{"id":5434,"date":"2025-11-12T19:26:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T19:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=5434"},"modified":"2025-11-12T19:27:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T19:27:05","slug":"meerkat-prompts-proud-to-be-geeky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=5434","title":{"rendered":"Meerkat Prompts: Proud to be Geeky"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>My journey through life has seen me take a hearty interest in that which is often defined as geeky. Science fiction, fantasy, trains, technology, science, these are field that scream nerd. I dare say my overall appearance fits this rather well, and at one stage, I rather resented the label. After all, people wield terms like nerd and geek as insults. They certainly did when I was at school. The desire was to suggest that I was socially awkward, which I guess I was, but then again, what does that actually mean? I wasn&#8217;t massively into playing sports, and preferred video games, but I still went to the cinema with friends, and I still kicked a ball around from time to time. My friends and I would hang out at each other&#8217;s houses, and have a laugh. I&#8217;d call that sociable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I guess I wasn&#8217;t the right kind of sociable in the eyes of the masses. Sci-fi, gaming, cosplay, all that jazz, it wasn&#8217;t trendy back then. I didn&#8217;t especially belong with the &#8216;jock&#8217; crowd, and I wasn&#8217;t a cool kid. Mind you, whilst UK schools certainly had a tribal element, it has never been as bad as has been <strong>portrayed<\/strong> about US schools in the media. That didn&#8217;t make it fun for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I&#8217;ve grown up, I&#8217;ve come to embrace who I am, and a big part of who I am is a geek. I no longer care for the petty insults and meaningless opinions of random strangers, whose judgement is pointless. I am a geek, and I am proud of my interests. I am proud to go to conventions in costume (even if it can be a laborious effort to do so). I will wear <em>Star Trek<\/em> and <em>Star Wars<\/em> t-shirts out in public, as I will video game t-shirts. What&#8217;s nice is that society is not quite so judgemental in that respect, and I can be more comfortable in my own skin. Indeed, I literally wear my geekdom on my skin, via my tattoos.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1248-768x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-741\" srcset=\"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1248-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1248-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1248-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1248-810x1080.jpeg 810w, https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1248.jpeg 1511w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"741\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1247-741x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-740\" srcset=\"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1247-741x1024.jpeg 741w, https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1247-217x300.jpeg 217w, https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1247-768x1061.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1247-1112x1536.jpeg 1112w, https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1247-782x1080.jpeg 782w, https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_1247.jpeg 1482w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 741px) 100vw, 741px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Society can apply a lot of pressure to conform. Being a geek means resisting that pressure. Embracing that which is seen as awkward and uncool is an act of defiance in its own small way, and one I gladly partake in. I am certain there are those who might judge me for what I enjoy, but that is rather sad on their part. Those who need to spoil other&#8217;s joy to feel happier about their own circumstances must have very little love in their hearts, and in their lives. I am fortunate to have a lot to love, and I am lucky to be able to share that with my wife and family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bottom line? Be who you are. Be your authentic self, and don&#8217;t let negative types drag you down. Why yuck someone else&#8217;s yum? What purpose does that serve? If you love sci-fi, don&#8217;t be afraid to show it. Likewise for video games, superhero movies, k-pop, trains, and whatever else is defined as uncool by some arbitrary system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am a geek, and I am proud of it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?page_id=122\">Back to Meerkat Prompts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My journey through life has seen me take a hearty interest in that which is often defined as geeky. Science fiction, fantasy, trains, technology, science, these are field that scream nerd. I dare say&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22,20,12],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-5434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film-tv","category-gaming","category-random-prompts","tag-random-prompts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251112_190007-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5435,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5434\/revisions\/5435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}