"Geek" can be a derogatory term. I grew up, thinking I was a geek, as well as my friends. Hey, I honestly thought a LAN party would be more exciting than a hot date. Fortunately for me, as the tech world continues to pick up, the term for "Geek" is really starting to change its connotation.
According to some, Geek comes from the English dialect 'geck' which means fool. I beg to differ. Perhaps it comes as an accident that someone meant to use "Greek" and just dropped the 'r.' To me, "Greek" seems to fit--it brings to mind the phrase "philosophical genius." Maybe that's why geeks seem so inward, or unearthly, because their minds are concentrating on the complex theories of the cosmos.
I'm a fan of Julie Smith's description:
...a bright young man turned inward, poorly socialized, who felt so little kinship with his own planet that he routinely traveled to the ones invented by his favorite authors, who thought of that secret, dreamy place his computer took him to as cyberspace -- somewhere exciting, a place more real than his own life, a land he could conquer, not a drab teenager's room in his parents' house
http://reconstruction.eserver.org/061/christensen.shtml
Part of me thinks there are just too many geeks in the world--at least in the commercial world. It seems that the term 'geek' has been overly used. Let me list a few companies to give you an idea.
The Geek Squad is the most widely known company. The term is stereotypical. Most people think of a geek as the "Steve Erkle"--the guy with glasses, suspenders and an outrageous snort. I think the stereotype is changing and will continue to change as technology floods the lives of "normal" humanoids.
Everyone's got an ipod (my mom just got one, and that's saying something). Everyone is going to need to know how to use a computer, connect to the internet, and send email. Those types of tasks require technical skills that geeks are naturally born with. However, everyone will eventually have to learn those skills.