[ModernMech]

LAN parties were an interesting normative force at my high school. You always hear about the tension between jocks and geeks. But jocks like playing video games as much as geeks, who had the technical know-how to get networked games going. So the jocks at my high school were really interested in being friends with us nerds. We finally had something in common! Our LAN parties were this strange alternate universe where the captain of the football team hung out with the science fair nerds. We even had cheer leaders come to our LAN parties.

I graduated before the internet really obviated the need for LANs. From younger friends, I heard that when the Xbox 360/PS3 came out, LAN parties slowed down, and jocks ceased interactions with nerds. But there was that brief period in the early 2000s where we existed in harmony.

[beggi]

Call me crazy but as I understand it from kids today it's pretty cool to be a "nerd" today

[digi_owl]

Nah. Maker, hacker, geek, sure. But nerd is still nerd. I may well go so far as to say that geek was "introduced" so as to allow people to be interested in computers (or more correctly, web/game design) without being boxed in with "the nerds" in the computer lab.

Or it may be that it is cool to "nerd out" about fashion, sports, or anything not historically associated with the term nerd.

[uola]

Not only is the computer lab cooler than being into books or playing an instrument these days, but "nerds" themselves are much "cooler" in that they enforce all sort of arbitrary social rules. When I got in to computers it was enough to be interested in technology. It's more the rule than the exception these days to hear "nerds" talk derogatory about things people are interested in that don't make enough money, other highly technical industries or whichever technology isn't "cool" enough.

[zerohp]

My girlfriend had that experience with her high school friend group. Nearly all of them went to the same college for Computer Science but she chose Electrical Engineering to study computer hardware. They poked fun of her major and talked down to her for not learning to program until her second semester in college. It wasn't as "cool" as CS to them. She still gets the occasional derogatory remark when she sees them because they chose jobs in SV after college but she went to graduate school.

[digi_owl]

Sounds like a SV mentality...

[PhasmaFelis]

Not really. "Nerd/geek" have expanded to include basically anyone who enjoys pop culture or has a technical skill--obviously those guys are cool, right? But the original subjects--socially awkward kids who enjoy the wrong things too much--are still left out in the cold.

[DanielBMarkham]

The word "nerd" is so overused that a supermodel who likes Dickens considers herself a nerd.

It's really not the word it used to be.

[harlanlewis]

Ye olde definition implies physically attractive people can't be nerds, and unattractive people can't not be nerds.

That's only useful for making an us vs them label. It's a good thing that anyone can nerd out on Dickens.

I've heard before that it's a question of degree (“prove just how much you like Dickens!”), which is kind of an uncool way to discourage intellectual curiosity. Not everyone was forged in the pale glow of monitors in their parents' basement, some have to work at it later.

[iamdave]

Ye olde definition implies physically attractive people can't be nerds, and unattractive people can't not be nerds.

An alternate interpretation is that 'nerd culture' has become an ugly perverted commodity of its former self to the point where the requisite "hot girl" is put in front of eyeballs with no authenticity and offers semi-humorous-because-she-doesn't-quite-get-it-but-still-tries-her-best one liners while simultaneously manifesting this new proto manic pixie dream nerd girl persona-having no real purpose or reason for being there other than to rope in the casual viewer looking for something, anything, anything but another TCP/IP joke.

Physically attractive people can be nerds. Nerds can be physically attractive. But let's not fool ourselves on those tropes that still exist and get trotted out there making everyone look like damn fools: The hot girl who tries to be nerdy with a front as transparent as saran-wrap, and the incapable, slightly awkward-looking but you can't figure out why nerdy guys who pine after her because she totally understood how heavy the ending to Empire Strikes Back was and enjoyed it.

I call "The Big Bang Theory" to the stand.

[Tiksi]

I don't think it's so much attractive in the physically attractive sense as attractive in the sense of taking care of your appearance. Nerd carries the implication that someone is so obsessed with their passion that they neglect other "unnecessary" aspects of life, the most visually obvious being their appearance, hygiene a close second.

Being "attractive" is usually more than just good looks, it takes a lot of time and commitment. Even the most naturally attractive people can be pretty unattractive if they entirely stop caring about their looks. Hell, just keeping long hair looking somewhat presentable takes a few hours a week (as I found out when I decided to grow my hair out back in highschool, didn't expect that). Add in time to go to the gym, buy groceries, cook and eat properly, find/buy well fitting clothes, etc and it adds up. If you're nerd-level passionate about something, that's all time you could be spending on your passion of choice instead.

[lr4444lr]

I think his point was that demonstrating intelligence or interest in an activity bred by education used to be a normal character trait. Now, given the socially normed common denominator of minimal brain exertion, it's considered odd.

[rpgmaker]

The same goes for "hacker".

[uola]

It's funny because the people I know of personally that has ended up on the cover of vogue was quite awkward in elementary/high school. Being a head taller and skinnier than everyone else wasn't exactly a recipe for being popular in the '90s.

[hashberry]

It's cool to be a "nerd" if you're attractive with quirky yet charming social skills.

Portlandia did a good bit on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EMXRAWWiBw

[norswap]

A meta-comment on the whole discussion: this whole jock/nerd business is very very American.

[honua]

I always thought it was just a movie stereotype to have 'jocks', 'nerds' and 'cheer leaders'

[bootload]

If you read "Why Nerds Are Unpopular", [0] then look at these photos by pg, [1] and then ask yourself, "who is in the chess club?" then "who is the in the weight lifting/track team?"

    "The kind of things we were interested 
    in didn't count for much in our high school." -- pg

Having gone to HS around about the same time and a mathlete, I recognise similar dynamics, even though I was 10,000 Ml away. It's no myth.

[0] http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html

[1] http://paulgraham.com/gateway.html

[smt88]

It was at my school. Our jocks and nerds were very intermixed and hung out together in different groups, and our cheerleaders were mostly losers. The "popular" girls didn't really do any sports or activities to speak of, except for some resume-padding stuff like Key Club.

At other schools, I honestly think the stereotypes in movies became self-fulfilling prophecies. The terminology came from movies, and perhaps some of the division did as well.

[vkjv]

I am about the age and had a very similar experience, but it went beyond LAN parties. In retrospect, I went to a very quirky school. It was public, but you need to apply to go there--it was no one's default school.

Despite that, we had some of the best sports teams in the state, debate teams, and engineering teams. It was a culture of excellence and it was difficult to even classify geeks and jocks because so many individuals fit into both groups.

I'm not sure what this school did to get it right, but it's sad to see it not replicated many times over.

[peatmoss]

> I'm not sure what this school did to get it right, but it's sad to see it not replicated many times over.

> but you need to apply to go there

It sounds to me as if the school had a filter function to sort the unmotivated (or disadvantaged) out at the gate. If your strategy is to sift though the general population to find exceptional individuals, pretty much by definition you will not be making all schools in the same manner.

I think that's why successful charter schools are so hard to replicate. For every successful charter school, there are some number N that aren't.

[digi_owl]

Yeah i think games with integrated voip kinda killed the need to share a room to coordinate.

That said, i think the jocks were more into the "reflex" games like shooters and real time strategy. Sit them down with a slower paced game and they would riot.

Likely why we are seeing more and more online games that used to be somewhat slower paced introduce more and more "twitch" mechanics to placate the jocks.