I would like to believe that being called a geek is no longer a slanderous term. After all it was once geeky to own a computer, but now it's more of a challenge to find someone who doesn't have access to a computer than the other way around. Same with gaming; It has escaped the dedicated gaming machines and expanded to web browsers and smartphones. Even if one doesn't acknowledge themselves as a gamer they are just as likely to play a game or two. And then there's the smartphone. What was once overkill and too obtuse for a mass market phone is now in almost everyone's pockets and bags. Now if it doesn't have an app store it's almost not a cellphone. It seems that the mass market is a little geekier these days. So by extension is it safe to say that geek is not so bad of label?

Thoughts like this imply that Joe Mass Market is getting his newfound geek on while the original geek is unchanged. This couldn't be further from the truth. If nothing else geeks are a passionate bunch; things like technology to geeks are their unseen futures and their madeleines all at once. The mass market will enjoy a couple of apps while the geek has folders full. For better or for worse, geeks will always be the passionate ones and the less geeky of us are likely to notice.

You can see this clearly in marketing. Two of the leading retail chains offering computer repair services (quite possibly the geekiest of retail jobs) are Best Buy and the Apple Store. They both essentially serve the same function but the nomenclature is vastly different. Best Buy has the Geek Squad while Apple has the Genius Bar.

The Geek Squad seems to revel in its ridiculousness; white, buttoned down, collared, short sleeve shirts and black ties running around in logo adorned VW Beetles fixing computers in between asthma attacks and energy drink runs. It sounds like something you'd expect from Milhouse Van Houten in the next ten years.

Genius Bar conjures an altogether different picture. Geeks brings to mind many different things, but geniuses, not so much. Geeks are seen to waste their time on things no one cares about while geniuses bring something to society. Apple's geniuses may be fixing your MacBooks and iPhones now, but in the near future will be designing the next consumer products and services of the moment. They will also find time to work on a cure for cancer as well as write a book on the weekends.

I'm not saying that these analogies are actually true, but looking around the stores and watching the ads may make people think so. So, no, being called a geek isn't the term of endearment that it should be, but the fact that it merits discussion is telling. It's definitely better than it ever was. There are even people who are proud to call themselves geeks when 20+ years ago people kept that to themselves to keep from getting picked on in school. I just wish that those who picked on geeks in high school weren't the ones in charge of marketing decisions. But I guess antiquated lines of thinking are the hardest to kill.