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We Are All Nerds Now
Anonymous Slob Nerd. writes "The Guardian has a good review of something close to all of our hearts. We are all nerds now discusses how the popularity of the internet, video gaming, comic-book movies (Spider-Man, Hulk), the sci-fi epics (The Matrix, Star Wars) and the wizard fantasy (Harry Potter), not to mention The Lord of the Rings has made nerds, and nerdish behaviour, cool."
No. We just feel better about being nerds.
All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
Liking all of those things doesn't make you a geek. Getting in depth on those things makes you a geek. I like cars, but I couldn't flush a radiator. Does that make me a Gearhead? ... Yes I liked Star Wars, but when I turn into my friend who can play 6 vs. 1 at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit and beat us in two turns(all 6 pies and the center).... thats a damn Star Wars geek.
If everyone were bakers then who would grow the wheat?
Nothing can make nerdish behaviour cool. That's one of the fundumental axioms of social psychology.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. If you doubt this distinction, spend a few minutes and I'll bet you can easily think of two other things that have allways been popular but have never been cool, and at least one thing (YMMV) that is cool but has never been popular. Do this when there is no one within earshot so you won't have to explain your laughter.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think it was the .com bubble, the millions of dollars and the fancy cars that did that.
All this means is that there is more evident stratification in geekdom. Once upon a time, you were either a geek or you weren't. Now, there are levels of geeks. There are wannabe geeks, plain-old geeks, gamer geeks, alpha geeks, BOFHs, etc. Think of it as a multi-level geeking scheme. Geekdom with middle-management. A pecking order. In other words, associating yourself as a geek has become akin to associating yourself with any other group: gotta work your way up.
We aren't all nerds.
How many of us couldn't get a date in high school?
How many of us were better in math than phys ed?
How many read Ender's Game and really, really felt it deep in their heart?
How many know and enjoy a joke that makes a pun on ergs?
Even today, how many of us stand out immediately in a room as the nerd?
I was a nerd before it was cool.
I was a nerd while it was cool.
And I am a nerd now that it is becoming less cool after the dot com crash.
--xPhase
The following sentence is TRUE. The previous sentence is FALSE.
It's more than the Guardian caught. Lok at the "classic" B-movies from the late 70s/early 80s, that featured the nerds, and the jocks/cheerleaders... In the post computer (and NASA, modern pharmacuticals, chemical advances, and the general explosion in engineering and technology) and wall street (80s greed is good, smart people making millions on wallstreet, etc.) and the cheesy comedies that were still appealing to the (now older) baby boomers feature 30 and 40 somethings.
Al Bundy is the classic stereotype... High school athlete and popular kid, now sells shoes. How many movies can you remember from the 90s that had people going to their high school reunion, terrified of seeing their tormentors, and their tormentor jock/cheerleader classmates worked in dead end jobs and their cheerleader wives got fat and miserable. And our hero, the high school nerd, impresses everyone with their accomplishments in business, engineering, etc.
The post-WW2 economy was about manufacturing jobs and the middle-class careers came from there.
The Information age jobs stemmed from math, science, or general intellectual pursuits. Sure Jobs/Gates made billions with computers, but Wall Street traders made millions in the 80s, and those weren't the football washouts.
There was a cultural change that followed the baby boomers aging. Manufacturing was replaced with the service sector, and the service sector is divided into minimum wage temps and high paid managers, with less and less middle management every year.
The good looking and popular football player that excelled in the factory because he was worshipped is gone, and the stereotype is now that he works as an automechanic or car salesman. The geek is seen as a high paid engineer or a successful executive.
That's been the see of change.
Alex
We're geeks, dammit!
Some of us are - what differentiates nerds and geeks is that geeks have social skills.
For an example of the difference, watch Wargames - specifically the part where Matthew Broderick goes to the computer lab to get help from Jim and Malvin. Jim was a geek, Malvin was a nerd.
You forgot one:
5) You have a platonic female friend
You're desprately in love with your "friend" of 10 years, only she doesn't know it. It tears you up inside but you can rest assured that you will never, ever work up the balls to say anything. You will just continue to listen to her complaints about how her boyfriend is a jerk and how she can't seem to find "a nice guy like you".
The casual moviegoer sees LOTR and The Matrix as just action movies. A lot of my friends just say "I saw the Matrix, cool kung-fu but I didn't get it".
LOTR is also another movie simply loved by the masses because it's so hyped up. I flipped through one of those popular culture mags and found all sort of Return of the King promotional stuff for sale or contests you can enter, with posters etc. Do you think they'd have John Howe paintings as posters in those magazines if LOTR was simply a dusty old book instead of never being made into a movie franchise?
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
there's one nerd metric that has yet to break into the mainstream (to most, trinity using ssh exploits was just 2 seconds of gobbledygook): unix.
As long as windows is the number one OS, unix will remain firmly under control of the REAL nerds.
We've now got lots more products that cater to the female market. There's the Goth section, with the Living Dead Dolls...
Something I've noticed is that about 80-90% of the goth-type people I meet can be described as geeky-- most are into sci-fi, graphic novels, have web pages, are proficient with computers, etc. My theory is that they were nerds first and then migrated to a subculture baroque enough to accomodate the intensity of their interests (which was channeled into the whole 'black' aesthetic). Alot of geek girls have goth tendencies, which is another attraction for the social outcast male.
I get beat up a lot less now that I wear 16 hole doc martins, anyway. Though I'm still a 130 pound weakling.
iopha
Great. That only makes you an elitist. A Poser Nerd. True nerds don't care about what they look like or their order in the social chain. If love of science and technology becomes more widespread, then you should be happy that you can continue your hacking in a community, rather than as a prosecuted individual.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Spiderman, Hulk, and Harry Potter...these are targeted at *kids*. Sure, the Harry Potter books are good (I've read the first four), but we're really talking about fantasy books that sell the most among preteens. And who buys Spideman and Hulk *toys*? Kids! Duh! Sure, adults have fond memories of superheroes, but we don't obssess about them. The movies are more feel-good nostalgia than anything else. But none of this has anything to go with the general populace being nerds.
Now the rise of the PC, that's unsettling. You hear middle aged women talking about firewalls and WiFi, and it takes some getting used to. But realize that PCs are completely mainstream now, so this shouldn't be a big shock. The catch is that such people use their computers to do their work, or to browse the web, or whatever, and don't just obssess about computers for computers' sake.
Excellent breakdown there. I wonder, though, if all these tendencies flow from the same source; is it really possible to have one or two, but not the other? Have you ever seen a geek who never had any really, really wacky personality quirks, aka dorkiness? Maybe there's a reason so many geeks are in SCA, fencing, LARPs, etc.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Internet/Electronics:
:)
Just because us nerds made technology easy enough for the general population to use does not mean that the general population is nerds. Technology has always progressed and there have always been people who push technological development and those who simply use the results. When the general population can design these technologies then you can talk.
Video Games:
This has never been limited to nerds. When the nintendo came out, all the kids wanted one not just the nerds. I have a friend that works at a game store and he says the worst part about it is that half the people that come in are the stupid jocks with the "this game is cool cause you kill people" mentality. The only video gaming that have been specific to nerds are MUDs, and for that matter, pen-and-paper roll playing as well. So the popularity of MMRPG's is a step in that direction, although the potential for creativity is much less than MUDs and other role-playing games. Fantasy goes along the same lines. Everyone likes a good adventure, only geeks build entire worlds in their imagination.
Comic Books:
Again, in my dad's time, all the boys liked comic books. What makes you a comic book geek is knowing every single aspect of every single comic, to the point where you are more in touch with the comic book universe and more capable of spotting plot inconsistencies than the creator himself. Diddo for star wars, star trek. Plenty of non-geeks watch those shows. Only the geeks worshiped them
The whole bit about how nerds are succesfull after high school has also always been true. And nerds are still treated the same way in high school as they have always been. The only change in that dynamic, which he barely mentioned, is the new goth, freak, punk groups that have grown staring around the late 70's. They tend to be more nerd-friendly than the popular people.
But yeah nothing he said indicated any sort of signicicant change.
Seriously folks, does anyone else feel this way? I don't mind at all being called a geek. I fit the profile. That's cool. But "nerd"? I dunno, I've just never liked the sound of that. It seems more negative somehow. Thoughts?
I hate to be the one to say this, but this is such a load. I see a story like this every few months. It's the product of nerds trying to validate their existence.
I am a nerd myself. I'm a programmer, computer enthusiast, video gamer, star trek fan, and lanky white guy whose social skills are always in question.
However, I have no illusions about what I am.
Nerds are relative to non-nerds. You can call them Jocks, but that's not the whole of it - Nerds are compared against anyone who is not a nerd. Yes, Geeks count. You are not special just because you change the word.
I'm sure everyone is wondering what a non-nerd is. It's easy to say someone who is jock-ish, works out and is well built, good with the ladies, has some fashion and hygiene sense, works a blue-collar job that makes them dirty every day, and doesn't flinch at loud noises. Add a general lack of intelligence, and you've got yourself a non-nerd, right?
That is an insufficient description of a non-nerd, however. Some nerds work out (usually in a martial arts class) and have good fashion sense. It's simpler to define it as someone who exhibits fewer nerd-like properties than the nerd they are comparing themselves against.
Take two seemingly identical nerds. When they argue, whoever wins by pounding the other with logic and refusing to stop arguing is the bigger nerd. Whichever one has less muscle, and/or is less tan than the other guy is the bigger nerd. Whichever one likes Star Trek more is the bigger nerd. See how simple it is?
And the funny thing is, whichever one considers himself "less" nerdy than the other guy, no matter how nerdy he is, is still a big nerd - however, he does get bragging rights to call the other guy a nerd and proclaim that he is not one himself.
So let's just stop already. We're all nerds, if you want to get technical about it (and if you do, you're a big nerd) but some of us are far less nerdy than others. Those people have every right to call the nerds nerds, beat them up, laugh at them, and assault their self-esteem.
It's your job as a nerd to either accept your place in the pecking order as a nerd and forget about it, dealing with the occasional wedgie or insult now and then, or try to make as many other people as possible look more nerdy than you.
# Erik
I'm sorry, I don't care how much Klebold and Harris were 'picked on' etc. They probably could have had better parenting, and maybe they were picked on a lot, but there is simply no way to justify what they did, or apologize for it. And calling 'Jock culture' in Colorado a 'driving force' behind their actions ignores the fact that they were the crazy fucks with guns, not the jocks, or the adults that embraced the jocks after the a incident, or the local news or whatever. There is no excuse for what they did, and no apology either...
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The Lord of the Rings has made nerds, and nerdish behaviour, cool."
Watching the LOTR movies is definatley cool, but if you ever say "I've read those books at least 5 times, and the Battle at (whereever) was better in the book" then that is definately NOT "cool."
The good looking and popular football player that excelled in the factory because he was worshipped is gone, and the stereotype is now that he works as an automechanic or car salesman. The geek is seen as a high paid engineer or a successful executive.
No the "good looking and popular football player" goes on to becomes a salesman or marketing exec making a nice 6 figure salary (probably getting a nice Christmas bonus as well). While the geek/nerd works a dead end system admin job or script writer for a measily 65k a year (probably getting a mug or mousepad with the corp logo as a Christmas bonus).
Yeah there are exceptions to the rule, but the bottom line is on average the good looking charismatic salesman lives in the pseudo-luxo mansion making money off the products produced by the tech monkey.
They're so much easier than thinking or considering individuals.
--- Ban humanity.
nerdish behavior is not even becoming -popular-. what's becoming popular is merely -part- of the content that used to be exclusively in the domain of the nerdish. it's being coopted and de-geeked. as acceptance of parts of our domain grow, some of those parts are merely breaking out of our social stigma.
watching a scifi or fantasy movie may not be nerdy anymore, but reading a scifi/fantasy book, or discussing the technology/philosophy still is.
having a collection of comic-based movies may be cool, but having an actual comic book collection will still get the derogatory labels applied.
no friend-geeks, this is not 'our' time. this is merely a time of acceptance of some of the content and media we embraced long ago.
those who lead can never be part of the pack.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
When you start trying to do things with technology that arn't mainstream, like using linux or even just making a webserver on your mom's computer, then I'd say you are getting there.
I'd say that this isn't even enough. "Geek" or "Nerd" isn't about achieving a milestone...it's a process - a way of life that is focused on technology, technical skill, and forward thinking. It is a passion, not an event. People who are geeks EARN that distinction....not by installing the latest uber-cool Linux distro, for example, but by knowing why one distro might be better than another within a given set of circumstances. HUGE difference.
I hate star trek
Ive never played D&D
I stay away from video games
so does that mean I'm not a nerd.
I allways thought that being a geek meant that you were really jazzed about technology,
that you believed in the future of technowlogy and wanted to play a part in its future.
to me a geek or a nerd is someone who cares more about performance that looks.
when i call myself a geek or a nerd. most people think I'm crazy, but then they see me spending at least 20 hours a week learning new technology or experimenting with new OSes or applications.
thats what a geek is to me, so i think that the author of this article is seriously missinformed. and well i didn't read anything other than the headline.
They're mimicking what they percieve our culture (or lack thereof) to be because we're the media's flavor of the week.
Do you really think these nerd-wannabes are going to wannabe anymore once they realize that true nerds actually respect traits like intelligence and critical thinking? Or that real hackers don't really look like Neo or Trinity, or wear cool black trenchcoats filled with submachine guns.
To appreciate and absorb our culture...they'd have to enjoy learning.
To appreciate and absorb their culture...we'd need a head wound.
(wow...that sounded kinda bitter, huh? Sorry, I need more caffeine.)
BTW, I like your SIG. I've been flying stuntkites since the early 80's...nice to run into a fellow kiter. peace.
In referring to LotR, I was speaking not of the books, but of the movies, which, in addition to being a fairly-faithful, well-realized version of the story, also have "blockbuster" written all over them. Sure, Jackson was working from great source material, but he was also shooting a big-budget movie trilogy. And that's what's gone mainstream, not the original Tolkien.
;P I read The Silmarillion before I read Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, and loved it. Can I have my Nerd Card back now?
Sorry I didn't make that clear; I was relying on parallelism with the Matrix reference.
The origins (and the circumstances/motivation under which they were written) of these disparate trilogies are completely different and no self-respecting nerd would lump them together.
Oh, get out.
As a proud nerd, I feel it's my obligation to point this out. LOTR is an icon of nerd'ness, but the Matrix is today's FX flavor of the week.
I always figured the writers of The Matrix had just played a bunch of CP2020 or Shadowrun before starting on the script. The main characters are so Solos/Street Samurai in the Matrix scenes, and so Deckers outside. That's pretty nerdy.
Or maybe I'm just projecting.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
...not to mention The Lord of the Rings has made nerds, and nerdish behaviour, cool.
Oh, I wish.
Anyone who is truly passionate about something can be a "nerd."
Not really...you wouldn't call a rabid football fan a nerd even though they are truly passionate about the game to the point of it interfering with a "normal" social life.... It requires passion for some abnormally complex interest to be a nerd...passion for something that requires thought to comprehend...or passion for learning new things "just because".
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
Absolutely some 'nerd' things age becoming more mainstream. But most of those thing's weren't nerd exclusive. And most of the things the article refers to are entertainment, and a casual interest in it.
I'm guessing there are two things that make a nerd. It's not the object of interest, but the intensity of interest. Star Trek is fun. Lots of people like Star Trek. Not everyone that likes it knows the design specs of all of the Enterprises, or has seen every episode over 20 times, or any of a number of things that say "obsessive".
The Japanese have a great word. Otaku. It's not a good word. Otaku are the people that everyone lokos down on as having no life. And they don't. Not all people labled Nerds are Otaku though. A lot of people with that label are simply interested in the same things as Otaku. Now someone is saying that interest in something that a Nerd is interested in, makes them a Nerd.
I'm thnking that the other thing that makes a nerd a nerd, is a certain type of intelligence. It seems to be a combination of classical thought, with a scoop of imagination. You might say that Nerds are smarter than the average person, but that isn't always true. They just think a little differently. And seem to be alot more prone to sarcasm.
Being a Nerd will always be who you are, not what you like. And chances are, I'll always be a Nerd. And that's a social group I don't mind being a part of.
Two Rules For Success:
1) Never tell people everything you know.
It was meant for it to say "Blessed are the geek for they shall inherit the earth."
Nope. It's not that we lack the gumption to speak up. It's that we understand, deep down, that doing so would be a disaster.
I spoke up. I'll save you the liquor-soaked, mall-parking-lot-at-3am speech she gave me about all men being untrustworthy with her feelings and how she couldn't just talk to any of them. I'll spare you the running commentary in my mind comparing my self-worth and the current cost of chopped liver. I'll just say this: I spoke up. I let her know that what she was looking for was sitting right next to her. And how did the hottest babe you've ever seen up close react?
Blank stare.
More blank stare. Jaw drops open. Some part of her emerges from the fog of intoxication just long enough to remember that this guy is a nerd, for God's sake! How dare he even entertain a fantasy of being anything other than the muscle who hauls boxes when I move out of my apartment! And then, she speaks:
"Get out! Get the fsck out! How dare you hit on me when I'm in pain!"
We never spoke again.
So guys, you think all you need is courage? Forget it. The fact that you think only your reticence is standing in the way of hooking up with that special platonic friend is the ultimate proof that your relationship insights are nonexistent.
Don't some of you folks in this thread feel a bit silly for identifying yourself with a particular group whether it's nerd, dork, geek, jock or whatever?
Group names are what *other* people might use to categorize you. They need to do this to make sense of their world, keeping everything / everyone in it's place, so they don't become confused.
I find it rather demeaning, limiting, and usually phony, when a person classifies him/herself. Very "fraternity-ish." Don't you feel a bit limited in scope when you pigeonhole yourself into a artificial/imaginary group?
Perhaps it is more wise to just be yourself, do what you want, and let others worry about name-calling if they need to. Be proud of being such a well rounded and complex individual that you defy categorization.
OK, there seems to be a lot of heartache going on here, so I gotta chime in..
First, I've been in pretty much every type of "platonic male/female" relationship there is (mutual interest, mutual disinterest, and one-sided interest - from both sides) and it's not as bad as you guys are saying..
First - 'unrequited love': if you don't tell her, of course it will stay 'unrequited'. Women (for the most part) expect the guy to make the first move. If you don't, she'll think you're not interested.
Pick a good time, and tell her. Don't wait until she's vulnerable, don't do it while you're vulnerable, don't make it seem like you're coming on to her, just be honest.
Tell her how you feel - and more importantly, tell her why you're being honest (because she should know, if she doesn't already), and even more importantly, explain that it's not a big deal if she doesn't reciprocate (which it shouldn't be - your feelings are already there, and they haven't affected your friendship - it's no different now that she knows about it.)
Doing otherwise is just dooming yourself to pain.
Platonic female friends aren't evil. If you have (or develop) feelings, share them, but not in a "I'm so desperately in love with you I want to cut off my arm and send it to you for Valentine's day" way.
The best quote in the whole article, which I'm surprised hasn't been remarked on here:
Over at Marvel studios, there is a similar respect for the web user. "I used to hate the internet," studio chief Ari Avad recently confessed to USA Today. "I thought it was just a place where people stole our ideas. But I see how influential the fans can be in building a consensus. I now consider them as film-making partners."
I mean, did you catch that? A movie studio head who *doesn't* think the Internet is just a place for having his IP stolen. Good gosh, what's next, actually *using* the Internet to make money? Maybe there's hope yet...
# To appreciate and absorb their culture...we'd need a head wound.
(wow...that sounded kinda bitter, huh? Sorry, I need more caffeine.)
Actually, that pretty much sounded like reality. The jocks may have all thought we were dorks because we weren't "cool" or good at sports (mostly, we didn't even care about sports), but we had a whole different definition of cool, which involved things like having a brain that worked, and we thought the jocks were dorks, too, and disliked most of them intensely. Not just because they were bullies who thought they were better than everyone else, but for the very things they liked about themselves: they were "cool" and good at sports, but for most of them, that was all they had. For being nothing but "cool" and having skill in sports, we (rightly) thought of them as people of little consequence in the scheme of things. It's not for nothing that a lot of people think of "dumb jock" as one word. I'm sure they also thought of us as people of no consequence, but I guess it's turned out that we were right and they were wrong.
A rich kid from my high school went to college for free because he was 6'10" at 15 and got a basketball scholarship. He was a total prick, and didn't need the scholarship anyway because he was a rich kid.
I was near-poor and my parents really struggled to send my to a private high school. They couldn't afford college, but I went there almost for free too (and to a better school than he went to), not because I was good at sports but because I could think.
I remember one day a few years ago I was replacing ball joints on a 1970 383 Magnum Dodge Challenger I had at the time. I broke the tip off of a Snap-On flex handle because I had a ten-foot pipe on the end of it (those ball joints were old, and really, really tight!). All Snap-On tools have a lifetime warranty, but it was Sunday afternoon and that's a hard time to find a Snap-On truck. The flex handle in question is one my dad bought used when he was young, and must have been about 40 years old at the time, I guess it was due to break a tip :-)
Anyway, I needed a flex handle, so I went to an auto parts store over on the wrong side of the tracks, because I knew they had a pretty wide selection of tools. To my delight, one of my jock /surfer tormentors was working behind the counter there as a parts clerk. I kept the smirk off my face until I was back in my car, but then I laughed my ass off.
I know I should be bigger than that, but I couldn't help enjoying seeing how low the mighty had fallen :-)
And the flex handle? I got a new tip put on by a Snap-On dealer a few days later. They don't ask questions about why a tool broke, they just repair or replace it. Period.