The Geek Code, developed in 1993, is a series of letters and symbols used by self-described "

geek The word ''geek'' is a slang term originally used to describe Eccentricity (behavior), eccentric or non-mainstream people; in current use, the word typically connotes an expert or enthusiast obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit. In th ...

s" to inform fellow geeks about their personality, appearance, interests, skills, and opinions. The idea is that everything that makes a geek individual can be

encode The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) is a public research project which aims "to build a comprehensive parts list of functional elements in the human genome." ENCODE also supports further biomedical research by "generating community resourc ...

d in a compact format which only other geeks can read. This is deemed to be efficient in some sufficiently geeky manner. It was once common practice to use a geek code as one's email or Usenet signature, but the last official version of the code was produced in 1996, and it has now largely fallen out of use. A number of similar codes were developed for other subcultures, such as a Goth Code for the

Goth subculture Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develo ...

, and the Natural Bears Classification System for gay men.

History

The Geek Code was invented by Robert A. Hayden in 1993 and was defined at geekcode.com. It was inspired by a similar code for the

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family (biology), family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats ...

subculture - which in turn was inspired by the Yerkes spectral classification system for describing stars. After a number of updates, the last revision of the code was v3.12, in 1996. Some alternative encodings have also been proposed. For example, the 1997 Acorn Code was a version specific to users of

Acorn The acorn is the nut (fruit), nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), en ...

RISC OS RISC OS () is an operating system designed to run on ARM architecture, ARM computers. Originally designed in 1987 by Acorn Computers of England, it was made for use in its new line of ARM-based Acorn Archimedes, Archimedes personal computers an ...

computers.

Format

Geek codes can be written in two formats; either as a simple string:
...or as a "Geek Code Block", a parody of the output produced by the encryption program PGP:
Note that this latter format has a line specifying the version of Geek Code being used. (Both these examples use Hayden's own geek code.)

Encoding

Occupation

The code starts with the letter G (for Geek) followed by the geek's occupation(s): GMU for a geek of

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

, GCS for a geek of computer science etc. There are 28 occupations that can be represented, but GAT is for geeks that can do anything and everything - and "usually precludes the use of other vocational descriptors".

Decoding

There have been several '"decoders" produced to transform a specific geek code into English, including: * Bradley M. Kuhn, in late 1998, made Williams' program available as a web service. * Joe Reiss
made a similar page available
in October 1999.Reference to the site first appears in the Internet Archive on October 7, 1999().

References

{{Reflist

External links

*Robert Hayden'
official Geek Code web site
(presenting v3.12) Internet self-classification codes Internet culture Lifestyle websites Nerd culture 1993 introductions