As if geekiness needed more debauchery

By BRENNON SLATTERY

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When Best Buy launched the Geek Squad, the assimilation of techie know-how into popular regard took a revolutionary step forward. Geeks were suddenly seen as useful and on the edge of cool, teetering there with white button-downs, black ties and an assumed knowledge of esoteric beeping and blooping devices.

Geekdom has traveled long, hard roads to become an affirmative label. Not to be confused with a nerd (commonly defined as a highly intelligent but socially retarded individual), geeks possess an intense knowledge on specific subjects, generally computers. The Urban Dictionary defines "geek" not in its original form—a circus-performer—but as a socialized, engaging personality.

But Best Buy's technology repair service team and their antisocial, perverted behavior threaten to derail the coolification of geek culture.

In April 2008, a Michigan woman brought her computer—that happened to contain several kilobytes of nude self-photography—into her local Best Buy. Geek Squad employee William E. Giffels copied the pictures and dumped them onto his flash storage device. This flash drive also contained the most up-to-date diagnostic tools for the Geek Squad team (whose in-store base, ironically, is dubbed the "precinct"), which inadvertently spread the private snaps onto other machines ordained for repair.

In the subsequent $50,000 lawsuit filed against Best Buy, Giffels admitted wrongdoing. He claimed curiosity and apologized for his "lapse in judgment" and damage to Best Buy "reputationally."

Giffels' gaffe is far from an isolated incident. While on a house call in 2007, Geek Squad employee Hao Kuo Chi was caught and arrested for strategically placing a cellphone video camera in a showering customer's bathroom. The blinking red REC light blew his spot.

In another water-related incident, the Geek Squad espoused a warranty-covered damaged computer and returned it with the blue screen of death (euphemism for the last gasp of a completely dead PC). Not only was the original problem unfixed, but a new one arose due to inexplicable water damage. No details as to how the PC became soaked were revealed.

The Consumerist, an online forum dedicated to consumers' rights, stripped the Kevlar off another tech repair service: Circuit City's FireDog. An anonymous employee of FireDog revealed, among other things, that the hiring process does not require qualifications outside of saying one is qualified; that 99 percent of repairs could be completed in one day, no matter how long it takes for your product to be returned; and that Circuit City takes no responsibility for your data, whether it be lost, illegal or dunked in asparagus urine.

As electronics become more complicated and older generations adopt new technology to maintain the breakneck pace of consumer culture, services such as the Geek Squad simply need to exist. Otherwise, thousands of people will be left behind in the silicon, unable to navigate our computer-run world. But without faith in a niche service's ability to behave becomingly, an unwillingness to participate may arise, thereby nudging back our technological adoptive process.

Geeks must do as other cultures have, and deaden historically disparaging monikers. Degenerate behavior does nothing to destigmatize the word "geek," but instead affirms the image of feverishly masturbating destroyers of personal property.

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