Socially Unacceptable
Why are nerds unpopular?
There was an interesting article posted to Slashdot today titled Why Are Nerds Unpopular by Paul Graham, creator of LISP. He poses some interesting opinions about why nerds, or geeks, are unpopular in high-school. I don’t agree with all of them, but he does make some very salient points. For one thing, I think that the geeks, like me, were playing a different game than the rest of the kids. At the very least, we were playing by a different set of rules. I know that I certainly was, though I understand that only in retrospect.
What I found interesting was what my concern was when reading the article. I wasn’t particularly concerned with my own trials and tribulations as a teen-ager, but how my daughter might suffer. She is, for good or ill, being taught to play by a different set of rules than most kids her age. Basically, the same rules that I was taught, and my wife learned on her own somehow. Being polite, while not being a doormat, for instance. Learning when not to speak as well as when to say something. Always being curious and not settling for the bare-minimum or status quo. All good preparation for being a succesfull adult, but poor preparation for being a teen-ager.
On the other hand, maybe we should be working toward making her an even better geek or nerd than we were. In theory, shouldn’t that make her more successful later on in life? Maybe so, but I’m not sure I can quite bring myself to put her through some of the same torment that I went through at that age. Maybe she’ll find a way to do both.
