Nowadays everyone wants to be a nerd. (In free verse)

[billyskank]

But they're not nerds.

When I was a kid, to be a nerd meant social ostracism.

Being a nerd meant spending your puberty

learning assembly language

LDR R0,R3; ADD R2,R4,R5; STR R2,R3

while everyone else was getting drunk

and losing their virginity.

Being a nerd didn't necessarily require spectacles

like the bottoms of a beer bottle

held together in the middle by an elastoplast

but it certainly helped.

Nowadays you get beautiful people with great hair

millions of friends

and active sex lives

calling themselves nerds. Just because they are knowledgable

on a particular subject.

I think I am being cheated

of my nerd heritage.

You can't be a jazz nerd. Or a book nerd.

You can't be a nerd about something cool.

You People Are Not Nerds!

:rant:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

1. I know a few jazz nerds who are NOT "cool."

They're nerds, about jazz theory. :P

[billyskank]

2. Sorry.

If they are in any way cool, they are Not Nerds. Doesn't matter how much they know about jazz theory. They will have to be devoid of cool qualities in the entirety of their beings.

The question you must ask is:

will they get laid before they are 30?

If so, then

they're not nerds.

[Callalily]

5. What are you

trying to say here Billy?

j/k

:hi: :loveya: :hug:

[billyskank]

6. Oh

nothing

:blush:

[Callalily]

9. Ummmm . . .

okay.

[SOteric]

3. Interesting.

Where I grew up, anyone with a 'jones' for anything was indeed a nerd.* The socially awkward with a gift for things computer-related, or science/mathematics-related, these were people we called 'Geeks.'

Like Bill Gates. Now ~there's~ a classic example of the Geek. And they were proud of their Geekiness; they banded together with other Geeks, a confederacy of the otherwise socially-ostracised.




*with the singular exception of any sport. Sports were considered far too 'kewel' a fixation to qualify for nerdliness.'

[billyskank]

4. People who like sports are Jocks.

I agree about the geek/nerd thing. Some say nerd is one and geek the other; others say the opposite. I have never learned the definitive truth on this matter.

[Haole Girl]

7. "nerd heritage"

lol! That's a good one.

:hi:

[billyskank]

11. Nerditage

perhaps we could call it. :hi:

[Haole Girl]

12. Yes!

I like that even better! Ha-ha!

:rofl:

[BarenakedLady]

8. Am I a nerd?

So you must know computer languages to be a nerd?

I was in the computer club in Junior year. I was also a cheerleader.

Hmmmmmm

:shrug:

[billyskank]

10. No.

You don't have to know computer languages to be a nerd. I assume that nerds must have existed before we had personal computers. I don't know if they would have been called nerds then. But they surely must have existed. I wonder what things they did?

I dare say much prior to the seventies there was probably less scope for being 'cool' anyway.

You are not a nerd. You are way too beautiful and interesting.

But you were in computer club? Most interesting. That must have been very distracting for the other nerds. ;)

:hi:

[BarenakedLady]

13. I wasn't cool

Even being a cheerleader. That was only because, although it was a huge popularity contest, I was a dancer so they sort of had to take me. Not many girls could do the leaps and splits. Hehehe.

Yup computer club. :+

I've always hated labels, probably because I never quite fit into any of them.

[billyskank]

15. Leaps and splits

you're not helping again. :blush:

[BarenakedLady]

20. Oh, you...

:spank: :spank:

And that was then. Now I'm old and decrepit. :P

[billyskank]

22. Teach me to dance

and I will train you in the ways of the Source.

:loveya:

[KitchenWitch]

14. Hear hear!

:loveya:

And those are geeks, not nerds!

[billyskank]

16. Thank you.

I don't really know what is a geek or a nerd either, or whether it is the other way round.

:loveya:

[KitchenWitch]

17. A nerd is what you described in the poem (i.e. assembly language)

Geeks are overzelous fans of specific things. For example, I am a baseball geek, through and through.

[billyskank]

18. Ahhhhh

It's like this guy. He was supposed to be a nerd.

But no-one bought that, I don't think.

[KitchenWitch]

21. Depends upon how well he interacts with people

If he interacts with things infinitely better than with people, he is still a nerd.

My mom worked with this absolutely HAWT young man for many years, who was a nerd. Interpersonal things just never went very well for him.

[Inchworm]

19. I still have no identity

hmm... aimless wanderer? :D

:hi:

[SPKrazy]

23. When I Was In High School

the nerds were the math club guys with pocket protectors. Computers were those humongous things that filled basements of college campuses, and used punch cards.

I wasn't even a "nerd", I was just a regular guy, who wasn't a jock, wasn't a nerd, wasn't anything :cry:

So there, my claim is not to nerdiness but to nothingness :(

However, I realize today that I am not my actions, I am something else entirely. I have good qualities and bad qualities.

I try to help people when I can, and I try to make others laugh, or at least smile.

:shrug:

[Fox Mulder]

24. That's me.

Except I did get laid already. I won't even be 30 for another five years.

[billyskank]

25. I'll let you off that one

;)