So I've been watching the Angry Video Game Nerd and something occurred to me, where did the idea that video games were for nerds come from anyway? When I was growing up all my friends were into video games and none of them were what I'd call "geeks" or "nerds." Maybe when I was in High School some of my friends could be called "nerdy," because they were into Babylon 5 and the X-Files (which are geeky things too I guess) and such, but not for being into video games. So where does this come from?
So I've been watching the Angry Video Game Nerd and something occurred to me, where did the idea that video games were for nerds come from anyway? When I was growing up all my friends were into video games and none of them were what I'd call "geeks" or "nerds." Maybe when I was in High School some of my friends could be called "nerdy," because they were into Babylon 5 and the X-Files (which are geeky things too I guess) and such, but not for being into video games. So where does this come from?
It isn't something physically strenuous, meaning that even weaklings can do it?
Electronics and programming required some amount of intellect and a like for studying?
It's a short hop from books and boardgames and TV so the main population drawn to it was already outsiders.?
By the early to mid 90's I think that stereotype had largely died down, because when I was in elementary school it wasn't really considered nerdy to play video games. You would get ridiculed by some kids if you liked games like Mario or anything that wasn't Mortal Kombat however.
Basically the Genesis was considered the more "adult" console while the SNES had a "kiddie" reputation where I went to school.
Back on topic though, I think the stereotype largely came from the fact that they were technology and in the 70's and 80's gadgets and other tech were considered "nerdy".
By the early to mid 90's I think that stereotype had largely died down, because when I was in elementary school it wasn't really considered nerdy to play video games. You would get ridiculed by some kids if you liked games like Mario or anything that wasn't Mortal Kombat however.
Basically the Genesis was considered the more "adult" console while the SNES had a "kiddie" reputation where I went to school.
Back on topic though, I think the stereotype largely came from the fact that they were technology and in the 70's and 80's gadgets and other tech were considered "nerdy".
There's a giant difference between "gamers" and "nerds" although a lot of people just generalize. Gamers are people who like to game, and they have a sharp mind. can you explain about nerds?
Because they used to be kind of a niche thing as consoles were rarer and setting them up required more knowledge than "plug this into this"
They stereotype has clung despite the massive availability of consoles and games nowadays meaning everyone and their mum has one
By the early to mid 90's I think that stereotype had largely died down, because when I was in elementary school it wasn't really considered nerdy to play video games. You would get ridiculed by some kids if you liked games like Mario or anything that wasn't Mortal Kombat however.
Basically the Genesis was considered the more "adult" console while the SNES had a "kiddie" reputation where I went to school.
Back on topic though, I think the stereotype largely came from the fact that they were technology and in the 70's and 80's gadgets and other tech were considered "nerdy".
I'ma back that up. Yeah, people who liked video games were nerds, but I all spent a fair bit of my middle and high school life playing Allied General and 2xtreme with a guy on the same (American) football team. Nerds used games as a substitute for a personality the same way jocks used sports, but everybody I know played games.
It was never really a big deal here but what I understand from popular culture a 'nerd' is usually someone who is socially awkward, gets picked on and is pretty much clueluess in interactions with the opposite sex(ie women). People for who solitary pursuits become a surrogate. So it's not so much that someone is really into computers or videogames but rather the type of person that is really into computers or videogames: the stereotype of a socially awkward loser with little to no romantic experience. Which is ofcourse total...
ehmmmm wait a minute.
That was the '80s/90s but totally different world now. People are glued to their phones 24/7 and I think people are actually starting to lose the ability to hold a conversation. Fertility rates in the western world are dwindling and soon we will also have sex robots eradicating the need to procreate entirely. The nerds have won. Look who's laughing now, *****! xD
i guess the stereotype come mopstly from the early 80's, late 70's, where basically using a computer on a daily basis = nerd. most people back then didnt had acces to a home computer, and those few lucky to have something like a commodore 64, were view as nerd because it need a few basics to use it. they were not that user friendly back in the days...
It was never really a big deal here but what I understand from popular culture a 'nerd' is usually someone who is socially awkward, gets picked on and is pretty much clueluess in interactions with the opposite sex(ie women). People for who solitary pursuits become a surrogate. So it's not so much that someone is really into computers or videogames but rather the type of person that is really into computers or videogames: the stereotype of a socially awkward loser with little to no romantic experience. Which is ofcourse total...
ehmmmm wait a minute.
That was the '80s/90s but totally different world now. People are glued to their phones 24/7 and I think people are actually starting to lose the ability to hold a conversation. Fertility rates in the western world are dwindling and soon we will also have sex robots eradicating the need to procreate entirely. The nerds have won. Look who's laughing now, *****! xD
Because they used to be kind of a niche thing as consoles were rarer and setting them up required more knowledge than "plug this into this"
They stereotype has clung despite the massive availability of consoles and games nowadays meaning everyone and their mum has one
I think it was mostly an 80s meme for Hollywood and shitty TV shows. I grew up in the 90s and I never saw anyone getting picked on for being a gamer or a 'nerd'. Hell the Quarterback of the high-school football team, a rank commonly held to be the jockest of the jocks, openly admitted to loving Ocarina of Time back in the day and still played on his game boy advance during downtime as school.
Everyone games, to greater or lesser degrees sure, but it was just a thing.
Then you were around for it, the year you were born a usual home PC cost about $1,000 to $1500, the equivalent to roughly $4000 today, if you wanted a kitted out IBM home computer in 1981 you would pay over $3000, over $8500 today adjusted for inflation in American dollars. Just a few years before you were born, the domain of PC games was computers that only computer labs on college campuses could afford, so mainly they were played by computer sciences majors playing chess one move at a time over the earliest prototypes of what would become the internet.
The early to mid 80's were an era where you had to know how to load and install from Pre-DOS and eventually commands on DOS systems, and sometimes the games were literally code written out in computer magazines that you manually entered in to the system, you basically programmed your own game based on pictures and diagrams. Where if you wanted a disk you couldn't buy one from a store, you literally had to mail a physical letter in to a magazine you were subscribed to.
The stereotype was not because of people that weren't even 10 years old when the 80's ended, it was because of adults that were playing video games back then, it was considered a very niche hobby, you had your arcade breakthroughs, Asteroid, Pac-Man etc., they were popular but those were technological curiosities you played in a bar and sunk some quarters in to every once in a while, not something you did as a regular hobby, a very niche interest in technology is generally what got adults the nerd label back then.
Home consoles were generally sold in toy magazines and catalogues, squarely targeted at kids, if you were an adult buying a home console in the 80's and it wasn't for your kids, other adults would look at it like a 30 year old collecting Pokemon cards today, usually not bad or wrong, but a bit odd and something most adults would have thought they would grow out of.
That's where it comes from, nerd is generally a term that started out referring to someone with a niche technical interest and usually involved some technical skill, so the nerd label got attached to video games
What Hollywood exaggerated was the level of hostility society had towards "nerds", and pop culture then attached the label to kids that played games in to the 90's despite the fact that the level of technical knowledge required to play games dropped drastically as time went on.
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