| Thirty geeks walk into a bar....
No, this isn't the beginning of a joke, though it could be. The image of a pub packed with geeks wearing sci-fi-show T-shirts and carrying laptops is as frightening as it is hilarious. So what happens when such so-called geeks start using the Internet not just as a time waster, but as a party planner?
Well, as the good folks at fark.com like to say, hilarity ensues. Essentially a posting site with links to funny (or asinine or spiffy) news stories and Web sites, Fark turns the idea of an online community into a metropolis. With more than 25 million page impressions a month and thousands of members worldwide, farkers and farkettes, as they're called, share the same in-jokes ("France surrenders") and catchphrases ("still no cure for cancer") from Tokyo to Toronto.
When a local boy calling himself Twotontim posted an open invitation to a gathering on Friday, September 19 at Brewsters Eau Claire, Calgary farkers got to try out their online personas offline.
Tape a party poster up downtown and there’s no guessing who might show. Post an invite online and it’s an easy guess: geeks. Many people have sports or music obsessions and are still considered cool, but pair a career in computer programming with the ability (and desire) to cite Babylon 5, and it’s assumed you’re a skinny, pale, bespectacled male with poor social skills living girlfriendless in your parents’ basement.
While not all farkers proved so geeky, the gender gap held true. Friday night was such a sausage party that it's surprising Spolumbo’s didn't sponsor it. According to Fark’s advertising information, 95 per cent of the site's visitors are males aged 18 to 34. Of the 30-odd attendees, just four were female. Of these four, only one woman was not dating or engaged to a guy-geek at the party – and that would be me.
The abundance of good beer in really big glasses, paired with the unspoken understanding that everyone present must be a geek, kept introductions and conversation friendly and easy. Having sort of met before online, most farkers were as interested in learning each other's screen names as their real names. "What’s your name? No, your name," asked one, while another friendly farker asked what my handle was, evoking images of a trucker convention. And strangely, while most partygoers recognized only a few screen-names, one farker taught my university computer lab and another girl ran into her high school locker partner, proving not only that Calgary is a small place, but that the Internet is, too.
While most farkers – with the notable exceptions of a few gas station attendants, construction workers and a Wal-Mart manager – held nerdy computer jobs, there was still an impressively manly uproar when the waiter tried to turn off Sportscentre. Like any pub night, conversation wandered from political debates to movie discussions, but the most interesting talk turned up just after last call.
Of the remaining farkers, most had tried online dating – and not just peeking at the listings out of boredom or curiosity, either. Several who had actually gone through and met people using an online personal ad willingly shared their horror stories and tales of disappointment, along with their rationale for looking online for love. One farker explained that it’s like placing an order – you want to be able to pick the details, like colour and size, to get the exact person you want. "If you want something in blue," he reasoned, "you should get it in blue."
And while the fark partygoers weren’t all made-to-order geeks, everyone had a good time together – though few appeared to trade contact information, apparently happy just to put a face to the handle.
Or maybe they just weren't too excited about the suggestion for the next Calgary fark party, which involved a hot tub. Maybe it’s just my only-single-girl-there status making me nervous, but two dozen nearly naked drunken geeks are enough to scare anyone back online. |
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