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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."
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.
--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".
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.
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.
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.
To me, a geek is someone who is more than a little obsessed with certain subjects and are usually more than proficient in their chosen areas. There can be car geeks (guilty), movie geeks, computer geeks, etc. Geeks can be socially awkward or life of the party but they have some depth to them.
Nerds, on the other hand, don't have to be particularly good at anything and they are totally obnoxious. Script kiddies come to mind here as well as the ricer with the hideous car (multiple wings, twin fart cans, plaid, dayglow paint job, etc.).
Am proud to call myself a geek. Call me a nerd and you're going down.
I drank what? -- Socrates
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.
I'd have to say that you have it completely ass backwards. Probably because you want to define yourself as a geek without feeling bad about it.
Both geeks and nerds are obsessive, but about different subjects. Geeks are obsessed with liberal arts topics, like films, books and other media. Nerds are obsessed with more technical concerns, such as science, math, and computers. There's a lot of crossover.
The obnoxious factor has nothing to do with being a geek or a nerd. Either can be quite cool...for example, Henry Rollins is a major geek, and Steve Jobs is a big nerd. Somebody who's obsessed with something to the point of obnoxiousness is a DORK. And you have to admit, there are dorks in all walks of like, not just geeky or nerdy fields. I've met dorky religious folks, dorky jocks, and plenty of dorky musicians.
Dorks like to refer to themselves as geeks because it's not cool to be obnoxious. You know, unless you're a stand up comic or a republican.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
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.