This image has been making the rounds on Digg today, and I quite like it. It picked up many of the cultural shifts in Geekdom over the past years, including the stereotypes and the realities. Of course, I’ve been using the 2.0 beta for quite a few years now. I don’t think I’ve ever had a job I had to wear anything but casual clothing, including my current one.

As for the 1.0 era, I came of age when 1.5 must have been the current version. I didn’t carry a D&D book, I carried Heroes Unlimited. I skipped the high waters and white shirt for jeans and flannel (it was the early nineties). Digital watches and computer magazines were mandatory, however.

The author/artist loses a few geek cred points for some minor geek faux pas. ‘Calculator’ was spelled as ‘calulator’ in the 1.0 description. The author sometimes included periods after sentences, and sometimes did not. Capitalizing ‘when’ in the middle of the roleplay handbook section was not necessary. The leather wristband is a bit more hipster, rather than geek.

The biggest faux pas of all: the use of Arial. Real geeks would know to use Helvetica, not Arial.