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Nerds vs Popularity, The Essay More

Nerds vs Popularity, The Essay

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  • Nerd? Jock? I'm the guy with the biggest dick.

    Nothing has changed since that long ago time either, ladies. wink, wink

    HA HA, I'm so funny.

  • Dupe!! (Score:2)

    by Otter (3800)
    Ferchrissake, Taco, don't you read your own site?!?

    Oh, sorry, FortKnox. Anyway, /. linked this a while back. I remember because one of the first posts was, "You know why you were losers? Because you did things like make graphs of people's popularity!"

  • Here [slashdot.org]. Your friend and mine, michael, was the poster.
  • I think he's oversimplifying it. There are clearly many different kinds of intelligence, and IQ (as one example) only measures one particular kind -- logic and reasoning. A high SAT score means you're good at math and English, but little else -- you still lack "people skills", i.e. an innate understanding of people and how they react.

    Indeed it's been recently found that autistic people are often incredibly intelligent, often able to perform astounding feats of memory, logic and reasoning. What defines aut

    • Hmmm (Score:2)

      by JMZero (449047)
      you still lack "people skills", i.e. an innate understanding of people and how they react.

      I was fairly nerdy in junior high because other interests (mostly computers) pulled me away from socializing. I wasn't interested in computers because of a lack of social skills, I lacked social skills because I was interested in computers. I had the kind of problems you mentioned - difficulty in interactions, and difficulty in finding my place in social situations. I couldn't tell what people meant when they were
    • t's possible to be mildly autistic, so mild that it is never diagnosed. And once again, "autism" is not a lack of intelligence per se, but a lack of ability to communicate -- a highly specific kind of intelligence.

      It's become apparent (not just through your comment, BTW!) that I'm basically autistic. Not enough to cause significant problems; I'm on table D, not table E. But I really just don't understand human interaction. I can't communicate with others. Something in the way my brain is wired just fails

  • "the reason nerds don't fit in actually is that everyone else is crazy."

    I'll keep that in mind. :^)

    I actually had a relatively tame high school experience. Possibly due to intelligent females having an easier time of it, and a sizable smart people/nerd/geek community (at least 40-50 people I felt comfortable around).
  • The more I realised this guy is a nerd.

    I was nothing like him in school, yes he is correct that I would not trade intelligence for popularity but hey I was popular anyway.

    In primary school (5-12) it didn't really have an effect.

    In high school (where popularity seems the most important) I was thrown in there, didn't know anyone at the start. I ended up one of the coolest fuckers around. Two of the hottest girls in the school asked me out in my first year.

    The thing is I didn't dress to impress any of the
    • He still seems to fail to grasp certain things: like clothing always is a reflection of what you think of other people in a social situation. As a child. As an adult. He probably thinks the reason why you wear business casual or business formal depends wholly on your boss being a prick. I mean, shit, that's how social systems work! Its the same with conversations, dancing. Human interaction.

      And I believe that anyone can be moderately accepted. Hell, let's talk about it in terms of /. and specifical
      • He probably thinks the reason why you wear business casual or business formal depends wholly on your boss being a prick. I mean, shit, that's how social systems work! Its the same with conversations, dancing. Human interaction.

        Oh. You mean it isn't? :-)That explains a lot. My opinion is that the phrase "smart casual" was specifically designed to piss me off. I can't see any other reason for its existence. Either I'm good at my job or I'm not. What I'm wearing has zero bearing on that. But then, reading th

      • Dorks just say "Pff, who cares about the weather?! Now my anatomically correct girl robot!!!"

        that is the funniest thing i've read in a while. i probably think it's funny because i can remember a similar single-mindedness and my later struggle to adjust that mindset. i never did have a girl robot, anatomically correct or not. reminds me of jason lee's character in the movie mumford.
      • And that is the nerd's problem: not understanding the right amount of detail at this moment.

        This is easily the most insightful comment I've ever seen on the subject. You put the thought into words perfectly. I think this just about sums up the social problems that any of my nerd friends from high school had.

    • I was the same way. The first school I was at, it was all the intelligent kids who were considered "cool". Then I went to a different school and it wasn't considered cool to be smart, but they didn't know me, and I hung out with the cool kids. Then when grades came out and they realized I was smart, some of them asked me to help them learn the material. I graduated 4th in my class and I was voted Most Likely to Succeed. I had as many friends as anyone else, despite being a "band geek". I had friends f
      • You had popularity votes in college?
        • I was thinking that post was talking about high school, until he got to teh part about parties and drinking. Yeah, the voting thing kind of threw me off too. I never had the opportunity to vote for anything in college, but then again, I wasn't too connected with the student association.

          jason
        • Yeah, I thought it was strange, too. But there were several "superlatives" like in HS. I found out when they came and asked me to get my picture made.
      • Yeah, I was really popular in university too --- of course, I was one of 3 white girls in the whole program, one of two that didn't weigh 300 pounds, and the other girl was 'a popular girl' with perfect hair & makeup and a jock boyfriend (and extremely smart too - all the girls were, they didn't make it past 2nd year if they weren't).

        So I never, ever thought that I was sought after because I had any particularly redeeming features - I always thought I was just the most easily accessable female "in thie
    • Another logical fallacy of the author's:

      "Nerds don't realize this. They don't realize that it takes work to be popular. In general, people outside some very demanding field don't realize the extent to which success depends on constant (though often unconscious) effort. For example, most people seem to consider the ability to draw as some kind of innate quality, like being tall. In fact, most people who "can draw" like drawing, and have spent many hours doing it; that's why they're good at it."

      [snip]

      "Unl
  • in fact, the most "computer-like" thing I owned growing up was a nintendo.

    The Marine Corps made me a geek.

    Does this make me odd?

    Besides, as several of the folks "in the know, wink wink nudge nudge" can tell you, us Router Jocks are the shizzle.

    Code away, monkey boys, I'll be the guy your data can't do without.

    This post brought to you by tongueincheek productions, a Farizzle Company.
  • Given the grammatic incorrectness of that statement, my current level illiteracy should come as NO surprise to my fellow slashdotters.

    And my reject friends beat the piss out of the jocks in my school at a party senior year. Where was I? Waiting for my women to show up.

  • Even though I'm an extreme nerd/geek. I think being in a high school class of 27 (this from a public high school, mind you) had something to do with that.

  • I had this article on my favorites for quite a while. Not sure how I heard of it... Possible a front page posting a year ago or so.

    Good read in any case.

    jason
  • I'm not gonna read something that long. Us popular people have our news fed to us by the meek we have already conquored.
  • omfg. so that was why i hung out with the stoners.
  • 1.) I agree with a lot of what Sielwolf said. I like the idea of just getting out & meeting people. A big problem with nerds & their predicament is that they need to learn by watching. Often times you can document social rules & explain it to them, but there's a good chance that they aren't going to understand. Of course it all varies depending on the complexity of the specific rule & the expertise of the nerd, but when it comes to socializing in general, they are going to have to roll up th

Mystics always hope that science will some day overtake them. -- Booth Tarkington

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