Dear rservice-ga;
Thank you for allowing me to answer your interesting question.
Our technological culture owes its very origin to ?the nerd? (which
incidentally was a word first introduced to the world by Dr. Seuss in
a 1950 children's book called ?If I Ran the Zoo?). In a sentence, our
culture is what it is today, because nerds are what they are. People
like Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak (the geeks by which all other geeks
must be judged) became the default poster boys for nerds and at the
same time defined our current perception of the nerd AND success, not
exclusively as an inept, fashion-challenged academic but also as a
ultra-creative, over-achiever and technological pace-setter:
?This new third culture is an offspring of science. It's a pop culture
based in technology, for technology. Call it nerd culture. For the
last two decades, as technology supersaturated our cultural
environment, the gravity of technology simply became too hard to
ignore. For this current generation of Nintendo kids, their technology
is their culture. When they reached the point (as every generation of
youth does) of creating the current fads, the next funny thing
happened: Nerds became cool.
Nerds now grace the cover of Time and Newsweek. They are heroes in
movies and Man of the Year. Indeed, more people wanna be Bill Gates
than wanna be Bill Clinton. Publishers have discovered that cool nerds
and cool science can sell magazines to a jaded and weary audience.
Sometimes it seems as if technology itself is the star, as it is in
many special-effects movies. There's jargon, too. Cultural centers
radiate new language; technology is a supernova of slang and idioms
swelling the English language. Nerds have contributed so many new
words--most originating in science--that dictionaries can't track them
fast enough.?
THIRD CULTURE
http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/misc/thirdCulture.html
Even in cinema nerds have become the fashionable hero of the day. Nerd
characters and even the real life nerds who portray them are now
enjoying the greatest fame of their time. Woody Allen, George Lucas,
Quentin Tarantino, Howard Stern, Stephen King and Steven Spielberg are
prime examples of nerds who struck it rich in spite of their
?nerdiness?. Of course no one can forget the late great creator of
Star Trek Gene Roddenberry, who earned his nerd degree posthumously
because he ultimately, as it turns out, imagined much more than far
fetched science fiction but rather gave rise to a series of plausible
predictions of Orwellian proportions. Almost everything Roddenberry
dreamed in his ?trekkie? stories has since come to life, in large part
because this one nerd imagined it was so:
ASKMEN.COM
http://www.askmen.com/toys/special_feature_60/74_special_feature.html
Now granted success of this magnitude is unreachable by most people,
but there is an even more realistic example of success and it comes in
the form of ?idols?. Literally, the American Idols like Ruben Studdard
and his runner-up (or co-nerd, as the case may be) Clay Aiken have
taken the youth music culture by storm. Kids have long since looked to
?Saturday Night Live? cast for the coolest trends and today is no
exception. Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Tina Fey (and her used-to-be
outdated horn rimmed glasses) are all nerds but are now all the rage.
Jim Carrey, and Penn & Teller are not nerds in real life but strive to
portray nerds because being a nerd is cool and makes them big bucks.
Even the youngest among us will quickly agree that the idea of being
Harry Potter or Peter Parker (Spiderman) is a very, very cool concept.
THE LATEST IN COOL: NERDS
http://www.wacotrib.com/featr/newsfd/auto/feed/features/2004/08/02/1091421974.18121.7211.4974.html;COXnetJSessionID=BHMlhX4vBzPzvE7cVllPVp6KvH62FGPOiGOaj1wNSAEqGRF4t1qr!-2060548532?urac=n&urvf=10951916536310.6450210629393484
Nerds and Geeks should be given passports. They are literally from
another planet in a galaxy far, far away. Because of them you and I
are sitting here interacting via ??their? creation. The very thing you
are looking at now is a nerd concept of geek design. Your computer is
a portal into their world where YOU are the minority and they are the
majority. I can give you many examples of their little Meccas on the
Internet but I?ll offer one that I?ve chosen at random just for the
sake of fulfilling this particular example:
GEEK CULTURE
http://www.geekculture.com/
Where else would you find a running comic strip featuring the
ever-cool Main Brain of the universe, Stephen Hawking, arguably King
Nerd in his own right?
GEEK CULTURE: THE JOY OF TECH
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/578.html
So you see, everything we think, what we do, and how we do it are all
affected by the nerds. This sounds silly doesn?t it? If you think
about it for a moment it makes perfect sense. The ?retro? fashion and
concepts are very popular and being cool today is a matter of how well
you can recreate yesterday ? a time when nerds were considered the
plague. A pocket protector is no longer the badge of the nerd, in
fact, it?s hard to tell who is a nerd and who isn?t. At one time
everyone claimed to be either part cowboy or part Indian, and proof of
either was extremely cool. In today?s world though, if you can?t claim
to be even ?part? nerd, you?re abnormal. You?ve (gasp) fallen behind!
What was once considered ?goofy? by many is now an acceptable practice
isn?t it? We look forward to going to Disney World and donning those
cool Bermuda shorts, sandals with socks and touristy hats without
shame, we watch cooking shows and do-it-yourself programs on
television, we all sit around in front of our computers like plants
sucking the soil dry trying to absorb as much information as possible
and when it?s all over we can lie in bed at night with our high-tech
nerdy, flat screen television and remote control (which we have in
virtually every room of our houses) and watch on OUR OWN television
station, designed specifically for OUR enjoyment:
TECH TV: NERD NATION
http://www.g4techtv.com/nerdnation/index.html
Yes, you guessed it. I am a nerd and by golly I?m proud of it. It?s a
nerd?s world baby and I say everyone should embrace his inner nerd.
The truth is, Fonzie was cool but he was also a huge nerd - he just
didn?t know it until now. Are nerds coming back? Brace yourself my
friend, we're coming back with a vengeance.
I hope you find that my research exceeds your expectations. I?ve tried
to raise many more examples than you asked for and I apologize for
getting a bit carried away ? but that?s just the nerd in me. If you
have any questions about my research please post a clarification
request prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating
and your final comments and I look forward to working with you again
in the near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.
Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher
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