Sept. 17, 2019. The sun soars within little white streaks of clouds painting the light blue backdrop of a beautiful summer day, with 80 degree weather and a light breeze that would make any self-respecting weatherman squeal and kick his feet in the air.
This was the kind of weather that your brain immediately associates with childhood memories, nostalgia and days you wish you could relive forever.
But this wasn’t one of those days. This day wasn’t nostalgic, it was traumatic. I don’t want to relive this day — I wish it had never happened in the first place.
It started off just as any day did, even ones that didn’t completely alter the course of my life for the worse. Wake up after a refreshing five and a half hours of sleep after playing Sonic Unleashed until 2 a.m., get ready for the day (pack my Sonic The Hedgehog fruit snacks in my Sonic The Hedgehog lunch box inside my Sonic The Hedgehog backpack) and slog through my first four periods of the sixth grade … while listening to the Sonic Generations soundtrack on my phone, of course.
When lunchtime finally arrived, I walked with my peers from the cafeteria to the park for recess while quoting lines from the Sonic X TV show, as per usual. But this time, something was different. Instead of my friends being just incredibly invested in my ongoing tangent, they looked almost, just almost, a little sick of my hedgehog-centered spew.
I gave them the gift of knowledge based around an anthropomorphic fictional mascot for an irrelevant company, and this is how they repaid me?!
All of this culminated in us finally reaching the park and me saying the line that would seal my fate:
“Talk about a low budget flight! No food or movies? I’m outta here!” I excitedly quoted the opening cutscene of Sonic Adventure 2.
Unfortunately, my friends, specifically one who I won’t explicitly name (but you know who you are, Seamus Heil of 42.057660, -87.942504), had finally snapped.
“JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!!” his voice boomed just inches away from my face. “I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANYMORE ABOUT SONIC! YOU’RE SUCH A NERD!!”
Out of everything I had experienced throughout my childhood — my parents’ divorce, moving neighborhoods four times, forgetting the password to my Brawl Stars account — nothing would hurt or impact me more than those words.
A … nerd?! No, that can’t be me. I mean, just because I’ve played most of the Sonic games, and watched the TV show, and own some merchandise and …
The realization hit me like a brick wall.
Oh my God. I AM a nerd.
But what exactly does that mean? See, despite what I might’ve thought in sixth grade, the definition of “nerd” has changed a lot since what many would consider its peak in popularity in the 1980s.
This is when “nerd” would be associated with those who had certain identifying characteristics. We all know what nerds of this era supposedly looked like. Wearing big, wide-lensed glasses, collared shirts with suspenders and pocket protectors, these fascinating specimens probably played Dungeons & Dragons and talkshed likesh thish due to their retainershh (think Melvin Sneedly from “Captain Underpants” or that kid who thinks you’re friends and won’t stop sitting next to you at lunch).
Man, things must have been so much simpler in the ‘80s. If you played sports, you were a jock. If you wore black, you were a goth. And, of course, if you had decent grades or any interest in anything that wasn’t sports, drinking or smoking cigarettes, you were a nerd.
But this whole “clique” thing would dissolve over time as people realized two things: 1) hanging out with a group of people, regardless of their interests, is always more fun than just one person, and 2) “Star Wars” was absolutely sick.
The release of “A New Hope” in 1977 was one of the earliest examples of a “nerd movie” that was a hit with the masses, even if it would take a couple more movies for “Star Wars” to become a true cultural icon. Before this, “space movies” were viewed as just a thing for people who care about the condition of their trading cards, but the world, acting and just sheer quality of the “Star Wars” films made everyone think, “Hey, maybe some of this ‘nerd’ stuff isn’t so bad.”
Self-proclaimed “nerd,” avid “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” memorabilia collector and father of two Prospect students James Gilliland explains how major of a shift this was for nerd culture — something he experienced firsthand.
“I remember making my own ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Star Wars’ figures before they got huge because there was a point in time where you couldn’t just walk into any regular store and pick up a Darth Vader action figure on your way out,” Gilliland said.
Nowadays, the most popular, jacked dude you’ve ever seen who plays football, parties every night and would easily fall into the “jock” clique during the ‘80s, would likely gush about films and shows like “Interstellar,” “The Dark Knight” and “The Walking Dead.”
Had he been into that stuff in the ‘80s, he would’ve been crucified.
So what changed? Well, believe it or not, the multi-billion dollar media conglomerates that have equal power to the U.S. government actually influence quite a few aspects of our lives, including what we’re likely to be interested in.
Take Marvel, for example. Today, you could go up to a tribe of people completely off the grid and isolated from the rest of the world who have never even heard of a TV before and they’d be like, “Oh yeah, Iron Man. The dude with the armor. Of course I know who that is.”
Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and many other superheroes are now household names thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) starting a massive series of movies spanning from 2008 to today that made superheroes the pop culture icons they are today.
Furthermore, shows like The Big Bang Theory in 2007 showed that stories following nerdy characters could still be engaging and poke fun at nerdy interests without making nerds the butt of every joke.
This is also where we see some overlap between nerds of the ‘80s and the nerds of today. Because even though the definition of “nerd” has changed plenty over the years, the guy online complaining about how “Hulk” wasn’t comic-accurate will always be viewed as a nerd … even if he’s totally right.
If it wasn’t made clear enough by, well, the person writing this, most nerds, both their representations in pop culture and in real life, are male. The fact that much of the media obsessed over by nerds has unnecessary romance sub-plots and, more often than not, objectified designs for female characters leads to misogyny within the demographic.
Nothing represents this better than comics, manga and anime — easily some of the most nerdy interests out there. Female characters are sexualized for no reason beyond sex appeal from their primary audience: male shut-ins whose romantic experiences are limited to hugging (and doing other things to) anime body pillows.
The comic, manga and anime industries have created an environment where stories without overly sexualized characters are much less likely to succeed due to the pre-existing audience of the mediums only supporting franchises that do.
“Misogyny in nerd-dom has been an issue for a very long time,” Gilliland said. “There are a number of causes for it, but the [fact is] that it creates an unwelcoming environment for others with nerdy interests.”
Fortunately, nerd-dom has become much more inclusive within the past decade or so, with “nerd” going more from an insult to potential compliment. According to a KnightMedia survey of 241 students, 65% said they believe being called a” nerd” or “nerdy” could be considered a compliment.
It’s important to not be ashamed of your interests just because they aren’t popular, but it’s even more important to be welcoming to others who have the same hobbies. Discriminating against someone just because of their background, just like discriminating against someone for anything, is the lowest form of scrutiny.
Even if that scrutiny stems from an argument about whether the 2D or 3D Sonic games are better.
“Nerd-dom isn’t really a hobby, it’s [more] like [an] obsessive interest over something,” Gilliland said. “No matter how that interest is viewed by other people, pursuing those hobbies despite potential judgement is what makes nerdy communities so accepting.”
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