Why did the definition of "nerd" change?

[Big Nasty]

Back in the day, a nerd was someone who had massive amounts of specialist knowledge, most often technical, to the point of social ineptness.

Nowadays, a nerd is a mass consoomer of juvenile entertainment.

How come?

 

[The Lawgiver]

Back in the day, a nerd was someone who had massive amounts of specialist knowledge, most often technical, to the point of social ineptness.

Nowadays, a nerd is a mass consoomer of juvenile entertainment.

How come?

It probably has to do witht he fact "Nerd" became associated with people with a shitload of mostly useless but kinda cool knowledge about media in general, and since people like to be framed as knowing shit they began using it for themelves. By doing this it went from a label someone would give to someone about the fact they know a lot of shit like "oh yeah he's kinda a nerd lmao" and more an active " I'm a nerd too you guys!" kinda thing. If I had a fucking dollar for each self described film nerd I've run into that has never seen the original versions of films that there's shitty remakes of or some media supported "expert" that calls shit like dr. seuss racist because thats the hot clickbait thing of the day I'd probably be actually wealthy enough to start my own business instead of constantly looking for a fucking job in this shitty ass world. Same probably could apply to anyone that's had to put up with this shit for like the last decade or so.

Long story short it's mainly the big corporations pushing this shit, but it was sparked by clout chasing.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Because they confuse being a nerd with being a geek. A nerd is someone extremely knowledgeable on certain subjects to the point they sacrifice social skills because they’re too busy learning. A geek is a giant fan of a hobby or piece of media that will sperg about it given the chance

 

[Mother puss bucket]

Mainstream is always looking for a new thing to be cool. Skaters were skating for decades before they became cool in the late 90s and early 00s. They were put on MTV and became the mainstream 'counter culture'. Once that had run out of steam they hitched themselves onto the Internet which was the next big counter culture they could commercialize. Anything cool can be made profitable, anything profitable will lose it's integrity, anything without integrity isn't cool any more.

 

[OrionBalls]

Don't forget about Dweebs. Socially inept while having no specialized knowledge.

 

[Faket0Fake]

Super hero movies became cool, gaming became mainstream and many other areas previously considered geeky or nerdy were given a facelift. The image of the skinny guy with glasses and a pocket protector was exchanged for attractive internet celebrities, movie stars and models.

Things that used to be considered taboo and weird are now trendy and geek chic was born as nu-hipsters embraced comic book imagery, sweaters, glasses and beards. You can just look at PC gaming culture today to see how much it's changed. It doesn't feel any different to people into boutique cars now with the type of designs out there for hardware and Youtube is full of attractive people pushing their sponsors products on you. The old school nerdy types are still out there in small corners of Youtube but it's dominated by loud and brash people in trendy clothes showing off their boutique systems they get for free. All the famous gaming streamers are good looking people, E-Sports are dominated by Kpop looking dudes with bowl cuts that girls go crazy for.

 

[Local Fed]

I think that part of it was because people knew that nerds were kind of on the bottom socially, and currently being viewed as a victim is very trendy so people wanted to be part of a group that they viewed as victimized and ostracized. Another reason is because nerds are associated with intelligence and being eccentric, and people without a personality see it as a label to somehow acquire one for themselves. Similar to how it became trendy and fashionable to call yourself depressed or to have a plethora of mental illnesses. A bit of a dated example at this point, but a lot of people want to be looked at as being bRoKeN like Kurt Cobain but without actually being truly fucked up like they imagine the "tortured artist" to be.

 

[Mother puss bucket]

I think that part of it was because people knew that nerds were kind of on the bottom socially, and currently being viewed as a victim is very trendy so people wanted to be part of a group that they viewed as victimized and ostracized. Another reason is because nerds are associated with intelligence and being eccentric, and people without a personality see it as a label to somehow acquire one for themselves. Similar to how it became trendy and fashionable to call yourself depressed or to have a plethora of mental illnesses. A bit of a dated example at this point, but a lot of people want to be looked at as being bRoKeN like Kurt Cobain but without actually being truly fucked up like they imagine the "tortured artist" to be.

Nerds stopped being bottom of the totem way before that became trendy. It's more about money than victimhood because nerds became the highest earning normal workers. Instead of being in some dead end company tech support role they became major players in a company's internet culture and that made huge money come their way. They're the "alpha male" for gold digger types.