5 ms·

Why do we need to reclaim nerd? A lot of us have painful memories associated with the term, can we just let it fade into well deserved obscurity?

shohpanhandler 5y ago
Plus it's not as though people don't still make fun of nerds. They just don't throw the term itself around anymore. Twitter (not that we should be paying any attention to the thought pit anyway) is rife with jabs at smart/technical people and some of our more common idiosyncrasies.
- Der_Einzige 5y ago
  The butthurt at our (collective) success is also obvious from a wide variety of sources. My gun-loving red state relatives have impressed upon me multiple times about how the high pay that engineers get and general cushy life that they get is really bad for society and that eventually when the power turns off due to a solar flare we will be essentially their slaves. There's even a comic of this exact scenario that gets posted all the time on 4chan which I cannot for the life of me find but documents this exact scenario happening. It really sucks I guess to make 45K fixing tractors all day with demanding managers hearing all about how the person half your age is making 4x what you make by writing yaml files with basically no stress and good WLB. The right answer to "how do I stop getting exploited" for many is unironically "learn to code" (yes, including to many of those coal miners in WV), but they HATE when you say this. Kinda sad too since most of the hate is from people that never even tried it. They seethe at our success, and would take it away from us in a heartbeat if ever given the chance. Just look at the culture war being waged against "big tech" right now.
  - courtf 5y ago
    It's misplaced anger, but that anger is valid. Not everyone can adapt nor gets the opportunity to adapt. Our society leaves millions behind, a cruelty that keeps the wheels of capitalism lubricated with fear of the same happening to you.
fouric 5y ago
Because others of us have good memories associated with the term. Given the choice between having more language available to use or less, I don't see a reason to want less.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  Do you think young African-Americans lucky enough to have never had the N word used as racial epithet against them ought to ignore other parts of the community that tell them this is a very painful term and they should not throw it around causally? What right do you have to reclaim something that was never a source of harm for you to begin with? Doesn’t that make you just another set of bullies metaphorically shoving people into lockers?
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    No. Generational reclamation of words is fairly common. The best examples aren't actually race (comparing how "nerd" and the n-word are reclaimed doesn't really work, for reasons that should be obvious in that I'm censoring one). On the other hand, within the LGBT community, tons of terms have been fully or partially reclaimed. Most notably "queer". That also isn't without controversy (and queer has been in the process of reclamation for longer than "nerd" has been an insult in its current context), but almost no one seems to think that by self-identifying as something (in good faith) you're bullying someone else.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - courtf 5y ago
    Bad words belong to all of us. I use words that can hurt, and words that have been used to hurt me. The N word is interesting because most white people are very hesitant to utter it. It's a rare, off-limits place that isn't accessible to every person of privilege who otherwise feels entitled to go where they please.
  - snowflake_ptr 5y ago
    Simultaneous straw-manning and logic-less emotional guilt-tripping. Not cool. I never made the claim that you're insinuating I made, nor is it implied by anything I said. > What right do you have to reclaim something that was never a source of harm for you to begin with? What right do you and your fellow authoritarians have to try to make language inaccessible to me, especially (but not only) when you have never been hurt by it? See, I can play the emotional manipulation game, too. Doesn't make me more right than you.

shohpanhandler 5y ago

Plus it's not as though people don't still make fun of nerds. They just don't throw the term itself around anymore. Twitter (not that we should be paying any attention to the thought pit anyway) is rife with jabs at smart/technical people and some of our more common idiosyncrasies.

Der_Einzige 5y ago
The butthurt at our (collective) success is also obvious from a wide variety of sources. My gun-loving red state relatives have impressed upon me multiple times about how the high pay that engineers get and general cushy life that they get is really bad for society and that eventually when the power turns off due to a solar flare we will be essentially their slaves. There's even a comic of this exact scenario that gets posted all the time on 4chan which I cannot for the life of me find but documents this exact scenario happening. It really sucks I guess to make 45K fixing tractors all day with demanding managers hearing all about how the person half your age is making 4x what you make by writing yaml files with basically no stress and good WLB. The right answer to "how do I stop getting exploited" for many is unironically "learn to code" (yes, including to many of those coal miners in WV), but they HATE when you say this. Kinda sad too since most of the hate is from people that never even tried it. They seethe at our success, and would take it away from us in a heartbeat if ever given the chance. Just look at the culture war being waged against "big tech" right now.
- courtf 5y ago
  It's misplaced anger, but that anger is valid. Not everyone can adapt nor gets the opportunity to adapt. Our society leaves millions behind, a cruelty that keeps the wheels of capitalism lubricated with fear of the same happening to you.

fouric 5y ago

Because others of us have good memories associated with the term. Given the choice between having more language available to use or less, I don't see a reason to want less.

bradleyjg 5y ago
Do you think young African-Americans lucky enough to have never had the N word used as racial epithet against them ought to ignore other parts of the community that tell them this is a very painful term and they should not throw it around causally? What right do you have to reclaim something that was never a source of harm for you to begin with? Doesn’t that make you just another set of bullies metaphorically shoving people into lockers?
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  No. Generational reclamation of words is fairly common. The best examples aren't actually race (comparing how "nerd" and the n-word are reclaimed doesn't really work, for reasons that should be obvious in that I'm censoring one). On the other hand, within the LGBT community, tons of terms have been fully or partially reclaimed. Most notably "queer". That also isn't without controversy (and queer has been in the process of reclamation for longer than "nerd" has been an insult in its current context), but almost no one seems to think that by self-identifying as something (in good faith) you're bullying someone else.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- courtf 5y ago
  Bad words belong to all of us. I use words that can hurt, and words that have been used to hurt me. The N word is interesting because most white people are very hesitant to utter it. It's a rare, off-limits place that isn't accessible to every person of privilege who otherwise feels entitled to go where they please.
- snowflake_ptr 5y ago
  Simultaneous straw-manning and logic-less emotional guilt-tripping. Not cool. I never made the claim that you're insinuating I made, nor is it implied by anything I said. > What right do you have to reclaim something that was never a source of harm for you to begin with? What right do you and your fellow authoritarians have to try to make language inaccessible to me, especially (but not only) when you have never been hurt by it? See, I can play the emotional manipulation game, too. Doesn't make me more right than you.