Does the term "dork" carry any substantive weight if people like Alicia Silverstone and Freddie Prinze Jr. lay claim to being (former) members of the club?
That dynamic is changing. These days, it's tough to find anybody who doesn't think they're a dork. Dork sensibility and "geek chic" have become so prevalent that even the least dorky have glommed on to the title -- not just because the digital revolution made heroes out of nerds everywhere, but because adopting the "nerd" label gives a certain street cred to everyone's early child development. Even if most of it is revisionist history.
If you have the inclination, but lack the skillz to get into dork/geek/hacker culture, don't worry, just wear the logo! As if the intent of the word hasn't already been perverted beyond recognition ("hackers too were affected by the collapse of socialism" wtf). Now we can have all the kiddies play along, too. For god's sake, if you want to be a hacker, shut up and hack already.
Posted by mikewang on 11:34 AM