Customer Reviews

Geek Chic: The Ultimate Guide to Geek Culture

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Here is a hilarious excursion into a segment of contemporary culture. The book goes into the byways of numerous references to trends, fads and events of the last 30 years. Test your recall of your own experiences in these times.

The Geek in the title refers to an emphasis on technology. While by no means all the pages are devoted to this, it certainly provides a constant theme. Thus, you can see the pathetically puny computers of the early 80s, lovingly depicted. Along with descriptions of key persons like Bill Gates. He looks so young in one photo! Within which is the backdrop of a computer room stuffed with clunky IBM PCs.

As a longtime teacher of mathematics and computer science, a dedicated computer programmer and editor of a math journal, I fit the definition of a geek. While I certainly have found a great deal of pleasure in using some of the devices depicted and watching some of the movies discussed, in my opinion the contents describe what the majority of the people do rather than just the technical subset.
Movies such as "The Terminator" and "Star Wars", video games such as "Pac-Man" and "Space Invaders", television shows such as "The Simpsons" and "Star Trek" are popular because they appealed to many groups, not just the geeks. Feineman gives short descriptions of many points that may have started as a point of geek culture, such as the origin of the personal computer, but later spread to become a fundamental part of modern life.
Nevertheless, this book contains many interesting and brief points about the role of the oddballs and unusual beings that have been a part of what was at least sometimes part of the geek culture. Some still are, but many are now fundamentally within the mainstream. One would hardly describe the modern teenager addicted to her cell phone as a geek.

"Not a [complete] waste of money" is the best I can find to say about this book, which many people will find amusing. Those people are those, like me, who are considerably older than what I presume is the target market for "Geek Chic." I think the book was aimed to people in thier 20s or 30s, those for whom "geek" is _not_ a term of contempt. Older folks will find the viewpoints on the flotsam of the popular culture of the past interesting. As for younger people, I guess some might find the book useful for understanding some cultural references you do not yet.
Be prepared, however: the book has some flaws. First among these is the uniform writing style: the book is arranged as a chronology, with short commentaries on various persons, events, and things entered on pages with things roughly contemperaneous. Each entry, however, is written in the same pattern, this being a description followed by an ironic joke, comment, or comparison. Unfortunatly, most of the commentary is unfunny and unimaginative. It's basically not worth reading the last sentence in any entry.
Another shortcoming is the obvious lack of research: most of the information here seems to have been drawn either directly from memory or from sources originated by other people who didn't do any research. Hence, there are a lot of mistakes in the book. Here's an example: according to "Geek Chic," the (nuclear) bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place in 1946.
Note that the essay writers couldn't be bothered to check when an event that (horribly) affected (and still affects) hundreds of thousands of people actually happened. Similar incorrect facts are peppered throughout the entries almost at random. This belies an uniform, emotionally flat, and, finally, repugnant attitude toward the world and history that goes a long way to keeping "geek," for most people, a pejorative term.

oh my gosh. this book is about Jc. therefore this is a great book. everyone loves Jc. he loves shoes :)

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