This has been something I have been speculating on for some time, just what makes someone a nerd. In this sense of the word "nerd", I am referring to the Big Bang Theory type of characters, who are into toys, comics, games, etc. This is not including people who are socially inept, and may be intelligent, but are not into nerdy things, or the hyper intelligent scientist / doctor who is nerdy because they like to read, but otherwise are not into gamer culture. I am not saying they aren't nerds in some sense, I am just saying that I am not talking about those types.
So, I asked myself a question - what makes someone a nerd? Are they born to like games, and otherwise share no interests with the popular crowd? (They don't like to play card games, turns out.) Sometimes, it is easy, because the person is fat, near sighted, smelly, (or in my case, all three). Being fat doesn't always lead to nerd-dom, because there are plenty of fat idiots out there, and the one common link in nerds is that we are all at least decently intelligent.
Sometimes though, it is far less obvious as to why someone is a nerd. I've met a few people playing Magic who seem perfectly adjusted, good-looking, wealthy, and really, just not nerdy. Invariably, these people will get more comfortable around you, and you start to see things creep out that give you an idea as to why a person was not particularly interested in being popular. The biggest thing that I've noticed is things like lisps that were hidden by careful speech and stoic quietness, or a stutter that comes out when you are just talking to friends and they don't care to hide it as much.
So, what I want to do here is talk about what kind of nerds are out there. I am inevitably led back to the Big Bang Theory, because in my mind they are doing nerds a great service. These guys are exactly like many of the people I've known over the years, though I do sometimes hear that they aren't 'nerdy', or that they don't represent nerd culture. I would say that this is completely untrue, and if you can't relate to the show's nerdocity, then I would probably guess you are not a nerd yourself.
There is one little issue with using BBT as a watermark for nerd-dom, mainly because the female gamers are not well represented in the show. The show isn't actually about gamers, it is about a bunch of scientists, but the gaming permeates all of their lives. We will women gamers another time.
The four characters mostly cover all the archetypes for most nerds, and a lot of us fall in between those characters. These characters are stereotypes though, and of course a lot of the guys that don't look like nerds are not represented in the show either. Having a good-looking, muscly type guy (which is more common than you might think sometimes) on a show like BBT would probably confuse the message, and of course there is all sorts of TV sitcom theory that goes into why they choose everything.
Still, we get a good picture of what type of nerds there are. Each character comes from a different background and baggage, but they all end up hanging out at the comic store incessantly. Raj is who I identify with most, because he has some real problems talking to women, but I also like Leonard a lot. Raj is interesting because he is super rich, and that alone can't make him popular or cool. Leonard is like a lot of scholarly nerds, who had parents who were well-to-do scholars themselves. His confidence problems come from being physically weak, as well as an emasculating mother, and a lot of the time it seems as though Leonard may have had a chance to be normal.
Then we have Howard, who is actually very reminiscent of a lot of our clientele. He has wicked daddy issues, and I think that a lot of dudes without strong male guidance will basically default to one social clique or another. His family situation defines his personality, and he could have easily gone a different route; he has the selfless confidence that is a little out of place in the nerd culture. The big discerning factor for Howard is that he is also a smart ass, but I feel like that is more common in music based subcultures like punks or metal-heads (punk / metal and nerds are an episode for another day). Lastly, there is good old Sheldon, who has a legitimate case of autism. The show handles it very well, even if they never come out and say he has autism, and to me Sheldon is kind of like everyone's social ineptitude dialed up to 11. It is fun to laugh when he has trouble with social norms, but fuck if I can't really relate almost every time.
So, with these four archetypes, plus the reformed nerd who can pass off as normal in society, we kind of have a good spread on male nerds. Even if it isn't the only thing that brought them into nerdhood, some sort of exiling / alienating factor is at work with just about every nerd I know. I would say I haven't really met anyone who is nerdy but also perfect... those people with confidence and upbringing tend to just go ahead and be part of the popular people clique... well because that is where the money and adulation will come from.
That is one of the truly fascinating part about our culture - none of us really wanted to end up here, and we're all making the best of it. Yes, we love Star Wars / Star Trek, and spend way too much time with pointless games, and yes, we love most of the time doing such, but most would trade that for a 'normal' life, or at least we might have before we chose nerd life. But, even when we do obtain that 'normal life', and no one could really say whether we are a mouth-breathing nerdo or not, we still tend to come back to the gaming.
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