What is a Nerd?

 

Stupid, irritating, ineffectual, unattractive. This is how society views nerds. The societal depiction of a nerd is often negative and nerds depicted in media are often bullied by “cool” kids who see him or her as inferior to their group. I am a nerd. We are all nerds in some way or another. Am I stupid? No. Irritating? Sometimes, but aren’t we all? Ineffectual? No. Unattractive? Absolutely not. I am a nerd, but not by the definition of society or the media and it’s time society’s definition of nerd gets a makeover.

 

Nerds keep their noses in books. In high school, anything less than a perfect score was unacceptable to me because those were the high standards that I set myself to. In my eyes, there was no such thing as down time because there were so many things to make perfect and so little time. But in the eyes of others, I was that one nerd always doing homework. But in the end what was I? An achiever. A nerd is an achiever who takes pride in themselves.

 

Nerds have weird style and are unattractive. What’s one thing we can all do when we need a good laugh? Look in our old school yearbooks. “What was I thinking” is the typical reactions we get along with a few belly laughs. Most of the things we laugh at are trends that we followed because it was cool. We didn’t really understand why we liked it; we just followed the crowd. Nerds are seen as unstylish because they wear what they want to and choose to not let popular trends taint their individual style. Nerds are unique. They don’t try to fit themselves into these molds of popularity, losing their individuality along the way; they are who they are and don’t try to change for anyone.

 

Nerds spend their whole lives on computers. Those who say these things are the ones who are going to be needing nerds the most. How do we socialize with people and conduct business? Technology. Who knows how to solve our technology problems? Nerds. Who develops new and improved software? Nerds. Nerds are the future. We are all given a talent that we are charged to change the world with. The talent of these tech nerds? Creating the future.

 

Let’s take a look at two examples in which nerdom was depicted pretty accurately in media. Look at Sandy Frink (Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion) and Ned Gold (17 Again (2009)). Both are shown in high school as very weird kids who were bullied by other “cool” kids. Fast forward to adulthood and both are living lavish lifestyles where everyone wants to be their friend. They are achievers. High school may not have been a happy time for them, but none of that mattered once they reached adulthood because being a nerd really paid off for them. If they would’ve followed the crowd in high school, they may not have been able to invent the things that gave them their wealth. These films show us the reality of nerdom; being a nerd pays off in the end.

 

Why does the word nerd have such negative connotation? Stupid, irritating, ineffectual, unattractive. The societal judgment is that being a nerd is a bad thing and that nerds should be social outcasts. If we step out of our social bubbles, we can see what a nerd truly is. An achiever, the future, unique. Being a nerd isn’t a bad thing and the negative judgment of nerds taints peoples mind, showing them that it’s not socially acceptable to be a nerd. We are all nerds in our own unique way. Show the world that being socially accepted by “cool kids” isn’t always cool and that being a nerd is okay.