Lately, nerds have been enjoying some good press. Video games, once the exclusive domain of the young nerd, have been growing in audience and scope for years. Even frat boys play video games, and not the academic honors frats– think Animal House types. Admittedly, they only play Madden and Call of Duty, but it’s a start.
Then there’s Big Bang Theory, which shows that even nerds can have interactions with females (it helps that the show is really good, and by network TV standards it’s downright excellent). Nerdcore, a new type of rap, lets rappers talk about stuff they wouldn’t normally like computer programming and such. It’s not very good, considering that all of the songs sound like Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” cranked up to 11. But still, it’s out there and it’s fashionable.
Even regular rappers like Kid Cudi can be seen sporting huge nerdlike aviator glasses that used to get kids like me beat up in school and picked last in gym class. People who comment on pop culture call this whole trend “nerd chic.” This term is bad and they should feel bad. Call it what it is: nerds have become marketable.
So while it’s nice to see that kids who decided to study Latin of their own free will are finally getting some fair treatment in pop culture, it isn’t all giggles and roses across the board for nerds. We’re being ruthlessly exploited by that oh-so-cool and disinterested subculture known as the hipster. [editor's emphasis]
There is some overlap between the two categories, of course. Hipsters worth their salt will deny being hipsters, and nerds that are trapped in the middle of the lean years of nerdery like say, middle and high school will desperately try proving that they aren’t nerds after all. Plus if you’re a music nerd you’ll have something else in common with the average Parliament smoking vinyl fetishist living in Williamsburg. But everything else that nerds have in common with hipsters has been taken over in the name of that transient quality known as “cool” and its sister attribute, “irony.” Of course their obsession with everything retro doesn’t hurt, since old cartridge games and systems are indestructible and gamers go back to them all the time.
I’m currently waiting for hipsters to move onto the next trend so I can go back to playing Mario 3 and Zero Wing in peace. But… what if they don’t? The nerd gravy train isn’t new, people have been using it for years. Now that nerds are cool (never did I think anyone would say that with a straight face), everyone wants to cash in. And hipsters are no exception. Big glasses (even if they’re fake), cult movies, old video games and 8-bit music are now officially co-owned by too-cool-for-school twentysomethings. Witness the rapid rise to fame of Crystal Castles, who got big using 8-bit synth. Though like true hipsters they’ve grown out of 8-bit already, spurning that which made them famous.
The next time you’re approached by a hipster, there are a bunch of different things they might talk to you about. But if they want to shoot the shit about old nerd favorites, you might want to brush up on your Mystery Science Theater 3000, just in case.
