Observed by Geeks worldwide Date May 25 | Type Cultural Frequency Annual | |
Significance Non-denominational holiday celebrating geek culture Celebrations Role-playing games, parades, cosplay | ||
Geek Pride Day is an initiative to promote geek culture, celebrated annually on May 25.
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The initiative originated in Spain in 2006 as (Spanish: Día del orgullo friki) and spread around the world via the Internet.
Origins
Tim McEachern organized unconnected events called Geek Pride Festival and/or Geek Pride Day 1998 to 2000 at a bar in Albany, New York, which are sometimes seen as a prelude to Geek Pride Day.
In 2006, the Spanish blogger Germán Martínez known online as señor Buebo organized the first celebration, the day was celebrated for the first time in Spain and on the Internet, drawing attention from mainstream media. The biggest concentration took place in Madrid, where 300 Geeks demonstrated their pride together with a human Pac-Man. A manifesto was created to celebrate the first Geek Pride Day, which included a list of the basic rights and responsibilities of geeks.
2008
In 2008, Geek Pride Day was officially celebrated in the U.S., where it was heralded by numerous bloggers, coalescing around the launch of the Geek Pride Day website. Math author, Euler Book Prize winner, and geek blogger John Derbyshire not only did a shout out, but announced that he would be appearing in the Fifth Avenue parade, dressed as number 57, on the prime number float - prompting some bloggers to say they'd be looking for him.
Continued spread
By 2009, acknowledgment of the day had reached the Science Channel, with special programming on 25 May to celebrate and events took place to commemorate the day in Ottawa, home to the Canada Science and Technology Museum and a notable research centre in Canada. While in 2010 the festival spread further, taking in cities as diverse as Halifax, Nova Scotia; Budapest, Hungary; Tel Aviv, Israel; Timişoara, Romania and San Diego, California. In 2013, a Geek Pride parade was held in Gothenburg, Sweden, and it was decided that it would be an annual event.
Since 2013, a Meetup group in the New York City suburbs called Westchester Geeks has held an annual Geek Pride Day celebration on or around May 25.