An Overview on Geeks and Geek Culture
Geeks are enthusiasts that develop know-how on topics using devotion and exceptional determination. The word, ‘geek’ is a definition of an enthusiast in engineering, technology and science and are also strong media fans. These media fans are known as fandom geeks.
Geek culture is an enthusiasts subculture which is traditionally linked with ambiguous media like video games, science fiction, Japanese animation among others. Geek culture is increasingly gaining mainstream influence on modern culture. It include a wide range of activities like role-playing games, science fiction, dressing in costumes and comic books. In the past geek’s interests were marginalized however today movies from comic books are being adapted and are now major. The same with fantasy themed video games and science-fiction hare now multi-billion dollar industries. Geek conventions are now attracting thousands of attendees and fans are growing by leaps and bounds.
Although geek culture is becoming popular it has not received deserved attention from social sciences. However, there is an increasing inclination of people to engage in cultures that have magical and heroic themes and can be connected to vital trends in broader cultures like narcissism as well as the edge between entertainment media and technology. Today, there are two basic goals in geek culture one is to validate and develop geek engagement in participation of some activities are represented in geek convention. The other is to examine and describe three geek culture theoretical accounts connected to culture trends. This refers to the desire for engagement hypothesis, belonging and fantasy migration hypothesis. Participating in geek culture is decided upon by various factors and these hypotheses are interconnected in their predictions.
Geek culture is a little psychological study. Communication researchers and anthropologists are now describing geek culture and offering many theoretical accounts about its widespread plea. According to these theories and from psychology literature, the result is the three hypotheses. The current data speaks on how people decide to contribute to geek culture. More research should be carried out to know how geek culture is becoming prominent in standard American culture. It should be noted that nobody is after association geek culture with antisocial or dysfunction behavior. In fact no clinical assessments have been carried out. The theoretical accounts incline on disparity in normal personality characteristics which are not essentially maladaptive but sometimes can be adaptive to some extent. The main aim is to understand and describe personal motivations for contributing to geek culture.
So, geek culture can be differentiated by the behavior to contribute to a person’s own entertainment and escapism. It can be distinguished using some strategies of using some media interests to seek belonging and fulfill needs. To the extent that people contribute to geek culture shows reduced civic engagement and reduced real life goals engagements like raising a family or career aspirations which are not likely to be practical sources of esteem and praises and so are not rewarding to narcissists who seek geek culture activities. Because geek media deals with fantasy prowess and fantasy content they make people to engage in it to satisfy their entertainment desires.