The Big Picture: A Nerd By Any Other Name

00m

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Jun 28, 2009
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To answer the question: human nature is petty and pathetic, so when one group is persecuted (like sports fans are), the take it out by picking on somebody physically and or mentally weaker than they are (like so called nerds tend to be in former as compared to sports fans and jocks). The problem is that this is a vicious cycle where only a few elites (not sports fans and nerds) win everything.

I should also say thanks Bob, this video has inspired me to treat clearly defined fandome roles (like their being such thing as a nerd, geek, sports fan, jock, ect.) the same way I treat the idea of clearly defined gender roles: as something ugly and evil allowed to come into existence before we could know better and a crime to perpetuate.

I run cross country and like to play/talk lot about video games and watch/talk a lot about some anime; what of it?
 

hobo_welf

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Aug 15, 2008
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I am currently living in NYC and I find your parallel between Twi-hards and Yankees fans to be strangely appropriate and probably the funniest thing you've ever mentioned. Thanks for that, Bob.
 

dubious_wolf

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Jun 4, 2009
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wow a lot of talk about jocks bullying nerds. Bad childhood memories fellas?
seriously that was a strangely well planned and executed parallel.
You are totally awesome.
 

coldshadow

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Mar 19, 2009
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I love how it started with "why are we all grouped together like this"
and ends in "we should have these groups come together under the same type of name"

(I understand that neither of these may have been intentional)
 

y1fella

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Jul 29, 2009
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Yeah I'm Australian and don't get most of those comparisons for example:
Whats the connection between Yankees and twilight, Miracle on ice and why is Babe Route such a familiar sounding name?
Anyway I really don't feel that comparing Halo with Madden is accurate. I'm not even a fanboy. But i do like the games.
 

WeirdBlueOne

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Nov 19, 2009
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I love this! Great video with great points made! Great explanation and execution! Sharing this with friends as soon as they're awake!
That last line was hilarious. Also, I'm glad Twi-hards are equal to yankees fans.
Because nobody likes the Yankees.
NOBODY.
 

Jandau

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Dec 19, 2008
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The key difference is that in high school, sports fans were generally able to beat up the nerds, hence they dictated the social structure (I'm not saying it's fair, just calling it like it is). This carried on through college and then by means of social inertia, into adulthood. Granted, this is a broad generalization, but I belive it's one of the main things here.

Secondly, while a cohesive nerd culture as such is a fairly young concept, people have been organized sports fans since the dawn of time. Hence, it is more firmly entrenched into the cultural structure. In the last decade, nerds have been gaining acceptance, even in my backwater country. Heck, I see school bullies discussing their WoW characters on the bus while picking on some scrawny kid. Give it a generation or two and nerdhood will be catching up to sports fandom.

But a great show this week, keep it up Bob! :)
 

Ikuraut

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Aug 26, 2009
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Well to state the obvious. The difference between sports nerds and "regular nerds" is the lack of physical prowess needed to be good at sports. I don't really think that the subject ultimately needs to be broken down or analyzed though, because in the end these two subcultures really don't matter. In fact culture as a whole really doesn't matter. It causes a lot of the problems in the world today.
 

Scrythe

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Jun 23, 2009
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I used to work at a warehouse where fantasy football was the "official" pastime of the company. The saddest part is that they all tried to hide their guilt by labeling it off as "gambling", something that's legal where I'm from.

Then I found out that my eldest nephew is really into fantasy football, so I decided to ask him what the hell is up with this new "fantasy football" thing. I figured I'd get a more reasonable answer from him, considering him and I grew up with fucking professional wrestling, and the answer I got from him was... well, he tried to make it sound like it was gambling.

So what is it? People on the internet make it out to be the "'jocks' version of pen-and-paper games", but it seems like some sort of Athlete Keno.
 

CaptainPugwash

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Mar 17, 2010
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Ok nicely said, I love my sport, mainly AFL which is Australian Rules Football, but I also love my Nerd culture, a lot on both counts. So much that I picked that photo of Sports Radio, as Bill Brownless, Gary Lyon and Tim Watson, 3 ex AFL stars, and now sport commentators. But I also sat down with a friend and totally picked apart last season Doctor Who. To the point that I think that the Dream Lord was the Valeyard, and that because Amy recreated the universe and brought everything back into existence she also inadvertently brought back the Valeyard. And Bam next years storyline. And I do find it easy to balance both. But I have friends from both worlds that could never and will never get along just cause there is some deep seated hate or mistrust or something, but I do see nerd culture getting more and more mainstream and maybe that is all we can wish or hope for.
 

DTWolfwood

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Oct 20, 2009
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Jock v Nerd >.<

Sports are athletic (for the most part) therefore seen as something to aspire to, everything else in nerd culture isn't athletic (for the most part) therefore seen as a mere pass time, which devoting too much time to is frown upon.

Kinda like y Movie watchers get a pass for spending too much time watching movies while the TV watchers get the dirty look for watching too much TV. More or less the same activity but one is considered "art" appreciation and the other isn't. Art = Good, Trivia = Bad... \o_O/

I absolutely agree with the analogy tho :)
 

Towels

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Feb 21, 2010
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Blackdrawn said:
I see a lot of your points here Bob, but you are missing one LARGE point here.

As explained in the Futurama episode "I Dated a Robot" everything humans due is in hopes of impressing the opposite sex (or sometime the same sex). Most girls are impressed by men doing or liking manly things because they feel safe and blah blah blah so on and so forth, "jocks" see this and they like it more. "Nerds" feel that if they are nice to girls they will attract someone, which is why "nerds" go nuts for seeing a hot girl in a cos-play, because is shows them that they are out there! "Jocks" pick on nerds because they feel the need to reject something they don't understand out of fear, and in this case that fear is that they might like what the "nerds" are into.

So just like with almost everything in life, we are just thinking with the wrong head.
I must politely disagree with the attraction to nerd/jock corrolation. Not all nerds are nice; I know quite a few asshole nerds. I also know kind, charming jocks. I also know women that prefer assholes, and some that prefer nice guys, and some that prefer unassociated qualities. Attraction is too complicated to put it through a Nerd/Jock test.

Also, you have a point about bullying and ignorance, but I'd say that applies to anyone. Nerds do that to each other, as do Jocks.
 

brazuca

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Jun 11, 2008
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MobieBob, I keep my post short and just say that the reason why we don't see what you proposed on your video is that we (well US more than others country and I can assure you that) had a decade called 1980. Lots of things happened there. Especially a lot of movies with cheesy stereotypes.
 

Sabrestar

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Apr 13, 2010
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Well played, Bob. Well played. Even though I live in a city with some of the most violent, close-minded, and downright hateful sportnerds in the States (and no it's not Philly), they still fit the same sort of mold that I do. (As an owner of several soccer jerseys, I'm also in that camp.)

Also, BIG props for tossing in Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. That's pure cartoon gold.
 

matt87_50

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Apr 3, 2009
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except for one major difference: the sports nerd is A) probably more likely to be able to take the other nerd in a fight, and B) probably more inclined.

as with everything in the human race, it all comes down to basic violence. same with the loss of the space dream too!

its not other countries or big corporations you should be preying for to pick up the slack. its another cold war you should be preying for!

in retrospect, the cold war was probably the most awesome thing to happen for technological advancement in the modern age.

and it IS STILL defense, that provides the big share of technical advancement.

violence... can't live with it... can't live without it.
 

HideYourSouls

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Aug 18, 2009
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Manicotti said:
I tried getting along with a sports fan of equal caliber one time. The next thing I knew, I'd been stuffed into a locker and my bum was sore.
On the upside, you did get laid
 

tetron

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Dec 9, 2009
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I'd say video games and superheroes are becoming more open to the mainstream. This leads to more people getting into them because well...that shit's cool. Nerds may not be getting laid but they do replace it with some bitchin pastimes.