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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Nerd is the new normal | Nerd is the new normal |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| In ye olden days, being “normal” was easy. You watched what was playing on one of the few main channels on TV, you ate at the one restaurant in your town where everyone else ate, you repeated the same jokes you heard around the water cooler at work. Information moved slowly, communication was limited, subcultures took a long time to develop. | In ye olden days, being “normal” was easy. You watched what was playing on one of the few main channels on TV, you ate at the one restaurant in your town where everyone else ate, you repeated the same jokes you heard around the water cooler at work. Information moved slowly, communication was limited, subcultures took a long time to develop. |
| So they tell me, anyway. These days, a new subculture can coalesce around some obscure YouTube meme and spawn a whole jargon, style of dress and/or wiki full of fanfiction in roughly 27 minutes. Just go ask Alex from Target or try to count on Too Many Cooks. | So they tell me, anyway. These days, a new subculture can coalesce around some obscure YouTube meme and spawn a whole jargon, style of dress and/or wiki full of fanfiction in roughly 27 minutes. Just go ask Alex from Target or try to count on Too Many Cooks. |
| Nowadays, the all-remembering internet lets you feed your curiosity about the full episode guide of a cartoon from your childhood with the click of a mouse. Now you can sort yourself into a “fandom” for your favorite cartoon – or your favorite sports team, or Linux distribution, or artisanal flavored mustard – instantaneously. Now the rabbit hole of how deeply you can get “into” one of your interests is basically bottomless. | Nowadays, the all-remembering internet lets you feed your curiosity about the full episode guide of a cartoon from your childhood with the click of a mouse. Now you can sort yourself into a “fandom” for your favorite cartoon – or your favorite sports team, or Linux distribution, or artisanal flavored mustard – instantaneously. Now the rabbit hole of how deeply you can get “into” one of your interests is basically bottomless. |
| We’re all weird now. Or maybe we were weird before, but now technology enables us to let our freak flag fly, each one of us. The weird thing now is trying to be normal – if you can even define what normal is anymore. | We’re all weird now. Or maybe we were weird before, but now technology enables us to let our freak flag fly, each one of us. The weird thing now is trying to be normal – if you can even define what normal is anymore. |
| So it’s no wonder there’s a sort of escalating war of authenticity over claims to “nerdiness”. What celebrity hasn’t answered an interviewer with “I’m kind of a nerd, I guess” – only to get taken apart as a “fake nerd” in the internet comments? Real nerds have seen the episodes that aren’t available on Netflix. Real nerds own all the comics in their original print edition. Real nerds were into the scene before the scene was cool enough for celebrities. | So it’s no wonder there’s a sort of escalating war of authenticity over claims to “nerdiness”. What celebrity hasn’t answered an interviewer with “I’m kind of a nerd, I guess” – only to get taken apart as a “fake nerd” in the internet comments? Real nerds have seen the episodes that aren’t available on Netflix. Real nerds own all the comics in their original print edition. Real nerds were into the scene before the scene was cool enough for celebrities. |
| Only be careful not to brag too loudly about how long ago you became a fan – because then you’re clearly more interested in being seen as a nerd than actually being a nerd, and that makes you a hipster, which is the only thing worse than a fake nerd. | Only be careful not to brag too loudly about how long ago you became a fan – because then you’re clearly more interested in being seen as a nerd than actually being a nerd, and that makes you a hipster, which is the only thing worse than a fake nerd. |
| What a mess. And what’s even worse is how the iconic, dated 1980s stereotype of nerd-v-jock has led to widespread cultural appropriation of the nerd’s natural enemy: the bully. | What a mess. And what’s even worse is how the iconic, dated 1980s stereotype of nerd-v-jock has led to widespread cultural appropriation of the nerd’s natural enemy: the bully. |
| Remember when “shaming” was an all-purpose suffix? Creepy guys rejected by women cried “creep-shaming”, people who talked too much about their cats cried “cat-shaming”, politicians caught embezzling public funds cried “embezzlement-shaming”. It was a reflexive way to deflect criticism by becoming critical of the act of criticism. It was shame-shaming. | Remember when “shaming” was an all-purpose suffix? Creepy guys rejected by women cried “creep-shaming”, people who talked too much about their cats cried “cat-shaming”, politicians caught embezzling public funds cried “embezzlement-shaming”. It was a reflexive way to deflect criticism by becoming critical of the act of criticism. It was shame-shaming. |
| Well, now “bullying” is picking up the slack and it’s even worse. You can be a “bully” now for anything – a single racist tweet, a tweet pointing out the original tweet was racist, a tweet questioning the second tweet’s self-serving motives for calling out a racist bully, etc. Bullies all the way down. | Well, now “bullying” is picking up the slack and it’s even worse. You can be a “bully” now for anything – a single racist tweet, a tweet pointing out the original tweet was racist, a tweet questioning the second tweet’s self-serving motives for calling out a racist bully, etc. Bullies all the way down. |
| After all, if you’re the weird kid, picked upon for your quirky individuality, then everyone who gets in your way or gets in your face represents the faceless masses trying to force conformity on you. Being the “nerd” makes your enemies “bullies” by default, which makes you the good guy by default. It’s awfully convenient. | After all, if you’re the weird kid, picked upon for your quirky individuality, then everyone who gets in your way or gets in your face represents the faceless masses trying to force conformity on you. Being the “nerd” makes your enemies “bullies” by default, which makes you the good guy by default. It’s awfully convenient. |
| Which isn’t to say that there aren’t actual bullies who need to be stopped. Just like we should shame people for things that are genuinely shameful. | Which isn’t to say that there aren’t actual bullies who need to be stopped. Just like we should shame people for things that are genuinely shameful. |
| But our need to perpetually see ourselves as the misunderstood weirdo outsiders in all things – to perceive ourselves as the scrawny little nerds constantly hounded by an eternal football team full of detractors – needs to stop. Especially since the people most associated with that image of the “real nerd”, introverts who like digital technology, now pretty much run the entire world. | But our need to perpetually see ourselves as the misunderstood weirdo outsiders in all things – to perceive ourselves as the scrawny little nerds constantly hounded by an eternal football team full of detractors – needs to stop. Especially since the people most associated with that image of the “real nerd”, introverts who like digital technology, now pretty much run the entire world. |
| You can’t make a blockbuster movie anymore without giving it a convoluted backstory set in some sort of supernatural fantasy world. Everyone owns at least two or three computers (even if one of the computers is called a “phone”) and plays games on them. The President of the United States was interviewed on Between Two Ferns. | You can’t make a blockbuster movie anymore without giving it a convoluted backstory set in some sort of supernatural fantasy world. Everyone owns at least two or three computers (even if one of the computers is called a “phone”) and plays games on them. The President of the United States was interviewed on Between Two Ferns. |
| The world is weird. The world is nerdy. We’re all nerds now and there’s no going back. | The world is weird. The world is nerdy. We’re all nerds now and there’s no going back. |
| Which means that, yes, we’re also all fakes and hipsters sometimes. And all of us are, occasionally, the bully. That hokey speech at the end of The Breakfast Club was truer than any of us who identified with Anthony Michael Hall ever knew. | |
| So enough of the “revenge of the nerds”. Nerds are normal now; there are no nerds. Let’s say our eulogy for “nerd culture” and sing one last chorus of Weird Al’s “The Saga Begins”. | So enough of the “revenge of the nerds”. Nerds are normal now; there are no nerds. Let’s say our eulogy for “nerd culture” and sing one last chorus of Weird Al’s “The Saga Begins”. |
| And then let’s see what comes next. | And then let’s see what comes next. |