>I'm starting to think the question "what is a geek" is the ultimate elephant of our time
The very definition of geek tends to include words like "non-conformist" and "totally focused on some tiny tiny niche that no one else knows anything about"
That's the crux of the problem, yeah. We're like Tolstoy's line about families: normal people are are all just normal, but geeks are all weird in ways different enough to prevent us from having any kind of collective self-definition. Which leaves the job of defining who we are to others, who inevitably get it wrong.
The very definition of geek tends to include words like "non-conformist" and "totally focused on some tiny tiny niche that no one else knows anything about"