Is it me or has being a nerd become trendy?

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metalwolf

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I remember when i was growing up that showing interest in anything like dragons,elves,knights and such were considered uncool and get me picked on for it. But seems when LOTR,the hobbit,skyrim and such came out. that being a nerd has become mainstream.
 
I can remembe being in 6th grade in 1958, and some of my classmates wore a DA and pretended to be greasers.

We all grew up and none of us became greasers or drove '56 Ford hot rods. 😜
 
I think video games blurred the lines. Among my children and their schoolmates, the nerds and the athletes all play the same games and hang out together and there doesn’t seem to be as much of a social delineation between the different “types” of kids.
 
metalwolf said:
I remember when i was growing up that showing interest in anything like dragons,elves,knights and such were considered uncool and get me picked on for it.
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When exactly were you growing up?

I’ve been around people who were into all the Hobbit and Ren Faire stuff since the 80s and never saw anyone being picked on for it, ever. Of course, I was an engineer for much of that time, so everybody around was pretty much a nerd, and the ones who weren’t engineers were musicians and art students who were into every subculture you could imagine.
 
Nerd : “socially awkward” and “an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit”
Geek : “a digital-technology expert or enthusiast” and “a person who has excessive enthusiasm for and some expertise about a specialized subject or activity”

So there can be overlap between geeks and nerds, but it’s still cool to be a geek, but uncool to be a nerd.

One of the big things that launched geeks into cool territory is the fact that many of them turned into gazillionaires because of their geekiness.

Likewise, all of a sudden, the geeks are the bosses over their less-geeky counterparts. They’re the ones with the power and prestige within their territory, in contrast with all the regular joes who don’t have the skillset that comes from being a geek.

Having an interest in computers has also become more mainstream as computer technology has become mainstream and become more user-friendly. Pretty much everyone knows how to use a computer, and has interest in technology, whether it’s their cellphone, or their Facebook games, or their Steam account, or whatever. But it’s still rare that you get people who are geek enough to write their own code, build their own machines, or program their own games. So playing Skyrim isn’t enough to give you geek credentials, because there are 10 million other people on the planet playing along with you, but being a pro gamer who participates in tournaments might make you a geek. Reading “The Lord of the Rings” isn’t likely to make you a geek-- it just makes you literate-- but being fluent in Quenya or Sindarian will.

Etc, etc, etc. The bar for “geekdom” is always shifting, as certain things become more and more mainstream.
 
Dorks are definitely uncool dweebs are the least cool.

Bokbok
 
Augustinian said:
How about dorks, do they differ from nerds and geeks ? Is it cool to be a dork?
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Nerds and geeks overlap with each other because they’re both awesome at something very specialized, but nerds are less than geeks, because nerds are socially awkward.

Dorks overlap with nerds in that they’re both socially awkward, but dorks are slow-witted. They’re not as smart as nerds. So no, dorks are uncool.
 
There were some overlaps between groups.

I was a nerd, a cheerleader and a goth girl too. I hung out mainly with the goth group.
 
Yeah.

I remember when computers back in the early 80’s and 90’s were thought to be nerdy and when the internet back in those days was bbs and such and there was only altavista,and no google back then.
 
My parents had punch cards, but I wasn’t allowed to play on the computer until 7" floppies. I did remember having to program them before I could save stuff to them… and I do know what a B drive is for… and I remember being indignant about the first computer game we bought that actually REQUIRED a mouse to use it. (Carmen Sandiego.) 🙂 I didn’t get on the Internet until 1996-- but now, there are people who haven’t known life without it. 🙂

This one was my starter computer as a kid, although our family had two or three different models—
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I remember in 2nd grade, we had computer class. We learned how to code in BASIC in order to make a little turtle draw a picture a la etch-a-sketch. You’d have to write all your code first, and then when you ran it, you knew if you’d done it correctly by whether or not all the lines were the right colors and lengths and directions. 🙂

My kids in school-- their computer class is pretty much “sit in front of the computer and click stuff to play games.” I played games, too— but it was a lot more work. 🙂

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I avoid anything trendy like the plague. That said, I’m a 12th Level nerd.
 
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