Geek Cred

April 28th, 2008Blog2 comments

Why is there now a certain subset of ladies that find nerds attractive? When did this happen? Apparently it’s something occurring in popular culture. Maybe nerds are more widespread due to the proliferation of FotC, anime, video games and technology.

Example: I’m talking to a friend of mine about Star Trek for this project and I mention that Grand Theft Auto is coming out and I have it pre-ordered. And she starts giggling. And not giggling in the way that I would giggle at a train wreck — this was “that is adorable” giggling.

There’s been some kind of sea change here. It’s weird and scary.

I think a lot of it has to do with accessibility. Nerds aren’t just basement dwellers anymore. There are good looking nerds. Good looking, mainstream people like video games and BSG. Everybody has to deal with computers now, so people who know more about them aren’t perceived as being arcane and slobbery — unless they’re into Linux or something.

It’s not that the core material (video games, computers, comic books, etc.) is nerdy — it’s that the population that embraces such material has gone from being nerdy to mainstream. That population has grown up, and all of those things have grown up with them.

There is still something fucked up about a girl playing video games though. I don’t think it’s a sexist thing in me — I don’t think it’s a exclusively male activity. I just think that if I’m with you, I don’t want to sit around playing video games.

I want to go do something.