Decade of the Nerd

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I'm guilty of enjoying "The Big Bang Theory" more than I probably should, as in I know it's not "good" but it's kinda familiar and compelling. I watch and I wonder "okay, is THIS how otherwise-intelligent older women feel about Sex & The City?"

I'd recommend "The IT Crowd" as well. It's a lot more British and some of the jokes fall flat; but the sheer nerd appeal is worth it.


As usual though, don't watch the American version. It's awful. Shows that work well in the UK collapse so badly when remade in the US, and vice versa.

Married for Life was nowhere near as good as the original Married... With Children (At least before the Flanderization of Peg and Al).

 

[Rainboq]

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Yet these same people stroll the halls with cell phones that are a stone's throw (and some RAM) away from the laptop I haul everywhere. I see a plethora of yuppies carting their own technological tether around with them, but when I ask in polite conversation, "So what are you running?", I get the same vapid, spaced-out look that I often give deer on a late-night drive.

snip

And I, for one, am sick of getting the stigma while everyone else gets the perks without it.

Valid points, but we nerds have our place, we are the fixers, the producers, we invent, create and fix, with out us, our society would fall apart. but then the jocks also have a place they provide entertainment for the non-nerd masses or rather they did, technology and video games have, if only partially, taken over, which was kinda what was intended. Now when you look at things such as D&D or the GW products are pretty much anything involving minis or complex rules, that isn't intended to go mainstream and you will rarely find anyone outside of Nerdom partaking in such things. The reason these are intended to do so is because your average Jock or "Yuppie" wouldn't understand them and would very quickly realize that nerds are dominating pop culture right now and would look for a way to fix it, so there is a reason that we give them those perks, if only so that we can finally be the norm rather than outsiders.

 

[BlackAura]

I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

[Ericb]

In short, the people that use to mock us in high school now live in mortal fear of us, the geeks won, we won.

All your decades are belong to us.

Cheers to Moviebob and to you guys/gals.

 

[ZeroHourHero]

More proof of MC Frontalots prophetic words:

"Nerdcore could rise up, it could get elevated."

Booyakasha, Its an amazing day when I can go up to NYC for new years and meet an attractive woman who watches Dr. Who, and my buddy who met his wife Two new years ago at a bar, because shes a fan of Red Dwarf.

"Nerd Culture" is on the rise and its becoming more well known, soon the true lords of the world will be the kind of guys who have a level 80 toon, quote bad B movies, and are for all extensive purposes flat out geeks/nerds.

Its gonna be a great future my droogs.

 

[Yeager942]

And I felt weird when I watched all 3 LOTR movies on New Year's Eve (12:00 landed in the middle of Helm's Deep.). It's normal now!

 

[theSovietConnection]

If you look back into the past century the main stream culture has always been, what I refer to as, the Leech culture. It has all ways fed off of the various sub-cultures, taking what it needs, and gives nothing back. This decade it just happened to be the nerd culture. Eventually the main stream will get its fill and move on to the next thing, leaving the nerd culture will all the left overs that it will have to build back on.

I definitely agree with this, though I'd use parasite instead of leech personally, particularly in the sense that Andrew Ryan uses it.

 

[RagnorakTres]

Hmmm...I'm afraid, Mr. Chipman, that I have to disagree with you. As more traditional "nerd" sub-culture has been eaten by "popular" culture, so have we delved deeper into our own areas.

Sure, now everybody and their granny plays "video games". But does everyone play Tekken? Or .hack? Or Devil May Cry? Not to my knowledge. Those are examples of "high nerd" software, things that "true nerds only" play.

True, now everyone has a computer. But does everyone know the difference between posting and booting? Can they diagnose computer problems in a command line interface? Nope, in fact, most people over the age of about thirty don't even know what Linux is, despite America's obsession with free shit. That's because, despite Linux being free, it requires a commitment to learning the more complex workings of a computer. Most people just want to type their documents, get software to do their taxes and balance their checkbooks, and maybe browse the Web or play solitaire.

OK, comic book, high fantasy and sci-fi movies are the money-makers for studios nowadays. But how many people who go to see those movies have read Asimov, Heinlein, Chaucer or the various comics and books they are based on? Probably more than I assume (I have a low opinion of humanity in general: as Agent K said, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals."), but not all of them. How many read the source afterwards? Less than half that hadn't already, I'd bet.

Tabletop games remain firmly nerd-centric, I can think of no-one in my groups who wouldn't be considered a nerd without them.

All things considered, I'd say that Nerd-dom has evolved, turning back on itself even as it becomes more accepted in the mainstream. The entire world has become more nerdy, so we have as well. And that's a good thing.

 

[Spacelord]

I like this development. I can now finally admit to everyone that I like what I like.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

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...

In short, the nerdyness is not in the comic books, or the videogames, or the movies. Everybody has finally tried all those things and liked them. The nerdyness is in what's left of the comic book guy in The Simpsons if you take all of that out.

This, pretty much. The whole "nerddom" thing has become a clique of pseudo-intellectuals peering down their noses at the "plebes" of society, for daring to like "common" things instead of all the out-there, underground things nerds cluster around in order to feel superior. And yet when one of these nerd-cherished things becomes mainstream, it's suddenly "sold out" to the masses, and nerds feel betrayed because "THAT WAS OURS, HOW DARE YOU GIVE IT TO THEM?!".

True nerds have never wanted to be accepted. They want mainstream culture to agree with their own self-assessment- "We're smarter than you, we know what's really good, and you'll never 'get' us unless you watch every episode and read every comic book we have until you can keep up with all our self-congratulatory trivia games". Nerds want the same ego-feeding that jocks have been getting for the last forty years.

This post has gone on far too long, so let me wrap it up with a toast. To 2010; may the stewards of this decade succeed where we failed, and finally teach humanity how to think.

Yeah, good luck with that. Nine years of employment in the retail sector have shown me that the vast majority of people will go to extraordinary lengths to AVOID thinking.

 

[Syntax Error]

Beautifully written. Games and gadgets are part of daily life now, and seeing someone walking around with a laptop is now actually a status symbol of sorts.

 

[Hat of Controversy]

Being a "nerd" is just as dumb/pretentious/self-indulgent as being a "jock" or "goth" or "car buff" or whatever other sub-category you try to fit yourself in on the totem pole of life. Nerds, more often than not, weren't liked because of either A) Bad hygiene - B) Social awkwardness - C) Were stuck up or a psuedo-intellectual snob - or D) They were into different things than most everyone else. A), B) and C) are irritating or unsightly no matter WHO or WHAT you are, and D) is of course not a very good reason in itself to hate on someone else. But as we all know, and are currently seeing, more and more people are getting in on hobbies once only associated to "nerd-kind".

Honestly, it's really just as bad as every other sub-culture - in which the people that make it up are practically defined by their little trinkets and hobbies, or at least let themselves be completely defined by those things.

I never got made fun of during my childhood for playing video games, or watching Star Wars, or beeing seen with my almost full-force "Trekky" father (whom of which I still love of course). I was made fun of in school and throughout for the same reasons as most everyone else. I either smelled bad, was badly dressed, was not good looking or popular enough, did not handle a social situation all that well, etc, etc.

 

[Sneaky Paladin]

I hope it doesn't stick it hasn't helped me out at all it only gets me into awkward situations not being able to tell a nerd from a regular guy sometimes

 

[lodo_bear]

True nerds have never wanted to be accepted. They want mainstream culture to agree with their own self-assessment- "We're smarter than you, we know what's really good, and you'll never 'get' us unless you watch every episode and read every comic book we have until you can keep up with all our self-congratulatory trivia games". Nerds want the same ego-feeding that jocks have been getting for the last forty years.

What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world...and have no one to spit upon?

This post has gone on far too long, so let me wrap it up with a toast. To 2010; may the stewards of this decade succeed where we failed, and finally teach humanity how to think.

Yeah, good luck with that. Nine years of employment in the retail sector have shown me that the vast majority of people will go to extraordinary lengths to AVOID thinking.

Alas, your words burn with the powerful acidity of truth. Oh well. We can keep on hoping and trying, can't we?

 

[kawaiiamethist]

Our hard drive has a 1 Gb porn folder and a 200 Gb Anime folder, and most of that porn is anime anyways. quote]

When I read this I came to two conclusions (correct me if I am wrong):

1. 200 gb of anime says you are a casual anime fan, as in, it has never been your prime hobby.

2. 1 gb of porn, primarily hentai, says you either haven't found a good torrent site, or are not that interested in porn.

 

[ironlordthemad]

this is a really great article thats kind of made me think about modern culture, but I keep asking myself, is this a good thing?
I suppose it means that the majority of everyone else is alot more tollerant of geek culture, which is a good thing. But I cant help but feel that its only because we have some shiney tech. Maybe we just got the magpie of modern culture on our side because we had the shiniest stuff.
The obvious counter point is, "Can anyone realy beat nerds on shiney stuff?"
What tops the IPhone, the Blackberry or the latest laptop for shineyness?
I guess we could have another decade of nerdyness on our hands here...

 

[Delicious]

Or, we could stop attempting to categorize every person into inane "cultures" with labels such as "nerd" that do nothing but create imaginary divisions between otherwise similar people.

The idea that a person who plays on a xbox is automatically and indisputably different from one who plays with a football is idiotic.

But hey, fuck trying to become "different" and therefore "better" through modern, legitimate means such as actually becoming more intelligent, knowledgeable, and understanding, I'm going to say I'm better than everyone else because I randomly liked some obscure television show a month and 13 days before everyone else did.

Face it, your "culture" is no less ridiculous than any others.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

The upside: we're not trashed on anymore. The downside: we lose our subculture. But even as our culture is bled into the average happenstances, there are still those of us to whom the moniker still matters. A Nerd among Nerds. They have taken our culture and made it their own, but they still need us to fuel their movies, their games, their books, their memes. Vampires were ours. Giant Robots were ours. Space marines were ours, as were the aliens they fought against. Sure, they can share them. But they will always want more, and we will supply. They want epic stories about superhero vigilantes demolishing their demented baddies? Oh yeah. We've got that in droves. They want Johnny Depp to be a pirate, a mad barber, a demented haberdasher with a fondness of trading places? Guess who had those. They want exciting treasure finds set in historical artifacts and locations of the National Treasure/Nathan Drake variety? Yeah. They can borrow those. But we know, and we keep watching, and we'll be your suppliers. We are the nerds, and we know what you want. But we remember the old days, and soon, sooner than you know, we will return the favor. We don't forget.

 

[Zildjin81]

Very nicely written! Though I can't say that no one saw our subculture disappearing and turning into just normal everyday stuff coming.

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, it's a bit touchy but I tend to see things like this:

The most recent golden age of nerd-dom was in the mid-late 1990s where for a while you had a ton of good science fiction and fantasy stuff out there all at the same time. I'd have to check some of the dates but this is pretty much when we had "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", a successful spin off in "Angel", "The X-Files", "Andromeda", "Lexx", "Farscape", and others accross a range of generes all on TV at once accross networks including the Sci-Fi network which was becoming big.

Right around when the network fights with Joss Whedon brought down The Buffyverse, things slowly started to change. I remember reading articles in Sci-Fi magazine (I believe) about how we had just seen a big era of good science fiction and fantasy programming, and going by trends we probably wouldn't see a new cycle for a while.

The mid-late 2000s seems to be mostly an attempt to exploit nerd-mania more than really embrace the culture. To an extent I agree with Bob that nerd-dom was looked down on more even in the late 1990s *BUT* at the same token the lack of mainstream interest is what kept it relatively pure. Right now it seems we're seeing an increasing amount of derivitive "by the numbers" stuff exploiting the path paved by the original successes. For all of it's independant identity, I still can't help but see shows like "Fringe" for example as being attempts to recapture the success of other shows like "The X Files".

Oh sure there is ALWAYS going to be original stuff, even in true dry spots, but even so I think right now that while there is some truth to "everyone is a bit of a nerd" now, it's also a result of a loss of quality and networks catering specifically for that demographic.

I think right now we're seeing a level of exploitation that can only end badly, and will lead to a disenfranchised mainstream turning against this kind of stuff again for another dry spot.

Time will of course tell if I am correct, but basically over the last couple of years I don't think stuff has had the right kind of energy. When I can look back at an increasingly dated show like "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" for example and feel that it's superior to a lot of what we're seeing now among the new shows... well I feel that's not a good sign.