Why Nerds Are Unpopular

AccordionGuy writes "Paul Graham, who's known for his writings on Lisp and other Lisp-like languages as well as his essays on combatting spam has taken a bit of a detour from his usual topics. His latest essay is one that's a little more personal and that we can all relate to: Why Nerds Are Unpopular . It's a lengthy but engaging writeup of that chamber of horrors we call high school and why being smarter than the average bear is more of a liability than an asset during that stage in life. It's food for thought for those of us who've already been there, done that and been stuffed into lockers by the football team and it should give some hope to those who are going through it right now."

Comments

Maybe people just don't like "you"

[KalvinB]

Intelligence has nothing to do with being unpopular. It has to do with the fact you're socially inept. If you're getting beat up it's because you're an ass. Blaming it on your "intelligence" is just the common excuse to try to justify your unpopular behavior.

I had the gall to make fun of our sucky football team in front of one of the players. He looked at me and goes "Because I respect you, I'm just going to give you a 'get out of death free' card." I never made fun of the football team again and I never needed to cash in my card. I was blatently into computer programming all through school from 7th grade on and never got beat up because of it. I even worked on my stuff during classes. The only time I had issues with people was when I said something obnoxious.

I've found that the kids who are the most unpopular are those who bitch all the time and those who are arrogent; about how smart they are or otherwise. Nobody wants to be around people who constantly bitch. People don't like to be depressed believe it or not and making people depressed is not going to win you friends. This may also shock you but people also really don't care to hear how great your grades are.

One of the most popular kids in my old school from 7th to 9th grade was/is pretty much a genius and everyone respected him for it because he was/is also a very nice person.

People don't hate you because you're smart. They hate/don't give a rip about you because you're socially inept and beat you up because you're an asshole. The sooner you can to terms with that fact the sooner you can correct your problems and be a lot happier. People don't care how smart you are. They care that you can entertain them.

Not everyone who is picked on is smart. The most picked on kid during my junior high years was by no means exceptionally intelligent. I've also found that the most popular people are often very intelligent.

This article is just a perpetuation of stereotypes and it's not shocking that the person who wrote it had a tough life. "Why's everybody always picking on me?" I think is a very appropriate summary of that article. The person doesn't have a clue and nobody cares to talk to him long enough to clue him in.

Ben