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I always thought I was a nerd, but I was never into super heroes or fantasy books/movies and I was never into playing Pokemon or Magic the Gathering. Star Wars

I always thought I was a nerd, but I was never into super heroes or fantasy books/movies and I was never into playing Pokemon or Magic the Gathering. Star Wars didn't appeal to me and neither did Lord Of The Rings nor Narnia nor Harry Potter. I wasn't even that big into video games, although I did spend quite a lot of time playing some of the big titles (Vice City for example) but I spent way more time flying in MS Flight Simulator and FlightGear. When I was little I was fascinated by big engines and in general driven by the curiosity of wanting to know how everything worked. I would disassemble every piece of electronics in the household. I was into model airplanes and gliders. I was obsessed with building electric motors. I was also really big into steam machines. Everything steam was just cool. Then computers took over my life. Today I find myself nerding out about wood working and back garden agriculture when I'm not doing AI stuff. I still believe I qualify as a nerd.

harladsinsteden 2mo ago
> I still believe I qualify as a nerd. And you absolutely should! There is not _the_ nerd archetype and never has been.
formerly_proven 2mo ago
> super heroes or fantasy books/movies and I was never into playing Pokemon or Magic the Gathering. Star Wars didn't appeal to me and neither did Lord Of The Rings nor Narnia nor Harry Potter. I wasn't even that big into video games Aren’t all of these things mainstream escapism?
- krapp 2mo ago
  Some are more mainstream than they were (anything now owned by Disney certainly is) but all of them have been a part of "nerd" culture for a long time.
  - seba_dos1 2mo ago
    Some part of it - sure, but (perhaps with the exception of MTG if we stretch it) none of the things listed were even close to being defining or exclusive to that culture. They were a part of everyone's culture in certain demographics.
dofm 2mo ago
Nerd / geek / spod / dork etc., very complex shifting meanings. But what you're talking about in the first paragraph is what people used to call "geek" culture, and what you're talking about in the second is what people tended to call "nerd" culture.
rustcleaner 2mo ago
I differentiate nerd from geek as a heirarchy, geek to me being a sub-nerd. These are geekisms: >super heroes >fantasy books/movies >Pokemon >Magic the Gathering >Star Wars >Lord Of The Rings >Narnia >Harry Potter >video games Here you describe nerdisms: >When I was little I was fascinated by big engines and in general driven by the curiosity of wanting to know how everything worked. I would disassemble every piece of electronics in the household. I was into model airplanes and gliders. I was obsessed with building electric motors. I was also really big into steam machines. Everything steam was just cool. Then computers took over my life. Today I find myself nerding out about wood working and back garden agriculture when I'm not doing AI stuff. Geeks consoom, nerds understand and tinker/build. Most video games are geek (consoom), tools like Siemens NX or Adobe Master Collection CS6 are nerd (should be thought of as extremely open-ended games), simulators wobble between my classifications depending on accuracy/depth (Minecraft, Sims: geek; NX Nastran, flight/train/truck/forklift simulators: nerd).

harladsinsteden 2mo ago

> I still believe I qualify as a nerd. And you absolutely should! There is not _the_ nerd archetype and never has been.

formerly_proven 2mo ago

> super heroes or fantasy books/movies and I was never into playing Pokemon or Magic the Gathering. Star Wars didn't appeal to me and neither did Lord Of The Rings nor Narnia nor Harry Potter. I wasn't even that big into video games Aren’t all of these things mainstream escapism?

krapp 2mo ago
Some are more mainstream than they were (anything now owned by Disney certainly is) but all of them have been a part of "nerd" culture for a long time.
- seba_dos1 2mo ago
  Some part of it - sure, but (perhaps with the exception of MTG if we stretch it) none of the things listed were even close to being defining or exclusive to that culture. They were a part of everyone's culture in certain demographics.

dofm 2mo ago

Nerd / geek / spod / dork etc., very complex shifting meanings. But what you're talking about in the first paragraph is what people used to call "geek" culture, and what you're talking about in the second is what people tended to call "nerd" culture.

rustcleaner 2mo ago

I differentiate nerd from geek as a heirarchy, geek to me being a sub-nerd. These are geekisms: >super heroes >fantasy books/movies >Pokemon >Magic the Gathering >Star Wars >Lord Of The Rings >Narnia >Harry Potter >video games Here you describe nerdisms: >When I was little I was fascinated by big engines and in general driven by the curiosity of wanting to know how everything worked. I would disassemble every piece of electronics in the household. I was into model airplanes and gliders. I was obsessed with building electric motors. I was also really big into steam machines. Everything steam was just cool. Then computers took over my life. Today I find myself nerding out about wood working and back garden agriculture when I'm not doing AI stuff. Geeks consoom, nerds understand and tinker/build. Most video games are geek (consoom), tools like Siemens NX or Adobe Master Collection CS6 are nerd (should be thought of as extremely open-ended games), simulators wobble between my classifications depending on accuracy/depth (Minecraft, Sims: geek; NX Nastran, flight/train/truck/forklift simulators: nerd).