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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, because pop gaming nerds think The Matrix was a good game, while real gaming nerds know that most of the world will miss out on gems like Viewtiful Joe.
Same goes for any of the other formats available. Trying to convince 'cool nerds' of the hidden treasures in each medium only make them easily identifyable as the uncool nerds again.
Nerds will always be around. They arn't identifiable by what mediums they like, only the great lengths they will go to discuss or aquire specific works.
"Old man yells at systemd"
A nerd certification. Administered by Slashdot? "Slashdot Certified Nerd" has a nice ring to it. Or other suggestions?
I am a nerd. I am also a dork and a geek. I think of these as three separate but related identities and have spent way too much of my free time developing discrete definitions of the three.
Nerds are defined by what they know. We tend to stick to societally acceptable topics, but dive in much deeper or cover a wider variety of subjects than most. We are the grad students of the world, the academics, researchers and general know-it-alls.
Dorks are defined by what they like. Similar to the nerd, we dive in much deeper than the average person, but the topics we pursue tend to be much more nontraditional. We learn to speak Klingon or Elvish or know the plot lines, writers, and artists of all the major comic books and most of the minor ones.
Geeks are defined by what they can do. We may not know as much as the nerd on any given topic, but we can do more with what we know. We can hook up a home theater, fix a computer, or super-charge a lawnmower. We are the tinkerers, programmers, and garage inventors.
Some broad examples of my taxonomy: Nerds get A's in AP classes. Dorks play D&D. Geeks set up LANs.
All of our incarnations have spent more time learning about stuff than we have interacting with other people, hence our reputation for social awkwardness. We are handy, interesting, and often downright annoying to have around when our specialty areas come up, but are otherwise generally avoided.
I'm a nerd/dork/geek, but that's not the entirety of my identity. I like myself and my life, and against all odds, I've managed to find a life partner who feels the same. Of course, she's a bit nerdy/dorky/geeky herself, but aren't we all?
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
On to the point. I happened to be doing some computer/photo work over at my inlaws, where the reality show 'Average Joe' was on. It was the 'big, final, show', where the chick is picking between a rich nerd, and the sterotypical 'handsome guy'.
As I was in the same room as this, I witnessed the ending where the chick picks the 'handsome guy' (who actually lives in his parent's basement) over the rich nerd (who was not unattractive, but slightly goofy)
I had predicted that 'whoever was the biggest assole will be chosen' - the nerd seemed sensitive and not an asshole at all - but the money was throwing off the equation. 'Handsome guy' was actually more average from what I saw; by the definite lack of personality.
Somewhere I lost the point, but I haven't had enough coffee. Needless to say, the show left me with a sour feeeling.
The moral of the story: Rich nerds still don't get the girl, if they're competing against generic 'handsome guys'.
I'm married, but I'm stunningly handsome;) , and rich some of the time, and a nerd. I met my wife at a rock show I was playing, so go figure.
Yeah. I have to find newer, geekier media to stay ahead of the norms and their "they might be giants" cds. Have you heard of Atom and his Package? MC Chris? B.E.N.E.F.I.T? Man, I'm on that hard ass Judy Tenuta shit now. Don't talk to me about the new O.K. Go or whatever. I don't care about your corporate geek rock!
Come back when you've read Miracleman and watched Mospeadea in the original Japanese. Poseurs.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
whut about the legions on heavy metal nerds..the DIO fans and hordes of power metal , dungeons and dragons , elves and dragons power metal bands like Iced Earth , Hammerfall, Rhapsody...those guys are the nerd crowd in the scene as opposed to say.. pantera or something
Here in Colorado, after Columbine - an interesting thing happened. Instead of reaching out to the geeky kids, and vilifying the jocks who oppressed them - the opposite happened. Adults went out of their way to demonstrate why jocks beating up geeks was the ACCEPTED reality, and it actually reinforced itself. The Columbine football team went on to win the local high School league, and all the major news outlets covered it like the Super Bowl. The jocks got endorsements, they were worshiped for their ability to "overcome" the tragedy, although it was quite clear they were the driving force behind Klebold and Harris behavior.
It was very strange. Colorado high schools have the very worst case of hating the smart kids, promoting mediocrity, and pumping jock culture. That is one reason I intend to leave before my kids become school age and move to a state that actually understand what a magnet school is, and what it is for.
Yeah, Micracleman (rocks). But what about Tales of the Beanworld? Or Cerberus the Pope, the comic you had to read with surgical gloves, or the oils in your fingers would stain the covers? Flaming Carrot? Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children? Concrete? Grendel? Stickboy: Fuck the World?
What's with the Judy Tenuda referenece? She was just some random comic from the 80s, before Pauly Shore was invented. She's not (particularly) geek-cool.
More nerd trivia: The building they used in Wargames for the University campus that Malvin & Jim work in is actually part of..Microsofts Campus.
They get everywhere!
Just because a little fantasy and sci-fi is popular, don't think for a minute nerds are accepted into society.
25 years ago we had STAR WARS, WILLOW, etc. THey were hits for Nerds and non-nerds alike.
And today you have the same crap going on.
I felt embarrassed for about 25 people at the Matrix Revolution that wore their black leather and sunglasses and walked around like some freak-show. How about the Star Wars fans that dress up and go about the foolishness. LOTR has theirs too.
NERDS ARE STILL OUT THERE AND STILL MOCKED. The problem so many of you have to learn to deal with is YOU ARE NOT THE NERD YOU THINK YOU ARE!
The days of a computer person = NERD is over, however the Nerd gene pool still exists and will still be mocked.
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
I've got a Green Lantern cover as my desktop wallpaper at work, and one of our architects came by and saw it, and she said "Ooooh, Green Lantern! Bruce Lee was so cool in that."
"That was Green Hornet, not Green Lantern," I said with mock disdain.
Then she asked me what Green Lantern's origin was. Before I knew it, I had launched into a detailed explanation of Hal Jordan's beginnings. It was surreal. I've never said the words "Abin Sur", "power ring", or "Guardians of Oa" out loud before.
When the story was over we switched back to talking about our firm's marketing materials, but then I paused in mid-sentence and said "I can't believe I just told you Green Lantern's origin". It was so weird, because usually the geekness is kept pretty private. I don't have any like-minded people to talk about comics with. But now when I'm stoned with my girlfriend, I tell her to ask me about the origins of superheroes so I can go off on a long, rambling, tanget-laden story about the Flash(es), or Cyclops & Havok, or how Aquaman lost his hand, etc. It's a lot of fun, and it feels good to share. And my girlfriend is very amused.
That reminds of that game show on Comedy Central called "Beat the Geeks". The host was a dweeb geek, and then you had your movie, music, and tv geek + one (guest) geek, where (guest) = Star Wars, Star Trek, Playboy, etc.
That was a great show and I watched it when I could. I guess they Canceled it.
But to get on topic, that show is a great concept and definitely shows that geek-ideals are present in the Mainstream Pop culture.
My older brother would call me a geek when I was a teenager. At the time I knew he was just making fun of me like a big brother can, whats funny is that, after I received my BS in CS and am now a Software Engineer he still calls me a Geek (caps on purpose), except that he says it in a more respectful way. He respects my intelligence and knowledge. Now on that note, my brother is a football geek, he played college football and coached for an ACC team (1 National Championship ring) and an SEC team. When I play Madden or NCAA football on the PS2 he breaks down plays to me technically in the same manner as if I were to explain to him the architecture of a military flight simulation. So the notion that jocks have repressed nerds is really a Highschool social inequity. Jocks, when they are intelligent, become geeks in their respective interests too.
(disclaimer: i was a jock in highschool though not popular, I was a closet geek)
I only mod up parents of "mod parent up" posts...
Yes, its an aberration because it is actually a great series of movies. Possibly the best I have ever seen. They did justice to a complicated, beautifully written story, which has never been told properly in the cinema before.
I'm not a fantasy nerd, but I can't wait for The Return of the King to come out. You can spot the true fantasy nerds as they will arrive in costume at the midnight showing on the release date.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
That's where we differ.
Bravo for you for overcoming it, but I'm betting it wasn't really that bad in the first place. If it was just physical abuse, you didn't get shit for being a nerd. You can fight back and stop that. Insults aren't that bad, either, unless you start believing them. I started lifting weights when I was a sophomore in HS and that made most of these guys too afraid of me to mess with me. I only had to get in one fight to make the whole school stop.
It's the calculated conspiratorial bullying that comes from all angles, that takes advantage of your lack of social skills, that really breaks you. It points out both your faults and their strengths and lowers your status at the same time it raises theirs.
I didn't survive everything they threw at me. I'm still affected by it every day in some way. I'm a nervous wreck in crowds, I have serious issues with trusting anyone who wants to do anything for me (a favorite mindfuck of the people where I'm from is to set you up with a generous act and pull it out from under you when you're most visible) and I can barely function in a situation where I interact with an authority figure, because where I'm from the teachers and school admin were in on the persecution, too. The first of the school shooting cases of the 90s (Scott Pennington) happened in a school district in the same area.
Damn. It's been a long time since I talked about all of this.
So, you'll have to forgive me if I don't think that it's cute or a fair turnaround to call myself a nerd or a geek.
The way I learned the distinction came from the president of Rose Hulman:
I understood that completely. I had a good friend that was a geek, by this definition. He had a computer, and played games, chatted on IRC, and downloaded music with it. Every couple of weeks, though, he'd call me over to fix the damn thing because he'd fucked up his registry, or he decided to open his computer and muck around with the hardware or something.
I've had a geek for a roommie too, which was amusing. My "nerd" buddies and I would do various things to his machine, as mean as it is. We put PCAnywhere on it, and took control of it one night and turned on his mp3 player... he always left his speakers on full-blast, so he started thinking he had a virus. That's when he'd go to us and ask us to fix his 'virus problem.'
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
This 'nerds are cool now' thing is very very old, if incorrect culturally... er, imho
/. posts are often evidence of this.
The issue these days I'm a thinkin' is how mean 'geek culture' has become. I seem to remember back in the day how fellow 'geeks' were inclusive of each others obsessions. Now, it has degenerated into name calling, bashing, and outright hatred.
No, not really. After all, this artical is only about 7-10 years too late. The bubble not only busted up the dotcoms, it busted geek popularity. BTW, we're NERDS now rather than geeks because everyone wants the negative connotation back. The backlash is well underway. Enjoy!
I think a lot of people are missing the point here. People aren't becoming "nerds" because it is cool. People always were nerds, but now expressing yourself is more acceptable. If you remember the end of "Revenge of the Nerds," the point was that everybody feels awkward and unpopular, but now we have the internet. No, I don't mean that just being on the internet makes you technically proficient enough to claim to be a nerd, but it means that you can find a support network no matter how "different" you are.
Let's assume that there are 1 billion people on the internet (I know I could look up the exact number, I just don't feel like it.), and that your particular obsession only appeals to 0.00001% of the population. That still means that there are ten thousand others out there that you can relate to!
Now, the things that define a stereotypical nerd are actually much more mainstream: Computers, math, science, engineering, science-fiction, fantasy, comics, animation, books, obsession with sex, etc. So, now that people can go out on the internet and find millions of like minded people, they don't feel so bad expressing themselves publicly by buying the toys and wearing the t-shirts. The nerds have been here all along, but now they don't mind being labeled.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey