We’re All Nerds Now
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Owning a smartwatch, reading a best seller novel, or watching a blockbuster doesn't make anyone a nerd. Not any more than wearing aviator sunglasses makes me a pilot. Which is actually what nerd tends to mean now, a style, a fashion fad inspired by the original.
Ironically, yet also completely predictably when you think of it, the original demographic is starting to look down on the nerd interests of yesteryear. You can read very dismissive (and downright insulting but that's a given) comments about anime and computer gaming on 4chan of all places.
portlandia "nerd psa" skit highlights the issue too.
IIRC in "revenge of the nerds"[0] (1984) a few of the nerds were just the "not frat & football guys", rather than "expert in a intellectual field".
The "knowledgeable about something" bit came much later, as did the "techie" sense, AFAICT (wikipedia appears to agree[1]).
People love science in the same way they love classical music or art. Science and "geeky" subjects are perceived as being hip, cool and intellectual. So people take a passing interest just long enough to glom onto these labels and call themselves "geeks" or "nerds" every chance they get. I feel a sharp pang in my head every time some moron on Twitter or Facebook says something like "i'm doing my homework i'm such a nerd LOL!!!" Wrong, fuck belch. You're not a nerd for doing your assigned homework; you're doing it because you have to, not because you want to. That'd be like saying, "I'm eating food, I'm such a foodie, LOL!!!" Since when did it become cool to label yourself a "nerd" anyway? (...)
If you have to tell people you're a nerd, chances are you're not. Nerds don't have to advertise their status. We know. Being a nerd is a byproduct of losing yourself in what you do, often at the expense of friends, family and hygiene. Until or unless you've paid your dues, you haven't earned the right—or reason—to call yourself a nerd. Being a nerd isn't graceful or glorious. It's a life born out of obsessive dedication to a craft, discipline or collecting some stupid shit that only you care about.
[1]: http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd
As I spent a sunny Sunday working through Project Euler problems in Haskell, I got a little sad that the word "nerd" has been re-appropriated to people who like video games ($100billion industry) or Star Wars (3rd highest grossing film of all time) or people who like phone apps (everyone in SF).
Is there a new word that's been invented to take its place?
Being perceived as an intellectual is not strictly exclusionary, but opponents will certainly try to hold it against a candidate - much like any other characteristic that can be played up for factionalism.
"...right now I have three devices — my phone, my Kindle, my iPod..." - worlds most consumer-friendly devices. So nerdy.
Reminds me of a South Park classic: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=flippity-flop...
I wish I could say it's astonishing that journalists writing for a major paper would just casually make shit up for no reason (because it sounds good, I guess?), but that's the generally rotten state of journalism for you.
Take Emacs. That's a technology that empowers people to become creators. It's hackable, and not in a grim boring way like Unix:
"When large numbers of nontechnical workers are using a programmable editor, they will he tempted constantly to begin programming in the course of their day-to-day lives. This should contribute greatly to computer literacy, especially because many of the people thus exposed will be secretaries taught by society that they are incapable of doing mathematics, and unable to imagine for a moment that they can learn to program. But that won't stop them from learning it if they don't know that it is programming that they are learning! According to Bernard Greenberg, this is already happening with Multics EMACS." https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html
Please note I am merely reporting what I remember was the most common way to refer to non tech savvy people.
This is the same culture that gave us LART, PEBKAC, cluebat, and of course the BOFH.
Interestingly enough, in italian we used "utonto" as a blend of "utente" (user) and "tonto" (dummy, simpleton), showing the feeling was shared across language barries within similar groups.
This is true especially for journalists. They have a conflict of interest in the matter.
Their interest is to sell content online or in the newspapers. To appeal to people's self-aggrandizement is a very powerful motivation in this case.
Is that what Mr Cohen is doing? At a glance that's not certain. However with regard to this opinion piece, reviewing definition of terms and how they are used, looking for logical fallacies, reviewing the background of people being interviewed and some healthy skepticism is warranted.
Journalists talking about science and scientists is not equivalent to a thorough understanding of it.
What utter bullshit.
Yikes - does that mean that we all needed engineering degrees to drive cars?
The article's arguments for "geek culture" (might I add there is no such thing as a homogenous geek culture, but hey) proliferating are:
a) The recent popularity of sci-fi and superhero films.
b) The mass spread of consumer electronics and social media.
c) Computer technology becoming more accessible.
d) The information age enabling us to find trivia at a much faster rate than ever before.
e) Recent tech company acquisitions. (Twitch, Mojang, Oculus)
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a) is not indicative of any long-term acceptance and popularity of "geekdom". Sci-fi, superhero and fantasy films have fluctuated in popularity on and off over the past 40 years. We're simply at another point where they've picked up again. In fact, the article does mention this quite neatly: "In the past, there have been plenty of pop culture phenomena nerds could get behind — the frenzies surrounding the “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” movie franchises are two potent examples."
This is out, then.
b) is a technological inevitability. It has nothing to do with a spike in "geekdom". It's just progress, and in fact, one might make an argument that it is, to some extent, a regression. This is due to the locked down and obscurantist nature of consumer electronics, which discourage hacking and where everything is buried under a smoke screen. Social media? The Web is becoming ever more ubiquitous, so of course social media will as well. Social media has become more practical due to advances in web technology.
c) is closely related to b). As I stated, it may actually well serve as an argument against proliferation of "geekdom".
d) This means little, again. People have always been passionate about fiction they're invested in, so it's only normal that they'll memorize factoids and trivia. Honestly, if people think the best thing that came out of the Information Age is being able to look up factoids about television shows, what a miserable failure it is then.
e) is just tech giants being tech giants. Hurray?
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Finally, I'd like to state that The Big Bang Theory has a rather... mixed reception, to put it euphemistically. In addition, installing a printer isn't always so simple. CUPS is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, but I still find myself having to reset the printer driver for the UI quite frequently, as it just arbitrarily blocks. I don't know.
And of course, the irony of taking a jab at that "homogenous, sexist geek culture" while writing about how a very watered down variant of it might be becoming popular.
its like (this is really vague, sorry)..once upon a time you interacted with your pc via cli..now you get a in-browser webgl game..
or..this certainly is not universal..but those people that have 3 devices often don't even know how to add a mail account(whats pop3/imap/tls?)..
Having an iPhone in your hand does not make you a "nerd". It makes you stupid in my eyes, when I discover you use it only for messaging and calls.
I disagree, though. I have a number of friends with iPhones they use for little more than that, but they were free from their spouse or a family member. They either don't pay for a data plan or the data plan is part of a shared family plan so cost-wise it's a wash compared to dumbphones. They also happen to have a decent amount of storage (though not competitive with things like the iPod Classic until this latest generation of iPhone) so they can carry just the phone and have their music, calling and messaging in one device.
Excuse me if I sound a bit like what Munroe says is the 'revenge of the nerds', but to me a nerd is someone who has very specific interests. Interests which most of the time, alienate most people, since they are specific. You identify yourself not because you own a tech device, but because you are very interested in a topic. I see nerds as producers and not consumers.
Nerds are people who write fanfic,or make drawings of Game of Thrones. Not someone who simply watches a TV show.
I understand what you're trying to say, but I think there are better ways to say it.