its closed business policy, Android – Google’s green eyed boy, and its open for all attitude. It’s a marriage made in Hell, do I need to explain why its so fascinating to see the android boy jumping on the Iphone screen? Being a Geek is just not about obsessing over a product or a certain company. It’s a tribe of people who define the future of technology and they are a force to be reckoned with. Recently Sony found this out in a very harsh way.
Lastly, why technology and gadgets? …… Technology is ingrained and encompasses everything we do today. Technology is just not about products, companies, whats selling more. Its just not about the numbers, its about pushing the limits. Todays internet tablets are faster than the 90’s supercomputers. In just 15-17 years a warehouse full of equipments horsepower has been squeezed in a 9 inch device whose thickness is less than half a inch. Technology allows your mind to run wild and it gives that wilderness a shape. It allows it to materialize. Its upto you when do you put your pen down and stop imagining, because technology will never tell you its not possible.
And hence, from this week onwards, I plan to take my geekiness to 3.0. I realize I am just not passionate about it, I am rather driven by technology and gadgets and gizmos. Its time to take it to the next level. It’s time to let the world know, Yes I’m a Geek.
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