Geek Pride

I am what is often commonly referred to as a geek. Does this bother me? Definitely not. Am I proud of the fact I'm a geek? I used to be.

I do understand the whole geek pride thing. Until recently, geeks were generally made fun of as a group of people who did not fit into society due to their lack of social skills (which, by the way, doesn't apply to all geeks) and their interest in things that could be considered geeky. Now geeks are considered cool. What I wonder about though, is how is this any different to finding any other group of people with a certain set of interests cool? How is it different to thinking the sports players in high school are cool? I don't believe there's a difference.

Geek pride is immature. Plain and simple. Why should someone be proud of their interests? If someone went around all proud of the fact they were interested in botany or clothes design, people would think they were crazy. Being proud of being good at something or something you've achieved makes sense. However, a lot of geeks aren't proud of being good at something so much as being proud of liking something. Most people leave this sort of pride in their teenage years, yet a lot of geeks let it continue into their adult life. Why is this considered a good thing in a lot of circles?

This especially becomes an issue when elitism comes into play. Judging people for being into geeky things without being geeky enough. You're a good looking person with social skills who happens to like Batman? Fuck you, you can't hang out with us. This is ridiculous. Grow up. I know the tendency to create cliques can go well into people's adult lives, especially cliques based on interest. But there is no reason to be proud of social construct, it just happens. You won't hear the majority of people being proud of liking something, so why should we be proud of being geeks?