I’m not your average person, and neither are most of my friends. Those that don’t understand our kind try to call us several things, as most people try and name/label things they don’t understand every day in every walk of life. While commenting here I was talking about my boy phil‘s dork factor. I thought it necessary to elaborate, in case some took it the wrong way, or merely to educate those masses that feel they need to label us.
Dorks take a level of interest in something that goes a bit farther than extreme. This dork label is typically added on to whatever that interest is in, for example a movie dork. What’s the difference between a movie buff and a movie dork? A movie buff likely watches a load of movies, but a movie dork could tell you that the sword that Inigo Montoya uses is the same physical sword that the bad guy in The Crow uses. It’s not just a passion, but a passion that goes over that imaginary line. Being able to play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit and get four pieces of pie on your first turn might make you a LotR dork.
Their are nearly infinite areas one might be a dork in. When one has several areas that they might call themselves a dork in, the general term of dork typically applies. For example, if someone was a movie dork, but had no other real passions, calling them a movie dork would suffice. If they took a day off work to read the last Harry Potter book, have all of their Magic the Gathering cards in their car, had a bumper sticker custom made with a Princess Bride quote, and have 4 video game systems hooked up in their home ready to play, merely calling them a dork would be more than appropriate.
Typically when I hear “nerd” I have a mental image of the nerds from Revenge of the Nerds, but I believe they have evolved to a degree. Personally, I believe that the nerds are dorks in areas that lack some level of social skills. People who troll around message boards would liklely fall into the nerd category, but this is relative, of course. If their were a heirarchy, the dork would be above the nerd, with gradients of gray between them.
The short and skinny of it is that I am a Dork with nerd tendencies. Most of my dorkinesses are in areas that still involve talking to other people, but then I also know how to write programs on my calculator.
These are all personal definitions, of course, merely based on mental images these words bring to ming upon hearing them.
Oh, and yer mom.