How many of regulars here actually fit the "geek" stereotypes?



  • In the misandry topic, I have brought an issue that the IT folks are frequently stereotyped as "smelly fat neckbearded insecure dudes living in their mom's basements" (and eating absurd amounts of junk food), implying this to be rather derogatory and, as a second thought, mostly inaccurate.

    What those stereotypes mostly describe is this:

    ...while my personal experience shows very few people of any significance in IT and on this forum actually fit this stereotype. The primary reasons being that most of regulars here are professionals (of differing competence) rather than enthusiasts, and that most of us perceive most of these stereotypical traits as WTFs. Also, my own non-representative stats show that most people creating stuff that is actually both useful and used by more than a dozen or two users, mostly don't have any problems with their "people skills" at all.

    What do you think? How far would you position yourself from Bert Glanstron?



  • Well, I'm fat, I'm neckbearded, I'm pretty insecure even here and I currently living with family (albeit paying rent) after splitting up with a long-term girlfriend that we had bought a house together. Smelly? Wouldn't actually know since I don't have a sense of smell. I don't eat ridiculous amounts of junk food but I don't eat especially healthily either.

    I do also have long hair, but no glasses or acne.

    And probable-but-not-yet-confirmed Asperger's so I'm socially inept a lot of the time anyway. You probably noticed that from the monologues.



  • 6' 3", 195 lbs, lanky, semi-athletic, married, socially awkward, hate to be around other people, but I have no problem doing improv in front of 180+ pepole.



  • Well, I've got the glasses, some times the neckbeard (depends on how often I feel like shaving, and my wife likes stubble). The fact that I am married and have three kids seems to indicate I'm not smelly. And I I actually live about 1200 miles from my mom.

    Edit: short hair, skinny, and no acne.

    Edit: Almost forgot, I am an introvert, but I can handle doing presentations in front of groups from 5 to 500.



  • Hmmm. Its hard to say. I had the junior developer snap a pic of me programming FAQ changes and migrating content to a new site today.

    I guess I'll let you be the judge.

    [spoiler]
    [/spoiler]



  • Overweight and dieting. Bald. Wear prescription sunglasses or contact lenses.

    Just out of a long term relationship. Live with a roommate. Mostly stay in the man cave. Don't smell bad. No video games. Little anime (two episodes a week). More junk food than is good for me, but that's changing. Get depressed fairly often. Causes problems.

    Don't give a fuck. Too cool for school.



  • As far as you all are concerned, I'm a charming, handsome, Hugo Boss-wearing young male with an irresistible dry wit and British accent that sweeps you out of your feet.


    Filed under: okay i hate british accents


  • BINNED

    • Glasses, no idea how much computers contributed since everyone in family wears them, regardless of profession.
    • Short-ish hair (depends on when I get around to getting it cut really) that defies gravity (it was in my way when it conformed so we had a talk about that).
    • Skinny.
    • Goatee. Because it looks good on me. It's actually more work than not shaving most of the time anyway.
    • Living with family due to financial constraints.

    Make of it what you will.


  • 🚽 Regular

    Filed under: okay i hate british accents

    I resemble that remark!

    I'm very slightly overweight but still dieting (old WeightWatchers system not the new Atkins rubbish), I wear glasses and live with my girlfriend in a rented house. I have a full beard because I hate shaving, I do keep it neat though.

    On the hygiene front I like to be clean so no smell. Skin is good now but I was a PFY.
    I'm not very extroverted, had to do a Q/A in front of a couple of hundred people last weekend and hated it.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    dry wit and British accent

    It doesn't take a British accent to say "kurwa" with expression.



  • @Cursorkeys said:

    not the new Atkins rubbish

    Atkins is not quite rubbish. (Well, it might be if you don't do your research.)

    I use it to keep my blood sugar low. I don't care too much about the weight loss side effect, which I have quite a bit of.


  • 🚽 Regular

    Sorry, that wasn't clear. I meant the WeightWatchers ProPoints implementation which is a bastardised Atkins really. I did look into it and I didn't like it so I'm using their old system which, for me, is working beautifully.

    On Atkins generally, I'm interested in the amazing results people get but with a potential for Kidney damage and some of the claims about mid-life mortality I didn't want to risk it. There doesn't seem to be any reliable peer reviewed studies (or meta-studies) though so I'm taking it all with a pinch of salt until I see proper evidence.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    Filed under: okay i hate british accents

    You came so close to getting a like there...



  • Well, mine is not so much about Atkins as it is about low-carb in general. I think that my kidneys will give up sooner with my diabetes (not diabetes risk, but the real thing) rather than whatever the diet might impose on them.



  • I'm a twig.

    Have you seen The Machinist?



  • Nope. Is that a WTF?



  • No, it's a movie with a skinny guy.



  • @chubertdev said:

    6' 3", 195 lbs, lanky, semi-athletic, married, socially awkward, hate to be around other people, but I have no problem doing improv in front of 180+ pepole.

    Are you me?

    Well, except I'm 1m85 and 65 and don't have a single clue what your shitty units mean, but I identify myself with your description, although not married.



  • I partially fit into multiple stereotypes. You could probably accurately call me a redneck nerd.

    • Programmer/software engineer/database guy by profession.
    • I play way too much Minecraft and run my own server. I'm really looking forward to Space Engineers.
    • Into Star Wars/Star Trek/Monty Python/BattleTech. Seen all Star Trek series and movies, was gutted when Disney nuked the Expanded Universe, and don't mind 12+ hours of playing the BattleTech tabletop game.
    • Single, but do not live with my mother. Stereotype averted.
    • Very introverted but I have no problem giving presentations if I know the topic well.
    • Generally muscular build (5'11", 180 lbs).
    • Yes I have a beard. No it is not a neckbeard. I keep my hair very short so sometimes people think I'm a cop or a Marine or something.
    • Grew up on a farm raising cattle and I hate cities.
    • Typical dress includes waterproof work boots, carpenter jeans or cargo pants, and I always have a 3.5" folding knife with me. Used to carry a concealed 9mm too but I moved and need a new concealed carry permit.
    • Mostly Midwestern accent, but I have a bit of Southern and "redneck" as well, especially if I'm tired.
    • Drive a crew cab diesel pickup truck (but no it doesn't smoke).
    • Dirt biking is my preferred exercise.
    • I love hunting, and target shooting is great entertainment if you have some Tannerite.


  • @mott555 said:

    I'm really looking forward to Space Engineers.

    I read it as "Space Invaders". Now that's a game we're all waiting for.

    @mott555 said:

    Single, but do not live with my mother. Stereotype averted.

    Do you have cats, by any chance?

    @dhromed said:

    Have you seen The Machinist?

    So, you're BatmanPatrick Bateman. I knew it.



  • No pets of any type. I used to have a Venus Flytrap if that counts, but it died because Wal-Mart shipped it with normal soil instead of low-nutrient stuff that won't burn the roots, and I never got around to re-potting it.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    My new pants are a 46x30, my hair falls below my shoulders, and I have worse than 20/500 vision (according to my prescription and the internet). But I probably don't count as fitting a geek stereotype since I missed the biggest one of all: maleness.


  • BINNED

    @Yamikuronue said:

    But I probably don't count as fitting a geek stereotype since I missed the biggest one of all: maleness.

    But... But... Misogyny... MRAs... how are you here?


    Filed under: Should I post this?, Fuck it, flame on!


  • :belt_onion:

    I'm a jocknerd.... 6'3, 155lb (1.905m, 70kg), played 4 years of college baseball. Currently run ultramarathons as a hobby. Terrible vision, nearly blind without contacts. Partially deaf and have hearing aids but don't wear them. Married with 1 kid. Fairly extroverted when in crowds, despite not being able to hear half of what's going on. However, I prefer being alone (or alone with the wife) most of the time.


  • BINNED

    @darkmatter said:

    Fairly extroverted when in crowds, despite not being able to hear half of what's going on.

    Probably explains it. You can't hear all the stupid.



  • I forgot to avert that stereotype as well. I don't wear glasses or contacts though my vision has noticeably worsened over the past 4 - 5 years.



  • @Onyx said:

    But... But... Misogyny... MRAs... how are you here?



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    But I probably don't count as fitting a geek stereotype since I missed the biggest one of all: maleness.

    No problem with that, you fit perfectly well if you let your hair become greasy...



  • No glasses, though I'm fairly sure that's out of stubbornness and that I'm actually short-sighted. A bit of a PFY at 22, but improving. 185cm/6'1" and 80kg/176lbs, so a little overweight. Introverted but I can happily present in front of a crowd or even go out and socialise a couple of times a week (shock horror!)

    I travel the world solo, so I couldn't be much further from my parents' basement if I tried.

    Stopped playing video games years ago, practical skills include woodworking, horse riding and cattle mustering. Yay diverse upbringing. I also seem to have some kind of talent for handling horses in general - particularly those which no one else can control. So I guess I have that going for me if the world gets hit by a massive solar flare which fries all of our electronics.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    I'm not white enough to get proper greasy hair, I get matts instead. Would dreadlocks be sufficient?


  • :belt_onion:

    Ah, and my hair is super short normally, marine-style cut, though I just cut it once every 4 months and let it grow out to the penis with ears style before having it shaved back down again.


    Filed Under: [spoiler]lazy[/spoiler]
    Filed Under: [spoiler]why do the fcuking spoilers only half work when there is html in the post[/spoiler]

    how come if I put something before the hr tag, it works, but if there's an empty line, it breaks it:




  • @darkmatter said:

    how come if I put something before the hr tag, it works, but if there's an empty line, it breaks it:

    Because Discourse and the terribly awful markdown parser.


  • BINNED

    @Yamikuronue said:

    I'm not white enough to get proper greasy hair, I get matts instead.

    Wait... so black people don't get sunburned. You don't get greasy hair, so whatever heritage you have it's not completely white...

    White supremacy my ass!

    Signed: sunburned, greasy-hair battling white man.


  • BINNED

    @Yamikuronue said:

    Would dreadlocks be sufficient?

    Dreadlocks are considered cool in some circles, so we can't have that.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    I'm not black enough to not get sunburned :( I got a burn on the back of my neck a couple weeks ago, it was rather annoying for like three whole days. And it'd only been, what, five, six years since the last time I got a sunburn? Way too soon!



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    I'm not white enough to get proper greasy hair, I get matts instead. Would dreadlocks be sufficient?

    I don't know, you made a bit of rift in my stereotypes anyway.



  • @antiquarian said:

    Dreadlocks are considered cool in some circles, so we can't have that.

    Oh wait, there's a whole another club of hipstery kids doing startupey stuff, running to all conferences and doing invariably "awesome", webthreezero'y social microbloggingy/adwarey/modern-artsey/instagramey services (for which there is apparently huge demand in the world) in Ruby on Rails or Haskell or some obscure functional-declarative kind of language (because Ocaml is too mainstream).

    They are mostly skinny, wearing tight outfits, wearing scarves even in July, mandatory large hipstery glasses (even if their vision is 100%), and some of them wear dreadlocks too.

    They also consider themselves a subspecies of "geeks", just the extroverted and cool ones.

    The likes of me are slipping firmly into the "old farts" category on their sight.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Onyx said:

    so black people don't get sunburned

    Yes. They can, and do.

    For rather obvious reasons it's not quite as noticable (or perhaps as frequent) as a caucasian going from white to red to crispy and back to white, but it happens.

    </serious>


  • BINNED

    I was using Haskell before it was cool.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    My mug is no secret, since it's staring out at you right now. I'd mentioned my build elsewhere, so suffice to say tall+thin (I guess that qualifies as SkinnyNerd, as opposed to FatGeek). Long hair? Check. Greasy? No. (It's actually rather dry by nature) Facial hair? Usually absent. Glasses? Mostly yes these days, contacts when I can be bothered.

    Wardrobe? Alternates between corp-rat and rocker (a fairly accurate picture, minus "corp"). Body odour? Not really.

    Home arrangements? Married w/o kids; living with wife. Social awkwardness? Not really, I just don't like spending time with other people very much. Eating habits? Do coffee, cigarettes and beer count as junk food? Do they even count as food? Normally eat home-cooked and am a competent cook myself.

    Hobbies? Full gamut of standard nerd-stuff at some point or other: RPGs, video games, anime etc. Not so much these days, for lack of time/opportunity - mostly running pen-and-paper games for the wife on weekends. Non-standard nerd-stuff: flight simulation. Non-nerd-stuff: playing music (was semi-pro, more of a hobby these days), music business commentary, getting on people's nervous systems. Athletic? Used to be somewhat as a lad, can't really be bothered these days.


    Filed under: was going to count Nerd Score but too lazy


  • Garbage Person

    Glasses no.
    Fat yes. Working on it, 50 lbs in 25 weeks via the expedient of not eating so goddamn much.
    Long hair, yep. Can be greasy at times depending on degree of overwork.
    Shitty skin Yep.
    Neckbeard technically, but it's of sufficient density and length that it qualifies as a wise beard that has not yet grayed.
    Marital status single and promiscuous.
    Fairly awkward socially. Fuck your smalltalk.
    No video games anymore.
    No anime.
    Do play table top RPGs, war games and board games.
    I don't code for fun anymore.
    My father lives with me. I own the house. He mows the lawn and keeps to himself.
    Only set foot in the basement to fix things or store things or do laundry.
    I'm told I suck at dressing myself.
    If I fail to shower for even 1 day, I do in fact stink. Or at least I feel like I must, but nobody complains like they used to when I was younger, so perhaps not.
    All my t shirts are shrunken to the point of too small and have holes.



  • There's no such thing as a British accent.



  • Sure there is. Any accent that naturally occurs from within the British Isles (with or without Northern Ireland if you're being a pedantic dickweed).

    Which means, broadly, English, Scottish or Welsh. And more specifically any of the subaccents therein, with England ranging from Londoner to southerner, to West Country, to Midlander to Yorkshire to northern in general. And even that's pretty broad in terms of accent (since Midlander for example has the watered down Midlands accent, versus Birmingham versus the Black Country)... basically, for every 30-50 miles, think of a new accent variation. I'm less familiar with Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland though.

    It's no different to 'American' accent being subdivided by 'Texan' vs 'Boston drawl' vs 'New Yawker'. They're all American accents.



  • Smelly: No. I do not stink unless I'm doing yard work or other sweat-producing activity, or I'm planning to do it later, so showering now would be wasted.

    Fat: Sorta no. I used to bike and work out pretty regularly, but I've become way too sedentary since separating from my now-ex-wife. I've put on some weight, but I'm not really fat. I definitely have a pot belly, but this is mostly due to poor posture and lack of muscle tone.

    Neckbearded: No. Generally, I'm mostly clean-shaven. When I was married, I would either grow or shave my mustache, depending mostly on my wife's mood — she liked how it looked, but would eventually get tired of "scratchy." For the last few years, I had a thin pencil mustache, but I got rid of that a couple of months ago. Grew a goatee for a while. Now either clean or stubble, depending on whether I've felt like shaving recently.

    Insecure: Yes. I was painfully shy as a kid; not as much now, but I still tend to keep my opinions to myself. Yeah, I spout off a bit on here, but Internet anonymity, and all that.

    Mom's basement: Basements are pretty rare in California, so I've never even lived in a house that had one. I didn't really live with my parents after my first summer home from college, and moved out for good when I graduated and moved 400 miles away. My dad did live with my wife, kids and me, briefly, after my mom died. They are both gone now, so I couldn't live with them if I wanted to.

    Junk food: No. I eat more than is really healthy, but nothing like the stereotype. I don't take the time to cook real meals for myself as often as I should (reminder to self: go home in time to bake potatoes tonight), but I like to cook, and am pretty good at it. When I don't bother preparing a real meal, either home-cooked or some frozen entree from the grocery store, my fall-back is likely to be a bowl of cereal or handfuls of frozen veggies, rather than the stereotypical Cheetos or whatever.

    Other stereotypes:

    Long, greasy hair: Yes and No. The length of my hair has varied from quite short to quite long. It is currently about shoulder-length — annoying because it is not yet long enough to pull it back and keep it out of my face. I prefer either extreme; in-between doesn't work well because my hair is very uncooperative, and nothing short of superglue will keep it looking combed and neat. Not greasy; I wash it every day — sometimes every other day if it starts getting too dry.

    Pimply: No, not really. My skin tends to be a bit oily, so unfortunately a pimple or two is not as rare as I'd like it to be, but nothing like the stereotypical geek acne.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Arantor said:

    Which means, broadly, English, Scottish or Welsh.

    Broadly? There are so many accents within that first that 'British' doesn't do it justice. Geordie? Mackem? Cockney? West Country? And those are just ones in England...



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    But I probably don't count as fitting a geek stereotype since I missed the biggest one of all: maleness.

    FAAAAKE GEEEEEK GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRLLLLLL



  • @antiquarian said:

    I was using Haskell before it was cool.

    Don't worry. Haskell is never cool.


  • BINNED

    What in the actual fuck?

    • I get a notification @dhromed replied to my post
    • he actually just quoted @antiquarian
    • there is no link in his post indicating that he replied to me, yet the notification the cursor is pointing at takes me to his post (see statusbar floaty thiggy for confirmation)

    Link to actual image in case DC mangles it too much: http://i.imgur.com/YV15eMI.png


    Filed under: Just found 2 bugs in Kazam. Yay, Fucking hell, it broke BOTH, had to manually force it into being a link


  • BINNED

    @dhromed said:

    Haskell is never cool.

    I wouldn't say that ... if you put it in the freezer it can become rather cold.



  • Given the direction of the thread, let's expand a little on the machinist.

    White as fuck. Medium-tall at 185cm, skinny but working on it. Physically fit. Literally fatless. Definitely introvert. Beard and hair from not doing anything about it (think Jesus without the actual moral superiority). Glasses that allow me to see further than 13cm (5 inch).

    I like to dress well but don't like shopping or clothes upkeep.

    Ladies may inquire at-- wait wrong kind of site.

    I'm in the arantor and flabdablet boat when it comes to work.


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