The symptoms of being a geek are being clumsy, being plain, and being socially inept. Websters Dictionary originally defined geek as a carnival performer usually billed as a wild man who's act includes biting the head off of a live chicken or snake. Society today defines a geek as someone who is not quite like everyone else. Geeks don't do what the norm is. They have their own things to do. They are one-minded. Society is not too favorable of the geek illness.

In the movie Shes All That the main female character is a typical geek. She is clumsy, messy, and awkward. She is also smart to the point of absurdity. Her glasses are thicker than beer mugs and she doesnt fit into any real clique. Her peer group makes fun of her and says she is a freak. The main male character successfully makes her into the prom queen. The movie shows how poignantly society doesnt like the geek image.

On the television show Freaks and Geeks the writers purposely try to portray the typical geek. The main characters, the geeks, are outcasts in their school. They are also clumsy and awkward just like in Shes All That. There is a difference between the movie and the series. On television, the geeks have to make good of their situation in life. They do not better themselves. They are stuck as geeks and are happy to be geeks. The geeks do not play sports and are usually picked on at least four times in the show.

Magazines have a much more different view of geeks than the film and television industries do. The magazines portray geeks as intellectuals and socially awkward geniuses. They have a one-track mind, usually one that is set in computers or a strange hobby. The magazines are favorable of geeks where as movies and television are not. One might say that magazines are the geeks readings. Geeks can read them and not get insulted.

As a stereotypical geek, one would have to be tall, lanky, blind, awkward, and clumsy. He/she would be interested in an intellectual subject, not sports or socialization. That person would be an outcast to normal society. He or she would be a freak, a small exaggeration of the original definition of geek. Originally, the carnival performer would be an attraction . . . a circus freak. As people became more and more associated with freaks called geeks, those known as freaks in society became known as geeks. The freaks were just unusual people; people who fit the descriptions mentioned above. The definition of geek was stretched and today society excepts the new definition of geek. Webster's new definition states, a person often of intellectual bent who is disapproved of. Geek is now more than just circus lingo, its become a societal stereotype.