[Ymir's blood]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I don't really understand those terms, except in a really general way. I get what nerd means, pretty much, in that it's someone who has an intense interest in a specific topic, but it seems like everyone is probably a nerd of something, so it's mostly a temporal and context-specific thing.

While I've seen some attempts to assign different definitions to 'nerd' and 'geek,' at root they're the same thing. As to an exact definition of what that thing is, well that's harder to come up with. Generally speaking, the 'intense interest' thing tends to be towards something that isn't considered mainstream or normal. However, it could go beyond that to include normal pursuits taken to a deeper level - someone who obsessively memorizes baseball stats for instance. For the most part, it's the former definition that is the most commonly used.

There is also the perception that a geek lacks social skills, dresses oddly or 'square.' That may be true, or they may just lack a desire to conform to trends and/or be introverted.

Geeks I'm even less sure about. I am not one, except in the literal Nightmare Alley sense that I am a broken hull of a human, reduced to smearing myself with excrement and biting the heads off chickens in exchange for some straw to sleep on and some grain alcohol to keep the tremens at bay.

I was trying to avoid that definition in respect for one of our esteemed admins.

But yeah, why is that resentment almost always targeted at girls? There are probably at least as many poseur boys out there.

Besides the obvious misogyny angle, it makes me wonder why society seems to intent on ascribing attention seeking to people who deviate from the norm.

It's an image that says "Nerd Girl Problem #138 The madness you experience when you're waiting for the next book in your series to come out," and someone with a ladyname commented, "All the girls I see who do this are slow. In no way are they "nerds" except for in the bad way."

My guess is that it is a slam on the fandom of Twilight and possibly Harry Potter as well. I seem to recall stories in the media about fans camping out and whatnot for those series. It's kind of an elitism thing, I guess.