7. Geeks are the new handymen (and handywomen)
Having the world hooked on technology, everything from PCs and laptops to smartphones and smart TVs, has created huge demand for the skills that geeks typically excell in, and they know it.
Who do you call if your computer breaks? How many people owned computers 20 or 10 years ago as opposed to today? You get the picture. It’s hard to see a computer geek as a weirdo when you’re almost 100% dependent on their ability to fix one of the most important, if not the most important, devices in your life.
Furthermore, as more and more of the rudimentary jobs become automated, it is geeky jobs that become the most important ones.
All of this breeds respect, and makes these people seem far cooler than they used to.
In other words, geeks are the new handymen, and handywomen.
Photo by Danja Vasiliev. Some rights reserved.
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2PartsAnalog
I never thought that we would be cool. The world s changing!
Murray Snudge
Just because geeks are extremely useful does not make them cool – case not proved.
Karl
IT has such a conceit that they are THE tech and nerds. Sorry. There were tech nerds when punch cards were developed for looms. I am Technical Support for my company. The face that I am an Oracle DBA, programmer, and computer power user has nothing to do with the fact that my company makes high purity chemicals and that is what I am supporting. And it’s a whole lot easier to teach computers to a chemist than chemistry to a computer nerd.
Based on the history I know, the generation born in the late 80’s and 90’s is so isolated that, despite the “liberating” force of the internet, they are re-inventing everything around them. Comicon? There have been fan-run science fiction conventions since the ’40s, possibly earlier. Search for WorldCon. Cosplay? Those were hall costumes, part of the masquerade. Chemists and materials science nerds made the basic building blocks of that silicon you use as the foundation of your chips. Sorry, but you can’t claim the exclusive title of nerds.
SEAbeliever
The article isn’t saying that people are claiming to have started all of this. It is stating that the IT crowd has created the necessary spark to ignite the enormous popularity of the “tech and nerds”. It has all been said or done before, regardless of whether or not we are aware of it.