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Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

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Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#21

Post by rms »

GavinB wrote: post #16
chacha102 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you eliminate the jocks and cheerleaders, the hierarchy actually seems to disappear. The nerds still try to be alienated for the most part, but the without the focus on sports, I find that all the other cliques just become 'different' instead of one being higher than the other. That might just be at my school though.

It all has to do with the perceived attractiveness of the group members, especially those composed primarily of females. If they attractive people are spread out among groups, the cliques are separate but equal. If they're concentrated, the cliques become hierarchical. A desired group can basically set the hierarchy by what they define as attractive. Most people don't actually want to leave the social group that they…

That's a good point. My high school was oddly non-hierarchical and the reason was the attractiveness was diversified across cliques. The cheerleaders were actually regularly mocked for being ugly.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#22

Post by tutwabee »

"The response that I try to lob into these discussions, reduced to its crudest form, is: Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of one of the largest web sites on the planet, and his web site is beautiful, and it brings joy to a lot of people, so apparently being a good programmer isn’t what makes you design beautiful things that make people happy, in which case being a good programmer sounds like a fucking waste."

Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook. His coding abilities cannot be judged unless it is known how much of the Facebook code he actually wrote. I assume the majority of it was not written by him.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#23

Post by RiderOfGiraffes »

shalmanese wrote: post #10

There's something ironic about a post on nerds being deliberately exclusionary which redirects IE browsers to a Safari download link.

Where's the article? I get the Safari download splash, but I can't see or find the article.

Reading the comments, I guess I don't care and aren't missing much.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#24

Post by andreyf »

I don't get it. I went to a public school, and it was nothing like this - sure, we had our little tribes, and our little dramas, but most people belonged to several of them - I took lots of business and marketing classes and was a programmer nerd. Many other programmer nerds were actors, in marching band, and in the choir. The class president and swim team captain took AP CompSci, wasn't too bad of a programmer himself, and an exceptionally nice guy, to absolutely everyone. Sure, there were dicks, but who cares about them?

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#25

Post by andreyf »

quoderat wrote: post #3

This writer is really clueless as to what high school is like for those on the bottom of the heap -- I mean, really, no idea at all. For that reason, it's hard to listen to what else he has to say, no matter how relevant or (potentially) awesome. Obvious that he's never been the low end of the totem pole. It may be different now, but when I was in high school, geeks and nerds got shit on by every group -- the jocks,…

It may be different now, but when I was in high school, geeks and nerds got shit on by every group -- the jocks, the actors and actresses. Everyone.

Everyone's mileage varies. I went to a decent public school in the suburbs, and most people in my social circle belonged to a couple of others tribes as well - I was pretty active in the business competitions (as well as programming). Most other "nerd elites" were in marching band, actors, singers, swimmers, fencers, jugglers, etc. Sure, there were plain old jerks, but they were a certain a minority, and easy to ignore.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#27

Post by HalcyonMuse »

dasil003 wrote: post #9
noonespecial wrote: post #2

Many good points but missing one important observation. The cliques in school are hierarchical in nature. All groups may be exclusive toward other members but a band geek cannot make a jock's life miserable as a pastime. Members of each clique can torment those in the "lower castes" with virtually no social cost for those actions. For fun, to fit in, because daddy never hugged them, whatever. The Nerds and programmer…

It really depends on the school. In my high school there was no dominant clique, so the situation was somewhat as the author described. Sure people made fun of nerds, mostly because they left themselves open to it by being different and socially awkward, but there was definitely no strict hierarchy amongst cliques. I think there is some truth to the idea that certain nerds create a sense of superiority as a defense m…

Judging by the rest of Mr. Marinich's content, I'd be surprised if you're very far off the mark. Here's what I found particularly ironic: most of the online stuff of his I read (well, skimmed) was pretty negative, hostile and generally involved lashing out at people.

After about five minutes I couldn't help but think of Maddox.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#28

Post by thi »

jmtame wrote: post #8

What makes a great writer? Someone who understands both angles, someone who has been both popular and a nerd. See Paul Graham's Why Nerds Are Unpopular, which was the first essay I ever read of Paul's in high school as a sophomore and that got me hooked on reading the rest of his: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Having just come from there (it made for an interesting experience on my end), I can say that his article is indeed very well written.

Re: Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

#30

Post by tylermenezes »

quoderat wrote: post #3

This writer is really clueless as to what high school is like for those on the bottom of the heap -- I mean, really, no idea at all. For that reason, it's hard to listen to what else he has to say, no matter how relevant or (potentially) awesome. Obvious that he's never been the low end of the totem pole. It may be different now, but when I was in high school, geeks and nerds got shit on by every group -- the jocks,…

It seems to be different depending on where you are. The geeks at my high school (myself included) are, at least respected, and in the cases of many of my friends actually have a social life. (I'm too busy with the internet for that.) On the other hand, I know some people from other places who've had terrible experiences, so it's really hard to generalize.
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