Let me tell you the two reasons why nerds are losers.
The first reason why they are losers is because the word nerd has gone through decay, it no longer means what it used to. It used to mean “Someone who is interested in intellectual pursuits.”, such as math, literature, science, history, etc. Basically, someone who finds the mental classes at school to be interesting, while most others hate those subjects because intellectuality is not for everyone, hence why the word nerd is associated with school.
Nowadays, however, the word nerd basically means “Someone who is a mindless consumer”. Nerds are no longer intelligent, they now only care about pseudo intellectual crap like Rick and Morty, superhero movies, and other things of second hand, childish banality nature.
"We dumbed down the definition of nerd and made it mainstream! Now you average people can dub yourselves nerds, even though nerds in the past only consoomed things that required intellectual effort!"
Like I said. Nerdism is now a cargo cult. Which brings me to my secondary point.
The second reason why nerds are sucky losers is because they allow their communities to be invaded by cringe normies who would have bullied nerds in the past, but now that being a consumer nerd has become mainstream, these cringe people are invading nerd communities and turning them into leftoid cesspools. Nerd communities are now infested with attention whoring sodomites and “gamer girls” and man children, and nerds do nothing to stop it.
Why are nerds so bad at defending their communities? They allowed the Trojan Horse, the normie hoards, in.
I went to r/dndmenes for the first time in a while, and first post I see, at the top of the page, is not even a meme. It was a screenshot from another subreddit.
The screenshot was a meme about goblins in another subreddit and the guy who was posting the screenshot to r/dndmemes was bitching about how goblins are an “antisemitic stereotype blah blah blah”.
Fucking jevvs ruin everything, even dumb meme subreddits.
TLDR: Nerds and geeks are losers and cuckold simps because they allowed the same whores who bullied and belittled and ignored them in the past to become the “Queens” of nerd communities after becoming a “”“”“Geek”“”" (Read: Movie/Television/VideoGame consoomer) became mainstream and “muh popular”.
I miss the old definition of nerd.
Anyway, what do y'all think?
In addition to everything else, labeling by definition if it's claimed because aspirational.
Its the same thing as special snowflake syndrome on tumblr. As soon as anybody takes pride in a perjoritive label it becomes a goal for somebody else. This isnt a criticism, human nature wants belonging and uniqueness. It wants to belong to a group outside the norm
Real trailblazers and counter cultural forces don't HAVE a group identity, and can't be identified, because they don't seek a label, and don't conform to a societal paradigm of accepted deviance.
That's the Crux of the society part as well, in that society NEEDS to be at least slightly hip, it has to have a group of inside-outsiders. In this case and time it's the nerds. Ita a push back against the seriousness and angst of Gen X, which was in turn a push back on the flower child ideals of the Boomers. The Boomers said purpose is lack of constraint and truth found by engaging in nonsense, Gen X called nonsensr stupid, nut agreed that constraint was evil and said purpose was needed but impossible. The Current zeitgeist claims that a need for purpose IS a constraint, and that engaging with anything in a serious way is a farce, so embraces nonsense FOR its lack of purpose, rather than a path to it as the boomers did.
Gen Z is fighting over constraint right now.
Pull it back to "nerds" What are the ingredients of a modern nerd?
It has a label of non-conformity, stealing the insult is plenty. If you can say "lol I'm such a nerd"
It has a sense of belonging, "nerd culture" funko pops being the perfect example of rapidly generating the trappings of an obsession. This allows the "claim" of the nerd title, and a signal of authenticity (rememeber, group belonging is self defining and self sustaining. Group credentials are whatever enough people with those credentials consider them to be)
It fits the cultural zeitgeist. The MCU is the symbol here. Trash badtardizarions of much better media, condensed into manageable bite sized chunks. Stripped of all narrative and the themes that made the originals great. And the response to criticism of those problems is that "it's children's media" "youre taking it too seriously" " you don't need to know every species name and Luke's best friends name to be a fan. Who cares about that stuff anyway! It was stupid and it's good it's gone.
Engaging in purposeless nonsense BECAUSE it is pointless, and fighting HARD to keep it pointless. That's the cultural demand. And culture/society is what decides what's well known, what's published. Uou have to have the right product and know the right people, and fundamentally, being counter cultural means you DONT have those things.
This is a well articulated thought. I agree with your analysis, although in my opinion you are starting to see the birthing pains of a new sincerity movement among Gen Z and Gen Alpha. The old system has completely abandoned them. Cut adrift, some of them seem to be looking deep into the past for guidance, which leads them to question the modern shibboleths. I think they are slowly coming back around to the ancestral truth of the matter, which is that constraint GIVES purpose, thus it should be embraced as the natural order of things - 'Pick up your cross and follow me.'
Thats why I say they're fighting about it now. Gen Z won't be the culturally dominate force for a good 20-30 years. Were watching it's incubation. Which means we can speculate on causes and the ultimate outcomes, but it's still up in the air as to what truly takes over.
If I could summarize it. Boomers had earnest irreverance Gen X earnest cynicism. Millennial moved into ironic cynicism. And Gen Z is marked by post irony. Which can circle into earnest reverence again, OR can end up at ironic irreverence. Regardless, each generation rejects the moor of the previous, while still tweaking it into something somewhat unique.