It's probably that, I grew up in the Midwest in a rural school district (outside the school district of a ~100k population city) - we had a 400 or so graduating

It's probably that, I grew up in the Midwest in a rural school district (outside the school district of a ~100k population city) - we had a 400 or so graduating class though. This was early to mid 90s, and it was pretty standard through the 80s too, at least for me. In the mid 90s I fell into a grunge group and they were a bad influence. Instead of getting bullied about being a nerd, it switched to that, and taunts about blowing my brains out with a shotgun (around the time that happened) were pretty common. Edit: to add this perspective though, my wife went to school in a relatively small town (Rolla, MO) and also had a 400 or so graduating class, but she claims ignorance of any sort of nerd bullying and thought it was a TV trope only thing too. She graduated in 2002. Maybe something changed between those dates?