As I mentioned before, this year’s theme for Capricon is Let Your Geek Flag Fly!
Depending on your interests, you probably have one of two questions:
1) What’s a geek flag? or
2) Why only one?
I’ll work through them in order. A geek flag is a flag that represents geek pride or a love of geeky things. Really, there’s no limitation on what you can geek out about. According to Dictionary.com, one definition for geek is “a person who has excessive enthusiasm for and some expertise about a specialized subject or activity”. My father, for example, was a Jerome K. Jerome geek, which can also be presented as Jerome K. Jerome was one of his geek flags.
You may have noticed “one of” in the previous sentence. Most geeks I know fly multiple geek flags. The earliest one I identify with is Star Trek, having been introduced to the original show before elementary school, closely followed by Doctor Who. By college, I was also flying a gamer flag – video, board, and role-playing games – and had realized that reading is its own flag as well. It will surprise nobody that Dork Tower is another geek flags I fly proudly.
Obviously, I fly multiple geek flags, which brings us back to the second question… why is our theme singular? Another one of my geek flags is musicals, and it’s a reference to Shrek: the Musical, specifically the song “Freak Flag.” The theme is singular in order to fly that particular geek flag.
What are your geek flags? Better yet, come find me at Capricon this weekend and tell me in person.