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Story of our Geekery

VigaViga
edited March 2008 in Everything Else
Well, how did you become a geek? Did it happen gradually? Just always was one? Had geeky parents?

My path was the gradual route. I was always different than most of the children and teens. I was in the closet about my geekery to be "normal" for my family and friends. Then I transferred to another HS with a huge otaku geek fanbase and I was thrown out the closet by friends. I never looked back and I never been happier.
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Comments

  • jccjcc
    image

    I looked like this as a kid. I also moved around a lot.

    The crippling social leprosy that followed lent itself nicely towards the cultivation of geekly hobbies. :)
  • AprecheApreche
    edited March 2008
    In elementary school my interests weren't all that different from other kids. I played sports, watched cartoons, played video games. Every kid I knew mostly did the same thing. The only things that made me different were that I got better grades than most, like computers more than most (despite not owning one for quite some time), and read comics in the early '90s before the comic shop went out of business.

    It wasn't until middle school that the geekiness started to shine on as us geeky kids played Magic: The Gathering. We also played lots of PC games that other kids weren't playing on our DOS machines. It's also the time I went to geeky summer camp where I learned HTML, C, *NIX, Battletech, and AD&D 2ed. I also didn't switch away from cartoons to MTV like other kids did.

    I discovered the anime in high school, and interest in such was greatly amplified when I got to RIT. Then the comics made a big return via the mangas. Now here I am, king amongst geeks.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • ......
    Now here I am, king amongst geeks.
    Bold claim, go back it up. :p

    As for me, eh I guess gradual. My interest in computers and cartoons resulted in me discovering anime (and manga, though I don't really read those).
  • VigaViga
    edited March 2008
    Now here I am, king amongst geeks.
    Bold claim, go back it up. :p
    Thunderdome between forum members? I'll call the title of Duchess of fangirls.
    image
    This should be in the 90's thread. :)
    Post edited by Viga on
  • SailSail
    I have always played video games. My parents had an original GameBoy on which my mom played Tetris while she was pregnant. As early as I can remember I played Tennis, Golf, Super Mario Land, and, of course, Tetris on that GameBoy. I played them for literally years until I was seven and bought Pokemon Red with my allowance.

    My interest in computers started when I was about seven and my mom got a computer running Windows '95. I had this clicking game about The Tortoise and the Hare which I played obsessively. When we finally got on the internet, holy shit. Neopets was my favorite thing ever and, not only did I learn HTML from it, I met a lot of internet buddies which I still talk to on AIM today.

    In 6th grade my family moved, and it's here where I met my friends who would one day show me FMA and everything would take off from there.
  • AprecheApreche
    Bold claim, go back it up. :p
    image
    I'd Photoshop this onto my head, but I have servants to do that for me.
  • VigaViga
    edited March 2008
    Scott won the thread. I'm laughing so hard! XD

    The Duchess approves.
    Post edited by Viga on
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    edited March 2008
    When I was young, we lived on a farm far from any other people. My only friends were my dogs, cats, the goats, cattle, chicken, and horses, and the furry woodland creatures that lived in the forest. Other, more dangerous things lived in that forest, but I was able to avoid them for the most part. Even though we had TV reception, I had little knowledge of sports, so when I began elementary school, I had never even seen a baseball, football, or basketball, much less played those games. Thus, I was terribly behind in all of the skills needed for those games and I never really learned how to do any of them well. I never was very good at board games either, because I never had anyone to play them with. It's pretty hard to teach yourself chess from a book when you can't play with anyone.

    However, I could read very well so I just stayed in the library most of the time everyone else was outside during elementary school. My uncle was working as an aerospace engineer at NASA, so I naturally was interested in science. It was a short step from there to science fiction. When you live on an isolated farm abutting a dark forest and you sometimes have to go to an unlighted barn or outbuilding after dark to return a tool or to strip tobacco or something and you have to walk through cold, sloppy mud with absolutely no illumination except a lonely handheld lantern, an interest in horror fiction comes pretty naturally as well. Sometimes sounds would come out of that forest that would keep me awake long into the night. A family cemetery visible from the barn and the house was a further disruption from wholesome slumber.

    Since we were so isolated, and since I was nearly out of high school before it became popular, I never played D&D. Even once.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • AprecheApreche
    I never played D&D.; Even once.
    Good. That means you can play Burning Wheel without having to unlearn bad habits.
  • kage_rodkage_rod
    Ah.. gradual. My friend showed me the deeper parts of anime shortly after Pokemon started.. She also showed me role playing (as in, chara1: *does this action* speaks.. chara 2: *reacts* (type of thing, although with different formats). <3 It used to be just anime/manga and role playing, up until grade 10ish. I learned Yu-Gi-Oh and started to hang at my geek shop, and when I moved in with a friend for a short time, I learned a bit about D&D. I got a job at the geek shop, and eventually started to play D&D, and now I do it every weekend. Today,I'll be heading to my lil geek shop to play Magic. =3 *wiggles happily*
  • kiwi_birdkiwi_bird
    I never played D&D.; Even once.
    Good. That means you can play Burning Wheel without having to unlearn bad habits.
    I somehow can't even imagine what table top role playing is/ how it can be fun. ^^"

    I guess the first geeky thing I was into were computers, then video games and over the last few years anime and manga.
  • AprecheApreche
    I somehow can't even imagine what table top role playing is/ how it can be fun. ^^"
    Do you like stories? Do you like telling stories with your friends? Do you end up arguing about which direction the story should go in? How about playing a little game with dice to decide.
  • kiwi_birdkiwi_bird
    Although that does sound interesting, I don't think ANY of my friends would join in on that. ^_~
  • VigaViga
    edited March 2008
    @ Kage: Working at a geekery shop was awesome. I did it the summer after high school back when the Comic Strip was a cool place to hang. Then they moved to a horrible area and it's small in there. The people got annoying and crappy and the owner is kinda mean. She was mean before but not as much back when she was close to the high school. Either way that comic shop was a part of important history of my crew.
    Post edited by Viga on
  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    I'm pretty sure that crown a few posts up should be a tiara. While you may have fangirls I don't think the status of geek monarchy belongs to the Geek Knights as they are yet to provide something of great worth to all of geekdom as a whole.
  • VigaViga
    I'm pretty sure that crown a few posts up should be a tiara.
    Like this perhaps?
    Well, I guess that's the queen so it makes sense to have Scott as the king.
  • AprecheApreche
    I'm pretty sure that crown a few posts up should be a tiara. While you may have fangirlsI don't think the status of geek monarchy belongs to the Geek Knights as they are yet to provide something of great worth to all of geekdom as a whole.
    I said I was king, not emperor. To be a king you need to rule but one kingdom. If I said I were emperor, then you would have a point.
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    edited March 2008
    To be a king you need to rule but one kingdom.
    Accordingly, I lay claim to the title of King of Horror and Science Fiction Geekery as well as the mantle of Lord Protector of Comic Book Geekdom. Additionally, by rights granted by Almighty God, I proclaim myself The Right Honourable Lord High Chancellor of Teh Pinball Town.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    And so, a meaningless power struggle ensues.
  • ZeehatZeehat
    I said I was king, not emperor. To be a king you need to rule but one kingdom.
    My name is
    Zeehat,
    king of kings:
    Look on my works,
    ye mighty,
    and despair!
  • VigaViga
    All of you get the title of Duke of Derailing Threads!

    Although I must say that I, The Duchess of Fangirl, approves.
  • kage_rodkage_rod
    edited March 2008
    Can I get the title of King of Dykes? =3

    XD And just a heads up - a picture of King Scott and Queen Rym is comin' right up.

    Edit: Ah, so as not to derail it too much further.. I'll post it in the gay forum, if that's alright. =3 It seems to fit there anyway.
    Post edited by kage_rod on
  • ......
    I somehow can't even imagine what table top role playing is/ how it can be fun. ^^"
    Have you listened to the Geeknights interview with *pains* the Burning Wheel creator? (I feel horrible for not LUKE CRANE! Scratch that, I couldn't come up with the name) Anyways, at some point Mr. Crane's friend talks about a roleplay session where one of the player gets a wish from a demon or something, and the dude says "Fuck me" for some reason. *grin* Go listen again, I laughed myself sick when I heard that, and I too have never played a table top RPG game sadly. I know no human being here in the Netherlands knows about D&D;, let alone Burning Wheel.

    Also, crazy people. I hereby claim the title, Count Nine, Duke of Insanity, Ruler of the Established Disorder associated with the Act of Eating Cookies and Emperor of the Mind, Body and Spirit of Myself.
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    I claim Chief Engineer of Steampunk Land and Exalted Master of Pulp Fiction.
  • gomidoggomidog
    I was born of a geek engineer daddy and a chill feminist artist mum. It's in my genes. I remember being real little (not big enough to reach the top of the dresser) and my dad trying to get 2 year old me to say the word "microprocessor" because he thought it was funny. What else do you expect from growing up in a family that has a collection of personal computers in the attic dating back to the Atari days? Or who gets into heated philosophical arguments about whether or not the star trek transporter killed you and remade you when it teleported you or not, or cracks up hilariously conjugating Japanese verbs with Latin endings at the dinner table. We watched the animes, share our comics, steal each others sci-fi novels and generally have a good time. Geekery was inevitable.
  • gomidoggomidog
    And I am leading a revolution against your monarchy! From hence forth I will be known as Premier Gomidogevsky, fearless leader of Socialist Republic of Geekdom!
  • TheWhaleSharkTheWhaleShark
    Let's see...

    My dad was very much into silver-era comic books and had them all over the place when I was growing up. He was also very much into science fiction novels, and had a veritable library in our house, from some of the oldest 50's pulp sci-fi novels right up to William Gibson's latest stuff. So, from a very young age, I was immersed in science fiction novels and comic books, as well as more intellectual conversation from my dad. He tended to treat my brother and I (for the most part) as small adults in many respects, so that sped our maturation along quite a bit.

    When I was about 4 or 5, he bought The Lensman animated movie, because he was a big fan of E.E. Smith. Also around that time (again, I think when I was 5), I got an NES for my birthday. I know it had to be pre-1990-ish, because the bundled Zapper was gray; they switched to orange later on.

    Like Gomidog, it's in my genes. My dad was a geek, and raised us in a geeky fashion, immersed in the trappings of geekery. Add in some social awkwardness, and it all came together naturally.

    And if you still don't believe that geekery is genetic, I submit to you this store, owned and operated by my half-brother. We shared the same father.
  • Li_AkahiLi_Akahi
    Two of my friends in third grade got me interested in Dragon Ball Z and all three of us played Pokemon Red and Blue religiously. Those two things sent me flying into the realm of geekery as I constantly sought out more things like them.
  • rhinocerorhinocero
    edited March 2008
    Star Trek and Lord of the Rings, mostly. Watched some Star Trek, was fascinated with it, read the Star Trek encyclopedia, and then read Star Trek novels and other bad sci-fi like there was no tomorrow. Read The Hobbit, couple years later read Lord of the Rings, and then started reading other fantasy. And then everything else pretty much springboarded from those two.
    Post edited by rhinocero on
  • ZeehatZeehat
    And I am leading a revolution against your monarchy! From hence forth I will be known as Premier Gomidogevsky, fearless leader of Socialist Republic of Geekdom!
    I'm your right hand man.
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