Nerdiness

As you might have realised, I post usually on Mondays on this blog. However, I recently had a discussion with an old friend of mine about nerdiness so I thought I should share some of my thoughts on the subject with you. It is a subject that matters a lot to me and this post will contain personal experience to an extent that I will probably not be sharing so much in other posts.

I have always been a nerd! To me, that means that I can care to much and be very passionate about different things. It can be anything from a particular subject to a film I have seen. Today I am very proud of my nerdiness and of the subjects I am passionate about. The ones I have at the moment, can be seen in the picture above:

• Horrible Histories
• Osteology (symbolised by the skull of Sweden's national saint Erik, since today is his death day)
• the Vasa family (symbolised with the princess and pirate Cecilia Vasa)
• Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 
• Archaeology/History (since my main research interest involves the Early Middle Ages in Northern Europe it is symbolised with a picture of the mounds in Gamla Uppsala, Sweden)
• Yonderland.

The discussion I had with my friend got me thinking a lot about the social stigma that still exists around nerds and nerdiness. My friend seems to have her first ever experience of nerdiness, finding a subject that has really swept her away and consumed her. However she seems both scared and embarrassed by her passion. I find this very sad even though a small part of me still have somewhat of an understanding for her feelings.

I grew up in a small town and was the only nerd in my class. I got passionate about different things all the time and I did not exactly know how to handle all the feelings I had. This made me appear quite odd and I realised I could not talk about my passions or feelings as much as I wanted to with anyone of my classmates. (Part of why I started this blog is actually so I would finally have a forum where I can talk all about my nerdiness without someone getting angry.)

When I grew up, during the 1990's, there were not that many role models for nerds. On TV and films the nerds were usually depicted as ugly boys with thick glasses who never got any friends or girlfriends (even though they can be described as over-sexual). They were seldom the main focus of the show or film. Just side-characters who's only purpose were to be ridiculed by the audience. There are exceptions to this i.e. Carlton in Fresh Prince in Bel Air and Stig-Helmer Olsson in the Swedish Sällskapsresan films. The former is actually a pretty good depiction of a real-life nerd, because the writers did not exaggerate his nerdiness. The latter is exaggerated in his nerdiness, but I think he still works better because he gets to be the main focus of the Sällskapsresan films and even though he is a dork, neither of the six films limits the things he can do. He also always gets the girl at the end!

Girl-nerds were (and still are) not as common in the 1990's. The only two I can recall at the moment is Laney from She's all that and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Neither of them have the same problem as the male nerdy characters. They are not as "in your face" with their nerdiness. In fact, it is not even expressed. Laney in the beginning of the film is deeper then most characters and the problems I have with her have more to do with the fact that the film's theme is all about changing her so she can be popular. This more or less just because a man wants to win a bet. (I know Zack changes a lot as well, but it is still not a good message for nerdy girls.) Sabrina is actually a pretty good portrayal of the nerd. Mainly because her nerdiness is not her main (or only) trait. She is multi-faceted, smart, funny and has both friends and a boyfriend even if it is pointed out that she is not part of the popular crowd, but placed in the group of freaks.(The boys called nerds are as stereotypical depicted as all the other male nerds from the 90's.)

In later years we have had shows like The Big Bang Theory which gives a much more varied and better depiction of nerds than other shows. I love the show, but I think it is sad that the female charcters on the show is not allowed to be as "nerdy" as the boys. Sure Amy Farrah Fawler is quite nerdy, but none of the girls actually engage in or even as much as try to understand the whole "nerd culture" with Star Wars, Star Trek, comic books, video games etc.

To me there were two characters who, more than any else, got me proud to be a nerd: Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books and Rory Gilmore of Gilmore Girls. I intend to talk about them much more in other posts, so I do not want to give it all away here. They are not exaggerations of nerdy stereotypes and they are also allowed to be nerdy throughout their plotlines without being ridiculed or having to go through make overs to make them "more pretty" or "popular". They actually seem very confident in their nerdiness. This I think is very important. I think it is great for female nerds to have characters like this who are confident with their nerdiness to look up to. Good role models are a necessit for everyone!