Decade of the Nerd

[Dyp100]

That was lovely written, but I think we'll still be able to tell a true nerd from not...But I'm a teenager where it seems social standing is still very broken into groups, since every other kid is an arrogant non-accepting dickhead...But anyway, I loved the article, was a great read.

 

[kementari]

Very insightful. I agree with Noelveiga, above, though -

This process of taking what nerds found cool in pop culture and making it mainstream has only proved one thing: being a nerd isn't about the hobbies. That was incidental.

The more mainstream my "nerdy" hobbies get, the more I notice a social divide among those who partake of them with me. I guess previously we just didn't realize it existed, since the hobbies only attracted those with what I agree can best be called a bizarre sense of entitlement.

And you know what? I like being able to game with people who aren't nerds.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

Silly bob, this is not the end of nerds. Other people might start dabbling with our hobbies, but that does not make us less nerdy. They might buy the Warhammer 40k box set and fight us with the set that comes in it, but that doesn't change that we bought each of our pieces of our army seperately and painted them with painstaking detail. They might own Wii sports and Karaoke revolution, but that doesn't change the fact that we still play A Link to the Past on the SNES and have a closet full of old video game systems. Kids like to play Pokemon and YuGiOh? I was playing magic back in beta and all my cards have protective armor sleeves. I can't think of any possible normal person comparison to playing Dungeons and Dragons, but I know I enjoy playing in second edition best. Anyone can dabble in fantasy/science fiction, but a nerd makes it an art. We surround ourselves with it. We build the models, paint the miniatures, read the books, watch the movies, collect the comic books. Our hard drive has a 1 Gb porn folder and a 200 Gb Anime folder, and most of that porn is anime anyways. I personally have never built a computer, but many of my friends have, and none of us own a mac.

What is it that makes you a nerd? It's degree. Anybody can have a hobby, we just make it a lifestyle.

That was extremely well written and i applaude you for the message you put forth. I couldn't have written it any better myself.
It makes me proud thinking i share being a nerd with people such as you, and all others like us.

 

[Baldry]

Enjoy these years, for this decade I fear shall be the downfall of the empire of thee nerd...

 

[weirdaljedifan2]

Freakin' awesome Bob. Freaiin', damn, awesome.

 

[pilouuuu]

Hurray for the nerds! Not that I'm completely one. I think I'm a bit geek and a smaller percentage of nerd, but I fully appreciate its benefits for development of human society and culture (and entertainment media of course!).

I think there were lots of things that helped nerd come to power, like PC becoming mainstream, good movies like LOTR, interesting series like Lost, the new extremely popular consoles. and cool Marvel movies like Spiderman.

But one thing that made me realize that it's really cool to be nerd nowadays is The Big Bang Theory. Nerds are funny and (oddly) popular at last!

Have a Happy New Nerd, Geek Year!

 

[atalanta]

Nerds love comic books." Been to a movie theater lately? Where moviemakers once needed big-name stars to get a superhero movie made, big-name actors now fight tooth-and-nail for the honor of donning this or that cape and cowl. Batman and Spider-Man turned indie mainstays like Tobey Maguire and Christian Bale into movie stars. Iron Man completed Robert Downey Jr.'s emergence from the wilderness.

"Nerds do videogames." Yeah, they do. So does my grandma. And my parents. Rest homes stage Wii tournaments. What's left of The Beatles were at E3.

"Nerds are obsessed with sci-fi." The biggest motion picture in the world right now is about mecha-pilots fighting blue cat-aliens.

Yeeeeah, but... there's a world of difference between going to see X-Men and buying the comics, you know? Playing Rockband at a party is cool and fun; playing STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl alone at home is significantly less cool and fun. And c'mon, claiming that because a SF movie is popular this is the Decade of the Nerd is like saying the 80s were the Decade of the Nerd because The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Terminator all came out and did well.

I mean, I agree that nerdy things are not as stigmatised, but it's not like, say, skipping a noisy, crowded party to stay at home and play TF2 in comfort is considered totally normal, either.

-snip-

Being a nerd, I'm afraid, is about the rather random sense of entitlement. Feeling that real life people and creators somehow betrayed fictional characters; trying to impose a selective, self-indulgent view of culture against common knowledge; believing against all odds that having an outrageous, uncommon opinion is a mark of genius and a solid personality when it's actually trying to compensate for social alienation by coating it in the pretense that it is some kind of self-imposed lone-wolf lifestyle...

-snip-

I kind of agree and kind of don't. In part I think it might be a generational thing; I've met more Comic Book Guys in the 30s and 40s than among even the most hardcore in my age bracket (20-ish). Either way, most of the nerds I have met and know are pretty cool, it's only a couple who really embrace the attitude you describe.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I agree with you more than I thought I did. Some of even the most lovely nerds I know are inordinately proud of being Not Normal and will periodically make bitchy comments about "the mundanes", or try to paint playing tabletop RPGs/building computers/the ability to recite every line of Star Wars from memory as proof of their special snowflake-hood.

 

[Littaly]

For me being a nerd will always be about escapism and that hasn't changed the past 10 years. Our methods have been picked up by the public, but our mindset hasn't. Being a geek or a nerd is not about playing video games or watching superhero movies, that's just the surface. Being a geek is a way to deal with the shitty parts of everyday life, and I don't think that has changed.

 

[Sporky111]

Very well written and very insightful. You have come to the point that, consciously or not, every social movement aims to become obsolete. Why is feminism so rare now? Because the feminist movement was successful and now women have all the rights of men. Therefore there is no longer need for any advocates.

We, as nerds, have come to the point where our culture is finally being accepted and adopted by the masses. While it may be daunting for some of us to lose the identity that being a social outcast has given, it ultimately leads to every other person seeing that we were, and are, visionaries and that our rejection of popular culture has in fact dramatically changed it.

The nerds of today and yesterday are the leaders of tomorrow. It's unavoidable at this point, so reformation has become necessary. As with all social revolutions, those who fight it will become marginalized like we were before them.

 

[gim73]

Well, you can also make this argument about anime. Anime in the US had for a long time been seen as just cartoons. Even today people try to lump it together with our sad pathetic american cartoons. Cartoons today don't even compare to what anime is in japan. Right now in the US the only decent stuff we get is from pixar and some few good ones (avatar comes to mind). I've loved anime for about 16 years now, and the whole thing has changed alot in those years. The old days of bootlegged tapes and spotty subtitles eventually led to the dubbed era. We got releases in both english and japanese w/subtitles, and we were more than happy to pay 30 bucks for two episodes of tenchi. The standard 26 episode series was usually released in 8 tapes. This is generally based off the tape legnth, with 4 episodes being a long tape. When DVDs started to come out this was an accepted practice for a while as well, with the exception of ADV who liked to pull some crap with 2 or 3 episodes per dvd for a 10 dvd 26 episode series... yeah, bad ADV, you suck! Eventually it became commonplace to get 4-6 episodes on a dvd with a bunch of extras. Sometimes we would get a 26 episode series on 3 dvds, but that was rather rare and usually those series were kinda lame.

Meanwhile fansubbers went from sending tapes around the country to getting the anime raw digitally and putting the subs either in soft or hardsub format. This is where we get back to the decade of the nerd. Fansubs made by nerds pretty much made a WHOLE lotta anime known in the states. For a long time certain series were only known by their fansub version. One Piece went for the LONGEST time without a release in the US, and that was horribly botched. The funimation version that took over is soooooooooo much better. I support my fansub community, but I also buy the anime I like when it comes out here on dvd. I'm an anime fan, but that's only one facet of my nerd persona.

Really, I turned to anime as a natural progression from my love of D&D and fantasy novels. My early anime collection included Slayers, Record of lodoss war and anything else that looked fantasy type. From there I got hooked on the Irresponsible captain tylor, Evangelion, Ramna 1/2, Cowboy Bebop and others. Suddenly I found myself reading science fiction and watching it on tv as well. I found that anime became a gateway drug to broaden my nerd profile.

Hell, even these days I would say that anime is a nessesity in being a nerd. Even though it's not completely accepted by modern society, you find it alot more than you did back in the late nineties. If you were to walk around in Cosplay back then you would definately get alot of stares and maybe police would be sent after you. Today people take pictures and ask you how you got it made. The anime convention has become a mainstream nerd event. Suddenly, male and female nerds are meeting together in real life. The bleak future of idiocracy may actually be averted. That's just my 2 cents.

 

[Misaek]

Exactly, everyone to an extent is a nerd now, but only the exact same amount of people are willing to admit it as before. because think about it, in most senses everyone has seen the Iron Man movie and most non-nerds liked it too, but then that SAME person who loved the Iron Man movie will still shun someone reading a classic Iron Man comic.

 

[karpiel]

I really hope it burns out; even in the nineties when I played lots of videogames I found the whole culture surrounding those sorts of things really repugnant and wished that the two could be divorced somehow.

 

[PopperThingi]

And I thought you are just a cynical bastard. This article is just great to get into good mood.
Bob, you rule.

 

[Dommyboy]

Thank you for that, Bob. That was a brilliant read.

It isn't about who is the nerd, it's about what degree of nerd you are now.

People have become so cocky and strong with their 'nerd' fetishes, they we have created subgroups. Just look at how after all this time people ridiculed people for gaming, yet we see so many people despising 'casual' gamers and lecturing as to how great it is to be a hardcore gamer.

Celebrities just seem to try to cash in with admitting their gaming hobbies and so forth. Like just a while back, was it Robin Williams who discussed his love for gaming. How he hated children calling him their ***** online, to how he named one of his daughters Zelda. Being a 'nerd' will just be a publicity stunt for people soon enough.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Very well written and very insightful. You have come to the point that, consciously or not, every social movement aims to become obsolete. Why is feminism so rare now? Because the feminist movement was successful and now women have all the rights of men. Therefore there is no longer need for any advocates.

I probably wouldn't compare the feminism movement to the nerd culture, mainly because feminism is still a very strong movement in the US (remember the Clinton '08 campaign?).

We, as nerds, have come to the point where our culture is finally being accepted and adopted by the masses. While it may be daunting for some of us to lose the identity that being a social outcast has given, it ultimately leads to every other person seeing that we were, and are, visionaries and that our rejection of popular culture has in fact dramatically changed it.

The nerds of today and yesterday are the leaders of tomorrow. It's unavoidable at this point, so reformation has become necessary. As with all social revolutions, those who fight it will become marginalized like we were before them.

My response to this is: "kind of."

While the nerd culture has exploded into the mainstream, it also to some degree hasn't. Think of video games, for instance. A "gamer" is pretty much now anyone who plays the Wii or Modern Warfare or Halo (i.e. a person who plays video games). However, a small handfull of these fall under the "core gamer" demographic, who, for the longest time, were the "gamers" to begin with.

While nearly everyone has a multifunction cellphone, a laptop, and an interest in 24 or lost, the nerd will always be a little different from that main group. They don't just see the present technology in front of them, but also the future possibilities that were once only thought of in Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.

Well, you can also make this argument about anime. Anime in the US had for a long time been seen as just cartoons. Even today people try to lump it together with our sad pathetic american cartoons. Cartoons today don't even compare to what anime is in japan. Right now in the US the only decent stuff we get is from pixar and some few good ones (avatar comes to mind). I've loved anime for about 16 years now, and the whole thing has changed alot in those years. The old days of bootlegged tapes and spotty subtitles eventually led to the dubbed era. We got releases in both english and japanese w/subtitles, and we were more than happy to pay 30 bucks for two episodes of tenchi. The standard 26 episode series was usually released in 8 tapes. This is generally based off the tape legnth, with 4 episodes being a long tape. When DVDs started to come out this was an accepted practice for a while as well, with the exception of ADV who liked to pull some crap with 2 or 3 episodes per dvd for a 10 dvd 26 episode series... yeah, bad ADV, you suck! Eventually it became commonplace to get 4-6 episodes on a dvd with a bunch of extras. Sometimes we would get a 26 episode series on 3 dvds, but that was rather rare and usually those series were kinda lame.

Meanwhile fansubbers went from sending tapes around the country to getting the anime raw digitally and putting the subs either in soft or hardsub format. This is where we get back to the decade of the nerd. Fansubs made by nerds pretty much made a WHOLE lotta anime known in the states. For a long time certain series were only known by their fansub version. One Piece went for the LONGEST time without a release in the US, and that was horribly botched. The funimation version that took over is soooooooooo much better. I support my fansub community, but I also buy the anime I like when it comes out here on dvd. I'm an anime fan, but that's only one facet of my nerd persona.

Really, I turned to anime as a natural progression from my love of D&D and fantasy novels. My early anime collection included Slayers, Record of lodoss war and anything else that looked fantasy type. From there I got hooked on the Irresponsible captain tylor, Evangelion, Ramna 1/2, Cowboy Bebop and others. Suddenly I found myself reading science fiction and watching it on tv as well. I found that anime became a gateway drug to broaden my nerd profile.

Hell, even these days I would say that anime is a nessesity in being a nerd. Even though it's not completely accepted by modern society, you find it alot more than you did back in the late nineties. If you were to walk around in Cosplay back then you would definately get alot of stares and maybe police would be sent after you. Today people take pictures and ask you how you got it made. The anime convention has become a mainstream nerd event. Suddenly, male and female nerds are meeting together in real life. The bleak future of idiocracy may actually be averted. That's just my 2 cents.

And, partically becuase of online fansubbing and file sharing (of the not-necessarily-illegal variety), Anime and manga will likely remain to a significant degree in the "serious nerd" catagory, of which many of us Otakus belong. The Matrix and the upcoming Akira live-action film will be our Spiderman and Dark Knight. Just don't let the Wakoski brothers near anime and everything will be fine.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Ha ha. Soon our plan to take over the world will be complete! Slowly they shall all become one of us, and we can finally get Firefly brought back.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

ahem: WOOOOO!
Great article!

 

[The Random One]

I still get the stares, the same ones I used to get in middle and high school, from random folks on the street for sporting something as innocuous as a triforce on my personal belongings (It's a lucky shirt, back off).

Um, a non-nerd wouldn't look funny at a t-shirt with a triforce on it, because it's a meaningless symbol for one who hasn't played Zelda. I think you are being stared at by fellow nerds.