geeks welcome
Dallas geeks out as one of the geekiest cities in America, study says
Dallas geeks, unite! Big D has been ranked the 21st-geekiest big city in the U.S.
In honor of Embrace Your Geekness Day (July 13), Lawn Love ranked the 200 largest cities in the U.S. to determine their geekiness level. It relied on factors such as number of stores selling comics and video games, number of geek Meetup groups, and number of costume shops to develop the ranking.
Dallas ranked:
- 10th for events
- 11th for access to costumes
- 14th for "community"
- 69th for access to collectibles
Three other cities in Texas outdid Dallas in terms of geekiness. San Antonio ranks fifth, Houston ranks sixth, and Austin comes in at No. 9. Curiously, neighboring Fort Worth just barely makes it into the national top 50, landing at No. 48. And the big city in between, Arlington, lands at No. 76.
Here’s how the rest of Texas’ big cities — including other DFW cities — fared in the study:
- Plano, No. 58
- Irving, No. 60
- El Paso, No. 73
- Lubbock, No. 87
- Killeen, No. 108
- Corpus Christi, No. 110
- McAllen, No. 121
- Denton, No. 127
- Midland, No. 148
- Garland, No. 162
- Frisco, No. 164
- Mesquite, No. 169
- Pasadena, No. 174
- Grand Prairie, No. 177
- Laredo, No. 181
- Brownsville, No. 186 (tie)
- McKinney, No. 186 (tie)
Of special note, Frisco topped the list for "fewest comic book stores" (oddly, tied with four other cities — St. Paul, Minnesota; Arlington, Virginia; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and Lakewood, Colorado).
Fort Worth ranked No. 1 for "fewest geek meetup groups" (strangely, tied with five other cities — Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Scottsdale, Arizona; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and Honolulu; and Lexington, Kentucky.)
Now, you might be wondering what the difference is between a geek and a nerd. Although the terms often are used interchangeably these days, there technically is a difference, according to Rob Weiner, popular culture and humanities librarian at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
“A geek is one who is obsessed with collecting materials and following trends about their subject of interest, while a nerd is one who is educated and intellectual about a certain topic or subject area,” Weiner tells Lawn Love. “Nerds focus more on a wider breath of knowledge (and usually have a more technical or scientific knowledge base), while geeks focus on collecting and trends that go with pop culture.”
