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[sn00zer]

You're hanging around the wrong people if those are the sorts of discussions you're having.

I am still talking about geeky shit like comics, video games, genre movies and robotics with all my friends.

These are not my friends I am describing

 

[Goo]

The nerds have gone mad with their current popularity... /s

I get where you are coming from; I think the gathering of many poorly behaved people online makes it easy to generalize the whole group as being the same way. There are still cool nerds out there that don't spend all their time being terrible to others.
Being a terrible person is just too easy online, so the ones that want to be take full advantage.

 

[Neoweee]

Hating women, hating minorities, blaming women for our faults, pcmasterrace,

One of these things is not like the other

 

[fredrancour]

Most discussions on nerdy forums are still people talking about the silly stuff we love.

It's just that people minding their own business and enjoying their hobbies naturally attract less attention than very angry people acting upon incredibly negative opinions. Therefore the internet's ability to expose you to thousands of opinions a day leads to many horrible things reaching your eyes and ears.

 

[shem935]

Your confusing your sample of nerds to only pertain to nerds. That is false. It applies to all people. All people are shitty people. It's when you find people whose shit you can put up with and who can put up with your shit that you either call it love or friendship.

TL;DR We're all dicks especially me.

 

[zeopower6]

They've always been pretty bad. Even back during like the newsgroup days and stuff.

 

[Stat Flow]

The Internet.

And to echo other sentiments, most people are shitty idiots. Oh well.

 

[Frecklestein]

revenge

 

[~Devil Trigger~]

Internet + Anonymity

 

[MrBadger]

One of these things is not like the other

Arson, murder and jaywalking

 

[DOWN]

Sounds like OP is talking about geeks, not nerds.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

Maybe if we stop defining people based on superficial stuff like hobbies and judge as individual persons and their individual actions, you'll have an answer.

I know what you are saying, but what if the individual person defines themselves almost only based on their hobby?

Like I wrote. In the anime-scene there are a lot of people like that, that base their whole identity/lifestyle around that.

 

[Hipster Cthulhu]

 

[Frustrated_Grunt]

Things were a lot simpler when we could all just agree to hate Jack Thompson.

 

[LumpOfCole]

As society being technologically progressive is now culturally prevalent, self described nerds are at risk of entering a double-down feedback loop, where some nerds that wish to keep their outsider status try to constantly out-nerd other nerds. This, combined with the fact that the internet has made it easier to proceed with anonymous interactions with other people, have opened the door to shitty behavior.

 

[Toxi]

Some nerds don't have great social skills.

Great social skills can include things like not acting like a shithead around other people.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

Being shitty doesn't exist. That's just a box of behavior we have created to make sense of something. To categorize.

When a pack of Lions chases the gazelles, and baits a youngin away from its parents, and isolates the kid gazelle and just rips it right in the neck- Are those lions shitty people? No. They are lions, not people!

 

[Miracle]

There was a time when wearing Fedoras was cool. Until Neckbeards ruined everything.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

Sounds like OP is talking about geeks, not nerds.

not really. they're interchangeable for most people. A general rule is nerds are intelligent, socially inept and obsess easily. Geeks just obsess and are intelligent. Which imho describes me. I was always social, but I 'geek' out over certain topics that might not be cool. There also exists different geeks as well. Car geeks, gun geeks, etc...

 

[Sami+]

Lots of nerds have always been awful. That persecution complex turns people really ugly.

 

[The Silver]

Just a classic cycle of people who felt they were bullied or marginalized for whatever now lashing out. Those types of angry nerds formed a very strong culture and identity around themselves as a coping mechanism and now see it as being invaded and taken over by the very people who used to marginalize them.(good ol persecution complex)

 

[Timedog]

Can only speak for myself, but I know that I am human garbage.

Also dude, pcmasterrace type stuff has existed since the dawn of time. There's never been a point in human history where nerds didn't want to feel superior to other nerds for nerdy reasons.

 

[thepotatoman]

I understand the feeling. Ever since gamergate happened, I've found myself stereotyping every nerd I meet as a gamergater when first meeting, fair or not. It doesn't help that there is always that guy that wants to make that joke about feminazis and no one wants to get into a debate about it, making it feel like everyone agreed, even though I didn't argue either so they probably think the same to me. I guess it's probably not fair to stereotype nerds or fratboys or muscleheads or whatever group of people with similar interests, and just know that bad people exist everywhere.

Stats-wise, I guess you can look at the percent of women getting science and technology degrees. I mean the business frat boys get attacked all the time for being sexist, and yet women still find getting into the business sector more appealing than getting into science and technology. Sure there's tons of factors that could go into why women aren't getting the nerdy degrees, but surely nerds have a decent amount of responsibility for it.

 

[Ri'Orius]

The internet is dominated by people who spend most of their time on the internet. Go meet some nerds IRL.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Nerds are the bullies of college.

 

[Generalpsyduck]

Nerds have always been shitty people. Most people are shitty people.

this

 

[FUME5]

When did people become really shitty nerds?

 

[Northeastmonk]

Sure there's tons of factors that could go into why women aren't getting the nerdy degrees, but surely nerds have a decent amount of responsibility for it.

Not everyone has amazing talent either. I knew too few artist growing up that benefited on making a living. We're at an age where everyone owns a laptop. That wasn't the case 20 or so years ago. We're just now in this blooming age of technology. We still have people who consider nerds as being weird and/or eccentric.

America has tried to speed everything up to become modern. Way more modern than the 90's. If you look back 10 years, it's like going back 30 or 40 years. None of this stuff existed like it is today. People are making millions on their small ideas and what not. If you don't gain a lot by being a nerd, chances are you won't want to work with it at all.

I know around here business, science, and healthcare are popular fields. We have no production company, game developer, or giant tech company that someone needs a huge degree for.

It can cause the nationwide outlook to be different. Smaller towns without anything more than farms. A nerd has no real advantage unless they leave for the city or work extremely hard. As much money and as popular as the nerd industry is, there's still giants around it looking down. I'm sure people who work for Microsoft and IBM have their intelligent employees who are no more a nerd than a man in the moon. I don't blame it all on how nerds act. I do when it comes down to interacting with people, sure. I think there's a part of America that looked at nerdy things with open eyes one day then shut them real fast because they want to be more than a nerd.

You can assume someone doesn't want to do a nerdy thing because they obviously succeed in something that isn't. You propel your way to the top with that idea and responsibility. Some people can't see leisure at all unless it's something like sports or exercise.

 

[krameriffic]

Is this like when people see a mass shooting on the news and then scream about how heinous and unsafe the world has become in spite of steadily decreasing mortality and crime rates across the entire world for the last 100 years.

A couple of nerds tweeting about Gamergate doesn't make every nerd in the world a sexist, racist, socially inept asshole.

 

[Jenov]

Just sayin, dude in Mallrats had the hot girl and he woke up to his paused game of hockey.

 

[Angelus Errare]

This is a stupid thread, and way to generalize a bunch of people based on your encounters OP. There is no group of people who share interests who don't have shit people in them. Welcome to reality, get over it, meet new people who aren't shit and go about your day.

 

[Kimaka]

Those types of nerds have always existed. They are just loosing their damn minds now since nerdy women and minorities voices are more visible thanks to the internet and media that is considered for nerds is moving towards more inclusivity.

 

[RoKKeR]

The hell is a nerd these days anyways?

There are a lot of shitty people who now have a platform to sling their shit from, and they can do it anonymously.

 

[MC Safety]

When the Internet gave fanaticism a voice.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

Lots of nerds have always been awful. That persecution complex turns people really ugly.

Also entitlement. And better-than-thou. I find it really weird how that exists in academia.

At the level you have to study about a subject you're taking a degree in at a good university, you're basically a nerd about that thing. Because you get to know everything about it, and spend thousands of hours fixed on it.

My roommate who studied history would tell me these stories of class mates who would give other people shit for not knowing about that period of history they had studied. hahaha! Amazing!

 

[Face it Tiger..]

toxic individuals exist everywhere in every hobby/ occupation.

the internet helps them congregate

 

[richiek]

Even though nerds were mistreated by popular alpha male jock douchebags, they didn't really despise them, they wanted to emulate them. Now that geek culture has entered the mainstream, many of these nerds have retained the alpha male douchiness now that they've moved up the food chain.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

So many posters saying this thread is stereotyping. Have they somehow forgotten shit like gamergate and sad puppies have shown there are huge fucking problems with nerd culture?

 

[jerry1594]

The internet empowers people to be bad when without it they would probably be meek and bitter inside instead of out.

 

[GamerJM]

I actually agree with TC in that I think this is something that has gotten more prominent recently. I'd mostly attribute it to Reddit culture as well as the leaking of Chan culture outside of the Chan communities, as well as the growing voice of minorities. Also, while I agree that nerd culture has always been problematic and crappy in some aspects, and that those aspects haven't gotten as much attention until now, I can't remember it ever being as bad as it is now.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Nerds have always been shitty people. Most people are shitty people.

90% of everything is shit

 

[Megalosaro]

They were fed lies that life would get better after highschool, then realized that the jocks that were bullying them in highschool had now become their bosses in adulthood.

So they lash out at the world, not realizing it was their own shitty attitudes that have gotten them where they were at.

 

[The Shadow]

What the hell is wrong with nerds today. Jeezus H.... I hung out with "the nerds" in highschool. You know what we talked about? Videogames, robotics, building PCs, anime, movies, debated what next gen console to get (Ps3/360/Wii) in college, and made fun of each others internet speeds. You know what we didnt talk about? Hating women, hating minorities, blaming women for our faults, pcmasterrace, or whatever the fuck is currently going on in the "nerd" sphere. Worst thing people did was pirate videogames.

So what the hell is going on? If anything I would have been THRILLED with all these dumb comic book movies, crazy videogames, and insane tech stuff. Its like nerd heaven. So why the hell is "nerd" culture now this horrible twisted real life 4chan thread.

Seriously though, what happened?

Eh. There's good people and bad. It might hurt more when it's a group you identify with.

There was a local Sci-Fi convention and one of the sessions was a Doctor Who Q and A. This little girl mentioned an episode and asked some question (I forget the details) and instead of letting the panel answer her, a couple of "experts" in the crowd started laying it on thick that she didn't pay attention to the episode, she wasn't a true fan, she didn't watch enough old Who, etc, etc.

It's like, this is a little girl that's enjoying the show, and these assholes are tearing her a new one because god forbid, she's not as knowledgeable as them.

Fucking disgusting.

Also entitlement. And better-than-thou. I find it really weird how that exists in academia.

It's really bad in academia. There's a lot of segregation between staffers, faculty, and faculty with PhDs where I'm at.

 

[Lazyslob]

 

[Pau]

I don't know if there was every a point in my life when there weren't some asshole nerds. But then, I was an ugly girl intruding on their hobby.

 

[Jombie]

What even is a 'nerd' anyways, really?

It's always been relative, but it's a word that's lost all meaning in the last decade or so.

 

[dinazimmerman]

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/nerd-culture-and-its-discontents.html

Nerd Culture and its Discontents
Author: Noah Smith


For most of the time that I was growing up, the struggle of nerds for acceptance in mainstream American society was an important part of both my life and the culture I was surrounded by. Movies like Revenge of the Nerds depicted nerds - people who liked to use their brains - as downtrodden outsiders, struggling against a dominant culture ruled by "jocks" and other anti-intellectuals. That struggle dovetailed with the idea that human capital - the ability to do math, program computers, and otherwise use your brain - was going to be crucial to the economy of the future, and that America's anti-intellectual culture was in danger of holding it back. The struggle of the nerd was not just a struggle for inclusion, it was a struggle for the nation's future.

So it's been a sobering and unpleasant experience for me to see the degree to which America's intellectual culture has seemed to turn against nerds in recent years. Mainstream culture has accepted nerds more and more, but this has turned nerds from outsiders into insiders, which means they've lost their cred as downtrodden rebels. That in turn has given rise to a number of problems within nerd-dom - problems which intellectuals have been justified (if over-enthusiastic) in calling out. Here are three of the main lightning rods, and why I think they matter:


1. The Rise of the Ubernerds

The American economy's turn toward higher-value-added activities, and the general advance of technology, have changed the composition of who gets rich. In the past - and here come some huge simplifications - people got rich by organizing other people. That required relationship-building skills, first and foremost. Andrew Carnegie and Leland Stanford were undoubtedly very smart people, but their success came from their ability to deal with others, not from direct application of their intelligence to technical problems. In recent years, that has obviously started to change, with the high proportion of new super-rich people who got rich by creating tech companies. When Bill Gates, a bespectacled computer nerd, claimed the title of Richest Person on Earth, it was clear something had changed.

But when nerds are winners, it's hard to argue that they're a disadvantaged group of outsiders. America has always measured success by money, and now being a nerd makes you get rich. Coders and scientists have great salaries, and more importantly, they have positions of authority within corporate hierarchical organizations. Nerds are no longer despised brain-slaves toiling in the basement without recognition, as in years past (e.g the 1980s Goldman Sachs culture described in Emanuel Derman's My Life As A Quant). Nerds now have equity.

When you're rich, you lose your cred as a downtrodden group. What's more, some nerds seem to realize this, adopting many of the "bro" culture elements that in the past were the exclusive province of relationship-building backslapping frat-boy CEOs. Tri-Lambs, we hardly knew ye.

And as you might expect given these trends, a few of these Ubernerds are starting to look pretty arrogant. You have techno-libertarians reading Ayn Rand and styling themselves as modern John Galts. You have the occasional techie spewing disgust against the homeless. You have the occasional rich tech businessman suggesting that the rich should get more votes than the poor. And it's not just puffed-up rhetoric, either - sometimes it comes with real power. Witness the ease with which Uber just crushed an attack by Bill De Blasio, one of the most powerful local politicians in the country. Power is scary.

Now that nerds have the option to become rich, arrogant overlords, their status as a pariah group is effectively over, along with any sympathy that generated.


2. The Unbearable Whiteness of Nerd-dom

In recent years, we've started to see a breakdown in "intersectionality" - the idea that all outsider groups should fight for each other (oddly, this is happening just as the word "intersectionality" is starting to come into common use), I suppose is only natural, since disadvantaged outsider groups have gained enormously in power (even if they have not yet achieved parity with heterosexual white males). When a diverse coalition of rebels wins big gains, there tends to be increased friction within the coalition. Not only that, but the progress made by some groups, like gays and women and Hispanics, is starkly contrasted with the lack of progress made by blacks, many of whom remain trapped in horrible neighborhoods, gulag-style prisons, and under the thumb of brutal police regimes - not to mention still being poor overall and suffering disproportionately from the Great Recession.

Compared to the travails of blacks, the problems of nerds seem like chump change. Nerds get ignored by girls in high school; black people are getting shot in the street. Not exactly comparable problems. And at some point, people noticed that there are relatively few black nerds; the flood of money to American nerd-dom is doing a lot more for white people than it is for black people. That can make it seem like nerd-dom is entrenching the black-white racial disparity.

In the old days, this was more likely to be ignored. At the end of Revenge of the Nerds, the jocks are about to physically assault the nerds, but the nerds are saved by the intercession of their black fraternity brothers - a memorable fantasy of successful intersectionality between outsider groups. Now, with intersectionality breaking down, the idea of nerds and black people as natural allies is swiftly vanishing.

In addition, we've seen the arrival en masse of a new racial group - Asians. Because Asian immigrants are disproportionately admitted for their technical skills, they are massively over-represented within the nerd community. But within that community, they seem to suffer discrimination. Asian tech workers are regularly bypassed for executive jobs in the tech industry, in favor of white co-workers with less technical skill. That naturally tends to make many Asians feel as if nerd-dom isn't working for them - at least, not as much as it is for white nerds.

So when nerd-dom seems like it's only working for white people, that's going to make an increasingly non-white America less keen on the culture.


3. Nerds and Sex

If nerd-dom disproportionately benefits whites, the gender disparity is even more alarming. Sexist behavior is rampant in the tech industry, as it usually is in male-dominated fields. A well-publicized low point was reached in 2013 with Titstare, a joke about an app that let men stare at women's boobs. Even the protagonists of Revenge of the Nerds were frat boys who were mainly interested in women as sex objects.

A few prominent nerds have made some attempts to fight this by encouraging more women to enter the tech industry - this would be good, since a larger number of women would mean a more welcoming environment for yet more women, as well as disapproval for public displays of sexism. But these efforts are struggling against the tide - very few women go into engineering. In some technical fields, like biology and neuroscience, there have been big strides - women are coming to dominate bio-nerd-dom. But engineering and software still seem like a man's world.

Worse, a subset of male nerds - not a majority but enough to get noticed - harbors an attitude of bitter sexual resentment. Many nerds grew up in the time when being a nerd conferred low social status, and suffered sexual rejection in high school or even later. Some of these men, predictably, became misogynistic as a result. Others simply developed unhealthy attitudes toward sex - witness the travails of MIT computer science professor Scott Aaronson, who expressed a yearning for a time when society would grant him a wife, and bitterly blamed feminism for his fear of romance.

This sexual resentment boiled over in hideously spectacular form with the coming of GamerGate. GamerGate began with a male nerd's bitter rant over his poor treatment by a nerdy girlfriend. The man quickly became a cause celebre for nerdy male gamers, many of whom feel like they have been ill-treated by the female sex, and many of whom are angry at what they perceive to be the intrusion of feminism into "their" gaming culture. The outpouring of male gamer anger quickly became a roach motel for the most vicious right-wing trolls on the internet. Severe harassment of female game designers and journalists evaporated much of the reservoir of cultural sympathy for geeks - and, since geeks and nerds overlap, for nerds as well.

If the Revenge of the Nerds means revenge on women, it's something we can do without.


So the past quarter century has brought the fruition of a childhood dream of mine - the accession of nerds to the mainstream of American society. But as with all successful revolutions, the victory has been bittersweet. I wanted an America that loves intellectual pursuits, and doesn't stuff people in trashcans for preferring math to football. What I didn't want was for nerd-dom to become an exclusive smoke-filled backroom for rich white men to sit around tossing around Ayn Rand quotes and calling themselves the ubermenschen. I didn't want Asian nerds to be sent to the basement to occupy the dingy desks once reserved for nerds of all races. I wanted the nerd to get the girl, sure, but I also wanted the nerd to be the girl. I wanted gamers to spend their time attacking Sephiroth or GlaDOS instead of attacking women on Twitter.

I believe that most nerds out there are good people. They just want to do their thing, same as they always did. Most of them are liberal types, who don't hate women, who would love to see diversity in their fields. It's time for them to stand up and take nerd culture back from the high-profile jerks who are getting all the air time, and open the gates to all those people who are still on the outside looking in.

 

[ThankYouDaletech]

People are awful.

Nerds are treated worse than 'regular' people and use that to justify their bitterness and anger instead of succumbing to reality and doing situps and not trying to talk to women about Skyrim.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Spending all of your time on the internet isn't good for you.

This. The internet gives you a skewed perspective of society.

 

[Soltype]

So what the hell is going on? If anything I would have been THRILLED with all these dumb comic book movies, crazy videogames, and insane tech stuff. Its like nerd heaven.

For me it's the opposite.If someone told me 15 years ago that not only would I get to see all my favorite comic books on the big screen, but I would hate it, I would never believe them.They've taken things that a niche market supported and then turned around made it for the masses all the while alienating the original fans.All of this new comic book media is not made with the original fan base in mind.Same goes for video games, they're just not being made for the same audience anymore.These things aren't niche anymore, people that enjoy these things today aren't nerds.