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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"
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.
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.
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.