Geeks are a creative bunch. Sure, there are many who are simply readers, watchers and collectors – they don’t actually create anything, they just enjoy their fandoms. But there are many who are more artistic. Whether it’s directly related to fandoms or not, many geeks are visual artists, creating paintings, sculptures, jewelry, toys. Others express themselves through writing with fanfiction, short stories, novels, gaming guides.

So what does it mean to be creative? And why is that such a big realm for geeks? First, I think we can all agree that “creating” and “creative” are different things, though not mutually exclusive. Everything that exists has been “created”, even down to the molecular level. But that doesn’t mean the creation was “creative”. To create means to bring something into existence. Period. So if you write something, you have created it. But it’s what you’ve written, how that creation came about that determines whether it’s creative. “Creativity” is the use of imagination or original ideas, especially when producing artistic works. Thus, not everything written is “creative writing” – hell, the majority of the blogs on this website (and everywhere else on the web) aren’t creative writing, they’re academic, journalistic, professional, technical and the like. Without imagination, a creation is simply not creative.

And that’s why creativity is such a big thing for geeks. We love our fandoms because of the escape they provide, the imagination that went into creating them and the things we can imagine involving them. The real question is, do more creative/imaginative types tend to be drawn to fandoms because we can identify with them or does the base attraction to the imaginative products lead to further expressions of creativity and thus create geeks? Yes, it’s something that can be debated (which so many geeks love to do anyway), but ultimately it doesn’t even matter. We’re creative and we love to be surrounded by the realm of imagination.