NERD VERSION 2.0
The evolution of nerd culture
and its assimilation by the mainstream
The term nerd was actually invented by Dr. Seuss to describe a fictional character in the book “If I Ran the Zoo” and at the time it had nothing to do with the meaning we give it today. During the fifties it somehow became slang synonym with square, meaning, someone who didn’t belong to this or that counterculture, an interesting point is that originally it might have been KNURD and not NERD, knurd being drunk backwards, symbolizing someone who didn’t like to party. One thing though is that nerd did not denote high intelligence, remember, after world war two and until the late sixties, science was idealized, subjects like nuclear energy and even the moon landing were things to strive for, a new age where the highly skilled, highly intelligent ruled and made the though decisions, a golden age.
The next step is harder to pinpoint, but somewhere during the sixties tv shows started to call the professorial, antisocial, ostracised, introvert, smart type of people as nerds and once tv decided those caricatures were nerds, the term was ready to be used by the populace. This trend continued during the following decades and with the advent of the home electronics market during the eighties and nineties, the number of real life nerds exploded and with bigger number, pride for being a nerd was born, being a misfit was an identity and it had a name, many time self-imposed. As we entered the 2000’s and with the mainstreaming of the internet, the nerds were usually the ones holding the pen in regards to what was published on the web , hence the slow acceptance and actual cool status of being a nerd
Nowadays the nerd culture has many different ramifications, the game nerd, comics nerd, movie nerd, otaku (Japanese culture nerd) which in Japanese actually means someone who has a hobby that they spend more time, money, and effort on than normal people do, technology nerd, science nerd, etc. all these have their niche of expertise and are very much so as the sixties represented them, shy and introvert people with a lack of interest for the social world.
Presently we can see how people who were nerds during the eighties are starting to morph the mainstream landscape. They’re making what was once exclusive nerd knowledge, known to a wider audience. The best example being movies, once stories (supposedly) for kids are nowadays the major releases in theatres. Movies like spider man, the avengers, transformers, once exclusive nerd territory is now embedded into the mainstream. However, the true knowledge of these subjects still belongs to nerds, even if millions wear a superman t-shirt and know that is weakness is kryptonite I doubt 1 per cent knows is name is Kal-El, they might know professor X but they’ll have no idea that the juggernaut is his stepbrother. Just because nerd culture is cool and present on the mainstream, the simple fact of wearing something doesn’t make someone a nerd. Being a nerd is a frame of mind, a form of thinking, a set of tastes and the knowledge to go with it. It is not a style.
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