See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/304540546

The Four Temperaments of Fandom

Conference Paper · June 2016

CITATIONS READS
0 3,117

1 author:

Shane Tilton
Ohio Northern University
19 PUBLICATIONS   26 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Disseration View project

Instanews: Visual Journalism in the Era of Instagram View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Shane Tilton on 28 June 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 GEEK BAR DLC

GEEK BAR DLC

The Four Temperaments of Fandom

Shane Tiltona*
a
Ohio Northern University, 525 South Main Street, Ada, OH 43810, USA

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history: Nerd, geek, dweeb, and dork were the four terms used often in the late part of the 20th century as a means
to create a barrier and separate those whose quirks were considered outside the mainstream sense of
Published 14 December 2015 normal. Nowadays, the “otaku” nature of popular culture has removed some of the negative connotations
Presented 15 June 2016 related to those terms. Those four terms are included as modifiers to aspects of culture that involve a
Reformatted 23 June 2016 “deep dive” by a selected niche of the populace. This essay will act as an etymologocial analysis within
the structure of a popular culture case study on the use of these terms and a more realistic construction of
the various terms as they relate to fan culture and fandom. The hope is that the reader of this work
understands the connection between popular culture intelligential properties, fan culture, and the
temperament of a given fan as a result of this analysis.
Keywords:
Fandom,
Fan culture, © 2015-2016 Shane Tilton. All rights reserved.
Nerd,
Dork,
Geek,
Dweeb

1. Introduction 1 the viewpoint that they represent the various actors within fandoms of
In a previous article, I (Tilton, 2015) referred to Jon Stewart as a “News
Nerd.” It may be a good point to explain why nerd was appropriate, and
not the term du jour of geek. The purpose of this article is to try to look at
the terms we seem to use to describe our community and the way we
represent ourselves to the general public. Also, I want to try to explain how
these terms have moved away from the negative pejoratives towards a
more normalized view by members of society.
Nerds, geeks, dorks, & dweebs tend to be the overarching
representation of individuals that care about various pursuits and interests
in a zealous way that goes beyond an average level of support and
understanding of their field. There have been Venn Diagrams and other
means of descriptive analysis of the differences between these terms. The
common factor of those postings, is those that are labeled with these titles
are outside the mainstream because their social ineptitude, über obsession
with their works, or a combination of both. I would argue that society is
1
The paper was originally published by Geek Bar DLC as part of the
“Defining the /g/eek” series, which was then presented during Origins
2016 in Columbus, OH during their “Educator’s Pass” workshop.
moving away from this marginal view and are looking at these titles with
popular culture.
According to Henry Jenkins (2006), the Provost’s Professor of
Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of
Southern California, fandoms are untapped and tapped sources of action
and knowledge for the general public.
“Start with the experiences and interests you and your friends
already can’t get enough of, and connect that engagement to civic
and political themes. Popular culture fandom, for example, is a
great source to harness. Overall, you and your peers know a lot
about a lot, and you’ve got all sorts of authentic ways to bring
your friends on board. Use that expertise to build traction for your
cause by finding unexpected alignments. And take the time to
figure out why your passion matters to you.”
It is from this understanding that I want to talk about the temperaments
of fan culture. This understanding will not be a perfect description of these
terms listed, nor am I expecting to change the understanding of the
previously listed terms. I wanted to provide a personal framing of these
terms and attempt to show the strengths and weaknesses of these various
understandings of fandoms, and the actors within fan cultures.
This article will look at each of the previously listed terms (nerds,
geeks, dorks, & dweebs) and attempt to connect those terms to the

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1-740-610-0424

Current E-mail address: s-tilton@onu.edu
Reference URL: https://www.academia.edu/14990507/The_Four_Temperaments_of_Fandom
2 GEEK BAR DLC
Temperament Model of Behavior (Rothbart, Ahadi, & Hershey, 1994),
popular culture and media scholarly literature, & other forms of content.
The hope is not to create some sort of “fandom version” of the Myers-
Briggs Personality test (Briggs, 1998), but rather this paper is an attempt to
create a framework for future discussion.
2. Temperament Model and Fan Culture: A Theory Primer
Two theoretical elements drive this research: the temperament model and
fan culture theory.
2.1. Temperament Model
The use of the four temperaments in popular culture comes from the Greek
tradition of humours, specifically, the connection between blood, yellow
bile, black bile, and phlegm to the emotions and actions of a person
(Eastman, 2015). This "proto-psychological" examination of the human
condition has found itself embedded in the construction of characters, from
Sex and the City, Scooby Doo, Seinfeld, and even the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles (Cracked After Hours, 2011).
The four key characteristics associated with the humours are: sanguine
(blood) which represents extroverted, emotional, and people-oriented,
choleric (yellow bile) which represents extroverted, unemotional, and task-
oriented, melancholic (black bile) which represents introverted, emotional,
and task-oriented, & phlegmatic (phlegm) which represents introverted,
unemotional, and people-oriented.
The tropeic nature of these descriptors have become embedded in the
nature of telling stories. The "four-temperament ensemble" describes the
sanguine as "charming, cheerful, loves-people, energetic, talkative,
passionate and compassionate, positive, sometimes unpredictable,
expressive influencer, an excellent comedian, salesman or clown, quirky or
eccentric and just plain fun," the choleric as "takes the lead, hard worker,
strong-willed, practical, passionate, a good repossession worker, an
excellent strongman/woman of the team (drill sergeant at the most
extreme), determined, goal-oriented and thrives under criticism," the
melancholic as "detailed, conservative, analytical, organized,
perfectionistic, faithful to a fault, kept-quiet will of stone, elegant (in the
more dignified ways), self-sacrificing, an excellent medic or lawyer," and
the phlegmatic as "calm, humble, an excellent assistant, spy or librarian,
kept-quiet will of steel (flexible steel), elegant (in the simpler ways),
thoughtful, patient, modest, a real sweetheart, accommodating, steady-
paced, sympathetic, perceptive, very compassionate, assuming innocent
until proven guilty, a good listener, considerate, and empathetic to all" (TV
Tropes, n.d.).
This model has been modified to the concept of "personality blood
types," which is a theory that is popular in Asian culture as a way of
identifying personality traits based on biological information (Cramer &
Imaike, 2002).
2.2. Fan Culture
The study of fan culture is directly connected to mass media and, to a large
sense, industrial societies. At the most basic level, studies of fan culture
are studies that focus on supporters of mass-produced and mass-distributed
entertainment. Performers, performances, narratives and genres become
the arenas for connection, analysis and conflict. Every nuance of an
intellectual property becomes a point of conversation.
John Fiske (1992) looked at fan culture as a form of capital. He makes
the argument that “Fandom offers ways of filling cultural lack and
provides the social prestige and self-esteem that go with cultural capital.
As with economic capital, lack cannot be measured by objective means
alone, for lack arises when the amount of capital possessed falls short of
that which is desired or felt to be merited. Thus a low achiever at school
will lack official cultural capital and the social, and therefore self-esteem
that it brings.” Fiske’s analysis of the fan community look at this
community to not just be passive consumers of the works of others, but to
also produce and create works based on the works of others. This new
form of media and collaboration was called a “semiotic democracy” by
Fiske. His approach to the analysis of fan culture had a similar focus to
Pierre Levy. Levy (1997) makes the argument for collective intelligence,
which is a shared intelligence that emerges from the collaboration,
collective efforts, and competition of a large group.
This repurposing of mass produced content could also be view as
repurposing of the underlying culture messages. Henry Jenkins (1998)
makes this central argument in his study of female Star Trek fan fiction
writers. Jenkins’ refer to those writers as “textual poachers” that “reshaped
the message of cultural products to serve their own needs.”
3. Reclaiming the Nerd
The first element to address before getting into the connection between the
nerd and its connection to fandom, is to consider the optics that make up
the popular representation of a nerd. In the 1980s, it was Lewis Skolnick
and Gilbert Lowe from “Revenge of the Nerds.” In the 1990s, it was
Friday nights with Steve Urkel in “Family Matters.” In the 2000s, it was
Napoleon Dynamite.
These images ingrain themselves into any discussion of nerd and nerd
culture. These optics are important to this discussion because there needs
to be understanding that these mediated representations are not exactly
being created by real people. These characters are nothing more than a
checklist of hyper-expressed ticks of a given individual. This stereotyping
of a culture is what normally happens in any given mediated product which
bring us to the current representation of the nerd, Sheldon Cooper from the
“Big Bang Theory.” According to Sarah Field (2015):
“The Big Bang Theory is about a group of scientists. They struggle with
their romantic lives and, in the case of Jim Parsons’ Sheldon Cooper,
everyday social interaction. As characters who are, by the traditional
definition, not popular, and with interests in sci-fi and comic books, they
are said to represent “geek culture.” The show is nonetheless one of
television’s most-watched comedies, earning the affections of geeks and
non-geeks alike… On a personal level, Parsons told The Big Issue he can
relate to at least one aspect of geek culture: feeling out of place. Since
people are so used to seeing him play Sheldon Cooper, his true personality
can take them by surprise. Sometimes he attracts attention that makes him
feel uncomfortable.”
3.1. Current Social Constructions of the Nerd
I would argue that Field is conflating nerd and geek culture, but she is
making a key point to consider. Nerd culture is evolving, and society
perception of nerd culture is changing with it.
I am not the first person or even academic to note the change in
society perception of these terms. Kathryn Westcott (2012) from the BBC
 GEEK BAR DLC
has wondered: “after two decades of "reappropriation" has "nerd" - and its
sister word "geek" - now completely lost its derogatory connotations?”
The construction of the term has changed a little bit based on the
mediated representation of the nerd as trope. For better or worse, the
popular mediated example of the nerd is Sheldon from the Big Band
Theory. The argument about how this presentation fails to show a fair
portrayal of nerds is ironically showed by a person I think is a better proxy
for nerd culture, Wired’s Chris Baker (a.k.a. Angry Nerd).
With this criticism in play, the question remains “what is the modern
nerd?” We need a brief history lesson into the language and
representations of the nerd.
3.2. Origins of Nerd as a Term
One of the common themes for these terms is the lack of a clear origin
story or common starting point. The common wisdom is that the term
comes from Dr. Seuss in 1951 in his book “If I Ran the Zoo.”
However, Rob Bricken (2013) makes the argument:
“It seems unlikely for teens to have latched on to a single proper noun in a
Dr. Seuss book so quickly, but there is no recorded source of the word
being used previously. It's possible that it was based on the 1940s slang
word "nert," which referred to a stupid or crazy person.”
Ben Zimmer (2011), the former On Language columnist for The New
York Times Magazine, points to three additional theories:
“Nerd has also been explained as a variation on nert, surfer slang for a nut.
(The frustrated interjection nerts!, from the early ’30s, is a similar play on
nuts.) Another theory has it originally spelled as nurd, suggesting a
combination of nut and turd. And then there are the acronyms, always a
popular source of faux etymology – for example, “Neurotic Engineers in
R&D.””
Understanding the lack of a centralizing origin to this term that many
of us identify with, leads to a deeper understanding that the identity and its
surrounding culture of the nerd are part of a larger mediated construction
for creating the framework for understanding the actions and interactions
of intelligent people.
3.3. Commodification of the Nerd
One of the elements that becomes apparent with a casual scan of modern
mediated content related to nerd culture is that it seems to be a “softer”
term for male culture. There is a sense in the given literature that there is
less of a focus on the fan elements of mediated works and more of a “big
tent” approach to popular culture. One of the better examples of this
commodification is the transformation of TechTV to G4TV to the Esquire
Channel.
TechTV was a reasonable hub of nerd culture as it dealt with one of the
tent poles of nerd identity, technology. It was scheduled to present vast
amounts of knowledge related to the tech community and tech economy.
There was, for the most part, an attempt to be gender-neutral when in came
to the presentation and production of tech-related content. My favorite
show on this network, and what I feel is the classic representation of nerd
culture, was “the Screen Savers.”
TechTV begat G4TV after a re-branding and merge between the two
networks. G4TV was, according to one source, a ‘soulless’ gaming cable
television channel” cut in the same mold as MTV.” G4TV attempted to
combine the aspects of nerd culture present in TechTV with the AAA
production values of modern gaming. The result of the merger was a
channel that showed “Cops,” various clones of “Cops,” “Heroes,” “Lost,”
3
“Ninja Warrior,” and what I think was the best representation of the
merger, “Attack of the Show.” Finally, after multiple attempts to define
nerd culture in G4TV, NBCUniversal gave up and combined G4TV and
the Style Channel into one big channel “Esquire Channel.”
The reason to bring up this history when talking about
the temperament of the nerd, is that our understanding of nerd culture is
triple filtered by mediated presentations of “the nerd,” to the realms of
knowledge that belong to “the nerd,” and the community’s breakdown of
the previous two filters. The commodification of the nerd has influenced
the first two filters. Nerd was/is now shorthand for male-driven popular
culture that focused on the information surrounding aspects of popular
culture.
Bob Mackey (2016) brings up a good point about how the term nerd
has morphed into a marketing category:
“‘Nerd's" transition from insult to all-encompassing buzzword might seem
like a positive thing, but as we've seen with the tug-of-war over the equally
meaningless title of "gamer," this change has resulted in some harmful
effects… Of course, you probably realize "nerd culture" was never about
nerds to begin with. There's oodles of money in being the website
equivalent of Spike TV--even IGN's corporate site emphasizes how much
their product appeals to (presumably young) men.”
3.4. Nerd as Choleric, Passionate Guardian of Knowledge
Even with the mediated representations of nerd culture influencing the way
we see ourselves and nerd culture in general, it is important to consider
that the concept of nerd connects itself to popular culture and fandoms.
The cultural aspects of nerd life are more than the optics presented on a
regular basis. Don Davis, Timothy T. Yuen, & Matthew Berland (2014)
talked about this “minimizing the optics” in their paper, “Multiple case
study of nerd identity in a CS1 class.”
“Rather than throw the baby out with the bath water, it may behoove
[Computer Science] educators and researchers to re-examine the potential
role of ‘nerd’ identities – should they really be only relegated to asocial,
white, males?”
These popular culture representations are moving away from these
relegated tropes. Evidence for this position would include Chris
Hardwick (& the Nerdist Network), Simon Pegg, & Lindsey Stirling.
Pegg, in particular, serves as a double-edged sword in this discussion as he
has concerns about the exercise of analyzing nerd culture and its
relationship to popular culture:
“In the 18 years since we wrote Spaced, this extended adolescence has
been cannily co-opted by market forces, who have identified this relatively
new demographic as an incredibly lucrative wellspring of consumerist
potential. Suddenly, here was an entire generation crying out for an
evolved version of the things they were consuming as children. This
demographic is now well and truly serviced in all facets of entertainment
and the first and second childhoods have merged into a mainstream
phenomenon[...]” (Pegg via Rife, 2015).
To avoid this reverting down to the arrested development of an
individual through media and cultural products, I want to break down
nerds as a mental Rolodex of useful and useless information.
3.5. Guarding and Sharing Knowledge
Choleric, in this framing of the term, goes beyond a simple young adult
mentality and allows the individual to enjoy their passions with a “child-
like mind” (Hansen, 2013). His or her strength comes from the practical
4 GEEK BAR DLC
enjoyment of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. She or he pursues the thrill
of searching for the most nuanced piece of information related to their
passion in order to enhance his or her understanding of their fixation.
It is also fair to note that choleric does not mean angry all the time, but
rather a person that is “extroverted, unemotional, and task-oriented.” Nerds
in this construction are the confident collector of all information related to
a given field of study or interest. The lack of emotion in this definition
should be noted.
This idea of the unemotional is counter to the popular reference point
of nerd emotion, nerd rage. Francis a.k.a. Steven Williams seems to be the
mediated representation of this emotion.
The choleric representation of the nerd is a person that is able to
deliver facts and information about an area of knowledge that the person
has a passion for and remains disconnected from the emotional weight that
the information and knowledge may contain.
The passion in this model is an internalized version of passion. Passion
is the desire to remain aware of as many details of a given field of study.
There is always a sense of realism when looking at the passion in terms of
the inability to know everything about a topic, and the cost that this pursuit
has on the individual (social stigma being the most obvious of the costs).
Also, there is a joy about sharing knowledge even when this information
can further stigmatize the individual.
I would make the argument that the concept of the nerd should not be
seen as an optically driven representation of fan culture, but rather as a
knowledge worker that has something to share with the larger community.
4. The Dependable Dork
The official Webster’s definition of the term states that a dork is “a person
who behaves awkwardly around other people and usually has unstylish
clothes, hair, etc.” It is argued that the term has a phallic meaning as it is
supposed to be a Midwestern term for penis from the 1950s. Rob Bricken’s
(2013) great article from io9 pulls the quote from Charles Schmid from
Life magazine “I didn’t have any clothes and I had short hair and looked
like a dork. Girls wouldn’t go out with me.” Bricken and others have
argued that Schmid is referred to himself as a penis (and not to be confused
with the modern usage of calling a person a “dick”). This argument is
enhanced by the “Historical Dictionary of American Slang” (Lighter,
1997) when coming across this reference from 1961: “From Jere Peacock’s
1961 novel Valhalla, in a reference to 1953: ‘You satisfy many women
with that dorque?'” The argument is that the term mutated from dorque to
dork in the 1960s. The term lost its phallic connection in the 1970s (Mental
Floss, 2008).
Moving away from etymology means that the term can be appreciated
for its cultural significance and there can be a pivot to a more practical
discussion about its connection to fan culture. Unlike the conceptualization
of the nerd from the previous section, a dork is a visual representation of
fan culture. The knowledge itself is not the end goal of the dork, but rather
the connection with others via their own optics. The classic example of this
connection would be in the realm of Star Trek fandom and the
beloved “Trekker.”
Trekkers and Trekkies are the exemplars of fan culture. They represent
their fandom via their costumes and their respect for the rituals related to
the show (e.g. The Vulcan Salute). Henry Jenkins (2006), the Provost
Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts for the USC
Annenberg School for Communication and the USC School of Cinematic
Arts breaks down this concept of their representation by stating that the
Star Trek fan culture represents “a kind of cultural logic which shapes how
fans read across a range of different texts and even more importantly,
about a specific social and cultural community — mostly composed of
women — which actively translates the experience of watching television
into various forms of cultural production.”
Taking this idea of representation one step further towards the abstract,
the idea of cosplay also fits this description. Those creative folks that can
deconstruct the optics of a particular character from the two-dimensions of
a book, TV show, video game, movie, and/or any other mediated work into
the three-dimensional real world meat space are the analytical observers of
their given fan culture.
The “social outcast” model of the dork is dissolving as these passions
are explored and celebrated via social events, media content, and the
sharing of knowledge about the crafts related to the construction of
costumes and artifacts. To press the model to the far points of abstract, one
could argue that those that dress up in jerseys and other sports artifacts to
support their favorite team would fit this model of the dork.
Dorks should be considered melancholic, analytical observers of fan
culture rather than the social outcasts designed to be the comic relief in the
background of life’s running movie. The analytic part of this thesis has
been discussed. The melancholic part of the dork needs to be discussed as
representation.
One of the best definitions of the term melancholic is not a depressed
individual, but rather as Tobias Cornwell (n.d.) defines the term.
“Melancholic people are emotionally sensitive, perfectionistic introverts.”
If you know somebody that has the passion for cosplay and is trying to
make a last minute adjustment to their gear before DragonCon, GenCon, or
any of the other public showings of these works, you would call them a
perfectionist. The introvert idea may seem to contrast with the public
display of their works. I would argue that this is a performance rather
than the daily interactions of the individual cosplayer.
5. Quiet-Like Dweeb
To continue this discussion of the temperaments of fan culture, it is
important to look at the quiet elements of fandom.
The first two parts of this analysis have been focused on the “terms of
common use.” As a concession, the term dweeb is very rarely used in
current popular culture. The only major references to the term dweeb have
come from Adventure Time and a tweet from Meek Mill. Beyond these
popular culture references, there isn’t much of a use-case for the term.
Referring to the Matthew Mason’s (2016) Venn Diagram in this area, the
dweeb exists in the intersection between intelligence and social ineptitude.
Also, correctly noted in the Mason’s article, “no one says dweeb unless
they’re starring in a stage production of Grease, or they’re a linguist with
an unruly fixation on baby boomer slang.” The “’90s-era sitcoms” aside,
there is a reason that this term works well in our discussion of the four
temperaments. This reason comes from the etymology of the term.
The Online Etymology Dictionary (i.e. http://www.etymonline.com/
index.php?term=dweeb) places the term in the 1960s as part of college
slang during this time. It earned its beginnings as “feeb” or feebleminded
person. The word dwarf (referring to a person that was a fan of fantasy
literature or role playing games) was introduced, and in the 1980s the
portmanteau dweeb was invented. A deeper dive into the term comes with
some unsupported acronyms associated with the term (“dick with
eyebrows”), some wonderful deconstructions of the term to classical
languages, and even the term’s connection to gimp. These descriptors
 GEEK BAR DLC
place the term in some context. However, dweebs are better observed
through the media.
The evolution of the dweeb can be shown via Saturday Night Live and
its tangent media. The proto-dweebs would be Lisa Loopner and Todd
DiLaMuca. The dweebs are a reflection of both adolescent behavior and
lack of awareness of social norms. The term was later deconstructed in the
game show parody “Geek, Dweeb, or Spazz” as a person that actively
avoids situations of social engagement. Today, it could be argued
that Morgan for the “Girlfriends Show” fits this role as the outsider, or
Taylor Swift’s character on Jimmy Fallon’s EW!. These outsiders are
different than the “social disconnector” characters presented earlier.
Dweebs are hard to define and harder to represent in the media
because their evolution has morphed them into phlegmatic, quiet
champions of fan culture. This temperament is not as expressive with the
visual representations of fandom as a dork would be, nor do they choose to
understand all aspects of a topic the way a nerd would. There is a quiet,
meditative calm to the dweeb’s appreciation of popular culture. Also, the
phlegmatic nature of the dweeb means that do not seek to fight over the
different battles of fan culture. A discussion of “Who would win in a fight
between Superman and Batman?” does not interest the dweeb. They are
introverted in as far as seeking to blend into the background, while still
wanting to hang out with others that share a common passion.
6. The Social Geek within a Fandom
To conclude this discussion of the temperaments of fan culture, we need to
come home with the term that has been the “de facto” banner for those that
hang out at a bar we all know and love; the word Geek seems to be a good
place to wrap up this thought piece. Out of the four terms discussed in this
series, the Geek is most extroverted of the four fan culture temperaments.
The reason for this extraversion is directly connected with the term’s
etymology and discourse in popular culture, specifically the term is related
to the optics associated with fan culture.
It seems that the initial version of the etymology comes from the old
English/low Germanic word “geck” meaning fool, and the Dutch work
“geek” meaning mad, crazy, or silly (Hiskey, 2010). Both of these terms
seems to indicate that “Geek” refers to a public display rather than the
traditional introverted perceptions of fan culture. Also, there are two
derivatives of this term. The first being “anorak” (a person that has
awkward behavioral patterns that tend to disrupt social events) and
“boffin” (a person that is incredibly smart and shy). An analysis of the
history and derivative language would seem to point towards the idea that
a geek is somebody that is smart and focused on the expression of
knowledge in a given field, while not caring about the societal opinion of
these expressions. This analysis is reinforced in the representation of a
geek.
Hongkiat (Poh, 2013) produced a blog post regarding the “8 Tell-Tale
Signs You’re a Geek.” The characteristics of geekdom as defined by
Michael Poh, was the obsession of an object (culture properties would be
considered an object in this definition), socializing with others that share
similar passions, comfortable with their level of understanding of a given
object, losing one self easily into the obsession, the insatiable need to
know everything about the given object, taking pride in that expertise,
driving one self towards the niche within a particular object, and the ability
to stick intellectually and emotionally with a given object regardless of
societal pressure.
5
Mr. Smithers is a reasonable example of the mediated geek when he
shares his passion for the Malibu Stacy dolls. His visual representation of
his passion comes into conflict with the social perception of a fan. Another
media example that focuses on the passion of the expression would be
“Comic Book Men.” The owners and workers presented in the comic shop
show off their passion and interests within the confines of the comic shop
itself. Beyond these simple displays on television, the term has evolved to
represent specific displays of passion devoted to niche areas of popular
culture.
It seems from a causal observation that modern society accepts some
aspects of geekdom. Sports fans dress up in the markings and costumes of
their favorite teams as a form of ritual during the time that a favorite team
is playing. This argument is not a new thought or discussion (Queenan,
2004). The Inscriber Magazine (2013) makes this point when addressing
the similarities between sports fans and geeks in general. “People on both
sides criticize each other for their perceived strange habits even though
they really aren’t that different. Is rushing to the computer to get the best
players on a Fantasy Football team drafted really that much different from
a midnight raid in World of Warcraft?” What makes the sports fan
different from the popular definition of a geek is the area of focus.
The area of focus is related to our favorite characters in books, movies,
and TV. Caroline Stanley (2012) makes the argument in Flavorwire that
the geek has become the norm in modern society. “Today, it’s one hundred
percent likely that your mom watches a “genre” show like Game of
Thrones, Zooey Deschanel’s New Girl character casually tosses out
Tolkien references, and The Hunger Games, a movie based on a YA
fantasy series, is poised to become the next big film franchise, following in
the footsteps of equally geek-friendly fare like Twilight and Harry Potter.”
The connections come from the concept that we, as a larger society, see
ourselves as geeks for specific engrossments. The disconnection is based
the specific niches and interests themselves.
Deschanel’s use of Tolkien references in New Girl establishes her pixie
geek credibility because a critical mass of the viewing audience has either
seen the movies, read the books, or has enough of a fascination in New
Girl to look up the reference (Oliver, Marwell, & Teixeira, 1985). If
Deschanel would have referred to the “Wheel of Time” series, would the
audience be as willing to connect the geek references to her “adorkable”
presentation on screen (Weatherby, 2015)? Geeks seem to be acceptable if
they are reinforced by popular normative culture (Lipsitz, 1990). Apple
fans are geeks when they wait in line to buy the latest product. Star
Wars fans are acceptable as they represent the joy of cinematic content.
Cosplayers are geeks as they represent the visual sociability of a given
media product, but are they seen as part of the norms of society?
Cosplayers and geeks, in general, are social in the regard that they are
wanting others to join in on the joy that they experience representing their
various arenas of fantasy. Regardless of the interest or the niche, the geek
shows off their sanguine temperament through engagement with the fan
community.
Sanguine people by most accounts (Kefir & Corsini, 1974) are those
individuals that enjoy social situations as they connect with others through
the event itself. Sanguine people are boisterous about the way they
represent themselves, downright bubbly and chatty when discussing the
things that they enjoy, and are openly emotional when discussing their
passions. Those that identify with being sanguine would be considered
socially extroverted in the right situation. This definition of sanguine
people seems like an excellent summary of a geek talking with others
about their interest and niches. This definition is especially true in the
6 GEEK BAR DLC
social events were they are able to show off the costumes, fetishes, and
rituals related to their favorite immersions.
7. To Conclude
Patton Oswalt (2010) clearly articulated the changes to the term nerd in
Wired magazine:
"I’m not a nerd. I used to be one, back 30 years ago when nerd meant
something. I entered the ’80s immersed, variously, in science fiction,
Dungeons & Dragons, and Stephen King. Except for the multiple-player
aspect of D&D, these pursuits were not “passions from a common spring,”
to quote Poe.
I can’t say that I ever abided nerd stereotypes: I was never alone or felt
outcast. I had a circle of friends who were similarly drawn to the exotica of
pop culture (or, at least, what was considered pop culture at the time in
northern Virginia)—Monty Python, post-punk music, comic books, slasher
films, and videogames. We were a sizable clique. The terms nerd and geek
were convenient shorthand used by other cliques to categorize us. But they
were thin descriptors."
The changes to all of the term reference in this article represent both a
memory of cultural interactions between the individual and cultural
institutions and the mediated representations of all of the given conditions.
The thin descriptors discussed by Oswalt were expanded upon in this
essay.
Beyond the simple gut reaction to these terms, the use and
identification of these terms as markers of fandom and fan cultures should
be seen as a way of identifying an individual's relationship to a given
subject matter and not as a means of torture coming from wordsmith
bullies wishing to flush our metaphorical heads in the toilet at Pop Culture
High School.
REFERENCES
Bricken, R. (2013). The secret origins of nerd, dork, and other things you’ve
been called. Retrieved June 20, 2016 from: http://web.archive.org/web/
20160616043010/http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-secret-origins-of-nerd-dork-
and-other-things-you-1482137598
Briggs, K. C. (1998). The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Form M. Consulting
Psychologists Press.
Cornwell, T. (n.d.). Melancholic. Retrieved June 20, 2016 from: http://web.
archive.org/web/20160410034939/http://temperaments.fighunter.com/?page
=melancholic
Cracked After Hours. (2011). Which Ninja Turtle are you? Life's most
important question. Retrieved June 23, 2016 from http://www.cracked.com
/video_18260_which-ninja-turtle-are-you-lifes-most-important-
question.html.
Cramer, K. M., & Imaike, E. (2002). Personality, blood type, and the five-factor
model. Personality and individual differences, 32(4), 621-626.
Davis, D., Yuen, T., & Berland, M. (2014, March). Multiple case study of nerd
identity in a CS1 class. In Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical
symposium on Computer science education (pp. 325-330). ACM.
Eastman, W. N. (2015). Introduction: The four temperaments and the four
games. In Why Business Ethics Matters (pp. 1-18). Palgrave Macmillan US.
Fields, S. (2015). Jim Parsons denies that ‘The Big Bang Theory’ has ruined
geek culture. Retrieved June 21, 2016 from http://web.archive.org/web
/20150407015441/http://www.inquisitr.com/1980644/jim-parsons-denies-
that-the-big-bang-theory-has-ruined-geek-culture
Fiske, J. (1992). The cultural economy of fandom. In Lisa Lewis’ [Ed.] The
adoring audience: Fan culture and popular media, Routledge: London 30-
49.
Hansen, L.K. (2013). How to stop overthinking and embrace your child-like
mind. Retrieved June 20, 2016 from: http://web.archive.org/web/
bedbathb20160322204153/http://www.lisakayhansen.com/blog/2013/stop-
overthinking-and-embrace-your-child-like-mind/
Hiskey, D (2010). Where the words “geek” and “nerd” came from. Retrieved
June 20, 2016 from http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://
www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/09/where-the-words-geek-and-
nerd-came-from/
Jenkins, H. (2006). When fandom goes mainstream. Retrieved June 20, 2016
from: http://web.archive.org/web/20160411114325
/http://henryjenkins.org/2006/11/when_fandom_goes_mainstream.html
Jenkins, H. (1988). Star Trek rerun, reread, rewritten: Fan writing as textual
poaching. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 5(2), 85-107.
Kefir, N., & Corsini, R. J. (1974). Dispositional sets: A contribution to typology.
Journal of Individual Psychology, 30(2), 163.
Levy, P. (1997). Collective intelligence: Mankind’s emerging world in
cyberspace. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Books.
Lighter, J. E. (1997). Random House historical dictionary of American slang:
Volume 2. New York: Random House.
Lipsitz, G. (1990). Time passages: Collective memory and American popular
culture. U of Minnesota Press.
Mackey, B. (2016). The people vs. “nerd culture”. Retrieved June 21, 2016
from: https://web.archive.org/web/20160212213755
/http://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-people-vs-nerd-culture
Mason, M. (2016). Finally: The difference between geek, nerd, and dork
explained by a Venn Diagram. Retrieved June 20, 2016 from:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160417091946/http://www.greatwhitesnark.c
om/2010/03/25/difference-between-nerd-dork-and-geek-explained-in-a-
venn-diagram.
Mental Floss. (2008). Geek vs. nerd vs. dork: What’s the difference? Retrieved
June 20, 2016 from: http://web.archive.org/web/20151129002835
/http://mentalfloss.com/article/19524/geek-vs-nerd-vs-dork-whats-
difference
Oliver, P., Marwell, G., & Teixeira, R. (1985). A theory of the critical mass. I.
Interdependence, group heterogeneity, and the production of collective
action. American journal of Sociology, 522-556.
Oswalt, P. (2011). Wake up, geek culture. Time to die. Wired, 19(1).
Poh, M. (2013). 8 tell-tale signs you’re a geek. Retrieved June 20, 2016 from:
http://web.archive.org/web/20151211132818/http://www.hongkiat.com/blo
g/signs-you-are-geek/
Queenan, J. (2004). True believers: The tragic inner life of sports fans.
Macmillan.
Rife, K. (2015). Simon Pegg is worried that our obsession with nerd culture is
“infantilizing”. Retrieved June 21, 2016 from: https://web.archive.org/web/
20151218161830/http://www.avclub.com/article/simon-pegg-worried-our-
obsession-nerd-culture-infa-219672
Rothbart, M. K., Ahadi, S. A., & Hershey, K. L. (1994). Temperament and
social behavior in childhood. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly (1982-), 21-39.
Stanley, C. (2012). The rise of the geek in pop culture. Retrieved June 20, 2016
from: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://flavorwire.com/270867/the-rise-
of-the-geek-in-pop-culture
The Inscriber Magazine. (2013). Pop culture: Why cosplay geeks and sports
fans have more in common then you think. Retrieved June 20, 2016 from:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160620170233/http://theinscribermag.com/sp
orts/pop-culture-cosplay-geeks-sports-fans-common-think.html
Tilton, S. (2015). Jon Stewart: A portrait of a news nerd. Retrieved June 21,
2016 from: https://web.archive.org/web/20160621131954/http://
www.geekbardlc.com/2015/08/jon-stewart-portrait-news-nerd/
Weatherby, T., (2015). Zooey Deschanel says she doesn't identify with her
'adorkable' New Girl character. Retrieved June 20, 2016 from:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/20/zooey-
deschanel-says-she-doesnt-identify-her-adorkable-new-girl-character
 GEEK BAR DLC 7

Westcott, K. (2012). Are ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ now positive terms? Retrieved June
20, 2016 from: http://web.archive.org/web/20160312110922
/http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20325517
Zimmer, B. (2011). Birth of the nerd. Retrieved June 21, 2016 from:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160621125046/http://archive.boston.com/bo
stonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/28/birth_of_the_nerd/?page=full

View publication stats