Gnostalgia

This week's podcast of This American Life starts with a rant by Ira Glass about nerds--rather, about people who claim to be nerds. People who did not live their lives in anticipation of the next beating. People who did not cringe whenever a popular member of the opposite sex opened their mouth, knowing that they only words that could possibly come out of their mouth would be an insult to your sexuality.

It reminded me of when I was a teenager watching "Happy Days" with my dad. He watched it for a while and said that kids who had greasy hair, rode motorcycles and raced old cars on remote unfinished stretches of I-94 were not considered "cool" in the fifties and early sixties. In reality they were social pariahs who did not get dates with pretty girls. Danny Zuko and the Fonz were pure products of the '70s.

So here's the deal:

• If when walking down the hall, you didn't constantly brace yourself for a physical or verbal attack, you were not a nerd.
• If you never sat alone or in a small cluster of rejects at a mostly empty table during lunch, you were not a nerd.
• If you didn't have friends who shunned you when other kids were around, you were not a nerd.
• If you didn't get segregated into special "gifted" classes (they caught me in 3rd grade baby), you were not a nerd.
  
• If you ever catch yourself fondly saying "those were the days", you were not a nerd.
• If you ever, ever got laid, you were not a nerd (exceptions only in the case of a partner with an obvious physical deformity).


• Bonus points if you showered in your underwear.

Frankly I think that the word "nerd" has lost all meaning. This leaves me to wonder exactly what term is now used for actual weird kids with few social skills? I know they still exist, I see them slinking down the corridors and huddling in small groups when I'm doing site visits on my school projects. I don't see any hot chicks like the one pictured above hanging around the three geeks (one of whom looks, and sounds, disturbingly like Craig Finn) I see gathered around a laptop computer every afternoon at 3:00 in the North Central cafeteria. I severely doubt that high math scores and D&D skills are now a status symbol in our public educational institutions.