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There always has, and I believe always will be, an unattractive social stigma attached to being a Nerd. Society has often shunned these usually misunderstood peoples as being Shy, anti-social, obsessive weirdoes who lack a focused life-goal and strong work ethic. They are looked down upon as being sluggish oafs who simply do not belong with the crowd, no matter what that crowd may be.

Before I continue any further, allow me to explain to you exactly what I believe a Nerd to be.

A nerd is somebody who will hawk a videogame website on a daily basis, just hoping for that one time he or she will log on and read HALO 3 PREVIEW: Will Halo 3 be the greatest installment yet? Read our highly in-depth preview to find out. [Oh man, I kind of get all tingly all over just thinking about it].

A nerd is that guy who knows not only the lyrics, but also choreography of both Knights of the Round Table and The Manly Men songs.

A nerd is the single nicest, considerate, and consistently helpful individual you could ever meet. Well never exclude you from our Counter-Strike LAN Parties, wed never consider leaving you out of a discussion of Light/Dark side powers while waiting in line for the next installment of Star Wars, and were always there with a smile on our faces and a controller in our hands, just ready to whoop some monkey-a** at some Marvel vs Capcom.

A nerd will not sleep with your girlfriend/boyfriend.

However, what truly stands as the most shining paragon of nerdiness, the one facet of this lifestyle that stands as the benchmark of the nerds character, is their immovable and unerring dedication to being Just another nerd. To further support my argument, I would like to display to the world the following philosophy, which is a code by which every nerd lives by in his or her own unique fashion,

There is but one goal in life, and that is to be as happy as possible, with only one exception: This happiness cannot interfere with another beings state of happiness.

Now that you fully understand just what a nerd is, it is time that I take the cards you have so painstakingly set up concerning your opinion of these misinterpreted persons and strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger. The first thought that always crosses mind when discussing nerds would easily be their life. To be more precise, societys idea concerning their lack there-of. Ive heard it before, Well, at least I have a life/girlfriend/friends! So, because I happen to enjoy videogames more then the other guy, or because a good time with me is watching re-runs of Star Trek with the mute on so that me and my friends may ad-lib the lines in a humorous manner, or even because I opted to stay home one night to play online Co-Op Smash TV on XBL, I dont have a life? Wrong.

I DO NOT LIVE YOUR LIFESTYLE, AND QUITE FRANKLY, I DO NOT WANT TO.

I am capable of showing a girl to a homemade romantic candle-lit dinner just as capable as I am of taking her to play Laser Tag and blowing 40 dollars worth of quarters at an arcade. To me, either situation is equally appealing. Simply because I have a poster featuring Solid Snake adorned with a crocodile cap creeping through a swamp posted proudly upon the most visible position on the western wall of my room does not mean that I am no stranger to any situation, especially to that of a woman. I can flirt, woo, seduce, and ******** just as good if not better then you. My 100 uper Mario 64 completion has no deterrence on this fact.

[I apologize for the temperamental presentation of the prior segment, but as a nerd, I have to struggle to prove to people, particularly girls, that I can be romantic and sexy, while also being one hell of a Super Smash Bros contender, without either one of these displays of character clashing].

So you probably would like to ask, Why do you liken yourself to these sorts of activities even though you are often chastised for indulging in them? The answer is very, very simple. I ENJOY THEM. The nerd culture provides such an immense intellectual and personal stimulation that I could not help but be lulled by its ironic sense of comforting, forgiving, and often times humorous presentation. Even if we are perceived as being anti-social trolls, I would never even consider living by any other code then by that of a nerd. This convenient segue also resurrects another smelly stigma, the anti-social tendencies of nerds. Individuals with severe depression or public anxiety are anti-social, not the chubby guy wearing the 1-Up shirt chatting up with the manager at EBGames. Also, despite popular belief, nerds are not afraid to try new things, even in social settings. Granted, although I do often times revert to armchair warfare with a few of my pals, I would never refuse the opportunity to expand my horizons and broaden my own knowledge of the world around me, whether Im being treated to a metal/ska/punk/whatevertheHell concert, a romantic date, or even an alcohol-fueled party. I, as a true card-carrying nerd, would never refuse the opportunity to try something foreign, and any other fellow nerd would never allow the thought of doubt to cross his or her mind when this opportunity reveals itself along the winding path of life. Everything in life has its own quirkiness to it, and any nerd can see the beauty in the oddity of all things, and to discover this beauty, we must not be afraid to seek it. When a nerd has accepted this philosophy, he or she is truly then personally free of all negativity that society staples on to the proud and honorable title of Nerd.


We do not wish to enforce our way upon society, yet ask only that society accepts us as we come, for we could never jeopardize our unmistakable and unchangeable lifestyle. It is in this that the truth of a nerds character is revealed. A nerd is made not when he hits a new Pac-Man high score, nor when he has finished watching Office Space for the 100th time, or even when he has finally found Issue #1. A nerd is created through all of the personal, mental, and emotional choices and actions that have lead up to those aforementioned achievements. Nerd is not a culture, nerd is a lifestyle, and I am here to say to the world, Hello Planet Earth, I am a nerd.

GO NERDS AND GEEKS!!

Some of the only nice guys I know are geeks. They're actually cooler than the guys who aren't, because I can get them to talk about Star Trek vs. Star Wars, and who would win in an epic battle of the Empire vs. The Borg. (I still don't know who to root for . . .)

many huggles and glomples to all the geeks in the entire world from me, because there's just no substitution. 4laugh

I make a point of dating geeks and nerds exclusively. Basically my group at school.

Oh my. That sent me into giggling fits.

It's positivley true, your work is. For me, I am the epitome of a person who 'hawks' video game websites and prays for some new details about it.

The only real problem I have is that it turns into a, "I can prove [etc.]" type thing.

The Bookwyrm already hit on a few key points. You'll definitely want to take care of those minor technical details ("wed" for example). While I did enjoy the diction, and the message was over-all positive, the piece seems to be overly generalized when it comes to social stereotypes. I know quite a few nerds who were quite jaded and annoyingly pompus, capable of being very vile towards though they didn't like for whatever reason. Still, the piece did plaster a grin across my outcast face. Memories of high school went drifting out through my old mind....

Anyway, as a 1 part geek, 1 part nerd, and all parts driftin' rogue, I love any piece that speaks about nerd-pride. Good job, all around.

This guild is about your writings, not about your opinions, correct? <.<;;

I am proud to say that I live a sub-nerd of many kinds... I am a Gamer (including D&D), I am a Fantasy Writer (I create my OWN damn worlds to "live" in), and I am a part of the SCA, a medieval reenactment group that does swordfights in full plate armor and EVERYTHING.

I have a ring of friends who are almost exactly the same. Not one of them is the fat guy in the 1-up T-shirt. Two of them have girlfriends, I'm asking a girl out tomorrow to a comedy club, and we are all pretty good-looking. We can like and ask out a girl, we can have fun with all kinds of sports, yet at the same time be mapping out an EPIC D&D campaign, and planning our next Lan.

Nerds have had a general stereotype of being easy to steal money from and beat up. None of myself and my friends are living up to that. The biggest school a*****e threw a punch at my best friend, the Nerd ringleader, as you could say, our DM. He grabbed the punch in midair like so many kinds of martial artist, and began to CHOKE the dickhead with his own damn arm. It looked so COOL, and yet, he just told the a*****e VERY carefully, "You do NOT want to fight with me." And then he kicked the guy away, and he hasn't bugged one of us since.

I hope that by the time I'm in college, the Nerd stereotype will no longer be that of the pimple-faced, glasses-wearing, white collared t-shirt wearing, pocket protecting, shirt-tucked-in, social reject of the school. I hope it's like what you, me, and my friends are.

It's a little strange that you're telling people not to reject your lifestyle while you openly yell about how you don't want their's (shortly thereafter saying that you're open to all new things), and also rejecting theirs. I see where you're coming from, and I've been through a similar experience (I'm not a nerd, but I'm an anti-fascist communist skinhead intellectual who used to suffer from severe depression and bi-polar disorder as well as pretty awful anger issues), and I get the feeling, but, while I sympathize with you, you seem to be doing what you say you hate. You're glorifying your own lifestyle and beliefs over those of other people and rejecting their lifestyle and beliefs. Isn't that what you want people to stop doing to nerds? I understand how you feel, but it's generally best to either preach what you do or do what you preach, dig?