Rise of Nerd Culture and Autism

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Bob's Burgers had had a hilarious episode based on the Brony phenomenon.

He was a raccoon,Rocky Raccoon.A hilarious episode.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur_and_Loathing

Because girls' entertainment is not cool because it is aimed at young females. To be young is to have society perceive you automotically weak or needy. To be female is also to have society perceive you automatically weak or needy. eg: 'You throw like a girl' is a huge insult. Because being a little girl is the exact opposite way a full grown man is supposed to be. The minute you proclaim yourself a brony, you are admitting to being a little girl. Being a little girl is bad.

Liking things a little boy likes is ok. Why? Because it just is, afterall, there's no reason it shouldn't be. Therefore the issue comes from society being prejudice against little girls, seeing them as a negative compared to the norm.

Especially with the only difference between little boys and little girls is gender, this is actually a beautiful example of how men are negatively affected by low perceptions society has of women.

Welcome sly, you've been teased because being female is seen bad. Being female is seen as bad because of <insert all the reasons feminists exist>.

(You might want to try and counter this with 'Well, why can it simply not be that MEN being seen as women is bad. Period. Doesn't mean that women who are seen as women are seen as bad.' The reason why this is not likely the case because the inverse of this, where women like men's things, it is not seen as bad.)

Nerd culture nowadays is lame. It's too mainstream. It's "trendy" to be a nerd now.

That's it!

It was a great episode.

But now that I've read your wiki link I have learned that we have to be PC, and sensitive, and not laugh at Furries anymore because only two percent of them are pervs. Oh well.

I think a Venn diagram of "nerd", "gifted", and "Asperger's" would show a lot of overlap. "Gifted" didn't just mean smart when I was growing up. It meant you were also a weirdo, and the weirdness was assumed to have some sort of relation to the smartness. It was, "She's gifted," *wink wink nod*.

Ah, is the wheel is beginning to turn? Perhaps nerdiness will fall out of fashion soon, and all the posers will fall away. That's a shame - there are definitely benefits to having more people in the nerd pool. More sci-fi/fantasy movies and tv shows being made, more nerdy merchandise available, etc.

I've been a furry for years, and I'm well aware that the fandom can be cringey, but what can you do, right? I mean, the CSI episode did damage the fandom's reputation somewhat, but I think that's because people took it too seriously, like they do with a lot of things on TV. I've never seen the episode myself, but I think its premise is hilarious.


I, for one can't wait for the normies to get out. I am aware this makes me a hipster, but so be it.

I know that. By "gifted", I mean the high IQ definition (2 σ higher than average or more). And the Krelboyne stereotype that sometimes goes with it, sad to think that Malcolm in the middle is more based on reality than people might think. I fitted that stereotype nicely and I got a very large pack of bullies too.
Now I'm glad that nerd culture is trendy to some extent, although I don't have illusions, being hyper nerdy had never been cool and will never be.

There are benefits if this is about aspect of nerd culture you do care about; a problem for me as I don't care about superheroes (They would need to die for a while, for the good of the comic medium in need of greater diversity in the US market, the only market that matter as much as cultural influence go. Too many crossover is bad in long term too.), but more, as much as fiction go, about Ghibli movies, some old anime and some jrpg video games; also some old interest for Tolkien. It's rather depressing to heard how there is a rise of nerd culture while talking about superheroes movies while your my nerdy interests are completely ignored, like they don't exist or something. Or hearing about the rise of pointless new "nerdy" technologies for cellphones that real nerd/geek don't much care about. Or hearing about the tech billionaire and how thus the "geeks" are now dominating the world, while in true they are only a minority among nerd/geeks and they are "evil" anyway. Or the expectation for nerds/geeks to make "tech startup" while their skills would be better used elsewhere. I don't like what is defined as nerd culture nowadays.
Also, the new Star Trek movies are stupid and Star Wars has always been popular; so they are not good indication about the importance of nerd culture.

When most people think of "nerd culture", they think of superheroes, Star Wars, and all this other crap I don't care about. I'm tired of these things being in the spotlight, being representative of what "nerd" culture is.

And what is nerd culture according to you?

Probably different then what it is to me, just because you don't care about that stuff doesn't mean it's not need culture.

I feel Nerd Culture is better than No Culture at All.

What's the harm in somebody being into alternative things?

Star Wars has NOT always been popular. During the late eighties and early nineties, you literally couldn't find a single item of Star Wars merchandise in stores. There were no movies, no tv shows. A few books you could maybe find in the dusty corner of a comic book shop (no internet shopping back then). It was very nerdy and had pretty much disappeared from public awareness. I am super excited about The Force Awakens, and it almost certainly wouldn't have been made if nerd culture wasn't so "popular" at the moment.
Honestly, nerd kids have no idea how good they have it these days. When I was a kid, we were lucky to get ONE sci-fi/fantasy movie in the theaters in an entire year. And we loved that movie, no matter what flaws it had, because we were so excited/desperate for anything that the world threw in our direction. And let me tell you, a lot of them were much much worse than the new Star Trek movies, which are actually pretty enjoyable. Heck, we even tried our darnedest to like the Star Wars prequels.

My definition of a nerd is someone with genuinely obscure and unconventional interests, typically ones based on various forms of science, mathematics, programming, technology, or politics or philosophy.

Some people's definition is anyone who has a lot of knowledge about the topic they're interested in but I disagree with this one.

A nerd to me is someone genuinely odd, tech-savvy, and having less than average social skills or interest in socialization.

Maybe they read expansive political theory or philosophical texts, write and read lots of poetry, enjoy science and mathetmatics.

My 'nerd/geek' side is my knowledge of electronic music and as an electronic musician I am an electronic music geek.

Someone into all this trendy rubbish is just a trend-follower.

Examples of true nerds/geeks: Einstein, Newton, Zuckerberg, Jobs, Da Vinci, etc.

"Now I'm glad that nerd culture is trendy to some extent, although I don't have illusions, being hyper nerdy had never been cool and will never be."

These modern nerds/geeks AREN'T 'true' nerds/geeks and look to the real ones with scorn.

You actually try and talk about computer coding/programming with one of these anime-loving superhero-movie loving 'geeks' and they will be bored out of their mind.

The closest you'll get is the minority interested in game design who have some technical knowledge.

They are very rarely musicians either, aside from their Nightcore (aka just speeding up a song which takes no effort) or nothing beyond the cliche solo singer guitar player...

The people I meet who also make electronic music are more often than not bro type males who love th music enough to make it or hipsters with obscure taste in electronic who focus more on artistry over the trendy stuff.

"I've been a furry for years, and I'm well aware that the fandom can be cringey, but what can you do, right? I mean, the CSI episode did damage the fandom's reputation somewhat, but I think that's because people took it too seriously, like they do with a lot of things on TV. I've never seen the episode myself, but I think its premise is hilarious."

Interestingly if anything it seems to me at least furries are becoming better known over the years, and most criticism of them is just mocking/making a joke out of them.

Try being a kittenplay enthusiast and see the level of acceptability that has...

"Nerd culture nowadays is lame. It's too mainstream. It's "trendy" to be a nerd now."

Agreed and wish it would go away soon too.

What needs to be popular and trendy for once is NOT stereotypes/images.

Jocks shouldn't be trendy, nor should skaters, greaser's, or preppies, or goth, or emo, or nerd or hipster or any of that rubbish.

Just normal, down-to-earth people.

Didn't you mention in another post your fashion style is 'Normcore'.

Well, I think Normcore should be the next sub-culture trend as well.

Tbh though I wouldn't mind hipster (genuine hipster, the actual stereotypical hipster) becoming more popular.

It already is very trendy but maybe instead of being filled with a55hølês who act like they're better than everyone else, maybe authentic hipsters that are genuine about themselves could be popular.

Authentic hipsters do actually exist. Right now though hipsterism in general is looked down upon.

And finally, maybe we could go back to how we were in the past as a society.

People today lack the morals, sophistication and class people once had in the past.

I'm not saying we should all behave like stuffy old uptight rich people, but it's better than the mad, depraved and unclassy society of today.

Perhaps we could combine traditional etiquette and social rules and such but with a healthy combination of modern ideas.

I know racism and such were heavy in Victorian times as well as sexism but that doesn't mean it was all bad. Men dealt with things like proper gentlemen, women were sophisticated and modest, etc. Then again my knowledge of this time period is limited to history of it and I may be romanticizing it a bit as well.

If anything a lot of the time I can't stand traditionalist and am very left-winged and progressive, but I don't think we should abandon our integrity for the sake of the push for equality and freedom today's world tries to force down our throats.

Too much freedom is actually oppression and NOT freedom, as freedom is to follow the rules just as much as not following them.

And, yeah, star wars was definitely the type of 'obscure nerdy film nobody knows about' status before it shot into mainstream.

"Honestly, nerd kids have no idea how good they have it these days. "

Exactly. Being a nerd was the ultimate sign of loserdom, of being unhip and uncool.

Even the stoners/hippies of high school, who I've also heard were typically outsiders (plenty of people did drugs in high school in the '60s and '70s, but the full blown hippy stoners were more outcasted) outranked the nerds.

Nerds were the bottom of the social ladder.

You could get bullied for having prescription glasses and being a four eyes, nowadays people wear nerdy black rimmed non-prescript glasses with pride.

Pokemon was dorky and childish, now Pokemon, My little pony, cartoons for children such as Ben 10, etc. are all still loved by children, teens and adults alike.

^I mentioned normcore mainly because it's an anti-trend, so to speak. I don't really follow any particular trends in clothing, I mostly just wear whatever I find to be comfortable and/or convenient. Curiously, I happen to own mostly black clothes.

But yeah, I'm sick of trends, I'm sick of seeing things being turned into trends, I just wish people would be more... unique and individual. I'll admit that I have a tendency to scorn things that are popular because I get sick of all the attention they get, yet I often like those very same things once I give them an honest chance. But I am also quite fickle and have a short attention span for most things, so I bounce around quite a bit.

My favorite TV shows are ones where I can watch a random episode out of context from the other episodes, and still be entertained. My favorite music tends to be stuff I don't hear other people listening to around me. My favorite games are simplistic, can be played in 10-30 minute doses, and have gameplay I can just jump into without thinking too much.