A few years back, I attended a parade put on by the local university. Tons of people were out representing their groups, including athletes, cheerleaders, and even the academic types. One of the groups, however, was a bit unorthodox compared to the others. The group in question was the local chapter of the Star Trek club. Each one of them was decked out in Starfleet uniforms, and there was even a float that looked like a shuttlecraft. They looked very pleased with themselves and happy to be there. The crowd, unfortunately, wasn't so enthusiastic. Most of them facepalmed, and a few made fun of them under their breath. Yes, it was pretty nerdy, but to this day I don't understand why people like that are met with ridicule, especially as so-called "nerd" culture is now at the forefront, with people openly reading fantasy novels, and as sci-fi shows and nerd-based sitcoms are rampant on television.
Firstly, an obsession with something traditionally considered nerdy, to me, doesn't seem any different than an obsession with things like sports, cars, or celebrity gossip, for example. It's very common for people to enjoy reading up on sports statistics, the recent accomplishments of athletes, and keeping up to date with their favorite teams. Alternatively, when someone talks about the lore of a fantasy world, quotes a popular science fiction author, or wonders what the heck Patrick Stewart has been doing recently, people see it as different, or socially unacceptable. I just don't get it. Some people (myself included) may not be interested in sports, and may get bored entirely at the mention of the topic. When someone talks about Star Wars, however, my ears perk up and I could find myself talking to someone about it for hours. Does this mean I think it's better than sports? To me, yes, but objectively, no. Everyone has their own interests, and we shouldn't deride any of them as being lesser than the other.
Now I want to get more serious. Being a nerd, I knew a lot of nerds in college and growing up in general, many of them being way more nerdy than I could ever be. A lot of them fit many stereotypes of a nerd as well - pudgy, early hair loss, social awkwardness, maybe a goth or something, etc. After a while, I asked myself why a lot of nerds fit this stereotype, and then I made an epiphany. I wasn't any different than these people. To be a true nerd, you have to be obsessed with something traditionally considered nerdy, and to get that obsession, you have to have the personality or the background of someone who would become obsessed with stuff like this. A lot of the people who "look" nerdy may have become nerds because they were made fun of their entire lives for how they looked. They may not have felt at home with the jocks or the preps because they were cast out by those groups. So who do they hang out with? Other people like them, many of them disgusted with the groups that rule society, and so they developed their own interests apart from what everyone else liked. Yet others - the ones that were cast out because of how they were mentally rather than physically - probably had problems like anxiety, Asperger's, or maybe they felt uncomfortable with their gender identity and were afraid to live in a traditional society. Rather than mingle with the common people, they looked to the outcasts to survive and joined the physical nerds. Over time, the two groups would become one.
The latter is a reflection of my own experiences. As a child, I was never interested in sports. My dad once told me he regretted not playing catch with me, but the truth is, I never wanted to. The thought of playing with a football or a baseball baffled me as to why anyone would find it engaging. I wanted to swordfight and imagine I was in a mysterious other world battling to save everything and everyone in it. I lost myself in my own imagination and in science books, always looking for something to spark my mental interests. For days on end, I would play a character or imagine I was somewhere far away. In elementary school, I might have been a little weird, but it was middle school when everyone around me finally started doing something about it.
It was a nightmare. Being a scrawny, shy, possibly mildly Aspergian child with fringe interests and a terrible ability at sports, I was an instant target for the jocks and the social butterflies. It was like I couldn't even meet a new person or group of people without becoming an instant target. I had a few friends, but none of us had the same classes, so I was pretty much alone. Then I met this one duo that was kind of like me. They were bad at sports, they enjoyed imaginative stuff, and they were outcasts as well. They were obsessed with this video game and TV series called Pokemon, and for a while I scratched my head at it wondering why the heck it was even appealing, but then I checked it out for myself and realized how amazing it was. Here was this franchise about a kid who never went to school or had to deal with my problems. He just traveled the world, going from town to town with his two best friends and having adventures. If anyone tried to mess with him, he had a collection of powerful transforming monsters that were completely loyal to him and could help him in a pinch. The series was also full of facts and rules to memorize, so it engaged me mentally. Also, being a big fan of science - biology in particular - I enjoyed how it was essentially an alternate world with its own flora and fauna that were a cross between scientific and magical, that I could study easily as if I were a naturalist like The Crocodile Hunter or David Attenborough. I was instantly hooked, and for about two years, Pokemon was my entire life. It was my first narrow nerd obsession that I can remember. Since then, obsessions have come and gone, but I still look fondly on those days and how it saved me when I was in my early teen years.
So before you go on ridiculing a nerd for their strange looks, behaviors, and obsessions, just remember - they probably had no choice getting there, but now that they're there, they may enjoy something in a way that you never could.
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