Suddenly everyone is a geek

Oliver Roberts attends a geek festival and discovers that nobody really knows what a geek is anymore, or whether it’s cool or not

The first South African Geekfest expo, in 2013, received 2,500 visitors. In 2014 it was 3,500. Last year, it was 5,000. Such is the demand that 2016 was the first Geekfest to be held over two days, at Inanda Country Base in Kyalami. On Saturday, Geekfest co-organiser Richard Harman was hoping the head count would reach 10,000.

"Nowadays being a geek is not something to be ashamed off - it's fkn cool," says Harman's girlfriend Kasia Jabrzemski.

As Jabrzemski says this I'm watching and hearing, from the corner of my eyes/ears, grown men wearing medieval suits of armour partaking in sword fights. From a distance, the whole thing looks a bit ridiculous but up close I'm surprised at how mean the guys look with their swords and shields and suits of armour.

They're tapping into the boyish whimsy of valour and heroism, much like, say, paintballing does (in other words, getting to feel like a conqueror or Marine without exposing yourself to real harm/death/PTSD) and this is fun, but is it reasonable to declare it "fkn cool"?

story_article_left1

It doesn't matter because geeks, as a rule, don't give a shit what you think about them or the things they do for fun. That is what a geek is. Whatever geekery a geek is passionate about - gaming, larping, cosplay et cetera - he/she will throw themselves into it with a kind of deranged enthusiasm that is both laudable and kind of unsettling, like you want to blush a little for them.

"I think everyone is a geek for something, it just depends how expressive you are," says Margot du Preez, who is dressed up as Princess Bubblegum from an animated series called Adventure Time. (According to adventuretime.wikia.com, Princess Bubblegum was "outvoted by the King of Ooo in 'Hot Diggity Doom' and later quit, until a rebellion against King of Ooo allowed her to reclaim the throne in 'Dark Cloud'".

I have no idea what any of this means but Du Preez has very impressive green eyes and unusual teeth.) "I think everyone should be excited and unashamed about expressing what they love," she continues. "Tags are just too much. You shouldn't care what people think about you."

So what is it that is so awkward about someone who owns a David Hasselhoff-signed replica of KITT, the 1982 Pontiac Trans Am of the '80s TV series Knight Rider, complete with authentic dashboard and steering wheel and a faux whoosh sound when you press the turbo boost button?

I never get to see the face of Neil Quantrill, the guy who owns KITT, because he's dressed as character Nick Wilde from the 2016 Disney animated film Zootopia. He drove from Boksburg with his wife and son in KITT. Son Julian is dressed as The Terminator and wife Fern as Katana from Suicide Squad.

(Important: Anyone who suffers from masklophobia - fear of mascots - should avoid mass geek gatherings.)

When I ask if the Quantrills consider themselves a family of geeks, Neil says: "For sure." The words come out all muffled and humid from deep inside his ersatz head.

block_quotes_start Geekery has become very commercial and I blame things like 'The Big Bang
Theory' block_quotes_end

"The difference between a geek and a nerd is that a geek is good with his hands," says Jaco Esterhuizen, friend of the Quantrills and owner-builder of a replica Ecto-1, the car driven in the Ghostbusters movies. Esterhuizen is a mechanic by trade.

As with Neil Quantrill, Jaco is wearing a full costume - Dark Helmet from Spaceballs - and so I never see what he looks like but I can tell you that having an echoey seven-minute conversation with a man wearing a huge Darth Vader-like helmet is enormously entertaining and, once again, I'm utterly in awe of this man's gall, his general don't-give-a-shitness.

I doubt he dresses as Dark Helmet more than once a year, but it takes a certain kind of individual to pull it off with Esterhuizen's level of conviction, even in a crowd of similarish individuals.

"Most of my friends think I'm not lekker because I dress up like Dark Helmet," Esterhuizen says, "but that's what I love."

full_story_image_vright1

Determined to find a concrete definition of a "geek", I spent much of the Geekfest asking geeks to give a description of one. What kept being repeated was the whole "someone who immerses themselves in a hobby and is extremely enthusiastic about sharing it" thing.

I have a feeling that it's not the actual hobby but rather the gusto of the enthusiasm that sets geeks apart from people who just happen to love a certain thing. It's the reason why geeks, for all their acute friendliness and endearing eagerness, can be a little overbearing and the over-bearingness, to the non-geek, can not only be irritating, it can also appear cliquey. But then again, this is normal for any subculture.

"Geekery has become very commercial and I blame things like The Big Bang Theory," says Lee Herrmann, author of The South African ZombieApocalypseSurvival Guide. "The guys that grew up loving the stuff that we love are now creating the stuff. It's great for us in terms of what's available now, but I'm afraid it's kind of watering down the essence of what it was."

mini_story_image_hright2

Commercialisation is dangerous for any subculture wanting to remain a subculture. And geekery is becoming very profitable and potentially expensive. Sean Delport is the owner of the Ultimate Store, an online shop that sells toys, comics, movie posters, DVDs and "Hot Toys", a Hong Kong brand of ornate action figurines.

He has just sold a life-sized bust of Darth Vader for R55,000 and "some other guy" recently ordered a life-size Yoda bust for R57,000. Delport says that despite the battered rand, sales are still good.

So has geekery become too cool for its own good? Does the fact that almost all of us are obsessed with smart phones and their apps make us all geeks? And does this new-found mass appeal/ accessibility spell the end of true geekery, or is this the beginning of a kind of geek revolution, à la Revenge of the Nerds'?

Nadia Efthymiou (a Greek geek) gave this précis: "A geek is the person to be. Everyone is a fan of something so everyone is a geek. Times have changed. Before, everyone was ripping geeks off but now everyone wants to be a geek."