Decade of the Nerd
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
A lot of what he said was totally true but some nerds (like myself) are bigger than others.
A lot of people might give Mario Kart a go but once you're playing Dragon Age for three straight days then you've become the biggest nerd in the room and may or may not get shit for it.
A lot of people might give Mario Kart a go but once you're playing Dragon Age for three straight days then you've become the biggest nerd in the room and may or may not get shit for it.
On the other hand, nerd culture no longer belongs to us. They take out what makes it appealing to us and still mock us as they did before only we are left with nothing of our own. Thanks to the financial industry people who can do maths have also gone from being seen as weirdos to only slightly less evil than terrorists.
It is sad to see a culture that we "started" spiral so quickly outside our locus of control. 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). 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.
As More Fun To Compute said:
As More Fun To Compute said:
And I, for one, am sick of getting the stigma while everyone else gets the perks without it.More Fun To Compute said:
Yeah, there still are some things that will get you marked as a "nerd." Most people respond at least semi-interested when someone says "my major is psychology/history/etc." but when I reply with "mathematics" people tend to change the subject pretty fast. So, most of the normal nerdy stuff is no longer nerdy, but if you go to extreme into a nerdy subject then you actually become nerdy again.More Fun To Compute said:
You've got a good point at the end, that nerd-dom has seeped through society, and that some degree of nerdism is accepted.
It's a good thing, by the way, a very good thing. Without it becoming more accepted by the general public, movie producers would never be able to garner the budgets to produce the awesome geeky movies most of want to see. For example, if Spiderman would've flopped, I don't think it'd be likely we would've seen the recent X-men movies or Iron Man, just to name something.
Same with videogames. Talk all you want about how 'casual' gaming is becoming, but without the slow acceptance of the masses, would developers really have grown to today's size with it's big budget projects like Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Bioshock and CoD4? I don't think so.
But still, don't be fooled. The lower ranks on the Ladder of Nerddom might have been integrated into society in the last decade, but the top ranks are still firmly in their shunned and mocked position.
I have to thank the previous decade of fully bringing my nerdy side to bloom, actually. There were always dormant nerdy sides of me (a fascination with old Storm comics and science as a wee lil' lad), but because of the popularisation of more nerdy things, I got exposed to said those elements (notably fantasy thanks to Lords of the Rings and sci-fi thanks to Star Wars Episode 1, yes I like that movie, screw you) and I was able to shoot through the ranks of Nerddom.
Yeah we've seen some wonderful fantasies come true thanks to the popularisation of nerd culture, but at the same time, we can only sit and watch as some other of our beloved nerdy things (Transformers) are being butchered.
It's a good thing, by the way, a very good thing. Without it becoming more accepted by the general public, movie producers would never be able to garner the budgets to produce the awesome geeky movies most of want to see. For example, if Spiderman would've flopped, I don't think it'd be likely we would've seen the recent X-men movies or Iron Man, just to name something.
Same with videogames. Talk all you want about how 'casual' gaming is becoming, but without the slow acceptance of the masses, would developers really have grown to today's size with it's big budget projects like Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Bioshock and CoD4? I don't think so.
But still, don't be fooled. The lower ranks on the Ladder of Nerddom might have been integrated into society in the last decade, but the top ranks are still firmly in their shunned and mocked position.
I have to thank the previous decade of fully bringing my nerdy side to bloom, actually. There were always dormant nerdy sides of me (a fascination with old Storm comics and science as a wee lil' lad), but because of the popularisation of more nerdy things, I got exposed to said those elements (notably fantasy thanks to Lords of the Rings and sci-fi thanks to Star Wars Episode 1, yes I like that movie, screw you) and I was able to shoot through the ranks of Nerddom.
Frustrating indeed. Because of us diehard nerds (even though I've only fully grown into nerdhood this decade, I was always a nerd deep down inside), nerd culture survived for long enough for it to be popularised. We made that possible, and what did we get for it? Nothing, just more shun and mockery as before.More Fun To Compute said:
Yeah we've seen some wonderful fantasies come true thanks to the popularisation of nerd culture, but at the same time, we can only sit and watch as some other of our beloved nerdy things (Transformers) are being butchered.
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.
What is it that makes you a nerd? It's degree. Anybody can have a hobby, we just make it a lifestyle.
But Nerd-dom has been diminished. Nowadays we have celebrity nerds, reality nerds and catwalk nerds.
We're marketable. We're sold to. We're a recognised market.
That's what leads to things like
While once we could take some pride in our anti-culture status, we are now seen as culture itself. And like any fashion trend, you know it's just going to be until the money moves elsewhere.
The core of the nerd movement (T.R.O.N., Transformers, Star Trek, The A-Team) is being remade for the popular audience - usually at the expense of what makes the series work for us...the intelligent writing and the canon. And in it's place are fart jokes, heroin-chic and muscle-beach.
We're being served what we wished for, but like some kind of sick Aladdin's lamp, they're preverted away from what we dreamed of. And we still go to see them because "It's the closest thing they'll get."
Look at Watchmen. Most of us thought it couldn't be done. Even with Terry Gilliam. And then it was done. And it was accurate (ish). Spiderman was accurate (ish). Batman was crap, but Dark Knight worked...
And it was ignored.
You see, we've been allowed in to the party as long as we stay in the kitchen and they get to rifle through our booze. We still have all the nerd-chic (and nerd-chicks) we ever had, but all that's changed is that we're being acknowledged.
Well, almost all...
You see...like a lot of minorities, we've been sneaking people in for some time. Not those trend-hopping freaks like Mugging Fecks, but REAL people like Sir Patrick Stewart, David Tennant, Claudia Black, Sarah Michelle Gellar.
You see, the one thing we nerds can do is solve problems. Maybe we do still forget little things like washing up and other things, but solving things... We're there.
Bill Gates showed what happens to a nerd with power, and we've been sneaking them past the Jock line for some time now.
Vin Diesel? Nerd. Jack Black? Nerd. Charlie Brooker / Stephen Fry / Dara O Briain? Nerdx3
And nerds in power.
We're not letting you take the reins away from us this time. We spent our time learning how to manipulate. Every nerd you chop down, two more respawn in its place.
Jocks. Your time is fast approaching. You ARE on your way to destruction.
All your decades are belong to us.
Hm...You might be, at that. I think it's really just a question of what terminology you want to use, but your core point is valid. We ("we" being nerds, in this case) do act entitled and superior, likely as overcompensation for our ostracization, but is that really what makes us nerds? I'm certain that there's more to it than the stereotype (i.e, we aren't nerds because we like what we like), that's almost more of a biproduct. Food for thought, that.Noelveiga said:
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.
It is a nice surprise to laugh at the person who hadn't seen Star Trek and laugh at those who didn't like it and call them the nerds.
But yeah, there is still a strong opposition against us.
But yeah, there is still a strong opposition against us.
yeah I noticed this as well. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and much that was only nerd activities back then is main stream now. Back in the pre-PlayStation if you played video games, you were a nerd, it was as simple as that. I mad a topic about it at one point and one of the replies was along the lines of "Why would someone call me a nerd because I play video games". It reminded me that a lot of the younger forum goers can't remember the days when saying you played video games was a good way to get picked on.
Well at least we still have DnD.
Well at least we still have DnD.
So we all going to get fuck!? No, snatch that, we already been fucked...but we going to get screw moar.Sephiwind said:
I hate these idiots today. If this was tv tropes I filter it under the 'Fan dumb' and 'Cowboy Bebop at his computer' tropes.