What has all this Geeking lead us to?

I believe the Geek as we currently know them starts to exist in the 1930s. Certainly there must have been Geeks to some degree before that; someone that thought all of Shakespeare's plays after a certain point were 'crapth', someone that was disappointed that for a sequel to Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn didn't have a lot of Tom Sawyer in it, someone that wrote to the Strand magazine about continuity problems in the Sherlock Holmes series and, if this Moriarty figure is supposed to be so important, why haven't we heard about him earlier? As a collective, as an identifiable group, I believe they start in the 1930s.

Now, as we've discussed earlier, a Geek is someone focused on a specific subject in pop culture, someone who has what a 'normal' person (i.e. someone not fascinated with the same subject) would consider an inordinate about of knowledge about the subject. This subject could be comics, music, musical groups, sports, whatever. The subject itself is less important that the obsession in identifying the Geek. With that said, most of the traditional Geek subjects are science-fiction related because this is the subject that brings forth the birth of the Geek as we know it.

In the 1930s, pulp science-fiction was strong. The comic book is being born. Movies have sound now and 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein' are starting the first big wave of 'strange' film. Forry Ackerman and Julie Schwartz are perhaps the best known Geeks from this era and, if not the first Geeks to exist, certainly amongst the first few. They set the basis standard pattern that subsequent Geek eras would follow: excitement about a subject, a desire to share that excitement with like-minded individuals, and eventually finding work regarding their fascination.

The late 1950s into the mid 1960s is the next big era of the Geek. Monster movies have been revived by aliens and radioactivity. Godzilla first appears. Hammer films first appear with their color horrors. The original wave of Universal Horrors now play regularly on television. The Munsters. The Addams Family. While comics get derailed from their full growth by 'The Seduction of the Innocent' book and the backlash surrounding it, superheroes return. Marvel Comics start. The original 'Star Trek' is probably the last big event in this cycle. Julie Schwartz is now a big editor at DC Comics. Forry Ackerman is running the 'Famous Monsters of Filmland' magazine. This is the era called by some as the 'Monster Kids' era. This is also the period of the rise of the 'fanzine', magazines made by fans for fans, attempts to draw Geeks together.

It is possible that this is the period where being a Geek was seen by 'normals' as bad. Why that is isn't completely clear to me yet. Is it the stigma that stained comic books by 'The Seduction of the Innocent'? Is it just that the Geek kids weren't considered 'normal' and therefore misunderstood? Is it because there just weren't enough of them yet? A combination of events? People just being jerks?

This wave of Geeks starts to come of age during the late 60s as overall Geekdom ebbs. Hippies are all about. Cinema starts to get more serious. Godzilla movies get experimental and budgets get lower. Hammer films aren't sure how they fit into this new world and falter with the rest of the British film industry. 'The Exorcist' alters expectations about mainstream horror. Comics become less mainstream again. Watergate and Vietnam make the general public more cynical, less interested in the 'simple' good vs evil found in most Geek interests.

Just like the first wave of Geeks brought about the second wave when they came to power, the third big wave comes at the hands of the second wave. The 'Monster Kids' grow up to create the 'Blockbuster Movie' era. Steven Spielberg with 'Jaws' and George Lucas with 'Star Wars' reinvent what the public will expect from a science-fiction/fantasy film. No longer will a dodgy effect be allowed to pass in an otherwise good story. To be fair, the early generations would have laughed at the dodgy effect if it was bad enough, but now it would be increasingly unacceptable. Science-fiction starts to blend with the more mainstream acceptable action movie genre in examples such as 'Terminator', 'Alien', and 'Predator'. This is when the bulk of the 'Star Trek' movies, at least the ones considered the 'best', are released. 'Doctor Who' sees it's first big wave of attention in America. Cable TV and VCR use rise. Slasher films dominate the horror scene with the 'Halloween', 'Friday the 13th', and 'Nightmare on Elm Street' series, amongst others, all starting during this period.

Not all the 'Monster Kids' grew up to work in traditional Geek areas. Many found themselves working in an area that would still feel like science-fiction to many: computers. They programmed, they built, they created. By the end of the 'Blockbuster Movie' era in the mid-1980, they'd made science-fiction more real with the advent of the Personal Computer.

Due to this, we start to see the advent of the 'Rich Geek'. Some of those computer guys make a lot of money and are willing, eager even, to spend it on the interests of their youth. Where there is demand, there will be supply to meet it. More accurately, if there's money to be made, someone will come around to make the money. Some of those 'Monster Kids' grew up to make the kits and toys they'd liked as kids, making better and better looking products.

The next Geek wave hits much sooner than previous waves primarily due to the rise of the computer in the home and this thing called the Internet. In the early waves of fandom with fanzines and newsletters, a fan had to find a notice of the existence of one of these products and send away for it. There was more work involved on both ends of the product. Now, an electronic newsletter was much easier to find and subscribe to and send. The ad would be in a newsgroup dedicated to the subject, you'd send an email, and you'd get added to a mailing list. No postage, no sending away, no ropey printing. Better all around.

Then with the rise of the World Wide Web, you didn't even need to hunt for anything. All you had to do was to go to a search engine, type in what you're interested in and there you go! Nothing simpler! You no longer had to be a fan on your own. With a few clicks, you could meet up with others that liked what you liked. You were empowered to know that you weren't alone.

Technology continued to advance, making those special effects easier and easier to make look good. Fantasy subjects that had long been seen as impossible to film were now becoming possible. The 'Lord of the Rings' books. 'Spider-Man.' More 'Star Wars' movies. More George A. Romero zombie films. More of all those things that Geeks had been asking for, begging for.

This wave should die off like the rest but the Internet is a powerful tool in bringing people together. Also, right when the wave should have started fading, came DVD. Film restoration was increasingly coming into vogue and DVD took that to new levels. Movies were remastered. TV shows became more cost effective to release to the home market. It's become easier and easier to re-evaluate items from the past and how the original products were meant to be taken. The Geek has never had better access to their items of interest, to collect them, to investigate them, to enjoy them.

As a group, what have we done with all this power?

We've used it to hate.

I don't necessarily mean you specifically dear reader, but us as a whole. The Internet is full of hate. Annoyance at movies not even completed. Fanedits of movies that have been released but had 'stupid' bits. 'Worse movie/TV show/moment ever'.

The worst thing that can happen to a group is to win. The Geeks have won. We have power. We are catered to by companies. People want to please us. And they can't.

Why not? In our defense, some products aren't very good. They're rushed. They're not well thought out, thrown onto the market in a quick attempt to cash in. I'm not trying to say that you should like everything or anything in particular.

Where the problem often lies in within ourselves. We build mental pictures of how, for instance, certain comic book characters look or sound. When a new artist comes on a book with their own style, sometimes we reject them simply for being different. Or a movie gets made based on our favorite book series and we complain about the casting because one actor doesn't fit our mental picture or doesn't sound right. Often, it's got nothing to do with how well the artist draws or how well the actor does in the role, it's wrong because it doesn't match up with what's in our heads.

That obsessive quality is what makes us Geeks. We want the details to be just so. We get annoyed when 'continuity' gets disrupted, forgetting that it's our job to come up with the theories to fit things together when they don't appear to do so. We continue to watch television shows we don't enjoy so that we can be able to complain about them to our friends.

My Geeks, I'm not saying to ignore your critical thinking ability, to blindly enjoy everything put before us. What I am saying is to remember that 'critical' doesn't equal 'finding the bad' in something. Don't hate something because it's easier to hate than enjoy or because it's 'cooler' to be the first person against something. If you don't enjoy something, try to work out why. If it's you, say that it's you rather than saying 'that sucked'. Try to remember what brought you to your Geekdom for something rather than letting it burn out because nothing brings you any joy in it anymore.