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Last year, when I read this article, something hit me. Back when I was a kid (and a "nerdy" one), the word "nerd" was always primarily social in meaning. I wasn't a nerd because I liked RPGs or computers, though that did go hand-in-hand with the social aspects in some vague, possibly elitist way. I was a nerd because I didn't have that many friends, wasn't all that popular, didn't go to parties, and stuff like that. But the word, along with its related quasi-synonyms like "geek" and "dork," means something quite different these days, if it didn't back then. If Grossman, the author of the article, believes that nerd culture can become mainstream, then there must be something to nerd culture beyond social outcast-ness, or even something supplanting it as the fundamental definition.

Something about this shift is unsettling to me. Grossman makes a big deal about how stuff like comic books, which used to get you beat up, are now being made into widely popular movies. The thing is, this isn't surprising--with all of their kinetic action and machismo, superhero comics seem fit to be adapted into movies that appeal just as much to the jocks as to the nerds they beat up on the playground. The more fundamentally nerdy aspects of these comics--the intricate backstories, or the social abnormality of heroes like Peter Parker and the X-Men--are a bit harder to convey on the big screen, and won't distract the jocks much anyway. Same with video games, which are now, if anything, negatively correlated with nerdiness. (I go to a fairly nerdy college, in all senses of the word. My dorm last year was one of the least nerdy, and also one of the only ones that gamed regularly.) To what extent is this stuff inherently nerdy, and to what extent has it just been the cultural trapping of nerds, associated with them only because they were the demographic that embraced it?

Grossman mentions Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman as two leaders of the popularizing "revolution." I haven't seen any of Whedon's stuff, but Gaiman's writing seems somehow attuned to social outcasts in a way that goes beyond coincidence. He has this trope of dropping into some character's head and revealing embarassing-ish personal details--like this one character's cheesy personal theme song, in Anansi Boys. It seems like a good way to portray nerds--in the socially abnormal sense, not the "people who happen to like Neil Gaiman/whatever" sense.

Beyond that, I hear a lot of people saying things like "oh, I'm such a nerd" when they express interest in "boring" things like academics. To some extent this is just sarcastic self-criticism, but this kind of faux-nerdiness does seem to be "cool" nowadays. This is a more fundamental trait than just liking the trappings of a culture, but as with the stuff above, I wonder how far it can go without rendering the word meaningless. Social misfits are famous for focusing their lives on the details of things rather than people, since they can't judge them the way people will. But some affection for things is a natural part of any human life. If you're in college and don't enjoy academics, or have a company job but no pure interest in business, then your life is probably not all that fun! If just having this kind of healthy, balanced liking for "stuff" is enough to make you a "nerd," then who isn't a nerd, these days? Should the word be preserved for people who show more of this stuff-affection than normal? And is this something respectable, anyway, or should we all just strive to be balanced, modern semi-nerds?

Considering the kind of cynicism expressed on SB about video games and stuff like that, I'd expect you guys will see eye-to-eye with me on this, but yeah.
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I think you can do both partially, but not all the way. In high school, I was more of a full nerd because I didn't really know anyone and was pretty awkward around most people in my classes. On the other hand, I have a lot of friends these days and don't consider myself that inept at human interaction (anymore), so by one definition I'm a lot less of a nerd just for that. I still retain a love for academia/"stuff," though.

One subtlety is that I still probably don't act in a way that would make me get on that well with most people, though I'm fairly well fitted for the group that I'm in. So I have the social abnormality without the social problems it would usually cause. I'm not sure where that falls.

Re: this being an old issue. I figured it would be, but it just occurred to me that I spend a lot of my time thinking about this stuff (considering the number of ambiguously sarcastic "I'm such a nerd" remarks I hear, and stuff like that), but I rarely talk about it. I figured SB would have more to say on the issue that my real-life friends, hence this thread.
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In roughly reverse order.

On Adam Savage and other cool nerds: The old saw "be nice to nerds, you may work for one someday" is also relevant here. One of the things I like about being around nerdy people is that I can get away from the endless chatter about getting mundane desirables--a nice job, a sweet car--and talk about more interesting stuff. Yet, as the world has largely figured out, loving academics or business or tech as ends in themselves, rather than as means toward the sweet car/job/house, gives you a head start towards the car/job/house whether you want it or not.

On defining oneself: I've always found defining oneself with a label to be strange, alien to my sensibilities, almost inhuman and creepy. This isn't some kind of I AM A UNIQUE CREATURE DO NOT LABEL ME thing, it's just that that's the way it strikes me. We're all thinking beings first and foremost--I don't mean thinking as in "intelligent," I just mean the act of considering and judging that everyone does--and if we like aspects of the outside world, it's because we've judged them highly, as thinking beings do. To somehow . . . subordinate yourself to them, to say "I am X" or "I like X" not because of the properties of X but because that's somehow what your mind is . . . I don't understand it. Sorry, this isn't all that clear.

On video games: I agree that they aren't as nerdy in themselves as people say. But they do lend themselves to nerd consumption beyond the tech aspect. For one thing, single-player games provide a lot of varied, detailed material to spend your time with that doesn't involve people, so they can fuel social outsiders just as any other medium can (but no more than any other medium). Second, they have a very tangled history and tend to generate a lot of obscure trivia, partially because they take so long to play, and a player doesn't necessarily see everything in one playthrough. I wouldn't be nerdy if I mentioned I play Smash Bros. with my friends, but I would be if I revealed that I can recite the plots of console RPGs and that I have detailed opinions about the differences between the 3 MGS installments. SB itself has a lot of this nerdiness around, as the very name suggests--the select button is trivial in the sense of "trivia," the kind of out-of-the-way thing that you wouldn't consider if you were just casually playing a game once in a while.

On the picture: Thanks! I saw the original here and immediately thought of SB.

On the disconnect between social awkwardness and hobbies: I don't think it's really nonexistent, though it's weaker than some people assume. As I said earlier, I think people who have social trouble are drawn to hobbies with really intricate "backgrounds," simply to stave off boredom and loneliness by giving their minds a bunch of "stuff" to occupy them, if nothing else. I definitely find that when I'm more avidly socializing over a time period, I lose track of the details of things more and more, since I have a more entertaining distraction (people) than paying attention to them.

Plus, there may be something to the quasi-elitist notion that social interaction in normal groups is boring. I.e., liking details and obscure topics makes you "socially awkward" even if you're perfectly competent at conversation because these aren't the kinds of things people want to hear about. Of course, it's possible to go over the top with this--people who obsessively talk about the details of one thing are boring, too--but I'd say the current mainstream state isn't optimal. It isn't that way in every social group, I know for a fact, and it probably hasn't been this extreme at all times in history, either.

On emo being the new nerd: sounds sensible. By now, it seems to be enough of a put-down that anyone who self-describes themselves as emo is making some sort of iconoclastic "reclaiming," which is probably how this whole trend chronicled in the OP got started with "nerd." It'll be interesting, if potentially depressing, to see if some second wave of sincere-though-more-worldly emo kids appears.
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