Just like we are all hackers now too. Just a societal fad in today's participation ribbon receiving culture. Overall it's a good thing though, helping to push/pull people forward.
We’re All Nerds Now
11–20 of 30 posts
Re: We’re All Nerds Now
#12Being perceived as an intellectual of any type (nerd or otherwise) still mostly excludes one from public office above a certain level (in the USA, at least). Until that changes, it's difficult to take the idea seriously.
Re: We’re All Nerds Now
#13>An engineering degree is also no longer a requisite to using technology, as seemingly anyone today can install a printer or upload a video.
Yikes - does that mean that we all needed engineering degrees to drive cars?
Re: We’re All Nerds Now
#14No, we're not, at last not in the original meaning. Nerd used to mean someone obsessed and therefore knowledgeable about something (book nerd, comic nerd, or... The War Nerd[1]). Later geek took over that meaning and nerd moved towards someone socially awkward but smart. Owning a smartwatch, reading a best seller novel, or watching a blockbuster doesn't make anyone a nerd. Not any more than wearing aviator sunglasses…
cant agree with you more. what the op calls nerds are much more fashion/pop culture and fit more into dork category in this: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/b3/fd/05/b3fd051...
( ill admit im venturing into generalizing a little too much )
portlandia "nerd psa" skit highlights the issue too.
Re: We’re All Nerds Now
#15"...the maker of Minecraft and one of the last independent gaming companies..." - LOL, what?
"...right now I have three devices — my phone, my Kindle, my iPod..." - worlds most consumer-friendly devices. So nerdy.
Reminds me of a South Park classic: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=flippity-flop...
Re: We’re All Nerds Now
#16I think there needs to be a distinction (when using the term Nerd) between people who use technology, and those who create it. Users of technology are more commonly called "Customers". Or "Consumers" in the new parlance. Whereas traditional Nerds are far more deeply involved with the technology, and grok it in it's fullness as they combine it into things never before seen.
I think much of that depends on properties of the tech we create. After all, people are both producers and consumers. We have drives to do more than passively consume.
Take Emacs. That's a technology that empowers people to become creators. It's hackable, and not in a grim boring way like Unix:
"When large numbers of nontechnical workers are using a programmable editor, they will he tempted constantly to begin programming in the course of their day-to-day lives. This should contribute greatly to computer literacy, especially because many of the people thus exposed will be secretaries taught by society that they are incapable of doing mathematics, and unable to imagine for a moment that they can learn to program. But that won't stop them from learning it if they don't know that it is programming that they are learning! According to Bernard Greenberg, this is already happening with Multics EMACS." https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html
Re: We’re All Nerds Now
#17No, we're not, at last not in the original meaning. Nerd used to mean someone obsessed and therefore knowledgeable about something (book nerd, comic nerd, or... The War Nerd[1]). Later geek took over that meaning and nerd moved towards someone socially awkward but smart. Owning a smartwatch, reading a best seller novel, or watching a blockbuster doesn't make anyone a nerd. Not any more than wearing aviator sunglasses…
I always thought the original meaning of "nerd" was "not cool, not popular in the high school sense".
IIRC in "revenge of the nerds"[0] (1984) a few of the nerds were just the "not frat & football guys", rather than "expert in a intellectual field".
The "knowledgeable about something" bit came much later, as did the "techie" sense, AFAICT (wikipedia appears to agree[1]).
Re: We’re All Nerds Now
#18I think there needs to be a distinction (when using the term Nerd) between people who use technology, and those who create it. Users of technology are more commonly called "Customers". Or "Consumers" in the new parlance. Whereas traditional Nerds are far more deeply involved with the technology, and grok it in it's fullness as they combine it into things never before seen.
I think "lusers" was the word used sometime ago for the people who use technology without understanding it :)
Re: We’re All Nerds Now
#19People (outside IT) are not interested in knowing more about tech. For them technology is nothing more than magic, and they have no problem with that, nor at work or at home. Having an iPhone in your hand does not make you a "nerd". It makes you stupid in my eyes, when I discover you use it only for messaging and calls.
> It makes you stupid in my eyes, when I discover you use it only for messaging and calls. I understand what you're trying to say, but I think there are better ways to say it.
Well, people with Androids and WPs know enough to either not call themselves "nerds" or actually be nerds. But of course he forgot that they would also play Candy Crush Saga installed by one of the Apple Geniuses.
Re: We’re All Nerds Now
#20"...the maker of Minecraft and one of the last independent gaming companies..." - LOL, what? "...right now I have three devices — my phone, my Kindle, my iPod..." - worlds most consumer-friendly devices. So nerdy. Reminds me of a South Park classic: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=flippity-flop...
> one of the last independent gaming companies
I wish I could say it's astonishing that journalists writing for a major paper would just casually make shit up for no reason (because it sounds good, I guess?), but that's the generally rotten state of journalism for you.