I think about geeks getting together pretty much all the time. I have to. It’s my job; I run events for geeks – and while, in actuality, “geeks getting it on” is shorthand for “geeks being able to make powerful social connections which lead to longterm connections” – it genuinely occupies much of my brain.
I keep considering the question of scarcity. If I were viewing this a younger geek, thirty years ago, it would deprecation, with a culture whose members were universally told that they were not wanted, and would never be wanted. For me, the journey might be summed up like this:
1995: “You geeks love computers because they’re the only things which will ever love you.”
2017: Holy DAMN, were they ever wrong!
Not every geek has an incredible intimate life, not even in 2017. But now we know that every geek can. They told us we’d be locked out of intimacy for life, barely able to find enough kindred souls to form a few friendships – certainly not love, not sex, not abundance. But they were wrong: in fact, un-fucking-believable nerdex is the legacy of this generation of geeks.
I won’t try to define “geek” or say exactly what a “geek” or “nerd” is; there was a time when those definitions seemed totally critical to my life, but now it’s just Tribe: If you’ll declare yourself a Geek, and be open-minded and good to other Geeks, I’ll call you a Geek. Simple as that.
Whether it’s romantic fiction or not, I like the historic view that geekery as we know it started with science fiction. That’s quite disputable, but it’s still one good place to begin. There we were, inventing a weird genre with no literary credibility. There we were with no support but that which we made for ourselves, when we started tiny magazines and began forming tenuous communities. We had nothing except our minds, and the concept that you could–and should!–use ideas to challenge conceptions of the world around us.
Then came my generation, and, again, my vision of it is more of a romantic memory than a real historical breakdown. But give this a nice 80s rock backbone and splash it into a montage:
The embrace of home computer technology! Our entrance into pop culture (as deranged, invariably male engineers with terrible social skills, true – but at least they knew that geeks existed) – and the rise of what was starting to become modern fandom! We helped establish the culture of geekery – in art, film, literature, clothing, gaming, social lives. We were the ones given the tools and materials to build the fledgling Geek Nation.
And now?
Now comes the geekery of joy! Now comes the geekery of celebration! Now comes nerdsex beyond belief!
This is the generation of those who know geek love is strong. After all, this is the generation whose members might very probably have attended their first conventions with their parents. This is the generation which, as others have noted, can wake up any morning and be immersed in geek culture. This is the generation which knows that geeks are not alone.
This generation of geeks has the entire architecture of imagination as their rightful heritage. Our bequest is that of dreamers-of-dreams. Because we are the third generation to push the boundaries of what is possible. Because our creativity has decades of spanning galaxies and millenia in search of new ideas. Because we have spent half a century building rich lives of the mind– and being told that those were the only lives we would get. And we are shattering that idea so hard that the next generation won’t even believe it really existed.
Geek sexuality has always, always been powerful; it’s simply that we were few enough, and our confidence little enough, that you seldom saw it. Now we’re visible, and we are creating the birthright of those who’ll come after. Because if geekery has always embraced the mind, and geekery can now embrace the body, then the geekery we build is limitless.
We are getting together for our future. And it is a glorious damn future indeed.
