The performer who played the role was a down on his (or rarely, her) luck individual whose only available occupation in the carnival was to play the role of the geek, typically due to alcoholism, drug addiction, or a mental health crisis.

The performance was characterized by the destruction of living animals, most often by biting their heads off. Snakes and chickens were most often used for this performance.

Best explicated and revealed in the classic 1946 novel by Lindsey Gresham, Nightmare Alley, the shows that featured geek performers both fascinated and and repelled the carnival goers of the 1920s up through the 1970s.

Gresham’s story of the geek has held our fascination as both a 1947 and 2021 film.