>> while most intellectuals are nerds, not all nerds are intellectuals. In fact, the majority of nerds aren’t intellectuals.
I'd argue that this is a recent phenomenon that started at exactly the same time the author claims nerd culture finally became dominant, which he associated with the LoTR films.
Nothing mainstream is ever intellectual, and anything that reaches vast audiences simply ends up with a lot of people on the bandwagon trying to imitate it.
Nerd culture is no different from hippie culture or jazz culture, in that 99% of the people who want to claim it are followers. They're incurious, largely cowards who feel safe in numbers, who would've been afraid of those cultures or laughed at them when they were still underground, until peer pressure made them adopt them. Or rather, co-opt them. Because nothing true about those cultures remains once they've been co-opted. Unlike original nerds, hippies or jazz musicians, anyone flaunting those styles now is a conformist. The exact opposite of the nonconformists who pioneered those mentalities. An attention seeker instead of one at odds with society. A people pleaser instead of a rebel.
That being said: Because I'm a nerd from the 80s, I don't care so much about wannabe hippies or jazz snobs. But it's especially galling to watch 20 year old idiots wearing nerd culture like a skin suit.