So You Think You're a Nerd

Nerds.

At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, you kids these days with your fandoms need to get off my lawn.  Metaphorically speaking.

The popularity of "nerd culture" is about to reach critical mass and, soon enough, it will no longer be cool to be a nerd.  But here's the thing... it never was.  Not really.  What became cool was the interests of nerds, not the nerds themselves.  The problem is that the concept of what constitutes a nerd has become heavily diluted by what constitutes a fan.  Let me explain.

Fans of The Avengers went to see the movie, probably at midnight, probably more than once.  Avengers nerds went to see the movie, consistently read the comic books, and can, on command, construct a point-by-point canonical argument explaining why The Avengers would win in a fight with The Justice League.

Fans of Star Wars have seen the movies, know the characters, and can make a Han Shot First joke.  Star Wars nerds have seen the movies so many times that they're practically committed to memory, know the extended universe from books, TV shows, and video games, possess bootlegged copies of The Holiday Special (which may or may not be autographed by Peter Mayhew), and can make a Jeff Vader joke.

Fans of The X-Men are familiar with the film franchise and discuss at length whether they'd rather sleep with Michael Fassbender or Sir Ian McKellen.  X-Men nerds will discuss at length why Dazzler is the best mutant ever and can tell you the address of the X-Mansion.  It's 1407 Graymalkin Lane, by the way, a bit of information I only know because I'm friends with an X-Men nerd.

Fans of Batman can tell you all about Bruce Wayne.  Batman nerds can tell you all about Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damien Wayne, and saw the TAG plot twist in The Dark Knight Rises coming a mile away.

Fans go to Comic Con.  Nerds spend months on costumes, wait all night in lines, and leave Comic Con already making plans for next year.

I could go on and on with examples of this, but the point I'm making is that most people are fans.  And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  I encourage people to be fans of these things.  I'm thrilled that there are more people taking an interest.  However, don't go see the highest grossing film of the Summer, put on some thick glasses, and call yourself a nerd.  Not only are you a pretender to the nerd throne, but you probably don't want the burden that comes with it.

There's a reason nerds were never cool.  Because nerds are fucking weird.  Nerds are pathologically obsessive.  When we become fans of something, we can't just stop at the basic information.  We learn everything there is to know about that particular thing.  We spend hours on Wikipedia, clicking through link after link, absorbing as much knowledge and trivia as we can.  We watch and re-watch movies and TV shows in order to know them better than anyone else.  Not because we want to, but because we HAVE to.  You see, we are unbelievably competitive.  We want to win at information because, for the most part, we sure as hell can't win at anything else.  We're also incredibly possessive, jealously guarding our chosen interests and, when attacked, defend those interests.  It's like when a person insults your family... you recognize the flaws and you can point out your family's shortcomings all you want, but when someone else does it...

The unfortunate truth about nerds is that we are addicts.  Were our attentions not devoted to our comic books, films, TV shows, music, sports (yes, sports nerds exist), video games, science, math, and/or other obsessions, we would be highly susceptible to alcoholism, drug addiction, or behavior bordering on stalking that results in restraining orders. 

Nerds also tend to struggle with depression and use their chosen addiction as a means of escape from those feelings of hopelessness and loneliness.  Acquisition of knowledge about Batman might seem a rather useless endeavor to most people, but to someone out there, it was a reason to continue living.  For more people than you'd think, amassing a collection of Doctor Who action figures was a way for them to feel connected to the world instead of crushingly alone.

This may have saved someone's life.

When fans call themselves nerds, it ignores the hardships nerds have gone through and the efforts nerds have made in the name of the things they love.  When a fan dons a geeky t-shirt they picked up at Target, a nerd carefully frames a 30-year-old shirt that has been worshiped like a religious relic.  I'm not saying it's healthy or even admirable.  Nerds are a strange, obsessive, socially awkward, overly sensitive bunch.  It's not easy to be a nerd, to have this unyielding, insatiable need to know all there is to know, see all there is to see, and do all there is to do related to their interests.  But it's who we are and it's all we have and we take it REALLY GODDAMN PERSONALLY when people want to take a shortcut and claim to be one of us.

Casual fans invade our space and we fall back.  They commandeer entire genres and we fall back.  Not again.  The line must be drawn here.  This far, no further.

So, to you hipsters, posers, and fakers, I say this: If you REALLY want to be a nerd, you had better fucking earn the title.