I'm the One That's Cool, and Nerd Bitterness

I don't want to end my streak of random rambling here, so I'll just assume you've all seen Felicia Day's new music video. It's called I'm The One That's Cool.



No, no you're not.

Okay, let me expand a bit more on that. See, from my experience, the lessons nerds are supposed to learn in high school are:

1. High School doesn't really matter and
2. Being cool never mattered

The thing is, that's not what happens. When someone is a geek or nerd or what have you in high school, people don't seem to stress that being cool is actually a pretty stupid goal and you should just do what you enjoy. Instead they keep telling you that all the cool kids are going to have shitty jobs and you're probably going to be their boss. What kind of moral is that?!

It all comes down to Nerd Bitterness. Yeah, high school sucked. High school sucks for everyone. I think too many people who focused on nerdy things back then are just looking around for the chance to turn around and make faces at the "cool kids" because somehow they're better now. Even though the geeks are free from the jocks, they still let jocks who don't even exist anymore define what they do.

Let's assume for a minute it is "cool" to be a nerd now. Well, now everyone's complaining about "fake geek girls". To be honest, I'm not even sure what that really means. I have never met one, but people get really pissed off about it. Does that even happen with anything else? Are there enough people who fake being into football that real football fans start getting angry? Again, we have that Nerd Bitterness here. Instead of just focusing on doing the things they enjoy, nerds are busy policing the bounds of nerdity. "She's not a real geek! She didn't get teased in high school! Let me go ridicule her!” For the longest time, it wasn’t as socially acceptible to be into any of this geeky stuff. Now geeks feel like others have to pay their dues in order to be accepted into the higher echelon of nerdery.

Inside jokes about sci-fi or RPGs used to be ways to feel part of a group, now we’re using them to exclude others from the group. Just like it never mattered who is cool, it does not matter who’s a “real geek”. If anything, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just keep doing what you enjoy and sharing it with others. Trying desperately to make sure everyone’s had a terrible experience being a nerd before you’ll accept them just ruins things for everyone. Besides, if a girl’s willing to fake being into comics for me, I’ll take it. Breaking down the barriers, this is the W Defender.