GEEK

I notice on MySpace that many of the younger people have various quizzes and what not. I have always ignored them because they seemed silly or downright intrusive. Well, I was doing some online research one day about "preppies." I'm on a tangent about them because there has been a new release of the great Whit Stillman film Metropolitan. I'll try to write about it one of these days. Anyhow, in the research process I came across this test, "Are you punk, ghetto, gothic, preppy, etc." So I took it. If I've got how to do the html code right, the results are posted here:

You scored as Geek. Geek 90% Preppy 40% Punk 20% Gothic 10% Ghetto 0% Emo 0% Jock 0% Are you punk, ghetto, gothic, preppy, etc. created with QuizFarm.com

This is no surprise to me, as far as the geek measure. I have always been a geek. Just look at the picture of me at 16 at the head of this blog. I did use pocket protectors, and in my day we carried slide rules rather than calculators, but it's the same idea. I had hoped that as I aged I would improve, rather like a fine port wine. Evidently not. I am still 90% geek. Well, maybe that's an improvement over 100% geek, but not much.

I seem to recall that the term 'geek' comes from the carnival freak show. The geek was the guy who would bite the heads off chickens. Yuck. I am not sure what word we used when I was 16, probably nerds. As I recall there were really only two real classifications in my high school: greasers and dupers. Everyone else (the vast majority) defied classification. The distinction was based on both dress and attitude. The greasers wore black leather jackets, boots or shoes with horseshoe cleats, wore their hair slicked into elaborate pompadours, swaggered when they walked, and were the bane of teachers and principals because they took no adult seriously. Dupers were the equivalent of preppies–madras plaid shirts, chinos, white socks, brown loafers, neatly cut hair, but not crew cuts. They were often the leaders of the student council and clubs.

Nerds were, well, nerds, though maybe not the exaggerated type of the movies with white shirts and broken glasses scotch taped together. They probably blended in with great majority of nobodies, but had far less social skills than the general body of nobodies. The nobodies basically dressed in whatever was on sale at Sears or Wards. Keep in mind that this was a boys school so there were no girls to impress.

There must have been jocks at our school since we fielded teams in all sorts of sports and there was a lot of intermural stuff as well. Maybe I just didn't pay attention to that crowd because as a nerd I was hopelessly inept at sports and had no friends who were associated with them.

Coming back to the quiz, I am not surprised in the least that I scored 0% jock or ghetto or emo, although I have only the vaguest notion what emo is. I don't think there was anything like that in my day. I am also not surprised that I got 40% preppie. I have studied the old Preppy Handbook and do order clothes from L. L. Bean and, when not in my professional outfit, wear oxford cloth shirts with button-down collars. However, I come from 100% blue collar background, no one in my family has even been to prep school or attended an ivy-league college. We certainly don't have money, new or old. I am mystified, however, at even being fractionally punk or gothic. Well, maybe my wearing clerical black does qualify as goth, but I can't figure punk at all. Is this some hidden dimension in my life? Can I be saved from geekdom? Do I even want to be saved from geekdom? For that matter, exactly what is punk? Maybe someone in the under 18 demographic can enlighten me.

My geekiness (as enhanced by four graduate courses in statistics) does note that any sort of scale has a margin of error. A 95% reliability in a measure is desirable and 90% might be acceptable, so this "punk" dimension of my personality could be a statistical artifact, a false positive. But if it is a genuine result, maybe I have to study this "punk" stuff to see whether it is something to be encouraged or rooted out entirely. Wait a minute. Only a true geek would study punk to determine its desirability as a personality trait. Whew, thank goodness my geekiness is confirmed.

Geek, Preppy, Punk, Gothic, Ghetto, Emo, or Jock–whoever and whatever you may be–may the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne