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Geek out with UNC’s first Geek Week

Get in touch with your inner geek with UNC’s first Geek Week. 

Hosted by New Student and Carolina Parent Programs, Geek Week sets out to celebrate students who identify as geeks through their passions for movies, TV shows, gaming and much more. 

Maddie Reich, a senior working as student fellow for transition programming at NSCPP, helped spearhead Geek Week. 

“I was talking to one of my supervisors about a book I was reading called ‘Chicks Dig Gaming,’” she said. “Through that, he discovered I was a geek — I played video games, read fan fiction and watched a lot of TV.” 

Her supervisor said there are schools, such as Rutgers University, that dedicate a week to students’ unique obsessions, and Reich thought it was a good idea to have one here. She said she did a lot of research before proposing it to her supervisor. 

And thus UNC’s Geek Week was born.

“I’ve been planning this since October,” she said. “I reached out to campus partners, asking them what they want to do for Geek Week.”

These partners include the Carolina Union Activities Board, UNC Department of Housing and Residential Education, the Undergraduate Library and University Career Services. 

Brittany Soder and Kelsey Hammer, graduate assistants in the Research and Design Department of the Undergraduate Library, are co-running Dr. House’s GIF-Along Workshop. 

According to Soder, it’s an hour-long class that teaches students how to make GIFs through the online GIF application Giphy. 

“A lot of people use GIFs to communicate, like on Twitter and on our phones,” Hammer said. “It’s a really cool way to communicate things you can’t always communicate in words. We really cater this event to people interested in entertainment culture, but anybody can learn how to make and use GIFs.”

In addition to the workshop, other activities include Board Game Fest, Video Game Night and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” movie screening. 

Geek Week kicked off its first event, Geeky TV Trivia, Wednesday night in the Union Aquarium Lounge. Four teams came out and tested their knowledge in shows such as “Game of Thrones,” “The Walking Dead” and “The Flash.” 

However, only one team emerged victorious. The self-named Scooby Gang wiped the competition with a 9-point lead.

Senior An Nguyen said he appreciated the atmosphere created by those who came out to trivia. 

“It’s cool to know there are people out there who share the same enthusiasm about TV as I do,” he said.

Senior Sean Flynn said he is looking forward to another event. 

“I would go to the 'Rogue One' screening because I’m a big fan of the original trilogy,” he said. “I didn’t even know (Geek Week) existed.”

Reich said she hopes Geek Week will become an annual event at UNC.

“Geeks sometimes don’t find other events appealing, and I think it’s important to have things specifically targeting students who may not fit into the mainstream population,” she said. 

“Everyone has a little bit of geekiness in them, everyone geeks out over something.”

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