The Weird Al "White and Nerdy" song thread got me thinking about this. How can we tell the difference between nerd and geek? Brillo says that Nerd is Geek that you can turn off when you want to act differently whereas Geek is permanent. If this is so, then what is a dweeb or a dork? It's important facts of life like these that keep me up at night. Discuss...

i dunno. I would say a nerd is probably more deragatory than a geek. for instance, I would much rather say "I'm a computer geek" than "I'm a computer nerd". For some reason saying I'm a nerd makes me cringe, but saying im a geek makes me proud.

Almost like, being a geek over something is liking it alot, but it's still cool. A nerd is just taking it to the point of no return. ;)

i think geek refers to sections of your life, its a non-dominant gene, for example say you love watching football but the geek in you also collects star wars comic books. Nerd is a dominant gene, suck as the way you dress, your pimply face, and that weird sound you make when you laugh.

I think geek refers to intelligence in a particular subject or many subjects... Since I write software, I guess I'm a computer geek. I think a nerd *can* be like a "loser" with or without intelligence.

I admit to being a geek, but usually not a nerd. I think a nerd is fully absorbed into whatever he may be doing, whereas a geek has his fascinations but at least has his life as a priority.

as for a dork, i picture someone who tries to fit in and fails. Say a group of people at work are talking about something i have no clue about and i chim in, they'll say "shut up dork"

Nerds lack social skills, whereas geeks do not.

i always thought nerd refered to someone who studied a lot and was smart and usually had no life due to lack of social skills because he's studying all the time.

a geek was someone who liked "geeky" things. geeky things would be... anime, manga, games, computers, electronics, fantasy, comics, and science fiction. these people were shunned because they were usually too much into those things.

or something like that. i always considered myself a geek since i liked geeky things. i'm not a studier though so i can't consider myself a nerd...

You can choose to be a geek. You are chosen to be a nerd.
Both "dweeb" and "dork" are declinations of "nerd".

i always thought nerd refered to someone who studied a lot and was smart and usually had no life due to lack of social skills because he's studying all the time.

a geek was someone who liked "geeky" things. geeky things would be... anime, manga, games, computers, electronics, fantasy, comics, and science fiction. these people were shunned because they were usually too much into those things.

or something like that. i always considered myself a geek since i liked geeky things. i'm not a studier though so i can't consider myself a nerd...
I agree.

A nerd is a very smart person who more than likely has very few social skills. A geek is someone who does goofy, uncool things that have to do with science and such.

Basically all my sisters friends are huge geeks (Star Wars, D&D, etc), but none of them graduated college with higher than a 3.0 (most were quite lower). They wish they could be nerds.

in elementry school I was called a nerd... we made it into an acryonym of N.ever E.nding R.adical D.ude haha (cheesy I know but it was funny at the time)

I will admit that up until I got to college I was a nerd - lacked any social skills at all, wore the stupidest clothes and was ALWAYS in the computer lab. Once I got away to college, away from my smothering parents, given a regular dose of alcohol and freedom I shook the dorked out image.

After 4 years I'm a completely different person, working out, a college education, good job. I still love computers and video games, but they arent my "world" as they were in gradeschool. I.e. when its the weekend, im going OUT to do something :-D not sit and play Counterstrike and cyber with girls on yahoo messenger.

</end rant>

I'm a geek at heart, I love learning, I value intelligence and education, i love computers video games and cars, but I know that balance is important.

Geeks were originally side show freaks that didn't have any interesting deformities and had to rely on wit and action to please a crowd. Typically a geek was the 'wild man' newly captured from Borneo or the Jungles of where ever there are interesting scary things but no one has visited them lately. Clad in rags and skins with a bone through his nose, the geek would bite the head off a chicken and maybe even pretend to escape, run riot in the crowd, and be driven heroically back into his cage by his handlers. This wild man image remained to mean an enthusiastic wild eyed savent pursuing some interest with manical intensity.

Nerds and nebbishes were sort of Yiddish nobodies - nonentities - social misfits who typically wore glasses repaired with a bandaid, high water pants, mismatched socks, had irritating laughs, bad teeth, pimples, and looked like Woody Allen or Bill Gates. They were supposed to be hurt by society but driven by hope and sensitivity to the human condition. They often accepted blame or guilt for things they were not responsible for. However, they often had some redeeming superhuman grace - Like winning at chess, memorizing the Torah, understanding computers, mathematics, or quantum physics. They usually won the battle of life by wit, or luck, occuring in unlikely ways!

Dweebs - a highschool term for kid brothers, or other weak persons whom you dispise
and can therefore pester with impunity.

Dorks are Dweebs with poor social skills and are clumsy to boot - although definitions vary from school to school,

Skaggs - are the rudders of surf boards - for example a "quick skagg" , and are probably derived from some Scandahoovian Nautical term - however it came to mean some ugly and unpopular female whom you would be embarassed to be seen with.

Grimmys - begining surfers, usually kid brothers, who laugh when you get wiped out!

See also enthusiasts, affectionados, idiot savants, and Cheese Heads...

We had a pretty good discussion awhile back:

http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=59412&highlight=nerd

I change my stance from last time given my sudden urge to hang in the lounge these past couple of weeks.

I'm a dorky-geek

This came up the other day when I was at dinner with some co-workers and one of them called me a nerd and the head IT guy who I work with goes "hey, at least call him a geek that is better then a nerd"

according to the simpsons

Milhouse - "I'm not a nerd, nerds are smart"

^ Exactly. TV doesn't lie. Especially when FOX is involved.

+1 to Spork's answer. While the 2 terms a used as synonyms, the distinction is based on intelligence. Geeks play magic/d&d/etc. but don't need any real intelligence. Nerds, while drawn to geekish pursuits due to their equally insufficient social graces, generally earn superior accolades throughout life, and employ significantly gooder vocabulary.

So what is Steve Urkel (sp?)?

A nerd in the old Yiddish sense! Since it was cultural, Nerdism was known but rare in the black community - and threfore surprising, and funny; in the same way a white or Asian kid who mimics ghetto culture becomes kind of a joke and an irritant.


Isolated groups of human beings tend to form conventions and customs to help them remain distinct and control territories. The behaviors are no more 'natural' then the mannerisms of a Kabuki preformer. They are fads, but they are often fun.

These fads are so subtle that they may even overlap the 'natural' and come to define what is male or female. Thus, a good Kabuki actor, can impersonate the sterotypes of a Japanese woman and be more lady-like than a real female, and then change costume and mimic a warrior, and appear more of a warrior than any real general.

One of the sadnesses of our current time is that sterotypic behaviors are so encouraged by the media that children and young adults lose what it is to be a higher form of themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd

Pretty simple answer. Pic 1 is a geek. Pic 2 is a nerd

So what is Steve Urkel (sp?)?
A mythical, demi-god-like cross between the 2. Created by the collective pansy energy released whenever any nerd or geek gets bullied.

Wikipedia says a good example of a dork is the lead singer of Wheezer...

Geeks drive VW bugs and work at Best Buy.

So a Geek is just retro? - Bugs used to be one of the cool cars especially the convertables and kits!

By the way did anyone see :Who wants to be a Super Hero?

Nerds are into Star Wars; geeks are into Star Trek.

^^ What happens if you sorta like both?... My thoughts exactly, people who like both sw and st are dorks.

But if a st fan goes to a sw forum posing as someone who likes both but just trolls and argues that the enteprise could destroy the entire empire because it's that powerful, then that person is an asshole.

So... not all assholes are geeks, but some geeks can definitely be assholes.

^tossed around like a frisbee, the enterprise would be, HMMM? LoLz!

Pretty simple answer. Pic 1 is a geek. Pic 2 is a nerd


Booger from Revenge of the nerds was fucking cool. I love him.


I dont know what I would classify myself as... it doenst really matter. I mean, i work out, have a pretty buff body, love working on my car yet I love watching Star Trek:TNG, building computers, and reading comic books and scientific books (physics in particular) I've been told (by a group of random girls in a club one time) that I looked like some type of armed body guard or high level security guard when i was chilling over at the bar getting a feel for the crowd that night, I was wearing my all black badass looking suit. Which might seem like a negative thing, but I took it as a compliment and it made me smilie to know that I had that look going on.

for the record: Star Trek > Star Wars (yes im fulfilling the cliche of arguing which one is better via the internet) :yelrotflm :lol: :yelrotflm :lol: