People have splintered off so much into their own personal choices that almost nobody's favorite entertainment list matches anyone else's. Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Be smart. Posted by 6 hours ago. Stupidity is dangerous.”. So I just think [it’s] an individual difference that should be respected.”. This story has been shared 126,460 times. Nerds don't even dress like nerds these days. 27 million Americans pore over stats and tables every week to try to get the edge in their fantasy football leagues. “I think people find it startling because very high IQ people are a minority group in society who are very much ignored, they’re not understood and largely neglected,” she said. Cracked is published by Literally media Ltd.. You couldn't print your own records and mail them to everyone in the country. “Better build a hundred prisons more. “Geek chic is a ‘thing,’ people want to be them now, if someone attempts to use that as an insult today it is laughable. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Calling people a 'nerd' and 'geek' should be classed as a hate crime, an academic has said after studying the impact of bullying on high IQ children. Go figure. Nerds were supposed to be people on the outside that just couldn't get in. Those people are really annoying, but in fighting them, what are you really holding on to? Hobbies. That's been a part of what "nerd" means ever since people started using that word. Dr Sonja Falck is calling for words like 'nerd' or 'boffin' to be considered a hate crime, much like racism or sexism. Won't someone think of the dorks and dweebs? What does “nerd” actually mean? A UK psychology professor argued in a television show that calling someone a nerd is sort of a hate crime. 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A lot of people these days, though, are turning it into an exclusive club they won't let the outside world get into. What the hell? 2019 There’s a famous plotline in Looney Tunes in which Wile E. Coyote, on a constant yet ultimately futile quest to catch the elusive Road Runner, paints a fake tunnel on the side of the mountain. December 19, 2019 | 2:17pm | Updated December 19, 2019 | 3:18pm. For more from Christina, check out 6 Groups Who Don't Work as Movie Bad Guys Anymore and 5 Reasons The War Between Dog and Cat People Needs to Stop. They want terms such as egghead and brainiac to be criminalised under hate speech laws. report. Dr. Sonja Falck, also a psychology lecturer at the University of East London, appeared on “Good Morning Britain” alongside Bobby Seagull, a mathematician, teacher and writer who describes himself as a “proud geek.”. Even the most jockish of hobbies, sports, is full of nerds now, with hosts of companies using mathematical models and statistical analysis to help teams scout, probably made most famous through baseball's Sabermetrics, a mathematical approach to the game that co-starred with Brad Pitt in Moneyball. it was about calling somebody uncool. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a nerd, but if it pisses you off when people call you one, try a few of our great comebacks below. A professor claimed that calling someone a "nerd" or a "geek" should be a hate crime because the terms can be used to bully intelligent people. My friends always use "nerd" to describe an intelligent person, but when I searched its meaning online, I found that it's not really a good word. People who are crazy about some sci-fi series or comic book often call themselves "nerds" based just on that. Nerd - Tech and Science Tips, Reviews, News And More. There's a number of hobbies that have traditionally been associated with "nerdism," like ham radio, chess, bottlecap collecting and making scale models of anything. If someone is going to judge you for knowing the eye color of every incarnation of the Flash, you can point out their glass house of running a website to track Arnold Schwarzenegger's height. Privacy Notice Smarts have been associated with nerds from the beginning, describing people who would rather be studying than partying. A lot of people want to claim the actual origin now that it's a cool word, but all the claims agree (ironically?) Over time, name-calling and other insults can slowly eat away at … Does anyone consider Gordon Ramsay a nerd? In an episode shot in December, the University of East London lecturer Dr Sonja Falck claimed that 'anti IQ insults' can have detrimental effects on people that could last a lifetime. " Being called a geek is an insult, being called a nerd is a compliment. Jimi Hendrix? In most areas of society, people aren't rejected just for being smart anymore. Close. Commenters on the “Good Morning Britain” Twitter page largely shot down Falck’s argument. While playing a high school dropout, Henry Winkler himself had a bachelor's as well as a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama. Usually one calls someone else a nerd as an insult. Erodes a Victim’s Sense of Self. If the guy that used to taunt you for playing video games is now wearing an ironic Valve trucker hat and chest-thumping to all his buddies about his kill counts and epic teabaggings and the booth babes he scored with at E3, you would understandably not want to chat with him about which Portal shirt would look cooler on him. Kids that dream of "showing everybody" so that "they'll be sorry" someday often dream of hacking their way to the top with a brilliant computer idea. Can't say I get it, but this is what the people want ... ed for like two months. Last edited on Jan 11 2011. But if everybody is a nerd, can anybody still be a nerd? People being smart doesn't make them outcasts anymore, it makes them popular and successful, and enough people have carved out that path that we don't even need to wait until they become rich and famous to accept them. “While the term geek and nerd has historically been seen as being negative, people have now embraced the term and seen it as positive,” he explained. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. This was literally true at the dawn of television broadcasting, and stayed relatively true through the '70s, when nine out of 10 American viewers only watched shows on one of the Big Three networks on any given evening. Sitemap Specifically, being a nerd is defined as “a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious”. This story has been shared 167,092 times. We've Learned How Ancient Greek Music Sounded (And It Goes Hard), 4 Reasons the Guy Who Runs CNN is a Supervillain (Basically), Brands ... Leave The Slacktivism To Your Personal Accounts. On the program, Falck suggested that ridiculing someone with those two terms — and others like “brainiac” and “egghead” — should have legal consequences. If his pupils are dilating, gently (subtly!) Also he figured out how to look up porn on the school computers. Dr Sonja Falck thinks 'divisive and humiliating' anti-IQ insults can have negative effects that last a … By almost anyone's definition, part of being a nerd is that regular people look down on you. This is almost the opposite of what nerds were originally supposed to be. People at the time did not picture these things making them into sexy billionaires. If you cared about a specific game or Star Trek series before everybody jumped on board, sure, maybe you want to cling onto your loyal fan badge for that particular thing, but protecting the "nerd" label itself? You have to give these people credit for not going with the predictable Han/Leia match-up like all the other Star Wars weddings. And apparently old people are really digging the Wii. Or if it's hard to define a nerd by what they like these days, how … pic.twitter.com/4woAjRFJWf, — Good Morning Britain (@GMB) December 19, 2019. A year later, Newsweek reported on nerd’s popularity with slang-slinging youth of the day: “… someone who once would be called a drip or a square is now, regrettably, a nerd.” The problem with the Seuss origin theory is that it’s very unlikely teens (who probably weren’t reading Seuss) picked up the word and used it so much that it became a national story—in only a year. 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