Nerd, what?

Nerd, what?

So walking down the street yesterday three joggers whiffed by uncomfortably close for my liking, and as they passed, the one guy of the group said, “I don’t know what his deal is. Huff. Huff. He is making himself look more and more like a nerd everyday. Huff. Pant. Huff.” Obviously they were concerned for a friend of theirs. The words were spoken as an honest declaration devoid of any irony. It seemed to be a hammer blow to this friend’s state of coolness. However, I quickly thought, “how far must this person be sinking to be called a nerd these days?”

As a lifer in the nerd category, I can say that I have not been called out for this, aside from the affectionate “nerd” my girlfriend throws at me now and then, for decades. Where it used to be the norm for guys and gals like myself, it seems this put down is disappearing as the cool nerds seem to be praised and hailed these days. Steve (nerd) Jobs. JJ (dork) Abrams. Weezer (a bucket of nerd). Daft Punk (ok in real life they don't look like nerds, but damn, the robot suites more than nerd compensate for their human looks). The stereotypes of what the damning "nerd" used to be have seemed to flipped 180 degrees. All these people who are technically nerds of the old school outcast norm are not actually shunned by their peers in these modern days. Nope, now they are cool. Go figure.

It wasn’t always like this. No, I was there, and I was a nerd. With me it was inevitable. I mean how could I not be? I was born unto nerds, and into the world I was placed as one. If one went by looks alone my mother had black cat’s eye glasses when I was born, and my bespectacled father had wire framed glasses that always seemed to be placing a choke hold on his face. Buying clothes and dismantling them was how my mother re-created a new sense of fashion that was purely her own. For some, her self proclaimed "gypsy fashion" was a bit out there. My father wore striped pants and paisley shirts through the 70s, and for a time, on his face sat a fat handlebar moustache properly waxed curling outward towards the sky. They loved the theater, the symphony, attending galleries, and could not stay away from seeing movies. The reality is that my father's only true nerd fallback was his poor vision, and actually in high school he was a pretty tough guy. My mother, on the other hand, has often bragged to me that throughout the years she did not attend parties or act in any way frivolous in high school and college, but instead, she was the head of the newspaper and received all A’s in her classes. It was thanks to her that I would have to attend nerd camp in the summers and on weekends. Nerd camp for those who are unaware is college type classes for high school kids. Little did she know I was honing my taste in crazy music, smoking cigarettes, drinking and attempting (I stress attempting) to make out with the female crushes each and every summer and weekend session.

Dad Nerd  +  Mom Nerd

= One Big Nerd Son (the writers nerd family tree)

With me, nerddom started early. It wasn’t just that I enjoyed drawing fantastical things at a young age, as that is a common thing for most children. The nerd factor was more about certain jokes that I drew on paper. The jokes about noses. You see they went like this:

“So two noses are in a tree.”

Yeah. That’s it. They didn’t go any further. After my grand delivery of this “joke”, I would laugh an earnest laugh that often puzzled anyone who was subjected to my humor. These noses went swimming, drove cars, but mostly hung out in trees. With every new joke, I made sure that I drew all those new and fresh places that the noses found themselves. My brother and sister will tell you it all came from my obsessive booger picking at the wee age of five, and well, I guess they may have something there.

The next nerd life step was learning addition and subtraction before I entered kindergarten. Math is a key nerd skill. I can thank the truly boring world of church on this one. God's almighty sleep inducing church sermons and scripture readings were enough to make my hyperactive self squirm, bob, and drift off into another planet. To tame the small beast my mother started writing math equations on the pamphlets during the sermons. After I had already spent a bit of my time, in between the gospel according to Paul or Matt or Luke, circling all the “d’s” on one page and all the “p’s” on another I would move on to mathematics. Somehow simple arithmetic for me was like a bright bouncy ball that any dog will kill for; it kept me entertained for an eternity. Just like the ball, I would bug my mom for more after completing the collection of equations. More, more, more please! It was this early comprehension of numbers that opened the door to the world of advanced mathmatics leveling out for me with Calculus. Then like the magic I dreamed of my whole life, a wizard's magic devoid of numbers and math laws, it all disappeared when I abandoned it completely in college. F-you math, I’m an artist now.

In between my self proclaimed art life and the wee days of my math youth the last stop into complete geekdom occurred. It was the one you can not control. It is the one passed from the genes of the elder nerd to the genes of the younger. It is slow deterioration of the eye muscle which inevitably leads to supplemental ocular contraptions. Of course nothing says “nerd” like a good set of glasses for one's crappy blurred vision, mr. or ms. subhuman. Thank god this dork was given the rite of passage in the seventh grade. Just in time for sexual awareness and puberty. It seems those who cast nerd upon the world know when to induct one into the sacred order of geek with perfect timing. Often the unassuming dweeb first feels like glasses are an equivalent to a new hat or pair of shoes, and excitement hits thanks to this new found fashion. Of course this feeling dies, painfully, after the dork realizes that, unlike everyone else, these glasses can never leave one's face due to the fact that the nerd is actually blind and useless without them. Glasses are now part of them forever, and thus, they are made nerd. 

A side note here. Ever noticed that in most films, even the lovable geek doesn’t have to wear glasses. No, only the true complete dork that not a soul can relate to happens to be that much of a mess socially and physically that they require glasses to fit in. The lovable nerd at least has the strength of vision, and all the normal humans can look directly into their eyes.

So let's look at the old version of "outcast" nerd and "acceptable" nerd.

(Notice the two 80's film nerds here wear pretty much the same frames as the writer in the above picture. Yup.)

"Fast Times at Ridgemont High" Nerds. On left is the comic relief "outcast" nerd Arnold (glasses) and on right is the "acceptable" lead nerd in the film Mark 'Rat' Ratner.

"Real Genius" Nerds. Again bad guy comic relief nerd Kent on left (glasses) and the lead nerd Mitch on right.

 "Freaks and Geeks" Nerds. More current losers. Bill the outcast dork (with glasses), Neal second class nerd, and the lead geek Sam.

But wait second who are these current nerds?

And even nerdy ladies??

Somehow these days people like Johnny Depp, Megan Fox, Jay Z, Jon Hamm, Rihanna and Brad Pitt all wear glasses. One can bet that most of this crew of fame are not actually visually impaired, but rather, they wear their spectacles for fashion sake!!! Utter blasphemy!! Yet thanks to these awe inspiring people, that the lowly look up to, the new term for nerd has evolved into a fresher, less damning word: "hipster." Thanks to my retinal disfunction I get to hear things like, "oh you are such a hipster with those glasses." Wow really? You put these Coke bottles on for a day and tell me how hip you feel. It seems that so many famous nerd trends are now what people use when they throw down "hipster" in conversations. This would include my love of highwaters, the wearing of any glasses (seriously I have been called out for wire frames and thick frames), obsessing over certain genres of music (Depeche Mode and the Smiths are now "hip" and not "dorky"), using a computer with some degree of skill (in my case it is only working in film - not as cool, oddly, as coding an app), and my obsessive, historical, categorical knowledge of movies is no longer geeky but hipsterish. 

Bugbear Hipster?? Will the Beard Hipster??

The current definition of "hipster" by the powers that be varies slightly from dictionary to dictionary or any other reference material. American Heritage says it is "one who is exceptionally aware or interested in the latest trends and tastes, especially a devotee of modern jazz." Jazz? Really? Merriam Webster says that it is a "person who is unusually aware of and interested in new and unconventional patterns (as in jazz or fashion)." Still with the jazz? Google's definition: "a person who follows the latest trends and fashions." (kind of makes American Heritage and Merriam Webster not too hipsterish with that jazz reference) With this Google definition it seems that glasses are a new trend in fashion? Highwaters are cool and the latest flavor? Using a computer is an unconventional pattern that one choses to become aware and interested in? Even the truly geeky Advanced D&D (Dungeons and Dragons for the non-hip) with its fantasy style pictures of Unicorns, Dragons, and other weirdo creatures, like the Bugbear, have jumped into the world of fashion graphics making their way onto t-shirts and sweatshirts. Now you can wear a gigantic beard and not be called a "dirty hippy." Ok hippy and nerd are not the same thing, but still many nerds wore beards, all-be-it sparse ones. One also notices these days, the bike as your main mode of transportation doesn't mean you are a loser who can't afford a bitchin' Camero, but that you are sensitive about the planet and not just yourself. Shit, even Mr. Rogers' aesthetic is pretty cool right now. 

So I guess I'll grab that red cardigan, my button up, and a pair of vans knowing I am being "unusually aware" of my clothing choice. Nerd powers activate. Look of a Beckham. Form of a Rogers. You can call me hipster.

I guess at forty, I’ll take that.