What defines a Nerd?

Bazookatone

I was going to post a message on another thread about being called a know it all, but hey! I think this merits some serious discussion.

I used to think, when I was very young, that a nerd was the sort of streotypical image you saw on "Saved By the Bell" with no dress sense, thick glasses, that sort of thing.

Obviously, very few people in CTYI are like that. Personally, I think that this is a deliberate attempt to get away from the aforementioned stereotype. None of us wants to look like that.

Now people will say to me "oh you can't make generalisations. Everyone is unique and special etc etc" but of course, you can make generalisations about people, if you couldn't, then people wouldn't, would they?

Here are the telltale signs I look for when looking for nerdiness/CTYIness:
At one end of the spectrum
Long or unusual hairstyle.
Goth / Rocker / Metal Head style clothes esp Trenchcoats.
Lots of piercings
(These, I reckon, indicate a deliberate attempt to rail against the norm)
or

At the other end
General vagueness of dress sense, tracksut bottoms, fleece tops, neutral colours, runners.
(This, I reckon, indicates a complete disinterest in appearance)

spiderbeast

To me a nerd is somebody who is 100% obsessed with one particular thing in the computer world and with no interest in anything else in life.

Oh yes one more thing, somebody who is obsessed with LOTR.

Undergod

As a result of the actions of a load of people I know I've rejected the first end of the spectrum... in my opinion, God, the Great Spirit, whoever she really is, just invented teen rockers for comic relief.

AS for trhe other end of the spectrum, that covers about 84% of the population of Ireland.

And spiderbeast, how could you leave out Star Trek, and role-playing games? For shame! Two of the main pillars of nerdiness!

Hugh Hefner

Well I'm definately not at the first end of the spectrum. I'm not really at the other end either. I'm not sure if apperance is that important in identifying nerds. I hate Star Wars and I love Star Trek (I'm not obsessed though). Not big on the old role playing. Maybe I'm in a gray area. You know, that area full of all the brilliant people ever. Yeah, that sounds right.

oq4v3ht0u76kf2

See, on the face of it you can group people under very vague headlines... however once you start investigating the matter even a small bit you start to find that when dealing with a small group of people (which CTYI is, relatively) there are fair to many discrepancies to accurately apply a label to any sizable portion of those 'studied'.

Most people will eventually end up conceding, as Hugh Hefner did, that they are in the "gray area" - however, everybody knows that's where all the fun people are precisely because of their individual quirks.

StupidLikeAFox

Yeah, id sorta agree with kev, although i really dont like a lot of sci-fi. Id sorta count a nerd as someone with really poor personal skills and/or a really wierd sense of humour.

I dont think nerds are necassarily the ones going against the norm, i figure thats a whole different kettle of fish

Raphael

I always thought:

nerd = technology
geek = sci-fi et all
dork = lack of social skills

Firewalkwithme

Dictionary definition:

Nerd

StupidLikeAFox

UD Definition

Raphael

Google Image Search Definition

StupidLikeAFox

yeah, ctyi was just full of these guys

Hugh Hefner

UD Definition wrote:

One whose IQ exceeds his weight

I'm stealing that one. Plus it's true for me.

Raphael

I was just joining in the hyperlinking..I wanted to be cool...(glaHOIvin)

LiamD

A nerd - Someone who deep down knows they are one but on the surface denies it

-or-

A nerd - Someone who is unfortunate enough to have academics as their area of excellence instead of something more commonly accepted.

Undergod

More commonly accepted... like RolePlaying!

Bazookatone

See, I knew this would stir up some good conversation! Last Summer, I heard that someone had divided teenagers into 9 "tribes" defined, I assume, by their language (ie slang) clothes, musical tastes and pastimes etc etc. It sounded intriguing.

I can visualise a sort of exotic, three dimensional graph or a big Venn Diagram, but with spheres instead of circles, where a person can be plotted via some strange co ordinate system based on the above parameters, and their exact position determined ie someone who's uber "goth" would be in one corner, while an uber "chav" would be in the exact opposite corner. "Rockers" and "skaters" would be near the goth area, because there's some crossover, while sporty "Rugger Buggers" and "pretty boys" would be nearer the chav end of the spectrum. But it's complicated, because you could possibly have someone, for example, who's a skater and a pretty boy, and someone who's a rugger bugger and a "chav" (eg Colin Farrell). But it's impossible to have a goth chav, because if two ever come into contact they ,literally, annhialate each other!

Can anyone else come up with the other "tribes". Mine above are just guesses.

Crash

next person to say "chav" gets banned.

Raphael

Why, what's wrong with saying it?

Hugh Hefner

Raphael wrote:

Why, what's wrong with saying chav?

Banned.

mentalimplosion

this is possibly the most ridiculous thread i've seen in a long time

Crash

i'm very tempted to ban both of you for that.


reasons for not saying the C word:

...i say so.

Raphael

Rightyo, I won't say cha...cha...charity..... or that word you don't like either ^^;

It wasn't me!

You can't categorise people. Here's the thing, people will all fall into grey areas. Take me for example:
*I play rugby
*I love heavy music
*Academically I'm not bad
*I love piercings
I'd fall right on so many lines there'd be no point trying to decide what I am.

Piste

I like the venn diagram idea. Try and put everyone into some little circle 'Likes rock music' 'Plays rugby' pretty soon these circles will start to intersect and it will get to the point where everyone is in their own little point of intersection of a lot of categories and we find out how individual everyone actually is.

I hope that made sense

It wasn't me!

Yeah, that's the thing. people are always going to cross over between groups.

Crash

Those who create stereotypes are always those who scream "i'm an individual" from the rooftops.

:rolleyes:

TalkISCheap

there had to be a ridiculous thread to balnce the heavy islam one. other wise the boards universe would implode horribly.

or something.

elephamt king

Bazookatone wrote:

Here are the telltale signs I look for when looking for nerdiness/CTYIness:
At one end of the spectrum
Long or unusual hairstyle.
Goth / Rocker / Metal Head style clothes esp Trenchcoats.
Lots of piercings
(These, I reckon, indicate a deliberate attempt to rail against the norm)

there are about 5 people with trenchcoats at CTYI.
did it ever occur to you that these people may belong to a musical subculture subculture within which trenchcoats long hair and piercings are "in vogue".

idiot.

Plunky

elephamt king wrote:

idiot.

Back in the day there were more, many more... check your history before accusing Jack of idiocy!

Undergod

crash_000 wrote:

Those who create stereotypes are always those who scream "i'm an individual" from the rooftops.

:rolleyes:

Ah... Carlow's teen rockers... I love you...

Crash

Undergod wrote:

Ah... Carlow's teen rockers... I love you...

try living in dublin...

Plunky

crash_000 wrote:

try living in dublin...

*throws bricks in the general vicinity of Central Bank*

It wasn't me!

They can't hang around the Bank anymore. A group of neo-nazi scummers has taken to patrolling it occasionally and they don't take kindly to mini-metallers. Blast today was full of them though, all acting stereotypically. Reminds me why I stopped going. Anyone going to Open Jazz '05 on sunday by the way?

Crash

Hrmmm - just looking at that - will be on my way back through town around when it kicks off so it sounds good

It wasn't me!

I went last year and it was stunning. I strongly recommend going if you can, and it sounds even better this year. I'm definitely going if at all possible.

Liquorice

I should be going...anyone know what the quality of the bands is like in the Grattan on Sunday evenings btw?

And there is no way to define a nerd through image, interests etc., although there are some general interests such as roleplaying, anime, computers & technology, comic-book reading.

edibility

Gummybearz!!! wrote:

I like the venn diagram idea. Try and put everyone into some little circle 'Likes rock music' 'Plays rugby' pretty soon these circles will start to intersect and it will get to the point where everyone is in their own little point of intersection of a lot of categories and we find out how individual everyone actually is.

I hope that made sense

Venn Diagram - Nerd.

lucernarian

I think this is a pretty good thread because it leads people to question individuality, or lack thereof in themselves, other people or simply society in general. To classify people, i.e. the venn diagram idea, is a good one yet a flawed one. People will always teeter on the edge of the "circles" and few will fall entirely into one circle, yet it can be an accurate way of describing people. I find it ironic though that many theories on individuality are based on a few stereotypical images of "groups" within society.

As for myself, I am basically notorious in my area for looking completely different to my friends/acquaintances etc. as they would lean towards the (grey) area of "rockers etc." I dont know if I'm too lazy to "be like others" or truly am "individual".

Undergod

crash_000 wrote:

try living in dublin...

I'd really rather not.

**** the revolution, nonconformity is now a product to be consumed. Choose conformity! That'll confuse people!

Bazookatone

Plunky wrote:

Back in the day there were more, many more... check your history before accusing Jack of idiocy!

Thank you.

wayfarer

Bazookatone wrote:

I can visualise a sort of exotic, three dimensional graph or a big Venn Diagram, but with spheres instead of circles, where a person can be plotted via some strange co ordinate system based on the above parameters, and their exact position determined ie someone who's uber "goth" would be in one corner, while an uber "chav" would be in the exact opposite corner. "Rockers" and "skaters" would be near the goth area, because there's some crossover, while sporty "Rugger Buggers" and "pretty boys" would be nearer the chav end of the spectrum. But it's complicated, because you could possibly have someone, for example, who's a skater and a pretty boy, and someone who's a rugger bugger and a "chav" (eg Colin Farrell). But it's impossible to have a goth chav, because if two ever come into contact they ,literally, annhialate each other!

Can you explain what the difference is between what can be represented on a venn diagram with 3 dimensions and that which can be represented on the standard 2 dimensional one

Bazookatone

Well, imagine a 2-d Venn diagram with four main circles. Now, each circle intersects the two on each side, but only intersects the third in the centre, where all three cross. So the circle which are on opposite sides only intersect at the centre. But things can only be shown to be in the centre if they exist in all four sets. Therefore something that exists in one set, and also in the set represented by the opposite circle, but NOT in any other set, it couldnt be represented in a 2-d Venn diagram.

I'm not sure, but if it were a 3-d diagram, the "spheres" (instead of circles) could possibly intersect, if they were arranged like a pyramid with four corners.

To be honest, I just think a 3-d Venn diagram would look cooler, especially if the background looked like a scene out of TRON, with a grid of green lines and exotic 3-d shapes flying about.

Kitsune

You can have a four set Venn diagram, just use ellipses instead of circles.

wayfarer

Bazookatone wrote:

Well, imagine a 2-d Venn diagram with four main circles. Now, each circle intersects the two on each side, but only intersects the third in the centre, where all three cross. So the circle which are on opposite sides only intersect at the centre. But things can only be shown to be in the centre if they exist in all four sets. Therefore something that exists in one set, and also in the set represented by the opposite circle, but NOT in any other set, it couldnt be represented in a 2-d Venn diagram.

Bazookatone wrote:

To be honest, I just think a 3-d Venn diagram would look cooler, especially if the background looked like a scene out of TRON, with a grid of green lines and exotic 3-d shapes flying about.

Your right there though, 3d venn diagrams are cool! :rolleyes:

StupidLikeAFox

If ya ask me, discussing how to draw venn diagrams is pretty damn nerdy

It wasn't me!

Yeah, but I have to point out one flaw. Wayfarer's diagram doesn't show the four intersecting at any point. That's why you need a 3D one. In a 2D diagram, the four circles can't intersect at all.

StupidLikeAFox

The ellipses turned me on tbh

Aoibheann

I'll BET they do...

PurpleFistMixer

In the ellipse one the 4 intersect. However for this question you'd need a lot more than 4 sets.

StupidLikeAFox

Aoibheann Brady wrote:

I'll BET they do...

B subsection C
C union A
#C, U'

<ejaculates>


oops

Bazookatone

ColHol wrote:

If ya ask me, discussing how to draw venn diagrams is pretty damn nerdy

And yet we continue to discuss Venn Diagrams.