Will_Kesner

NerdsBy Will Kesner

For a while now I have been fascinated with sub-cultures, and more than anything else the sub-culture of the nerd. I have wondered what exactly makes a nerd. The nerd has been accepted into the mainstream, not only in fashion design but in television shows and movies. Just twenty years ago the nerd was the butt of every joke, now seeing nerds come so far is part of what makes this so interesting to me.

Many people are familiar with the stereo-types nerds have acquired over the years, unfor-tunately when people think of nerds they almost exclusively think of the stereotypes. The point of this article is to show people what a nerd does, not only to question some of the stereotypes but to provide some incite on what a nerd is.

Inside the Mind of a Nerd

Hestandsatfivefeetandnineinches,weighs 125 pounds and his sport of choice is not of the physical variety. As a young child he de-cided to quit a life of playing with toy trains and legos for his brand new Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64. It was from this choice that his life was forever changed and his passion for gaming grew. However, feeling that there was a lack of tech-nological know-how in his family, he began to pursue other technological interests. His growing expertise in computing and usage of gadgetry has served him well, and provided more opportunities for him to help his family.

Many would not expect this gamer to be interested in sports as well, but he is. Most of his free time in elementary school was spent playing sports on his school teams or playing on his Nin-tendo. The feeling of intense competition while watching his favorite team or playing his favorite sport is something that has stuck with him.

Engineeringistheclassthathefindsmostinteresting. He sees new problems as challenges he would like to face. While driving to school helooksattrafficlightsandbridgesandthinks,ìHow can this be done better?î. Many of his inter-ests today are fueled by the video games he has playedandthefilmshehaswatched,somesomeof the ideas that he wishes to implement in the future .

Unfortunately for him he has not had the timetopursueanotheroneofhisinterests,film.

Inprojectsatschoolthatwereinvolvedwithfilmhehasenjoyedthe ability to express of his creativity. It came down to a decision betweenfilmorengineeringandengineeringwon,theresimplywasnot enough room in his schedule for both.

Overall video gaming is his dominate interest. Though not his only one, it is the one he most enjoys and pursues to the greatest extent. He enjoys the fantasy of Legend of Zelda most of all. While he plays with other people he enjoys correcting those who make grammatical mistakes, and using new terms that many have not heard of yet. Being a cynical and pessimistic person online is one way he has learned how to earn respect, and get acceptance for the gamer culture. Single player gaming is a way he escapes. Especially thisyear,thepressuresofhisjunioryearhavedrivenhimtofindfunways to escape. By taking on the persona of the main character he becomesimmersedinthefantasy,andapartofit’sworldhefindsheis able to relax.

The Nerd Today In the Mainstream

The nerd is still less favorable socially than an athlete, but they are no longer untouchables. In the media the nerd is now portrayed as someone with exceptional skills in there pro-fession. Many crime shows today host a person with exceptional intelligence and small amounts of social skills. While these hyper-intelligent people do their jobs they use their skills with mathematics, and computers. Today many shows portray nerds in high paying jobs doing things that most people can not do.

Technological advancements have helped our economy grow and helped to protect Mountain View and Los Altos from someofthefinancialhardshipsthatmanypeoplearoundtheworld now face. As part of my exploration of nerd culture I will show who helped make these technological advancements pos-sible, and how they effected the nerd culture over time.

From the prepubescent boy in The Breakfast Club to that pasty kid in Hacker,s the nerd has had many people try and cre-

Lincoln Race, playing a game

ateadiffinitivecharecterizationofwhatanerdis.Inthe80sas I have already mentioned, the nerd was a joke someone whonobodywantedtoidentifywith,butbythemid1990’sthe reaction to that kind of thought had already started. While not quite grown-up the nerd had become a symbol for tech savvy kids who were on the cutting edge of technology. The internet became one of the most important technological advancesfornerds,andbecameextremelypopularizedduringthis time.

Now a days a nerd is a very different creature. The Internet’s growth is the single largest contributor to this. With rapid exchanges of information those who were once social outcasts were given a forum of discussion and the tools to shapenewlingo,hacks,games,andthewaypeoplesocialize.

The History of the term Nerd

Thoughthetermnerdwasinventedinthe1950byDr.Seuss,thiscub-culturedidnotbecomeheavilyrecognizeduntilthethemid1970s.Atthistimeìnerdîreferredtoasocialoutcast in high school or college who received good grades as well as harassment from jocks and frat boys. Until People saw that nerds could do things that were seen as not just use-

not nerds.

Will: A lot of people see nerds and Japan as attached. Is that just because of game design and electronics or is it because people are actually interested in the cul-ture?

Preston: I think a lot of Americans see Ja-pan as where we get our electronics from.

Lincoln: Could not have said it better myself actually.

Will: Now we were talking a little earlier about stereotypes, what are some of the stereotypes you think of?

Preston: Has no friends.

Lincoln: Lives in his Mom’s basement, eats hot pockets for every meal. Should I just describe my daily routine, is that what you want.[Has] no girlfriend.

Will:DoyouguysidentifywithanyTVshow as being spot on with what you [do]?

ful but impressive nerds continued this trend. Intheearly1980smanysawthatnerdsweremakingalot of money. New tech companies and there business leaders were all nerds. A sense of pride was then established, not only were they smart, but they had, in the publics view, a prom-ising economic future. This did not mean that nerds were acceptedyet,butthiswasthefirsttimethattheywereabletodetermine something about their own identity.

Teen movies of the nineteen eighties highlighted the class and social differences at high schools. The stereotype ofthenerdfromthe80siswhatmostpeoplethinkofwhenthis term is brought up. Until more recently nerds have not been able to determine their identity as mush as it has been projectedonthem.Alsointhe80ssomemoviesmovedawayfrom the negative nerd image and to some more positive and far fetched images of what nerds are.

As a response to the many negatives portrayals of what a nerd is and out of a search for a nerd identity, the cy-berpunk was created. Instead of portraying a nerd as a social-ly inept and incompetent individual, the nerd was shown to beasuperhero.Duringthenineteen-ninetiesnerdculturewas

greatlyinfluencedbythistheme,anditremainsinfluentialonmany online forums.

As time passed and the Internet became faster and a large part of nerd culture came into being. Online gaming brought many nerds together for extended periods of time. Thoughnerdshadexistedbeforetheearly1990stheyhadnotcommunicated or played together over long distances. Games likeDoom,UltimaOnline,Warcraft,andCommandandCon-querhelpedtodefinenerdculturebybringingthemtogether.This is also where much of the lingo that nerds use came about. Instead of just referencing media people came up with their own terms, some of which spread. Many people now say pwned because of a spelling error, since then the term has stuck. The online gaming community created many aspects of what real nerds do today.

Some Thoughts on Nerd Culture from Members of the MVHS Video Game Club

Will:By being an introvert does that automatically make you a nerd?

Preston: Absolutely not, there are tons of introverts who are

Left to Right. Lincoln Race. Kyle Gruspe

Lincoln: Well Pure Pwnage is a pretty good representation, I mean it is obviously geared towards more people in there twenties than the teens audience, but its basically, I would say, a pretty good representation of what a gamer is, but [without] the fantasy parts.

Kyle: I say Mythbusters

Preston: Mythbusters, oh ya

Kyle: Physics

Lincoln: Big Bang Theory

Preston: The science channel

Will: What parts of those shows do you guys identifywith?Kyledoyouwanttogofirst?

Kyle: nothing comes up

Lincoln: Well in a show like Pure Pwnage I like the idea that the main thing they want to do is play games, they see things like work or school as like distractions from there overall incentive, which is how I feel.

Preston: I don’t really associate with any television shows.

Will: What about anime, do you identify with any of that or why do you think a lot of nerds like anime.

Preston: Because nerds are into fantasy, that’s why we play video games.

Will: Video games like anime and other fantasy provide people with an escape, why do you think that so many people who watch animeandplayvideogameswanttofindanescape?

Preston: Well probably because they don’t have an alternate way to escape. Some people escape with music, other people escape with running. Being a nerd just means that you escape using alternate means.

Will: Is it really just a way to keep from

socializingwithotherpeople?Isitanegativething?

Preston: Well not at all. People don’t play videogamestonotsocializewithpeople,theyplaygamessotheycansocializewithpeople.

Lincoln: I would say that a good example of socializingwouldbeourclub,alotofpeoplenow play video games with other people via online or via splitscreen multiplayer.

Preston: Like I don’t even play single player games anymore.

Will: So you guys would say that video games are actually bringing people together.

Left to Right. Preston Bunker, Lincoln Race

Preston:Yes,definitely

Will: Social networks, not just facebook, but a lot of forums could be considered social networks.Youfindmanypeoplewhoareveryknowledgeable about computers who are of-ten talking to tons of other people. Are these a more common means of communication for nerds?

Lincoln: More common as, say what?

Will: Well, lets say most extroverts would so-cializewitheachotherbyphoneorinperson,would you say that nerds would be just as open to communication over the Internet?

Lincoln: I would say that at least now a days, hardly anybody would use the phone so much as to either just text or IM or facebook, so I don’t see any differences between that and how nerds communicate.

Will: So there is really no difference?

Lincoln: I guess you could say that most ex-troverts tend to communicate with one person at a time, where as if you have someone with a phone [unclear]

Will: Preston do you have anything to add?

Preston: Not particularly

Will: How do you think this interview would have gone ten years ago ?

Preston: Well much differently, because not everyone were nerds back then.

Will: OK

Lincoln: Well there were less people who played video games, but the people who played video games played them more.

Preston: Probably

Lincoln: Although we play video games a lot I would say that there are more people play-ing games less often.

Will: So moving away from games, just computers. How, do we think of the nerd as

being invented pretty much with comput-ers, and computers being open to the public? So would you say that the nerd did not exist beforethe60s.

Preston:Wellitdependsonhowyoudefineanerd. Actually I think ya, I think that before the60snerdswerelikedefinesaspeoplewhostay in their mother’s basement building mod-els and stuff like that.

Will:SoKylehowdoyoudefineanerdinyourownwords,orhowwouldyoudefinewhat you think of when you think of a nerd, not necessarily a stereotype, but a person who actually who would actually exist, and how wouldyoudefineyourself?

Kyle: From movies you see nerds as just weak people who just stare at a TV screen, but I don’t see anyone here who would do that kind of thing.

Will:Sowhatwouldyoudefineanerdas?

Kyle:Youcan’treallycategorizeit’snotany-one different, same as everyone else [they] just do computers and video games.

Lincoln:Youwantadefinition,justsomebodywho’s main activity either has to do with computers or games.

Will: Alright, Preston would you agree with that?

Preston: Ya I would agree with that, if some-one’s main hobby involves video games or other activities that you generally do by yourself.

Will: So there is a frontier of exclusion there, what’s involved with it, the frontier of exclu-sion for being a nerd or not? What’s the initia-tion cerimony for becoming a nerd?

Lincoln: Well one could say going to urban-dictionary.com

Preston: Even once could taint you forever

Will: Now it’s really competitive, people are often challenging each other in games and while using 1337speak (leet-speek) or Inter-

Group: (laughs)

Lincoln: Another cultural reference.

Will: It is

Lincoln: It is interesting that you bring that up though, the whole gamers automatically criticizingeachotherthingIwouldsaythatitis fairly common throughout human culture.Will: It is, but it seems much higher with this, is it just a whole bunch of testosterone in like one place.

Lincoln:Ithinkthatitisdefinitelyadrenaline.

Preston: Or maybe they are just trying to feel better about themselves because they have a suck-[explicative deleted] life.

Group: (laughs)

Will: That is a point I was getting at, do you think they are so critical because [of self-esteem issues]

Preston: If anything that’s what the true nerd does.

Will: It’s a self-esteem thing.Preston: Someone who really has no life, then

net speak if you make a mistake your going to becriticizedheavily.Whydoyouguysthinkit’s so competitive?

Preston: Because everyone wants to win.

Lincoln: Everything is competitive it’s not just video games. I guarantee you if you were onaprofootballfieldduringanNFLSundaygame like I just [explicative deleted] your Mom or something like that. It’s always, it’s just human nature, if you win you are going tocriticizetheotherguy.

Will: Ya, but it is so critical

Lincoln: I think it’s mainly critical because there is such a availability of communication while you game.

Will: So it’s not seen as acceptable because such an availability of information and people see that they should know everything, so they should never make a mistake, is that what you are saying?

Lincoln: That is basically what I’m saying I guess.

Will: Antsy Preston is antsy.

Kyle Gruspe

Preston: Someone who really has no life, then ya they would insult someone else for losing at the game.

Preston Bunker