The geek shall inherit the Earth.

There’s no other explanation as to why we’re suddenly inundated with geek culture. There’s "Beauty and the Geek," a new WB reality show that puts seven dull-minded babes with seven geek guys in a mansion; the longtime bastion of geekdom, the Scripps National Spelling Bee, is suddenly molten hot with and a Hollywood movie starring Angela Bassett about bees in the offering; and the underground geek Fox TV show, "Firefly," is set to hit the big screen in September as "Serenity" from Universal.

Finally, there’s the decidedly cool L.A. alt-rock band American Hi-Fi suddenly confessing their inner geekdom on the single, "The Geeks Get The Girls."

"It’s a part of you," says Hi-Fi frontman Stacy Jones of everyone’s inner geekdom. "When you don’t have to put on any airs and you’re not being anything but yourself it’s definitely a good thing."

So it is, says uber geek David B. Grelck, creator of The Girls of Geekdom calendar (www.girlsofgeekdom.com), which features 100 percent geeky girls.

"It’s chic to be a geek," Grelck says. "We were the butt of jokes forever but now it’s our turn."

Um, when exactly did it become the geeks’ turn?

"I’ll tell you - it’s real easy," Grelck says. "Star Wars’ changed everything. When they re-released the original "Star Wars’ in ’96 and ’97, not the prequels, it completely shifted and suddenly it brought all the geeks out of the house and into the theaters. Before that all the geeks were home by themselves."

Another watershed moment?

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ completely changed the landscape of geekdom," Grelck says. "It was geek material aimed at women."

Mind you, we’re talking about geeks here, not nerds.

"My brother works for NASA and he’s a rocket scientist," says Grelck, a Chicago-based wedding photographer by day. "I’m into NASA and space stuff, I’m into researching Mars and the Mars Rover and the Hubble (space telescope), I’m a space geek. He knows a lot about his job so he’s a nerd. I’m a geek because I’m obsessed with things I should have no reason to know about. You’re not a geek until you take your obsession beyond socially acceptable levels."

Much of geek culture is focused on entertainment that has a sci-fi or supernatural twist. Specifically shows and movies like "Veronica Mars;" the little-known TV series and soon-to-be movie "Firefly," "Lost" (the mysterious monster on the island appeals to geeks) and "Gilmore Girls" (many insider geek references).

"People who watch Jason Alexander are not geeks," Grelck says. "People who watch ’Veronica Mars’ will tape it, share it with their friends, post messages on the show’s message board, and they’re far more loyal than normal."

Why?

"We have nothing better to do," Grelck says.

Indeed, we are coming to a geek critical mass where geek culture threatens to overwhelm straight culture. If that happens, something precious will be "Lost," Grelck says.

"The geek shows will be less geeky and more mainstream," Grelck says. "The shows are being dumbed down for normal people."

The normal people who wouldn’t know what to do if they inherited the Earth.

"The geeks will inherit the Earth, that’s true," Grelck says. "We’re smarter and we’ll live longer. We’ll know what to do if a comet destroys Earth."