User blog comment:StarsandPeacesigns/Some things that are irking me/@comment-53539-20120617120709

Hees another one; Otaku does not mean "nerd/geek/dork", it refers to individuals who live reclause inside a house and never leave because they have an obessession with a particular object.

A "nerd" is someone whose IQ succeeds his peers, a geek is someone whose good at video games and loves comic books, etc. The third one normally assoicated with Geek and Nerd is a "dork", who excels at nothing (see Ed, Edd and Eddy, three characters whose quick-rich schemes all are pretty mindless and pointless ambitions and therefore they get branded "dork" by the character Kevin).

In terms of comparison to these 3 terms, "Otaku" can also be applied be any one of those three, althogh the Japanese have other terms that they can subestutie for "geek/nerd/dork" anyway. In other words, "Otaku" does not mean any of those and is its own seperate term, but is misused by westerners to refer to anyone obessed souly with Japanese media-based items. The term that should be applied to these individuals is the very western term "geek" in reality, Anime is almost like the new Star Trek in many respects, except the audiences are not the same. Not all the anime fans are typical sterotyping that people have come to view the geek as, I guess, this is why they'd rather misuse the term "Otaku" then called them "geeks". Or alternatively, "Weaboos" (early 00's "Wapanese"). I must admit, I prefer to use the term "weaboo" over "Otaku" anyday. -_-