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I was reading a post on No_Scans_Daily about nerds taking over as the dominant group in the media, and complaints that this was a betrayal of what a nerd or a geek was, because they just became like the jocks who kept them outside. That's a really quick sum up just to get to what it got me thinking about which was...
I don't think the classic nerd idea was really an outsider ever.
The comments to the other post brought up the fact that nerds have always been assumed to be white, straight, male, able-bodied and cis-gendered, and that other groups have always been routinely shut out by those very nerds even if they shared the same nerd interests. This led to the suggestion that, for instance, a black nerd had more right to the title nerd, because he was more of an outsider. Which to me sounded totally wrong simply because "nerd" doesn't mean outsider. If we were to compare Sheldon from BBT to Hardison from Leverage I don't think anyone would claim that Hardison was a bigger nerd because he was black. Because while nerds can be any race, their nerd-dom in common understanding comes from their interests and personalities.
Which made me then go back to where this whole idea of nerd as outsider comes from and the key thing to it is, I think, not being an outsider but being an insider who isn’t doing it right. The original nerd—and we’re talking stereotypes here so I don’t expect everyone’s life experiences to play this out—but if we take the 90 pound weakling in the Charles Atlas ads, he’s not shut out of society in general, he just lacks qualities most prized as attractive. The 90 pound weakling gets sand kicked in his face because it's understood that the bully has the qualities prized in a man (physical strength and dominance) and he doesn't so he can’t fight back on those terms. There's no outsider in the scene--the outsiders either aren't going to be openly vying for romantic attention (like a gay man or woman), or they're just not allowed on the beach, period. The woman is present, but only to validate the men’s attractiveness.
The traditional nerd narrative, it seems to me, has always been fueled somewhat by entitlement. You need to be close enough to the winner to ask “why can’t that be me?” The white, straight, able-bodied cis-gendered guy who isn't cool wants the white, straight, cis-gendered, able-bodied girl who is cool, but it's assumed she'll want the white, straight, able-bodied cis-gendered guy who is cool. The story, then, will show how she *should* want the white, straight, able-bodied cis-gendered guy who isn't cool. The nerd is an outsider in that he's judged as having flaws, but he's also insider enough to be judged on his flaws instead of his identity. He could potentially replace those desired qualities with his own.
For instance, in Revenge of the Nerds is a pretty classic nerd story that casually validates every other sort of privilege the characters have. The central triumph of the movie is pretty much based around the idea that cool girls need to figure out that nerds are more attractive and more worthy lovers so that they can present themselves as prizes to the nerds over the straight guys—because they are more worthy as prizes than nerd girls. (It’s unclear who really gets the worse deal here—the nerd girls get taken for granted, but the cool girls get abused.)
It's really only when you acknowledge the female, gay, disabled and non-white nerds that you get any real outsiders, and those groups are routinely mocked and despised by the white, straight and cis-gendered fanboys who are the ones now holding so much power in the media. Some nerds learn from their own experience to be more inclusive, but it’s not a given. In Revenge of the Nerds the minority characters are mostly there to fill up the nerd ranks as back-up.
This isn’t to dismiss the hurt someone feels when they’re rejected for any reason. Social anxiety, being considered physically unattractive, more minor disabilities (for lack of a better term) do also make people outcast and I’m not dismissing that rejection and the hurt it causes. But the original nerd story is a combination of insider and outsider. Your basic identity gets you in the door, but you’re judged for not living up to the ideal of that identity. Nerd stories are about changing the rules, not changing the game.
I don't think the classic nerd idea was really an outsider ever.
The comments to the other post brought up the fact that nerds have always been assumed to be white, straight, male, able-bodied and cis-gendered, and that other groups have always been routinely shut out by those very nerds even if they shared the same nerd interests. This led to the suggestion that, for instance, a black nerd had more right to the title nerd, because he was more of an outsider. Which to me sounded totally wrong simply because "nerd" doesn't mean outsider. If we were to compare Sheldon from BBT to Hardison from Leverage I don't think anyone would claim that Hardison was a bigger nerd because he was black. Because while nerds can be any race, their nerd-dom in common understanding comes from their interests and personalities.
Which made me then go back to where this whole idea of nerd as outsider comes from and the key thing to it is, I think, not being an outsider but being an insider who isn’t doing it right. The original nerd—and we’re talking stereotypes here so I don’t expect everyone’s life experiences to play this out—but if we take the 90 pound weakling in the Charles Atlas ads, he’s not shut out of society in general, he just lacks qualities most prized as attractive. The 90 pound weakling gets sand kicked in his face because it's understood that the bully has the qualities prized in a man (physical strength and dominance) and he doesn't so he can’t fight back on those terms. There's no outsider in the scene--the outsiders either aren't going to be openly vying for romantic attention (like a gay man or woman), or they're just not allowed on the beach, period. The woman is present, but only to validate the men’s attractiveness.
The traditional nerd narrative, it seems to me, has always been fueled somewhat by entitlement. You need to be close enough to the winner to ask “why can’t that be me?” The white, straight, able-bodied cis-gendered guy who isn't cool wants the white, straight, cis-gendered, able-bodied girl who is cool, but it's assumed she'll want the white, straight, able-bodied cis-gendered guy who is cool. The story, then, will show how she *should* want the white, straight, able-bodied cis-gendered guy who isn't cool. The nerd is an outsider in that he's judged as having flaws, but he's also insider enough to be judged on his flaws instead of his identity. He could potentially replace those desired qualities with his own.
For instance, in Revenge of the Nerds is a pretty classic nerd story that casually validates every other sort of privilege the characters have. The central triumph of the movie is pretty much based around the idea that cool girls need to figure out that nerds are more attractive and more worthy lovers so that they can present themselves as prizes to the nerds over the straight guys—because they are more worthy as prizes than nerd girls. (It’s unclear who really gets the worse deal here—the nerd girls get taken for granted, but the cool girls get abused.)
It's really only when you acknowledge the female, gay, disabled and non-white nerds that you get any real outsiders, and those groups are routinely mocked and despised by the white, straight and cis-gendered fanboys who are the ones now holding so much power in the media. Some nerds learn from their own experience to be more inclusive, but it’s not a given. In Revenge of the Nerds the minority characters are mostly there to fill up the nerd ranks as back-up.
This isn’t to dismiss the hurt someone feels when they’re rejected for any reason. Social anxiety, being considered physically unattractive, more minor disabilities (for lack of a better term) do also make people outcast and I’m not dismissing that rejection and the hurt it causes. But the original nerd story is a combination of insider and outsider. Your basic identity gets you in the door, but you’re judged for not living up to the ideal of that identity. Nerd stories are about changing the rules, not changing the game.
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From:
no subject
Your thoughts remind me of the scene in American Splendour when they see Revenge of the Nerds and Harvey points out that the nerds in the movie are rich enough that they're going to college and have computers they didn't get from "saving box tops" like his friend Toby who loves the movie and identifies with the nerds. Of course the comic American Splendour is all about class but that's an additional critique of the idea of nerds as outsiders; Harvey and his fellow file clerks are much more on the outside. And certainly the intense consumerism of nerd culture bears that out.
And ugh yes fanboys are so entitled because they are so focussed on the one privilege they don't have. Makes me think a lot about intersectionality and the problems of white cis upper-middle class dominated feminism, white male upper-middle class dominated gay rights movement, white male straight cis dominated labor movement, etc.
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Once past the school years, when the designation 'Nerd' no longer carries a risk of physical or mental abuse, it seems that most consider it to be a badge of honor. And, in a sense, a way of saying "Please excuse my lack of social skills."
I like Real Genius better than Revenge of the Nerds. Still a university geek movie, but with characters who have interests outside of getting laid.
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And yes, nerd has definitely changed what it means. But then, so has popular. I notice often that many movie stars will always paint themselves as being unpopular and insecure in high school. And I'm sure plenty of them were, but it's still the standard narrative now. Nobody wants to have been the popular person.
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I have a big problem with this sentence. Though it may be true that a white, straight, cisgendered guy would have more privilege than other nerds, I think it's unfair to paint the status of nerd itself as being a fake outsider. It smacks of the idea that 'my minority status is waaaay more valid than your minority status'.
It may be my personal experience that makes me feel like the critique of nerds you put here is an unfair one, but it seems to me that the stories most beloved in nerd culture have strong ideas about acceptance of other groups, no matter how they may be different or to what degree. The original Star Trek is an example that comes to mind, as is X-men. To me one of the biggest draws of fandom has always been that everyone who has ever felt like an outsider can begin to empathize with others who have gone through those same feelings.
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I also seem to have not made clear what I meant by a nerd narrative, because I wouldn't count Star Trek or X-Men as them. Both of those things are far more important stories to actual nerds than the kinds of things I was talking about. The thing I was referring to was the story where you have the nerd character getting the girl and triumphing in general over the cool characters. Those stories aren't particularly important in nerd culture, I don't think. They're for the general audience. Someone else just put this in even better perspective for me, actually, by pointing out that these kinds of movies are more about the nerds standing in for anyone who feels inadequate and left out of the kind of cool lives of success they would be constantly fed by the media. There's a real subtext of everyone can feel like a nerd sometimes.
And I do agree that there are plenty of stories that are beloved by nerds (and sometimes dismissed by others) that show inclusion. I did try to acknowledge that by saying that some nerds *do* learn to be inclusive from their experience but there's ample evidence that this is not always the case.
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That said, white cismale straight nerds are very privileged people overall - and not recognising this makes them the bullies that they so despised. They also take it a step further, by defining their own positive qualities as "masculine" and normalising their own experiences as universal (e.g. everyone who didn't grow up with a computer and is therefore comfortable with it is "stupid"). This article (http://restructure.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/male-geeks-reclaim-masculinity-at-the-expense-of-female-geeks/) is a good breakdown of this.
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Didn't one of the nerds have surprise sex (where the surprise is that the sex was with someone else... kind of rapey) with the cool girl, wearing that Darth Vader mask? That always disturbed me.
Also, something felt a bit racist about the nerds using their 'brothers' from another campus for... actually, I forget what they were used for but it seemed off. Maybe I'm misremembering.
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Then the one guy pretends to be the girl's boyfriend wearing the Darth Vader mask (after her own boyfriend rudely brushes her off) and has sex with her but she's not mad because he's so good at it.
The brothers show up at the end to provide muscle against the jocks, basically. They stand and look menacing. And black.
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Anyway, thought you'd appreciate these links:
http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/revenge-on-the-revenge-of-the-nerds.html
http://crankosaur.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/disgusting-moments-in-film-revenge-of-the-nerds/
(BTW, I've been offline a bit recently, but hope you had a nice birthday! :)
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no subject
Thanks for the good wishes!
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First of all, everyone knows her as Timothy Treadwell's girlfriend, but she had a name. Amie. (Even I don't know her last name, sadly.)
And her story really bothers me, because it brings up a lot of issues about how (at least in high school, which nerds are forbidden by law from getting over until age 35) the acceptable way to be a 'weird' woman is to be just as supportive and self-effacing and just as much an accessory as a 'normal' woman, but to a 'weird' guy. And if you ever criticize your weird guy, you're one of Them who keep him down and you're just as bad etc. etc. (If you get fed up and leave, you justify him being a flaming misogynist for the rest of his life! Until another girl comes along who wants a boyfriend badly enough to agree with him about how awful most girls - that is, you and the ex you agreed with him about - are.) And the reward for all this? You get just as eaten by a grizzly bear. But he's the one who's famous.
In recent years, the alternative of being a manic pixie dream girl has opened up, but that has its own problems.
In short, I think you're exactly right that the classic nerd social narrative (and most - not all, mind you - classic nerds) is WAY too caught up in the idea that our current social structure is right and good except for the minor detail that they're not on top, rather than interested in a thoroughgoing critique of that culture.
This is also why so many of them turn into libertarians. AND it accounts for the caliber of conversation surrounding WoW. In short, this is a theory with a lot of explanatory power.
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There's also the thankless roles in the Judd Apatow type romantic comedies where the girls represent "growing up" and not having fun anymore.
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Anyway, it's definitely a self-enclosed narrative only awkwardly reflecting reality. I've also felt the bitterness at the common nerd/geek exclusion of geek females and obsession with the 'cool girls'.... but I think it's just 'cause they're guys and never claimed to be emotionally advanced in the first place, and indeed everyone knows they're emotionally stunted. >_____>;; So basically they're threatened by any female that could kick their ass in the arena they feel comfortable with.
However I will say that articles like the one linked by someone re: nerd vs. geek has a little too much bitterness. I mean, I do think geeks lately claim the label to reassert masculinity, but I do think that it's not shocking but rather a sort of reasonable return to historical norms. Cultured Western men were always self-identifying as made to be philosophers/scientists/engineers outside hick America or whatever (heh), so if American men accepted that having education/a brain is ok and *then* the gender war moved up a notch, they'd just one day attain the European level of feminism..... ^^;;;; On the other hand, a lot of things are determined by the culture at large as opposed to the geeks themselves; sayyyyy intellectual Jewish men perceived intellectual Jewish women in Soviet Russia... well, differently (so, I mean, the personalized bitterness/resentment/blaming feels out of place). It's probably impossible to untangle the effects of persecution/discrimination and just the effects of [American vs Chinese or German or Russian Jewish] cultural values. But I suspect that it's this peculiarly anti-intellectual American culture at large that's responsible both for the discouraged females in the scientists and the desperate entitlement/persecution complex of the nerds, if that makes sense. It's like, they get these mixed messages, right? On the one hand, they're white/etc. On the other, they're smart, & this isn't cool. They would probably self-destruct if they went on to want to mate with smart females in turn.
I don't think I'm making a lot of sense, sadly, so I'll stop while I'm behind. :>
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And once you are inside you've got all these subtle things going on where people have power. It's sort of like in fandom where you have the bnf thing but even there people can sometimes just turn around and say that in the greater scheme of things we'd all be considered losers by some. You can have someone who in one place, like fandom, makes people jealous but if you met them outside fandom you might not want to be them at all.