When Did "Nerd" Become a Compliment?
by Josie Toxic
I was nerdy before it was cool. I guess that makes me a hipster? I like Morlocks cause they are so underground, a literary reference and an X-Men reference in one go! Anyway, back to the topic at hand. At what point did the things I got picked on for liking in school become not only socially acceptable but also cool?
Now let me explain early that this post is not meant to be an "I am nerdyier/dorkier than you and here is why" sort of post. It is a look at the things that once were strongly in the not cool category working their way into the mainstream, and the concerns I have about that. To start lets look at a few examples here about what was once socially unacceptable and is now celebrated.
Superheroes are everywhere! And in a lot of ways originally where super cool. The golden age of comics had many people or all ages reading about superheroes but as the cold war started to gear up the time of the comic would begin to wan. At that point the ideas of caped crusaders would begin to be written off as childish. The in the late 80′s there was a dark resurgence of comics which lead into the standardization of the ';Comic Hero Movie', after a rocky start the Superhero is pretty firmly installed into pop culture. Now the Superhero is all over the place bringing in big money movies (grossing in the hundreds of millions), TV shows, and video games. The Superman of my youth is no longer just for children; he has some serious power as an icon that expands beyond nerdy comic cons. I would like to point out that the comic book itself is still in a gray area in regard to coolness. The superheroes came from somewhere but the expected comic reader over the age of 18 is still the iconic pimple faced virgin living in his parent's basement. Though comic book conventions have seen a rise in spandex wearing sexy ladies in recent years.
Fantasy like the supernatural is becoming more conventional. I think this started when the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films came out. Those books have truly transcended the ideas of cool and popularity. The people you least expect to be able to read are die-hard fans of the books and read them once every few years. Now with The Hobbit coming out this year (OH MY GOD!!!!!) there will be a new excitement for middle earth. Game of Thrones had an amazing first season, putting the Song of Ice and Fire books in a new cooler spotlight. The Success of World of Warcraft has made it so even your parents know what a gnoll is, and they are even getting a double dose of nerd with fantasy and video gaming at the same time. This is where things start to go downhill for me personally. Where the superhero films for the most part cater to fans and are well done, WoW it seems is trying like hell to cash in on what is left of nerdy culture. The newest commercial, starring Chuck Norris, is about five years to late. It feels like they are pandering to a specific audience, not realizing we have move on to other Internet memes, and as of December 20th, 2011 a new MMO as well.
Video games are a huge love of mine and like many everything else I have listed are something that I want to see succeed. If game companies do well they are able to make more games, which I am hugely supportive of. The problem here is that so many people play shitty video games. Gamers worldwide held their breath for Skyrim last year. But games of that caliber, creatively and technically, are very few and far between. So we are stuck with a new Madden game every year but wait years for something big to come along. And I am not saying that Elder Scrolls games are the only great games out there, but amazing games like Beyond Good and Evil, Eternal Darkness, and Psychonauts were wonderful but since they did not sell exceptionally well like say: Call of Duty or Halo they will not get sequels and will be relegated to the category of failed ideas. Never to be revisited. And I am not going to get started on Zynga, they are not real video games.
Gadgetry is another area that has become more standard. This is something I am only going to hit on briefly because I still use a cell phone that folds in half. But is seems like tech junkies have attained god like status because so many people have smart phones, tablet PC's or laptops. The nerdy computer guy is now longer relegated to the basement, but now regarded as precious because I honestly have no clue how to fix my own computer, and I assume most people don't.
Steampunk has been Beibered. And I love that the community pushed back and made THIS VIDEO
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Anime is a very hit or miss nerdy past time. I hate to call it out for 'becoming' popular because it is and for the most part has been cool in large parts of Asia. I guess it is a demilitarized zone of nerdom, because it does not really change if people in the United States think its cool because for the most part it is produced in Japan, but it does fluctuate in American popularity due to other factors.
The point to all of this is where do we draw that line? This is where I start to have trouble. I want to see all of the things I love succeed. I am spaz-out excited for The Avengers later this year, and I have and will continue to buy video games that are well made and enjoyable over titles that are just popular. But now that many of my hobbies and interests are becoming more commonplace they have lost a certain spark that made them interesting for me. I am not upset because they are no longer unique, quirky and make me an individual or an outsider. I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake, someone, somewhere loves the things that I love too. The fact that other people are interested in these things is exciting! But at some point it all changes, and not for the better. Things I love, and self identify with are being diluted to make them even more mainstream. How do we keep things we love from becoming a "cheapened hollow reflection of what it should be"? The last quote is from my husband, who has wonderfully placed his soapbox right next to mine. I feel like a little bit of my identity is being lost in this process. I say I am a nerd and people around proclaim that they too are nerdy, because the played Mario as a kid, or something equally not current, or nerdy. I have never watched an episode of Big Bang Theory but understand that it is either "Nerd Black Face" or what every nerd is like in real life myself included (if I were a Theoretical Mathematician). So now even nerds as a demographic are diluted into what media portrays us as. I am not big on math or science but have more than a few Flash T-Shirts and refuse to use the word "Bazinga", so where does that leave me?
Josie Toxic-
Josie is a sometimes model, occasional dancer, infrequent artist, once in a while writer and full-time force of nature. She has interests in: Steampunk, Video Games, Superheroes, Costuming, Crafting, Books, Music, Conventions, Pin-ups, Friends, Art, History, Sewing, Dancing, Photography, Nature, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Anime, and a ton of other things.
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