I always thought I was a nerd, but I was never into super heroes or fantasy books/movies and I was never into playing Pokemon or Magic the Gathering. Star Wars didn't appeal to me and neither did Lord Of The Rings nor Narnia nor Harry Potter. I wasn't even that big into video games, although I did spend quite a lot of time playing some of the big titles (Vice City for example) but I spent way more time flying in MS Flight Simulator and FlightGear.

When I was little I was fascinated by big engines and in general driven by the curiosity of wanting to know how everything worked. I would disassemble every piece of electronics in the household. I was into model airplanes and gliders. I was obsessed with building electric motors. I was also really big into steam machines. Everything steam was just cool. Then computers took over my life. Today I find myself nerding out about wood working and back garden agriculture when I'm not doing AI stuff.

I still believe I qualify as a nerd.

Nerd / geek / spod / dork etc., very complex shifting meanings.

But what you're talking about in the first paragraph is what people used to call "geek" culture, and what you're talking about in the second is what people tended to call "nerd" culture.

> I still believe I qualify as a nerd.

And you absolutely should! There is not _the_ nerd archetype and never has been.

> super heroes or fantasy books/movies and I was never into playing Pokemon or Magic the Gathering. Star Wars didn't appeal to me and neither did Lord Of The Rings nor Narnia nor Harry Potter. I wasn't even that big into video games

Aren’t all of these things mainstream escapism?