Geeks
by Jon Katz
Villard Books

Geek: common in the English vernacular as an alternately derogatory and empowering label of outcasted, computer-savvy, socially awkward, disdainful of authority, highly intelligent individuals. Pocket protectors, duct-taped glasses and "Revenge of the Nerds" are no longer symbolic of this nation of geeks (ok, maybe "Revenge of the Nerds" still applies). They are united by the Internet, and tend to actually understand its capabilities. Still, they are as marginalized and misunderstood as the original geeks (circus freaks biting the heads off chickens) — witness the two infamous geeks from Littleton, Colorado — though they have undeniably made great strides.

Jon Katz's "Geeks" is not fiction; it is a window into the minds and daily struggles of members of our society who are fiercely intelligent, marginalized in favor of Jennifer Love Hewitts and Leonardo DiCaprios, trusted with the future of this country's goldmine of information technology, yet ordered to remove their black trench coats as though they are unilaterally represented by two disturbed killers.

Jon Katz has become a minor celebrity through his protection of the rights of geeks, goths and outcasts. His "Voices from the Hellmouth" series on Slashdot detailed the struggles of current and former high school outsiders and dissenters in the wake of the Littleton shootings. Having spoken and e-mailed with so many of these kids — and their alter-ego adult counterparts — Katz has an accurate and wide-reaching perception of the growing Internet mania, and the misrepresentation of geeks in our society. He writes: "It isn't the Net that drives kids into isolation or creates lonely children; the Net attracts lonely and ignored kids, and puts them in touch with others just like them."

If you're reading this article, I would wager you're either a geek or a geek-sympathizer. After reading the book, there can be no question of your geek alliances.

Katz, increasingly disillusioned with mainstream media, tells the story of two 19-year-old computer geeks from Caldwell, Idaho (read: The Middle of Nowhere). Jesse and Eric live hand-to-mouth working as techies in local computer outfits, interacting with a slim number of friends and relations, and devoting themselves almost solely to programming, playing Quake, downloading software and MP3s, upgrading their hardware, chatting online — that is to say, they feel more comfortable in the presence of computers and technology than humans.

In a different book, a figure like Katz — middle-aged journalist, observing the daily lives of two teenaged misfits — would be the microscope through which the reader would observe the action with an interested, but removed, eye. However Katz, as much as he sets out to maintain his journalistic integrity, falls prey to human compassion. So, too, does the reader. Katz becomes a figure not unlike Back to the Future's Marty McFly: an agent of change, who admits "I was playing with natural outcomes." With one off-the-cuff observation: "Geeks can get jobs almost anyplace," Katz alters Jesse and Eric's destiny forever, erasing them from their stagnant Idaho lives and transporting them to a "new life" in Chicago.

Unfortunately, you can take the geek out of Idaho, but you can't take the Idaho out of the geek: Eric and Jesse set up shop in the slums of Chicago, at higher paying jobs, surrounded by more people and access to culture, but trapped in the same miserable socially-devoid lives they led at home.

These geeks are hardcore. They keep their clothes in plastic bags; a four month stint without a cable modem (and a $1,100 phone bill) nearly does them in; they have no — I repeat no—, friends.

Katz, however, saves them — providing money, tickets to shows, daily e-mail affirmations, vegetables, and a father-like plea to the Dean of the University of Chicago. The story of these two boys pulling themselves up by their cable modems is a latter-day retelling of "Ragged Dick" — though much more engrossing, touching, and tragic. "Geeks," come to think of it, could kick Horatio Alger's ass any day.

"Geeks" is a study in extremes: Jesse is reformed. He becomes a social geek, active in the intellectual community. Eric is not. There are those geeks who make it mainstream — Bill Gates, for example — and those who do not.

Jesse and Eric represent these two extremes. How can one help but revel in Jesse's conquest of the "system," the same one that expels unhappy anarchists from study halls? At the same time, there remains an acute nagging fear that for every geek that beats the odds and escapes high school unscathed, there is one left behind, still stinging from the festering pain of not fitting in. "Geeks" should be required reading for every Prom Queen, parent, member of Congress and high school miscreant in this country. It is a tale familiar to too many, and often ignored by the forces that govern our society.

The geek, after all, shall inherit the Earth.

— Sara J. Brenneis (sara at flakmag dot com)