Would a nerd by any other name still be so chic?
I dunno. Maybe. People always seem to find some kind of way to glomm onto a particular social group that best suits their needs depending upon societal trends. But as of late it seems like everyone and their damn mom is calling themselves a nerd. On a daily basis I see scads of Facebook posts, advertisements and conversations on the street where people who are clearly not geeky in any sense of the word are discussing/doing things that are commonplace for me everyday and declaring, "OMG! I'm sucha nerd!"
No, bitch. No. You're not.
This little guy here has been popping up all over the place. And yeah, I think it's pretty damn funny...
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| Fellow ladies, please don't get pissed at me for thinking that the word "whore" is funny. It's a staple of my vocabulary! |
But in all of my nerdy superiority, I posted this and it kind of spurred an argument with one of my less nerdy friends, Shelby, who told me that if I was going to judge people based on their appearance than I'm being a snob and that it kind of goes against my own nerd code and that basically I'm just a bitter nerd. So we got to talking about what defines someone as a nerd, and I'd like to go out there and kind of throw my two cents in the proverbial Take-a-Penny, Leave-a-Penny tray. I'm not going to say by any stretch of the imagination that these are the
only things that make someone a nerd, but for me they are pretty important pillars of nerd culture.
1.) Intellect
I'm just starting with this one because it's probably the most infamously associated stereotype out there. I say stereotype because as much as I hate to admit it, not
all nerds are intelligent. I wish they were, but I have definitely come across people that fell into the category that didn't have a whole lot of, um, smarts. However, most nerds would consider themselves to be intellectual and usually ended up as such due to some social thing that pushed them away from "regular" social interaction and pushed them into their studies. And I'm not trying to say this as some outsider who is making grandiose claims from some movie that I saw,
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| If you don't recognize this pic, you fail :P |
but as someone who has lived through the hell of old school nerddom persecution through pretty much all of my life.
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| Yeah, there's a lot going on here if you take a look. Soak it all in, bitches! |
I found that retreating back into my studies and things that interested me were good/easy ways of coping with my lack of friends and social awkwardness. If people would tease me, then at least I would have my good pal intellect to fall back on. I'd have that little voice in my head that would scream, "Well, she may be the pretty one or the rich one or the popular one, but
I'm the smart one! So, suck on that!" I recall one semester of junior high school where I finally stopped trying to fool myself into thinking that I was something other than a nerd. And that revelation came to me, not through a conversation with a classmate or divine intervention, but in the form of a report card where I got straight As in everything academic and an F in gym.
Also, I'm not saying that to be smart you had to get good grades, because I had one year in high school where I just went into "fuck this" mode and ended up with a 1.5 GPA while the ditzy homecoming queen got a 4.0 just because she turned in all her work and showed up to class everyday. You can be smart and just not do well in school, just like you can be not so bright and do well in school if you try as hard as you possibly can. But what I
am saying, is that as a smart nerd, you can tend to use your intellect as a badge of honor, and when someone who is clearly not a nerd is trying to masquerade as one while claiming that honor that they have no right to, it can be pretty damn irritating.
2.) Physical Appearance
This is a pretty hot button issue out there right now...
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| Yeah, I'd get with either of them if they could tell me their favorite Ray Bradbury book... |
And for good reason too. I mean, most of the time, when someone starts down the path of nerddom it's because they are socially awkward. And nothing makes you more socially awkward than being physically different from everyone else--especially if that happens at an early age. The first example at the top with our "whore who found glasses" is good starting point.
When you have to wear glasses, you can't just take them off whenever you please. Yeah, if you can afford contacts or LASIK, then those are options for you, but if you're in a lower economic class, that isn't always an option. God forbid you're poor, break your glasses and can't afford to fix them. That may sound like a Harry Potter cliche, but when you spend three years of elementary school with a pair of scratched glasses that are being held together with masking tape and a paperclip, it doesn't exactly make you feel confident in yourself or your appearance. And hell, that's just glasses. If you're overweight or have bad teeth or acne or braces or a crazy birthmark or any of the other things that can set you apart from the norm, it can drive you into the nerd lifestyle at an early age if you don't have the social grace and charisma to rise above it. And unfortunately, most kids in grade school haven't developed that ability yet.
Can you change? Hells yeah you can change! And there are a lot of nerds who have chosen to make themselves over when they are finally able to do that. I'm fine with that. I get that. I mean, I didn't do that, but I'm not gonna sit here and say that you're a "fake nerd" if you decided to enhance your appearance. I'm not even gonna start on the "fake nerd girl" rant, I'm just kinda addressing everyone here. What I do hate though, is people who have never had to go through any of the shit that old school nerds had to go through, waving their pseudo-nerd flag and calling it legit. I guess what I'm really trying to say is:
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| Any suggestions for the dude version of this? I'd love to put one together! |
And yeah, yeah, I know I only used chicks for the above example after saying I wasn't gonna start in on the "fake nerd girl" scene, but these were just the easiest things that I could Google in a timely manner. I suppose that most "real nerds" don't really care what other people think about how they look. And yes, I know you're probably asking, "Who the fuck is this bitch to judge people?" I dunno. Just my opinion. I'm sharing and you're reading, right? 'Kay. Moving on!
3.) Fanboy Culture/Obsession/Nerd Cred
I think I've harped on about one's social experience/environment leading one down the road to nerddom enough in this post, but I'd say the final most definitive tenet of this culture is what nerds end up doing with their time. Yeah, some of us spent a lot of time after school studying, but you can only study so much. And when you don't have friends to keep you company, how do you spend that time? Ah, and there is where we get to the heart of things! What
kind of nerd are you?
Maybe you're a book nerd or a comic book nerd or a sci-fi nerd or a music nerd or a drama nerd or a video game nerd or whatever the hell kind of thing you're into that not everyone completely understands like you do! I consider myself to be a kind of jack-of-all-trades nerd. I love so many facets of nerd culture that I kinda go a little crazy with things. And seeing as how nerd culture requires at least a certain level of obsession to be an active participant, I find myself drifting from one obsession to the next. I am that person that will sit there and watch an entire season of a television show for the whole day. I played World of Warcraft so often over a five year period that I had spent almost six months of
real time being logged in. I worked at a video store and since I got free movies and had no life, I watched about twenty movies a week. I have an entire closet in my apartment dedicated to storing my cosplay costumes which I meticulously continue to put together each year. I've read over a thousand books in my short lifetime and continue to keep racking 'em up. I collect action figures and comic/movie/cult classic/anime paraphernalia. For fucks sake, this is one of six blogs that I write! And the list goes on and on and on! Am I bragging and kind of overwhelming you with information about my interests? Hells yeah!
And
that is what being a nerd is all about! So if you're an outsider that might kind of give you a small idea of why some nerds get extremely offended when people do
one thing that they consider to be nerdy and proclaim themselves to be nerds.
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| For example, as a book nerd, I am questioning the "real" nerd's book nerd cred! |
Am I being snobby? Is there an elitist air about my post? Yeah, kinda sorta. Okay. A lot. But I think I've earned that right. Am I going to go around being a hipster bitch saying things like, "Oh, you probably haven't heard of that obscure thing that I'm talking about because you're one of the uneducated masses?" Only if provoked. :D
