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To be fair, there's a lot more to the "nerd" archetype than just technology. But, from my experience, it was not particularly edgy or differentiating to be pass
by helen___keller 5y ago
To be fair, there's a lot more to the "nerd" archetype than just technology. But, from my experience, it was not particularly edgy or differentiating to be passionate about video games, board games, card games, literature, obscure TV, fanfics, internet culture, etc.
- spamizbad 5y agoYeah... if anything that seems normal these days? Many young adults are passionate about at least one of those things, whereas for Gen-X (Paul's generational cohort) those were far more underground interests.
- shard 5y agoIs the word "geek" no longer used for what you are describing? Although there a lot of overlap, I thought nerd referred to strong interests in academic subjects and geek referred to niche cultural subjects.
- helen___keller 5y agoTrue, I've been conflating the two in all of my posts. As far as how they were used when I was growing up, the distinction tended to be moot because they were most commonly used ironically or jokingly.
- SyzygistSix 5y agoThat is the problem with using labels rather than talking about what people are doing or what specific actions they are taking.
- dagw 5y agothere's a lot more to the "nerd" archetype than just technology. I'd probably go as far as saying that technology (or at least practical technical skills) has become far less relevant as a 'nerd' marker. Many of the self identifying 'nerds' I meet might be avid technophiles, but it's not like most of them know how to code better than anybody else (or at all in many cases).