Mid-Week Poll: Do You Call Yourself a Nerd?

Some of the biggest movies of the last few years have been based on fantasy novels, comic books and other parts of nerd culture. Sci-fi and fantasy shows like ‘Lost’ are household names. Videogames are more popular than ever, and a huge chunk of the population carry around mini-computers in their pockets. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the majority of the population falls into the category of “nerd.” Would you call yourself a nerd?

Nerds come in all shapes and sizes. There’s the traditional ‘D&D’ playing, videogame obsessed, sci-fi and fantasy geek that we’re all familiar with, but that’s not the limit of nerdom. There’s the obsessive Blu-ray collector, for example, who knows all about the transfer process and complains about studios using an inferior encoding process.

How about the guy who jumps into the Weekend Roundtable posts to debate the merits of a particular film? I’d call him a nerd too. In fact, if you posted at all in the “Movie Madness” polls here, I’d say that you’re right up there. Come on, do you really think you can talk about a fight between Iron Man and the Terminator and not be a giant dork? This is not a bad thing, mind you, but it definitely puts you in the category.

In fact, I’d say that nearly everyone I know is a nerd of some sort. In an informal poll of my friends, 70 percent said that they self-identify as nerds. Some are into comics, others dig fantasy baseball, and one walked into her wedding reception to the Throne Room/End Title music of ‘Star Wars’.

I assume that if you’re reading a blog about HDTV, Blu-ray, videogames and movies, you’re some sort of nerd. But I want to know what you think. Do you identify yourself as a nerd? If so, or if not, tell us why in the comments!

Do You Self-Identify As a Nerd?

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10 comments

  1. Hell yeah I’m a nerd, I love Scifi and Fantasy stuff, play lots of video games, watch a ton of movies and I’m huge into tech, I play fantasy board games and card games like Magic and World of Warcraft, also have played numerous MMOs over the years….so yep I’m highly a nerd and love being one 🙂

  2. EM

    I think of the term nerd as being inherently pejorative, even if the characteristics of a nerd are not intrinsically negative (just as I think of n****r as a pejorative, even though I don’t think of being a black person as a negative trait). Therefore, I do not claim the term, even though I do not deny possessing characteristics associated with it.

  3. I think “geek” is a better term. Nerds come with taped glasses, zero social skills, spend Saturday nights alone…wait a minute, you’re right…I’m a nerd!

  4. Ken

    As someone who avidly follows sites like this, collects blu-rays, is in to video, card, and board games… I’d say hell yeah.

  5. Brian H

    Hobbyist, enthusiast, collector- all wax towards nerdy tenancies. If you spend several hours a day thinking or discussing fantasy football, or have an encyclopedic knowledge of gun models and modifications then it would seem that your interests have become nerd-like. So while traditionally nerdy things like a pocket computer or Avatar have become mainstream, I think people in general have used the internet to expand the amount of time and energy talking/obsessing over their hobby to a nerd like point.
    If you dream about kayaking and spend tons of time every week reading, thinking, and talking about kayaking but only get to kayak once a year- then you’ve got an imbalance. Even if you kayak every week to the detriment of other aspects of you’re life, then you’ve got an imbalance.
    Again, if you have an obsessive personality, but the focus changes every month, (let’s say from paintball to mountian biking to playing WoW to collecting rare bottles of wine) then there is still that imbalance.
    The funny thing is that the internet allows to reach nerd like levels of experience quicker than ever before. A person can go from having never heard of a blu ray to a master of what titles are available to demonstrate various technical aspects and limitations just by reading a few websites.

    This means that a nerd like the comic book guy on the simpsons or the revenge of the nerds characters(which were probably on the simpsons also)doesn’t necessarily have any obscure knowledge. An obscure comic book fact can’t be readily available to anyone with a search engine in order to be obscure.

    So you’re traditional nerd is like Cliffs notes. Back in the day if you knew a nerd that built RC cars, well he was you Cliffs note type resource. Now the internet has displaced the nerd as a resource of knowledge. Everyone has Cliffs notes now at all times.