One Last Jobs
Image SourceFirst we need to address the very term "nerd". What exactly is it? We know that it usually has derogatory connotations (though that may be changing, see "Nerd Pride" below). Usually a nerd was someone whose life passions were not shared by the majority of the population. Their heroes were not shared by the ubiquitous "man in the street" (who would simply not get the joke in the picture above). In fact most people traditionally saw the interests of a nerd as strange and somewhat weird. However, with the advent of the internet, nerds have increased in number exponentially. The nerd herd has arrived.
Drag and Drop
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Often at High School nerds were partly classified by their disinterest in sport and their acquisition of knowledge considered intellectual and somewhat esoteric by other student (who usually didn't know what esoteric and intellectual mean, but hey). Rather than engaging in social activities the nerd could often be a loner. Occasionally they were lucky enough to meet others of their genus - Nerdus Sapiens - and were allowed to take over a table in the cafeteria. This was not, as some would think, an attempt by the majority to include the small nerd herd. Rather, it was a form of deliberate and insidious social exclusion.
Disrespect to Nerds
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As such nerds were often considered outcasts by "normal" members of society and the term, when used, was an insult. Such was the ferocity of public opinion against the nerd that slights against the herd were, for example, casually used as cheap marketing ploys (see above). Replace the word with a derogatory label based on gender, color or religion and you can see just how offensive the above advertisement truly was.
Nerd Sex
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Nerds had therefore to cultivate their own language (see above) which could be understood only by other members of the herd. A rebuse interpretation of the above would be “As you get to the University of Chicago, the amount of sex expected approaches zero.” If you failed to snigger at that or had to wait for the "translation" then you probably do not fit in to the nerd category. Many people would not accept the truth that nerds did, in fact, engage in the Wild Thing and until recently the nerd was often regarded as something as if not more virginal than a certain icon of Christianity.
The Nerd of July
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Nerds celebrate occasions just like any other substrata of society. They do make a special effort to make it their own, of course, but can often be misled and occasionally ignorant of the history of their own kind. To trace the origins of the word we must pay homage to that wordsmith of wordsmiths, Dr Seuss. His 1950 masterpiece "If I Ran the Zoo" contains the first printed instance of the word. Gerald McGrew, the narrator, maintains he would collect “a Nerkle, a Nerd and a Seersucker too” to be housed in his imaginary zoo. That was way back in 1950. As such, "If I Ran the Zoo" can be seen as the Holy Book of Nerd-dom.
The Nerd Bathroom
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It is of little surprise that most nerds are unaware of their own history. After all, their obsessive behavior is such that they have been know to adapt rooms in their domiciles in order to pursue interests that many would find unusual or even unsettling (see above). Dr Seuss had no idea what he had started and soon the word spread to wider (adult) society.
Nerd Army
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This was the beginning of the appearance of the nerd as a specific genus. It is strange that perhaps there had been no previous discovery of the word (though there was “bluestocking” for the female of the species way back in the eighteenth century). However, in 1951, Newsweek magazine pointed out the widespread use of the word in Michigan in the country known as the United States of America. The Army of Nerd was beginning to burgeon.
Nature or Nurture?
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The debate still rages as to whether nerds are born or are, rather, the result of some aspect of their upbringing. Many illiterates have produced nerd offspring and are unable to pinpoint what happened to make their child a nerd. Some blame themselves and they often create support groups in places such as New York and San Francisco. That is leaping forward a little in time, however. By the early years of the 60s, the term had gone viral and appeared throughout the USA in television, radio and other media. The word was reported in far away places such as Scotland (where people have red hair and strange accents). Globalization of the brand was not far off.
