Rise of Nerd Culture and Autism

Post Reply New Topic

When I was young it was pretty rare for anybody over the age of 10 to be into or admit to bieng into comics/sci fi. You had the physically oriented slapstick comedy which had been around for decades which poked fun at "sp****cs". Jerry Lewis a popular slapstick comedian then, heavily used tone and words to create what we would call today nerd personas and of course you had Spock but that was about it.

Too bad but probably inventible nerd/geek would become just another demographic to be marketed to.

No posers then,just the real deal.You could tell us by the bruises on our arms inflicted by bullies.
Wear a Star Trek shirt to school and you were just asking for it.Made that mistake once.lol
After that I kept my Trekkie stuff at home.I kept my nose in a book most of the time and even that simple act was enough to draw the attention of bullies.The worst was PE class.I couldn't dribble a basketball at all,it would have been comical except for the emotional beat down from the other kids.Then having to change into these awful one piece PE uniforms in no privacy.For some reason my mom insisted I wear these girl undershirts.I thought everyone did.Imagine the horror when I was the only one and the remarks from the mean girls.PE was hell on earth.
Surprisingly I was actually good at dodge ball.But I had lots of pre training for that.Lots of mean boys in my neighborhood and they liked to pelt the smaller kids with hickory nuts.

Fads last a year or two then get pushed away for the next fad. Star Trek and Star Wars aren't fads. Them and comics are probably the foundation of nerds.

Geeks on the other hand are just people etremely into any subject.

What does furry have to do with it?

In P.E. when we'd play basketball, and I'd catch the ball, every damn time, I'd be accused of traveling after I'd take one step forward with said ball in hand. I think it was just a matter of everyone knowing I sucked at sports in general.

I was also crappy at sports but really good at dodgeball. Survival skills, I guess.

I was excellent at dodgeball and punchball

No, people didn't punch each other during punchball LOL....it was a type of baseball where you used your fist as the bat. The ball used was a pink rubber ball which used to be called a "spaldeen." We called it "the ball," though.

Something like Bronies or Furries are considered "nerd culture," right?

I wish I could have graduated from Starfleet Academy.

Everything happens as a fad. Some fads are just more stubborn than others.
The Pharisees were once the fad of the day. Even the glamourification of money is a fad.
Hope everybody is ready by the time everything gets shut down starting potentially on the 28th...

No, that definition is too broad and renders the term itself meaningless. Fads are things or ideas that enjoy only short-term popularity. There can be some debate about what constitutes "short-term", but things like blue jeans (which have been around +100 years) are certainly not fads. Furbies and WWJD bracelets were fads.

I don't think so.

Bronies are the same demographic as Justin Bieber fans: teen/tween girls who are mostly NT, and rarely nerdish.

Or thats my mental image of the subculture.

Furries- are a whole nother kettle of fish.

Bronies are adult males who like my little pony friendship is magic. I'm technically a brony
Nt girls who are into it are just nt girls, there's a term for adult women into it but it's one not much used and made up by them. Bronies was a term placed on us by judgmental nts from what I gather.

Last edited by sly279 on 14 May 2016, 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Both bronies and furries are at the outer edge of nerd culture, mainly due to negative sexual connotations. Many people consider being a furry a sexual fetish, and being a bronie as somehow indicative of pedophilic tendencies. I'm not saying these ideas are right or wrong, but for these reasons both groups are usually considered "fringe" even by nerds.

There's no sexual thing about bronies. It's just adult males who watch mlp. It's a little girls show so deemed wierd. Much like adults who watch cartoons or anime are also deemed wierd and called names.

People,hate bronies because they consider them chidish and think everyone should get drunk to a sports game as that's normal.

Mlp is well written, has good stories and cool songs, all relating to being kind to others and friendship in some way.

Why aren't adult women into transformers seen negatively? That's a little boys show, or gi joe.

Why isn't it seen as odd that many adults watch Disney shows and movies?

Really never understood why watching and enjoying some kids entertainment is seen as bad but watching other kids entertainment is seen as good.


Or the whole concept that once you turn 18 you should stop enjoying things just because society says you should. Forcing people like me to live ashamed of who they are just becaus we don't fit into societies idea mold of a person.

Yeah I guess thats right- its only the males who are into MLP who are called "bronies". But its not sexual.

And yes- in contrast "furries" are thought of as a sexual fetish community. Or at least thats how I think of them. But everything I know about "furries" was from watching one episode of CSI when they found a murdered guy dressed up as a chipmunk by the road outside of Vegas ( they learned that he was attending a furry convention and got murdered by a rival muskrat guy, or something).Never heard of the subculture before I saw that show, and almost never heard of it again. But the subject does appear here on WP once in a while.

Originally, nerd cultures aren't autistic cultures as much as they're "gifted" cultures. "Gifted" people and autistic people tend to have the same kinds of interests, especially those who like numbers.

This.
Internet gave computer geeks the opportunity to take some control of the information, media and cultures. Other communities followed and created a fad, with completely normal millenials saying they're nerdy because that sounds cool, but only because they're somewhat introverted and into anime, RP and Harry Potter. Originally all those communities had little to do with each other (if not nothing, but I don't really know their exact history).


And this too.
I'm wondering how nerdy kids can be now before they get bullied. Still probably not very nerdy. I'm pretty sure that in the end, super nerdy kids still suffer from the same problems. I'm ready to bet that kids who dream about being developers or physicists will find quite a few bullies on their path, exactly like 20 or 30 years ago.
Being a huge nerd will never be cool, other than on gamer communities and some similar places on Internet but that's not real life.