I’m fortunate to work for a company that not only embraces geeks but encourages it. A perk of working in a hands-on science museum is that I can, at any point in my work day, decide that I need a break and go rewire a children’s toy, light something on fire, or puzzle out a chemical formula until my mind unravels itself out of the knot I managed to put it in. Now Science Museum Oklahoma is allowing us to express just how big a geek we can be with one of my favorite bits of matter, flair.
Whether or not I want to, I still like flair. In middle school I was one of those kids with tiny little buttons all over everything. I would have rocked at TGIFriday’s had I ever worked there. (Thankfully for them and me, I didn’t.) I had buttons that I found funny, buttons that had more attitude then my mom probably liked, and buttons that I didn’t even understand, but they were tiny and equipped with pins so I put them on my stuff. My backpack, purse, and school lanyard each weighed about twice what they should have thanks to flair. When the MySpace trend took hold I was elated to see I could bedeck my page with Pieces of Flair. Thus I dumped hours of my life scrolling through pages of user created images pasted onto the digital flair.
As I grew older I learned that not everything was made better with flair. But I still like the cute little buttons. I don’t wear them much anymore (a button might sneak its way onto my messenger bag from time to time) but I still keep a collection to which I regularly add. I recently acquired six more from my work and they instantly rocketed to a place of honor in my collection. Why? Because they are pieces of Geek-flair. Yes, Geek-flair; tiny little buttons that scream out “I’m a geek and if you giggled, you are one too!”
For those of you who, like me, may be a touch monitor challenged (nothing shows up normal on a 10.2″ monitor), I’ll translate the wonderfulness from Top Left.
- Club Otto
- Rock-it-Science
- Black Holes Suck
- Pretty in #ee3d85
- Deeply & Creatively weird
- Team Isaac
Feel you can’t live without these now? No worries, Science Museum Oklahoma gifted me with three extra sets that I’m going to give away. Leave a comment and tell me what you’d like to have put on a piece of geek-flair. I’ll draw three names from the entries and post the winners’ names and their suggestions for a piece of geek-flair.
I have a button that says “I have issues” that I bought as a kid thinking it referenced comic book issues. I’d like to see one that said the same but with a font or style that made the association clearer. 🙂
I adore buttons but they aren’t well accepted at work now. So far no one has noticed the remaining flair of “I fear no evil for I am the baddest of all” button on my Bag of Holding laptop bag.
I keep thinking I need one that says, “Looking for love in Alderaan places.” Though I love the “Pretty in #ee3d85” one above.
Love these buttons! I’d share them with my kids…maybe!
I’d like a button with the phrase “Humble Reasoner” from the quote “In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.” by Galileo Galilei. It’s a reminder that each one of us can be a scientist, if we have the willingness and strength to question the statue quo.
Alternatively “Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.” by Marie Curie.
I think I’d like a flair that’s like my boyfriend’s favorite shirt, a black background with a gold picture of Tesla on it.
“ride my seesaw” referencing to the Moody Blues song. Perfect for cheeky PTA meetings
When in doubt, side with science!!
(would work well when I am at a homeschool function arguing with other more religious orientated homeschoolers, LOL!)
I picked up a button last time I was at Gencon that said something like “We put the romance in Necromancer” which I thought was great.
I once designed a shirt for shirt.woot.com which was “Mages do it With Flair.” I think it would make a cool flair. Love the buttons, not feeling overly creative right now, but I’m sure by tomorrow I’d have a handful of ideas 🙂
Flare, not Flair in my earlier post, sorry now I feel dumb.
I picked up the button habit in college, surrounded by SF and other geeks — but it wasn’t called “flair” at that time. Is this a regionalism, or did it change sometime after the late 80s?
My favorite would be to have a button that said “WWTDD” (what would the doctor do) with a picture of the TARDIS… Then people could look at it confusedly and I could giggle…
I love the t-shirts with the chemical formulas for things like chocolate and caffeine. They would be great conversation pieces as buttons – especially since I still sport my denim jacket with buttons collected through the 80’s (when I can retrieve it from my 11 year old). Dr. Who faces would be really cool too – but that’s just me.
I used to collect those buttons too but we never called them flair either. My favorite was written in tiny print and said ” If you can read this you are too close” My pick would be one of my favorite quotes..
“The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.” Salvador Dali
“A lunatic is a minority of one.” 1984
My husband and I were talking about this the other day as we were trying to find decals and stickers for our computers!
I can’t remember what my top pick was but I really wanted either a fun quote from the Hitchhikers Guide or something related to Terry Pratchetts DiscWorld series, both of which there are startling few of, especially if you don’t just want something about the number 42.
“I’m proud of my geek.” Does this work? Trying to play off of the “I’m proud of my ______.” bumper stickers.
I think I found a very button-able Carl Sagan quote: “All things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.”
These are awesome.
I would like “Oops! My geek is showing!”
I think I’ve used that as a twitter tag before.
I also adore random DnD references, so a “+3Charisma” pin would be fun too!
Buttons? Really, oh OK neat! Anyways – The only way to go to Science Museum Oklahoma is to work there and they want you to donate your time, that’s just nutz. They are so very expensive most families can’t even consider it. That is sad real sad. I remember when you could get a pass for the zoo and the omniplex reasonable but not anymore, have to make that money, well not mine.
Akhenaton: “Thinking, understanding, reasoning, willing, call not these Soul They are its actions, but they are not its essence.”