An interesting convo I had with a customer

[The Dewbliners]

So, one of my regular customers came in tonight, and his T-Shirt had a picture of Cartman, Stan, and Kyle dressed like Vader, Sidious, and Maul, with the caption "Sith Park". Being the nerd I am, I told him I liked it. His response? "Yeah, 15 years ago, it was considered wrong to be a nerd, but our generation has reclaimed it, and made it awesome." We went on to have a 10 minute exchange on this (it was super slow). I just wanted to know, why do you guys think it's considered acceptable today to be a nerd/geek/dork or whatever you wanna call it. I'll chip in with my two cents in a bit.

And let the discussion begin!

 

[Viola Moonlight]

I like the discussion Dewey. It's happenen for sure... I think what has been said here so far gives you the answer!

 

[hArdyPUNKmArk]

Dunno, for some reason jocks love to wear glasses now and so many people are wearing the old school retro shirts and shit like comic stuff and all that without actually being into it.

Fuck. I was chatting with a guy the other day in the smokers area at work and he had a Dr Who shirt on with the tardis and I asked him about it and he had no idea what I was talking about, he just liked the shirt!?

Image is everything these days, it's weird.

It's the same with music, Kurt Cobain said music was turning more into image rather than actual music. People use music and 'nerd' stuff as a tool to make themselves somehow look cool rather than enjoying the actual thing in question....


I dont think that made much sense the way i typed it.... Oh well meh!

 

[Viola Moonlight]

Nerd is only a meaningless classification.

 

[The Dewbliners]

Yeah, I get what your sayin' hardy. To those that think nerd-dom is a look, I say a nice loud "FUCK YOU!" Those people aren't real nerds. They haven't seen half the shit their shirts promote. Take me, for example. I'm nerdy enough, I've seen every episode of Thundercats, at least 10 times. Thus, I wear a t-shirt with the logo, and have it inked on my arm. If I'm wearing a band shirt (usually metal of some sort), I've seen that band live at least once, and own most of their albums, if not all.

See, what most people don't realize, it's not how you dress, it's a lifestyle. A true nerd this, and (even though I do wear them), not all of us wear glasses, nor are we socially awkward. Nerd-dom isn't what tv you watch, or what music you listen to, it's a state of mind. The greatest state of mind, for my money.

 

[The Doctor]

Yeah, Dewey, hArdy, I get what you're saying. There are people who wear shirts because they think it's cool, like most people who wear Bob Marley or Che Guevara shirts. Pisses me off. I wear Mario and Rockman shirts because I like them both. I've played pretty much every Mario game (even Mario Teaches Typing 2 and Mario Is Missing), so dammit I'm going to show my love for the series.
People wear shirts to be cool, and some people wear "nerdy" shirts to show that they can hang with all kinds of people, but it just doesn't work like that. Shirts do not make the man.

 

[Blade]

I hate this "proud to be a nerd" bullshit. Being a nerd is supposed to be a bad thing, I thought. You should go "No, I'm not a nerd, thanks" rather than encouraging the stupid stereotypes and stupider names.

 

[Lee]

I'm not a nerd, I'm a geek.

And I think it has to do with Hollywood movies where the Nerd gets the girl over the jock, that's not what happens in real life but still!

 

[Coco]

They have nothing to threaten me with, nothing to do with their strength, so they need to respect me to get me to do their homework.

 

[Uncle Sam]

I'm a real nerd. My proof - well, I'm here, aren't I?

 

[FromTheSouth]

Yeah, I get what your sayin' hardy. To those that think nerd-dom is a look, I say a nice loud "FUCK YOU!" Those people aren't real nerds. They haven't seen half the shit their shirts promote. Take me, for example. I'm nerdy enough, I've seen every episode of Thundercats, at least 10 times. Thus, I wear a t-shirt with the logo, and have it inked on my arm. If I'm wearing a band shirt (usually metal of some sort), I've seen that band live at least once, and own most of their albums, if not all.

See, what most people don't realize, it's not how you dress, it's a lifestyle. A true nerd this, and (even though I do wear them), not all of us wear glasses, nor are we socially awkward. Nerd-dom isn't what tv you watch, or what music you listen to, it's a state of mind. The greatest state of mind, for my money.

So, what you're saying is that no one new is allowed in your nerd clique? A clique in which you probably complain about being excluded.

Interesting.

 

[Razor]

So, one of my regular customers came in tonight, and his T-Shirt had a picture of Cartman, Stan, and Kyle dressed like Vader, Sidious, and Maul, with the caption "Sith Park". Being the nerd I am, I told him I liked it. His response? "Yeah, 15 years ago, it was considered wrong to be a nerd, but our generation has reclaimed it, and made it awesome." We went on to have a 10 minute exchange on this (it was super slow). I just wanted to know, why do you guys think it's considered acceptable today to be a nerd/geek/dork or whatever you wanna call it. I'll chip in with my two cents in a bit.

And let the discussion begin!

I'll tell you why Dewey. Those "nerds" are currently the ones employing the "cool kids." That, and the "nerds" are the ones who are barely keeping the United States from falling even farther behind the other countries in terms of technology and medicine. We're currently what, 10 years behind Germany in medical research? How many decades behind Japan in electronics?

Oh. It's hard to be humble when you're a "nerd" and currently looking into ways to amplify the average human life expectancy by 2-fold, or working with electronics to make them even more efficient. I can't help but smile when I think that in 2 and a half months I'll be able to point to my 1200+ page Calculus book and say "I now know every math operation in that book."

...but that's just me.

 

[Minor League Brian]

I think that in 2 and a half months I'll be able to point to my 1200+ page Calculus book and say "I've learned know every math operation in that book."

Apparently you 'learned know' it at the expense of English.

 

[Razor]

Apparently you 'learned know' it at the expense of English.

I'm sorry. I'm thought of two different ways to say that thought, and merged them together in my hurried typing. Please, please forgive me. I don't know what I would do if you didn't.

 

[Minor League Brian]

I'm sorry. I'm thought of two different ways to say that thought, and merged them together in my hurried typing. Please, please forgive me. I don't know what I would do if you didn't.

I know what you did, I do it all the time. Mind works faster then the hands, or vise versa even. I just found the humor in it, you can't? Smartass.

 

[Razor]

I know what you did, I do it all the time. Mind works faster then the hands, or vise versa even. I just found the humor in it, you can't? Smartass.

Me? Smartass? You pointed it out.

I found the humor. Just felt like being indignant about it.