Thread: Computer Nerd......Oxymoron?

  1. #1
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    6,331

    Computer Nerd......Oxymoron?

    Today i was enjoying my daily routine in class, reading an OpenGL book, and drinking wawa coffee, as i always do when i have free time. Anyway, i am really into this book, so i didn't notice this cute blonde girl staring at me, at first. So i looked up at her, and she starts smiling.

    When i asked her what she was smiling about, she stated, and i quote

    "I never really took you to be a computer nerd."

    I quickly responded with, "I never took you to care.", and the conversation was ended as quickly as it had begun. This doesn't happen often, and normally i would have forgot it even happend by now, but it actually got me to thinking....i know, brace yourself!

    What is a computer nerd in todays day and age? I mean, there is a computer in almost every home, at least one, and almost everyone knows how to at least open AOL or Internet Explorer. Also, those with more than the common knowledge are given high paying or relatively easy jobs. So are we not Technicians? Specialists? Engineers?

    Nerd is to me a word for someone who is considerd an outcast. Nerd was a term associated to the kid who strived to know more, who cut himself off from the world and spent hours in the green glow of his monochrome display in his parents basement all day long. Nerd was a metaphor for those who stood out for their knowledge of what was to come.

    But it seems to me, until today, isn't Nerd a term as obsolete as those technologies it was established alongside of? Is nerd not a word that should hurt the heart of those who now fuel some of the technologies that the name - callers use daily and rely on?

    I'm sorry if i am mistaken, but its in my opinion that the word Nerd has become an oxymoron. An obselete description of those who run the pc world. Now these "nerds" are good looking men and women who go to work in nice cars (for the most part) and help to run this technology-dependent world we have come to rely on!

    Would a jock who slammed "nerds" in lockers refer to a wonderful looking woman behind a laptop as a nerd? Why no, so why us? You rely on us so greatly, we are the future, we are the present, and we are what keep your world going as it does today.

    We are not nerds, we are humans. We are intelligent. And we, above all else, deserve your respect. If i am to be called a nerd, i will wear it proudly.

    I, am an oxymoron.

    [/RANT]

  2. #2
    Just one more wrong move. -KEN-'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    3,227
    >>I, am an oxymoron.

    Maybe if you drop the "oxy" part...

    Poor little blonde girl...you should've at least talked to her...maybe she has a thing for nerds.

  3. #3
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    6,331
    Originally posted by -KEN-
    >>I, am an oxymoron.

    Maybe if you drop the "oxy" part...

    Poor little blonde girl...you should've at least talked to her...maybe she has a thing for nerds.
    i knew i shoulda dropped the ending lol. No she wasn't smiling when she said it, it was kinda a stuck up joke thing, she was laughing at me after she said it.

  4. #4
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
    Vancouver
    Posts
    2,212

    Re: Computer Nerd......Oxymoron?

    Originally posted by RoD
    Anyway, i am really into this book, so i didn't notice this cute blonde girl staring at me, at first. So i looked up at her, and she starts smiling.

    When i asked her what she was smiling about, she stated, and i quote

    "I never really took you to be a computer nerd."

    I quickly responded with, "I never took you to care.",
    Mega. Nobody, not even a pretty female, EVER interrupts computer stuff. It just doesn't happen.

  5. #5
    Unleashed
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Posts
    1,765
    I agree with Brian. I get ........y when people interupt me when I'm troubleshooting.

    Look at it this way...
    You're the president of the united states and you have to solve a world crisis and you ACTUALLY can do something about it personally. You're infact the only man that can. And while you're constructing your battle plan very carefully, your friend walks in asking, "Duuuuude, what topping do you want on your pizza?"

    It's enough to make you want to explode.

    Somebody talking about something irritangly irrelevant when I'm trying to "save the world" (fix my pc problem) is the same thing.
    The world is waiting. I must leave you now.

  6. #6
    I lurk
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Posts
    1,361
    It seems as if you were offended by her comment... I would have taken it lightly and smiled back.

    Hell, if they won't give you the time of day because you're interested in computers... they're simply not worth it.

  7. #7
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    6,331
    Seriously though, don't you guys have any opinion on the user or background of "nerd" and the usage of it?

  8. #8
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    6,331
    Originally posted by Eibro
    It seems as if you were offended by her comment... I would have taken it lightly and smiled back.

    Hell, if they won't give you the time of day because you're interested in computers... they're simply not worth it.
    I'm not so much into her, its the lack of respect for people like us from people who use technology we create reguarly.

  9. #9
    I lurk
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Posts
    1,361
    I prefer not to be called a nerd, but it doesn't bother me as much as it used to. Like "hacker", "nerd" is a term which has lost its true meaning over the years of misuse.

    I see social outcasts every day at school; halfwits sitting in a remote corner of the library discussing h4x0ring at every waking moment. They're the dictionary definition of nerds, not me.

  10. #10
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Posts
    1,640
    I really HATE the word 'nerd' because it's just used for people
    who have developed a keen interest in computers.
    It's really sad kids (take notice of kids because they are the
    only people unadult enough to use this word) make other people
    out for something because theyre different, dumber or even
    smarter! Can you believe you get punished from being smart!
    ITS SICK!

  11. #11
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Posts
    1,109
    [rant]
    yes, I agree. Punished for being smart. So I am interested in computers. Well, when I am older and am successful, I will be thanked for being smart. And when I write the software that saves the world somehow, should I still be punished for being interested in computers. I THINK NOT!

    I also don't like the word nerd. The typical stereotype of a kid with glasses, suspenders, (the steve urkel look) has been belabored way too much. Just because I am into computers, and if you like the stereotype of 'computer nerd', does not mean I don't have a life. I'm at the football games, rock climbing events, and whatever else, but I am also looking towards my future.

    Go ahead and call me a 'computer nerd', but may I also use the typical stereotype of blondes, and interior designers on TLC Trading Spaces. But when I have accomplished the above, I would appreciate the word 'nerd' not having a negative connotation.

    [/rant]

  12. #12
    Evil Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Posts
    638
    D.com says...

    Word History: The word nerd, undefined but illustrated, first appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo: “And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!” (The nerd is a small humanoid creature looking comically angry, like a thin, cross Chester A. Arthur.) Nerd next appears, with a gloss, in the February 10, 1957, issue of the Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday Mail in a regular column entitled “ABC for SQUARES”: “Nerda square, any explanation needed?” Many of the terms defined in this “ABC” are unmistakable Americanisms, such as hep, ick, and jazzy, as is the gloss “square,” the current meaning of nerd. The third appearance of nerd in print is back in the United States in 1970 in Current Slang: “Nurd [sic], someone with objectionable habits or traits.... An uninteresting person, a ‘dud.’” Authorities disagree on whether the two nerdsDr. Seuss's small creature and the teenage slang term in the Glasgow Sunday Mailare the same word. Some experts claim there is no semantic connection and the identity of the words is fortuitous. Others maintain that Dr. Seuss is the true originator of nerd and that the word nerd (“comically unpleasant creature”) was picked up by the five- and six-year-olds of 1950 and passed on to their older siblings, who by 1957, as teenagers, had restricted and specified the meaning to the most comically obnoxious creature of their own class, a “square.”

  13. #13
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    6,331
    >>but may I also use the typical stereotype of blondes, and interior designers on TLC Trading Spaces

    i might use that!

  14. #14
    Microsoft. Who? MethodMan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Posts
    1,198
    >>>>I, am an oxymoron.

    >>Maybe if you drop the "oxy" part...

    LMAO

    I think people consider comp sci students or programmers nerds or geeks because of shows like the Simpsons. When Homer goes back to college and gets help from the nerds. So people think thats how all people who study computer related topics are like.

    There are people who fit this sterotype, because they live and breathe computers. If you are doing nothing else besides sitting at a computer every spare moment you have, what are people supposed to call you besides NERD!
    -MethodMan-

    Your Move:Life is a game, Play it; Life is a challenge, Meet it; Life is an opportunity, capture it.

    Homepage: http://www.freewebs.com/andy_moog/home.html

  15. #15
    Funniest man in this seat minesweeper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Posts
    798
    I think the term 'nerd' is a defence mechanism. People who haven't got a clue about computers see the world (with computers) racing away from them and they know they are being left behind. So they have to invent a derogatory (sp?) term for anyone who is interested in and good with computers.

    I mean people call Bill Gates a nerd cos he spent so much of his young life playing with computers. But if you look at someone who is equally successful, but at sport, like David Beckham. He used to eat, sleep and **** football. There was a program on about him as a youngster and ALL he ever did was play or watch football, even when his mates were in the pub. But no-one thinks of Beckham as a nerd.

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 34
    Last Post: 02-26-2006, 01:16 PM
  2. Major Computer Problem
    By Olidivera in forum Tech Board
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 07-15-2005, 11:15 AM
  3. Tabbed Windows with MDI?
    By willc0de4food in forum Windows Programming
    Replies: 25
    Last Post: 05-19-2005, 10:58 PM
  4. Computer will not boot.
    By RealityFusion in forum Tech Board
    Replies: 25
    Last Post: 09-10-2004, 04:05 PM
  5. "Stips" on computer? (a boring story)
    By napkin111 in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 05-22-2002, 07:26 AM