- Image by Roby© via Flickr
If there’s one thing that us geeks are accused of, it’s of having rather expensive tastes. More than any other hobby, it seems that being into the geek arts means your wallet and your bank account are typically emptier than a dry canteen in the middle of the desert. Computers, video games, technology, and what are essentially the latest toys for adults have a consequence of totalling in the hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
There’s no point in denying this when it comes to me. Frankly, I was doomed from the start of my professional career – as an IT professional, the fact that I would be exposed to geek tech sexiness was a foregone conclusion. Gaming has been a way for me to get some entertainment for years, ever since an Atari made its way into my household via a birthday present. As a result, I’ve received my fair share of comments from my non-geek, non-gaming friends, who’ve wondered about the point of waiting in a midnight line for Metal Gear Solid 4 and a PS3, or for pricing potential computer upgrades ($1,879 for me to get a new machine right now).
If you’ve gotten a bit of flack for being into expensive things that might not have too much apparent meaning, don’t feel so bad. For one thing, being a geek and spending money is no different than being a sports fan and shelling out cash for a trip to the Superbowl, or being into being on a boat and having to keep up on the latest in nautical nonsense. Geekery just happens to be more obvious in the idea that it’s an expensive venture. Trust me – we know what we’re getting into. Besides, being into these sorts of things does have a bit of practical value. Technology is an ever-growing field and being on the bleeding edge of that and adopting it means greater convenience. Knowing a bit about computers and how to deal with them actually has you spending less on repair costs and strange recommendations from techs speaking a language you don’t understand.
So let the normal people have their wine connoisseur cards and their autographed life-sized posters of Brett Favre. I’ll take the new shinyof geekery any day.