It’s so bizarre to me.
Following years of being the coolest kid in the working world ’cause I happened to work in TV news, I now work in PR and am occasionally – as lovingly as possible – referred to as a ‘geek.’
Eek! How the heck did that happen?
Well, when I started out in TV news, I was probably at the height of my coolness. I reported. On air. I was the shiz.
What is it that John Lennon said? “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” That’s it. Now here I sit… at Eastwick.
There’s more to to the story: the Peace Corps, pioneering ‘new media,’ my Columbia J-school degree. I wouldn’t change a thing; couldn’t if I tried.
But back to that geek thing.
I’ve noticed that word making a comeback. I was hesitant at first to join groups such as Facebook’s Geek Girl Dinners. But spending most of my day figuring out how to explain big-picture social media strategy in bite-sized pieces to well-meaning execs. I longed to talk freely, techie, ‘geeky’ to others who ‘spoke my language.’
Nomenclature matters.
So I joined – Geek Girls Dinners anyway – and you know what happened. I got groupies! Honest to God!!! I won’t reveal names to protect the innocent (and not so innocent), but men wrote me things like, ‘Geek Girls rule!’ It happened enough that I started to believe it was more than a bad joke. Being a social media maven is cool to some.
Turns out it’s like everything else in PR, it’s all about the audience.
[Cross-posted here]
