MFDH: On Becoming a Geek

On Becoming a Geek
by M atthew Frederick Davis Hemming
December 1996

Late in my (as the guidance department always insisted in calling it) high school career, I had a brief flirtation with being cool. Oh yes, it's the truth.

I'd written a play of highly questionable dramatic value that was being mounted at the Solar Stage, a theatre of highly questionable dramatic value - this aside, it was of some importance to the drama elite who were the last word in cool. These were the kids hanging around outside of the school, smoking cigarettes and greeting each other with aloof, casual nods or strangely enthusiastic pseudo-hugs. They were the kids starring in the assemblies - for that matter, they were the kids that *went* to assemblies. They were official and unofficial spokesfolk for everything. Apparently, they were the cat's meow. Apparently, they were the shit.

Within a week of rehearsals, people started harassing me on my way to school. They started calling out as I walked past, "Heyyyyy - what's up?" and "Ohhh - how *are* you?" and so on. They wanted me to stop and chat, while they smoked their cigarettes. They wanted to find out what I thought of some recent theatre politics. They wanted to know if I was preparing anything for the Fringe Festival, or whether I was "completely in-line" with the director's vision and interpretation of my "work."

Suddenly, my paintings - heretofore always seeming to find their way to be banned, censored or just plain overlooked for any school exhibition - had lobbyists. Out of nowhere, a group of outspoken champions of artistic expression and whatnot were demanding to know why my work was always excluded. The administration just side-stepped the issue, while I didn't have the heart to tell them the real reason, which was this: "My paintings suck."

(I was told "off the record" that any play I submitted for the Solar Stage festival next year would be accepted without going through the normal selection procedure. I shivered.)

There were parties at which I wasn't expected to supply my own relaxation enhancement substances. And so on.

* * *

It was sort of fun. It was like playing dress-up.

* * *

The time came to write my second play. My first one had been a dark satire of the art establishment (as seen through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old painter's apprentice), which was greeted with self-righteous glee and weighty kudos by black turtle-neck wearing artsy-fartsies galore; it sort of sickened me. So, I thought that instead of making fun of the establishment to make the kids giggle, now I would make fun of the kids. Under the working title of "You're an Asswipe, Charlie Brown" I began work.

Oh yes.

The problem was I couldn't write. (Not that I was any good at writing before, but now I found myself unable to even match last year's modest farce.)

I could possibly have found direction with some solid criticism, but it had become blasphemy to dis one of my plays unless you could speak in a very assured voice and use words like "didactic" and "juxtaposition" and "neo-dionysian" and "the very concept of chair." So, when those select few people *did* offer some criticism, I couldn't understand what they meant. (I don't really know about big words, except for "supercalifrajilisticexpialidocious".)

Did this matter? Hell, no! I was cool.

* * *

One day I came to work in my corner of the art studio and found two little girls loitering around there, giggling and so on. They asked me, "Is this where so-and-so works? The playwright? The painter?"

"um. I *think* so..." I said, looking around. "I don't think he's here yet."

Denying my own existence was a necessary step, since I had figured out this: popularity can be harmful to output.

* * *

Popularity can be harmful to output.

* * *

In the years since, I've taken back to my old ways, sinking into anonymity. Writing becomes easy again, and the pictures flow flow flow. In the years since, the drama elite from school now work at various coffeehouses and restaurants, clutching tightly to irrelevant packs of people who dress similarly to them, bewildered and frightened by the near-total impotence of powers which had once moved mountains. Poor cool kids. Boo hoo &c.

Who could envy their righteous rants about the ghastly shortcomings of the post-secondary education system? Who could be jealous of a trillion social get-togethers where the smalltalk is dominated by aggressive self-definition and self-justification?

Yes - and I have decided to become a geek.

"Oh my god - I haven't seen you in *so* long, how *are* you?" they say to me. They tell me where they were studying, where they plan to study, how they don't like tax, teachers and people younger than themselves. They tell me who they've seen, and what they're planning to be working on. They tell me about a fabulous time they had in an unlikely place. All they're really trying to convince of is this: "I don't spend a lot of time at home, by myself, not becoming famous."

They ask me what I'm doing.

I tell them: "I spend a lot of time at home, by myself, not becoming famous."

They ask me my job. I tell them. They ask, "Are you going to work at ILM one day?" or "Will you flog your animated film at any upcoming festivals?" or "Have you gotten in touch with so-and-so? I hear he's looking for gophers..." and on and on.

"No, I'm not going to work at ILM one day," I tell them; "I'm not scheduling a lot of output-flagellation. I haven't gotten in touch with so-and-so, no."

"Oh," they say, unsure how to go on. "So what do you do?"

I tell them. I tell them I work hard at my fun job and fart around with my camcorder a lot. I tell them I animate and draw, and write, and maintain my website. I tell them I hang around with a bunch of geeks on the Internet.

They usually seem embarassed at this point. "Oh yeah, so you can like make fun of them."

"Make fun of them? No, no. Geeks are good people," I say.

"Huh huh," they chuckle, because they think I am launching into a comedy routine about geeks.

But I'm not.

***

I have this friend whose life is a mess. The other night he came over and said, "My life is a mess - what should I do?"

I thought hard for a few minutes.

"So-and-so," I told him, "I think you ought to become a geek."

I reminded him of the good times he had had being twelve years old, hanging out in his room playing with his computer, calling Bee-Bee-Esses. I reminded him that his nature is more friendly than cool, more earnest than aloof. I urged him to turn his back on gossip and scene-climbing, socially-acceptible intoxication and smalltalk. "You seem to be trying very hard to prove to *somebody* that you're not a loser," I said. "It's tiring you out."

So now he is dedicated to following the path of the geek. He plans to go out fewer nights a week. He plans to get back into programming, picking up where he left off when he was fifteen. He plans to renounce his earthly life.

***

A lot of people I meet seem to be terribly worried that they may be losers. By their own criteria, they are probably right. So, they try to put on the best face possible...seemingly thinking if *other* people don't find out they're a loser, they're as good as not one. Kids my age are just obsessed with it. "With *this* act," they seem to cry out with every cool and social activity, "I deny that I am a loser."

Guess again, kids.

(It seems to me that just about everyone must be a loser.)

Geeks, however, aren't so upset about the fact. Geeks may be said to even embrace it. It feels nice. Society asks me to be such and such, and my ego asks me to be so and so, and all the magazines sugest that the best of the best people surely always do such-a-thing. My reply: "No contest."

Some of the "no contest" approach is illustrated in Dave Cole's bio of himself on his now defunct Web page. His page used to be called "Dave's Page of Embarassment" which I think was a wonderful title. After all, the one word that sums up North American culture must surely be this: "embarassed". If pop-culture is constantly trying to inform us all that we're nobody, what can we say? "True...but what of it?"