Where have all the True Geeks gone?

Thought occurred while I was reading some Tech Journo's piece this evening, and it was making reference to only Geeks using all this Social Media stuff and it not hitting the mainstream, yadda yadda, you know the drill...and then I realised they were being oxymorons - it hit me that, strictly speaking, Geeks shouldn't even be on Social Media.

A True Geek can be defined as:

"a bright young man turned inward, poorly socialized, who felt so little kinship with his own planet that he routinely traveled to the ones invented by his favorite authors, who thought of that secret, dreamy place his computer took him to as cyberspace—somewhere exciting, a place more real than his own life, a land he could conquer, not a drab teenager's room in his parents' house" (
Julie Smith)

Male*, poorly socialised - and typically a techie to boot who is:

"a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, gaming, etc."

But now, Geekdom has changed, as Wikipedia notes:

Although being described as a geek tends to be an insult, the term has recently become more complimentary, or even a badge of honor, within particular fields. This is particularly evident in the technical disciplines, where the term is now often a compliment, denoting extraordinary skill

In other words, Geekdom now has a cachet, and people who once would never have looked twice at a geek now aspire to know them, even take on some of their mantle. And who are all these sociable people, many who are not techies, some who are even - female!! - who now call themselves Geeks?

In the interests of doing anything for a cheap laugh, and the delights of social ostracism, I offer this in depth analysis of Geekdom Today - first, the 2x2 matrix of Geekdom:



From the Top:

Chatterati - it does seem to me that actually Social Media has attracted a large number of non techie, extroverted people (ie people you can actually have a literate conversation with) who are actually more interested in what the technology can do, rather than how it works. Sadly it has also attracted some lowlife, like journalists and PR people too .

Digerati - these are of course those people who are technically adept, extroverted, great company and even semi literate. Critics may argue that this is actually the bucket for Web 1.0 old farts

Poets - Social media does allow intellectual and sensitive introverts to interact with a other people, just mediated via computer instead of (as well as?) absinthe and daffodils.

Geeks - social media allows them to interact with real people, albeit online - they just pretend Facebook is a Turing machine and it all seems so much better, somehow

.

But the question does remain - where are the True Geeks now - they shouldn't really even be on these sorts of Social Media services! What are they doing? It would be interesting to know....

* It is of course debatable whether females can be True Geeks - but its not a debate I plan to have anytime soon