When I was at school the label "geek" was not one I would have wanted. Now though, as @GeekDadGamer on Twitter, it's practically my calling card. During the intervening years between school and professional life being a "geek" has become something desirable.
Rather than signifying someone who spends too much time on the wrong sort of things -- shut away in bedrooms playing with technology by themselves -- it has become a mark of expertise and passion. We turn to the geeks of tech, gaming, sewing, cooking and even tax when things are going wrong in those areas.
It's therefore not a big surprise that YouTube is hosting its first Geek Week designed to highlight a range of geeky videos from August 4th to 10th. Here's how their whistle-stop seven day tour through all that is considered geeky pans out:
- August 4th - Blockbuster Sunday for iconic characters, movies, sci-fi, fantasy, animation.
- August 5th - Global Monday for geek culture around the world.
- August 6th - Braniac Tuesday for science, education & knowledge.
- August 7th - Super Wednesday for superheroes, the supernatural and the super-weird.
- August 8th - Gaming Thursday for live plays, games in real life, game series and more.
- August 9th - Fan Friday for fan boys and girls everywhere.
- August 10th - Best of Geek Week Saturday
While I can't wait to see what their channels have cooked up for gaming Thursday I've also got a secret desire for some hard-core cooking and sewing geeks to be uncovered on braniac Tuesday or maybe global Monday.
As YouTube puts it, geeks are "the biggest fans, and we're curious about the world. We like to make things, invent things, share things. We question what's possible." Although I'm not quite sure where my own geeky concoction of games, tech, family and faith fit in their list it's the desire to push the boundaries and make new discoveries that I identify most with.
My contribution to Geek Week is a call to gaming Geekery, a tongue in cheek sermon around the similarities between gaming and religion geeks. As an insider in both of these worlds I was surprised how much there was to say.
Perhaps the biggest take away from encountering any of the geeks that will be paraded online in the coming week is a better understanding of a world we knew little about. We may come to watch the dark arts of the super-fan, but we'll stay for the passion they share about their hobby.
