'Nerd' Is Not a 4-Letter Word

I thought we left this behind in the 80s

20th Century-Fox

Recently I was enjoying Ted Gioia’s article on James Bond and the present state of masculinity when I started unexpectedly catching strays.

Describing his attempt at reading a handful of novels that define manhood for the Gen Z and under set, Ted writes:

The characters are a sad assortment of wimps, losers, wannabes, incels, nerds, simps, scroll-and-swipers, round-the-clock gamers, wankers, and half-baked hipsters. I couldn’t find anything resembling a role model for a young man today.

Whoa, whoa—why are nerds lumped in with incels and simps?

Ted takes another shot at nerds and gamers—of which I am both—later in the piece.

This attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed, but my resolve has neva been strongah.

I’ve been thinking about the article, but probably not in the way he intended. I tend to think “what even are men anymore,” handwringing is overblown. It echoes faintly of a kind of machoism I’ve always felt uncomfortable with. The idea of a man’s man is both restrictive and prescriptive. That’s not the central thrust of Ted’s argument—which I agree with; short version: masculinity is integrity—but it’s lurking on the periphery.

Frankly I’ve always felt most comfortable being myself.

And what I am is a huge nerd.

I’ve always been a nerd.

I spent much of my childhood trying to hide this from the world.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s, when a nerd was a modern day leper—someone to be avoided, because that shit might be contagious and you just couldn’t take any chances. This was the era of cliques. One did not simply decide they didn’t identify with the geeks or the goths anymore. There was no freedom of movement—once were you assigned to a cultural ghetto, there you remained. You might enjoy a bit of lateral movement—in high school I knew a kid who doubled-down on goth and went full emo—but there was no escaping back into gen pop, or, heaven forbid, ascending into the popular ranks. Not even if you paid Cindy Mancini $1000 to pretend to be your girlfriend. Once a nerd, always a nerd.

So I hid the fact that I loved Dungeons & Dragons, and pretended I was only casually aware of Star Wars, and stashed my fantasy novels under my bed like it was porn. I could be a nerd by myself at home, but nobody was trying to be a nerd at school. In the 80s, people regularly got picked on just because they had bad eyes; outing myself as someone who rolled polygonal dice would only increase the probability of wedgies.

At the time, there were a surprising number of movies about nerdy kids on the come up. Sometimes this meant a glow up—Can’t Buy Me Love, Teen Wolf—but more often it was about the nerd becoming accepted by society, and in the process also learning to accept himself: Revenge of the Nerds. Lucas. Weird Science. (I’m using male pronouns because these movies were always about painfully awkward young men, who have always been with us and always will.) These movies were more aspirational than instructional, a modern day fairy tale for hormonal adolescents hopped up on SunnyD and Pop Tarts. They didn’t change the world, but they made me feel, if not a sense of belonging, at least a possibility of it. A future where I could be myself.

The nice thing about getting older is you can choose to not care about what people think anymore, and your quality of life improves substantially. But a funny thing happened on my way to adulthood—nerd culture became the culture.

Game of Thrones—a lore-heavy show with swords and dragons—was the most popular TV show in the world for 6 consecutive years.

Marvel’s intricate, interconnected film saga about comic book characters owned cinema from 2012-2019 (The Avengers through Endgame).

Nearest and dearest to my heart, Dungeons & Dragons was suddenly everywhere. You can blame Stranger Things, or Critical Role, or even the pandemic. All I know is there’s videos of Nathan Fillion, David Harbour, and Stephen Colbert playing D&D. Celebrities willing to fly their nerd flag. Unheard of.

Suddenly it was cool to be a nerd.

And why not? What is a nerd, exactly?

The lazy answer involves a pocket protector and a cowlick. But being a nerd is just being passionate for something. Why is that a bad thing? Serious question.

We were denigrated because we loved fantasy books and toys and video games. If our passions were something mainstream like sports, nobody would bat an eye. We were nerds because our interests were outside the accepted genres, and thus, we were considered weird.

But that’s only true in the modern sense, and in a looking back, “stealing something’s power and making it our own” kind of way. The truth is much uglier.

We were nerds because we looked different.

We were painfully shy or socially awkward.

We didn’t fit society’s definition of desirable, so we were othered.

We didn’t want to be nerds. We wanted to be liked.

Yesterday we were called nerds, geeks, and dorks.

Today it’s nerds, incels, and simps.

It’s the same coin, back in circulation.

Labels are dehumanizing. You could say we didn’t know better in the 80s. But it’s disconcerting to see the old stigmas newly popular again.

I thought we were past this. Turns out the future is just rehashing all the old battles. It’s depressing.

Why can’t a nerd also be masculine? Must they be mutually exclusive? I take care of my family, bench my body weight, and enjoy video games. Do my nerdy hobbies really overshadow everything else? If so—you can keep your masculinity.

Revenge of the Nerds ends with the Tri-Lambs accepting the nerd moniker. They take the word’s power and make it their own. They’re nerds, and proud of it.

Me too.