Winning speech has a way with words

By Brittany Morrison

Nerd. Geek. Dork. These are all things I have been called over the years. But what does it really mean? I say that each term is rather ambiguous, and open to interpretation by anyone. Me? Well I wear these terms proudly. I shop at ThinkGeek and get their catalog. I read articles on Dorkly. I’m practically a walking billboard for my people. If I had to define it, I would say that more than anything, geeks and dorks and nerds obsess easily. Maybe they have a single obsession, maybe they have several, or maybe they obsess over different things at different times. You may be asking yourself “Where did all these people get such a bad rap?” Well I could say it comes from one of the technical definitions of the word geek, which Merriam-Webster defines as “a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake.” Or maybe they are just following the second definition: “a person often or an intellectual bent who is often disliked.” Ouch. How about another, this time for nerd? “An unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person.” Super ouch. Just because I like to wear toe socks and my best friend is my computer doesn’t mean I fit some stupid book definition! The point is that you can either define yourself as one of these terms and just ignore the actual definition, or you can panic and have an identity crisis while giving a very important speech that you spent most of your free time on. You know what? Maybe I’m proud to be one of those definitions. Disliked and unattractive? Hopefully not. Intellectual and socially inept? Maybe a bit. I am proud of the fact that I have read every single Harry Potter book at least 3 times apiece and have seen every single Star Wars movie at least twice. I’m not entirely proud that I spend hours a day on the internet when I can and that I own a travel mug with a caffeine molecule on it, but it’s what I enjoy. Maybe you enjoy watching videos of cats on the internet or collecting memorabilia from a long gone cartoon or television show that no one ever really watched but you. That’s okay. That’s you. I’d call that nerdy, I’d call that dorky. I’d also call it a great thing. Let me tell you a bit about video games, something I know plenty about. Video games were once just some moving blips on a screen before they shot off on a tangent of what we know of them today, with fancier graphics than some movies and more interesting storylines than some books. People even take characters of the games and dress up like them for fun, like I did on Halloween this year. Sci-fi is a huge part of the nerd community. Everyone can picture the typical sci-fi nerd. Young-adult male. Pimply. Long-haired. Still living in his mother’s basement. Spends his days blogging about the inconsistencies of space travel in a series or about how Jean-Luke Piccard was so much better than James Tiberius Kirk. And you’d be partially right. I’m sure there are plenty of men who fit that exact bill. But there are plenty others who aren’t like that, who watch Dr. Who occasionally and have a full copy of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog on their iPod. Now let me tell you about my favorite nerd community: nerdfighteria. We’re called nerdfighters and no, we don’t fight nerds. Nerdfighteria was founded by John Green and Hank Green. John, a young adult fiction author, and Hank, a musician who writes comedic songs about science. They make videos for their entire fan community. I had the chance to meet both John and Hank in Redwood City. Every single person at the event was great: helpful, kind, and sociable. When I went to talk to John and have him sign my book, I looked at him and I said “John, I’m an aspiring author, and I want to be just like you someday.” And he looked up at me and said “You know what Brittany? Someday you will be.” Just talking about being a nerd, a geek, a dork, and being prideful about makes me nervous, I’ll still be judged anyways. But whether you want to define it however you want, or you go by the book and say that I’m socially awkward, disliked, and so on and so forth, I will always be proud.

Thank you.