| Yes and good riddance. There was never such a thing as "nerd culture". It was always exclusionary and toxic, pretending to exist in rebellion against the mainstream while perpetuating the same stereotypes. It was also always defined by consumerism and consumption, just as a "niche" (but still fed by the same large corporations as the mainstream) no different from "artisanal" hipster goods or "underground" grunge merchandise. Nerds have always existed and will continue to exist. "Nerd culture" isn't necessary for that. The Marvel movies weren't a turning point, the rise of the Internet was. Widespread access to the Internet allowed various fandoms to expand, mutate and merge (especially in fanfic and on sites like Tumblr), it also allowed people to find peers in their specific special interest communities rather than having to vaguely seek out "other nerds" and hope they're compatible. People like to posture about "real nerds" versus "geek chic poseurs" but the distinction is arbitrary. Yes, someone wearing a Nirvana shirt who never even heard of the band but likes the grunge aesthetic can easily be dismissed as a "poseur" but most often that distinction just exists to arbitrarily exclude people just as passionate who don't fit your biases. Heck, for most of the 80s and 90s you could have believed women were biologically incapable of being nerds as even that girl wearing glasses and a nerd shirt who could recite every Ferengi rule of acquisition and speak fluent Klingon was clearly just a "poseur", especially if she was conventionally attractive. On a related note I think we've also simply culturally come to understand that the "jock vs nerd" binary is really more of a spectrum and not even a good fit for most people. At least in programming the idea was on its last breath when people ironically (and then unironically) adopted the gymrat "brogrammer" aesthetic, which was luckily shortlived but clearly an act of rebellion against and recuperation of "jock" culture. We've also become more aware that neurodivergence is not simply a lifestyle choice even when it may manifest as such, whereas nerd culture would often ("ironically") replicate the same ableism neurodivergent nerds were subjected to in the mainstream. So in another way, no, nerd "culture" isn't dying, you're just getting old and out of touch. |