Little boxes
This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while.
Jezebel put up an interesting post last night about nerds, and what is and isn’t a nerd, et cetera and so forth. I didn’t comment then – I’ve found myself commenting less and less on blogs lately, not that that has anything to do with this – but after ruminating on it last night, I commented on it this morning.
And now I’m posting about it. Because that’s how I roll.
The post and the comments are all about how popular culture examples of female nerds aren’t actually nerds, and something about that bugged me. Rachel Berry from Glee isn’t a nerd. Tracy Flick from Election isn’t a nerd. Willow Rosenberg from Buffy isn’t a “reliable” nerd. And if you ask what a nerd is, you get a fairly stringent list of characteristics, and no list is the same.
That’s the problem with reclaiming a term that’s used as a taunt in adolescence. Each of us who were called nerds or geeks or freaks in junior high and high school have our own experiences and therefore our own mental definitions of what qualifies. I’ll use myself as an example.
I wrote research papers for fun. I had my head in a book anytime I could get away with it. I was the know-it-all who permanently had her hand up in history and English. I was in choir. I was in drama. I was in speech. I was in academic bowl. I spent lunch hiding in the bathroom or the music room.
I’m pretty sure that makes me a nerd.
I didn’t like science fiction and fantasy. I had never seen anime before I went to college. I didn’t pick up a comic book until I was twenty. I never played Dungeons and Dragons. I didn’t like video games. I read romance novels and Seventeen.
According to a lot of definitions of nerd-dom, that makes me very much not a nerd.
I try not to define myself anymore, and it’s easier that way. It means that I can love Chuck and Glee, but find Lost ridiculous. I can love going shopping for both shiny patent shoes and handheld electronic gadgets. I can pick either Sephora or Midtown Comics for my lunch break. I can write fanfiction and read Elle. I don’t have to fit in a box. Life is more fun when you don’t try to force yourself into a box, let alone the box you lived in in high school.
Personally, I prefer to live without stringent definitions. I’d rather just be me.