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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."
What ??? Impopular, me ???? No way.... thats totally impossible cause I Use Linux (TM) and Linux rocks !!!!
Lisa Simpson found that it was a pheromone that caused people to beat up nerds! (This effect, of course, could easily be neutralized by spraying said bully with vinegar).
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.
And I'm sure its going to do nothing but reinforce lots of negative stereotypes and Katz-style whining.
I'm a nerd - I'm a computer professional - I was an athlete in high school and I'm still active today.
People need to take a little bit of responsibility for their own lives rather than chalking everything up to "well, I'm going to get picked on because everyone else in the world is so much stupider than me."
--saint
nerds feel it necessary to lord their supposedly superior intellect over others... they do it in their inner circles as well. This is the reason they get stuffed in lockers... You may have a bigger brain, but they got bigger arms... And don't give me that innocence crap, you KNOW you're guilty of looking down your nose at whomever because you thought you were smarter than they....
It was the cse at our school, like all other schools, that the Geeks were singled out for "special" attention. However, that attention was infrequently hostile, and if you had the wit to deal with it (a decent put-down, offer people help in classes if they asked for it, laugh at their jokes if necessary, etc.) you soon got the respect and the social acceptence that came with it.
/they/ knew) "Ignore them and they'll soon get bored."
Essentially, merely "being Geeky" was not enough to attract hostility, even from the footballers, but it was poor social skills aggravated by what the "geek" percieved as persecution.
Simply laughing it all off is usually the best way to deal with it.
It's like your parents used to say (shyeah! like
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
but if i had a quarter for every 'popular' kid from my HS class that later served me my meals at Uno's, Bennigans, etc., I'd be one handspring treo richer.
;) .
and yes, if you haven't guessed yet, i'm a nerd
smd4985
I'm curious if this happens all over the world or only in the states.
Can anyone who grew up outside of the US comment?
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
I'm writing this post from a locker now.
It's because of his lisp.
Het, when I get out of college, odds are there will be jobs of 50k and up just waiting for me, while the jocks are slaving away at some factory somewhere, or still asking if they want fries with that, they can be as cruel as they would like, just gives me more things to chuckle about when things in my life go right.
And this would be a great example of why people think geeks are a bunch of elitist assholes.
--saint
Who cares? It's been over twenty years since I graduated high school. A couple of years ago, I attended the 20th anniversary.
I learned something... I can go the rest of my entire life without ever seeing any of my classmates again and still be happy.
It's four years... After it's over, forget about them and move on.
Defecation occurs.
You are plenty cool when they realize you are smart enough to run a methlab.
"no one knows how to fill in the void called america" --the discovery channel
Comedian Paul Rodriguez:
You remember those kids in school who you called Nerds?
You know what you call 'em now?
BOSS!
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
A fellow student from my horror days relate a story to me about a incident he witnessed during one of the after school hunt and destroy mission conducted by most of the 4th, 5th and 6th grade boys where I was the target. Apparently the message of 'We are going to beat up the nerd after school today' had reached the lower classes. While following the masses he noticed some 2nd grader pounding the daylights out of a 1st grader. He asked the kid what he was doing to which he replied, 'This is the nerd, isn't it?'
Most of us think that the reason we were so unpopular was that we were smarter than everyone else. It's much more likely that we were/are unpopular because we're socially inept. Hint: acting like you're smarter than everyone else is socially inept.
The notion that you were "smarter" is absurd. The reality is that you were dumber. You got picked on because you didn't bathe, brush your teeth, and made fart jokes at every possible occasion. That doesn't make you smart, it makes you digusting, and worthy of contempt.
The smarter bears washed on occasion, and learned to carry on a conversation.
--
You sure got a purty mouth...
I've been in the software engineer game for over 10 years now... almost all of my collegues have either switched fields or taken a 30-40% paycut to stay in it. (Switching fields takes a paycut too btw)
the market is FIERCE now with out of work software engineers.. What makes you think your odds are so good Mr. No-Professional-Experience?
I sadly think you're in for a rude awakening once you hit the market.
Jokes aside though - a very serious matter. Kids get bullied a lot as early as primary/secondary school and often it haunts them in high school as well. I used to do volunteer work for a charitable trust that was campaigning for teenage suicide prevention. It's pretty unbeleivable how many teens end their lives because they just can't take it anymore. And don't give me this bullshit about those that pull through and "become stronger". Some maybe do, but others still receive a pretty vicious mental trauma. Who knows how will this unnecessary abuse will reflect on their adulthood ?
Het, when I get out of college, odds are there will be jobs of 50k and up just waiting for me
Looks like you'll be doing Graduate level work at Hard Knocks U.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Learn how to interact with people in a way that is pleasurable to them, and they will enjoy your company. It does not really matter what your IQ is. For example:
don't talk down to them
don't talk over their head
don't tell them things they do not want to know
do talk/ask about things they want to talk about
avoid being negative
be yourself, and be comfortable with yourself
we geeks need to conform, sell-out, and fit into mainstream society if linux is to advance beyond the server.
In the US, there's nothing you can visit besides "High School", right?
;-)
In Germany, there are 3 different school types to which people get assigned to after elementary school. They're called "Hauptschule" (for the really dumb people), "Realschule" (for the not so dumb but still too dumb for college type people) and "Gymnasium" for the smart ones.
So, if there are no dumbasses at your school, theres no one to beat you up.
Sorry, but I call BS.
1. Being a nerd doesn't mean you are smart. I knew plenty of dumbass nerds.
2. Being smart doesn't mean you are a nerd. I knew straight A students who were all around athletes and in the "cool" crowd.
3. Being a nerd (or smart) doesn't mean you can't be athletic. See #2.
4. High school is a traumatic time for pretty much everyone, not just the smart/nerdy people. And I use "traumatic" lightly, because I realize that high school was not that big of a deal. (I hope everyone else realizes that) It was just another period in my life.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The Skinny Pushover. The Skinny Pushover finds sports 'hard' and exclusively for "those jock assholes". Recluse behaviour makes them antisocial, irritating, cyinical and generally unpleasant to be around. They feel as if they're more intelligent than normal people
The Fat Fuck. The Fat Fuck doesn't metabolise quite as well as his thin counterpart. The Fat Fuck therefore packs on the pounds of blubber just playing video games and watching cartoons all day. The Fat Fuck is typically more bearable as a friendly human being, but is only marginally so due to reeking body odor.
Now that I've defined the two breeds, I have some more ideas why nerds are unpopular.
They smell bad because they're unwashed. Basic hygiene cuts time out of watching Cartoon Network and playing MMORPGs. Thusly, the poor hygiene forces them to seek the willing company of their own kind for sexual encounters, leading up to the next point...
They prefer games like Everquest and Quake3 LAN parties to actual social interaction.
The nerd only seeks a certain type of employment: see IT/IS technician and or sysadmin. Further isolation leads to undesirable public behaviour, on the rare occasion that it occurs at all. Case and point, poor manners and emulation of cartoon characters.
Excessive quotation from the television show "The Simpsons". While amusing the first couple re-runs, memorised and regurgitated script from a cartoon proves to be an incredible deterrant for normal people.
I was equally popular/unpopular growing up. I got beat up a lot, but also got invited to the cool kids' birthday parties.
But then, I was also a track and XC person (not that they are exactly worshipped).
I would think that in a diverse pool the socioeconomic background plays a larger role than the intelligence level and/or grades.
Where I grew up, the cliques were based on family income and how one expressed it, and the grades made no difference.
From what I saw, the only way to escape income bias was to excel at sports - excelling at grades didn't seem to matter one way or the other - but help the school win a football game, or go to states in track and people respected that.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Don't even pretend that the "nerds" are the people who started this war between classes. We were nerds because we * didn't care * what the other kids thought of us. That's why we were unpopular, we put little effort into being popular. So, if we didn't give a damn what the "popular" kids thought, why would we start shit?
Look on the flipside, the "popular" kids. They were popular because they gave a damn about what other kids thought of them, and worked to make other kids think more of them.
Now ask yourself this, who's more likely to do the looking down? The kids who cared about what other kids thought? Or the kids who didn't?
No one is blaming the people who were the "popular" kids for what they did when they were a teenager. You don't need to get defensive. But to blanketly declare that everyone's personality is only a result of their own doing and not from outside influences is naive.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
For those to lazy to read the article, the salient points appear to be:
1) There is a correlation between being smart and being unpopular.
2) The reason it's hard to be smart AND popular is that being popular takes up mental bandwidth that most smart people would rather use "making great things" (rockets and computers are used as examples). "Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires."
3) The reason "popular" kids persecute "nerds" is that, in general, pushing others down lifts you up and makes you feel better. Also, persecuting nerds is a kind of bonding process for "popular" kids. "...nothing brings people closer than a common enemy".
4) Things are different when you leave high school. In fact "nerds collect in certain places and form their own societies where intelligence is the most important thing." (e.g., university).
That seems to be mainly it. Interesting reading... it matches up with my experience of high school. Certainly the worst time of my life (so far).
grib.
maybe
Speaking as a former member of the bottom rung of the high school social ladder, here's how things were in my high school:
- The jocks weren't stupid: both of our valedictorians were jocks
- The popular kids weren't all jerks: in fact many of them were popular because they were, gasp, nice people who happened to have mastered the baffling rules of high school social life
- Many of the unpopular kids were jerks: in fact, some of the worst bullies I had the misfortune of knowing were roundly disliked.
- Let's not forget the artsy types: forget the artsy girl in the paint-splattered overalls and square glasses who catches the quarterback's eye. The kids I knew who excelled in the arts also excelled in social life and in other endeavors.
- Mix-n-Match: In fact, there were almost no patterns. There were smart/popular/nice people, stupid/popular/nice people, smart/popular/jerks... pick one from each menu and I could probably remember an example. I'll admit there were a few general rules (I never knew an unpopular football player) but generally it all boiled down to how well you could handle yourself in the tough social situations.
It's all just stereotypes, folks. The many complaints we have here inMiko O'Sullivan
You go to school, a crowd of football players surround you and stuff you into a locker / your head down the toilet / your bag in the trash. You head to your first class and your teacher tells you that you are an "overacheiver" and that you should "slow down and let the less advantaged people catch up" (the same ones who picked on you only a few minutes ago).
For anyone with an above-average IQ, high school is a very bad place to be.
Dude, bullies at school don't have shit on you. Chances are, you're making double what they're making by the time you're 25. Your skin will clear up (if it hasn't already), your shoulders will fill out, and you'll get cooler glasses or contacts.
Just do yourself a favor, and talk to a counsellor (or "shrink" if you want to call it that) about your experiences in high school. That way, it won't bother you, and the bullies will have truly lost.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
The real geeks were not the extremely bright, but rather the extremely akward. The punk rockers, the goth kids, the vampires (who were usually also homosexual), the over-excited white guy that acted black but had no black friends, the "only thing I'm good at is sports" guy, the group of fat girls that tried to dress provactively, the surfer wannabes, the skater wannabes, et cetera. Most of the geeks weren't very bright at all, and certaingly weren't elitist.
I had a rough childhood, almost everything was beyond my control. There were times growing up I wasn't just ridiculed for my small stature or interest in being a "computer nerd" Go read my journal if you want all the details.
There are two types of nerds, there's the nerd with a good family, that has a clue on how to raise their kids. The kid goes into all the clubs, and is pretty popular. This kid is recognized by their peers and peers parents as having a loving, stable home. Their well being and stability is attractive to teachers, students, and other members of the school community.
Then you got nerds like me. People who had some fucked up parents. Never learned to socialize properly at a young age with other people. I used to spend all my lunches and recesses either in the library or, if I kissed butt with teacher, could spend it with an appleIIe. I would do this to hide from the bullying that would take place. Even my "freinds" took turns bullying me, everything from practicing what Hulk Hogan was doing on WWF (now WWE) to just talking me down to make themselves feel better, since our group was cast from the social misfits known as the "mod" style in the 80's.
I was different than all of them, I could not "fit" in with the "normal" kids. I could not fit in with the "abnormal" mod kids. I didn't know U2 from The Cure. I knew all the poke locations on my atari, I knew how to format a floppy, I knew some basic. While my friends were picking out styles of clothes to wear I just wore whatever was in my drawer. I had no style sense whatsoever, I would wear green shirts with blue pants.
There were times at school, I would just be standing there, and suddenly some stupid ass jock I didn't even know would run into my back full speed to knock me down. I would always do my best to try and kick their asses then and there, which would end up with 4 guys jumping on me.
Sometimes the teachers would give me shit, "Toqer, why don't you just walk away?" Yeah thats it, just walk away, while they shout out insults to your back. Not fighting just shows them you're scared of them, which makes the bullying worse.
It's never stopped throughout my life. Even as an adult, I let people influence me because sometimes I feel inadequate when it comes to interpersonal matters. Am I inadequate? Or did outside influences keep me from developing what I needed in this area early in life?
I really blame my parents a lot. They couldn't get along with each other, they had a vicious divorce. Us kids were passed back and forth as messanger, "TELL YOUR FATHER HE'S A BUMB" "TELL YOUR MOTHER SHE'S A WHORE!" This was how I was taught to deal with the oppisite sex at 3-4 years of age.
I got lucky, I met a good woman who loves me and tries to remind me that I'm no longer there. Still though, all these scars have effected me in my adult life. I couldn't control my life as a kid, I just wished the jocks, teachers had the empathy to see that as well.
Half the replies on here are whining from folks about how "elitist" nerds are. NONE of you even think to ask how that attitude a) may have been adopted by nerds or b) if that's just yet-another social stigma populated by anti-nerds (ya know, like, way back in, like, high school?)
Nerds weren't just the smart guys who used computers. They were kids in band (yes, I was) or theater. They were ANYone who liked to learn, and not all of them were "unbathed savages" as one particular must-have-been-a-jock pointed out.
So many people on here are JUST like the adults of today: so EAGER to blame the problem on the victim. How many of you actually understand the point? How many of you went through the hell that is 7th, 8th, and 9th grade? No, the blame OBVIOUSLY must be that smart kids don't bathe. That's it.
News. I bathed, I wasn't particularly socially unsmart, I was actually somewhat big (180 in 9th grade, and that wasn't fat). But I got crap too. Sure, after 7th grade no one had any guts to actually fight me (it helps when you're four inches taller than everyone), but the hierarchy was clear. And I wasn't alone.
So, instead of modern day American society, where it must ALWAYS be the minority person's fault, or the woman's fault, etc., why don't we OWN UP to the problem and try to fix it, rather than shove it under the carpet and pretend it doesn't really happen like so many American adults of today?
Ciao!
Hi from one of your bullies.
Your self-delusion and arrogance are what cause people to beat up on you.
it's their fault for not being as smart as me - in a way I felt sorry for them;
I hope people continue beating you up for being such a prick.
It's not us nerds who have the problem - we use Linux because it's better.
Oh? You speak for all nerds. Right... I use FreeBSD, and I'm a nerd. I have never been beat up at school, because I'm not an arrogant asshole like you. I do have a girlfriend, and guess what? I didn't meet her at a LUG, she isn't even into computers. Maybe because I don't make my whole life revolve around my computer. There's nothing wrong with having a desire to learn about computers, but the second you start saying "I feel sorry for others who aren't as smart as me", you have ventured into what psychologists call "state of mind", which is the disconnect from reality that most geeks sadly live in.
Get in touch with reality, linux is not the end-all be-all of operating systems. It does some things well, some things poorly. The same is true for all operating systems. I know I'm coming off as a troll, but seriously. Read this through and think about it. No one likes an arrogant asshole.
Reading the article.. the man says, "When we were in junior high school, my friend Rich and I made a map of the school lunch tables according to popularity." Maybe nerds are unpopular cause they would take the time to make a stupid map like that.. if you are constantly concerned with popularity maybe that's your biggest problem.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I wasn't exactly popular, and in fact was a pretty big-time nerd. However I still picked on the kids 'nerdier' than me because I was too immature and insecure and just plain ignorant to know what I was doing was the same exact thing that all the 'cool' people were doing to me.
That's it. Not missing out on 'prom night', not missing out on beer and sex and all that (which came in the dozens later). The only thing I look back on and regret are the few times when I snapped and put down people who I felt were even 'lower' than me. God, I hope they are kicking ass out in the real world and I hope they don't give me a second thought.
MORTAR COMBAT!
No, you were not unpopular because you were smarter than everyone else. If it makes you feel good to think that, then fine, keep lying to yourself. There were many other reasons... Maybe because you didn't try to be social, maybe you smelled funny, maybe you shunned things like physical activity all together, maybe you came to school each day looking like a dork. I don't know but there are thousands of reasons you may have been unpopular.
Slashdot and some of its readers seem to enjoy to perpetuate the myth that all athletes and popular people in high school are dumb while the unpopular people are for the most part misunderstood and are getting the short end of the stick.
Being liked isn't tough. For the most part if you just follow three rules you aren't going to be shunned.
1) Personal hygene. If you smell like feet, and your greasy hair doesn't look like it's been washed in days, people aren't going to like you. Shower daily. Wear deodorant. Brush your teeth. Comb your hair. Wear clean clothes.
2) At least try to be social. People don't like people who don't talk or won't look them in the eyes. Smile, say hi to people you may not even know. When you talk to someone look at them.
3) Maybe try to have similar intrests... If you shun everything most people like, you aren't going to have anything at all in common with anyone are you? I'm not saying you have to become a rabid sports fan, or become glued to watching whatever TV shows kids these days watched... But a little effort to have some of the same interests of your peers goes a long way.
These three rules not only work in high school they also work in real life.
The reason for the bullying in school as opposed to out in the "real world" has nothing to do with maturity. The reason bullying stops after people leave high school is that high school is the last place where you are actually forced to spend time with people you don't have anything in common with. After you "get out" you no longer have to spend time with people you don't like just because they are geographically nearby and living in the same school district. And it goes both ways - the bullies are no longer forced to spend time with the people they don't like, and so their anger toward these people fades too.
I suspect that if you took about 1,000 random adults, and forced them into a program where they have to spend 7 hours a day in the same building, doing the same activities with each other, for four years straight, that even among the "mature" adult population you'd see bullying problems resurface. And NO I'm not talking about working in an office or a factory, because that's not a random sampling of adults.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Sounds to me like somebody can't code...
Casca
I'll bite.
People like knowing things. They love aqcuiring new knowledge, and learning about things. I've explained many things to 'bev' from accounting, and she understands them ok as long as I explain in terms she can understand. If you tell her "Your TCP/IP protocol couldn't interface with the samba server, But I found out that you mis-configured your network settings, so I set up DHCP to connect to the correct DNS server and now everything works ok". Of course she's gonna gloss over.
Everyone has their area of expertise. I'm sure bev could go off about the Financial reports and tax law so fast I would be flat on my ass, but she still takes the time to slowly explain things to me so I can understand them. Do the same for them. You'd be surprised. Just because we have knowledge 3 levels above someone, doesn't mean we have to speak to them 3 levels above their understanding.
sheesh
I think his point in the article was pretty accurate.
Summary for those who haven't read it: American public schools tend to be little more than prisons, with large classes and indifferent teachers, where the kids are more or less left alone to create their own sub-societies (with all the "Lord of the Flies" cruelty that ensues). The nerdy types aren't totally expending their efforts on popularity (unlike most others), so they end up on the bottom of the heap.
This describes the public junior high school I went to perfectly. Education was really a joke there; the main thing was to keep us little darlings under lock and key for some hours while our parents worked, and if we learned something, so much the better (if we didn't, oh well). I got pretty badly picked on, partly for nerdiness (I was taking college-level math at the time) and partly for just being very different (I had just moved from rural Virginia to urban Minnesota).
Before my 9th grade year, I toured the public high school that I was supposed to go to, and immediately my radar told me that I would probably not make it out of that place alive (or at least with all my bones intact). Football stuff everywhere, with glassy-eyed teachers who really didn't give a damn. The other school I could have gone to had just become the first in Minnesota with metal detectors and had a rep for open gang warfare.
I begged my parents to pay for a private school. Somehow, they scraped the money together through loands and so on. (Thank God for my parents.) The first I went to, a boarding school near my parents' home, was a disaster (buncha spoiled rich kids whose parents had dumped them there and never visited them -- Lord of the Flies, Mercedes Edition).
The next year I went to a small, recently founded K-12 private school, where my class was all of 25 students, and where the teachers were all basically rebels from another private school who where determined to make a better school. The kinds of things described in the article just didn't happen there -- the teachers actually gave a sh*t about us, and we didn't feel like we were in some kind of penal colony.
A lot of the reason the school was better was the small class size (harder to have a crushing pyramid hierarchy when you've only got a small number of students) and the teachers actually got involved like *teachers* and not *wardens*.
Another reason is we didn't have jocks. We didn't have a football team, though we did have soccer. And the school's pride and joy was its Quiz Bowl team (hey! I was on it! State Champs in 1989!). Those who had high SAT, PSAT and ACH scores were also publicly praised by the school director (who, by the way, spent lunchtime serving the students corn so he could personally chat with each and every one). So knowledge and nerdiness was actually rewarded, and there was actually positive contact between staff and students.
Sadly, since then the school has grown dramatically (their reputation spread like wildfire, and soon they had huge demand for the school), and the director retired, so I tend to wonder if it has fallen to the same problems as other large schools. But it can be done -- a school in America where nerds are actually valued. I just am very grateful my parents scraped together the money for the place -- otherwise I probably would have spent more time in lockers than in classrooms...
The school, by the way, was Mounds Park Academy, if anyone's interested.
At any rate, even though I tend to be leftish politically, I think the above is a pretty good argument for school vouchers. The public school system in America is so screwed that the only solution is to nuke it flat with vouchers, and let the parents and students sort it out through the market.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
On the other hand, maybe the "He hit me first" excuse is bullshit.
Oh, your post is, buddy.
First of all, situations like this hardly scale to the level of comparison you are describing here. If you want to add rationally to the discussion, please do. But to compare a nerd vs. jock rivalry with a life and death struggle which is largely founded on religion and politics is quite a joke.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
It's a hard concept to communicate, too - that you don't want to be popular, because you don't see "popularity" as anything worth having.
I was a nerd/geek at the "D" table. My most fucked-up high school memory was when a girl from the "C" table who demonstrated she was deliberately faking wrong answers on the tests to lower her grades, lest she end up at the "D" table) confided suicidal thoughts to me.
As I recall, my response (what the fuck, any statute of limitations has long since past, it was long ago that it probably was legally OK for students to just deal with shit like this amongst themselves, and hey, I was a minor and therefore too dumb to know what I was doing :) was something like this:
I have no idea what happened to her; other than that she kept her end of the bargain. I didn't know her that well to begin with and we never really spoke after that; all I know is that she didn't off herself in the remaining four years of high school and graduated with "B+" grades just sufficient to get her into university, though she was probably capable of "A"s.
On my darker days, I like to think I did something good. It's reasonable to presume that if she survived high school, she survived university, and found her way to cubicle-bound conformity along with the rest of us.
On my lighter days, I reflect back on the "better" part of the rant and realize that that going to university is a wonderful cure for nerd megalomania. Nothing like sitting in a room with 130 people and being told "Most of you were A+ students in high school. That ends here. You're still just as smart as you were six months ago, but you're in a room of people, all of whom who are also just as smart as you were six months ago, or they wouldn't be here." in your first Calculus class, and then having the prof prove it to (all of) you, over and over and over and over again :)
Stolen from the <A Href="http://maddox.xmission.com/anime_nerd.html"> Greatest Website</A> in the universe
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1. The "I wish I was Japanese" anime nerd:
Everyone knows someone like this. They refer to themselves as "otaku" and they embrace everything Japanese, not necessarily because it's something unique or interesting, but because it's Japanese. They wear clothing with Japanese or Chinese characters on it that translate to English phrases like "good will" or "long life." They wouldn't be able to get away with wearing a shirt that said "long life" in English because it would just look stupid, but as soon as it's translated into kanji it suddenly becomes cool and mysterious? Please. Since they'll sooner die than admit that their fascination with everything Japanese is a sham, you'll occasionally sense how uneasy they become when confronted with something Japanese that's so lame and obviously for little girls that they almost start to back off from the mountain of stupid they've climbed up on. Almost.
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2. The balding gothic loser with an ugly girlfriend nerd:
This is a goth who's so much of a loser that he's even shunned by other goth losers. A telltale characteristic of this nerd is his inability to stop deep throating his ugly girlfriend in public. They not only kiss, but they kiss in the most vulgar way possible (full on tongue and groping). As if it wasn't bad enough that they're both kicking the funk, they usually sport massive pizza-face crater acne. Barf!
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3. The big-titted lardass nerd:
If this type of nerd was a soup, he would be Campbell's: Thick and Chunky. Girls usually refer to this nerd as "a nice guy," and despite every girl's wish for a nice guy, they'd sooner be shot than date, let alone bang a guy like this. This type of nerd is usually very sensitive and introverted. You can get away with punching this nerd in the face because he's too much of a pussy to do anything about it. However, you can expect to find an entry about what an asshole you are in his blog several days later. And don't expect to be invited to any Magic: The Gathering parties he hosts any time soon.
<br>
4. The nerd leader:
This is the "cool" nerd of the group. The nerd all other nerds aspire to be. You can tell which one is the nerd leader by watching his posse swarm around his every move. No lesser nerd dares speak against the nerd leader's opinion on cartoons, sci-fi movies or debates about which Star Wars characters are able to defeat jedis "if only they learned to use the force." The nerd leader revels in being able to boss around all the other nerds and does so as often as he can to make up for his utter inability to boss anyone else around in his life. This nerd is usually tough shit until you point out the fact that he's 36 and still lives at home.
<br>
5. The "Silent Bob" trench coat mullet nerd:
Tries to look intimidating but ends up just looking stupid as he clumsily trips over his trench coat. Usually has shaving scars and a patchy, random-ass beard because he can't grow facial hair. Thinks he's the character "Silent Bob" from the movie Clerks. Pretends to be above it when other nerds laugh at nerd jokes, secretly goes home and cries himself to sleep.
Remember,democracy never lasts long.It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. John Adams (1814)
...please MOD this parent up.
Being smart doesn't make you unpopular in school. I knew plenty of popular smart kids in high school. What makes you unpopular is not wearing the in-clothes, looking akward or having no social skills. It's about being obsessed with computers or Star Trek. It has nothing to do with intelligence.
"Nerds" like to make themselves feel better by telling themselves that they are just smarter than everyone else and that's why they can't get a girl or everyone hates them. You know what? Get over yourself.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Marge, try to understand. There are two kinds of college students: jocks and nerds. As a jock, it is my duty to give nerds a hard time.
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
Most everyone would agree that to shoot someone in cold blood is murder. Now, how about if that person had a gun leveled in your direction with an intent to kill you? What about if he shot you in the arm? Would your shooting him be murder now? No, it would be self defense.
You are naive to think that every action should be judged the same regardless of the motivations behind it. Psychology does not work that way; the law doesn't work that way; society as a whole doesn't work that way.
Perhaps you should think the subject through before using cliches to justify your point.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
I can't believe this made Slashdot, I really can't belive it. Well, now that I think about it, I can belive it. I'm just dissapointed.
I saw the article on another site, metafilter, I think. and I thought it was idiotic. Basically a winy "People didn't like me because I wasn't smart." rant, with absolutely no scientific grounding whatsoever.
Really, it's just excuse making. "nerds" don't want to believe they aren't popular because they lack social skills, but because they are feared for their intelligence.
It's just not true, there are smart people who are social, and *ghasp* there are smart people who play sports, believe it or not. There were also outcasts who were idiots.
I have a simple rule that applies to just about any kind of argument, especially sociological things like this. Show me real data, or shut the fuck up. An anecdote from a biased, self-serving viewpoint is not data.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I don't think being smart and getting good grades in school are really mutually inclusive. The way the school system works, you can get good grades just by working hard and having a good memory for example, you don't really need to be all that smart. OTOH, smart people don't have to be all that interested in studying or even necessarily good at it. I personally partially lost interest at some point in senior high (the equivalent of it here) and junior high wasn't challenging or interesting at all.
:)
I agree that we shouldn't be so self-centered as to think we are the smart ones and be so quick to classify people as intelligent and dumb. I should know as to a certain degree I used to think that way back in high school but while not everyone who is "smart" is bound to be a nerd and unpopular, I do think that Paul Graham's observations do have some value.
I was unpopular back in high school, a nerd (still am I guess, but definitely not the same kind of nerd). I can think of at least one reason for it.
I didn't really care about what I looked like. I had many interests and used to think it was not important. I just wore what I had and didn't go into shopping sprees to find cool clothes. Nerds usually have glasses too, I don't think it's because they've looked at the screen too much. They just don't look good and that is not good for popularity. Only later did I start to realize that I needed to dress well in order to gain more acceptance but it was too late then. Many nerds and other individuals concerned with everything else but how they look also do this in their adolescence too, of course. But as Graham points out, it isn't really a problem anymore. My father was one of those people, however, and my lack of interest possibly was partly due to him as well.
I've decided that I will try to dress my children better and educate them about it when they reach that part of their life. Probably not the most important thing on your checklist for raising children but something I'd like to get right for my offspring.
Naa, this is just sweet revenge for years of torment. I love coming back to my hometown on vacation from my high-paying job and seeing the assholes who used to pick on me still working retail over at Sears. It's just, somehow.
I don't feel that way about the ones who didn't pick on me and are still stuck waiting tables - I'm friends with those folks.
I loved to learn, but I hated school. School seemed to be more about a social pissing contest than about learning anything meaningful. Inspiring teachers were few and far between, and I just didn't see the point of it all.
Now I'm older (and hopefully wiser) and I think I can help out some of my younger brethren. This is the advice I give to anyone who is struggling in school:
Schrödinger's cat is not amused—maybe.
I found this point interesting, but still somewhat lacking. Certainly popularity can take a lot of work, especially since a lot of it involves conformity -- doing and saying all the "in" things, keeping up with the trends, always being aware of how you appear to others. But I think there's a bit more to it than that. If you think differently, it's a lot more work to conform, since conformity means turning off your natural ideas and just following the trends rather than your own reactions. It's amazing how much effort it takes not to think, or at least to react as though you don't have a mind of your own.
Geeks/nerds are not really outside this. Even among fellow geeks I can be an outcast due to not caring any more about what tech toys or games are "in" now (yet here I am on slashdot, go figure) than I did about what clothes and music were "in" when I was in junior high. I discovered quite early that I was too far out of the loop to even credibly fake interest in the trends of the moment, and that was that.
I do agree with the author's point that kids might not be as involved with popularity if they had something else to do. Though given how much he blamed it on life in the suburbs, I half expected him to start quoting Rush.
What point has life without friendship and social relations? I know I won't give a flying fuck about all the software I've written when I'm sixty and retired - or when I'm 85 and dead!
I would much rather be out on the town partying with friends than sitting in a darkened room figuring out why libDV is miscompiling - don't you people understand? When you are gone, none of this will matter, and the best you can hope for is that you will have left some happy memories for those that survive you.
Please, for your own sake, try and enjoy your lives before they are over, and before the best years of your lives fly past. Of course, if you do prefer debugging programs to the stuff people do together in the flesh, the laughter and socialising and romance, then go for it. It's not for me, or anyone else to tell you otherwise.
But don't refuse to see the value of popularity, and never think it's beyond your grasp - I would say that 90% of 'nerds' could become paragons of friendliness and popularity if they just came out of their shells! Don't change your clothes, don't take up a sport, don't join a gang, just be yourself, smile at people and learn to listen!
I will stop ranting here, but I should point out that the essential lack of intrinsic value in most computing work these days outside of the research and some OSS community projects is what has lent me to switching from an IT career to a teaching one ( including teaching IT at university ). Computing is just a means to a result. Don't forget that.
Just some thoughts.
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
Chances are, you're making double what they're making by the time you're 25
Or, they could be making double what you do, and working a quarter of the hours because they went into management.
There's a stunning portion of us (~17%) that have some type of abnormal psych disorder. Some, not all, of these disorders compell people to detach from the rest of the outside world, either out of complete ahedonic lack of interest in other people or anxiety-stemmed social phobia. My theory is that these people, the folks with the negative (not manic) symptoms, have a lot more time to kill because they're simply not doing stuff out of depression and thus have nothing much to do but watch TV or sit in front of a computer. The other group that have subdued social phobia symptoms obviously find it easier to use chatrooms and other Internet forums for socializing. These aren't necessary the ones that are the culprit disorders in my hypothesis, but FYI some of these personality disorders include paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal (those are NOT schizophrenia), borderline, antisocial, histrionic, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent, etc.
Also, there are higher rates of association of sociopathological disorders with major psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia and manic depression, and to throw one stat at you, roughly one in 33 of us are bipolar. Most of the bipolars have the type (bipolar type 2) that puts the person in the depressed phase longer and hardly ever in the manic phase that it's almost not worth distinguishing them from unipolars. The Internet provides a safer outlet to break the law (credit card fraud, phreaking, dos attacks) as it is less likely to get caught doing that than it is to shoot up schools. Not all people with these disorders have these antisocial disorders (not all dogs are poodles), but we're generalizing here. The Internet also provides very easy access to all sorts of pornography, and paraphilia is also correlated with these disorders at substantially higher rates than the healthy folks. Just take a look at what's flying through your Gnutella monitor. And if you got Windows, check out some of those member-created AOL chatrooms. Paraphilia's all over the place.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there is virtually no association of lower intelligence with these disorders (often the opposite, in fact), so that could also be why the people who are a little too good at computers are, let's face it, pretty weird.
Don't mean to offend anyone, there should be no more shame with suffering from any of these psychological diseases than there is with suffering from diabetes. They're often just as treatable, by the way. And there are lots (most) of the computer whizzes without any thought disorder whatsoever. But I think I'm onto something when I say that various abnormal psych disorders are conducive to both relatively heavier computer use and odd social ineptitude of all sorts, and maybe some of you agree. I'm anticipating a flamebait mod, but this is what I think.
I've been watching the comments fly by, and I notice some common threads, and they fall into behavior that can be categorized by the above article. Some examples are:
1. Nerds deserve to be unpopular because they're socially inept, unwashed, etc..
Here the nerd is defined as someone with less demanding tastes regarding personal hygiene as the accusing group; of course, it is the accusers who gets to set the standards of hygeine.
2. Nerds are unpopular becuase they're elitist.
Some of the people I knew who were unpopular were, some people weren't. I offer up that it may be a symptom, rather than a cause of unpopularity. It's a great shield, telling yourself that you're better than those who would put forth their slings and arrows.
3. "I was good at athletics, and I'm smart/in a tech field, so, since these nerds can't handle it, they deserve it..."
Elitism. Plain and simple, this sort of comment comes either from someone who still exists in the "high school mindset" or was irreparably damaged by it, and now can't escape it.
There's a lot of putting down going on here, and all of it seems to be hypocrisy in the face of this article... I'll put forth a new definition of nerd that tries to steer the conversation to where I think the article wanted: Nerds are those people who were persecuted in the age ranges mentioned in the article, namely from the 11-14 bracket to to the 18-22 range. I think what the author is pointing out is that there is a level of persecution in high school, that usually goes away. This article is about referencing that as a problem, and seeking ways to address that problem. I agree with the author completely, and I plan to better arm my children for what comes ahead, or to keep them out of the school system. In society, ultimately, we are interdependant, and I agree and I say that children should not be isolated from reality.
Author's biographical note:For portions of my schooling career, I was in the unpopular groups, until I finally learned how the game worked. Nowadays, I have diverse groups of friends, some of which would be labelled as "nerds" or "geeks", while others fit into "jock"/"football player"/"cheerleader" stereotypes. They don't mix, because disastrous things happened when forced together, but there is no persecution of any kind going on, as they are able to accept that people live in different ways...
It seems to me that what we really need is some sort of nerd mentoring. I'm in college right now, and it'd be ideal for me to go out and find a middle school kid who fits the nerd profile and help them learn to program. That self-confidence that is born from knowing you have valuable life skills is something that any preteen could use.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
"As intelligence goes up, happiness goes down"
I also disagree with the article about what defines a geek, it's not brains or interests, it's how your rated by the opposite sex. It's not looks it's personality.
In my case, If I'm interested in things that GIRLS think are corney, then I am a geek. Jocks can call you a geek, but only a women can certify your geek status by laughing at your pathetic attempts to hook up with them. This carries over into adult life as well, which is why geeks don't go to clubs(at least I don't).
Looks will not get you geek status either, it is ALL about how you dress and behave. Ugly guys who dress fly and act confident always have chicks, so they cannot be geeks. I'm good looking enough to approach women with confidence, but after about 5 mintues of talking, the women realize I'm a geek and leave...that, and I have no game.
So even though I have been out of school for over 10 years, I am still a geek because I cannot attract the opposite sex because my personality is that of geek.
There is no hope is the point of the article I think.
Sure they are. Graduate at 21, work 2 years, 2 year MBA, entry-level management track position.
When I was popular, I had people wanting to kick my ass, people who were jealous of me and I didnt even know who they are, I had rumors being spread about me for no reason, I had people talking behind my back constantly. Whats the point of all this political bullshit?
The more popular you become the harder it is to determine who your friends are.
There is no correspondence between intelligence and social ineptitude. I've known as many popular smart people as I've known unpopular smart people. Infact, most of the unpopular smart people I knew scored lower on their SAT than the popular. I realize that this is a rough estimate and that SAT scores do not directly relate to intelligence; perhaps it was just coincidence, but still an interesting statistic, none the less.
I judge intelligence not just by how well you do on tests in school, but how you live your life. If you are getting into trouble, and you are doing stupid things outside the classroom I dont give a damn if you get all As, you are stupid. IF you are doing good in life, if you dont get all As so what? You make up for it by how you live.
Alot of smart people are smart but dont know how to be social, thats because they focused too much on academics, then you have people who dont focus on academics enough, but most people focus on neither, they do a half assed job at academics and at living, these are your average people in school, you know the popular ones.
Its easy to be popular, just try to be as average as possible, but have a unique sense of humor. Dress like everyone else, act like everyone else, be stupid like everyone else, and dont have a personality, instead change your personality based on who you are around, be a nerd with the nerds, be a thug with the thugs, be an athelete with the atheletes, this is how you become popular.
But being popular only makes you hated, everyone knows you, including ignorant people who may get jealous of you, this is the downside to being popular, the other downside is no one in any of these groups actually knows you and none of them gives a damn about you, you are just a person who walks around from group to group talking to different people every day, you have no real friends.
This sucks because when you are upset, sad, or need someone to talk to about personal stuff no one is there for you, none of them will want to hear what you have to say, in fact they will most likely share it with the world if you do tell them just so they can get a laugh.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Contrary to popular belief in the nerd community being an unpopular lamer does not actually have anything to do with being smart.
Just because you like japanese cartoons, use esoteric operating systems and watch star trek does not actually make you smart, sorry.
It's not the 18 INT that gets you stuffed into a locker, it's the 9 Charisma.
From the article:
There are many questionable conclusions drawn in the essay, but I find this one to be the most questionable. I believe that most tech-geeks that are working for some of the very largest techno companies/corps would tell you that the Peter Principle is very shockingly real. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for geeks working in non-tech firms (I imagine their geekiness is probably great job security) but when the revenues of a company directly relate to technology and innovation...the results can be devastating. (I mean, look at the tech sector in the US today. *shrug*)
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
I was not, however, a nerd in high school. I was a dork, which is like a nerd, but without the good grades.
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
I was responding to this entire thread of Windows bashers, really... i just picked this one to reply to because it seemed the most pretentious, heh. I don't mind people having problems with Windows; i don't work for Microsoft or anything, and i think alternative operating systems are great, but a lot of these people are just mindlessly bashing the shit out of Windows, either because they automatically think that because many of Microsoft's policies and ideas are ridiculous (and yes, they are), Windows must automatically suck; or because of one of the things i listed in my above post.
Then again, I was a defensive lineman and used to stuff bullies into lockers . . .
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Seriously. This is probably one of the most thought out articles I have read. It clearly points out many of the miscommings of the current system and why they need to be changed. It also shows why it is so hard to see things for what they are at that age.
Truely insightful, but sadly I feel that nothing will come of it other then us hear reading it and praising it. If only all high school, middle school and grade school education boards were forced to read it and actually forced to discuss why things are done the way they are, and not simply say "they are done this way because they have always been done this way".
This is also not just related to public schools, even many private schools are the same. I feel a great followup and possible case study should be made to look at tech and trade schools and compair the social structures with public schools. This might easily show that when students are learning things that are pertinent and useful and not just menial, that they have better lives during their school years and possibly through their life.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Well, I dont know if i agree that you get stronger by being hurt. I think it damages you, and weakens you while making you appear stronger. By being numb it weakens you in other ways which you wont understand until you grow older, by numb i'm saying emotionally numb.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I had good hygene, the bullies didn't seem to care. I was a little smaller than average until midway through Jr. High, at which point the physical bullying tapered off and the emotional harassment started up.
2) At least try to be social. People don't like people who don't talk or won't look them in the eyes. Smile, say hi to people you may not even know. When you talk to someone look at them.
I tried that at first, and it worked in elementary school, i had friends and stuff. Then i got into Jr. High. One of my friends "became" popular and started bullying me, maybe to prove his allegience to his new friends, i don't really know. Other's picked on me too to a greater or lesser degree. Do you know what a fairly normal reaction to that is? To _hide_! If talking to someone will get you teased and bullied, then you tend not to speak up. You stay quiet, stay in the corner, try not to attract anyone's attention.
3) Maybe try to have similar intrests... If you shun everything most people like, you aren't going to have anything at all in common with anyone are you? I'm not saying you have to become a rabid sports fan, or become glued to watching whatever TV shows kids these days watched... But a little effort to have some of the same interests of your peers goes a long way.
Some of the people i had similar interests in turned on my and became bullies. By the time i found other people with similar interests, too much damage had been done to my socialness. When i found a group of people who had the same interests as me but didn't seem to get bullied (they were a Trench Coat Mafia type group) i desperatly wanted to belong, but it didn't seem to work. I was _already_ interested in the same things as them, anime, RPGs, computers, computer games. And we got along okay when we were together in class. However after school they would go off on their own and i wasn't invited. I hoped that if i showed enough obvious interest in their activites, that they would notice, decide i was worthy, and invite me to join them. However by that point years of hiding had destroyed almost any ability to try and actively ask them if i could participate, and i never worked up the courage.
Part of what makes the misfits unpopular is stuff they do, but part of it is how others treat them, and social preconceptions in place before they entered the picture, and part of it is psychological damage done to them by previous bullies.
I was rejected by the nerds, how sad is that?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
From the "Voices from the Hellmouth" posts.
My basic answer is F*** Em. In a few years they'll be looking back on HS as the "best years of their lives."
Just think about, how sad their lives are, that they will never have a better time in their lives.
Meanwhile we Nerds/Geeks/Whatevers are moving on and changing the world (if just a little bit slower then we were a couple of years ago.)
The university is not a flattener of hierarchy, it's a decisive, irrevocable split, the beginning of a lifelong segregation. A "top" and a "bottom" are sheared off, left aside forever.
The bottom--I use the hierarchical terms loosely here, just for illustration--is an "underclass" of people who can't continue their educations for reasons of economic or other deprivation, or infirmity, or youthful error, or simple misfortune. They just aren't there to be disdained anymore. If they were around, they would be.
The top is the rough equivalent of the "nerds" and "stoners" of the linked article, people whose lives simply take a different course because their skills and talents lie outside the set "professional"--like certain kinds of artists or technicians, who have their own, separate schools, or simply mavericks who strike their own paths outside the hierarchy--and/or who view college as merely a continuation of secondary school's horrors, but populated wholly by the priveleged (the "popular" and "nerds" of the article).
The members of your group no longer interact personally with the members of either of these groups, so, in your minds, they don't exist. Sometimes, they deliver you a pizza or make a movie or record you like, but they're essentially non-persons to you...
...judging by the blithe sanctimony your comment, that is.
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
But even better:
I don't think this point can be underemphasized. We think nothing of having a free *intern* in the office. Why couldn't a fourteen-year-old come into the office and hang around and ask questions? In some companies, it would be totally looked down upon. Frankly, in mine, I would consider it to be a boon to a parent's productivity -- and make them feel much better when they can tell the little jerk to go make copies.
I just generally agree with Mr. Graham's views that our education system is generally like a prison system. Kids need to be out in the world exploring. The two main reasons I got through high school unscathed was because I was surrounded by beautiful countryside to play around in and when I went off to art school, I went to a place where my talents were appreciated for what they were. Everyone in my high school had a fairly mutual respect for one another and I think that stemmed from the faculty repeatedly telling us that we were special. Most of my friends thought that the computer skills I had inherited from my nerd Dad were "totally awesome. You know about this internet stuff?" It was practically science fiction to some of them.
I guess I'm just trying to say here that I was really blessed in my experience and I wish all kids could have that. There is something wrong with the system and we all need to focus on that. Really I think that what Paul Graham is saying, what it boils down to, is that children are the only reason society exists.
________________________________________
In most high schools, there is a very distinct pecking order that verges on a caste system. It usually varies between regions, but the basic layout is the same:
- -The Over-Achievers: They take all the advanced classes, participate in student government, sports, and just about everything else on campus. They are (usually) universally admired. Most of the team captains fall into this category.
Teachers, for the most part, do little to change this system, either because they don't care, or they believe that their interference will only make things worse. More often than not, a teacher that steps in to help a student being picked on will be seen as under the teacher's personal protection and will thus be subject to even more cruel treatment once said teacher is gone.-The Elitists: They take enolugh of the advanced classes to make friends with the Over-Achievers, and will usually pick one sport to play, usually on an above-average level. They try desperately to gain the levels of admiration given to the Over-Achievers, but usually fail due to an immature, cruel streak that gets taken out on the less-popular groups. These people are the bullies that the lower groups both despise and envy.
-The Average Kids: The majority of students fall into this category. They don't participate in many sports, clubs, or anything of the sort. Most of their free time is spent hanging out with friends, working, or other typical high-school behaviors. -The Pariahs: The bottom of the rung, this group bears the brunt of attacks by the other groups, either by people trying to get a higher standing, or to simply maintain the one they already have. The Pariahs are subject to discreet discrimination by the Average Kids, brutal teasing & bullying by the Elitists, and a simple denial of their existennce by the Over-Achievers.
So what recourse do the down-trodden, mistreated masses of today's public schools have? Very little. If they speak out on the subject, they are seen as whiners and will be treated even worse than they are now. If they complain to their parents about it, they'll be told that it's a part of life and there is no option but to suck it up and deal.
And now, for the anecdote:
When I was in high school, I did my best to imporve my social standing. I took the advanced classes, I joined clubs, I joined the track team. My social skills were on par with most of the student body, and I had good hygeine(sp?). And I did this with the grace that poseurs lack.
All of it was in vain. The awkward kid from junior high stuck in the minds of those I went to junior high with, and this idea spread among the Elitists. I was isolated in the advanced classes and the clubs until I eventually quit in disgust. I was forced to leave the track team due to an auto accident that screwed up my left knee, and was taunted for being a "wuss" and a "sissy", even though I had to, and still do on occasion, have to walk with a cane because of said injury.
And frankly, it hurt. The utter feeling of loneliness, was sometimes too much to bear. I was seriously depressed throughout high school. I considered suicide, and even attempted it twice. And I had nowhere to turn, except to my other Pariah friends, my books, and my Internet connection. My parents didn't care; it's all a part of growing up. The teachers and administrators could do nothing about something as subtle, and as vicious, and this.
Once I got out of high school and became involced in matters of substance (read: college), I was able to put the pain of the last four years behind me and become a person instead a member of a caste. I changed myself from a disillusioned, depressed wreck into an active college student with an active social life and diverse interests. But just because I've put it past me doesn't mean I've forgotten it.
The only reason I keep my Windows partition is so I can mount it like the bitch that it is.
when a girl from the "C" table who demonstrated she was deliberately faking wrong answers on the tests to lower her grades, lest she end up at the "D" table
This has always been far too common in young girls - it is un-cool to be smart/look smart/act smart. Schools have struggled with this for years, and have improved greatly in some areas like more sports for girls, and special programs to get them involved in technology. Unfortunately a lot of parents still don't get it though, and the trend for the most part continues.
I don't care who likes me and who doesn't.
It seems everybody says that in high school. But as much as the need to talk themselves out of caring what others think, deep down they always do. It's possible your family support was much greater than hers. All too often, the parents again, it is not too important that the girl gets educated properly, hey she's just going to marry someone who is.
If being what they are means being like them, I wanna be as much unlike them as I can be.
Good for you, to think that way in high school. I myself tried, but I think I was 25 before I actually got it.. On a side note, I raised a daughter, and watched her tank through high school, even though I knew better. But I spent a lot of time reminding her of her strengths, and that she would leave all of these so-called friends in the dust. It does help - the family support. She is all A's now, and very career driven. She is indeed, leaving her friends in the dust.
I like to think I did something good.
I'm thinking you did something very good. If only every high school girl - and boy for that matter - could be given that lecture by a peer - there would be a lot less confused teenagers mulling about.
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/9151/educate .html
There have been articles on this in Japanese newspapers, the prime minister even hamfistedly addressed the issue. Everything I've ever read about Japanese schools makes me tend to believe they are real hellholes, worse than American schools. (Well, not the worst of American schools.) There is even a dystopian movie about them called Battle RoyaleAll the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
My worst tormentors in High School were the nerds. The arrogant smarmy nerds, not the nice quiet ones. Why? I think it was cause I'm a girl who was at least as smart as them, and who wouldn't give them the time of day (I was into skater/stoner/goth guys, and a good sense of humor is more attractive than intelligence). Incidentally, I never was a victim of the manipulative social practices girls seem to excel at, but the boy-nerds made every AP class miserable for me. I didn't sweat it much at the time, probably cause none of the kids I wanted to be accepted by cared what the nerds thought. You just have to rise above the situation. A good come-back line is invaluable social currency.
Nerds are unpopular because they spend too much time thinking about why nerds are unpopular.
Shame on Google.
It cant be that serious in the US as this article says! Although brazilian geeks in fact suffer somewhat from prejudice and ignorance, its not even close to the pain endured in the US...
hey you football playing geek abusers, GET A LIFE!
Okay, Okay.. I know. Probably the football playing geek abusers are not avid slashdot readers anyway...
And this would be a great example of why people think geeks are a bunch of elitist assholes.
And this would be a great example of why blanket statements are a bunch of bullshit.
Yes, there are SOME nerds who are elitist, but there are also SOME non-nerds who are as well. Elitism runs rampant in society. If someone thinks they're better at something than someone else, they will invariably use it to bolster their self-esteem, whether someone else hears them or not.
Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
There was only ONE good OS that ever came out of Redmond: ;-)
/sbin/init. (except Irix, can't grok it)
Win2k.
Until you can get the "professional network install" of XP SP1, I've found it isn't worth it.
There will be NT 6.0, and I might get to liking it, but we'll see. In the meantime I can continue my love affair with anything spawned from
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
...at least for your kids. Home school. It's safe and legal in all 50 states. No, your kids will not end up "unsocial". They will likely recoil in horror at stories like the ones here, though, becaues they won't believe that people really treat one another like that. They you'll show them how the holocaust, Sri Lanka, passed-down child abuse, and many other examples demonstrate that ordinary people in bad situations often choose to become extremely cruel.
:).
But anyway--yes, your kids will have to be more important to you than the money or "fulfillment" that would theoretically come from both parents working.
And don't assume home schooling is the same all-day affair as regular school. You can cover a regular day in about two hours. If you want to. Unschooling is a very viable option (harder in the more Nazi-esque states, but still doable).
Search on "Growing Without Schooling" at google for more on that. Read "Learning all the time" or "how children fail" by John Holt. Read "The teenage liberation Handbook"
Graham says apprenticing isn't economically viable now, but he certainly doesn't prove it. People do apprentice at a lot of different things. True, it's nt the default, but that doesn't mean you can't or that it's not available.
If you want to save the world, start by saving your own family. Then you have allies to help you save the world later. Well, that's what I'm guessing. But I need to get off this thing and go play with my kids
Liberty uber alles.
I'm good looking enough to approach women with confidence, but after about 5 mintues of talking, the women realize I'm a geek and leave...that, and I have no game.
It's a really bad idea to open with the line, "Baby... I want to indent your code all night long." Sure, it -sounds- sexy to us; but chicks just don't get it.
The article says "Teenagers now are useless, except as cheap labor in industries like fast food"
but:
- if there weren't a minimum wage law making low-employables merely unemployable
- if there weren't age related employment bans and/or social-services snooping
- if there weren't irreducible minimum red tape and tax burden making every employee cost, even if they are a volunteer
- if young people were not forced en masse into "education" whether they were willing to learn or not
...then would teenagers still be useless? All these things were not present so recently as the earlier half of the 20th century, and there was no "teenaged hormone madness" back then.
How many jobs REALLY NEED a college degree to actually DO the job? (Rather than merely as a "is more intelligent than a goldfish" checklist item, to winnow the resume pile.) How many of those could not be instead learned apprentice-style, working up from office coffee-maker and gofer?
Not vastly many. As demonstrated by the fact that many college dropouts go on to become successful earners, once they've conned their way into their first job.
Truly, school is not merely a prison, but the very need for it to be there in the first place is a socially (and governmentally) constructed fiction.
Oh, and as to the badness of letting teenagers run around at liberty: observe the ruin and havoc created by homeschoolers. (What, there isn't any? How surprising.)
So what can be done in a school to improve the environment?
;-) ) for Physical Education which I hated. So we decided we would rather go mountain bikeing during the same period. We would orgaise a route nearby we would folow nearby and notify the PE staff, we arranged consent forms from parents and said we would be back at the same time.
If kids are willing to act like adults they should be given the same privledges.
If we are going to build prisons (to use the same analogy), then put good prisoners into open prisons, and make the criteria for "good" some thing real.
I had the fortune to go to a fairly enlighted school. Very middle class, most of the kids had support from their parents and most of the teachers wanted to teach us something rather then just escape back to the staff room.
Nerd were still picked on but nothing like to the extent they were elsewhere. I think to some extent this was because being responsible/smart meant you generally had more freedom. The aditional freedom was envied.
For example:
We played Rugby ( think football without the pads
We had to work out what was required to do this, set a course of the right length, organise ourselfs, pursuade the staff this was a good idea and have the initiative to make it happen.
The reward was being able to do something that we wanted, and it was without doubt "cooler" to be seen leaving school for a couple of hours without supervision.
There are two versions of "popular". The first is the one you are talking about: You are liked and respected by your peers, and vice versa. People desire interaction with you and vice versa. Nothing wrong with that, we all want that.
The other kind of popular is what you get in high school, which is exemplified by the other 5-rated comment in this thread. The one where social interaction is turned into some sort of twisted game whose players value "winning" higher than their self-esteem, their health, and their future. That is what geeks refuse to be part of, and I don't blame them at all.
I understand that as a 16-17 year old student, the only Linux users that you have been exposed to are likely elitist uber geeks that like to berade Windows "just because", so I can understand your viewpoint in some respects. I just want to remind you that the majority of Linux users choose the platform out of a want for freedom and for the basic fact that they control the system and how it works (it's really transparent in many ways), not the other way around. Compiling code and choosing what inane window manager to use really means something to those of us that care and have the knowledge to do so (I am not trying to sound elitist, I'm just pointing out this simple fact). Many of the professors that work at my old job use Linux because they have control over it, and can customize their software (or know scientists that can do it for them). My dentist uses Linux because it is free and doesn't crash on him daily (yes, I moved his entire office over from Windows 2000 and XP to Redhat 7.2). My Russian co-worker is in his 50's, is a two time MCSE, and uses Linux because it is more powerful and practical for his consulting (he is a CCNP that contracts out for "heavy duty" connecting-50-networks-together-from-around-the-wo rld networking). The Windows platform does not offer him the amount of freedom and software choice without a high cost that Linux does.
And again, from the experience of a person that beta tested Windows 2000 on a mission critical system and probably was using Windows XP before most people had even realized that it wasn't going to be named "Whislter" any longer, I can tell you that it is no where near as stable as Linux or BSD (especially BSD). It doesn't take a genious to figure out XP, hell it's amazingly simple running a Windows server (or 10, like I used to). The problem is that you know little about what is going on, and even the software companies that you pay a bundle too are reluctant to "give up the goods" concerning the details of how their software talks to Windows. In such an environment, crashes and downtime are inevitable. I understand that your box doesn't crash when you are using it to play Unreal 2003 or download off Kazaa, but try managing 500 workstations running Windows XP in a corporate setting with Netware servers and a variety of legacy database clients and see how many service tickets are generated just to get people up and running again. It's a lot, if you didn't guess that already. A hell of lot more then our Slackware clients back at my college job ever generated anyways.
My current employment affords me the ability to get in-depth info on just how unstable XP really is to hardware device driver writers. It isn't very pretty.
In closing I just want to say that you are lucky. Everyone I work with (and it's a lot, trust me) have their share of XP horror stories. No one has a Linux horror story to speak of. This is an important reason why I enthusiastically use and promote Linux for personal and business use. I also want to commend you for defending your OS choice, it's not an easy thing to do on Slashdot.
...actually read the whole article?
(Oh, I guess I'm a nerd, because I just read a 7,000-word article from start to finish. And enjoyed it.)
To everyone who says that not all smart kids are unpopular: the author recognizes that. He says: "Unless they happen to be very good looking, or great natural athletes, or have older siblings who are popular, they'll tend to become nerds." Note all the exceptions.
To everyone who says that truly popular kids don't bother picking on nerds: again, the article says that. "Most of the persecution comes from kids lower down, the nervous middle classes."
To everyone who pointed out that popular kids feel crappy too: guess what. The article says: "Life in this twisted world is stressful for the kids. And not just for the nerds. Like any war, it's damaging even to the winners."
I would agree that the author errs in completely dismissing the effect of hormones, and the fact that high-school kids are in an inherently chaotic transitional phase of life. But before you make stock replies or accusations of stereotyping, please read the article. Or else you're the one who's stereotyping.
"Nothing like sitting in a room with 130 people and being told "Most of you were A+ students in high school. That ends here. You're still just as smart as you were six months ago, but you're in a room of people, all of whom who are also just as smart as you were six months ago, or they wouldn't be here.""
:)
:) and I had to say no, I'm happy where I'm at, and you had your chance.
Amen. College is the ultimate sorting machine. Nothing like thinking you're smart, than getting put in a room full of smart people, and having to *really* work for it
I hope she survived too - I knew a few people like that in HS.
The "jocks" and assholes I knew in HS...well, I went to my 15th a while back - not that I wanted to that much - but most of the people who had given me shit in HS were working nowhere jobs, whereas I've been self-employed for more than half a decade, happy with my life, and upbeat. The "ladies" were all over me
Also, most of the "nerds"; the friends I had in HS, the ones I played D&D with, talked computers in my folks' basement with, we had few friends then - but we're great friends now, and have lives that are infinitely more interesting than most of the others.
I know where I'd go, if I had to choose again.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I wasn't talking about Japanese culture as a whole. My main point was: intelligence isn't as important to American kids. I do understand a little more about Japan than what cartoons tell me, and I understand that Japan isn't utopia, but the basic principle is that the Japanese do place a lot more emphasis on how good your grades are. Japanese students as a whole spend a lot more time studying and Japanese parents put a lot more pressure on kids to get those grades. The simple fact is that being smart doesn't automatically make you a social outcast in that society.
Views of people through the media are often exaggerated, but often a basic reflection of that society. Look at Saved by the Bell. The popular guy with the cute hair always saves the day, and the nerds are all complete ignoramuses. Look at nerds anywhere in American culture. Nerds on TV are always the comic relief or the bad guy. It's not a perfect representation of how they're really treated, but when these shows become popular, it means people aren't insulted by those depiction.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Yeah...I wasn't the most handsome, well-dressed, social person. I liked D&D, Sci-fi, computers, Broadway musicals, Heavy Metal and books. I didn't care about fashion (once I got out of the 8th grade - parachute pants, camo, etc...
I started to think about the different groups of people and who I didn't get along with, etc... From what comes to mind there were
jocks - got along with them for the most part. Was on track and x-country for a year. Sure...there were insults, but nothing worse than what my office mate and I exchange in good humor. Not the kinda people I'd normally hang out with, but not advesaries
burnouts/dirtbags - The people who wore flannel, smoked, drove old cars that were always being worked on, pissed off at the world, long hair, short skirts, etc... Didn't know that many of them, of the ones I knew, didn't have a problem with them...I liked metal and Led Zeppelin, so I had some common ground. Not to sound condescending, but seems more of them had severe family issues at home - I did not (we lived in a mountain town about an hour out of NYC) so their issues were not mine.
Freaks - (thinking of Freaks and Geeks) Here are the people that liked the Cure and Depeche Mode before it was cool to. The early adopters of piercings, punk haircuts, etc. Different - usually the more artsy type. Knew quite abit of them (hell...small mountain town - not many to begin with - half were on the fencing team) Cool smart people - just sometimes tried too had to be different just to be different.
Preps - These were usually the more popular ones, and as another post mentioned, there was a reason...they tended to try to be nice to other people. Sure...they didn't call you on a friday night to come hang out with them, but they were at least nice enough. Usually the ones more involved with things like yearbooks and stuff. Knew my fair share of them - no problems there.
"The Others" - I don't know what to call these. They are the people who weren't quite gone enough or whatever to be a burnout. They weren't quite ambitious enough to be a prep and be involved. They weren't unique enough to be a freak and geek. These are the ones that were full of themselves...usually didn't do that good in class, didn't play sports, didn't do anything extracurricular, seemed to almost be the ones that couldn't be placed into any other group. Always talking about who was gonna kick whose ass, one of the ones I know in this group kept stealling the neighboors car to go joyriding. Grown up bullies? Rotten apples? I don't know quite how to describe them.
:
This is the only group I can think back that gave me grief in high school The ones as others mentioned would be the first to try and tear you down if you knew the answer to something in class, if they gave you a smart ass remark and you responded they would then launch into more "oh yeah..fucking dork." as their most advanced retort.
These are the ones that as best as I can tell are some still working the same jobs they had in high school or in management positions at a fast food chain, etc... Basically out of the limited sampling of people from all the groups that I know what they are doing now, this is usually the group that has done the least with their life.
To summarize
As a geek there was only a small subset of the students in the various groups that made my life somewhat of a hell...and it wasn't that bad now that I think of it (depressing back then though!) I'm sure others have had it better or worse, but as someone else said, it's what you make of it. After high school, all that bullshit didn't matter - I think that's what seperated the freaks and geeks from the rest - they kinda knew that even though they may take some crap, all the stuff the others worry over doesn't matter. Get to college and there are small cliques like high school - but most of them seemed to be those trying to hang on to their glory days and by the end of freshmen year, most of them are gone anyway.
Now I'm married, own a house, have two kids, friends with all the neighboors from all walks of life, make a shitload of money and people sometimes envy the fact that I work with computers...go figure.
And out of all those years, I have just one regret - that one girl I was good friends with that I never asked out. Talking to her years later, turns out I should have, etc... Cest la vie.
To understand the majority of motivations of a secondary student we must look at primitive man. What are the goals of primitive man:
1. Survival
2. Procreation
3. Control over their environment and peers (promotes survival)
All people strive towards these goals every day to varying degree. The majority of students in secondary school are interested in the shortest path to these goals. They go to school to socialize in an attempt to better position themselves for 2 and 3. This could be termed popularity.
Thus, every student at the school is seen as competition for societal control and procreation. Everyone faces the same hostility that so-called nerds face, however nerds make no attempt to mitigate it. Nerds are people see all the posturing as futile. They don't want in on the contest to be the top primate. I hate to say it but there is a definite intellect barrier. Asking why a nerd doesn't get involved in social circles is like asking why Jeffrey Daughmer didn't feel remorse when cutting people up. They just don't see the point. Nerds have an "i'll win later when I have the advantage" attitude.
This doesn't mean the nerd is intentionally avoiding socializing. Their minds are just running programs in the background just like everyone else. Thus once the "win" threshold is crossed in the nerd's mind, they immediately go into overdrive mode. Get them out of the school society, give them lots of attention and suddenly the become King Caesar. The opportunity for societal gain is too good to pass up. The advantage has been gained.
Basically in nerdese:
non-nerd is to zerg rush as nerd is to battlecruiser
No, it's not.
It's an observation of the intellectual prowess of the majority of the "popular" social group.
And most folks here aren't calling the popular kids "stupid", but rather noting that in general they are significantly less intelligent than most of the nerd/geek clique. As has been noted by others; high grades are not a good measure of intelligence. Most of Junior High and High School is focused around rote memorization. If you could stand the boredom and memorize facts long enough to vomit them back up at the appropriate time you would be a straight A student. I know individuals that made it all the way through High School and College with a 4.0 GPA that are barely above "average" intelligence.
Popular kids are popular for having one or more of the following attributes:
1) They are physically attractive.
2) They are active in "acceptable" sports. (acceptable varies with gender)
3) Their families have significant amounts of money and are willing to spend this money on them and their friends.
"Anti-social" in secondary school means being different from the above "ideal" attributes. The further distanced from the above attributes you are the more ostracized and abused you are.
Intelligence is a part of the equation because kids tend to make physical ability and mental ability exculsive of one another. Athleticism and physical attractiveness are held to such a high degree that even those athletic kids capable of being very intelligent would neglect their intellect (and sometimes do everything they could to appear less intelligent) for the sake of spending time at the popularity game. Feeling self conscious about this lack of knowledge/ability (and being encouraged by adults to believe that athleticism and beauty are the most important things)these kids tend to lash out at the groups displaying prowess in an area that the popular/atheltic crowd does not have (or has neglected to exercise).
And it works in the reverse as well. Smart kids tend to look down on less mentally adept individuals within their own group.
The difference is that one group is capable of inflicting physical harm (and mental harm through intimidation)while the other has only their wit and perceptive abilities to fight with.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
big screen TV
surround sound set up
alphabetical anime DVD collection
any pr0n
Do not:
mention sports
mention computers in any depth greater than "I work with computers" or to recommend the purchase of a Dell or a Macintosh
mention how women find you unattractive
Do:
ask questions about her
listen to them
sympathise with her plights
be ready to provide technical support with making derisive comments about technical skills (right: "ok, that ought to do it." wrong: "you have two System folders! What the fuck did you do, you retard?")
Assuming you have an ok job and hygene, you are now officially interesting to single girls older than 24. Whether or not the trade off is worth it is up to you, though it's worth mentioning that once you land the girl, you can slowly bring out the sports/computers/home electronics talk (keep the Anime well hidden...).
Also, if you only can do one of the above things, keep your bathroom immaculate. That is the #1 criteria by which you are measured by girls. In fact, casually dropping the fact that you can eat off the floor of your bathroom will probably get girls to ask you out.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
Where I live (Elverum, Norway), being a nerd AND being popular is not a problem. I am quite a big nerd (at least all the people I know consider me so), and I have always considered myself everything but unpopular.
After years of watching american television series, I've always wondered why nerds are so unpopular, because if there's anyone I relate to in those TV-series, it's the nerds/geeks.
It's probably because "the nerd stamp" doesn't mean that much in Norway...
After testing, Sensei took a bunch of us out for beer and wings. Nice guy. Very loud, very smart in a Buddha-meets-Jim-Belushi kind of way. One of the junior students, who is kind of a sanctimonious, attention-seeking little guy, said something to the effect of "I don't think I should go to the advanced classes. I feel like I'm holding everyone back. I... I... I..." Sensei put down his beer, and said, "You think you're being humble, you think you're making yourself more worthy of attention by saying this. Fact is, this is your ego talking. You become so concerned with how inferior you are that your training suffers as a result. In fact, you become inferior because you think you are. So go to the advanced classes. Feel stupid. Screw up. Transcend your ego, and get down to business. Forget about 'you'. Think about what needs to be done and do it."
And this, friends, is how we all must be. We need to stop martyring ourselves to the lions of popularity and public opinion. We shouldn't "apply our intellects to playing the game." If we do that, we become the calculating, soulless PUA's and PHB's. We need to learn that the people who seem to cross social boundaries effortlessly do so beacuse they act as if those bounds do not exist.
Think about the last time someone, say, bumped you in the hallway. Did you brush it off, thinking, "maybe they were in a hurry"? Or did your ego take over, spinning the incident into a larger tapestry of us-vs-them, nerds-vs-jocks social conspiracy, all directed at keeping YOU down? If it was the latter, you need to reexamine how you relate to the world, and find a healthier way to do it.
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
> This carries over into adult life as well, which is why geeks don't go to clubs
:) I don't go to clubs because clubs suck; overpriced alcohol, cheezy (ghetto) women and of course, the complete inability to have a decent conversation over the 16" subwoofer pounding next to your ear :)
:) And of course, be urself.
:P )
Bullshit
Really, you're not missing out on anything - clubs are heavily over-rated.
anyway, re: ur comment about certifying status of women; I would agree to the extent that most (ignorant) men depend on a woman's opinion of another man to judge him a man. Coming from a society that is heavily run this way, I can tell you completely it is a crock of shit; my only judge on whether or not a man's a man is by how he conducts himself, certified either by observation or other (trusted/authenticated) men.
Put another way, women are famous for their ability to overlook obvious severe character flaws in men, and ergo, cannot be trusted as
a judge of character regarding men. Certes, I certainly would never trust a man to do whats right if he continiously (in the face of obviously correct behavior) kowtows to the wishes of the women in his life. I prefer men who have the integrity to tell a woman off when she is wrong, rather than suck up to her for a bit of pussy.
The reverse is also true; I prefer women who are confident enough to speak their mind regardless of what others think. Those are the women that are worth their weight in gold....
Guess what, you're *not* going to find them hanging out in any clubs.
So my luckless friend, I say to you this:
Decide what you want in a woman, then go where they congregate
Given enough thoroughput, you're bound to be successful (if nothing else, statistically speaking
I went to a very mixed high school, so I had the wannabe thugs and the snobby high class kids to deal with. I came from a middle-high class family in the middle of the town making friends with the A, B, C, and D table (I think I was C freshman and sophmore year, and B my junior and senior year).
I was a geek, I spent from 2:30pm until 12am on my computer doing stupid shit everyday. I was in the honors classes because the standard classes were too easy, however I never did my homework because of the computer and my grades suffered. In high school I wrote various Windows programs, became a consultant for a reputable web hosting company, and had more friends than my older sister had when she was in HS. She was head of the cheerleading squad, student body president, all AP courses girl that everyone wanted to get with. I never used the 'I am her brother' method to gain popularity.
The fact that I was a geek was what made me popular in my school. Freshman year, yea I used to get teased (but held my own if anyone tried to bully me). Sophomore year I bought a blazing fast 2x CD burner right after we got our trial cable modem (I was able to pull 10mbit with that thing.. those were the days) and proceeded to hit IRC for the latest music albums. I figured I didn't get to go to the mall often enough to buy music so I'd download the CD off of IRC and make my own cover using cdnow.com's cd cover and various artist images on the internet. The next day I walked in with Mase's new cd a day before it was supposed to come out. Everyone was shocked when I said I made the cd myself. For my sophomore and junior year of high school I sold bootleg cds to e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e.. even my principal. When Nas came out with I Am, I had a bookbag full of 40 bootlegged copies and sold them all in one day... in essence I bought my friends.
Senior year I realized how stupid it was to steal music (I was the only kid in my school that argued against napster) and used my free time to write games and programs. I didn't expect to really talk to many people that year, but everyone still hung out and partied with me. Everyone, including the high class snobs and thugged out football players told me that they expect me to do something or be somewhere big after college.
The day I left high school will probably be the saddest day of my life because so many people liked me for who I was. A geek.
-dk
I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a lady's man, but I imagine lumping the three billion members of "opposite sex" under one stereotype is counter productive.
I'm beginning to suspect that "they" are as diverse as "we" are.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
We often falsely assume that, throughout history, all change equals progress.
Maybe by recognizing that social conditions for fulltime mothers, highschool kids and prisoners are very similair, and leading to these destructive popularity contests, that we can go about make some real improvements.
It might be my imagination, but I remember computer programmer being a really nerdy and looked down upon profession until Bill Gates was named the richest man on the planet. Since then it appeared to me that it then got grudging respect from even Joe Bloggs in the street.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
What I noticed about nerds in high school (I was a stoner, almost as bad) was the incessant need to show how smart they were. Always correcting others in conversation, especially on obscure points. And with that Comic Book Guy tone of voice. It's not really about how smart, it's about social interaction.
I grew up in a small town in Indiana. I had the double whammy going: smart and without a lot of money. (Remind me to rant about _The Bell Curve_ one of these days.) I couldn't wait to get to college and make something of myself. But while I was pretty sad through most of school, the happiness I have now completely outweighs it. I live in Austin, a much larger and more diverse place, and I've found true friends. My career isn't what I thought it would be earlier, but it's enough to keep the roof over my head and give me time to do interesting stuff like theater. And I have an amazing husband who refused to let me believe I was uninteresting, unattractive, or otherwise unworthy--after about 5 years, it started sinking in. A piece of advice to those of you have or are going to have kids yourselves: think carefully before you immediately flee to a suburb. I think it would've helped it I had gone to a larger school, where the odds were higher of meeting others like me and I could have had some opportunities a small school didn't offer (broadcasting equipment, languages other than French or Spanish, etc.). The point of TNG's "Tapestry" was that all the pain and mistakes in your life help make up who you ultimately become, and I try to look at my past the same way. Anyone who says that high school was the best time of their lives ... man, I pity them.
I think, reading this thread, it seems that people are using it to victimize themselves. Its been 4 years since high school for me, and i'm not going to tell a success story worthy of springer, but I can tell you, i've stopped holding grudges, and I think some people on this thread havent. That's what college is supposed to be, people, a time to expand your abilities, not hide out and write shell code for linux. You can do that when you're 40. What you CAN"T do when you're 40 is be viewed as a potential sex partner but a ditzy blonde with a push up bra. So go to the gym, roll up your sleeves, and say stupid things that make people laugh. Then go home and write code. Or only spend your time doing one thing, and judge people by how they perform on the one thing that you actually excel at, because that's what it seems alot of people are doing lately.
Let me tell you my view of things:
.45 over/under derringer under my nose to freak me out one day... Then turned around, dumped out the bullets into his father's bureau drawer, and showed me the empty gun saying what a pussy I was. But, I saw the hollowpoints that had been there before. Nice, for a ten or eleven year old kid, huh? But that's New York for you.
All my life, I've been one of the smartest kids in whichever school I've been in. I'm not saying this as a brag, but to frame the post: when I was 12, the state said my IQ was 138; later, when I took the SAT, I scored in the top two percent across the board. And, this was the OLD SAT, back in 1987, when it was significantly harder than it is today. I'm in Mensa, for what that's worth, and I'm a senior Programmer/Analyst. I think, I'm a pretty good one.
All my life I've been picked on without mercy -- until that is, I spent two unhappy years in the United States Marine Corps learning how to kill people. That seemed to change the balance of power quite a bit (for those who are wondering, yes, I got an honorable discharge, as a Gulf War vet, yes I was a Fleet Marine, Infrantry, and yes, I got it early -- long story).
I never consciously did anything to deserve the abuse, except trying to do well in school. But, that sometimes is enough. The other students hated me for it, for making them look less smart in comparison, for knowing answers they didn't know. Some of the teachers even hated me; I remember my fourth grade teacher humiliating me in class after my statement that ice ages were a periodic phenomenon (it was innocent, we were talking about it at the time). She told me very sternly that there was only "one great ice age". Then she brought over the "science teacher" who backed her up on that. It was amazing to me; I knew for a FACT that there have been several ice ages. In fact, she later admitted to my mother, during a parent-teacher conference in which my mother put her on the spot, that she didn't really know whether there were one or many, but she wasn't going to let some kid get the better of her. Typical.
Or I could tell you how my english teacher, an abusive asshole who was known for striking his students physically, gave me an F on an english paper for using the word "alas". He said, "Sixth graders just do NOT use the word alas!" So I used it in a sentence, and he sent me to the principal's office for being a smartass.
I could tell you how many times I was physically attacked by other kids, humiliated in various ways, hit and struck and threatened, how one guy pointed a
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The teachers were mostly hostile, the students were mostly hostile, and life was a living hell. I don't want to hear any crap about how it's just the system that makes this happen, or how the kids aren't actually evil. Let's make no bones about it. Most of the kids going to public schools are mean little bastards, plain and simple. And, the teachers don't care, so they have a free rein to do as they please. If you're smarter than they are, and you make them feel small, no matter how unintentionally you do it, you're going to be the target of their pathetic, cruel vengeance. And, that's what this is all about. Vengeance, for being smarter or more interested in studying. It's not about envy, it's not about desire. It's about hatred, and vengeance.
In high school, I lucked out: my parents had had enough of watching me get abused in the NYS public school system, so as of the eighth grade I went to a private school populated by rich kids. They picked on me a little, not so much for being smart, as for being poor. They made fun of my clothes and my virginity, mostly -- they were going to all these cool parties, doing drugs, drinking... I was home studying, and this made me suitable for teasing. But, thank God, it was nowhere near as bad as it was in public schools. Most of it was pretty harmless, and some of it was good-natured. And, I never got beat up by anyone. In fact, one of the only real problems I had was all the leftover hostility and paranoia from my years in the public school system!
The only really awful thing that happened to me in high school was a continuous torment by Jessica, who was supposedly the prettiest girl in the school (actually, she wasn't, but she was very pretty). She knew I liked her, so she tormented me continuously, trying to set me up for hideous pranks... For example, one time she tried to trick me into taking my clothes off with a dozen students hidden behind a door nearby -- I didn't fall for it, thank God. I opened the door and embarassed her little audience. Another time, she nagged me into taking her to a public dance in my junior year, and then didn't show up, so I had to listen to my "friends" Mike and Kevin take odds from people, bookie-style, as to whether she's going to show up. But even that wasn't that bad. Just kind of annoying, and hurtful. It was nothing like the beatings I had to deal with in public school.
I had a long and unhappy childhood, and the first ten years of my adult life were unhappy as well. I am not inclined to forgive any of the people who tormented me, nor am I inclined to write off their abuse as "just the structure of the system" or "something nerds get because they don't want to be popular". Abuse is abuse; the torment I received ultimately turned me into the crazy, celibate hermit I am today. And, I'll tell you, a society that vilifies people simply for being smarter, or a little more shabbily dressed, doesn't really deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt. Is high school like prison? Sure. Are the students like inmates? Sure. Does this mean that basic human nature, unrestrained, is cruel and vicious? Perhaps. But these are not excuses!
Sometimes I think I'll be alone until the day I die. I really only want to date someone who is in the same boat as me; I don't want to think about ever dating someone who, back in high school, was one of the abusive types I loathe so completely. My only hope is to hook up with a woman who in high school, was neutral (didn't associate with any cliques really, and didn't pick on anyone). I don't think it's going to happen, so I keep to myself, I work on my PC, and I program. It sustains me; my machines are better companions than any person (aside from my parents, who have always loved me) has ever been. I might buy a dog at some point. German Shepherds and Rottweilers are pretty smart, loyal, and friendly.
As a final thought, MY kids (if, that is, I ever have any) are going to private school as of grade six. NO FUCKING WAY are they going to put up with what I put up with. And, I'm going to dress them well, and teach them about what I call "social camoflage". If they can't fit in because they're smart, at least they'll be able to fake everyone out and get out with their skins (and minds) intact.
Just my two cents.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
I can't help but notice a few common threads among all of these posts. For one, high school was a horrific, life altering experience for most of us. Kids were cruel and brutal, teachers didn't care, and maybe even joined in themselves. We have all stuck our heads into a computer, because it was easier to figure out compared to people. We could have control over something, in a world where everything seemed out of control.
I also notice that this seems to be true for those over 30ish. The younger ones, claiming to be in college now, seem to say they had little or no problem. Maybe the schools really have improved a little, that would be good. But I also notice, for each of us that went through hell, including me, that we all switched schools to survive. And again, there are success stories - decent jobs, educated people, much more enlightened about the world, sensitive to others, and civic minded. With all of our crutches and scars, it looks like we all came out pretty good after all. You won't be alone forever. Just get out there and smile, and when you take the time to get to know someone, you might find out that the same things happened to her.