Image: Jonathan Liu
Yesterday I was chatting with a good friend of mine (somewhat geeky, not a dad) who has been following GeekDad since I started writing for it. He commented that GeekDad seems to be a pretty broad-interest blog, but one that is heavily invested in its identity and frequently refers to it. “Are you required to use the word ‘geek’ a certain number of times per post?” He said it would be like BoingBoing frequently saying things like, “We BoingBoingers are particularly fond of…” or “as a BoingBoinger, I find that…”
So that got me thinking about it: is this really that different from other blogs?
One of the other blogs I read occasionally is TreeHugger, and from what I remember they do refer to “treehuggers” sometimes, but probably not as often as we use the word “geek.” On the other hand, “geek” is a much more widespread term (and one that has longer been reclaimed as a badge of honor) than “treehugger.” “BoingBoinger,” of course, is not a term that’s really common in the English language, so it’s not really a wonder that they don’t use that term.
But the other answer I came up with is this: we are a blog in which the writers, the readers, and the subject matter are all the same: it’s about the intersection of parenting and geekiness. Our readers are geekdads and moms, and our writers are geekdads and moms. And, in fact, all the new writers (myself included) were readers first who wanted to geek out about their own obsessions. We write about our passions, for people who share something in common with us.
It’s not like, say, Sports Illustrated, which is about athletes, written by sports journalists (who probably aren’t all athletes), to be read by sports fans (who also probably aren’t all athletes). We’re more of a “for the people, by the people, about the people” sort of blog, and I think that’s one of the things that makes us great!
What do you think?
