…if the shoe fits, I suppose. You are, afterall, reading a blog post on a website dedicated to writing and talking about Massively Multiplayer Online Video Games, so I can’t imagine this is the first time someone has called you a nerd. Anyway, I listened to the Public Radio syndicated show, The Sound of Young America, today and heard an interview with Benjamin Nugent, who has just written a book entitled, “American Nerd, The Story of My People.” The book is part historical, from the coining of the word nerd by Dr. Seuss, to the rise of the nerd image from Saturday Night Live skits, to the impact the Internet and arenas like Comic-Con have had; and part memoir, where he speaks of his own memories of playing D&D with his nerd friends and later tries to distance himself from them in an attempt to change his image from a nerd. Anywho, it’s an interesting listen and probably an interesting book. The podcast is below.
I’m Not Pointing Any Fingers, But…
I’m Not Pointing Any Fingers, But…
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The problem is nerds and their hobbies are too mainstream these days for that label to really have any negative meaning now.
It’s actually cool to be a nerd. And that just pisses me off.
I no longer want to be a part of a social group that too popular. I guess I’ll need to need to come up with something else to do if I want to be considered a socially awkward outcast again.
I’m thinking fork bending or air sickness bag collecting.
Dweeb, Spazz, Dork, Geek … Take your pick.
Or you could coin your own name like you did with menasis.
I like geek.
has a tech-ish ring to it.
I don’t know that I fully agree with your comment, Jay. While some of the activities of nerds have become more mainstream, the population growth (or at least population awareness) of nerds has grown with the internet, and nerds as a social group are more widely acceptable, I don’t believe that it is the consensus that it is hip or cool to be considered a nerd. Nerds usually posses skill sets that are valued in society — nunchuk skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills (well, at least the computer skills), but I don’t think this necessarily makes nerds cool or revered. People think you’re great when you can go to their house and set up their wireless network for them, but tell them that you’re hosting an all day MMO LAN-party and the response isn’t going to be one of admiration or jealousy. It’s a reaction of judgment that is far from positive — unless you’re receptive to people thinking you’re a weirdo. I think you’re still considered a socially awkward outcast, you just belong to a group of socially awkward outcasts that is much larger than it used to be. So, don’t fret, Jay, I don’t think you’re cool in the least.
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-nerd-geek-or-dork-test
I am… A Geek.
61% Geek, 43% Dork, 30 % Nerd.
For The Record:
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Geek, earning you the title of: Pure Geek.
It’s not that you’re a school junkie, like the nerd, and you don’t really stand out in a crowd, like the dork, you just have some interests that aren’t quite mainstream. Perhaps it’s anime, perhaps it’s computers, perhaps it’s bottlecaps, perhaps it’s all of those and more. Your interests take you to events and gatherings that are filled with people you find unusual and beyond-the-pale, but you don’t quite consider yourself “of that crowd.” Instead, you consider yourself to be fairly normal.
Which, I am.
Well, Oni, at least your normal in your own mind. Kudos!
I try not to stray too far away from ( my mind ). Otherwise… I’d be lost very easily ^_^
Although people say that for the mere fact, I like Anime, I’m not normal. *snicker*
For the record, I was cut/pasting the results of that quiz. It ended with “Which, you are” so I edited it to say “Which, I am.”
Gotcha. Fair enough. Do normal people rely on online tests to confirm that they are so? Seems like taking a test over the Internet to discover what proportion of nerd, geek and dork I am implies some degree of all three. I dunno, but here’s mine for the record…
48 % Nerd, 26% Geek, 9% Dork
You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal.
This is not to say that you don’t have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you–we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren’t much of an outcast.
I need to get back to writing freemarker HTML now.
I took the test and I’m “Joe Normal” 30% Nerd…22%Geek…30% Dork.
To quote one of Deniro’s movie lines,
“I’m NOT and animal ! … I’m NOT an animal!!… >Tears choked back