Remember when nerds had to be smart? The geeks and spazzes got lumped in with nerds and ruined their whole deal. They were guys who just wanted to play overly complicated wargames with 300 page manuals, drink shitty homebrew beer, and not shower.
All these GenCon people need to do is uninvite Dorque and it'd be over. They're as bad as he is.
I blame Freaks and Geeks, The Big Bang Theory, and Geek-Chic.
The original pop culture nerdlingers were Challenger and Sommerly in "The Lost World", and Malone too, kinda.
Cantankerous, bickering, practically dueling of wits constantly, burbling about complex science stuff, while ignoring the fact a bunch of Dinosaurs and Neanderthals were out to eat and or throw them off a cliff.
Sure Malone was a rugby playing jock, but he was also a Journalist, which is the favourite occupation of nerds with secret powers.
Lord John Roxton was based, and a total jock who was there to save their arses from being scoffed or impaled.
Turning nerds into lovable loser types, or making them relatable just ruined them and opened the door for any oddball to enter.
Like maybe in one episode, the husband and wife are arguing, and one of them says "you're going to get fat!"
and then you hear Patrick, through like three walls, shout back "No, child, I am not fat. That is a delusional of your stalker-ish little mind. I am actually quite athletic and --"
and on queue, the husband and wife, in unison, go "NOT YOU, PATRICK!"
Perhaps they could run the "classic" Cyrano De Bergerac storyline, in which Patrick tries to help a teenage boy on a date with the Hottest cheerleader at school.
Hilarity ensues as Patrick is discovered by the basketball team while lurking in the sports hall, who question what he is doing there, and why their younger brothers and sisters are missing.
After the Teenage boy screams a few things about "Child" and "Don't you see that I am the victim here", the Principal of the school realizes that cannibal child molester has got into the school again, the police arrive to imprison Patrick for ever, and the Teen boy and cheerleader kiss, as Paddy is thrown into a Him Wagon, for a kicking, as the live studio audience applauds.