From the 19th century word referring to a freak in circus side-shows (in some cases, the performance included biting the head off a live chicken), to the 1990's pejorative term of a nerdy technologist, the word "geek" keeps evolving.

A few days ago, a bunch of parisian faberNovelians were featured in a long article of Le Figaro Magazine as ultimate "geeks" (read: "narcissistic representatives of generation Y, overconfident and ultra-connected").

This specific use of the word reveals a shift: now that technology is making it to the masses, now that it is becoming mainstream and such a huge part of our daily lives, whether we acknowledge it or not, an entire generation can be considered as geek. What used to be a pejorative term for marginals is now applied to the entire cohort of "digital natives". The word doesn't make anymore sense in the meaning we are used to give it.

Hence the question: what does "geek" mean in 2012?

I personally have no answer to that question, so I went asking around what other faberNovelians thought. Here are a few answers from our team :

Arnaud M.: "iIt is someone who fiddles about, who diverts an object from its primary use."

Solène M.: "A geek is someone who would never answer that question."

Xavier M.: "geek is the new glam."

Maxime C.: "Today, the best way to define what is a geek, is to send pictures of geeks."

Marguerite M.: "There is always geekier than one's self (the second floor - Applidium), or less geek than one's self (my grandmother)."

John G.: "My own take on the word "geek" in the U.S. is that it has gone out of fashion.  Nobody in tech thinks of themselves as geeks anymore, even if they're linux programmers.  Tech is too mainstream."

Julian N.: "Geek means becoming contextually aware of more things than you ever imagined possibly due largely, but not solely, to technology."

Clearly "geek" has transcended its circus origins, and even its more recent negative connotations.  But can anyone agree on what it means today?

What's your take?  What does "Geek" mean to you today?