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On the Unpopularity of Nerds
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Whoa. The guy hits the nail with a mass driver from orbit.
Not only does what he writes mesh with my own experiences in high school, it actually helps me understood them brighter. I think I actually got smarter after reading this, thanks Lurker! 
Very insightful. I agree, he's got it pegged perfectly. I was a "D-tabler" for my first year of high school, and even though through some strange twist of fate that I never understood (I certainly never worked at it) I found myself somewhere between A and B for the rest of high school, at the worst of times I felt like I was surrounded by lunatics who were simply beyond my comprehension -- even the people I thought I knew well. I am still baffled to this day by several things they did.
For instance, one of my closer friends was a beautiful girl named Sandy, with whom I was in Drama Club, Student Government and the yearbook. Although I was attracted to her, there was nothing romantic between us -- she was, for much of the time that I can remember, going steady with one of the football players. Yet one afternoon, during a play rehearsal, I was backstage, leaning against a wall and reading a paperback, when Sandy strolled up, grabbed me by the face, kissed me thoroughly, and then walked away. I was so stunned that I literally did nothing for several minutes, trying to figure out just what the hell had happened. To this day, I don't know whether I was the victim of an obtuse prank, the object of a bet someone had made, or the incredibly dense subject of a special limited time offer. Her relationship with Mike was rock-solid, and they stayed together until she graduated (as best as I can recall), and my relationship with Sandy didn't change in any measurable way afterward. It was just a freaking surreal moment that's haunted me for three decades. -- Bob --------- The Internet Is For Norns.
I like how he points out that nerds don't want to be popular. I have to agree. I was certainly a D-tabler, or something close to it, by my nerdiness and willingness to hang out with the freaks. However, because of the way my school worked, many of the A- and B-tablers were pretty smart and were in many of the honors classes I took. I remember listening to the conversations that they had and thinking, "How terribly boring! Nothing they're talking about sounds like fun." It didn't seem interesting to be popular. It didn't seem worth the energy to talk about the things they were talking about and do the things they were doing.
I probably lost out on a number of things because of that. Many of the A- and B-tablers were involved in things like Key Club and other student organizations that would have helped me prepare for the Really, Real World. Nerds have a tendency to withdraw, focusing on what they're interested in, and not what might be important to actually make their way outside of high school. Working with some of those organizations might have helped me understand how to network and impress certain important facts upon me a lot sooner than jumping into the workplace and learning on the fly did.Ebony the Black Dragon Senior Editor, Living Room Games http://www.lrgames.com Ebony the Black Dragon http://ebony14.livejournal.com "Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
I was in an odd position at my school. To use his analogy, I was a D-tabler on my own.
I really had no 'group' to be peers with, and ended up being no part (or some small part) of any table. In my school, the jocks weren't extremely popular, but the drama/music crowd was. The *really* popular people were the jocks who did drama and music. Interestingly enough, most of these were also the academically talented ones. So there I was, a 'classic' nerd, surrounded by these popular giants. They did better than me in some academic classes, they did sports, they even outshone me in my one nod to trying to be popular, my interest in music and drama. I had some friends, but no one I was really close with. My best friend was someone outside of the school - he went to a different high school. I would often hang around the C-table, but it was an on-and-off thing. I wasn't invited to parties or anything. Oddly enough, in university, I ended up being a member of the A- and B-crowds due to my academic talents. I actually built up some good, if not close friends. Unfortunately, my social ineptitude (and laziness, to be honest - I'd rather stay home and watch TV or play games than go out and socialize) meant I lost most of these friends. I run into them now and then, but I really only have two close friends, and I don't even see them that often. It bothers me on and off now, but hey, this is my life. I have a wife I love and am happy with, and I'm more or less content. I don't know if I'd really *want* to be popular even now, if it meant a big change in my life. Go fig. -- Christopher Angel, aka JPublic The Works of Christopher Angel "Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"
It's a pretty good essay, but his actual insight into school society is somewhat marred by his unjustified praise of how great nerds are.
I will be perfectly blunt: nerds are not necessarily playing any adult game better than the other kids. Indeed, I have never noticed the slightest correlation between "nerd" and "successful", nor between "popular kid" and "unsuccessful". Both can be successful, at about equal ratios, just often in different sorts of jobs. That being smart may be more valuable than being popular in his workplace does not make it any sort of widespread rule, a fact I think almost anybody who's been in the workplace will be aware. Fact is, knowing how to be popular is just as valuable a skill in the adult world as it is in school. Depressing perhaps, but true nonetheless. As well, I'm certain most of us here know or are nerds who never fit into the adult world any better than they fit into school - indeed, that's the majority of them I know. That being said, again, I did like the insight into school society and why teenagers are "rebellious", which strikes me as accurate in the main, at least.
While I think the author has a lot of insightful points, I think they're flat out wrong on one of their biggest assertions, that nerds don't care about poplularity and they don't play that game. They do play, oh how they play. I would probably have been a B or C tabler, depending on the time period. And I saw the same back biting, popularity knife fighting amongst the in-crowd as the nerdy outcasts. It always struck me how nerds and jocks were seemingly like opposite ends of a spectrum, like facism and communism in the political realm. It's just that the what each side values is completely different than what the others value. Social skills, superficial looks, athletic ability being (stereo)typical of A Tablers and Vast Specialized Knowledge, Scorn for Establishment, and Technical Skills being the prized nerd cred. One only has to look to the Internet, which I think I'm not wrong is saying has a higher percentage of nerds etc... than elsewhere, to see how it plays out. Whether it's the gamers, the message boardies, or fandom communities to see these same games spew forth in all the wretched bile that is popularity one-uppance. He's spot on though about how these sterile, self created societies frequently devolve into ridgid caste systems where kicking those lower boosts you higher, because they don't have consequences beyond their world. The internet is the zenith of this. ---------------
-Jon Leo (July 23-Aug. 22) The population density of Wyoming is very low, but that doesn't mean the people there aren't also out to kill you. --- Jon "And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"
I find myself with quite a lot to say about this, so forgive me if I ramble or rant too much. First, I find I agree with the point about modern adolescence being a social product; the result of increasing specialization and technological complexity extending the time necessary for the education needed for societal adulthood years beyond the onset of biological adulthood. This is, in fact, a point both I and my mother have made repeatedly over the years, with many of the same examples as Mr. Graham gives.
However, I must disagree with many other elements. As for myself, I don't think I'd fit anywhere on his scale: I wasn't interested in interaction with any of my so-called "peers." I had more conversations with the 20-somes and 30-somes asking me for help on the assignments in the college calculus classes I had to take in order to graduate high school, needing another year and a half of math credit to meet graduation requirements after I exausted the public school system's math courses, than with anyone my own age. In elementary school, I hated recess because it meant wandering, board, around the playground when I could be reading a book or studying or doing somethin interesting instead of avoiding the noisy, obnoxious creatures around me. I loved the environments of my internships at the local Air Force base hospital's microbiology lab and the Fish & Wildlife Service fish genetics lab. Even now, there are times when it seems the only way for me to obtain a confortable space from the bipedal primates would be to get of this wet, bug-infested rock called Earth. (Tactile-defensive type sensory-integrative dysfunction, the paranoid tendencies contained in depressive type schizoaffective disorder, and the alienation that arises from having a 151 IQ with subscores highly imbalanced toward the mathematical skills and away from verbal/communication skills in a city with less than 300,000 people in an area as remote as Alaska all have their part in this). First, I would disagree that the unpopularity of nerds and of the highly intelligent ends at high school. Many authors and historians have noted that America has always had, and still maintains, a trend to anti-inntelectualism. Remember this is the country where actor Jack Klugman testified before Congress concerning the Orphan Drug Act as an 'expert' on the grounds that he played a doctor on TV; where people have more interest in the latest Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohann, Brittany Spears, etc. scandal than any scientific development you could name. The ability to shmooze, suck up, and manipulate is far more important than any amount of brain power. And I'd also argue that adult society is just as vicious, just as "cruel and boring," just as much a primate-pack pecking order as that of public school, just on a larger scale, and with even greater power disparities. The only aspect of social intereaction that has appealed to me is that which lies buried behind all personal interaction: POWER. The only interest I have in popularity is that popularity brings influence, which is a form of power. The single greatest and most universal lesson I've learned from studying history is that those who hold power do whatever they want to those who don't, and there is nothing that the powerless can do about it; and further, those with power will use that power to whatever extent necessary to maintain it. Money and influence override anything else. The moral: be one of the people in power. Further, I dispute his claim that the educational system can be changed if people will just realize that it doesn't have to be the way it is. The system is too large, too entrenched, and will crush all who oppose it. There are only two outcomes of rebellion. The first is that the rebels are brutally crushes and supressed. The second is that they suceed, and in short order become at least as bad as the people they replaced, if not identical in all but the most superficial ways. Lastly, I'm still surprised that no frustrated nerds have started buying kerosene lantern mantles, smoke detectors, antique lit-face watches, and reading on nitric acid chemistry. --The Twisted One"Welcome to Fanboy Hell. You will be spending eternity here, in a small room with Jar-Jar Binks and Dobby the house-elf." "If you wish to converse with me, define your terms." --Voltaire Quote:heh. I'm the smartest person I know. I assure you - this sort of thing only gets slightly easier to deal with/work around _after_ secondary school. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979 |
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