How big a geek are you?

Maybe it’s just that I’ve long since passed through the social mine fields of adolescence and high school, but it seems to me that the terms “nerd” or “geek” aren’t quite as derogatory as they used to be. To be sure, they’re still not up there with endorsements like “jock” or “nice guy” or “the guy who takes your money at the parking garage”, but being a nerd isn’t as bad as it used to be. Not that I’m going to go prance around in a Green Lantern shirt and composing Star Trek fan fiction, but still…

One of the reasons is probably that the same people who have made beautiful, athletic, and alcoholic people so popular have realized that nerds have money, too –sometimes a LOT of money. So now traditionally nerdy products and media like video games, science fiction, high fantasy, super heroes (if not comics), computers, vampires, and anime have become mainstream. These things are far from taboo according to the smiling heads of marketing; they’re pitched as exciting, trendy, and chic. Heck, MTV’s Spike TV even has a video game award show like a little beeping Oscars. And speaking of the Academy Awards, how much more mainstream can high fantasy get when a film based on Tolkein is nominated for Best Picture?

Since it’s just the two of us here, let’s be honest. I’m a bit on the geeky side myself. I’ve read my fair share of scifi and fantasy. I worked in the video game industry for three years. I’ve assembled my own computer from parts I ordered on the ‘net. My TiVo keeps recording anime for me because it thinks I’m a nerd, and who’s to argue with TiVo? And to make sure things keep running in the family, I just bought the creeper tee-shirt below for my daughter Samantha.

The caption reads “I TCP/IP, but mostly IP”. Don’t worry too much if you don’t get it.

Geeky, right? Imagine my surprise, however, when I found out that I only rank around the 33rd percentile of geekiness. Well, surprise and a little relief. How do I know? I took these two tests:

The Extreme Nerd Challenge
The Geek Test

Take them to see how you rank, adding 2% to your scores if you laughed at the tee-shirt above. Go on, I’ll wait here until you’re done.

Back? Good. How did you do? Post your scores in the “Comments” page for this entry.

You may have noticed that some people out there are hard core nerds. These new aristocrats of Geektown are over two standard deviations above the mean in a normal distribution of nerdiness, and they’re apparently proud of it. Extreme nerds are the new nerds. Thank goodness.