Back in my day, "nerd" meant actually being an intellectual. You know, reading books, doing math, being interested in physics, etc. How did consuming comic book slop become false signaling for what Nerdom once was?

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andyjohnson0 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I always thought that "geek" described all those things, and with some level of intellectual accomplishment. Wheras "nerd" was a more obsessive, less self-aware form - like people who know all the stats about a particular comics character.

But apparently I have them reversed in my head, for reasons that unsure of. Perhaps growing-up in a country that was not then saturated with US pop-culture is to blame. Etymology references arent particularly revealing in this case, as they just tell me what I already know.

	▲	morganf 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, growing up in New York it was the reverse of these.

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keiferski 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That’s not really what the word intellectual has meant for the last century. Intellectual is more akin to “liberal arts major” in modern language: philosophers, writers, art critics, etc.

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Ekaros 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah I have understood intellectuals are more so on the soft end. Where as nerds would be more so on hard end. Engineering, physics, math and such. Where numbers or at least trivia reign supreme.

	▲	keiferski 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Correct. Not to say that intellectuals can’t be interested in physics, but it has always been more associated with culture and politics rather than technical subjects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual

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vladvasiliu 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I was never into comics, but the impression I get is that many "actual nerds" were. And that's something that was clearly visible from the outside.

And since everything nowadays seems to be about surface-level signaling, cultures get represented by whatever is most visible.

So, for "actual nerds", that is comic books, I guess. Nobody will pay attention to what those comic books were (no idea if there were any of the "non-slop" kind). People spending hours poring over some math/physics/other textbook in their homes or libraries weren't exactly visible to the others. They were just the "pasty weirdos".

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krapp 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

All of it was "being a nerd" back in your day. "Comic book nerd" was a stereotype that predated the internet by a generation.

People forget that "nerd" was just an insult, it wasn't an identity. It's was something people called you when they were beating the shit out of you for violating social and physical norms, and like the f slur it could be very loosely applied.

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glutamate 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Came here to say exactly this. Since when was being a nerd about consumer preferences?

But then I start wondering if we are just gatekeeping nerddom?

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krapp 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Since when was being a nerd about consumer preferences?

Being a nerd has almost always been about consumer preferences. Everything from baseball cards to anime, comics, D&D, video games, all of the staples of nerd culture are also consumer culture.

	▲	freehorse 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		But you are picking the most commercial sides of what is described as "nerd culture" and identifying them to "nerd culture". Exactly this is what is criticised (imo). And even among these "staples" you can find a lot of no/low/anti commercial things and sides. In the videogames for example, you also have pirating, modding communities, indie/free/unfinished games. There is some consumer part, but there have been aspects that are not. In any case, I am not sure anything of this has to do with "being a nerd" per se, if I even get to understand how to properly define a category based on a term that has most often than not served as an exonym (or used to). But if I ignore this part, I would say that stuff like eg marvel comics is akin to fast food, and now it goes from being a "nerd's fast food" to being "normie's fast food". In either case, making stuff like "marvel comics" a definitional point of being a nerd seems absurd to me (and I have read tons of marvel comics in my life).