What is a Nerd, Anyway?
This section is intended for the person who has a relationship with a nerd, but doesn’t self-identify as a nerd. (If you’re a nerd, you probably already know it.)
It has recently become popular for “hip” people to co-opt features that once belonged solely to the nerd domain, so it might be difficult to discern between a genuine nerd and someone who is fashionably cool. Some tips: Faux nerds once had a difficult time asking their first crush on a date, while real nerds were petrified at the thought of asking anyone they found attractive anything at all. Faux nerds wear superhero t-shirts because the shirts show off their physique with irony, while real nerds wear superhero t-shirts because they identify with that superhero and other nerds recognize that the person wearing the shirt is part of their cultural group.
Hopefully you get the idea. I’m not trying to be harsh towards non-nerds, and I believe they aren’t trying to insult nerds with fashion trends, but there is a big difference in dressing a part and living the part.
Univ. of the Fraser Valley
Most nerds fit a decades-old character: obsessed with school or work, have an outdated or undeveloped sense of style, don’t show any interest in what other people think about them personally and may actively rebel against current concepts of what’s cool, stylish, or even normal. You can find this archetype throughout popular culture from Jerry Lewis’ Nutty Professor, to George McFly from Back to the Future, to Leonard Hoffstadter in The Big Bang Theory. Nerds tend to have a reasonably deep knowledge of a wealth of subjects, read anything they can get their hands on, can quote Star Wars and/or Star Trek to make a point in conversation, know the rules to their favorite edition of Dungeons and Dragons, enjoy Japanese animation, played an instrument in marching band, and can converse about anything (as long as it’s not in a large group of strangers).
The above paragraph may seem like a sweeping generalization, but that’s the nature of an archetype (or stereotype if you want to view it from that angle). Pick any ten nerds at random and probably none of them will fit the above description exactly. That’s OK. The idea is to offer a quick introduction to the concept.
Sprinkled through this blog, you will find posts about nerd specializations. While it’s not vital to classify nerds into a particular category, identifying a nerd’s cultural preferences can help when planning things to do together, getting a gift, or starting a conversation, and it can help you understand their particular behaviors. The nerd you know will probably fit into more than one category, but don’t let that intimidate you, it just means your nerd has a lot of interests.
