Why Nerds Are Unpopular (2003)
paulgraham.com
paulgraham.com
IME, the dynamics in Indian schools, are polar opposite to the ones described here. "Nerds" tend to do well in both academics and extracurriculars. And in the majority case can also be referred to simultaneously as "Jocks". The separation between "nerds" and "jocks" into two ends of a (lunch table) spectrum is the biggest culture shock to me. The words that separate "nerds" and "jocks" don't exist in my native language's vocabulary even.
For the longest time, I believed that intelligence is a broadly applicable trait, that translates well to rapid spatial reasoning(sports), abstract reasoning(academics) and emotional awareness(social). I haven't seen even a single exception to the rule while going through the Indian school system.
While there is some truth to it. IMHO, it has to do with cultural ideals that "adults" adhere to. Academic achievement isn't celebrated culturally in US (relatively speaking).
I say that while also simultaneously acknowledging that the current Indian definition of academic achievement is disastrously narrow and breeds a culture of arrogance and intellectual insecurity.
But people were absolutely not excluded from friendships because of what activities they participated in. I saw all sorts of friendships, because people just liked people. There was bullying, but it happened for other reasons.
Bullying exists, but the bullies were often the ones who did well in class. Bullies are those who pick on easy prey weaker than them, and those who got isolated into the "dumb classes" were easily bullied. Move up in university and boarding school, and bullying became a lot more extreme, heavily controlled by the ones with good grades.
The kids with bad grades tended to have less willpower, come from poorer families, smoked and had less stamina, dressed poorly and couldn't afford tuition. They had a lot of discrimination stacked against them, and were easily oppressed by the "nerds".
I would categorize myself as a nerd in that I didn't bother with how I looked or dressed, or that I had bad handwriting. But that attitude lent me a more regal reputation in school; similar to punk or "bad boy" instead.
In the above-average-but-not-best part of academic achievements spectrum is where most of the actually intelligent people are found. They are not as studious as their hardworking "topper" counterparts, but in general, actually understand the subjects and can think creatively.
In my experience here, I have seen lot of "academically succesful" people and lot of intelligent people, there are very few people who are in both of these sets.
In university I had a few lecturers that tried to be different. They tested knowledge rather than hard work, and how many times you've drilled past exam papers. Generally these courses made the students feel out of control of their fate, stressed/anxious, and they hated the course. If I'm being honest I was one of those students.
Ultimately, the kind of "smart" you're talking about is not useful or valued. There are a small percentage of students, who are not only smart, but also good at "gaming" the system. A small percentage of this subset might end up in research and development, and the students who would be good at R&D don't get the chance to prove themselves.
For most students, being good at "gaming" the system, following instructions, and learning by rote is good enough. To be a doctor or a lawyer, you need to know by rote the basic fundamental knowledge. Thereafter it's constant practice and experience in actually practising medicine/law, and the associated accumulation of knowledge of all the "little tricks" and intricacies, that makes you a good professional.
Nerds are unpopular because they are mostly introverts. Mostly not that fun to be around unless you like having super deep conversations about a specific topic.
Most people don’t like doing that.
The key to being popular is to meet ‘normal’ people where they are and intentionally engage in non intellectual activities that everyone enjoys. Sports, music, beer, etc.
Obviously one can be highly intelligent in school and not be nerdy, everyone knows people who are intelligent as well as popular have a healthy social life.
Nerds never did well in school because they're often smug as hell, think they're the brainy protagonist of some sort of TV show envied by everyone else, but in reality not even that clever. That's a bad combination. The nerds are no different than the goth kids, or the punks, or anyone else who conjures up an identity in high school to declare themselves the moral centre of the universe. It's unpopular because it's immature.
Most people spend large part of their effort on popularity contest. Nerd is somebody that even if he/she would like to take part in the contest they value other, more intellectual exercises. They end up underdeveloped socially because they don't have as much experience as somebody that spends most of their time partying, socializing or avoiding study or work to be able to party and socialize.
No, nerds are the people who lost the general popularity contest and then started one in a parallel universe. Almost nobody is more competitive about status than subcultures internally, almost like a middle-finger towards society at large.
This shows in video game competitions, programming language and editor wars, literal startup company competitions. I mean nobody is more vicious in their status fight than the stereotypical nerd-turned-techbro fighting for the attention they didn't get in high school. A lot of famous tech people literally fight like they went into a sort of delayed puberty in their 20s and 30s.
This comes through not just in this essay but a lot of Paul Graham stuff, the kind of "you bullied us in high school and now we're rich!" subtext.
And I don't see why nerds are more viciously competitive than other groups, your examples can be easily matched with ones from non-nerd universe. You hardly see an editor war actually turning violent.
This is funny because this specific wording allows for the possibility that it has happened at least once.
To be fair, even though my wording has allowed for the possibility, I have never seen or heard about an editor war turning violent. I did see more than once nerd arguments gathering enough heat that it granted a "jury".
Once the person stops participating in the mainstream popularity contest they are necessarily going to be left behind and it is going to affect their persona.
I know both types of "nerds". Ones that became nerds after not being popular and ones that were never interested.
I, for example, started my journey to being nerd before the contest. I started reading books when I was 6 and by the time I was 7 or 8 I would be spending large most of my time either reading books or searching through books in the library. I would be coming back home with bags full of books once a week. I never went to preschool and I never had any peers (other than my siblings) to interact with before I started spending most of my time reading. By the time I went to school I was not interested to compete with other kids for anything and I was quite ok being left to my own interests.
I also know people who turned as a mechanism to cope with their apparent loss in the contest. But in my mind that's not strictly "nerd". Nerd is somebody who does what they do because they want to do it and not for some other reason like popularity in their field or as an advantage at work. People who turn to other things as a mechanism to cope typically are less passionate about what they are doing, at least that's my observation.
Plenty of social and popular people have and interests as nerds and have them because they like them. But self identified nerds, who by own words never really interact with them more are interested to, do seem to imagine that such thing is not possible.
In my opinion, the "act like nerds" part likely comes from temperamental traits such as social anxiety, higher sensitivity, etc. For identifying with "being smart" (whether they actually are, is debatable) I would argue it is at least partially as a result of intellectualization being their go-to defense mechanism to cope with uncomfortable emotions (e.g., social ostracization/bullying).
In other words, nerds likely become nerds as a result of being unpopular/ostracized, not the other way around.
You're close to something though - a nerd thinks they're too important to put effort into being popular. In a world where everyone shampoos, combs their hair, puts on deodorant to please others, that seems quite snobbish.
> That's not a passive thing happening to someone, it's something that people actively act like.
The way we act IMO is not a choice. Very few people would actively choose to be uncharismatic, since it would be almost purely negative. Same with intelligence, athletics, music, ect. some people are geniuses, some people have learning disabilities, and there's gray area in between.
The "incel" tendency to blame it on a birth defect is dangerous and toxic, but it's also wrong to act like people are actively deciding to do these things, and are to blame for being bad at something that comes naturally to most people. It would be like blaming a dyslexic kid for being unable to read, and telling them it's their fault they don't just read like the rest of us. Grow up and pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
> Nerds never did well in school because they're often smug as hell, think they're the brainy protagonist of some sort of TV show envied by everyone else, but in reality not even that clever
I agree, but this ignores how tolerant people are of obnoxious personalities. I've met plenty of "cool" people that are just the worst. I simply do not understand the appeal and are 10,000x the shithead the nerds are. Sometime it's baffling how they even have friends, they're so toxic, and actively harmful to be around. I get it if the person is so charming, but often times they're clearly not. That person is a toxic asshole, but nobody cares... of course we know over time less people will stick around them; yet it's still somehow a better bet than acting a bit nerdy.
My suspicion is that things have changed somewhat. That the youth are somewhat more tolerant and mature than they were back in my day. The kids I meet seem way ahead of where I was in high school.
Like in the movie 21 jump street, where 2 cops go undecover at a school, jock and unpopular kid. Only the jock learns his ways are no longer 'cool'.
Describing yourself as nerdy or geeky doesn't have a negative connotation. The nerds of the late 20th century are now literally filthy rich, and everyone has a computing device in their pocket, uses the internet 16 hours a day, and was into game of thrones prior to the last season.
Nerds are unpopular, admitting they really are and care about being popular, because they mostly don't believe in luck, faith, higher beings and what common people usually think it's important in life
A nerd won't think yoga it's good because yoga is popular on Instagram, a nerd believes exercise is important, regardless of the cool factor
People don't like being told "your beliefs are based on fashion" and will rule nerds are as "not interpersonally aligned".
Truth is they are usually right
Cassandra was a nerd, Trojans believed she was unpleasant and were defeated by a wooden horse
Also: being popular sucks, many intelligent people prefer other achievements in life
Since we are generalizing, being popular is awesome. And, objectively better than not being popular.
I guess I'm not intelligent.
I'm talking about the fact that being popular in school has nothing to do with objectively having a good life
Usually people good in sports are popular in high school because have more confidence, it doesn't mean they'll be happy adults
Nerds are not popular because they aren't looking for easy solutions, but to master something
It requires sacrifice and trying to be popular is the most useless of the distractions
I guess that's another of the cultural differences between US and Europe: the pinnacle of our life is way after school and who was or wasn't popular back then is not important when you reach adulthood
paulgraham.com/hs.html in paulgraham.com/articles.html
I've found nerds as a teenager to be one of the most judging, toxic group of people who actually care far more about popularity than anyone else at school. (How many other groups made lists of tables by popularity?)
This passage makes me think you missed the points of the essay.
PG isn't saying "people hate people who enjoy computers and want to shove them into lockers." Rather, he's saying that status competition in middle/high school is a brutal Darwinian struggle, and those who have anything stopping them from optimizing solely for status, will lose the race.
Your comment about awkwardness/inability to hold a conversation doesn't strike true either. Rather, I felt like no one else could hold a conversation. Time has born this out; many of my nerd friends have gone on to people/verbal professions, and I'm one of the more gregarious developers you'll meet. I played a lot of sports and so had substantial intercourse with my school's popular crowd---I would not list "conversation" as one of their strengths.
Now, one caveat here: The idea that "nerds are just awkward weirdos" isn't entirely without base. I think there are two types of people who get labeled as "weird" --- actually-messed-up people, and also people who are interested in something out-of-context. The trouble with school is that, because your actions don't affect the world, it's impossible to distinguish between the two---like how you couldn't tell Einstein from the Time Cube guy (https://timecube.2enp.com/) if you couldn't do experiments.
If you believe the problem is with "everyone else", the problem really is with you. Nerds generally struggle with holding conversations without constantly sending "out-group" signals while failing to send "in-group" signals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yN2H3--1aw
Unlike in this satirical clip, I don't think it's possible to fake being "a normal guy". However, in my experience, it's possible to build rapport by being respectful and signaling that you get where the other person is coming from. Avoid being intellectually dominating. That way, you'll be perceived as "that okay smart guy" instead of "that fucking nerd".
Even if you don't care about being popular, learning how to read people is an extremely important skill, especially if you're somewhere on the autism spectrum. Just approach it as another nerd subject (human psychology).
The problem with aphorisms like these is they lack nuance. I don't mind it as a general guideline, because it stimulates people to ask themselves whether they're the asshole - a good inroad to introspection that in many is sorely lacking. Likewise, in the context of nerds, it probably applies more often than not.
However, there are situations where the others are the problem: racism, mysoginy, homophobia, unjust laws, macho culture, historical social control exerted by the church, etc. It isn't always true that because behaviour is present in the majority, said behaviour is actually without fault. There is at times a thin line between belonging and herd mentality, and between seeking group harmony and conformity for conformity's sake.
Lacking social skills is something completely different than being an asshole.
You're not even that much smarter than all those other kids. You just went all in on making your entire identity being smart. Predictably, no one liked it. Most of those other kids were smart enough to realize that being liked matters, and figured out how to be more liked.
It can take awhile, but other "nerds" figure it out eventually. I know plenty of extremely smart people that never had this problem, or figured it out as a young adult. It's a bitter pill to swallow that it wasn't how you are as a person, but the decisions you've made. This reads like someone that has never really had to come to terms with reality for whatever reason (likely just never had diverse social experiences).
I say envy because there was always one or two popular ones that would circle around us just a bit closer, curious about what could be so fun about those maps and dices and lines of code. A few came close enough to fall in our gravity well. This was all at a time when computers were solely used to type your assignments on.
Sure, but let's be fair - that was the exception, not the rule. It just means it was possible, albeit not as socially acceptable, for popular people to have nerdy interests. But that doesn't mean they felt envy for nerd' lives and social circles when compared to their own.
I dare to disagree again with you regarding envy. Mostly because (and I am being biased here) I felt that I had more fun than the other groups. I was building a radio with my friends, they were pecking at each other at basketball, forever busy at keeping their ranks.
It seems as though you're assuming they didn't enjoy basketball as much as you enjoyed building radios, or that their friendships weren't as fulfilling as yours. There's no need to diminish other people to validate yourself.
It is just that thing, most kids who don't share your favorite activity just don't care about that activity. If they are nice, they will listen a bit about it.