You've seen them. Oh I know you've seen them. They're not quite as "hip" as a "hipster" but they're not quite as geeky as a full-time geek. Technology bloggers, half the population of San Francisco, and the greater Seattle area are full of the hip-geek, or "gip" as I like to call them.

After exhaustive research in the area, I've compiled a list of 10 things that you'll find attached, tethered or otherwise near every gip. Who knows, you may even discover that you're a gip.

Oh, and if you read the title and thought "Is there such thing as a pre- or post- modern geek?" then...good on ya. I don't know. It just sounds good.



1.) An iPhone
Yes, yes. Everyone and their mother seems to have an iPhone these days. But a true gip will take pride knowing they had an iPhone the day it came out, they camped out the night before the release of the iPhone 3G and 3GS and they threw away all their porn once Gizmodo leaked pictures of the fourth-generation iPhone.

2.) Another, non-AT&T cell phone
Geeks love to complain about AT&T. Apparently regular people do, too, but not nearly as much as geeks do. Geeks travel the country in search of further geekery, and often go through 3G "dead-zones" where they can't tweet, access Evernote, or even...*gasp* challenge their friend to a rousing top-score playoff of Doodle Jump (WARNING: That kid is a dork, not a geek!) Geeks also love to have a non-AT&T phone so they can always be able to converse over the differing merits of Android versus iPhone OS while the plebeians silently nod their heads, thinking of what they'll have for dinner.

3.) A Moleskine pocket notebook
From Hemingway to Picasso, the original Moleskine notebooks were indeed an artist's best friend. As a fellow blogger over at Stuff White People Like points out, white people love them some notebooks (we do). But moreso than a white person, a geek, whether white or black or blue or green, loves a notebook. Sure they have Evernote and Simplenote and three voice recorders on each of their cell phones. Nothing can replace the soothing comfort found in writing down ideas about blog posts, jotting down their favorite Merlin Mann quotes and whipping out an iconic notebook in public so that everyone immediately thinks "Oh. An artist."

4.) Some type of fancy pants digital SLR
Geeks love the internet. They love to share things on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Flickr, Picasa, Buttface and more. Sure a point-and-click camera could take a photo that would be decent, but true geeks know that a DSLR camera is the difference between a FLAC and an MP3. They may not be able to appreciate the superior quality fully, but knowing its there makes all the difference in the world in their dead little hearts.

5.) A netbook or an iPad
Have you been paying attention? Geeks love the internet. The internet and computers are what geeks are all about.  Netbooks and iPads let geeks get at the internet from practically anywhere; they let the gips update their blog, read the latest technology news and peruse their assortment of multimedia goodies (except flash...).


6.) A Hybrid Car/Overtly Expensive Street Bike/No Car at All
Geeks, by their very nature, are aware of their surroundings. They tend to concentrate in metropolitan areas, allowing them to express their love for eco-friendly transportation. In cities where owning a car is necessary, a geek will probably have a hybrid car, or one with excellent fuel economy. If a city has a moderate public transit system (a la Los Angeles), a geek will probably have a nice street bike (or a vintage street bike that used to be nice, depending on how "hip" the geek is) that they can ride between bus stops. In a city like New York or San Francisco where public transportation blankets the city, a geek need look no further than the nearest street corner to exercise their greenness.

7.) A Favorite Podcast
Podcasts are like radio that isn't live. Sometimes they are live, but they are usually not live. Which is not to say that the cast is dead, quite the reverse. A podcast is a radio show for geeks. Geeks like to think that non-geeks love podcasts, and even recommend their favorite podcasts to their non-geek friends. A geek's non-geek friends will nod appreciatively and say something like "Oh yeah, I'll check that out," until you start explaining how to download a podcast you go to iTunes, go to the Podcast section, subscribe and/or choose an episode, and then adjust the settings on your iPod to sync podcasts, and then download them to your iPod and then navigate to a potentially buried down menu in their iPod to listen to them with headphones or in their car with an auxillary cord or a tape deck adapter or a shitty FM transmitter that will make them give up on the concept of an iPod all together because of how shitty the FM transmitter is. But I digress.

8.) A Twitter Account
A Twitter Account is like marijuana. It's a gateway geek-habit. Granted, it's hard to get someone to go from pot to opium (just ask someone from Kzrygystan), and so it is with Twitter: it's difficult to get someone to go from Twitter to having their favorite websites synced up via Google Reader and delivered to their Kindle. However, most people who try Twitter more than once; while exhaling and coughing, say "Y'know what man? This is some goooooood shit." It's just hard to overcome the stigma attached to it.

Conclusion
So there it is. Eight things a geek will undoubtedly have. How do you measure up? I hate to make it like one of those ridiculous Facebook quizzes, or even worse, an issue of Cosmo, but I'm going to go ahead and make up a rating scale on the spot. Just like Cosmo and Facebook users do (only without the spelling errors).

Go ahead and tally up how many of the above eight things you own/partake in/appreciate/know of. If you have:

1-2: Congratulations, you know what the internet is.
3-5: Careful stranger, you might start using Instapaper soon!
6-8: Okay, you're watching CNet's live Christmas gift-a-thon on repeat on YouTube to get off.
9+: What the fuck article were you reading?

I was originally going for 10. But let's be honest. Nobody reads this shit except for me. So. Yuup.

Today's Video For Your Brain: