Funny, I thought escaping in their own private world was not something exclusive to nerds. In fact most people do that. Schoolgirls escape in fantasies about romance. Boys in fantasies about porn. Gamers in virtual reality. Athletes in fantasies about becoming famous in sport. Mathletes—about being famous and successful scientists. Goths—musicians or artists. And so on.
True, not everyone likes to escape in sci-fi or fantasy, but that’s because different minds are attracted by different kinds of things. D&D is a relatively harmless fantasy. I’m not that familiar with it, so I’m not even sure whether it can be used to diagnose “nerds”, but that’s not the point. Correlation is not causation.
Regarding “jerks”, we apparently have disagreement on definitions, so this is an issue not worth pursuing.
My point is that your self-styled definition of a “nerd” is bit ridiculous, as in fact you’re talking about three different groups of people that just happen to be overlapping.
Excellent point. The defining characteristic is here escaping into heroic fantasy. LOTR, Star Wars, Dragonlance Chronicles (in my youth), superhero comics. What does that suggest? A person fantasizing about superpowers does feel disempowered, don’t you think?
Yes, the overlap is an issue, nerds don’t fully self-identify as a group, the Linux guy will not high-five the anime guy saying “we are bros”. It is not really a clearly defined one group. And I am thinking of the second guy.
Funny, I thought escaping in their own private world was not something exclusive to nerds. In fact most people do that. Schoolgirls escape in fantasies about romance. Boys in fantasies about porn. Gamers in virtual reality. Athletes in fantasies about becoming famous in sport. Mathletes—about being famous and successful scientists. Goths—musicians or artists. And so on.
True, not everyone likes to escape in sci-fi or fantasy, but that’s because different minds are attracted by different kinds of things. D&D is a relatively harmless fantasy. I’m not that familiar with it, so I’m not even sure whether it can be used to diagnose “nerds”, but that’s not the point. Correlation is not causation.
Regarding “jerks”, we apparently have disagreement on definitions, so this is an issue not worth pursuing. My point is that your self-styled definition of a “nerd” is bit ridiculous, as in fact you’re talking about three different groups of people that just happen to be overlapping.
Excellent point. The defining characteristic is here escaping into heroic fantasy. LOTR, Star Wars, Dragonlance Chronicles (in my youth), superhero comics. What does that suggest? A person fantasizing about superpowers does feel disempowered, don’t you think?
Yes, the overlap is an issue, nerds don’t fully self-identify as a group, the Linux guy will not high-five the anime guy saying “we are bros”. It is not really a clearly defined one group. And I am thinking of the second guy.
However nerds who suffer are clearer. See: http://www.reddit.com/r/justneckbeardthings/
Focus on the suffering subgroup and you get it clearer.