Let your geek flag fly

I am a geek. I will proudly stand up and say this to anyone and not care whether I get ridiculed for it or not. I work at a Renaissance faire, do you seriously think that I am not used to being publicly ridiculed? Seriously though, I have no idea why anyone would think that being a geek was a bad thing.

I know geek is very chic now days. Everywhere you look you have geek thrown in your face saying that it is alright. From Big Bang Theory to The Guild to celebrities endorsing games like WoW (Mr T anyone?) and D&D (Vin Diesel actually wrote a forward to the 20th anniversary addition core rule book) we are being told more and more that being a geek is good. I just don't think I needed to be told this.You hear the phrase 'Let your geek flag fly" and I have to wonder if I ever was afraid to do that.

I never made it a secret that I played role playing games. In college I openly turned down clubbing and partying in favor of marathon D&D games. We even were known to go out of town to a friends secluded farm so we could be totally uninterrupted in our gaming indulgence.

I have had a weekly D&D game running at my house for over six years now. Every Tuesday (or Wednesday depending on people's schedules) I have a group of friends to my house for dinner and D&D. If anyone asks me to do something on that night I never make an excuse or simply say I am busy, I will tell them that I have D&D.

I have been playing in online RP chatrooms for well over a decade now and have never had any problem talking about my stories in public. I am a huge Harry Potter geek and have been known to have loud feverish fangirl discussions in crowded places. I am not ashamed to admit that I sobbed (loudly) through the final movie. Of course pretty much half of the people in the theater were my friend and most of them were sobbing messes too.

I have been involved in debates over comic book cannon standing in a theater before and after movies like X-Men. I have even been involved in educating patrons of said movies when they seemed clueless at why people were so amused by certain moments in the film. I have stood in book stores and totally geeked out to strangers who have asked my opinion on a book I really enjoy.

I am also a huge history geek. If me working for a Renaissance faire didn't give that one away I don't know what else would. Of course there are a lot of people who would say me working for faire is a good indicator that I am not a history geek since faires aren't always historically accurate. That will incur a rant of epic proportions from me.

I have squeed and gushed in front of people over getting things like The History of Salt for my birthday. I was truly intrigued by the recent discovery of Richard III bones, and actually laughed at (and understood) the jokes and meme's going all over Facebook. If you have no idea what I am talking about, obviously you don't have friends as geeky as mine.

So whether it is popular now or popular in the future is not going to change my geek status. I am going to continue happily in my geekdoms as I always have. I don't need to be told to let my geek flag fly as I have never hidden it away. Long live the geek.