The Great Nerd Culture Gap

I think part of the reason nerds are so marginalized is that the mainstream sees how far ahead we are of them in so many areas, and that frightens them. Think about it for a minute. How many nerds had internet connections 10 years ago? I grew up in a nerd family. I remember the days of 32K dialup BBSes, 56K being screaming fast, and wishing that you could use the phone and the modem at the same time.

How many of us have loved comics our whole lives? Now, Marvel Comics has a huge film division and fanboys and fratboys sit elbow to elbow in the same theaters. The fratboys would sooner die than admit they're closet comic fans, but since it's on the big screen, it's ok to like Spidey or Iron Man or the X-Men.

Video games? The sports game market is huge, but if it weren't for us nerds creating the demand for the consoles in the first place, there would be no Madden 2008, no hyperrealistic basketball games that use actual physics to see if you sink the shot or not.

And Lev, I think most nerds give you a hard time because you're living our dream - you get paid to play Halo 3 and write about it. You get to interview those we worship. We're jealous of you. And if you want to find some sort of social parallel to what we are, look at the upper middle class in Victorian England/America. Good jobs, money to spend on life's little luxuries, well educated, but looked down on by the aristocracy and secretly envied by the proles. One good economic crash though, and we're probably hosed...

But be careful with the generalizations. I'm a 30-something female with a college degree, but I'm a lifelong nerd :)

"I think part of the reason nerds are so marginalized is that the mainstream sees how far ahead we are of them in so many areas, and that frightens them."

Sorry, but I think this is a bit of wishful thinking. ;)

I really don't think there is a "nerd culture" anymore as defined strictly by the things people enjoy. I think the old nerd culture mainstays like videogames and comic books have really hit enough of a mainstream stride that it's destroyed the feeling of "us vs. them" that used to exist within the nerd community. So now it's become a case of marginalizing or defining people based on their other merits.

For example, if you take two guys who both enjoy comics and playing XBox. And lets say they both saw Lord of the Rings on opening night and thought it was great. One guy is an outgoing extrovert who enjoys weightlifting and the other guy is an anti-social introvert who builds computers all day. All of a sudden, by defining who these people are and how they interact with others in a social environment, you can immediately see which old definition or stereotype both would fall into. Guy A suddenly becomes a jock or a frat boy and guy B suddenly becomes a nerd.

It's all about the person, not the things they do. Maybe it used to be that "nerd culture" was defined solely by the activities you enjoyed, but I think as more and more people figure out that those activities can be a lot of fun, then the definition of nerd has transformed a bit more to change with the times.

I really feel that in the end, things and ideas have gained so much liquidity in the mass media centric public sphere of today that trying to define anyone into any existing social stereotype is a futile effort. I just don't think it can be done anymore, as much as people would love to try and do it.

Just my two cents.

Here's my big distinction between video games as an artistic medium vs. books and movies. And by "books and movies," I mean "movies," because books are hardly a mainstream thing any more. Come on, how many people do you know where a Harry Potter book was the first book(s) they read in years? Most people just don't read books - yes, there's still a NY Times Best Seller list, because books are traditional. Fewer and fewer people are reading. Likewise, most people just don't play video games. However, since video games aren't even half a century old, there's been no precedent of tracking sales and everything. Yes, more and more people are playing games, but how do you track that? Flat out numbers of games sold? What about divided by console? The closest thing would be money made, but even then, do you track it by month? By the past 12 months? Ever? I don't know how much profit Vivendi makes a month off it, but WoW boasts 9 million subscribers. Guessing a $14/month average, that's $126 million a month gross. Books and movies just count up clear-cut numbers, no problem.

So do you create endless categories, each with not more than 5 games on the list at once? Or do you mark it by boxes shipped? What about expansions and sequels?

The video game industry is much more fluid and complex than the movie industry. The stories are told in completely different ways. Yes, the stories are rich and fulfilling (far more rich and fulfilling than most movies, unfortunately). But they're different.

Tangents are fun. MUCH cooler than sines and cosines.

The reaason nerds frequently call you an idiot is because nerds hate other nerds.
For example: I love reading SF and have played Half-Life 2 more times than I can count, yet I feel that most anime fans are on a lower rung of the evolutionary ladder. We are just a spiteful, arrogant group when it comes to our own passions.
I was noticing the nerd-culture gap on the day Halo 3 launched, when a morning radio host exclaimed "I just don't get it" several times about people playing Halo and Xbox.
It's the 21st Century. This didn't sneak up on him. Saying you don't get Halo is like saying you don't know where all these cell phones came from.
But yet, in the media, people who like these things still seem to be treated like abberations, even though we're the ones who put satellites in orbit and enable company networks. Now that, I don't get.

Here it is the true counter culture as far as usual nerd is considered a 20 something year old girl... yep thats me. I think its funny when I play a game called World of Warcraft which is frequently called WOW to see just how many girls there are playing these types of games; and yes I must admit that it was my boyfriend who introduced me to this game but I remember well getting my first Nintendo and today I own every system out there. I know that there is a subculture from the mainstream world I spend my day in because I'm part of both of them. The gamer world and the real world. But for some people there is little distinction for some it really is an addiction. With the stress of day to day activities school and general human interaction its so amazing to have a place to escape to that you can actually interact with and in my case people who are generally involved with the same things I am.

Interesting post. I wonder why your spidey-sense is telling you not to post about it.Ü

The lines have always been blurry when it comes to defining social stereotypes. We're dealing with human beings here - complex, dynamic, etc, etc - you get the drift. I think that part of the reason why nerds are marginalized is the illustration that you yourself had made in your post. You're branded by the "straight world" as a nerd, thus the usual stigma of being associated with the term, but there's also discrimination on the other side of the fence re: not being nerd enough for them. It's so much simpler to just proclaim yourself as a non-nerd who ocassionally obssess about nerdy things.

I've never had my own computer at home until recently and I'm not that much into games but I like reading and discussing fantasy and SF, most of my friends are techies so I know more about techie stuff than your avg person, and I watch and enjoy anime and toy conventions including the occasional cosplays which other people find weird.
My non-otaku friends constantly tease me about being nerdy and my nerdy friends laugh at my relative ordinary-ness. I'm a woman, and I'm not moneyed, so I dunno... go figure.

Oh, and I've dabbled in cheerleading in high school as well. So there. Goes to show how complex stereotype assignments can be.

Re: your tv appearance. Can't believe that anchorwoman made a comment like that. So unprofessional.

*zing*

ouch!Ü

Lev, if I'm not mistaken you do some mean nerd-border policing yourself. ;)

"I know that there is a subculture from the mainstream world I spend my day in because I'm part of both of them. The gamer world and the real world. [...] With the stress of day to day activities school and general human interaction its so amazing to have a place to escape to that you can actually interact with and in my case people who are generally involved with the same things I am."

There's a difference between belonging to a subculture and enjoying a hobby. Enjoying games in your free time as a way to relax is really totally different then implying that you belong to a sub or counter culture.

I think games will follow a path similar to comics. It'll take the videogame equivalent of Maus or Watchmen to make them legitimate. We're still at a stage where it's not even clear what games can really do as an artistic medium.

Most games are stuck in a mode where the story/cutscene is what happens between the game. They're like pausing Saving Private Ryan every 20 minutes to play a level of a WW II FPS. If your play outcome doesn't match the next segment of the movie, you have to start over again.

IME, the "geek gap" starts at age 30 or so and goes up from there, with geek/gaming/Internet awareness dropping off above that mark.

I'd say something about geekdom, gender, race, and class lines, but that's a powder keg I'll avoid, thankyouverymuch.

There are entire blogs dedicated to nerd culture (eg, geekstudies.org and hipsterplease.com.) I'd say that gamer culture overlaps, but is distinct (interesecting Venn sets, if you will.)

As for whether games can be art, I'd say that Marathon shows it can be done. (Has been done. Whatever.) The medium is young yet, and is still trying to find its own rules, much as film struggled to shake off the assumptions of theater. See this article for a great discussion of cinematic conventions that game designers should avoid:
http://www.destructoid.com/cinema-conventions-that-have-no-place-in-videogaming-42196.phtml

CNN International is actually the CNN everywhere but the US. Nerd.

There is nothing nerdy about playing video games. Some of the dumbest people I know are experts at video games.

"There is nothing nerdy about playing video games. Some of the dumbest people I know are experts at video games."

You can be an idiot and still be a nerd. Or maybe that's crossing into dork / dweeb territory.

Movies were nerd culture only back when they were introduced (excepting porn, of course). It was scorned in print as the crassest, lowest-common-denominator thing to ever come along. It took 20 years before filmmakers began creating something critics would call "art", and another 10 before film was accepted by the general public.

If you count Pong, then VGs are at 35 or so - but that's more comparable to a zoetrope than a movie - that's 1860s - so we're talking 60 BC (Before Chaplin). If you go from Nintendo, then we're at a measly 22 years. Give interactive time for DW Griffith, CB DeMille, and especially Chaplin to show up - then you'll see true acceptance.

Hell, USC started the interactive program in 2002; their film program didn't start until 1929. I'd say by most measures, interactive is ahead of film. And film only had theatre and print media to compete against.

Don't worry about that anchor-chick. There's a great quote from Gogol about movies that's relevant here, but I can't find it...

Lev, you are not an idiot or a nerd. You are just a bald bore.

"For example: I love reading SF and have played Half-Life 2 more times than I can count, yet I feel that most anime fans are on a lower rung of the evolutionary ladder. "

Oh man, this quote just made my day. laughed for 5 minutes straight with that one...

Yet still I think this quote brings up an interesting point. What consisitutes a "Nerd" these days?

These examples prove my point:

Person A is the antithesis to a techie, and abhors anime & MMORPGs. He spends gigantice amounts of time reading, finding interest in the Non fiction, Fantasy, and Scifi genres. He often writes critical anlysises on the morals and themes of comic books and video game storylines. He graduated highschool with a 4.3 grade average, and at hearing the name of a place, can locate on a map withing 20 seconds.

Person B thinks that Sci Fi in general is stupid, and has never read a comic book. Even so, he can create and edit software seamlessly, and runs his own website. In addition to this, he is an avid RTS competitive player, and often spends his free time playing table top strategy games of the Axis & Allies ilk.

Person C gets consistent Fs in all of his classes. He is the opposite of a "know-it-all" and has been unable to muster the will to earn the money he needs for that PS3 he keeps talking about. He thinks all video games other than RPGs are a waste of time, has played way to many D&D for his own good. Almost all he does read is Manga, and he has a devout disrespect for all "mainstream" SciFi/Television shows.

So, out of these three which was the Nerd? I have known three people very close to these fellows, and I know that each one was tormented for being called a nerd. Yet each one of these guys are vastly different. How can we really justify an umbrella term such as "nerd" or "geek?"

As this is a blog about "Nerd Culture"
I have to ask: WHAT is nerd culture?

Oops, that last one was from me.

This week's New York Magazine:
http://nymag.com/nightlife/features/nerd-nites/
Spelling bees? Reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning? I'd considered that more hipster that nerd.
I think the nerd culture we refer to is about us crossing that line from just liking nerdy/geeky stuff (tech stuff, comic books, video games, SF lit, quantum physics, etc) to becoming borderline obsessive about it. I kind of like being obessive compululsive about them though. :)