Why do geeks have such bad taste?… I guess this is a pointless question, but I entertain it anyway:  Why do geeks exhibit such relentlessly bad taste in everything?  From liking Star Trek shows to jacking off to anime porn, the geek phenotype is reliably driven towards the awful, the retarded, the stupefyingly drivellous.  The geek aesthetic appears to be an aesthetic without bottom, an anti-style.  A hostility to beauty, poetry, elegance, etc.

I should establish some definitions, i.e. the social taxonomy that harbors geeks.  It would be incorrect to class all people as geeks merely because they share certain interests or occupations (with the exception Star Trek fans).  For example it is possible to be proficient in a technical field, say computer programming, without being a geek.  It is possible, though unlikely.  The tip-off of the geek is not the proficiency, but the mental imbalance that the proficiency feeds from.  In a world without computers, the programming geek would not rise within another vocation, he would instead settle to the bottom of the sediment as a file clerk or other drone whose primary requirement is the ability to tolerate mind-numbingly unvarying activity.  His proficiency is like that of the idiot savant or autistic genius, albeit less impressive, and can only be channeled along one path.

The mental imbalance I refer to is most readily seen in the geek's masturbatory obsessions.  Having no sense of perspective and lacking a personality, the geek attempts to kill two birds with one stone and form a personality around fanatical involvement in an arbitrary pastime.  This pastime could involve watching Japanese cartoons, reading fantasy novels, playing video games, or literally just masturbating a lot.  The pastime itself is not so significant and has only two universal attributes:  that it not require physical prowess of any kind, and that it be impossible to distinguish between enjoying the pastime and not enjoying it.

For example, when the geek talks about his pastime he will almost never be able to list the things about it that he likes or dislikes.  What he will do instead is describe the pastime's details.  The things he claims to like are not the product of subjective awareness but simply the observable characteristics of the pastime.*

Take literature.  It is possible to enjoy a work of genre fiction, but the hallmark of the geek is to enjoy only works of genre fiction.  Especially when the genre involves elves and fairies and muscular lizardmen with laser guns.  One could probably go on at length about what makes fantasy and science fiction inferior genres, but to save time their main weakness is that they require no knowledge of any real subject in order to pull off.  No homework, in other words, that would involve broadening the reader's horizon.  Although fantasy novels, for example, often take place in a medieval-like setting, it is a completely made up, ignorant, preposterous medieval-like setting, with no historical analog and very little internal consistency.  You can read fantasy novels safe in the knowledge that they will not enlarge your tightly constrained outlook.**

Where the geek becomes truly disturbing is in matters of visual aesthetics.  His personal appearance, of course, is often weird, repellent, unnerving.  When allowed to dress himself the results betray a lack of understanding of his own appearance.  Is he fat, bald, dough-faced?  You can bet that these qualities will be horrifically exaggerated by his choices in grooming and apparel.

His preferred decor is that of cheap crap – plastic computer cases in the shape of dragon heads, garish poster illustrations of fantasy settings, mismatched discount furniture, etc.  It has the same make-do tackiness that is imposed on teenagers still living at home or people earning the minimum wage.  But the geek never gives it up; if he makes a comfortable living, he just buys a nicer place in the suburbs and crams all his cheap crap into it.

Worst of all, the geek, despite cutting such a shabby figure, is very self-impressed.  He is the first to denigrate other professions, which he assumes require the same slack application and shallow talents as his own does, and the first to denigrate others within his own profession, especially if they threaten his tenuous social standing within the troop of baboons.  Offshoring fears are particularly out of control among geeks, perhaps because geeks are dimly aware of how little effort is required to duplicate their output.  Xenophobia also plays a role:  as the geek rarely ventures outside his home or the homes of his small cluster of friends, or in some cases outside the imaginary fantasy world that buffers the geek from reality, it is a given that he will know next to nothing about India, China, or any other country that fosters the threat of international geek competition.  Nevertheless despite his latent racism the geek will be the first to brag about his own sense of tolerance and fair play.

I believe this sets forth an accurate picture of geeks, but some questions remain.  How do they mate?  Is the geek the product of genetic mutation or inherited defect?  Politically, is there any viable solution to the geek?  I do not seriously entertain the idea of a geek Holocaust – it's far too early for that expensive and complicated measure.  But if geeks were provided with free blow-up dolls in the shape of young Japanese schoolgirls or anthropomorphic squirrels, would they then lose interest in procreation?

Of course this assumes that geek traits come about through a quirk of natural selection.  It's just as likely that radioactive meteorite, some form of undetected childhood illness, or the drinking of ditch water by pregnant women have played a role.

Whatever the case, we can all agree that the geek is an unpleasant and, more important, an unsightly blight on contemporary society.