Why Nerds Are Unpopular 1535
AccordionGuy writes "Paul Graham, who's known for his writings on Lisp and other Lisp-like languages as well as his essays on combatting spam has taken a bit of a detour from his usual topics. His latest essay is one that's a little more personal and that we can all relate to: Why Nerds Are Unpopular . It's a lengthy but engaging writeup of that chamber of horrors we call high school and why being smarter than the average bear is more of a liability than an asset during that stage in life. It's food for thought for those of us who've already been there, done that and been stuffed into lockers by the football team and it should give some hope to those who are going through it right now."
What ??? Impopular, me ???? No way.... linux rocks (Score:2, Funny)
The Simpsons already solved this... (Score:5, Funny)
Jealousy (Score:2, Funny)
Embarressing (Score:5, Funny)
True dat. (Score:5, Funny)
Paul Graham is wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Plenty cool (Score:3, Funny)
You know what you call 'em now? (Score:3, Funny)
You remember those kids in school who you called Nerds?
You know what you call 'em now?
BOSS!
Re:Laughing Last (Score:5, Funny)
Het, when I get out of college, odds are there will be jobs of 50k and up just waiting for me
Looks like you'll be doing Graduate level work at Hard Knocks U.
Popular? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nerd != Smart (Score:4, Funny)
To all you high-schoolers reading this: use basic grooming standards! (do not use your friends as a standard).
Re:Well, where to begin (Score:3, Funny)
Minty Mints! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Helpful? (Score:1, Funny)
Posted anonymously so you won't mod me down in the future for being beautiful.
Nerd Types (Score:2, Funny)
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1. The "I wish I was Japanese" anime nerd:
Everyone knows someone like this. They refer to themselves as "otaku" and they embrace everything Japanese, not necessarily because it's something unique or interesting, but because it's Japanese. They wear clothing with Japanese or Chinese characters on it that translate to English phrases like "good will" or "long life." They wouldn't be able to get away with wearing a shirt that said "long life" in English because it would just look stupid, but as soon as it's translated into kanji it suddenly becomes cool and mysterious? Please. Since they'll sooner die than admit that their fascination with everything Japanese is a sham, you'll occasionally sense how uneasy they become when confronted with something Japanese that's so lame and obviously for little girls that they almost start to back off from the mountain of stupid they've climbed up on. Almost.
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2. The balding gothic loser with an ugly girlfriend nerd:
This is a goth who's so much of a loser that he's even shunned by other goth losers. A telltale characteristic of this nerd is his inability to stop deep throating his ugly girlfriend in public. They not only kiss, but they kiss in the most vulgar way possible (full on tongue and groping). As if it wasn't bad enough that they're both kicking the funk, they usually sport massive pizza-face crater acne. Barf!
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3. The big-titted lardass nerd:
If this type of nerd was a soup, he would be Campbell's: Thick and Chunky. Girls usually refer to this nerd as "a nice guy," and despite every girl's wish for a nice guy, they'd sooner be shot than date, let alone bang a guy like this. This type of nerd is usually very sensitive and introverted. You can get away with punching this nerd in the face because he's too much of a pussy to do anything about it. However, you can expect to find an entry about what an asshole you are in his blog several days later. And don't expect to be invited to any Magic: The Gathering parties he hosts any time soon.
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4. The nerd leader:
This is the "cool" nerd of the group. The nerd all other nerds aspire to be. You can tell which one is the nerd leader by watching his posse swarm around his every move. No lesser nerd dares speak against the nerd leader's opinion on cartoons, sci-fi movies or debates about which Star Wars characters are able to defeat jedis "if only they learned to use the force." The nerd leader revels in being able to boss around all the other nerds and does so as often as he can to make up for his utter inability to boss anyone else around in his life. This nerd is usually tough shit until you point out the fact that he's 36 and still lives at home.
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5. The "Silent Bob" trench coat mullet nerd:
Tries to look intimidating but ends up just looking stupid as he clumsily trips over his trench coat. Usually has shaving scars and a patchy, random-ass beard because he can't grow facial hair. Thinks he's the character "Silent Bob" from the movie Clerks. Pretends to be above it when other nerds laugh at nerd jokes, secretly goes home and cries himself to sleep.
Re: Obligatory Simpsons reference (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Jealousy (Score:2, Funny)
After enjoying racketball, working out, etc., he showed them the sauna, and said he had some business to take care of first. Then he'd be back in an hour. When they were in the sauna he took all their clothes and left for the day! They got out and had to call their wives to come with clothes.
Re:Bullying (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Pfft (Score:4, Funny)
Ah yes, the Star Wars nerd heh. I'm impressed he could make a 'figurine' sized scuplture of anybody with kneadable eraser. It's very hard to scuplt with that stuff, it's not like clay.
My class had the little brother nerd. When I was a senior, one of my classmates had a little brother that was a freshmen. He was this wirey little guy with glasses. We rode the same bus to school. I remember that because one day he pissed off somebody on the bus. I didn't catch what happend, other than they cornered him after getting to school.
I should probably explain here that I went to a college-prep magnet school. It was invite only. Fighting was instant expulsion, and you were sent to a public school. Nobody wanted any part of that. That probably saved him from getting beaten.
I was a friend of this little dude's sister, so I followed the group to make sure he was okay. I knew they weren't going to thump him, but I wanted to make sure nothing real serious happened. Unfortunately, this kid wasn't very bright. Whatever it was they were mad about, he was stupid enough to argue with them about it instead of just apologizing and moving on. (he wasn't protesting his innocence, just his right to do whatever he did or some bs) He actually got them riled up enough that the leader yanked his glasses right off his face and started to twist them. The expression on that guy's face after he bent the glasses was priceless.
It wasn't long before this incident that Lens Crafters was running a special on a type of glasses made from 'memory metal' that would spring back into place after being bent. Heh this kid was one of the first to have that! So when they twisted his glasses they sprang right back into shape! Oh man, that was so funny to watch, the look on this guy's face when the glasses just sprung right back. There were people in the group, mad at him, that found that funny. (Most of them wore glasses..) I believe that actually defused the situation. A conversation was sparked about what kind of glasses those were, and the group dispersed.
Damn that kid was lucky.
Re:I think it can be better summed up by.. (Score:5, Funny)
Read the damned article, asshat! (Score:3, Funny)
Nerds need to reroll their character (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nerd != Smart (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Helpful? (Score:2, Funny)
I'd mod you +1 a very nice person.
I'm going to go abuse myself for being such a complete bastard now.
Re:The Nerd Myth (Score:3, Funny)
On second thought, he was a kicker.
Re:one of my few regrets from HS (Score:2, Funny)
8 pints or 8 girls?
Hats off to you if it is the latter!
Zen Thought of the Day (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Nerd Myth (Score:3, Funny)
That's nice...maybe we'd be more interested in your fascinating observations if you had read the fucking article.
Re:dishwasher? (Score:3, Funny)
It's a really bad idea to open with the line, "Baby... I want to indent your code all night long." Sure, it -sounds- sexy to us; but chicks just don't get it.
Re:dishwasher? (Score:1, Funny)