The Book of Bloke (3 page)

A Bogan’s a Bogan, wherever his luck may take him, and that’s the spirit that has made Bogans the true backbone of Australia.

Did you know
… that the first formally recorded use of the word ‘Bloke’ occurs in the colonial play,
Say Hooroo to Yackandandah
[1801], in which the character of Towser is heard to say, ‘So this Bloke come up to Rowdy and wallops him square in the how’s-yer-mullock-heap, right there in the Tallangatta humpty-fridge!’ To which the character of Rozzer replies, ‘What a Bloke he musta been!’ (
Exeunt through outhouse
).

More than any other kind of Bloke, the Geek is a Bloke who doesn’t want you to call him a Bloke. That sort of labelling is likely to enrage the Geek, though it is unlikely that you will notice it, because the Geek is a master at concealing his true feelings, repressing strong emotions which are later vented through role-playing games and message board postings about how everyone should get a Mac.

The Geek is the most elusive Bloke variety, shunning human contact as a rule and spending months at a time hiding in bedrooms and IT departments, emerging only briefly, and usually under cover of night, to attend science fiction conventions and comic-book movies, after which they will quickly scurry back to their nests to tell the Internet how disappointing the experience was. Most Geek culture revolves around the theme of disappointment – it is how Geeks communicate and bond with other Geeks. Expressing disappointment with the world is a Geek’s way of reaffirming his place in it, that place being at the very top, although nobody ever seems to acknowledge that fact, which is disappointing. Indeed, Blokedom is in general a harsh place for a Geek, and other Blokes frequently treat Geeks with contempt whenever they encounter them. Scientists have determined that this is because they are jealous – although it should be noted that scientists are usually Geeks.

Due to the Geek’s habit of staying in his bunker for long periods without outside contact, until recently it was thought that Geeks hibernate. This theory was debunked when it was discovered that the apparently hibernating Geek specimens were in fact in Cheezel comas, and in need of urgent medical attention, which the researchers, in accordance with the ethic of non-intervention, did not provide.

If Geeks have a religion, it is knowledge, and the acquisition of knowledge is pursued with immense fervour by the Geek. Unfortunately, he also tends to disseminate that knowledge with equal fervour, to the extent that visitors to Geek-infested areas are often warned to be careful lest a Geek should catch them unawares and talk to them. Few people have escaped these encounters with their lives, and those who did came away knowing far too much about
Stargate
. If you ever see a sign depicting a pair of Vulcan ears, it means Geeks are in the vicinity and you should tread carefully.

Geek courting rituals are arcane, mysterious, but most of all embarrassing. Geneticists have hypothesised that Geeks are actually the result of a genetic-copying error, given that they combine an irrepressible desire for female contact, with a complete inability to get any. The Geek’s reliance on books, games, fan-fiction and detailed pencil sketches of Willow from
Buffy
can be explained by this congenital paradox: frustrated by his inexplicable inability to figure out how to talk to girls, the Geek pours his sexual energy into those he knows will never reject him – companions of paper, silicon, and, on occasion, collectible moulded plastic. This sad situation has spawned a major area of research known as ‘Geek Emancipation’, where dedicated scientists attempt to find a way to engineer the Geek gene so that supply (of attractiveness) matches demand (for ladies). This field has yet to progress very far, however, mostly because the researchers keep taking breaks to play Warcraft.

Despite their solitary ways, Geeks do tend to form tight-knit communities, even if those communities are usually virtual ones. Unlike other Bloke species, who tend towards competitiveness, Geeks are generally supportive of other Geeks and can usually be relied upon to rally round to support a brother Geek in his time of need, whether that be after he has vomited on an attractive woman’s feet, or after he has been apprehended for hacking into the Defence Department’s database. Geek solidarity is a powerful force, and makes it all the more difficult to learn about the intricacies of the Geek lifestyle; indeed, most Geeks are deeply suspicious of non-Geeks and tend to prefer to keep them out of their affairs, lest the non-Geeks find out what a role-playing game actually involves and make fun of them. In many ways, the Geek attitude to outsiders resembles that of a herd of musk ox, which will form a tight circle of fearsome outward-facing horns to repel any non-musk-oxen from attacking them. The smell is similar too.

Geeks’ personal habits can be confusing to the uninitiated observer. Capable of going days on end without sleep, they are also capable of going days on end without waking up; the Geek’s approach to sleep is a lot like the camel’s to water: drink up big when you can, then you won’t need any till the other side of the desert. Geek feeding habits are also intriguing – Geeks prefer to feed without looking at their food. The most common Geek dining ritual will involve a pizza or bag of chips and a sort of automatic food-to-mouth arm action while their eyes remain riveted to the monitor in front of them. Experiments have shown that, at these times, Geeks don’t even know what they are eating: the feeding mechanism, once activated, will continue functioning whether they are consuming chips, pizza, filet mignon, or even light bulbs. Further experiments seem to indicate that Geeks can even eat in their sleep, although such studies are still at a preliminary stage.

Physiologically, Geeks can be extremely thin or morbidly obese; what’s peculiar is the relative lack of examples in between. It is believed these extremes of physique are caused by the Geek lifestyle, wherein the Geek will either gorge for hours on fatty foods, or go for days without any sustenance at all, and not particularly notice either way. What does tend to be true of all Geeks, no matter their physical specifications, is that they are ill-suited to athletic pursuits. In fact, in some more primitive societies, forcing Geeks to engage in sport is a popular pastime – crowds of thousands will gather to point and laugh at Geeks trying to kick a football – though recently the United Nations passed a resolution declaring the practice of Geek-sport to be a violation of international human rights law. Much work still has to be done to stamp out this abhorrent phenomenon, but greater resourcing of patrols to catch Geek-poachers would seem to be a necessary first step.

In habitat, the Geek is mainly a creature of inner-city suburbs, although never the fashionable ones. Young Geeks can often be found in the outer suburbs, or even in the country, but in young adulthood usually migrate due to the pressures of peer mockery, a shortage of Wi-Fi hotspots, and the absence of decent comic shops. Closer to the city, Geeks feel more comfortable, although still not particularly happy, because inner-city Fauxkes and Tunesters scoop up all the women the same way the Bogans did back home.

Evolutionarily, the Geek is one of the oldest species of Blokes; in fact, Geekdom began in antiquity with the famous Greek Geeks, with Pythagoras often considered the proto-Geek. Some etymologists have even suggested that the word ‘Geek’ derives from ‘Greek’, although the anthropological community has on the whole dismissed this theory as ‘not very funny’. In later years, Geeks were notable for utterly failing to prevent the barbarian invasion of Rome, and for being burnt as witches due to their ability to read and write and keep faeces out of their drinking water. A famous Renaissance Geek was Galileo, who pointed out that the earth revolved around the sun, and therefore cemented the Geek’s reputation for advanced intelligence and the annoying habit of always having to point out when other people are wrong. There was also Robespierre, an ambitious Geek who briefly brought Geeks to an unfamiliar position of power in France, but, in typical Geek style, didn’t know when to shut up.

The local strain of Geek – the Geek Bloke – came to Australia on the First Fleet, where they were in charge of the compasses, and Geeks have featured notably in many important events in Australian history. The Rum Rebellion, for example, was sparked when well-known Power-Geek, Governor William Bligh, told the army that ‘you don’t need alcohol to have a good time.’ Federation itself was a Geek-driven development, dreamed up by prominent Geek statesman Henry Parkes late one night after a particularly exhausting game of Risk.

In modern times, Geeks have played a leading role in Australian society, being at the forefront of the transition to the knowledge economy. Geeks are employed by a wide variety of businesses to run computer systems, keep the accounts, and tell miners where to dig. They also play a major role in government, in areas like education policy and making tax confusing. Perhaps the most prominent area of Geek endeavour in today’s Australia, however, is the thriving industry of letters to newspapers complaining about how we make such a big deal out of sportspeople and not enough out of scientists. This industry is currently worth $16 billion a year to the Australian economy, although nobody really understands how.

Other famous Geeks include Dick Smith, who showed that any Geek with a dream can make a fortune, fly in a balloon, and irritate the entire country; Karl Kruszelnicki, who has tormented several generations of schoolchildren with the terrifying phrase ‘making science fun’; and Godwin Grech, who embodied Geek philosophy by having a nervous breakdown. Those are just three examples, but there really have been an enormous number of Blokes who were, to a greater or lesser extent, Geeks. At times they even rise to the highest position in the land – Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was a fully-fledged Geek, and it is said his downfall at the hands of his own party was sparked by an incident at the beach where he refused to take off his shirt in public. Even the Australian cricket team was once coached by a Geek in John Buchanan, although more orthodox Geek sects have declared him excommunicated because of his flagrant associating with Athletes. This was the cause of the Great Geek Schism of 2001, a momentous and traumatic event that nobody has ever heard of.

Although a close and insular group, there are variations within the Geek family, and though most Geeks do have obvious similarities, there are clear differences between the Geek breeds. Geek varieties include:

The
Helpdesker
. This is the most mysterious Geek of all; indeed, most people over the course of their life will never see a Helpdesker, and many people still deny that they even exist. There do exist, however, recordings of the Helpdesker’s distinctive cry, a harsh yelp of ‘Have you tried switching it off and on?’ or, in mating season, ‘Is it plugged in?’

Insofar as we know anything about this shy and reclusive Geek, we know that he makes his home deep underground in the labyrinthine burrows of IT departments, and can only be contacted by phone if he’s not at lunch, or by email to which he will never respond. Helpdeskers are among the more self-sufficient Geeks, having evolved beyond the average Geek’s fear of the outside world and into a comforting contempt for it. The Helpdesker is the mage, or witchdoctor, of Geek society – a keeper of arcane and secret knowledge to which only the initiated can be allowed access, such as how to use Excel, or what a ‘registry’ is.

The appearance of the Helpdesker is, naturally, a mystery, given there are few verified sightings, and those have been fleeting and unhelpful. However, composite sketches and artist’s renderings abound in the world of Geekology, and most experts agree that the Helpdesker is a large, squat Geek with thick glasses, a sarcastic T-shirt, and venomous spurs behind his knees which emit a powerful toxin whenever anyone asks him to re-install Windows.

Obviously, the distinguishing feature of the Helpdesker is his immense skill with computers, and this is what gives him both his high status in Geek circles, and his tight psychological hold over non-Geeks. Helpdeskers speak in a strange dialect which, as yet, has not been deciphered by linguists, and speaking to a Helpdesker often feels like speaking to a recent immigrant, except that recent immigrants are polite. However, there is no doubt that this breed of Geek knows his stuff, and an uncanny command of the correct incantations and sacrifices needed to spark computers to life are the hallmark of the true Helpdesker. No aspect of IT is beyond him; he is able to solve any computing problem whatsoever, apart from the one that you currently have.

In contrast to the Helpdesker’s cocky demeanour, the
Panellist
is an introverted and softly spoken Geek whose self-effacing manner and efforts to stay out of others’ way hides a deep-seated and well-repressed urge to cut off people’s heads and blow stuff up. Panellists occupy the far reaches of the world of comic books, or, as a Panellist would say when his blood is up and he feels like being snotty, ‘graphic novels’. For this reason the Panellist is, despite his gentle disposition, ironically one of the most dangerous Geeks – indeed, one of the most dangerous Blokes – one can encounter: many an unwary Normal has attempted to break the ice with a Panellist by offering a cheerful, ‘So, you’re into comics? I quite like
Spider-Man
’, only to find themselves several hours later, dazed and disoriented, staggering about the streets vainly attempting to rediscover their sanity.

Therein lies the dangerous assumption many make in regard to the Panellist: that they actually know what this quiet Geek means by ‘comic books’. Should you try to make conversation with a Panellist on the subject of
Spider-Man
, Superman or Wonder Woman, there are only two possible results: either you will be sucked into a vortex of trivia and minutiae, your brain paralysed by the sudden, massive influx of more knowledge about a fictional tights-wearer’s history, personality, sexual preferences, and methods of illogical reincarnation than any normal human should have; or you will be subjected to a strange and unnerving kind of scorn, derided for your naïveté in thinking a comic fan would be interested in Spider-Man, of all things, and aggressively offered an intensive education in the sort of underground comics that are beloved only of the smallest segment of society, with good reason. Either way, you are likely to be forced to carry home a huge stack of comic books, at least half of which will feature graphic scenes of sex and violence, the remainder probably revolving around Jesus fighting prostitutes in the Old West, or gay minotaurs going to high school.

In appearance Panellists can be quite varied, and many of them can look almost normal. They are easier to identify when in the vicinity of comic books, where they assume a hunched, rat-like posture, and begin to make eerie chattering noises.