Back in those times we made a distinction between nerds and geeks, with geeks really being a sort of subset of nerds that was just interested in the technicals.

I think that distinction was invented post-facto. For most people they were pretty much synonyms in every day usage.

I always found attempted distinctions between nerds and geeks to be kinda fake. As long as I've been alive, there's been so much overlap that any distinction is at best a slight and unreliable shade of meaning (e.g. nerd "sounds" a shade more academic/grades focused, but "computer geek" and "computer nerd" are synonyms).

Fandom-as-identity was a niche thing even within nerddom until quite recently.

Also a lot of those properties had a lot of substance there decades ago and have since been watered down and turned into memeable cliches.