In light of the Cosplay Appreciation Day kerfuffle we covered this morning, now seems like a good time to revisit the "Idiot Nerd Girl" meme. It started last year as a way to insult women who refer to themselves as nerds but aren't nerdy enough or nerdy in the right way or whatever, a reflection of a pervasive stereotype in geek culture which ticks me off. Why would it matter if someone wants to identify as a nerd, and why am I not surprised there isn't a similarly-popular image macro accusing men of exaggerating their nerd cred?
Then something awesome happened. Dark Horse Comics editor Rachel Edidin staged a "cheerful coup" to overrun the Quickmeme page for the Idiot Nerd Girl with image macros written from the perspective of a Genuinely Nerdy Girl who's tired of being automatically labelled a poser just for being female. Now a majority of the newest pictures at Quickmeme are of this type, and I f--king love it.
Our 25 favorite examples of the reappropriated Idiot Nerd Girl meme are collected here. All pictures via Rachel Edidin, The Mary Sue, and Quickmeme.
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Wow I didn’t know this was a thing to diss women who considered themselves nerds. I mean, I agreed with the FilmDrunk post about female celebrities trying to portray themselves as nerds as a cheap way of drawing attention to the movie she’s in, but the average woman calling herself a nerd? What an odd thing to get heated about.
Basically, lady cosplayers show up to cons, some male nerds feel threatened by the display of sexuality (whether overt or nonexistent), and then go completely off the rails about how they’re posers who are only there to make fun of the “real” nerds….because insecurity is the fault of random women present. I mean, naturally.
I think I agree with this, unfortunately the pandering female celebrity “fake” nerd (not that we can even know this for sure) is bleeding into regular people (male AND female) looking for attention via the same method. I think my bigger issue is more of a jealous one in that nerd seems to be a term of endearment now for girls, so guys who were previously belittled for being “nerds” are just called different names that I don’t care to repeat.
the 2nd one is true, she is gonna steal my light with her void.
I´ve read and enjoyed cerebus in its 300 issues glory and i like it.
I’m still waiting for Dave Sim to say the words “precious bodily fluids.”
Come on, Dave. Go full Ripper on us.
So, after getting upset over nonsense, she gets upset and writes more nonsense. Moral of the story: Women be shoppin’
George Carlin once opined “Women are crazy, and men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.”
You want upset ladies to quit writing nonsense? Stop spouting it yourselves.
These are fantastic.
Well I’m sorry, but all this comic reading is getting in the way of their baby makin’. I just can’t allow it.
But in all honesty if a girl claims she is a nerd then more power to her. I try to hide my nerdiness, and I’m a dude. But to be fair I don’t know how far I’d get in my job if I wore my Superman tie everywhere.
I love dudes who talk about how much nerdary they’re into.
When the nerdary is Call of Duty and Batman movies.
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Enough drama guys — WE NOW LIVE IN WORLD WHERE CUTE GIRLS WANT TO BE LIKE US. This is good. Who’s up for a hot co-ed Settlers of Catan party?
Things were much simpler when all us poindexters had to worry about were the guys in the Alpha Beta house.
I have no problem with Geeky girls, they’ve always been around (if you know where to look), however most people identify geeks and nerds by certain traits, being extremely attractive is not one of them. That being said, if you’re more bod than brains on any account, then expect some flack. I celebrate the increasing “geekyness” of the world… but don’t expect me to respect you if you broadcast the message “I get by on my looks alone” on every subconscious (and more than a few conscious) wavelengths.
This.
Misogyny in nerd circles does not surprise me, but I do get annoyed how everyone claims to be a “nerd” these days. I dabble in a lot of “nerdy” things in that I casually enjoy Magic: The Gathering and reading Batman graphic novels. I’m sure a lot of people who know me would classify me as one, but I don’t identify as a “nerd.”
One of my biggest peeves at the moment is when people claim to be nerdy or geeky because they like Star Wars. Star Wars has pretty much always been mainstream and having seen the movies and liked them does not make you a quirky outcast. The real nerds are the ones who entered fetal position upon hearing the Ep. 7/Disney news. Seeing the prequels for said nerds was like being sent to Uncle Touchy’s Naked Puzzle Basement. Not only do they reject the idea that Episode 7 might just turn out awesome (who knows?), they fear the idea of new Star Wars anything altogether. They fear getting hurt again. These nerds would vow to never see anything Star Wars ever again if it guaranteed no more Star Wars ever. Think about that level of reverence and adoration for a minute. Long-dead European philosophers could write essays about it.
Long rant short, thinking Empire Strikes Back was good does not make you a nerd.
Actually, anyone who wants to call themselves a nerd can be one. There’s no benchmark to hit, no test to pass, no club to join … and that’s the entire point of the meme … if someone wants to identify as nerd, what’s the harm? If you are shallow and insecure enough to feel that whatever group you self-identify with isn’t exclusive enough, then feel free to start your own group — maybe you can call yourself a nerdhipster? //was nerd before it was cool?
Nerd or no nerd, those glasses are trbl. I’d hate the person who wore those no matter what was going on in their pants or how attractive they were overall.
“Why would it matter if someone wants to identify as a nerd”
When you claim to be an expert about something then of course you’re going to get made fun of if you know very little about it. It’s like claiming to be a scientist and bragging about it to your friends and random strangers then getting upset when someone points out your limited high school knowledge of science.
Also “Geek Culture” is a terrible phrase and needs to die. You can be a geek about anything from comic books to dinosaurs only idiots think it means sci-fi and fantasy shit.
How is being a nerd “being an expert at something”? Scientist – profession. Nerd – vague description. See the difference?
How is being a nerd “being and expert about something”? A scientist is a profession that has education and professional requirements. A nerd is a vague description of a personality type. Apples and oranges
A better analogy would be someone claiming to be way into sports and then saying… I dunno, that Kurt Warner was great in Star Trek VI and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2.
At any rate, you’re missing the point, which is that so many male nerds presuppose that females can’t be nerds, and require them to pass some sort of litmus test, and then react with absurd vitriol if the female in question makes the slightest error. Example: I was watching a video review of Binary Domain by Morgan Webb on YouTube awhile back, and a guy tossed the old “not even a gamer” bit at her (and called her a cunt, to boot), simply because she referred to the enemies from Gears of War as aliens (which they apparently aren’t, I guess).
To me the real issue is trying to label yourself. It’s obnoxious. Just do your own thing. If other people want to pigeonhole you, that’s their business, but you don’t need to take that task on yourself.
Your mobile site is fucking useless. Touching anywhere on the screen switches over to the next article when I’m just trying to do stuff like look at the next pic in the slide show or scroll down.
Seriously, why even bother?
But… the problem with the girl in the meme is how obvious she’s trying to portray herself as a nerd. I’ve known girls who were “nerds” and they don’t purposely seek out big frame glasses and write “nerd” on their hands. That goes for guys who go for the “nerd” style as well.
Kids who had to wear big framed glasses HATED those glasses. We grew up to get contacts or regular sized glasses.
This girl took a picture of herself with those glasses on and “nerd” on her hand to play on a passing fad. I’ll be the people who created this meme were girls. Most of my friends have been girls – girls who were considered “nerds” or “losers” or “freaks” – and I’ve seen the way they reacted to “cool” or “popular” girls trying to loosely mimic a subculture through style. In this case, big glasses.
“I’ll be” should have been “I’ll bet”
I get annoyed at people who are “ZOMG I’M NERDY LOLZ” but I hate…HATE snobby nerds/geeks/dorks/fuck if I care. WOW I NEED TO BE IN AWE OF YOUR NERDINESS. YOU ARE SO FUCKING COOL.
And the self-entitlement OH GAWD THE SELF ENTITLEMENT. I’m not gonna cite cases because this has been documented elsewhere. That gets me the most. It’s an ugly byproduct of the snobbishness.
Ugggggghh
/goes back to watching Classic Doctor Who
Can “Congratulations you just became the people who harassed you in High School” become a slogan? That feels completely accurate.
A few of these are a little too much like plain ol’ sassy rejoinders in conversation, which sort of misses the point of being a meme. Calling them fake wouldn’t really make much sense, I guess, but they’re certainly not doing it right. And that’s most likely due to the fact that they’re women, as opposed to just-not-particularly-funny people (hey, what’s the difference, am I right?). Kitchen, sandwich, etc.
That was supposed to be ironic; not sure I nailed it. Though I wasn’t kidding about a few of these being duds. Most of them are excellent, however. The “not even a real x” shit really needs to stop. Maybe if we weren’t so fucking exclusionary about it, these “faker” neophytes would have a better chance at actually, genuinely getting into some of the things we like. It’s something we profess to want and yet seem to put a lot of effort into preventing.
There may be a legitimate reason for wearing such glasses: If her eyesight is bad enough, wearing lenses that large will increase her line of sight, whereby small lenses would limit her peripheral vision. Also, the frames may be so thick and dark so that she may find them easily when she is not wearing them.
But if it is the case that her eyesight is that bad, she likely would wear contact lenses, assuming she has no sort of condition to prevent her from wearing contacts.
Or maybe she is just wearing tacky glasses. Who knows.
I’ve been thinking about this meme, and why I disliked the “idiot nerd girl” type. For me, at least, it boils down to losing my identity.
Before, if you liked a particular “nerdy” hobby, you were uncool. I’m not conventionally attractive to start with, so I was never very popular with boys. But now that being a nerd is cool, for the first time, there’s something about me that’s considered desirable. And the emergence of girls – especially pretty girls – who fit the “idiot nerd girl” mold makes me feel like the people who harassed me in high school are becoming me, if that makes sense. Or, if you want another analogy, it feels like finding out my plain-looking but funny boyfriend had dumped me for the girl who used to go out with my high school crush. Add a bit of hipster-ish “I was into x before it was popular” mentality and you get one bitter nerd girl.
Although, now that I’ve written that rant, I don’t feel as bitter anymore. It’s great that more people like what I like. If popular people are interested in nerdy topics, more power to them.