Reviews » Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them
Title: Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them
Author: David Anderegg
Claim to fame: Adults that don't want kids thinking about sex ensure they will think about sex.
Review originally published at the deus ex machina complex (and other theories)
I am fascinated by this concept of anti-intellectualism. Many of the sources I've read or plan to read focus on this as an American invention, but I am suspicious of that idea. I'm hesitant to say it's something that is just happening in America (damn conceited Americans!) because I haven't done enough reading and I am also hesitant to name a cause, although in my experience I tend to pin the blame for not knowing on fundamentalism in religion. This was the brand I grew up with and the brand I see in the city I live in. The desire to not know. To know means to be a nerd (the more knowledgeable the more likely you are to know sin?), which is bad, and to not know is to be just a regular person who doesn't waste his or her time on useless stuff.
On the internet, being a nerd/geek is a good thing. We're mostly adults or at least teenagers who have grown out of the black/white version of looking at the word. On the internet, it's reclaimed, but I interact with a lot of people who are unaware of internet culture in which the nerd/geek stereotype is still going strong. Anderegg argues that this concept of the nerd/geek stereotype has been leaking down to the newly invented 8-12 age groups, "tweens" along with the huge surge in marketing toward this demographic. The tweens want to grow up, so you get a lot of 8 to 12 year olds acting in a sexualized manner as the marketing that's shoved at them exposes them to a world they're not ready to deal with yet. They're not ready to be sexual; they're not ready to make the cognitive distinctions necessary to parse the complicated adult/young adult stereotypes, and so they end up suffering. In this case, Anderegg says they end up suffering because they can't parse this idea of nerds and geeks which is tied up with the sexualized media and intelligence. And to hear Anderegg talk about it, hell, even I got confused. It would be no wonder what an 11 year old boy would turn away from math and science if the rest of his friends thought it was too nerdy. After all, nerds like pleasing adults. Nerds smell. Nerds never get laid.
To be smart, you are doomed to never have a romantic relationship. Hot sex? NO. NEVER. That's what the stereotype is telling kids who see in black and white.
He lays the anti-intellectualism movement at the door of Washington Irving, who wrote "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and Ralph Waldo Emerson and breaks down what he believes caused the schism between those who would be intellectuals and otherwise: American men are Men of Action, not of Reflection. Anderegg buoys up his examination of this idea by dismantling parts of American mythology, such as Superman. I thought this was pretty hilarious, actually; Superman disguises himself as a nerd, his whole presence hidden behind one simple pair of glasses (note the glasses).
But Lois and Jimmy and Perry White never quite get it. How come? Because they all grew up in America, and they grew up knowing their were two kinds of people. Men of Action and Men of Reflection. And they knew that no self-respecting Man of Action would ever disguise himself as his polar opposite. It would be indecent, or psychotic, or...un-American.
He hits on so many points of how this stereotype influences our culture, that it's impossible to summarize them all. I just liked his superhero section because he slots Superman's nemesis, Lex Luthor, as the "evil genius" — and really, that's a pretty standard archetype of a character. It's in our language, which there's an entire section about. I have to resist writing it all up.
But the main theme of the book is how the adult world is stomping on the future of our youth by inserting this stereotype into their daily lives, letting it leak down to kids who shouldn't have to deal with it because their parents don't realize they're giving kids license to mock, through media and mythology and plain old laziness. The most eye-opening section is when Anderegg interviews a parent, and the parent is upset that her kid doesn't just love to learn. There's another kid in his class that does, but man, that kid is a NERD, and she doesn't want her precious child to be one of those, but she wants him to enjoy school! WHAT TO DO.
I'm sure this behavior for boys is tied up in masculinity and for girls, femininity, which have their own histories, because the idea that Men of Reflection are "pussies", for want of a better term, influences how boys approach learning, and girls—well, hell, girls weren't even being educated when most of these ideological debates separating Americans from those snooty, over-educated British oppressors were going down. And why does a women need to be smart, anyway, if her whole purpose is to get married and have babies and clean house? Oh yeah, Anderegg is really only hitting on one aspect of the nerd/geek stereotype.
By this time, I'm sure everyone has heard about the Open Source Boob Project, and if you haven't, well, prepare to be disgusted. I was browsing through reading all the great responses, and happened across a comment someone left. I pinged on it hard. It encompassed a huge part of what Anderegg's book was about. This comment is a wonderful example because as soon as I read it, I thought, "this is what he MEANS" (well, in part). It combines three of the geek/nerd stereotypes: intelligence (XKCD is pretty philosophical/mathematical), social awkwardness, and lack of sexual desire on the part of the female to said geek boy so geek boy has to do something drastic to get access to sex (see: Can't Buy Me Love, starring Patrick Dempsey).
And thus, the nerd/geek stereotype lives on and on and on. On the internet, it's not as dangerous because we're all operating as adults in shades of gray. We can understand the stereotype. Nerds and geeks get painted with a extremely sexual skeevy brush, but even as adults we tend to buy into the stereotype, and apply it to people with no regard to what message we're sending to those not savvy on the stereotype (but who isn't as an adult, as least second-hand?). It's mostly men in my experience that get the raw end of the sexual stick when it comes to this stereotype — for females past the fascist stage it's been reclaimed enough, I think, but you have to factor in the reality that women are always going to be sexualized in different ways by society and the patriarchy. That's one reason I think this is an excellent example of the stereotype at work. It combines all the factors into one compact comment, and also pwns the dude it was aimed at. However, I hate that they invoked the stereotype after reading the book; before I wouldn't have. I think it's safe to leave out the geek part and just call him an asshole.
By applying the nerd/geek stereotype to someone (especially men), there's a possibility you give positive weight to the idea that to be smart means that you're sexually bankrupt and have to barter and make elaborate machinations in order to make sexual contact with another person, when the words you really should be lobbing at them isn't "geek/nerd" but "DOUCHEBAG." As adults, we can parse and separate the ideas, but kids cannot, and I have no confidence that most adults will stop and think about the implications of the statements they're making. See: the example of the women and her special snowflake of a child, who she wants to be smart without him being a dreaded NERD.
I like the term nerdfighters specifically because it is reclaimed in a clever way! I mean, read this and go, "I don't want to be a nerdfighter!"
Why is being a nerd bad? Saying, "I notice you're a nerd!" is like saying, "Hey, I noticed that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?" [source]
God, I love John Green, and he's an excellent example of how the term "nerd" has been reclaimed online.
All in all, a quick read, and I would totally pick up another book by Anderegg if he decided to explore this concept further.
Also, Here is an interview with the author! Ignore the painfully bad acting.
