thumb|upright=1.3|Geek code example, which opens by stating that the user is a Geek of Technical Writing (GTW) who usually wears jeans and a t-shirt (d-@), is of average height and above-average weight (s:+), and is aged between 25 and 29 (a-).

The Geek Code, developed in 1993, is a series of letters and symbols used by self-described "geeks" to inform fellow geeks about their personality, appearance, interests, skills, and opinions. The idea is that everything that makes a geek individual can be encoded in a compact format which only other geeks can read. This is deemed to be efficient in some sufficiently geeky manner.

It was once common practice to use a geek code as one's email or Usenet signature, but the last official version of the code was produced in 1996, and it has now largely fallen out of use. It was inspired by a similar code for the bear subculture - which in turn was inspired by the Yerkes spectral classification system for describing stars.

After a number of updates, the last revision of the code was v3.12, in 1996.

Some alternative encodings have also been proposed. For example, the 1997 Acorn Code was a version specific to users of Acorn's RISC OS computers.

Format

Geek codes can be written in two formats;

Encoding

Occupation

The code starts with the letter <code>G</code> (for Geek) followed by the geek's occupation(s): <code>GMU</code> for a geek of music, <code>GCS</code> for a geek of computer science etc. There are 28 occupations that can be represented, but <code>GAT</code> is for geeks that can do anything and everything - and "usually precludes the use of other vocational descriptors".

Decoding

There have been several "decoders" produced to transform a specific geek code into English, including:

  • Bradley M. Kuhn, in late 1998, made Williams' program available as a web service.
  • Joe Reiss made a similar page available in October 1999.

See also

References

  • Robert Hayden's official Geek Code web site (presenting v3.12)