From Geek to Chic

• Posted by Rachael Louise Blanche February 12, 2014 4,221 views
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  These are the voyages of the starship Pink Kitty....

   

  In my younger years I found solice in sci-fi, this is when it was still considered silly and childish. At school I was the geek, the nerd, the freak, the wierdo and anything else the in-crowd like to taunt our little group of social outcasts with. I suppose on the positive side I could see the faces of my bullies, ( this was the 70s) and could have go back. At this point I may add I also discovered the quick one liner and sarcasm, which at least give me time to run away while my tormentors tried to decide if they had been insulted or to laugh.

   

  But I'm going off on a tangent here. Back to the sci-fi. As said I found solice in sci-fi mainly books, but when I could I'd try and watch Star Trek, Blake's 7, Doctor Who (with Tom Baker) The Tomorrow People, even the saturaday mornings re-runs of Flash Gorden & Buck Rogers. Fireball XL-5,Thurndebirds, Captain Scarlett, Joe 90. No vhs, no catch up, no playback anytime, anywhere, just an old telly with 3 channels, sometimes.

   

  Of course I had my books, I, Robot, More Robots, The Foundaion series, The Dune series, Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy, the triology in four parts and of course The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, plus many more, good, bad and indifferent and some best forgotten. Then there was the comics, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, X-men and of course 2000AD, were I first meet Judge Dredd nothing fancy everything simple.

   

  Then there was 1977. I was 13, me or one my brothers had won some tickets for a new film that was coming out. So there we sat in the middle of the cinema, half way up (only one screen) the lights dimmed, and this spaceship exploded across the screen, lasers fired following the spaceship and then a rumble as the tip of next spaceship followed and it kept on growing till it filled the whole screen. I think I may sat mouth open the whole way through the film. Star Wars had arrived and sci-fi changed.

   

  Slowly but surely sci-fi became main stream. All the oddballs, wierdos, outsiders, loners, all the ones that didn't fit into society's norms, who found solice in sci-fi/science/astronomy/the sinclaire spectrum. Those of us actully knew how to use a calculator for other then making the word 80085 (BOOBS). Those of us who entered geekhood course it didn't care about social conventions, in made us welcome who ever we where. Geekhood was being invaded by the cool kids, those who mocked us. Sci-fi/fantasy films and books were becoming accepted, Star Trek hit the big screen and made a TV come back. Superheros were cool, not just Batman and Superman but Spiderman (should I really mention the TV films of Spiderman and Captain America from the 70s/80s or not) but superheros no-one outside of Geekhood knew, Iron Man, Thor, The Beast, Wolverine, Professor X, Iceman, Loki and I could go on, mind you I can't mention Stallone's Dredd, I cry too much. Philip K Dick sudden become mainstream, 'Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep?' or Blade Runner if you must. 

   

  So when did Geek become chic? There was a time I could throw a quote to another fellow geek without anyone being sure what we were on about but people look at you and go 'Oh yer' mind you Monty Python stills throws most people ( yes I know it's not sci-fi but it still falls into the relm of geekhood Bignose). However, I most admitt my inner geek came to fore in a recent pub quizz, when ask 'What is the registerion number of the Starship Enterprise?' I went 'NCC-1701 with the surffix of A,B,C,D,E depending which Enterprise or NX-001 from the last series of Star Trek...' at which point I stopped, looking at the blank face of my fellow team mates, 'Which one?' came the question, 'Probably NCC-1701 is the one they want' came the reply. At which point my team mates looked at each and went 'He right, put it down' 

   

  Sorry tangents again. So when did Geek become Chic? However, is does go to show that the Geek will inherit the Earth...............

   

   

   

  The Rocky Horror Picture Show...................