The New Geek/Nerd

“Back in high school, you and I wouldn't have gotten along very well.”

I said this statement to a guy I was friendly with at work. He was a bit dismayed by that statement, but it was true. He was a sports guy that generally had a lot of girlfriends in school and was very popular. I wasn't trying to be mean, but we would have never gotten along in high school due to the social structure during the 90s. Now, given the way geek-culture has become popular, I actually get along with people that I would have otherwise hated and been jealous of back in the day.

Things have changed.

Because of the new Star Wars movie, I seeing people who otherwise would beat the shit out of the kid that wore or played with Star Wars merchandise. And, it sort of got me upset because these are the same people that would tease and beat the shit out of these nerds and geeks, and now they fully embrace it. Heck, you have “normal” folks talking about geeky things like Marvel's civil war. (My Little Pony, TMNT and TF)

I was going to write this post, but Samurai Frog wrote a good post about this very subject, much better than I could. He gives us a more of a progressive view of why we need to be more forgiving of the way things are in geek culture. We do need to be more open to our culture, but we shouldn't forget that literally many of us got beat up and made fun of due to our awkward and nerdy ways.

While there is still bullying going on in school, there isn't as much, because we've fought hard to make it a mainstream thing. Nerds have created technology the cool kids rely on to send out their stupid tweets and duckface pictures. And, the geeks are the ones that make all the movies,video games, and TV shows they consume. I get asked about franchises and stories because I am well versed in pop culture history.

I still can't get over the isolation and taunts for being different, and I watched more nerdy . It hurt a lot. And, now I see how mainstream all this nerd/geek has become. And, my petty side says the people that claim to be geeks and nerds (the ones that now have the hot girlfriends and social statuses) don't have it as bad makes me a bit jealous and mad. I have a hard time forgiving people and the past tends to remain with me. Just like others, we need to forgive and be open to letting these people embrace our culture, even I need to remember this.

Yes, we've created this new geek/nerd world, but the scars from the past are still there.