Uber-nerd Paul Graham on why nerds are unpopular…
“Nerds serve two masters. They want to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart. And popularity is not something you can do in your spare time. … An American teenager may work at being popular every waking hour, 365 days a year … Nerds don’t realize this. They don’t realize that it takes work to be popular.”
by dp
29 Nov 2006 at 21:00
That’s journalism for ya: ever biased in favour of popularity over intelligence…
It would be nice if they rephrased the question as: ‘why popular people are so dumb’.
by dp
29 Nov 2006 at 21:00
Erm, statement, not question.
by site admin
01 Dec 2006 at 00:39
Ah, but he’s not a journalist. That’s what makes it worth linking to. He’s speaking from experience as a LISP programmer, language designer, the co-founder of Viaweb, the inventor of Bayesian spam filters, and so on.
by dp
01 Dec 2006 at 13:17
In other words, he’s speaking as a fully-fledged nerd/geek? And writing about it as though he’s had some sort of Damascene conversion, ‘seen the light’ and now understands things from the popular point of view?
All of that could be true/valid, but it doesn’t change the way it fits ito a larger pattern of journalistic stereotyping. Regardless of his own perspective, and the credibility of his opinion, it still fits into a wider pattern of one-sided potrayals. It’s a lot like the conventional wisdom that every sterotype has a kernel of truth. It may be a valid conclusion, but it does little to assist in getting past the stereotypes in other respects.
by dp
16 Dec 2006 at 01:23
This just in: a more personal view on a similar topic, and which is more persuasive than the Graham article.
How to Nework: For Introverts
For example: ‘In engineering school, I was fine. Engineering classes aren’t particularly interactive, and in study groups, we only spoke when needed.’ This sounds like the kind of thing Graham regards as nerd culture, but Robert May puts it in a way that makes more sense from within the culture. He also approaches the idea of networking (gaining popularity) in a way that’s understandable from that cultural perspective. I’m much happier with May’s story than Graham’s.