Geeks and Social Media

Yesterday morning Gary Gygax passed away, so I’m a bit nerd-sad at the moment. Like many other computer geeks, growing up I was into roleplaying games and Gary Gygax was an icon as the Father of Dungeons & Dragons. Though it was in person, sitting around with some pencils, paper and dice was our social networking back then. Later when the internet was picking up, but before the label of “Web 2.0” was slapped on it, to have “online friends” was still seen as anti-social.
And now everyone and their mom has a Facebook or MySpace page. If you don’t, you’re the odd one out now. The irony is particularly interesting because the nerds, geeks and dweebs of 15-25 years ago are now leading the technology behind Web 2.0, social media and all things “hip” about the Internet right now.
If anything, I’m more anti-social now than I used to be — except for the fact that I interact with more people online now than I ever do in person. I’ve put down the d20s (those are twenty sided dice for you non-initiated) for now, but I’ll always be a roleplaying nerd at heart.