Geek: It's the New Black

About a week ago I was at a dinner party, getting to know my neighbours at the table. Well, some of them: I was at the children's table and I confess the only other person I knew at the party (other than the host) was a 19 year old across from me. But that's a different story.

After explaining that his wife is a part-time writer, the long-haired, soft-spoken orchestra-conductor-looking man on my left smiles timidly and confesses - as his tone of voice suggested - that he is a Geek.

You can imagine my joy. I had thought this party would be mainly art curators, reporters and authors, and here I was: seated next to one of my own. My eyes brightened, I smiled and with great warmth and pride exclaimed "So am I!", as Giuseppe remarked enthusiastically "My wife is one of those!"

We soon came to discussing who first made Geek cool (Giuseppe says Bill Gates, I say Mark Zuckerberg). Our dinner-mate says neither: we hate Gates for his anti-open-source practices and Zuckerberg is too showy. Ok clearly he was a Purist Geek. Those are good too.

In any case I stand in the Zuckerberg camp (and hats off to JT for his part in this social shift). What do you think? With all his fame Gates still never quite made it main-stream cool to be a Geek. I won't say Zuckerberg single-handedly did that either, but it is what he represents: the small, almost presumptuous, online startup.