We’re All Nerds Now

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/sunday-review/were-all-nerds-now.html

by eelke • 12 years ago

29 29 12 years ago

chronid• 12 years ago

People (outside IT) are not interested in knowing more about tech. For them technology is nothing more than magic, and they have no problem with that, nor at work or at home.

Having an iPhone in your hand does not make you a "nerd". It makes you stupid in my eyes, when I discover you use it only for messaging and calls.

Bahamut• 12 years ago

Why does owning an iPhone make you stupid? That comment is stupid (Note: I do not own an iPhone and never have).

Jtsummers• 12 years ago

My interpretation of GP's comment: Owning an iPhone doesn't make you stupid, owning it for just messaging and calling does.

I disagree, though. I have a number of friends with iPhones they use for little more than that, but they were free from their spouse or a family member. They either don't pay for a data plan or the data plan is part of a shared family plan so cost-wise it's a wash compared to dumbphones. They also happen to have a decent amount of storage (though not competitive with things like the iPod Classic until this latest generation of iPhone) so they can carry just the phone and have their music, calling and messaging in one device.

frostmatthew• 12 years ago

It makes you stupid in my eyes, when I discover you use it only for messaging and calls.

I understand what you're trying to say, but I think there are better ways to say it.

_random_2• 12 years ago

Well, people with Androids and WPs know enough to either not call themselves "nerds" or actually be nerds. But of course he forgot that they would also play Candy Crush Saga installed by one of the Apple Geniuses.

vezzy-fnord• 12 years ago

I'm not really convinced.

The article's arguments for "geek culture" (might I add there is no such thing as a homogenous geek culture, but hey) proliferating are:

a) The recent popularity of sci-fi and superhero films.

b) The mass spread of consumer electronics and social media.

c) Computer technology becoming more accessible.

d) The information age enabling us to find trivia at a much faster rate than ever before.

e) Recent tech company acquisitions. (Twitch, Mojang, Oculus)

-------------------------

a) is not indicative of any long-term acceptance and popularity of "geekdom". Sci-fi, superhero and fantasy films have fluctuated in popularity on and off over the past 40 years. We're simply at another point where they've picked up again. In fact, the article does mention this quite neatly: "In the past, there have been plenty of pop culture phenomena nerds could get behind — the frenzies surrounding the “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” movie franchises are two potent examples."

This is out, then.

b) is a technological inevitability. It has nothing to do with a spike in "geekdom". It's just progress, and in fact, one might make an argument that it is, to some extent, a regression. This is due to the locked down and obscurantist nature of consumer electronics, which discourage hacking and where everything is buried under a smoke screen. Social media? The Web is becoming ever more ubiquitous, so of course social media will as well. Social media has become more practical due to advances in web technology.

c) is closely related to b). As I stated, it may actually well serve as an argument against proliferation of "geekdom".

d) This means little, again. People have always been passionate about fiction they're invested in, so it's only normal that they'll memorize factoids and trivia. Honestly, if people think the best thing that came out of the Information Age is being able to look up factoids about television shows, what a miserable failure it is then.

e) is just tech giants being tech giants. Hurray?

-----------------------

Finally, I'd like to state that The Big Bang Theory has a rather... mixed reception, to put it euphemistically. In addition, installing a printer isn't always so simple. CUPS is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, but I still find myself having to reset the printer driver for the UI quite frequently, as it just arbitrarily blocks. I don't know.

And of course, the irony of taking a jab at that "homogenous, sexist geek culture" while writing about how a very watered down variant of it might be becoming popular.

chiph• 12 years ago

I think there needs to be a distinction (when using the term Nerd) between people who use technology, and those who create it. Users of technology are more commonly called "Customers". Or "Consumers" in the new parlance. Whereas traditional Nerds are far more deeply involved with the technology, and grok it in it's fullness as they combine it into things never before seen.

calibraxis• 12 years ago

I think much of that depends on properties of the tech we create. After all, people are both producers and consumers. We have drives to do more than passively consume.

Take Emacs. That's a technology that empowers people to become creators. It's hackable, and not in a grim boring way like Unix:

"When large numbers of nontechnical workers are using a programmable editor, they will he tempted constantly to begin programming in the course of their day-to-day lives. This should contribute greatly to computer literacy, especially because many of the people thus exposed will be secretaries taught by society that they are incapable of doing mathematics, and unable to imagine for a moment that they can learn to program. But that won't stop them from learning it if they don't know that it is programming that they are learning! According to Bernard Greenberg, this is already happening with Multics EMACS." https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html

riffraff3• 12 years ago

I think "lusers" was the word used sometime ago for the people who use technology without understanding it :)

Widow• 12 years ago

Well that's not elitist or anything.

spindritf• 12 years ago

No, we're not, at last not in the original meaning. Nerd used to mean someone obsessed and therefore knowledgeable about something (book nerd, comic nerd, or... The War Nerd[1]). Later geek took over that meaning and nerd moved towards someone socially awkward but smart.

Owning a smartwatch, reading a best seller novel, or watching a blockbuster doesn't make anyone a nerd. Not any more than wearing aviator sunglasses makes me a pilot. Which is actually what nerd tends to mean now, a style, a fashion fad inspired by the original.

Ironically, yet also completely predictably when you think of it, the original demographic is starting to look down on the nerd interests of yesteryear. You can read very dismissive (and downright insulting but that's a given) comments about anime and computer gaming on 4chan of all places.

[1] http://exiledonline.com/cat/war-nerd/

andyidsinga• 12 years ago

cant agree with you more. what the op calls nerds are much more fashion/pop culture and fit more into dork category in this: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/b3/fd/05/b3fd051... ( ill admit im venturing into generalizing a little too much )

portlandia "nerd psa" skit highlights the issue too.

riffraff3• 12 years ago

I always thought the original meaning of "nerd" was "not cool, not popular in the high school sense".

IIRC in "revenge of the nerds"[0] (1984) a few of the nerds were just the "not frat & football guys", rather than "expert in a intellectual field".

The "knowledgeable about something" bit came much later, as did the "techie" sense, AFAICT (wikipedia appears to agree[1]).

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_of_the_Nerds

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd#Etymology

rglullis• 12 years ago

Maddox said it best in "You're not a nerd, geeks aren't sexy and you don't "fucking love" science."[1]

People love science in the same way they love classical music or art. Science and "geeky" subjects are perceived as being hip, cool and intellectual. So people take a passing interest just long enough to glom onto these labels and call themselves "geeks" or "nerds" every chance they get. I feel a sharp pang in my head every time some moron on Twitter or Facebook says something like "i'm doing my homework i'm such a nerd LOL!!!" Wrong, fuck belch. You're not a nerd for doing your assigned homework; you're doing it because you have to, not because you want to. That'd be like saying, "I'm eating food, I'm such a foodie, LOL!!!" Since when did it become cool to label yourself a "nerd" anyway? (...)

If you have to tell people you're a nerd, chances are you're not. Nerds don't have to advertise their status. We know. Being a nerd is a byproduct of losing yourself in what you do, often at the expense of friends, family and hygiene. Until or unless you've paid your dues, you haven't earned the right—or reason—to call yourself a nerd. Being a nerd isn't graceful or glorious. It's a life born out of obsessive dedication to a craft, discipline or collecting some stupid shit that only you care about.

[1] http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd

whoisthemachine• 12 years ago

sorry, but everybody * is not * a nerd until they're reading articles on beam-forming with wifi antennas with rapt attention.

ProAm• 12 years ago

Just like we are all hackers now too. Just a societal fad in today's participation ribbon receiving culture. Overall it's a good thing though, helping to push/pull people forward.

calvins2• 12 years ago

Being perceived as an intellectual of any type (nerd or otherwise) still mostly excludes one from public office above a certain level (in the USA, at least). Until that changes, it's difficult to take the idea seriously.

jacalata• 12 years ago

You don't think constitutional law professors are perceived as intellectuals?

calvins2• 12 years ago

Obama was elected despite being an intellectual. And I did think of Obama and carefully phrase my statement to account for him. The point stands that intellectual is a dirty word in politics, just like nerd, which wouldn't be the case if we were all becoming nerds.

ihnorton• 12 years ago

As jacalata pointed out, President Obama could be cited as a counter-example, and under the same criteria I would add at least Wilson to the list.

Being perceived as an intellectual is not strictly exclusionary, but opponents will certainly try to hold it against a candidate - much like any other characteristic that can be played up for factionalism.

pocketheyman• 12 years ago

An engineering degree is also no longer a requisite to using technology, as seemingly anyone today can install a printer or upload a video.

Yikes - does that mean that we all needed engineering degrees to drive cars?

_random_2• 12 years ago

"...the maker of Minecraft and one of the last independent gaming companies..." - LOL, what?

"...right now I have three devices — my phone, my Kindle, my iPod..." - worlds most consumer-friendly devices. So nerdy.

Reminds me of a South Park classic: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=flippity-flop...

TillE• 12 years ago

one of the last independent gaming companies

I wish I could say it's astonishing that journalists writing for a major paper would just casually make shit up for no reason (because it sounds good, I guess?), but that's the generally rotten state of journalism for you.

6d0debc071• 12 years ago

I've read a couple of history books, does that make me a historian now then?

What utter bullshit.

toby• 12 years ago

Heh, I recently posted this on Facebook:

As I spent a sunny Sunday working through Project Euler problems in Haskell, I got a little sad that the word "nerd" has been re-appropriated to people who like video games ($100billion industry) or Star Wars (3rd highest grossing film of all time) or people who like phone apps (everyone in SF).

Is there a new word that's been invented to take its place?

BendertheRobot• 12 years ago

IMHO, I must respectfully disagree. It is easy for non-nerds to try defining nerds in their own image.

This is true especially for journalists. They have a conflict of interest in the matter.

Their interest is to sell content online or in the newspapers. To appeal to people's self-aggrandizement is a very powerful motivation in this case.

Is that what Mr Cohen is doing? At a glance that's not certain. However with regard to this opinion piece, reviewing definition of terms and how they are used, looking for logical fallacies, reviewing the background of people being interviewed and some healthy skepticism is warranted.

Journalists talking about science and scientists is not equivalent to a thorough understanding of it.

lazylizard• 12 years ago

i beg to differ. never has the gap between producer and consumer been so wide. what the consumer is seeing is getting more and more dumbed down, while the tech that runs behind the interface is getting more and more complicated.

its like (this is really vague, sorry)..once upon a time you interacted with your pc via cli..now you get a in-browser webgl game..

or..this certainly is not universal..but those people that have 3 devices often don't even know how to add a mail account(whats pop3/imap/tls?)..

We’re All Nerds Now

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